We’ve long been fans of the hilarious Honest Trailers, so it was hard to know what would happen to the series when its co-founder, Andy Signore, was fired in early October over multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault. But Honest Trailers is doing just fine without Signore.
In the direct wake of the Harvey Weinstein accusations coming to light, Signore was fired from Defy Media for what is alleged to be decades of harassing behavior. Variety reported that as we’ve seen many times before, allegations against Signore passed without repercussion until the Weinstein scandal helped change the public response to harassment, and left companies without wiggle-room to sweep it under the rug.
One woman, April Dawn, alleged that Signore tried to sexually assault her “on multiple occasions” and that he had threatened to fire her boyfriend, Screen Junkies employee Josh Tapia, if she went public. According to Dawn, she informed Defy Media’s human-resources department about Signore’s behavior two months ago but “all they’ve done is protect him.”
When more and more women came forward and with Weinstein blaring from every headline, Defy Media now worked quickly to fire Signore, writing in a statement:
In August, Defy’s HR team was made aware of allegations made against Andy, at which time an investigation was launched. On Friday, new information became available and the scope and magnitude of his inappropriate actions became apparent. We are acting swiftly to address the concerns of the people affected, and that going forward, our community is free of harassment or discrimination of any kind.
I suppose this was a better late than never scenario, but it’s clear that the months-old initial “investigation” couldn’t have been very thorough. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, and left me wondering how I’d feel about Honest Trailers and ScreenJunkies, which Signore also created, going forward.
Here the rest of the ScreenJunkies team frankly discusses “what happened, what’s happening next.” (There’s an in-depth write-up of the video’s content from Indiewire, in case you can’t watch right now.) “I think ‘Honest Trailers’ is going to continue until the entropic heat death of the universe, it’ll always be around as long as ScreenJunkies is around,” says Honest Trailers writer Spencer Gilbert. And he was right.
It’s a relief to see Honest Trailers succeeding Signore-free. In the trailer at top, they tackle Spider-Man: Homecoming with the tongue-in-cheek, loving-but-ribbing humor that has been their trademark. Let’s take a look.
“Complete with a glossed-over origin story, an actor that doesn’t have premature old face, and a villain that doesn’t already have some forced personal connection to Peter Parker—”
(Oh, whoops. About that. Yeah, um. Peter, there’s something you should know about Liz’s father.)
“Witness a brand new take on Spider-Man … he’s … a millennial now, who can’t stay off his phone …”
“… constantly blogs, watches himself on YouTube, and has zero patience for anything.”
(They’re not wrong.)
“He’s got all of the spidey skills, plus a powerful new one … never facing consequences for his actions.”
(They are double not wrong.)
“Wow, the older I get the more I relate to J. Jonah Jameson.”
(‘TIS TRUE, ‘TIS TRUE. At what point in life do we cross over from sympathizing with Peter to totally understanding where J.J.J. is coming from?)
“He’s a menace to the entire city!”
“You’ve seen him as Batman, and Birdman. Now. prepare for Michael Keaton’s third winged creature role. He’s a blue-collar guy who gets shafted by Stark Industries, and instead of filing a lawsuit against a billionaire clearly in the wrong, he’ll … build a giant bird mech jetpack.”
(Where is the lie. Although I doubt it would’ve been fun to take on Tony Stark’s lawyers in court, whereas a giant bird mech jetpack is fun.)
“You’ll be bored stiff when Vulture fights Spider-Man in bland CGI slugfests, but genuinely scared when he’s just being Michael Keaton.”
“Sorry, Uncle Ben and Richard Parker … there’s a new absentee dad in town—Tony Stark.”
“Ironman is back, as the drunk rich stepfather you’d expect him to be.”
(This is exactly what I imagine Tony Stark to be in his off-hours.)
“Really, Tony? You just fought your best friend over keeping tabs on superheroes. And you let your pet superhero run amuck?! Is anyone paying attention to the timeline anymore?”
(There’s a joke here about X-Men’s continuity I won’t spoil.)
“Dang, it’s like Sony finally cracked the code on how to make the Spiderverse work … let Marvel do the work.”
Starring, amongst others …
And my personal favorite and new desktop background:
So keep doing your thing, Honest Trailers. This proves that you’re much bigger than any one person, and we’re glad that we can keep watching and laughing along with you.
(via Variety, YouTube, image: screengrab)
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