Wokeness created a retrospective lens reinterpreting past artistic output

Evidence

As the right condemned #MeToo as a Cultural Revolution–type overreach, the movement’s core achievements—holding figures like Weinstein, Cosby, and Kelly accountable—were unambivalent moral victories. Still, the public debate often obsessed over the edge cases: whether misreading social cues on a first date or displaying anger should justify full cancellation. At a basic level, wokeness created a new lens for cultural analysis. Pharrell Williams revisited “Blurred Lines,” conceding, “I realized that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country. Hadn’t realized that. Didn’t realize that some of my songs catered to that. So that blew my mind.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 471

Categorization

• XREF: Relates directly to the four-period structure of the book and whether interpretation retroactively reassigns cultural objects to new ‘structures of feeling.’
• QUESTION: Pharrell not seeing the chauvinism of ‘Blurred Lines’ at the time is an interesting case for whether creators know the meaning of their own work.