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Some goods news - "Identity politics is in retreat in Hollywood"(i.imgur.com)

65 points64 points67 points submitted by beerghal

LordoftheFliesAmeri-kin 2.0. Pronouns: MegaWhite/SuperStraight/UltraPatriarchy 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun 1 year ago

Okay, and? It's not as if this is any way praiseworthy. The studios, the critics, and pretty much everyone else in a position to get a soundbite or quote attached to their name spent years telling us that we're a bunch of bigoted, piss-ignorant troglodytes for not eagerly lapping up their incessant pushing of IdPol in our various entertainment media.

Every single time that we complain about trashing a good IP with tokenist race-swapping (especially the blatant replacement of white redheads with blacks), pandering genderspecial bullshit, or faux-empowering "rawr FEMINISM" (Ms. Marvel and Ghostbusters, to name two especially egregious examples), we're told to sit down, shut our fucking mouths, and accept that we're wrong, they're right, and this is how it's going to be from now on.

The only reason that they're backpedaling now--and I very much doubt it'll get very far--is because they're standing to lose the only thing that truly matters, the money.

ClassroomPast6178 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun 1 year ago

You’re on the money.

One of the funniest things to happen over the years was the reboot of the reboot of Charlie’s Angels. Prior to release Elizabeth Banks was doing the rounds telling everyone that the film wasn’t made for men, and then when it absolutely bombed, she blamed men for not going to see it. It is almost as if they have forgotten who the audience is for action/action-comedy films actually is (something Marvel and DC needs to learn). I predict that we will see the greatest example of woke hubris when LOTR:TROP is released to much praise from the critics and almost no viewers. They’re already getting their preparations in, just like they did for Obi-Wan, the fans are toxic and racist and that’s why it failed.

The moneymen won’t care though, they’re just going to be pissed that they can’t sell the merch (anyone want a half price Rose Tico action figure?) and no one is interested in the product tie-ins.

LyingSpirit472 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun 1 year ago

Even beyond action/action-comedy, the bigger thing that needed to be learned is the same refrain: It's not ABOUT identity or not, it's about "Is this movie good, or is it shit?" It's like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer example we talked about yesterday here- fans are happy to support franchises with women/minority leads, they'd be happy to support progressive/"woke" media... AS LONG AS THE PRODUCT IS GOOD. Moviegoers just don't want to spend 100 bucks and 2 hours of their life they'll never get back to see a movie they know is shit, and the "shame moviegoers into the theater to see a bad movie" method only works once and they pulled it on Ghostbusters 2016, and now it'll never work again.

There's been enough successful "woke" movies that were also GOOD movies to show the answer is "Make GOOD MOVIES with diverse casts and people will see them", not "make woke movies and hope people will pay 100 bucks to spend two hours baaing at a sheep that looks like them or wants to have sex with things they want to have sex with."

jet199 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun 1 year ago

Rose wasn't introduced for diversity.

She was written in because they originally wanted to do a love story between Rey and Finn but the actors had zero chemistry in the first sequel. They added the character of Rose so at least one of them had a love interest. The actress was then cast solely on how much chemistry she had with John Boyega, nothing else. They screen tested actresses of multiple races and nationalities. And they picked well, when I saw them on set I didn't know who she was and I literally thought she was his girlfriend he'd brought to set for the day. It's just they couldn't find anything relevant to do with Finn's character once they'd split him up from Rey.

alladd 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun 1 year ago

this shit is kinda hilarious though. like rose tico is now a character in star wars, forever.

decades from now people will still find jar jar and rose tico toys and laugh at them.

ClassroomPast6178 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun 1 year ago

JarJar is way less annoying than Rose Tico, she actively stopped Finn having a character arc and spouted some absolute bollocks about self-sacrifice being wrong, in a movie that is supposed to be about resisting fascism to say that is just terrible writing.

alladd 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 1 year ago

LOL and the writing responded by giving her nothing to do in the third one. that's what you get when you don't want to be a hero in a story about heroes.