By David Futrelle
The right-wing snowflakes are out in force, clogging up the internet with gloating comments about the alleged utter failure of Birds of Prey, a comic book movie about a lady super-gang headed up by Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. In its opening weekend, you see, the film earned $33 million in domestic box office instead of the $45 million Warner Brothers was expecting.
To its angry-dude critics, the overwhelming majority of whom have not seen the film, this was proof that studios that “get woke go broke” because true comic book movie fans will reject this sort of “feminist propaganda” in favor of movies that don’t have quite so many ladies in them.
Naturally, some of the leading lights, such as they are, in the far-right griftosphere had things to say about Birds of Prey.
Birds of Prey had a dreadful $33.2M opening – wow didn't see that coming.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) February 9, 2020
The right wing culture critics aren’t just mad that there are too many women in the film; they’re also mad that these women aren’t wearing skimpy enough clothing, thus making them ugly in the eyes of men who watch films with their boners. “They are so ugly,” complained one Twitterer, “why they dont choose pretty females? They seems like shemales, strong and masculine.”
BREAKING: Margot Robbie is ugly.
“[F]uck your gay ass woke birds of prey,” wrote another. “Sexualize Harley Quinn forever.”
You may or may not be shocked to discover that the film’s detractors include literal Nazis and at least one equally literal piss-drinker.
In a post on Sunday, The Daily Stormer trashed the film as “Another Gyno-Ghostbusters” with women not only in front of the camera but behind it. As the Stormer’s Andrew Anglin whined,
The film doesn’t just star women, it was also written, produced and directed by women. Even the soundtrack features exclusively female artists.
Actually, seven of the nine executive producers for the film are men, but it’s not like the Daily Stormer ever checks its facts..
Anglin sarcastically mocked the film’s less-than-perfect performance at the box office.
Basically, they are going to need laws forcing men to see these films. Because it is unacceptable for these women to go through all the trouble of producing these $100+ million films to lecture men and then men not show up.
Actually, as Variety notes, the majority of those who went to see the film were men, mostly over the age of 25.
And while most of the critics of the film’s not-sexy-enough-for-angry-dudes ladies focus most of their ire on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Anglin is more troubled by the inclusion of, ahem, “afro-kike” actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell, though even Anglin admits she’s easy on the eyes.
Gotta say, for combining the two least attractive races – black and Jew – into a single individual, Jurnee Smollett-Bell did alright. Definitely bests Meghan Markle on the old “male gaze-o-meter.”
Meanwhile, Birds of Prey has also drawn the attention of YouTuber and former novelty congressional candidate Joey “Salads” Saladino, perhaps most famous as “the guy who literally peed in his own mouth on video”
In fairness to Mr Salads, he says he didn’t actually swallow any of the piss that he deliberately pissed into his own mouth, so he’s got that going for him.
Film criticism is weird.
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I haven’t seen the movie (thinking about it, though I’m not much into the superhero genre and only vaguely familiar with these characters) but I’ve noticed from the trailers that at least some of the women are a bit on the tall side and/or have visible muscles. In particular, Harley Quinn and Black Canary stand out.
Of course misogynist dudebros are going to be at least a little grossed out be that, regardless of the attractiveness of the women otherwise. Though I wonder what proportion of them aren’t even superhero fans, whining about something which isn’t even aimed in their general direction, and would be whining about how unrealistic it was if they didn’t have “heroic” bodies… and how many are superhero fans who don’t really care that much when they’re just drawings or cartoons, but it feels wrong to them to see a real woman looking like that. Or at least without soccer ball breasts.
@Snowberry
I bet there’s a large proportion. The alt-right very much likes to do entryist campaigns where they suddenly pretend to care about a medium they never took interest in before to stir up trouble. I’m definitely seeing shades of GamerGate here.
I guess it’s time for me to watch the film to support it, and well it seems to be a good time.
EDIT:
Oh gods the hype.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/new-hampshire-primary-2020-live-updates/index.html
OT:
Also Fuck Andrew Yang.
https://twitter.com/thotscholar/status/1227414850046976003
https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-staffers-furious-over-layoffs-chaotic-campaign-culture-2020-2
An utter waste of air.
I think Suicide Squad would have been a lot better without Jared Leto. I’m looking forward to seeing BoP in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, fuck Yang. You don’t treat your employees like that.
@Ooglyboggles
Seconding the fuck Yang. He’s a bad employer and a shitty candidate who has primarily courted neo-Nazis and cryptocurrency bros.
@Snowberry
One of my favorite things about these gatekeeping “you’re not a REAL fan” assholes is how their gatekeeping efforts often demonstrate that they know less about their supposed fandom than the “fake geeks” that they are trying to keep out.
WOOHOO
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/11/new-hampshire-primary-results-2020-114122
GO SANDERS!
I’ve never understood the gatekeepers. When I find something I love, if anyone within hearing range of me even so much as mentions my latest hyperfixation, I will immediately latch onto them and do my level best to drag them even further into the thing. Why the hell would you want to drive people away from sharing in the things you love?
I’m still holding out for Warren. I mean, both Warren and Sanders have some very good ideas, but even if Dems retake congress they’re mostly not happening. But Warren seems like a better choice for cleaning up the messes and rooting out corruption, which is more important in the short run. That being said, I’d still be fine with a president Sanders and Warren can still do a bit of cleanup from the Senate. Buttigieg? Well, at least it would be good for LGBTQIA+ peeps, but Warren and to a lesser extent Sanders would also be good for that, and I don’t have much hopes for him being a good president otherwise.
The results from Iowa and New Hampshire will give a boost to Sanders and Buttigieg going forward, and a blow to Warren and Biden, but things could always turn around as there’s a long way to go.
I’m disappointed that Warren has fared poorly in the primary thus far, but at least I can take solace in Biden also doing so badly.
Yang also proposed that companies be allowed to hire disabled people to work for free so they can see that they are maybe, just maybe still decent employees that are worth pay, and what even the fuck? But he dropped out anyway, so whatever.
I’m disappointed Warren isn’t doing better so far. I too like the emphasis on anti-corruption. I think a lot of people are not understanding that corruption is the root cause of why politicians don’t pay attention to the wants and needs of the population. The issue isn’t that good policy is unpopular. It’s actually quite popular. The issue is that big money – foreign and domestic – has more influence than the electorate.
Bernie is my second choice of the people left, and I’m sure as shit glad he’s outperforming Mayo Pete and Biden and holy hell we can not nominate fucking Bloomberg. But it concerns me that I’m constantly seeing his supporters and surrogates still deny that Russia attacked our election in 2016 with Trump’s help. The hatred for Hilary Clinton has blinded them to what happened. I’m scared the campaign won’t be able to catch up in time if he wins the nomination and the Kremlin propaganda machine turns against him.
Apparently, you’re not alone. And for those who didn’t realize Birds of Prey was a Harley Quinn movie, they’ve actually changed the title to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. It’ll be interesting to see if that helps it any.
BoP is the #1 movie in America! What a failure! /sarc
Also, I’m pretty sure Ocean’s 8 and Shazam both ended up doing well despite low presales. Then again, can we really expect cogent box office analysis from a guy who drinks his own piss?
@Catalpa
While I certainty can’t speak at all about the mind of those in most fandoms and those who engage in this kind of militant gate keeping in a broad sense; I do have a friend that, while we are both fan’s of the Strike Witches series, and we are fans who like the series for what it is and for the right reasons: he is something of one of those gate keepers or at least one of the more softer and less belligerent and not a-holish versions of it, if that makes sense (even if that lower lower gate-keeping is still baffling and not conducive to the series we love and the fandom we are a part of)…. even though I’m guy who has the inverse notion and loves sharing the series I and the things in it with other people, even if, well it’s Strike Witches and it’s a specially niche military anime.
When I actually asked him why he would engage in any level of gate keeping and the problems it would have for both the series we love and the fandom we are part of: his reasoning is the notion is his worries about our favorite series “being mainstreamed” since he is of the alleged impression that “when any series gets mainstreamed; it gets crappy”. He claims his concerns are that if the series did get mainstreamed that it would be “forced to change to a broader market appeal, dumb down the story and narrative and world building, and strip away and ‘censor’ fan-service”, and which in turn “make the series deteriorate and die a slow, painful miserable death” with his fears that Conservative Puritans and Liberal Progressives (though he seems to erroneously and myopically focus on the latter, which I doubt given that, for all it’s fanservice: Strike Witches is a surprisingly and unexpectedly pro-feminist and and progressively toned and subject framed anime series) both would somehow so broadly and vaguely “destroy the series and it’s identity”. These are notions that frankly I find dubious and I personally do not share; as their have been many series that have reach some “mainstream appeal” or at least mainstream attention in mediaand yet were able to not only stay true to the series spirit and still hold strong stories world building and characters, and able to maintain a decent consistency in it’s quality. Plus with Strike Witches franchise, being a multi-media series project: it’s able to maintain a longevity of new IP content, better series resiliency and new idea to explore that few other series are able to match and allow it a longer than normal lifespan. So honestly I find my friend’s stance on the manner of our favorite series to be dubious, counter productive, stagnating, harmful, myopic and frankly very unfounded.
He did have the nuance to admit I might have point but countered that he still has the unease about the “might haves” (unfounded that I frankly think they are) and that he would rather the series “go out early and intact than to langwish over a long drawn out train-wreak” …. which honestly I see as a case of shooting ourselves in the foot and hurting the series we supposedly love; I honestly find his stance to not be a great one to put it mildly.
Granted he is only a softly elitist a gate keeper and by far and away not belligerently toxic, but his notions are still ones that I don’t really buy personally…. that said if he found any of these kind of ilk in our favorite series he would likely be, and often is, just as disgusted and annoyed with them, kind of like we denounce, condemn and reject the Homophobes, Misogynists and Gary Stu Fanfic writers that are infiltrating our series fandom (honestly most of the rest of the fandom consider those toxic members of the series fanbase to be Persona non grata as these kinds of ilk actually would hurt our series and fandoms).
My friends notions toward our favorite series at least as being a somewhat low level elitist gatekeeper are likely not shared to the same extent, if at all, by these rageaholic bigots throwing fits with their hate speech, and even my friends notions I find to be kind of nonsense and kind of ironically more harmful to our favorite series and fandom; but it does serve as a glimpse into the window logic a bit to some degree; even frankly, if even at my friends level; it’s shaky at best.
And these guy’s with their blind bigoted rage fueled diatribes with more hate than brains: are even worse.
@Naglfar, Diego Duarte
Re: Supes v. Psychotic Billionaire Taking the Law Into His Own Hands Like It Was No Biggie: (Can’t tell who I would root for in that fight, eh?) Zach Snyder also copied paintings so obviously that when I watched it with my sister, we were like, “that’s definitely a painting,” to each other the first time it happened. Thereafter we kept poking each other every time we thought another one cropped up. It was just so lazy.
Re: Yang and firings: Y’all’s probably blaming him for something his campaign manager/other HR person did, there (plus their under-managers, to select which ones would get fired…). I mean, his platform has problems and he wasn’t my first choice, but make sure he personally did the thing you’re saying he did. Strongly doubt day-to-day management is his responsibility (or any candidate’s).
Re: Yang and disabled workers: What the fuuuuuuck??? I guess he approves of the Goodwill model of exploitation?
Crotch shot for women:
I had to cycle with horizontal bar frames that were a bit too big for me a few times.
And as is the nature for cycling, the ride isn’t complete without at least one emergency stop.
Having your pubic bone (or tail bone, for that matter) connect hard with the horizontal bar?
Makes you want to curl up and whimper.
Buttigieg look like an astroturf. Wasn’t he like the most obscure US politician before his bid ?
@Catalpa
I think it’s about elitism. If you can say you like something and that people who like that thing are better than those who don’t, you can use that to discriminate on. And the far right loves discrimination on whatever they can use.
@WWTH
WTF? Yang wants to enslave disabled people? I knew he was ableist, I just didn’t realize he was this ableist.
I’m also disappointed. I’ll take Sanders because he’s better than Biden or Trump, but the Bernie bros have definitely tainted him in my eyes so I’d certainly prefer Warren.
@Ohlmann
He was the mayor of a town in Indiana, so he was pretty obscure. I’m quite skeptical of Buttigieg for that reason, but also because I think he embodies a lot of white male privilege. If he were a woman or PoC with the same experience level, I can almost guarantee he wouldn’t be taken seriously as a candidate.
O/T, but is David going to make a post about Graham Linehan’s latest meltdown?
For those who don’t know, the TL;DR is that Graham Linehan is a comedian turned TERF and he started making a list of TERF therapists (aka conversion therapists), rightfully got a lot of flak, and then went on BBC Newsnight and came out looking like the asshole he is, and also published a bunch of whiney op eds about how he lost work because he’s a transphobic dipshit.
Notice how all of these losers aren’t even discussing the content of the movie ?
For some *valid* criticism of BoP, I’ll redirect you to someone who isn’t tallking out of their ass :
https://twitter.com/GailSimone/status/1225801259485024257
Do the folks at the Daily Stormer realize who, overwhelmingly, invented American superhero comics? And why so many American superheroes were punching Nazis long before the U.S.’s entry into World War II?
(The elephant in the living room is wearing a yarmulke.)
@ full metal ox
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/30/take-that-mr-hitler-the-jewish-roots-of-superheroes
Warren’s been completely ignored by the media, who are busy drooling over old white dudes. Sigh. We haven’t advanced an inch since 2016.
It’s an uphill battle. 8chan trolls are doing what they can to disrupt the Democratic primaries, like clogging up the poll lines in Iowa. Trump wants most to run against Sanders, and lo and behold, Sanders is surging to an early lead. GOP activists are openly urging Republicans to go vote for Sanders in the North Carolina primary, and no doubt they’re doing that in other states as well.. It doesn’t hurt Trump at all since he already has a lock on the GOP nomination. Some states aren’t even bothering to hold a Republican primary.
The rigging has already started.
Re: box office, it takes colossal self-absorption to think that if a movie fails to bring in big box office, it’s proof that the industry needs to cater more to horny white men, whose moviegoing dollars are the most valuable. Even when a movie doesn’t center them, these guys still find a way to center themselves.
@WWTH
Well, we only want to work to keep ourselves busy. We don’t need the money because of all that sweet sweet Social Security cash. My COL increase this year was a whopping $16 a month! How can employers compete with that?