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.
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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Concerning Buttigieg:
Vellum & Vinyl had an entire thread on his past and policies, so he’s definitely not just “sketchy”. He has a racist past as well, to my understanding:
https://www.facebook.com/vellumandvinyl/posts/2823709784389081?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARAWDHt2jc-PiAFd49JGEhLdXW4e38uCl8du33WSUSgOUpPLr6AEavtd2DWxiZeQQ080aIO_8EjytS9HoAL6NDwdo7fRSxS8RKniR1srkYYdxGUZHqOQoEwCa2M3io1QLrrmljSvyFGvtvhBA1uy3dtc0Uv1tf9tdeVlTyZfvosugs3Csy8NxhVkiN_EZEvxvZcFgt_3hV18PlDHXX-PfndONZw1_9yJLXBGVv1a-0sWcpV5bvcSJAORB8mdR_PrVSiK4l3afng6pM5OjDg39e0kprIYuvjhDxozKxtWAuldw3b6jc11LeiIoSHbab325RboSJhP3hWMgKC5qhwP&__tn__=H-R
Tbh I didn’t think Sanders would perform so well, given that he and Warren are running almost the same platform and she has none of his baggage. I’m just glad to see it’s not fucking Biden, the guy is an entitled fucking douchebag that has told voters on four separate occassions to go vote for somebody else, when confronted about his policies.
BTW: There was a non-Harley Quinn live-action tv show that got canceled after one season. It was low budget, so it’s not always gonna be something that people will like, even if you are into super hero genre TV in general.
That said, I liked the characters a lot. Really the worst thing about it is the fight choreography (which, for a super hero show, is a bad place to have a weakness and probably a large part of why the show failed) but there’s also some places where the show doesn’t build the excitement/ suspense that it could because of pacing problems internal to each episode.
But the characters, as I mentioned, are good and do most of the driving in the show. The pacing of the season (rather than separate episodes) is also good. If you’re home with the flu or just in the mood to watch women kicking ass, you can still watch it for free entirely legally on The CW here.
SPOILER ALERT
lorem ipsum junkem punkem the title character of the movie version of BoP does show up in later episodes, but isn’t part of the hero group. punkem junkem ipsum lorem.
I don’t know about y’all but I’m done with winter at this point
@Didgo Duarte
Holy shit. I knew Buttigieg was bad news, but I didn’t realize quite how awful he was. Next time someone says they like Buttigieg I’ll send them that thread.
I‘m a bit concerned about Bloomberg’s massive rise in the polls. He’s also got a history of racism and is quite similar to Trump.
@Lainy
I agree. I’m forecasted more snow tomorrow and am dreading it.
@Snowberry
Oh man, my favourite anti-BoP tweet was the guys unironically comparing Margot Robbie on the set of the film to a Rule34 porn image of Harley Quinn. Not even an image of Harley from a DC comic, but the SFW version of a commissioned porn pic from an artist’s Patreon.
There’s a conversation to be had about the effect that fanservice has on the relationship between creator and audience, but fanservice indicates that it’s the creator that’s deploying it. Seeing third-party spank material affecting that relationship is… interesting to say the least.
Yet, it feels entirely predictable based on how these characters are often marketed and designed for mass consumption. I think it’s safe to say that Harley Quinn has broadly supplanted Catwoman as “the” sexy DC villainess, so when it came to the Arkham Series for example, she was all over the advertising material with her cleavage-showing outfit and tight leather pants. So if that’s the limit of your engagement with your character in official media, no wonder you expect her to conform to it more broadly.
Just speaking as an amateur smut artist myself (must… finish… Valentines mini comic….), I’ve actually shied away from doing much fan artwork. I’ve done some doodles, but I’ll usually only draw characters with their creator’s expressed permission. Because if I’m putting them into lewd scenarios, I kinda want it to conform to their personalities. Otherwise it feels disrespectful to the creator. Now I can afford to do that because I don’t make my bones with art. If art was my living, and I was offered a good commission for a popular comic character like Harley Quinn, I have little choice but to accept. Multiply that by several artists and website like HentaiFoundry, and those only interested in the characters for spank material don’t even need to buy the official stuff any longer.
I certainly don’t, but then I don’t pretend to be a comics fan and rant about it on Twitter.
@Katamount
Is it currently possible to make a living off of creating erotic art? I know several other amateur artists who do similar stuff and all of them have other jobs where they make most of their money. I imagine some of the profitability is reduced by the amount of free stuff available online now.
Do you mean this tweet? I looked at that one and honestly I’m not sure what the problem was with Margot Robbie. She looks fine in that image. Granted, they seem to have chosen a scene where she has a rather odd facial expression, but I don’t think she looks bad. I’m guessing it’s that she doesn’t perfectly conform to their standards because she’s an actual human, not a cartoon.
@Naglfar
I know a couple of people who make a fairly large proportion of their money that way. Even with the large amount of free stuff available, people are always willing to pay big to get specific stuff commissioned. Especially if it involves obscure characters, uncommon fetishes, or both.
Apparently elements of the furry fandom are particularly fond of that stuff, I swear one of them might have spent well over a thousand dollars on commissions along those lines.
@Lainy
I will trade your winter for our Peruvian summer, cuz I am sick of the heat and having to venture out with Panama hats everywhere I go.
@Katamount
Holy hell, doing smut art is a one rabbit hole you will never climb out of. Even doing so much as regular fanart will occasionally get you the weirdest requests. Not that I’m kinkshaming people… unless they are wholeheartedly insistent that their kinks be drawn by my hand.
@Naglfar
I think it’s highly possible given how many amateur and semi-professional artists have taken to Patreon. The problem is getting there, because you have to post and publish your works regularly. And drawing and coloring takes time. If you want to improve your technique to the point you can publish a drawing every one or two weeks, you are going to have to sink a ridiculous amount of time and work into getting over that learning curve (which is quite steep).
Drawing also demands a moderate amount of talent. I have a friend who has been taking art classes for over two years and his work still does not conform to normal human shapes. He’s improved massively though, so don’t let that discourage you.
I went to see BoP this past weekend and really liked it. I haven’t seen Suicide Squad, so it wasn’t as a result of that.
I didn’t realize it hadn’t been advertised much because I thought it had. However, over the past 6 weeks or so I’ve seen a lot of movies because the theaters near me were showing all the Oscar contenders. Before almost all of those they showed a preview for BoP so I was well aware it was basically a Harley Quinn movie.
And as an aside, I really liked Ghostbusters 2016, and it bums me out that it’s so universally panned. I mean sure, there were a few flaws, but I thought it was a great fun romp. I’ve now seen the preview for the next Ghostbusters movie, and it certainly doesn’t come across as a comedy in that preview.
Anyway, I recommend BoP!
@diego
The cold and snow is just natures form of street harassment basically
That makes sense. Patreon has really changed a lot about the way content creation works online. I wasn’t planning to try to make a living off of art (I’ve already got a job I like well enough and I’m not particularly good at drawing), I was mostly just curious if it’s possible in today’s world.
Re: Patreon
I think if David set up a Patreon it might help the blog because maybe more people would donate then if it got them bonus stuff like many creators offer.
@Lainy
The cold and snow don’t force you to strip, the heat does. Which is more in line with street harassment.
@Naglfar
I suppose the answer is “yes”, but you will find that it depends a lot on luck and exposure. You have really talented people that earn enough to make a living out of Patreon, and then you have grifters who make even more by drawing voluptuous women, in a comic that sells reactionary ideas, and promise their viewers that if they reach USD 9k a month, they will draw their characters naked.
@Diego Duarte
At first I only read the first part of that sentence, “then you have grifters who make even more,” and thought you were referring to Jordan Peterson, who at his peak made an estimated $720K a year on Patreon alone.
Looks like it’s time to destroy or heavily fuck up capitalism. Capitalism is hardly neutral when it’s already benefitting the most repressive scum to walk the face of this earth.
@ diego
The cold and snow make me uncomfortable, are inconvenient, annoying, gives me anxiety, makes me less safe, dictates a lot of what i wear, makes me not want to leave the house, and is overall horrible
@Lainy
Damn, looks like what I get with the heat. I have rosacea so I have to limit my exposure to the sun’s rays and heat about as much as I can to prevent flare ups. So I feel you there. Winter is the only time of the year I can comfortably go outside.
I also have to wear suit and tie to work, so it doubly sucks.
@Naglfar
Oh the Lobster Prophet is a grifter alright, but we were limiting the scope of the topic to artists, not reactionary charlatans. I was referencing JagoDibuja, who is the Colombian artist behind “Living with Hipster Girl & Gamer Girl”.
@Diego Duarte
I have a severe form of cholinergic urticaria so the heat is unbearable to me.
Unfortunately the heat is all we have where I live.
Patreon, Kickstarter, and IndieGoGo have all changed the landscape for this sort of thing. That said, it’s long been possible to make a living off of commissioned art, even erotic art… though only for a certain number of people. Patreon basically played to the ‘long tail’, making it easier for a lot of smaller more niche people to make money by providing a framework so they didn’t have to do all the marketing and money-chasing work themselves.
@Anonymous:
Oh, it’s not just furry fandom, anime and comics fandom have people quite able to make money doing commissioned art, wall scrolls, body pillows, that sort of thing. The main thing that differentiates furry fandom from anime, comics, and other media fandom is that furry fandom tends to have a much higher proportion of OCs (Original Characters). The fact that there was never really an core canon to work from, just a concept, meant everybody made their own stuff.
This actually makes it easier for artists in furry fandom to make money, because if someone wants art of their character, they have to go out and actively commission it rather than just look around for whoever happens to be drawing Power Girl suffering a wardrobe malfunction today.
@Lainy
I feel the same way. I get seasonal depression when the days are too short and it’s cold. I’ve been feeling a bit better since it’s now lighter in the mornings, but it’s still too cold. My dog helps somewhat, because she loves this weather and seeing her enjoying it makes me feel better.
@Naglfar
That’s the one.
@Diego Duarte
Bingo, and I know I’m not there. My output is not nearly fast enough to warrant it. I like to work at my own pace, experiment, try things out. 🙂
What?
I was one of the people who completely enjoyed Ghostbusters, too. Its a shame that we’re not getting a sequel to that one because men hated it, while all the women and girls I spoke to loved it. It was actually pretty good, and every criticism I ever heard about it, is the exact same criticisms I heard about male oriented movies that they loved.
The same with BoP. All the women I spoke to who saw it said it was great fun (although I liked Suicide Squad, not as many women liked that movie, and part of it is that HQ from that movie is not framed the same way as the one in BoP.)
So the conclusion I reached is that men (especially white men) are never to be trusted when it comes to determining the quality of any film that is aimed at an audience that isn’t them.
Thats it! I’m no longer interested in anything a white man has to say about any movie that is aimed at women, and poc . They have proven, without doubt, to be unreliable critics, that I am never going to put in the position of determining whether or not I am going to like a movie that’s aimed at women. Frankly, nobody should.
As for weather, I’m done with late autumn. It’s like fourth consecutive November here right now.
I’m kinda sad to say that that stripperific but SFW version was sorta based on an existing canon Harley Quinn costume (the New 52 Suicide Squad one):
(People generally don’t like to remember most of the New 52.)
I just saw the movie last night and these people definitely wouldn’t like it, as I can’t recall a single moment in the film that was put there to please boners. Though luck, boys. I liked it and so did the rest of the audience, from what I could tell. The opening is especially lovely, though saying more would be a spoiler.