By David Futrelle
Reactionary dinguses and #Gamergate leftovers have been raging against Captain Marvel for weeks (months?) now, claiming that the movie is little more than secret SJW propaganda designed to genocide white men or something. Now that the movie has hit theaters at last, you might be wondering how well their Captain Marvel boycott is going?
Not very, it turns out. Far from tanking, the film is actually racking up impressive numbers at the box office, with industry observers currently projecting a $150-$160 million weekend in North American theaters alone, way up from initial projections of $100 million.
So how is the angry mob responding? By declaring the box office numbers to be a big hoax, fake news, no collusion! (Oh, wait, they actually think there is collusion.)
Naturally, the positive reviews the film have gotten are supposedly fake as well:
As it turns out, there actually ARE some fake positive reviews of the movie out there. Namely 100 or so identically worded reviews up on Google. So of course the Captain Marvel foes — who only a few weeks ago bombarded Rotten Tomatoes with so many “don’t want to see” votes that the site disabled that feature — are now accusing SJWs and/or Disney of fraud.
Huh. So a huge multinational corporation pushing a major film is going to try to game the reviews by … hiring some troll to post 100 literally identical reviews on Google? Knowing that anyone who saw more than one of the reviews would instantly realize they were fake? I’d say the chance that Disney (or even freelance SJW “shills”) are behind this, rather than some anti-Captain Marvel troll trying to make Disney look bad, are probably about, well, one in 160 million.
Even Jack Posobiec, the Nazi-adjacent professional troll who’s been pushing for people to see Alita: Battle Angel instead of Captain Marvel, has been sounding a bit defensive today:
You know you’re WINNING when all you can offer is excuses.
UPDATE: The numbers from Saturday night are in:
Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, shattered the glass ceiling in its box office debut with $455 million in worldwide ticket sales, including $153 million in North America.
The tentpole’s global launch reps the biggest ever for a female-fronted film — eclipsing Beauty and the Beast ($357 million) — as well as the second-largest for any superhero pic behind Avengers: Infinity War ($640.5 million). Overall, it’s the sixth-best worldwide bow of all time, and the international opening of $302 million is the fifth-biggest ever ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($281 million).
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@august
Let me you in on a secret: there’s a whole world of people outside your hopelessly consumerist subculture that doesn’t hinge their self worth and the value of their ideas on the financial performance of corporate branded products.
@Crip Dyke
I feel your pain. I too have failed, and will not be able to attend before this Friday. But I’m doing my best. I’ve arranged for a dog sitter (so I’ll definitely go) and recruited a fellow SJW to attend with me. And, thanks to Soros’ stirling efforts, there’s no chance it won’t still be available. We’ve got this.
So what if people say mean things about movies?
Do you speak up about women even in your own country living in poverty?
Or is just screaming “man babies” at men who don’t like movies you fawn over good enough for women?
Captain Marvel is a failure?? How is that even possible? Went to watch the movie yesterday and the whole cinema was packed with people wanting to watch the movie. And, quite frankly, it didn’t disappoint. Much the contrary! 😉
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1QcVVBWwAAriqa.jpg
Well, let’s see… highest-grossing movie of 2017… second-highest-grossing film of the entire Star Wars franchise…
I’d say it worked out pretty well for Disney.
lol, are they still all “The Last Jedi was a disaster for Disney!” over there? They really don’t understand that facts don’t care about their feelings I guess. Just because they didn’t like it doesn’t mean no one else did either.
My 21 year old son has already asked my husband to go see Captain Marvel with him. I feel sure if I told him about the whinging chuzzlewits in the OP, he would be utterly gobsmacked.
Amusingly enough, our household – two dads, two sons – has been described as ‘overwhelmingly masculine’ by friends of ours. Despite that, there’s no misogyny evident. Go figure.
(Scratches head) Come to think of it, even if there *were* some weird feminist conspiracy to make the movie seem better than it is, it would hardly have been worth the outrage these guys exhibit.
Scildfredda –
The prequels and sequels of the original “Star Wars” trilogy are to my mind pointness, since rhe charm of the original is in its fairy-tale quality, and nobody cares how the evil father *became* evil, or whether or not Cinderella and Prince Charming *did* in fact live happily ever after. But that is another doscussion…
This is the best response I have seen to Posobiec’s rantings:
Ooo, someone referred to me in my absence. Does that mean my mammoth level has increased? Have I levelled up from caviling lurker to fastidious misandrist?
@Ariblester: I actually have no formal post-secondary education WRT philosophy, english, history etc., just a lot of self research, especially on the topic of anatomy (reading all the peer-reviewed studies), and a lot of pessimistic observation.
OT: I still need to go see the movie, but also need to get a job and monies. Looks good, but then I grew up on b-rated fantasy and scifi (free) vhs rentals from the library, so I’m pretty easy to amuse.
Except anime. Some of my favourite shows are anime. Also the absolute worst things I’ve ever had projected in my eyeholes have been anime. It’s like 95% rapey misogynist dumpster trash and 5% solid gold.
@Jane Done
I have never watched much anime, but as a fan of cheesy romance, I find this statement extremely relatable. Why are the genres/mediums we like so often disappointing?
My love, horror is like that too.
Declaring the source to be lies simply because it didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.
Despite the fact that they’ve never experienced it, they consider their opinion that it’s crap to not only be reliable, but more reliable than that of others who have experienced it and say it’s good.
Everyone who disagrees with them is one of the three Bs: Biased, Bribed or Brainwashed. Different tastes are a myth to them.
They’re gamers, all right.
Welcome to the mammoth, @Geoffrey Rotherham Plastics.
Because the reason why they say those things about those particular movies turns out to be important.
The first one.
@Anonymous,
I’m not a big fan of Star Wars in general! I don’t mind it, but I don’t see what the fuss is about. So I understand where you’re coming from. No doubting that it’s successful, though, and has earned it every step of the way.
<3
@Turan, Emissary of the fly World
Thank you! that was the gif I wanted but can’t post.
Oh look, someone popped in to vomit up the ol’ “starving children” cliche, as if somehow progress is a FIFO operation and even talking about anything other than the single worst issue in the world is taking away valuable resources from solving that issue.
That’s so last decade. Are you even trying?
@Annymous:
I love star wars, but I don’t much like the movies. Prequels (anakin is so cringy, creepy and rapey), sequels (disney is practically just making elaborate re-runs) and originals (three plucky shmucks somehow take on an entire galaxy of elite supersoldiers and win because their enemies can’t hit the broadside of a barn). Admittedly, the lightsaber fights are all pretty epic.
The comics, books, video games and lore surrounding star wars, as well as the fandom and fan-made content, are what I really love about the universe.
And also lightsabers are freaking cool.
Even with my tiny woman brain, I am actually pretty capable of both mocking dudes who think that superhero media needs to be a male safe space and getting angry about poverty and income inequality. Perhaps poor Geoffrey doesn’t have the multitasking skills.
I was pondering that “evidence” they posted of the same review being spammed on the Internet. While I don’t want to counter a conspiracy with a conspiracy, one of the odd things about Russian bit activity was that, while they largely posted on reactionary topics, some would take the opposite position. Now it is often difficult to figure out someone’s motivation for posting online but it does make you wonder where those reviews came from: a Soros-funded conspiracy wouldn’t be stupid enough to post those, as we can see where people pay for reviews on Amazon it is cheap enough to get unique reviews. However, if anyone was looking to muddy the waters… It’d be interesting to see what the results were if someone looked into this kind of activity.
@Crip Dyke and Weatherwax
I did start worrying that our previous posts would be screenshot and posted to the very worst parts of Reddit as evidence of a conspiracy. Then I relaxed when I realised only a moron would miss the sarcasm…. Uh oh.
The little four-screen “multiplex” here in Podunk, Ontario was jam-packed on what would ordinarily be its quietest night, Tuesday. I saw people dressed up as Spider-Man and overheard the word “Marvel” a lot, so it was fairly clear what most of them were there to see. Perhaps 1/2 to 2/3 of the seats were taken by curtain-up, which is the second busiest I’ve ever seen a Tuesday screening here (the busiest was Black Panther the Tuesday after opening weekend, and the busiest I’ve seen it on a non-Tuesday was a Saturday showing of Jurassic World that was nearly standing room only).
I’ve been seeing known right-wingers in several places online claiming theaters were mostly empty or much quieter than usual and suggesting the box office numbers were inflated; I didn’t expect that to be true, and surprise surprise, it wasn’t true.
Of course, I can’t rule out many of the random-looking people I saw being paid Soros audience plants or something. /s 😀
(In fact I doubt the kind of fakery the right is claiming can happen. Surely there are audits and accounting and the like to verify this stuff? If only to keep cinemas from screwing studios out of revenue and vice-versa? That’s if the SEC and the like didn’t get involved making sure the studios aren’t inflating earnings reports to shareholders. No real conspiracy to inflate box office receipts would last long before being exposed by actual credentialed investigatory agencies and not just some random pundits on the internet.)
@Onager:
One of my favourite lines from Guided by the Beauty of their Weapons, which was an analysis of the whole ‘Sad Puppy’ mess and the attempt at taking over the Hugo awards, was near the end. Sandifer talked about a comic called Uber…
First, @Onager:
as you say, Uh oh.
Second:
Okay, HOW IS IT that I didn’t know that Goose the Cat’s name was a Top Gun reference just from the advertising?
I mean it’s not like I saw it in the theater, but I sure as heck saw it on VHS when my mom wanted to pause on topless fighter jocks (I was even the one who melted the butter for the popcorn – don’t ask me why I remember that, it was just always my job when we made popcorn) and I saw it a couple times at the house of my friend with HBO. I know that the lovable asshole from Real Genius was in it. I know it’s the movie that made my older sister start singing, “You’ve got that loving feeling,” all the time. I know literally every single important thing to know about that movie, but it didn’t occur to me that Goose was named after Goose?
I am all the idiot.
*sigh*
Yet another formerly favourite youtuber of mine has revealed himself to be a pearl-clutching centrist douchebag.
I have a passing interest in HEMA, but I know that the majority of the men in it are raging bigots (even here in the supposed leftist paradise of west coast canada, one of the local HEMA academies is infamous for being severely racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic), so I’m constantly on guard for the slightest wiff of dudebro mannerisms, much the same way as I am wary of anything more than surface friendship with every man I’ve worked with in construction or warehousing.
Side note, I dunno what it is that makes so many high-intensity physical jobs and hobbies attract so many blazing scumbags. Is excess testosterone unhealthy for men? On the other hand, it might just be coincidence, but a lot of female athletes seem to be leading the new wave of feminist leadership in this generation.
Anyway, one of the HEMA youtubers I used to watch pops up out of nowhere to unload his hate on Captain Marvel. Thanks to my frequenting of WHTM, I knew instantly from the dozens and dozens of “Alita” comments exactly what was up, even before he barfed up his “politics don’t belong in movies” dogwhistle.
I’d like to thank David for his hard work, makes it so much easier to cut away the miles and miles of loaded language that right-wingers and their centrist enablers shroud themselves in, and makes it so much easier to cut out toxic ideology before it has months or years to wear me out.
In other better news it looks like I’ll be getting a new job in a few days so I can help put my money where my mouth is.
“HEMA”?