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Feminist Ghostbusters reboot opens to empty theaters

[deleted]

July 18, 2016

11 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/07/17/ghostbusters-opens-empty-theatres/

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Post Information

Title	Feminist Ghostbusters reboot opens to empty theaters
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	11
Comments	48
Date	July 18, 2016 4:35 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/4tdenx/feminist_ghostbusters_reboot_opens_to_empty/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/feminist-ghostbusters-reboot-opens-to-empty.945343 https://theredarchive.com/post/945343

Comments

[–]sayshey 3 points4 points5 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]dolandoes 8 points9 points10 points 10 years ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–]hornet7ka 3 points4 points5 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]dolandoes 4 points5 points6 points 10 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]Captaincastle 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]dolandoes 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]Captaincastle 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]bufedad 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]DashRiprockIII 1 point2 points3 points 10 years ago (34 children) | Copy Link

[–]Pariahdog119 12 points13 points14 points 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

I saw the movie. And I don't see why either side is making a fuss.

The movie was not very good. This is not the fault of the cast; Kate McKinnon's mad ~~scientist~~ engineer was pretty funny, Melissa McCarthy was as predictably unfunny as any other movie she's not allowed to swear in, and Leslie Jones is perfecting the character she was hired to play on SNL.

The jokes written for them are pretty poor, but their delivery helped a bit. By far, the most redeeming character was Kevin, the Dumb Blond. This movie suffered from bad writing, not bad casting. Several of the jokes made me smile; none made me laugh. (I followed this movie with Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick are hilarious, and I laughed until I cried.)

Not liking this movie doesn't make anyone a loser nerd misogynist neckbeard. There's plenty of legitimate reasons why it's not very good that have nothing to do with the cast. Insulting fans and crying oppression because no one likes your C+ movie is stupid and a bad business model.

But saying the movie is misandrist because there's a dumb blond guy is dumb, because he's clearly an inversion of the dumb blonde trope that you haven't complained about before. Claiming that the movie glorifies shooting men in the dick is downright stupid; they shoot a giant ghost in the crotch as he straddles the street. Once. Pretty sure it doesn't have a dick. I've seen complaints because of the "you know more about quantum physics than anybody" line. Really? That's where you draw the line at Hollywood fake science? In a techbobabble-filled movie about ghosts coming through ley lines?

It's fine to like the movie. It's fine to not like the movie. It's terrible to demonize people who hold a different opinion.

[–]junkeee999 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

At least you saw the movie, so I give your comments a lot more validity. I think it's fine to demonize people who never saw the movie but still spout agenda filled hate towards it.

I haven't seen the movie, may watch it on Netflix or something someday. But I do give movies that take chances credit even if that chance fails and I end up not liking it. They could have gotten the old fossils back together (which could have been disastrous), they could have rebooted with a younger male cast (which could have been boring).

But they decided to do a twist and make it with women. Big fucking deal. I think it was a good idea to try something different, but one that could be a huge hit, or flop tremendously, or land anywhere in between.

But one thing I do know, those who haven't seen it but are the most opinionated on it...let's just say it reveals a lot about their nature.

[–]xxbeyondxx 4 points5 points6 points 10 years ago (21 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber -5 points-4 points-3 points 10 years ago* (20 children) | Copy Link

IMDB user rating means nothing for any movie the MRM takes an interest in. It is pretty much a badge of honour to be voted down, like an R rating back in the days before hard core porn was available to 7 year olds.

User votes on IMDB were very heavily manipulated downward - 5000 down vs 1600 up at one stage, with manipulators being 80% of voters!

The 20% of votes between 2 and 8 (which fitted a real-looking distribution) rated it highly.

Source: IMDB demographics http://archive.is/54YP9

Here are the IMDB user reviews. The first page of reviews is entirely negative, with a single 3/10 as the highest rating:

1 7 reviews 2 2 reviews 3 1 review

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt

So with all that crap being thrown (and the "empty theatre" twitter campaign, and the torrent of shit talking by MRAs), for the film to open on 25% more than the $40M estimate that got it approved for production looks like success to me.

[+][deleted] 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[permanently deleted]

[–]JebberJabber 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]bufedad 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago (17 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber -4 points-3 points-2 points 10 years ago* (16 children) | Copy Link

[–]bufedad 3 points4 points5 points 10 years ago (15 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber -2 points-1 points0 points 10 years ago (14 children) | Copy Link

Fair point.

In this case there were three times more downvoters than upvoters so the presence of upvote cheats did not degrade the statistics, it pulled the score a little way toward reality.

I googled "feminist movie". Interestingly, that term was common in the 90s but not so much since. I checked some recent ones.

There seemed to be evidence of people giving excessive 10/10 votes in some cases in my opinion, e.g. there might be more votes for 10 than 9. On the other hand, women are prone to great enthusiasm when they finally see a movie which speaks to them.

The M/F scores were very even in all cases, about 10% difference. ( I earlier surveyed Google's "chick flick" list and found a 10% - 18% gender gap).

OK, so both men and women who go to "feminist" movies do upvote them based on their feminist views.

Do they downvote too? I googled "misogynist movies" and "anti-feminist". I didn't find any which had got enough exposure to collect downvote manipulation, so that's an open verdict.
There must be movies which enraged feminists, perhaps someone else can think of some and check the demographics.

[–]bufedad 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (13 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber -1 points0 points1 point 10 years ago* (12 children) | Copy Link

I'd be a lot happier if there was no cheating on the upvotes, I think it is stupid for supporters of the movie (or of women, or feminism or whatever motivated them) to have entered into that competition even though they are catching up and presumably will "win" the fight.

It is a bad fight. It is bad that the downvotes happened, and worse that the upvotes happened.

The downvote spree should have been allowed to stand.
We all lose when ratings systems are abused, we all lose when reviews are biased for strategic political reasons. Trying to correct for the bias by adopting the same tactics is very short-term thinking, it directly causes cynicism.

Even if there had been a point at which it was possible to distinguish "who started it", that information will quickly be disputed and covered in a ton of bullshit. After a few rounds of tit for tat it is irrelevant.

[–]bufedad 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (11 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

That's a biased thing to say, you should know I use good data. ;-)

The earliest IMDB vote I can find had 3.1 to 1 downvoting. Now it is 1.2:1

A day ago the rate of increase for 10 votes was three times that for 1 votes.

The downvotes started out overwhelming but has slowed. I was checking daily, The upvotes are catching up fast since the opening weekend.
.
.
1988 58% up, 642 19% down July11 20:34 UTC https://archive.is/iVmIg (3.1:1)

4900 down, 1700 up July 13 11:04 UTC http://archive.is/54YP9 (2.7:1)

Google cache has 11,000 down, 7400 up. July17 17:20 UTC
12.6k down, 10.1k up July19 15:37 UTC http://archive.is/L7qCg

Now it is 14,000 down, 11,000 up.
.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kv8oD7pmm1MJ:www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/ratings+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

[–]bufedad1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]bufedad1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]bufedad1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]bufedad1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I agree we can't be sure just from looking at this movie. But what explains the unprecedented amount of upvoting, and the surge of upvoting after the opening weekend?

The wider pattern is that there are are several movies which have been wildly popular with women or with feminists specifically, and they did not get this kind of upvoting.

I checked several of them. Only one or maybe two had a suspicious number of 10 votes, and some would argue they didn't. There was a pattern of generous or enthusiastic voting, higher than the film's technical merit. That is normal with films which resonate with a specific audience of any type.

I saw a male reviewer of some kind saying that in his experience women reviewers are more positive overall than men. That fits with the usual thing women complain about, that they are expected to be agreeable in all circumstances.

It goes back to the trailer. Like most people I found it unfunny, but the downvote frenzy wildly disproportionate. This isn't exactly the first time a much-loved film has disappointed its fans but there has never been a downvoting campaign like this, 970k downvotes vs 270k up. The whole thing smells very strongly of Gamergate.

[–]bufedad1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber1 point 10 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

That's a biased thing to say, you should know I use good data. ;-)

The earliest IMDB vote I can find had 3.1 to 1 downvoting, on July11 20:34 UTC. Now it is 1.2:1

A day ago the rate of increase for 10 votes was three times that for 1 votes.

4900 down, 1700 up July 13 11:04 UTC http://archive.is/54YP9 (2.7:1)

Google cache has 11,000 down, 7400 up. July17 17:20 UTC
12.6k down, 10.1k up July19 15:37 UTC http://archive.is/L7qCg

Now it is 14,000 down, 11,000 up.
.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kv8oD7pmm1MJ:www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/ratings+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

[–]JebberJabber 1 point2 points3 points 10 years ago* (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]DashRiprockIII 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

As I understand it interviews with stars and the director are controlled by the studio's PR team. There is an oversupply of interviewers so only the tame ones get the interview. They pre-submit their questions for approval, though I'd expect they are given a list of suggested questions too.

An attempt to ask unapproved questions will result in punishment for both the reporter and their employer. The PR people have a list of talking points they want covered and they can be strict about preventing precious interview time from being wasted on anything else, especially because of the known and unknown risky areas which could inadvertently get strayed into.

If the PR people think that laughing at the MRM will sell more tickets then that is what the reporter will be encouraged to ask questions about.

Normal men and women aren't complaining about men being insulted so far as I can tell. Perhaps more people know what MRA means now, but the impression they get is of people too self-unaware to recognise e.g. that the male bimbo character is a parody of an established female trope. MRAs are now in the position of the stereotypical old-fashioned humourless 2nd wave feminist.

Trying to censor something you disapprove of by manipulating user votes on review sites fits the image, it makes us look like Gamergaters. Maybe it was them that did most of the manipulating but we'll get blamed for it this time.

So I don't think the studios got their fingers burned. It may become common practise to use the MRM to generate publicity. That may be a good thing if the discussion can be serious, but why would they try to do that? It is easier to play for a cheap laugh with the MRM as the butt. We make ourselves a very easy target.

[–]DashRiprockIII 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I hope you are right, it is long past time for it.

I just hope what gets said becomes more intelligent and self-aware than what we saw for this movie.

Men complaining about a gender-swap of the ditzy pretty secretary trope is stupendously hypocritical, especially since half of them didn't even seem to understand that this is what they were looking at.

Men complaining about a movie which gleefully reversed a bunch of gender stereotypes for comedic effect and social commentary would have more impact if, again, the complainers realised what they are looking at and put it in context of the treatment of women in movies that they have been perfectly happy to accept.

I have not seen it yet but it obviously isn't just a movie about ghosts, it is also esplores gender roles in movie culture. Men attempting to censor it by manipulating ratings, pretending cinemas are empty, and claiming the positive reviews were all bought is not exactly giving us a respectable platform for getting any complaints listened to. All that stuff stinks of Gamergate and the public has already had a gutsfull of those monkey tricks.

[–]Swiggy 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]bufedad 2 points3 points4 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I checked again when the votes had risen to 10,000 down and the upvotes had risen to 5000. So that was still 2:1 downvotes.

Taking off the top two and bottom two scores, 69% of the votes are still bullshit.
Downvotes are now 12,000 vs upvotes 9500. The downvoters are running out of steam and the upvoters are still increasing strongly. I'm really sad that the upvoters seem set to win because the whining from this sub about feminist cheating will be unbearable.

Having checked several recent feminist movies that didn't get brigaded, some of them seemed to show a mild excess of 10 votes. But having checked a few popular "neutral" movies, they show the same pattern. In other words feminists, left to themselves, do not do insane vote manipulation bullshit. So I'm blaming this vote manipulation bullshit on Gamergate/MRAs. Ethics in user film rating and user reviewing!

I'm not blaming reboot haters because I checked the last Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. It and Prometheus, the shitty exploit of the Alien series, did not get a downvote or upvote campaign.

If there are 100,000 votes there will still be 20% crap votes. Maybe there should be a separate scale where people can vote on political grounds.

Or maybe people should go back to the old model of not voting on movies they have not seen, sometimes voting exuberantly for something they really like, and otherwise being honest.

[–]andejoh 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]The-os 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]JebberJabber 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]The-os 0 points1 point2 points 10 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link