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Ocean's 8 Stars Blame Dominance of Male Critics for Film's Mixed Reviews

Ocean's 8 stars blame dominance of male critics for film's m...
black sticky abode
  06/15/18
...
black sticky abode
  06/17/18
"“I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what...
Motley buff therapy generalized bond
  06/17/18
To be fair, "This is misogynistic and bigoted thinki...
aromatic bonkers brethren
  06/17/18
Being nonwhite/nonmale means never having to be coherent/con...
brindle shivering dysfunction stag film
  06/17/18
Lol why do libs always have to make a long list of all the c...
180 school
  06/17/18
These subgroups all hate each other and will complain if not...
Motley buff therapy generalized bond
  06/17/18
Larson getting MAF tweets from “queer women of color”
180 school
  06/17/18
and what do they attribute SJWars Last Jedi's glowing review...
glittery famous landscape painting
  06/17/18
We already had a thread on this, you bigot
Cracking flesh ticket booth multi-billionaire
  06/17/18
...
black sticky abode
  08/10/18
...
underhanded pontificating gaming laptop
  08/10/18
...
fantasy-prone hospital coffee pot
  08/10/18
...
Azure costumed rehab
  08/10/18
...
razzle coldplay fan travel guidebook
  08/10/18
Some shitty feminist revenge flick starring one ugly Mexican...
blue razzmatazz nursing home
  08/10/18


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Date: June 15th, 2018 10:34 PM
Author: black sticky abode

Ocean's 8 stars blame dominance of male critics for film's mixed reviews

Mindy Kaling and Cate Blanchett echo Brie Larson in calling for greater diversity among reviewers

Stars of Ocean’s 8, the heist movie featuring all-female leads, have accused male critics of failing to appreciate their film.

Speaking to Yahoo Movies, Mindy Kaling called the dominance of white male reviewers “unfair”. “If I had to base my career on what white men wanted I would be very unsuccessful, so there is obviously an audience out there who want to watch things like [Ocean’s 8], what I work on, what Sarah [Paulson] works on.”

Co-star Cate Blanchett concurred, saying the media had failed to make the mindshift the movie industry had when it came to gender equality. “The conversation has to change,” she said, “and the media has a huge responsibility.”

It really sucks that reviews matter — but reviews matter

Brie Larson

A study by USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative was released earlier this week, examining the gender and ethnic profile of US critics who wrote about last year’s 100 most successful films found 80% were men and 82% white.

Such makeup was well-known, said Blanchett, but only belatedly being raised. “When you start pointing that stuff out you realise there’s a certain gaze that looks at women.”

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Kaling referred to Meryl Streep’s attack on reviews aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, which she felt prioritised the views of men. Promoting the film Suffragette in 2015, Streep said she felt the ratio adversely affected ticket sales for female-skewed films.

“I submit to you that men and women are not the same, they like different things,” she said. “Sometimes they like the same thing, but sometimes their tastes diverge. If the Tomatometer is slighted so completely to one set of tastes that drives box office in the United States, absolutely.”

On the subject of Ocean’s 8, Kaling said: “And the thing about so much of what this movie is, I think white men, critics would enjoy it, would enjoy my work, but often I think there is a critic who will damn it in a way because they don’t understand it, because they come at it at a different point of view, and they’re so powerful, Rotten Tomatoes.”

The spin-off from Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven film and its two sequels has so far avoided the backlash that met Paul Feig’s gender-flipped Ghostbusters film two years ago. It topped the US box office last weekend, fuelled by an audience that was 69% female, and beat the receipts of Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels (although the numbers were not adjusted for inflation).

On Wednesday, the actor Brie Larson, who won an Oscar for her role in kidnap drama Room, announced an initiative by the Sundance and Toronto film festivals to allocate 20% of their journalist passes to critics from under represented groups.

She flagged the box office flop of A Wrinkle in Time, Ava DuVernay’s fantasy drama based on novel by Madeleine L’Engle, as a victim of the lack of critical comprehension.

“I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time,” said Larson at the Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards in Beverly Hills. “It wasn’t made for him! I want to know what it meant to women of colour, biracial women, to teen women of colour.”

“Am I saying I hate white dudes?” continued Larson. “No, I am not. What I am saying is if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of colour, there is an insanely low chance a woman of colour will have a chance to see your movie, and review your movie.”

Larson added: “It really sucks that reviews matter – but reviews matter. Good reviews out of festivals give small, independent films a fighting chance to be bought and seen. Good reviews help films gross money, good reviews slingshot films into awards contenders. A good review can change your life. It changed mine.”

However, a number of journalists have taken issue with the sentiment that someone’s gender and ethnic background dictates your response to art. Variety’s Guy Lodge, who also writes for the Guardian and Observer, pointed out that a number of female critics – including Time’s Stephanie Zacharek and Vulture’s Emily Yoshida and – have concurred with the general lukewarm response to Ocean’s 8.

Meanwhile, Buzzfeed’s Alison Willmore protested that such logic missed the real objective – for more diversity in all professions – and set a dangerous precedent.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/15/oceans-8-dominance-men-film-reviews

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36254516)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 5:53 PM
Author: black sticky abode



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261777)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 5:56 PM
Author: Motley buff therapy generalized bond

"“I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time,” said Larson at the Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards in Beverly Hills. “It wasn’t made for him! I want to know what it meant to women of colour, biracial women, to teen women of colour.” "

Does this mean that for "white" movies we should prioritize white male critics at the expense of minority/female critics?



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261800)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:00 PM
Author: aromatic bonkers brethren

To be fair,

"This is misogynistic and bigoted thinking, and it saddens me that the white male cis-patriarchy has colonized your mind to the extent that you are now asking deeply problematic questions like this, brother. (But don't worry, I don't blame you; I know that you're just a dumb--but noble!--black ape who doesn't have the intellectual capacity to independently question anything yourself, which is why we are calling this out for you and on your behalf. Stay strong, 'homie'!)" - Liberals

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261818)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:02 PM
Author: brindle shivering dysfunction stag film

Being nonwhite/nonmale means never having to be coherent/consistent

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261823)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:13 PM
Author: 180 school

Lol why do libs always have to make a long list of all the categories of oppressed groups they supposedly care about? Isn't women of colour inclusive of the other two groups?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261878)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:14 PM
Author: Motley buff therapy generalized bond

These subgroups all hate each other and will complain if not explicitly named.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261883)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:28 PM
Author: 180 school

Larson getting MAF tweets from “queer women of color”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261954)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:29 PM
Author: glittery famous landscape painting

and what do they attribute SJWars Last Jedi's glowing reviews to? Same bunch of bigoted white males?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261960)



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Date: June 17th, 2018 6:30 PM
Author: Cracking flesh ticket booth multi-billionaire

We already had a thread on this, you bigot

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36261964)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 4:50 AM
Author: black sticky abode



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590670)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 6:02 AM
Author: underhanded pontificating gaming laptop



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590738)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 7:13 AM
Author: fantasy-prone hospital coffee pot



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590829)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 7:24 AM
Author: Azure costumed rehab



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590843)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 7:15 AM
Author: razzle coldplay fan travel guidebook



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590833)



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Date: August 10th, 2018 7:17 AM
Author: blue razzmatazz nursing home

Some shitty feminist revenge flick starring one ugly Mexican chick as the lead just got a 97% on the Tomatometer, with several glowing reviews by white males that mention the male gaze and getting their balls stomped on. I think there's more at work here than misogyny

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4003153&forum_id=2#36590834)