Is Lisa Frankenstein woke?
Movie · 2024
Lisa Frankenstein has a wokeness score of 7/10, which we rate as Strongly Ideological. Woke messaging is very prominent and often feels forced or shoehorned in. Characters and plot are primarily shaped to serve the ideology. Many viewers feel the agenda overshadows the entertainment.
Key points
- Director promotes women rejecting likability norms through homicidal female lead.
- Story includes intentional queer subtext and trans-coded interpretations of identity transformation.
- Themes emphasize female empowerment and outsider rebellion over traditional romance or family values.
Wokeness analysis
Lisa Frankenstein features prominent progressive messaging centered on female empowerment, subverting traditional gender norms, and embracing outsider identities. Director Zelda Williams explicitly discusses allowing female characters to be unlikable and murderous as a rejection of societal expectations for women to be sweet and palatable. Writer Diablo Cody incorporates queer subtext, with the Creature living in a closet and the story framed by some critics and the creators as having trans and homoerotic resonances drawn from the original Frankenstein novel. The film celebrates a goth, misunderstood teen girl who rejects conventional high school popularity, engages in graphic violence for personal agency, and explores themes of identity, desire, and self-discovery through a female lens. While wrapped in 1980s horror-comedy nostalgia and humor, these elements feel intentional and foregrounded rather than organic, with the plot serving character arcs that prioritize feminist and queer-coded commentary on trauma, grief, and non-conformity. The stepmother and stepsister dynamics further highlight critiques of traditional family structures and superficial femininity. This ideological focus overshadows pure escapism for many viewers attuned to such messaging.
Plot
In 1989, goth teen Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton), grieving her mother's murder, befriends a Victorian-era corpse in a cemetery. After a lightning storm reanimates the Creature (Cole Sprouse), they form a bond, and Lisa helps him acquire missing body parts through a series of murders. Set against 1980s nostalgia with a blended family including a shallow stepmother (Carla Gugino) and stepsister (Liza Soberano), the story blends horror, comedy, and romance as Lisa finds agency and love in unconventional ways. Directed by Zelda Williams from a Diablo Cody script, it mixes macabre humor with coming-of-age elements.
Analyzed by AI on June 16, 2026