First Cow

King-Lu is a Chinese immigrant, and the settlement’s suspicion of him affects how he moves through the story. Cookie and King-Lu build a central friendship across ethnic lines. The film also shows rough men mocking and mistreating the gentle Cookie. These identity and manhood themes recur, but the film does not turn them into a modern identity-politics message.

The film repeatedly questions property, profit, and the American dream. The wealthy Chief Factor controls the only cow and uses his power to protect his business. The trading post shows a social order built around class, labor, and early capitalism. The film also contrasts the friends’ care with the violent pride of the trappers. It is a period-based critique rather than a modern activist campaign.

One fringe Reddit thread mocked the film’s white and Chinese lead pairing while discussing whether A24 was woke. Replies pushed back and said the pairing was realistic. No major outlet or organized audience group made a similar complaint. The supplied X pass found no anti-woke reaction.

Kelly Reichardt’s cached record includes feminist work but also her statement that her films do not carry an activist agenda. Jonathan Raymond’s writing often questions capitalism, fossil-fuel power, colonial myths, and American expansion. Those themes line up with First Cow’s criticism of early business and the American dream. The cached context gives the casting director and producers much lower scores and no strong activist pattern.