Posted on 06/12/2018 6:45:49 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Movie criticism is a field dominated by white men, according to a new study by researchers at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
White critics wrote 82% of the reviews of the top 100-grossing films of last year, while critics from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds penned a mere 18% of the reviews of those movies. The study notes that doesn’t reflect the representation of these ethnic and racial groups in society — U.S. census data finds that individuals from these groups comprise nearly 39% of the population.
The situation wasn’t much better when it came to the gender breakdown in the critical community. Just over 20% of the 19,559 reviews evaluated were written by women. Nearly 78% of the criticism surveyed came from men. That came out to a ratio of 3.5 male critics to every female review
To get its data, the report culled through reviews of the 100 most popular films of 2017 posted on the site Rotten Tomatoes, examining the gender and race of critics penning the appreciations.
To be sure, some of the country’s most prominent film reviewers are women. Manohla Dargis at the New York Times, Dana Stevens of Slate, and Alison Wilmore of BuzzFeed are all considered to be top voices in their field and are regarded as major tastemakers. Ironically, given the study’s findings, the late New Yorker writer Pauline Kael still reigns as perhaps the most influential force in criticism, having inspired generations of cinephiles to take up the pen. Still, the USC Annenberg numbers make it clear that the voices sounding off on the quality of films today tend to belong to men.
Even films like “Girls Trip” and “Wonder Woman” that highlighted female protagonists and attracted audiences that were disproportionately female were still primarily reviewed by men. Women wrote 30% of the reviews of the 36 highest-grossing female-driven movies of 2017. Likewise, for 24 films with underrepresented leads, fewer than 20% of reviewers were from underrepresented backgrounds.
USC Annenberg has been examining the lack of inclusion in the entertainment and media business for several years, and has published several studies documenting the lack of representation of women and minorities in major studio movies, Grammy nominees, and speaking characters in the top Nielsen-rated television shows. Dr. Stacey Smith, the founder and director of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and one of the report’s co-authors, also helped popularize the idea of inclusion riders, contract provisions that require producers to make a good faith effort to hire more women and people of color. It’s a concept that Frances McDormand drew attention to when she mentioned it during her Oscar acceptance speech. Smith believes that critics need to shake up their ranks and provide a platform to more women and people of color.
“The very individuals who are attuned to the under and misrepresentation of females on screen and behind the camera are often left out of the conversation and critiques,” said Smith in a statement. “The publicity, marketing, and distribution teams in moviemaking have an opportunity to change this quickly by increasing the access and opportunities given to women of color as film reviewers.”
It’s not my fault if non-whites don’t comment as much as me. Maybe they should speak out instead of me shutting up.
Indeed.
White and gay.
I guess it's time to bring in critics that correlate to the movie in ethnicity and gender. All other reviews should be discounted.
I left out sexual orientation. Can’t forget that.
How many of them are fags?
Maybe fewer women and nonwhites want to write reviews.
Time was women and homosexual men were the prominent film critics and buffs decades ago. It forever perverted and stunted the concept of what “classic” films were.
Later in the early 1960s other film societies (in Europe and revival screenings in America) started to explore horror films and defend that such genre pictures TOO could be classics (and Freaks went from being a banished MGM film sold to exploiter Dwain Esper in the 40s to a “Classic” that MGM claims to own again even though they sold it and dumped the negative in the ocean and screen it today with Esper’s additional exploitative opening reel).
Village Voice Media is all about Social Justice Warriors telling you why a movie will send you to “heaven or hell” like an atheist’s version of the old Catholic Legion of Decency film reviews.
Roger Ebert likewise after Gene Siskel was dead decided to go full tilt libtard in his assessment of seeing or rejecting a film.
And live theatre is mostly gay men.
Most Olympic swimmers are white. This is outrageous. Most jockeys are white! Outrageous! Maybe at basketball players and football players are whi... uh, never mind.
>>White critics wrote 82% of the reviews of the top 100-grossing films of last year
What was the racial background of 82% of the ticket buyers for the top 100 grossing films last year?
Yeah exactly.
>> U.S. census data finds that individuals from these groups comprise nearly 39% of the population.
Is that including tens of millions of non-citizen latinos?
Also for the purpose of this exercise are they rejecting the notion of “white hispanic”?
>>Manohla Dargis at the New York Times, Dana Stevens of Slate, and Alison Wilmore of BuzzFeed are all considered to be top voices in their field and are regarded as major tastemakers.
WHO? WHAT? WHERE??
I would NEVER trust Buzzfeed for advice on politics, food, arts, or culture.
Slate?
NYet Times is stodgy but at least has almost a century of film reviews to dig through.
Women and people of color can also be movie critics. All they need is:
The desire to be a movie critic.
Some semblance of qualification to be a movie critic.
Someone to accept their movie critiques.
Someone willing to publish them.
Be credible enough to continue getting the support.
If *white men* are the only ones with the moxie to fulfill all those basic requirements, then so be it.
Yeah men is a stretch
A piece by a Feminazi at Northeastern was on FR today and she said that men (especially white heterosexual men) need to step aside, refuse jobs, and essentially go to the back of the bus for the rest of their lives to atone for thousands of years of patriarchy culture.
sit down and shut up and pay your taxes
Is the point of this nonsense white men sku the reviews ?
maybe just maybe your regular Joe ticket buyers don’t care what reviewers think and see movies that interest them?
I can’t think the last time I read a reveiw from anybody of any color, gender
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