High Score
tv·TV-14·Aug 19, 2020·
High Score scores 6/10 on wokeness for moderately highlighting diverse unsung heroes (trans, Black, gay developers) amid its core video game history storytelling, sparking backlash over perceived forced politics.
"High Score" is a Netflix docuseries that chronicles the early history of video games through developer interviews, archival footage, and narration by Charles Martinet, focusing on milestones like the arcade boom, the 1983 crash, console wars, and genre evolutions.
The series integrates progressive elements by prominently featuring underrepresented figures such as transgender developer Rebecca Heineman, African-American engineer Jerry Lawson's family, black Madden developer Gordon Bellamy, and gay developer Ryan Best, with creators France Costrel and Melissa Wood explicitly aiming to highlight 'unsung heroes' from diverse backgrounds including women, trans individuals, and POC. This approach influences narrative framing and interviewee selection, resulting in noticeable identity-focused subplots that sparked user backlash over perceived 'woke agenda' and forced politics, contributing to the show's overall woke score of 6/10 for moderate but polarizing infusions amid core historical storytelling.
Methodology: Each score synthesizes audience discourse, critic and aggregator reception, and press coverage — weighed against the work itself, not any single source.
See how this title scores across all 5 woke subcategories with detailed explanations.
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We've run a full content analysis on High Score and scored it 6/10 on the woke scale. Read our detailed breakdown above to see exactly what we found.
Our analysis checks for themes like identity politics, race-swapping, gender ideology, environmental activism, anti-religious messaging, and other progressive agenda elements. The score breakdown above shows which specific categories were flagged and how heavily they factor into High Score's overall score.
Wokeometer focuses on ideological content rather than traditional ratings (violence, language, etc.). High Score is rated TV-14. For a full picture, combine our woke analysis with the age ratingto decide if it's right for your family.
We evaluate media across multiple ideological categories on a 0–10 scale. Scores of 0–3 mean story-first, 4–6 have moderate elements, and 7–10 flag heavily agenda-driven content. Learn more about our methodology →
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