Zardoz (1974)
Directed by John Boorman
No — Zardoz is not especially woke, scoring 20 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
John Boorman's Zardoz (1974) arrives from a period when science fiction still believed it could carry a thesis.
Consciousness Markers
Critics uniformly noted the film's 'plethora of didactic dialogue' and heavy-handed philosophical messaging; Boorman explicitly framed it as a message movie about humanity hurtling into the future.
The Eternals are a leisured elite living luxuriously off the agricultural labor of the exploited Brutals, and the climax has the masses storming and slaughtering their overlords — a class-based 'eat the rich' dynamic, though framed philosophically rather than polemically.
Female Eternals like May and Consuella hold authority and drive the plot's rebellion, but the film is chiefly a meditation on Connery's raw masculinity rather than a feminist statement.
The cast is uniformly white British and Irish performers; no diverse or non-traditional casting is present or remarked upon.
There are no LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext in the film's narrative of Eternals and Brutals.
The film engages no racial themes; its conflict is between immortal elites and mortal barbarians, not racial groups.
The irradiated wasteland is a post-apocalyptic setting, not an environmentalist parable or climate crusade.
The revealing costumes showcase conventional physiques; there is no modern body-positivity message about diverse body types.
The Eternals' descent into catatonia and madness is a philosophical conceit about immortality, not a depiction of neurodivergence as identity.
The film is set in a wholly invented future and makes no revisionist claims about real historical events.
Why it received this score
John Boorman's Zardoz (1974) arrives from a period when science fiction still believed it could carry a thesis. A flying stone head dispenses rifles to leather-clad exterminators, who farm grain for a hidden caste of immortals living behind a force field in County Wicklow. Sean Connery, fresh from the Bond treadmill, stalks through the wasteland in thigh-high boots and very little else. The film means every strange thing it shows us, which is either admirable or a warning, depending on the hour.
The politics here are older and blunter than anything the current decade would recognize. The Eternals are a leisured class living off the labor of the Brutals, idle and corrupt and bored of their own immortality, and the climax has the exploited masses pouring through the broken barrier to slaughter them. Boorman frames this as metaphysics instead of manifesto, but the shape is unmistakable. Women like Consuella and May hold real authority and drive the rebellion, though the camera keeps returning to Connery's torso, which is the film's true subject. Race is never engaged. Climate is never engaged. The wasteland is a stage set, not a warning.
Where the film does earn its contemporary stripes is in the talking. Characters explain the Tabernacle, the Apathetics, the eugenics, the meaning of the word Zardoz, all in dialogue that treats the audience as a slow student. Reviewers at the time called it confusing and preachy; they were correct on both counts. This is a message movie that cannot resist reading its own message aloud, and it does so at length.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Questions about Zardoz
Is Zardoz woke?
No — Zardoz is not especially woke, scoring 20 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Based.
Does Zardoz have any woke elements?
2 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Lecture Energy (55) and Eat the Rich (30). On Lecture Energy: Critics uniformly noted the film's 'plethora of didactic dialogue' and heavy-handed philosophical messaging; Boorman explicitly framed it as a message movie about humanity hurtling into the future.
How does Zardoz compare to other 1974 movies?
It ranks #3 of the 29 films from 1974 we've scored; their average is 10. The wokest is Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (42).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.