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By David Futrelle
The movie review-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes has made some changes to its website that will prevent angry trolls from talking shit about movies none of them have seen, removing the ability of anyone but professional critics to review movies that aren’t out yet and shutting a feature that allowed users to report whether or not they want to see a movie that’s about to come out.
It was clearly a response to an organized downvoting campaign against Marvel and Disney’s upcoming Captain Marvel movie, which has angered the internet’s angriest men because it features a woman — Brie Larson — in the titular role. Trolls had apparently managed to push the film’s “want to see” rating down to 27% before the feature was disabled.
As Collider points out, this is hardly the first time angry dudes have tried to tank a movie at the box office with mass downvotes.
Over the last couple of years, it’s become commonplace for “fans” who have yet to see a movie to enact a negging campaign designed to bring down the film’s audience scores prior to release. The Ghostbusters “fans” did this by downvoting the trailer for Paul Feige’s female-led reboot [and] Marvel Studios “fans” intentionally tried to tank the Rotten Tomatoes score of Black Panther … .
Naturally, the trolls are pissed, and many have taken to Twitter to denounce Rotten Tomatoes for allegedly taking away the First Amendment rights of ordinary, hard-working Americans by preventing them from crapping on a movie they haven’t seen on one privately-owned website:
Indeed, the critics charge, the Rotten Tomatoites are apparently destroying democracy itself.
But what else would one expect from the gang of beta cuck feminazi fascist assholes who run Rotten Tomatoes?
According to this self-described Jordan Peterson fan, the “fucking fascist dictators” at Rotten Tomatoes have taken away his right to tell the world that he wants to see a different movie, although he has in fact told the world this in the very tweet in question:
The powers that be at Rotten Tomatoes are apparently a rather unique breed of Nazis in that they are also liberals:
They are also, apparently, fascists who hate white men. (Which would be sort of a new twist for fascism, I have to say.)
This fellow, with a Covington Kid avatar and zero followers, is also very much concerned about the rights of white men:
As is this fellow with nine followers:
And this lovely fellow with five followers and an Elon Musk avatar:
Evidently Rotten Tomatoes is not only racist against whites but also racist against everyone who isn’t white:
The brave free speech defenders made sure that their own personal free speech was filled with all the right angry internet dude buzzwords:
Other commenters leaned heavily on the slurs:
Some even made up their own slur just for the occasion, combining the name of the actress playing Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) with the old favorite “retard.”
Some of the criticism got weirdly specific. For example, these critics are angry that the people running Rotten Tomatoes are evidently too enthusiastic about performing oral sex:
As a result of Rotten Tomatoes’ actions, at least two white MALE asses will not be attending the movie.
This white man, thinking ahead, apparently plans to boycott a completely different Marvel movie coming out later this year:
Meanwhile, the same people who insisted they didn’t organize the mass-downvoting of Captain Marvel have evidently decided to organize a mass-upvoting of the movie Alita: Battle Angel — I guess to prove that angry manbabies don’t hate all superhero movies centered around women, at least not if the women in question have weird huge cgi-ed anime eyes.
So far these newly minted Alita superfans have pushed the Rotten Tomatoes audience score rating for that film up to 94% — a considerable improvement from the 59% score from critics.
So sad that these thoughtful critics and their assorted sockpuppets have been denied their sacred right to voice their opinions about a movie none of them have ever seen, at least on one particular site out of the gazillions of sites on the internet that would like its audience rating scores to actually reflect the views of the audience and not of angry mobs of woman-with-normal-eyes-hating trolls. I can only hope that free speech somehow manages to survive this assault.
Furiosa lived in a sun-blasted landscape, without much hair to protect her scalp. A hijab would have been a great idea!
@Contract JACK
What is preventing them from saying so publicly?
It’s so weird, I know.
With thousands of people taking to twitter to tell people that they don’t want to see a movie, you’d think the crisis in the inability to tell people you don’t want to see a movie would be patently obvious.
Today I learned that the only space for discussing whether or not you want to see a movie is Rotten Tomatoes.
@WWTH
Either that or Rotten Tomatoes is some kind of a public utility/forum and not a private entity.
@ Dalillama, thank you for that link! What a great pic! Vishavjit Singh looks super cool. I was mostly joking/riffing about managing a facsimile of Furiosa’s awesome shaved ‘do and less about being recognized as the character (seriously, if I were to cosplay with that film, I’d probably go as one of the kickass biker women), but I loved your ideas. Hmm, some sewing time is clearly in order, lol.
Moggie, I believe you have a point!
@Crip Dyke,
^^ THIS.^^ Its so obvious that their anger isn’t really about problems with making their voices heard, their anger is because other people, y’know, HAVE OPINIONS (shockhorror!) and aren’t necessarily centering the feelings of white cis men in everything. It’s the lack of jumping to do their bidding at their every whinge that they can’t deal with.
Alternatively, you can consider trying this method
1) Type “https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/“ into your address bar (going via the back button doesn’t work)
2) Scroll to the article you wish to see refreshed
3) Click on the “## comments” link to be taken to the comments
No, it’s not a single keyboard shortcut, but I have found it to serve me well.
(I’m also basically repeating myself, but I don’t think @Surplus saw my previous comment)
I suspect that this works because the server tends to serve up the most up to date cached copy if it is requested from the front page, but that it will only do so if it is a similarly up to date copy of the front page.
@ Bookworm in jihab
If you haven’t encountered it yet, you might be entertained by Roger Zelazny’s book Damnation Alley. Tanner is no Furiosa or Max, but the seeds are probably there.
@Bookworm in hijab, have you seen queenofluna on Instagram? She’s a makeup artist who cosplays all sorts of characters while in hijab. She does gorgeous work.
@Cat Mara:
That’s a hilarious comic. It’s a depressing sign of the times…the people least prone to actually being silenced, are the ones putting up the biggest fuss, it seems to me.
Off-topic: I see a commenter had asked for advice regarding their cat. I’m having some problems with my cat Sassy and her water dish. Sassy MUST either dump out her water, or drag stuff into it, like used tissues, or my dirty socks. I also set up one of those water dishes with a 2 liter reservoir bottle on top, when I had to leave home for a weekend. She opened up a can of whoop-ass on that dish, and dragged it across the room, of course toppling it, and spilling it all over the floor. Interestingly, she’ll happily drink from a glass of water on my nightstand, not spilling a drop. Why does she do these things? Anyone have any ideas?
@Moggie,
Oh, I think you’ll like the movie quote a bit, but it’s a pale shadow of the manga. The original run of Battle Angel Alita is one of my favorite comics of all time, right up there with Sandman and The Maxx. It has a lot of depth, but at its core it’s an extended philosophical treatise on what it means to be human, how the systems we create shape our concept of humanity, and some of the consequences of that.
Plus there’s lots of cyborgs fighting.
@Dormousing_it
Have you tried a water fountain? Pepper stopped playing with her water when I got one.
A water fountain? Not only would installing one be a major project, but the suggestion seems to assume a solidly middle-class existence, in particular a) homeownership (I imagine most landlords would have quite a bit to say about any tenant who ripped large holes in the walls and made major changes to the plumbing) and b) the kind of discretionary cash that would be needed to finance such a thing (assuming a water fountain of the sort with which I’m most familiar, which resembles a kitchen sink and tap jutting directly from a wall; I’d expect that to cost similar to an actual kitchen sink, and the project as a whole to run into the mid four figures).
Meanwhile, most Americans can’t even scrape $500 up on short notice for an emergency, at least not without resorting to those scumbag payday-loan places.
I can see some (affluent) cat-owners indulging in installing one at floor-level for their furry one(s), modified in some way so the pet can operate it readily, but suggesting such as a one-size-fits-all solution for all pet owners with questionable water-bowl-use habits seems unlikely to prove workable for a significant fraction of them.
Oh, and in places that meter one’s water use installing any tap that a pet can operate will likely result in them drinking you out of house and home. 🙂
I think the fountain bit was in reference to something like this.
21 bucks.
@Surplus
I…uh…what? I’m talking about a $50 pet bowl with a pump and filter that plugs into the wall with a standard plug, not something you need to tear out your wall to install. Please, stop jumping to wild conclusions and then berating people for things they never suggested!
For the purposes of democracy, it is very important that all US citizens and others answer the following poll question:
“Do you expect to watch the next ‘US Presidential Term’ movie, scheduled to be out in January 2021?”
A) Yes, I’m a fan of the series
B) Yes, because everyone will be talking about it anyway
C) Yes, though I’d really rather not
D) Depends on who’s starring
@contract JACK
Well, see, someone managed to get ahold of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution and, in big red sharpie, crossed out “right to free speech” and wrote in “right to wear yoga pants all the time.” It’s a tragedy, but it’s the law, you know?
@Crip Dyke, wow, was that fountain designed by Marcel Duchamp?
It was updated with fluid control chips designed by Steve Jobs, but, yes, the physical structure was originally sculpted Duchamp, with a small assist from Matisse.
Curiously, it went criminally underappreciated before returned to prominence by Sister Wendy Beckett who devoted a chapter in her masterwork on the history of pre-Modernist abstraction to this fountain. It was only after Sister Wendy’s celebration of this comparatively little-known resin sculpture that Jobs decided to devote $20 million to controlling the water flow – which had begun to leak and never quite realized Duchamp’s vision of 3-dimensional cubist sculpture in a pattern repeating over time – in a manner that could finally bring to life the full magnificence of vision that Matisse fertilized and Duchamp birthed.
@ Crip Dyke,
LOLOLOLOL!
I had one of those water fountains for my cats. it is broken now. and it was difficult to clean inside. I never seen my cats drink from it, they prefer to drink the nasty water inside the frying pan when I am trying to soak the burned bits.
I can’t believe these losers are breathing our air.
I sort of forgot that RottenTomatoes was a thing, haha. I used to look at it weekly almost and surf through to read reviews of old movies. But in all that time I never once noticed the will watch feature. Go figure.
As someone out of the loop then, it sounds like they’re just whining over something relatively minor. Reminds me of all the whinging over Facebooks updates, haha.
I might see Captain Marvel, if it comes to the cheap theater nearby. Personally I’m a bit burnt out on the MCU and super hero movies in general, and the only other one I planned to watch was Avengers just because I wanted to see the pay off from Infinity War. After that, I think I’m done for awhile, haha.
Long time reader, pretty sure I’m a first time commenter?
Anyway – I had a similar issue with one of my cats. He would smack the hell out his water and make a huge mess and just seemed to really not like drinking from the smaller bowl, it seemed difficult for him.
I’m hellaciously broke so rather than buy one of the official pet fountains from a petstore or the internet, I bought a big shallow bowl from the Goodwill and stuck a fountain pump in the middle of it. Total cost: ~$12. Fountain pumps are available on Amazon, we ended up getting a dud and going with a small floval fish tank pump which our neighbors had a spare of, ymmv.
Very easy to clean and after a period of adjustment, both cats like and use it just fine.