Though it won’t hit theaters for another three weeks, Captain Marvel is already being review bombed on Rotten Tomatoes. These reviews aren’t from critics or journalists, but from angry impotent men flooding the audience reviews with their anger. What are they angry about? So many things!
Men are shouting from basements all across the land about Brie Larson, her feminism and liberal politics, how Captain Marvel is an SJW film, and ARG WOMEN I HATE THEM WHY WON’T THEY LOVE ME!? Sidebar: I still don’t get how “social justice warrior” is an insult? Like, those are all good qualities and it’s basically a superhero name. If anyone needs someone to write a Social Justice Warrior origin story, call me.
The point of this kind of review bombing campaign is to drag down the average audience rating to discourage folks from seeing the film. In some instances it works, like with 2016’s Ghostbusters, which suffered from massive downvoting of the trailer on YouTube, as well as a rush of one star IMDb reviews. The film even added a scene featuring the Ghostbusters reading nasty internet comments about themselves in a moment of meta-awareness.
Other films subjected to angry review bombing and toxic fandom are Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Black Panther, both of which were targeted by racist trolls. Facebook even had to shut down a group recruiting people to write bad reviews about Black Panther on Rotten Tomatoes. Before being shut down, the group had already garnered 4,000 followers.
While neither film suffered at the box office (both films grossed over $1 billion worldwide) or at the hands of critics (both scored over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes), the virulent anger and unabashed racism resulted in Kelly Marie Tran and Daisy Ridley taking hiatuses from social media. It’s frustrating and demoralizing that a small but vocal group of trolls can make someone’s life on social media miserable.
And while the trolls are currently setting their sights on Carol Danvers, it’s unlikely that they will sway the film’s box office or critical reception. The film is now tracking at an expected opening weekend of $120 million and rising. Now that’s pretty marvelous.
(via ComicBook.com, image: Disney)
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