As I'm sure you're aware, I have a very undesirable relationship with the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters, for reasons that I've gone through extensively in the past and will inevitably go through in even greater detail again before Ghostbusters 3 lands next year. You're probably asking why I'm opening with Ghostbusters, well, it's for context; the primary reason I hate the 2016 film so much is because of my love of Ghostbusters, just as I'm sure many of the haters of The Last Jedi do so out of love for the original and or prequel trilogy, and out of hatred for the influence of the very ideology that killed Ghostbusters, and that currently looms over the MCU. Captain Marvel is just a few weeks away as of me writing this, which probably means that by the time you read this, it's been out for a week or two, but like Black Panther before it, Captain Marvel is being sold as more than just a film, but as a step forward in humanity's crawl to a better, more progressive utopian pipe dream. Like Black Panther though, Captain Marvel is not that important, it's not the first female-led superhero film, nor is it the first female-led action film, it's not even the first one this year. Yet while Alita: Battle Angel, a film I seemingly can't shut up about gets a pummelling from the progressive press for the usual sexualised design crap and, you'll never guess, whitewashing, (guess I was wrong on that one) Captain Marvel is being hailed as the most important film ever, and it's star; Brie Larson as an incorruptible saint, a force for change and a hero and savour to women everywhere. Black Panther's hype cycle started out very similarly to Captain Marvel's, with the film being hailed as progressive and important and that turning off "the wrong people," (I still love that quote from that Ghostbusters article.) I'd have probably cared a lot more were the MCU something I loved as much as Ghostbusters, but since it isn't, and Black Panther didn't get too crazy, I didn't pay much attention. Captain Marvel is different, its playbook is far more familiar to me, thanks to Ghostbusters and Doctor Who, but more than that, its controversy hasn't not been too crazy, in fact, it's gone completely insane, and has brought into sharper view than ever, the complete pointlessness and invalidity of everyone's favourite review aggregator; Rotten Tomatoes. So join me as I rant about how insufferable Brie Larson is and take yet another swing at that ridiculous website.
In my mind, the reason Captain Marvel is coming along now is clear, and that's that Wonder Woman made DC a threat to Marvel. Wonder Woman was a hit, raking in $800 million worldwide and doing admirably well with both critics and the general public, and even I enjoyed the film a lot, though not as much as Thor: Ragnorok. Given that DC is trying to build its own cinematic universe, and that its efforts are actually beginning to show promise with films like Wonder Woman and Aquaman, Marvel would probably want to assert itself as top dog once more, but DC did something that Marvel never did, something which payed off big for them and won them a shit ton of progressive brownie points the process, and that's make a film with a female lead. Not one to be outdone, Marvel, or more likely, Disney, wanted a female led film, one that would put DC back in its place as the poor man's alternative and win Marvel all those delicious brownie points too. The problem that I see however is that they're pushing it too hard; Kevin Fiege has publicly stated that Captain Marvel is the most powerful of the MCU's heroes, retconning at its finest, and of course, it's getting the Black Panther treatment; being promoted as the most important film of all time, a step forward for the industry and beacon to show the power of Wamen. Black Panther was alright though, I certainly enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, and even after I saw the first trailer for Captain Marvel, I thought that maybe Captain Marvel wouldn't fall into the trap that I feared Wonder Woman and Black Panther would, and that's even with the trailer's cute little "discover what makes her a hero," which, in hindsight, was a pretty clear indication of things to come, the emphasis on "her" was very fitting.
Captain Marvel struck a lot of people, including myself as, shall we say, questionably motivated as early as Brie Larson's casting in the role, since Brie Larson is a feminist, and Hollywood has a real problem with feminism and intersectionality as of late, growing like a tumour both on screen and off screen in films like Ghostbusters, but also in more frightening real world events like the #MeToo movement, which saw the careers and reputations of good and bad men alike sacrificed on the alter, and was used as a weapon by the more vindictive and hungry within the film and TV industry. But while feminism has made working in Hollywood more dangerous for both men and women, it's also spread into the films that come out of Hollywood, where it can then spread itself to the movie going masses, the problem is that outside of Hollywood's progressive, virtuous bubble, the values held within said bubble are very unpopular, and getting more so every day as more and more people wise up to what's really going on. Years of feminism and progressive ideas seeping down the entertainment pipeline has created a climate where people become hostile both to it and to the perceived presence of it, what many YouTubers would refer to as "Get Woke Go Broke," leading to financial failure in the case of Ghostbusters, a franchise destroying boycott in the case of Star Wars, and what the press label harassment and hate campaigns in the case of both. Far from campaigns of harassment and hate, however, these campaigns are merely the inevitable pushback of audiences and demographics who feel that attacking people based on their race and gender is unacceptable. Captain Marvel is currently facing one such backlash and that's due, primarily, to its star; Brie Larson and her not really knowing how and when to shut her mouth.
Of course, to the progressive press, she's a saint and has done nothing wrong, partly because they've chosen her and Captain Marvel as their lord and saviour, but in many cases also because they agree with her comments, either directly or with the implications of said comments, either way, Brie Larson is Jesus and anyone who doesn't like her is a sad, sexist, misogynistic man-baby, you know, the usual. The only problem here is that Brie Larson isn't Jesus, and at the Crystal + Lucy Awards, in her award speech, she talked about diversity and inclusion in film reviews and how there isn't a lot of it; how a majority of professional film critics are white men. Now, to a progressive, that sounds bad; white men having the dominant voice in a business, having more power than any of the women or the people of colour, an outrage, a sexist and racist injustice that must be fixed so that we can hear the voices of the marginalised and the oppressed. Except there's a small problem, or rather, it's a pretty big problem, and that's that your quality or opportunity or opinion as a film critic is not dependent on race and gender; their job is to tell you their opinion of a film so that you can get a better understanding of whether or not you want to watch the film yourself. And while progressives firmly believe that different races have different mindsets, I firmly do not believe that, I don't think what race or gender you are has any relevance to whether you like a film. But the routine never changes with progressives; we need diversity and inclusion for some reason that they never fully explain, either because they're racists, which many of them are, or because they wish to increase their own influence by filling these industries with ideologues like them, not that that's an issue because these industries are all on their side anyway, they're already staffed by ideologues, they're just the wrong kind of ideologue because they're white. 
But that isn't the reason that Captain Marvel was attacked, the reason is what Brie Larson said next. Apparently, "[she doesn't] need a forty year old white dude to tell [her] what didn't work for him about A wrinkle in Time, it wasn't made for him." So, in the mind of Brie Larson, films aren't just made with certain demographics in mind, they're made exclusively for that demographic and the opinion of another demographic isn't important, moreover, said demographics are broken up along racial and gender lines, and since A Wrinkle in Time wasn't made for white men, their opinion doesn't count. Fuck you, Brie Larson, fuck you. How is it progressive or inclusive to break audiences down into racial categories, that is exclusionary, and another thing, it's such a good thing that a film is made with women of colour in mind, but if a film made with white men in mind ever got made, cunts like you would throw a fit about how sexist and racist and exclusionary that is, you fucking hypocrite. Films aren't made for racial groups, they're made for genre and ideological groups; sci-fi films are generally made for fans of sci-fi, romcoms are generally made for fans of romcoms, and sometimes a film is made for despicable zealots like yourself, the only problem is you don't give enough of a shit about film to go and see it, so it bombs, like Ghostbusters did, because when making a film for you, you make it exclusionary for everyone else and attack them for not liking it. And if you think I'm unjustifiably angry at this cow, go and watch the video, watch the clip and watch her fucking little head gesture, watch her throw some sass on that racism. And also watch her insist, on three separate occasions, that she doesn't hate white dudes, not men, dudes, she brings that up multiple times, and it's been brought up again and again in more recent interviews. Because don't you know, she totally doesn't hate white men, while belittling their opinions and saying there should be less of them in film journalism, and that she's been taken out of context because people now have the impression that she does hate them, an impression she totally didn't give everyone by saying there should be less white men in film Journalism and that their opinions don't matter.
This is the primary catalyst for the backlash against Captain Marvel, the apparent misunderstanding that Brie Larson is a racist and a sexist, on top of being an egomaniac who wouldn't even hesitate to take a tragedy and make it about her. Don't believe me? what about that time she captioned an Instagram photo of herself with RIP Stan Lee, a photo of her with a fruit drink, shades and a handbag with her name on it, you can't make shit like that up. Contrary to what the media claim, the hatred of Brie Larson is very justified because she's vile; she's a racist, sexist egomaniac, one who we've already been told is going to be the strongest MCU hero ever, stronger than Hulk, Thor, Star Lord, Iron Man, Doctor Strange and all those other white dudes that people actually like. It's against this backdrop that the film became the target of what the progressive press called review-bombing, though that's technically not true as people were only bombing the film's RT Want To See score, which had gone from a healthy number in the mid-nineties to under thirty percent in a matter of days, a drop that showed no signs of stopping before Rotten Tomatoes intervened, and in the process, completely atomised any credibility they had left. But first, some context. As you know, I do not like Rotten Tomatoes, I do not trust Rotten Tomatoes, I do not take the site or its critics seriously, this is something I've rambled about before, including my last couple of posts, where I talk about the critical response to Alita: Battle Angel. But the biggest issue with the site is the divide between its critics and the audience, a divide that is shockingly apparent on page after page after page. Doctor Who, Star Trek: Discovery, The Last Jedi, Ghostbusters, all have good Critic scores and bad audience scores, the best example being Doctor Who, with a disparity of seventy percent, which is likely result the review-bombing, but still reflects a lack of audience satisfaction in the series. Now compare that to films like Venom and Alita: Battle Angel, and TV shows like The Orville, where the disparity is reversed; audiences love them and critics hate them.
Captain Marvel will probably be the same, and while Black Panther proved me wrong by being good, I doubt Captain Marvel will pull off the same trick, what with Brie Larson calling the film "her activism" and a "feminist film." Rotten Tomatoes has been losing credibility for years now, but even with that, I was curious to see what they would do about this Captain Marvel situation, since there were so many articles going around talking about how the film's RT page was getting review-bombed, even though that wasn't true. So what was RT's response to this; it was to remove the Want to See score all together, to pull it from the website, comments too, and replace both of them with a Want to See button, a single option in which the only answer is yes. The timing of this development has raised a lot of eyebrows, naturally, that Rotten Tomatoes would start rolling out updates around the time that Captain Marvel's audience interest score was nosing diving, and that one of those updates was the removal of that very audience interest score. This obviously looks like censorship, and while that can be people jumping to conclusions, the timing is just too convenient; the film is right around the corner and the controversy is strangling it, some sources claim its opening weekend projections have dropped by as much as $100 million, that audience interest score just kept dropping and the progressive press is in attack mode, pulling their tried and true misogyny card. A lot of people seem to think that this was Disney's doing but I don't think it is, one thing about all the progressive media outlets and review sites is that they don't actually need to conspire because they all agree with each other already, Rotten Tomatoes' progressive bias has been obvious for years, and with all the progressive outlets talking about how problematic the film's interest score is, Rotten Tomatoes would see fit to remove that feature on their own because they too would have found it problematic. That doesn't rule out Disney's involvement, but it is in line with the progressive urge to shut up dissenters. 
But that isn't how Rotten Tomatoes wants anyone to see it, and they've tried to dispel the worry with a nice little blog post to clarify the situation, so let's have a look at this clarification, shall we. The blog post begins by stating that the changes made over the last eighteen months are to "streamline the site" and "provide users with a more enriched experience." So right out the gate I have my doubts, oh sure the removal of the Want to See meter is streamlining, but I don't see it as providing a more enriched experience, whatever that actually means, but don't worry, they've also revamped their critic criteria to "better reflect the current media landscape," and, get this, "increase inclusion." Hang on, I thought you'd revamped your criteria, and a skim through that shows that you expect integrity and do not tolerate discrimination, but how are you going to increase inclusion if you also don't tolerate discrimination. Either you plan to tap into some as yet unseen massive audience of diverse film critics, or you're going to have to get a more inclusive critic base through other means, through prioritising 'marginalised' critics over others, which isn't very inclusive. Still, if I'm not stretching and you do plan to implement 'positive discrimination,' can I get your approval? I mean, I maybe a white, able bodied straight man, but I'm autistic, and that has to count for something, right? Getting back to what the article is actually saying, they very kindly get to the point, even acknowledging it as "what you really want to hear about!"
And by getting to the point, they mean lying about the point, saying that it's to "more accurately and authentically represent the voice of fans." Tell me, how exactly is removing the Want to See score going to "more accurately" reflect "the voice of fans." You have removed a tool that said fans were using to voice their displeasure at a film, and you justify it with a blatant lie, that's bold. But then you say that it's also to protect from "bad actors," oh, now it makes sense. What you're saying is that people who were bombing Captain Marvel's Want to See score are bad actors, what a dismissive thing to say, that people who voice their disinterest in a film through a system that you provided are bad actors, that says more about how you view your users than it does about said users, like the opinions of dissenters don't count, actually, you sound a lot like Brie Larson. But they then try to justify this change with another blatant lie; that the Want to See score was getting confused with the Audience score, even though the two scores are very clearly labelled and visually distinct from each other. The only people confusing the two as of late have been Journos calling this backlash "review-bombing," and they're only confusing the two so they can make the case that the people behind this are sexist loser man-babies, yet you remove an audience tool under the guise of better reflecting said audience's views and justify it by saying it was confusing. Ok then, how about next you remove the Tomatometer entirely, after all, a lot of people mistake it for the objective quality of a film, rather than a percentage of critics who gave it good reviews, so you really should make some changes there, shouldn't you, streamline your site a bit more.
I can't wait to see their excuse as to removing the comment section too, an even more egregious change if they want to better represent the voice of fans. And what a shocking excuse they give, because apparently there's been an "uptick in non-constructive input," because of course there has, apparently taking issue with a film's lead star being a scumbag is "non-constructive," good to know, but at least you'll be allowed to leave reviews and comments after a film is released, until they remove that feature in two weeks because of the review bombing Captain Marvel is absolutely going to get. They then finish up the article with drivel about the site's presentation. So, it's exactly what you'd expect it to be, they removed comments and the Want to See score because of "bad actors" and "non-constructive input," which is giving a lot of people, including myself, the impression that Rotten Tomatoes doesn't value the "voice of fans" at all if it goes against the narrative. Right now the narrative is that Captain Marvel is the second coming and that anyone who isn't blindly in love with her is a misogynist, so when an army of so-called misogynists descends on your site to voice their anger at the narrative, the only logically thing to do is shut that down, that totally isn't pouring gasoline on the fire, that totally won't make the controversy worse. But the best bit (and you really should enjoy it while it lasts) is the response to this post, which they have yet to hide. Out of over ten thousand responses, over eight thousand are Angry, with an additional seven hundred who were Sad. This response section is very clear in the way people swing on this, but if it still isn't enough, you should take a look at the comments too, it's a slaughter. It's expected, but kind of cute that they'd even try to spin this, to call it anything less than censorship, which shutting down your comment section and hiding any negative opinion of a film absolutely is. 
Rotten Tomatoes have destroyed themselves with this move, make no mistake about that. If there was anyone left that trusted them, they sure as shit don't now, that's what'll happen when you take away all your users' options except like, and when you hide the truth beneath a vail of "streamlining" and weeding out the trolls. And none of this would have happened were it not for the timing; had this happened a month ago for in April or whenever, either before or after the Captain Marvel controversy, no one would have even associated the two, but removing the Want to See score one week into a controversy that saw the progressive left's new darling being battered into oblivion through that very score, there really isn't another way to see this, Rotten Tomatoes is a biased, censorious scam, it's a joke. And this won't fix anything, Rotten Tomatoes shooting itself in the foot will only hide the swelling anger towards the film, but that anger won't go away, it'll continue to grow and fester until the film releases, and Rotten Tomatoes, in trying to save the film from bombing, might have made that possibility even more real. None of this is beneficial to Disney, of course, who are probably in complete panic mode behind the scenes, fearing that their gamble of pushing Captain Marvel as hard as they have has blown up in their faces. Captain Marvel is running the risk of being the MCU's first major failure, and it's entirely the fault of Disney, Brie Larson and the media, all of whom thinking that selling a film on feminism and dismissing and censoring anyone who disapproves is a good way to sell a product, because it worked really well for Ghostbusters, Doctor Who and Battlefield V didn't it.
Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Good
To be honest, I'm probably going to be seeing Captain Marvel on it's opening weekend anyway, partly because of Endgame, but mainly because I'm curious, I haven't been this curious about a film since Ghostbusters, and I don't know if that's good or bad. Captain Marvel is never going to bring the venom out of me like Ghostbusters did, but it would be very entertaining to see if the film is as bad as I and so many others feel it will be, and while I won't exactly be helping, its box office numbers will be one hell of a treat to see. The question is, however; will Captain Marvel justify the damage it's caused already, will it be a hit, or a massive blow to Marvel and Disney on the level of The Last Jedi and Solo, we'll just have to wait and see, and will it be worth Rotten Tomatoes irreparably damaging their credibility, I very much doubt that it will. Either way, I'm not looking forward to the film, nor am I expecting anything from it, and regardless of how well it ends up doing at the box office, you know that this controversy has cost it, and cost it big, and for that, we know who to blame; the racist, sexist egomaniac who just couldn't keep her mouth shut, and Disney and the media for facilitating her and trying to run damage control, and for one site in particular, it might as well have killed itself, and for what, a film about a waman, that's a real shame.
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