‘Captain Marvel’ movie ratings suffer after trolls issue disturbing reviews

If you’ve been following “Captain Marvel” news in recent days, you may have read headlines claiming that the trolls are already “bombing” the Rotten Tomatoes score of the Brie Larson movie and “flooding” the movie’s page with comments. sexist. .

Since the news broke, it appears several (around 15) of those lagging comments have been removed, according to screenshots taken by HuffPost on Tuesday. But there could be a whole new attack from people now on the movie.

It’s dizzying. It’s exhausting. And, yes, everything happens before the release. So with some time ahead of the film’s March 8 release, we decided to take a look at what’s really going on.

HuffPost first noticed the troll attacks on “Captain Marvel” earlier this week thanks to stories from a few fandom blogs and Screen cry, who pointed out: “Most of the troll’s comments are about Larson as a vocal feminist and how this film pushes feminism to the fore. [Marvel Cinematic Universe]. “

Rotten Tomatoes allows members of the public to express online whether they want to see a movie before its release, which equates to a “want to see” rating that is eventually replaced by an audience score once the film is released. rooms.

Before a movie is released:

After a movie has been released:

Users can also add comments on their opinion ahead of the movie’s release, so the mere existence of preview comments isn’t out of the ordinary.

But the latest comments for “Captain Marvel” seem to follow a disturbing theme: One person said they couldn’t be paid to see the “SJW Loaded, White Man Hating Worthless Point-of-Sale Movie”. Others claimed, without much context, that Larson had “sexist and racist attitudes.”

These commentators appeared to be referring to an interview Larson had with Marie Claire earlier this month, where she spoke about wanting to speak to a more inclusive group of journalists, those who were not “predominantly white males.” Larson the words reiterate what she said by accepting an award for excellence in cinema at the Crystal + Lucy Awards in 2018.

Highlighting the disparity between the number of white male movie critics and the number of female and color critics, Larson said, “I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what’s wrong. didn’t work for him about ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ It wasn’t for him. I want to know what this movie meant to women of color, mixed race women, colored teenagers, mixed race girls. And for the third time, I don’t hate white guys. These are just facts. These are not my feelings.

These comments have been revisited in a hollywood reporter article on Larson on February 13.

Around this time, 4chan was also called upon to boycott “Captain Marvel,” although that didn’t seem to be gaining much traction on the bulletin board where many right-wing posters congregate. Another 4chan thread on Tuesday prompted users to call the film “propaganda” and criticize Larson’s appearance, calling her “sexist and racist against the white man.” [sic], ”Similar to comments that appeared on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rotten Tomatoes has taken a stand against inflammatory rhetoric from commentators in the past. Following the announcement that some users were organizing an organized effort to lower the rating of “Black Panther”, Rotten Tomatoes issued a statement in 2018, explaining that the site does not tolerate hate speech and has a team in place that is closely monitoring the platform to remove such comments:

At Rotten Tomatoes, we are proud to have become a platform for passionate fans to debate and discuss entertainment and we take this responsibility seriously. While we respect the diverse opinions of our fans, we do not tolerate hate speech. Our team of security, networking and social media experts continue to closely monitor our platforms and all users who engage in such activity will be blocked from our site and their comments removed as quickly as possible.

We reached out to Rotten Tomatoes on Tuesday to inquire about the language used in the “Captain Marvel” posts, and the company declined to comment. But since that time, some of the damaging or explicit comments reported in the media have been removed.

On Tuesday there were six pages of audience reviews. But Wednesday at 10 am, there were five. Comparing the screenshots we took on Tuesday with the reviews on the page on Wednesday, it’s immediately evident that a number of the reviews attacking Larson are gone. All signs point to Rotten Tomatoes following through on their promise last year to monitor hateful behavior on their site.

However, while a decrease in comments from Rotten Tomatoes attacking Larson (note: not all negative comments had been removed at time of publication) is a good sign, the film faces another hurdle on the site: his “I want to see” rating is in a spiral.

As of February 19, “Captain Marvel” had around 5,000 user reviews, with 78% expressing that they wanted to see the movie.

By the morning of February 20, user ratings had risen to over 9,000 and the percentage of “I want to see” had fallen to 60. By Thursday, that number had risen to over 14,000 and the percentage had fallen to 55. On Friday there were 15,000 marks and the percentage had fallen to 53.

Is this really what the public thinks of the first female-led Marvel movie? Or is it some sort of organized effort to try and affect the reception of “Captain Marvel”?

When “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” achieved an abysmal audience score in 2017, rumors circulated that robots had carried out an attack on the film’s Rotten Tomatoes page. Rotten Tomatoes refuted these claims, telling HuffPost that year: “There is nothing unusual about this behavior.

When HuffPost contacted Rotten Tomatoes again to comment on the drop in the “I want to see” rating of “Captain Marvel,” the company did not respond.

And while, yes, this is a Marvel movie, which seems like a golden ticket to box office success, Rotten Tomatoes’ ratings can affect the films. Just look at Matthew McConaughey’s sexy and steamy box office bombshell “Serenity”. Film distributors chose not to advertise the film as much after it was received. a bad Rotten Tomatoes score.

It would be troubling if the publicity-seeking trolls were heard even louder, but, encouragingly, since Wednesday a number of more positive comments denouncing the trolls have appeared on the page.

Thusday, Larson was invited to expand on her comments on inclusiveness by FOX 5 CC. “What I’m looking for is to bring more seats to the table,” the actress said. “No one has their chair taken away. There are no fewer seats at the table, there are just more seats at the table.

Ultimately, Captain Marvel is one of the strongest characters in the MCU. Actual reviews will be released on March 5, but with the film already early stellar reactions on social media, looks like Thanos (and the disgruntled trolls) are “fucked up. “