Sometimes I really do weep about the stupidity of fanboys. To care so deeply about something so profoundly unimportant just seems like such a waste of time, brain-space and energy. Last year, DC Comics fanboys decided to attack Black Panther relentlessly because… the film was super-popular and the critics loved it. Remember that? The trolls got racist about Black Panther as some kind of payback for what they felt was RT’s hatred of Warner Bros/DC movies. Now many of those same trolls are taking issue with Captain Marvel. How dare Marvel make a movie with a female superhero? How dare Brie Larson publicly talk about inclusion and wanting to be interviewed by people other than white dudes? Those trolls have flooded Rotten Tomatoes again.
With weeks until its official release—and before early screenings for critics—sexist trolls are already flooding Captain Marvel’s Rotten Tomatoes page with negative reviews.
“Larson has made it clear…men need not attend this movie,” writes one.
“Larson’s sexist and racist attitudes don’t want me to spend money on this anyway, so here you go, Ms. Larson,” says another.
Scrolling through the six pages of reviews shows this to be a similar theme—misogynist men angry to see a female superhero with her own movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, this is nothing new for high-profile movies that boast a lead actor who is not a white male.
Trolls attacked Black Panther before and after its release. The same thing happened to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi—two movies that had better representation in its main cast. In fact, one fan review of Captain Marvel writes, “Oh boy first off this will be worst than the last jedi im calling it now critcs will love it audience hate it.”
This is a disturbing trend, but one that still hasn’t had any real impact on the films themselves. Despite the vocal hatred from racist trolls, Black Panther remained the highest grossing film of 2018 and The Last Jedi the top spot for 2017. Black Panther is also nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards. And so the question this latest incident involving Captain Marvel prompts is when will sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes monitor their review sections for quality, filtering out racist, sexist attacks from legitimate reviews?
Esquire points out that similar campaigns were waged against Black Panther and The Last Jedi, and the comparison is there, completely – the idea that these same terrible snowflakes are all triggered when white men aren’t the center of every single thing. That’s definitely a big part of it. But as I maintained during the Black Panther controversy last year, I do think there’s a very specific sub-category of racist/sexist trolls who align with DC Comics, and who decide to enact “payback” on Marvel films. As for why Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t take care of it and patrol their own site… well, Warner Bros (home to DC films) owns a stake in Fandango, and Fandango is Rotten Tomatoes’ parent company. So… yeah, shady corporate interests are at work here too.
Photos courtesy of Marvel.
Not just snowflakes, this movie is producing a big blizzard!
If it’s pissing off white boys, I might actually see this movie (applied the same logic to The Favourite, LOVED IT). The only thing to be mad about here is that it’s set in the 90s and yet her hair isn’t The Rachel.
It amazes me that some people have that much time on their hands, and so little else in their life.
They have such hatred in their hearts that they can only tear down and envoke a more worthiness to themselves. It is a classic, low self esteem, mysoginistic attitude, a life long mind set. Our power and rise is a daily threat to them and they hate it.
Manbabies did the same thing to this season of Doctor Who. Because god forbid that an alien that travels through space and time in a police box and regenerates on a regular basis comes back as a woman. And almost every single one of the really crappy & sexist tweets about the latest episode are from some douche bro in a MAGA hat.
Right? I mean technically why wouldn’t the doctor come back as a woman? I am quite liking this new Doctor actually.
@snazzy I really didn’t like the first two or three episodes, but I feel like once they stopped trying so hard she because a great character.
There’s actual boycott CM campaigns! Jesus I don’t recall it was that bad during BP or even The Last Jedi.
There’s of course the deplorable broflakes that are claiming that Brie said she doesn’t want white men to watch the movie. Obviously she said nothing like that. But that to be expected from these incels.
The sad thing is that there are a lot of women and poc in the comics community that are also trashing Brie and the movie. They are calling her white feminist and white savior.
Captain Marvel is one of my all time favourite characters so I’m kinda taking it personally. I know I know there’s real problems out there. The reactions are just too much to witnesse. Especially because all Brie did was ask for more representation in the press.
I’m not the biggest CBM fan but was quit excited about CM. I agree with you the reactions to the movie are disheartening.
Especially disappointed by a lot of women (on the liberal side to boost) that were calling Brie white feminist. A term that completely lost its meaning.
Here you have a white rich woman acknowledging her privilege and using to make changes. And she’s getting bombarded with hate from left to right.
Ps: lol different Diana.
I will be attending a showing of Captain Marvel in IMAX on opening night. With my three big, burly, football playing, engineer cousins who bought tickets the day they went on sale. Brie Larson can count on their full support.
Larson looks awesome in the trailers. And I read at RT that there’s a scene-stealing cat.
I already planned to see it. Now I MUST see it.
It begs repeating: there’s a scene-stealing CAT.
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/captain-marvel-social-reactions/
As if I wasn’t already excited. Now how will I SLEEP
Really looking forward to seeing this film with my sons. I’m hoping Captain Marvel saves the Universe , the Avengers et al from that bad dude Thanos.
Rotten Tomatoes also doesn’t want to do anything about it because it gets them publicity when things like this happen. Publicity brings traffic, brings engagement in the form of more user reviews, probably brings in new users – people who will make an account just to leave a positive review to try to ‘counter’ the trolls’ reviews, all of which they can leverage for increased ad revenue.
Makes immediate plans to go see this in the cinema.
I think you’re right about there being a DC versus Marvel element to the campaign, which is just batshit. It’s like Apple versus Samsung fanboys. The get so worked up about it and for what?
And the professional critics tend to rip the DC films apart because they legitimately haven’t made a decent one, except Wonder Woman, since Christian Bale quit, and even WW fell apart at the end, while the MCU films tend to get better reviews despite being formulaic. The formula works.
Honestly, at this point I consider it a good reason to see a movie if the Rotten Tomatoes snowflakes are pre-slamming it. It hasn’t guided me wrong yet. Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Ghostbusters remake, Star Wars (both of the new ones, especially the second) and I’ll definitely be seeing Captain Marvel.
I mean, I’m a Marvel person, I’d see it anyway. But if it’s making the trolls mad, it’s just an extra reason to pay full price in the theaters.
Honestly, I hope they DO stay away from my viewing of this so my hubs and I can enjoy it in peace!
👍
But you know they won’t (stay away). These hypocrites are usually the first in line to watch Marvel movies.
The big mistake is releasing this so close to endgame. I would love to bring my kids to see this, but damn marvel two movies in two months? We have one theater near us and its $15 a ticket ALL THE TIME. Now I feel obligated to shell out for both because this movie is getting such a stink before it comes out.
If this movie doesn’t meet expectations I bet it will have far far more to do with proximity to end game and people not wanting to or just not having the money to shell out twice in that short a period of time rather than it not being a good movie.
Feels like its not exactly being set up to succeed.
Yeah I was also surprised at how close their release dates are… however, as a side tip….AMC does $5 dollar tickets every Tuesday!
I honestly don’t get this. I am a big comic book nerd and truth be told I don’t like it when my favorite characters have their race or gender changed for no reason. I am a brown Arab guy, I love Michael b Jordan, I did not like the idea of him being cast as the human torch because the human torch I grew up reading about in the stories was a white guy and the change seemed to be just a change for change’s sake. So while I wouldn’t classify the fan boy uproar as being motivated by racism or sexism (I know mine isn’t) I honestly don’t understand this. Carols Danvers has always been a white woman who is uber powerful and doesn’t take shit from anybody. That’s how she has been potrayed in the comics for decades. Why should the films be any different? Why would anybody reasonably expect them to be different? To put it simply, I don’t think fanboys would. I think it’s just jerks.
This movie is immune to these types of attacks. Marvel is a powerhouse backed by Disney. This movie will be successful regardless of any haters. I know I will be there
“So… yeah, shady corporate interests are at work here too.”
It could be entirely those corporate interests driving this with no actual organic base involved with the issue.
Advocates inclusion = sexist and racist
These guys’ minds would melt if they ever actually experienced real oppression. They think they have it so hard right now.
*sigh*
The movie is tracking $140 million + launch according to Boxoffice.com.
https://pro.boxoffice.com/long-range-captain-marvel-tracking-for-140m-launch-early-forecasts-forhellboy-little-missing-link/
P.S.: the worst estimates are something around $100 million.
I would add though, the trolls were out in force about Wonder Woman too, which is a WB property. So I don’t think it’s ALL corporate shadiness. Some of it is just old-fashioned internet misogyny.
I’m not that excited about Captain Marvel. The actress just rubs me the wrong way. Alien storylines bore me. Having said that, I get why people are excited about it. I’m not going to rain on anyone’s parade.