I'll start with this tweet thread that explains it well.

“Fan-baiting” is a form of marketing used by producers, film studios, and actors, with the intent of exciting artificial controversy, garnering publicity, and explaining away the negative reviews of a new and often highly anticipated production. 1/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Fan-baiting emerged as a marketing strategy in 2016/17, after fans of beloved franchises such as Ghostbusters and Star Wars objected to what they saw as poor writing choices, sloppy scripts, and cheap alterations to plot lines and characters for the sake of shock value. 2/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Along side these critics, there was a small group of bigoted but vociferous commentators who objected to the inclusion of black and female actors in roles traditionally held by white male actors. Some of these individuals began publicly harassing actors. 3/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Bigots have always attacked diversity on screen, but in a highly polarized political climate, instances of harassment on garnered disproportionately massive media coverage, which provided production studios with both free publicity and a new defence against actual critics. 4/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Studios seized the opportunity to discredit criticism of poor writing & acting, insinuating that these, too, were motivated by bigotry. What used to be accepted as standard critiques were increasingly dismissed as part of the ignorant commentary of a “toxic fandom.” 5/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Soon, it became standard practice before release to issue announcements specifying diverse casting choices, coupled with pre-emptive declarations of solidarity with the cast whom they now counted on to receive disparaging and harassing comments. 6/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Actors who are women and/or BIPOC became props & shields for craven corporate laziness and opportunism. The studios save money both by avoiding expensive veteran writers as well as by offloading publicity to news outlets and social media covering the artificial controversy. 7/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

“Fan-baiting” works. It brings in a new sympathetic audience whose endorsement is more about taking a public stance against prejudice than any real interest in the art. “Fan-baiting” also permits studios to cultivate public skepticism over the legitimacy of poor reviews. 8/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

“Fan-baiting” also compels reviewers to temper their criticism, for fear of becoming associated with the “toxic fandom” and losing their professional credibly, resulting in telling discrepancies between critic and audience review scores. 9/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

The true nature of “fan-baiting” is never so clear as when a script is well-crafted and audience reviews are accordingly positive, exposing the announcements, declarations of solidarity, & grooming of skepticism for what they really are: cynical corporate marketing tactics. 10/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

Put another way, media corporations have found a way to monetize the racism that they set their actors up to receive. 11/10

— Dr. Thala Siren (@DrThalaSiren) September 9, 2022

This was where I saw the thread


I won't say much more and I'll open it up for discussion, but this has become my major grievance with modern movies and shows. It's really almost become the point where a franchise is waiving a flag for how terrible the writing of a show is by how much they push the diversity of it's cast instead of promoting the story. TCTTS has commented before on how the studios have diversity quotas now on casting, but I also wonder how much studios really save on top script writers by hiding behind a criticism proof "diverse cast". Anyway, fire away.

This should be an entertaining thread

most will think this is about the Olivia Wilde movie but i think all this to save the woman King from the slaughter it's likely going to receive.

interesting take.

last i saw that movie had 100% on RT and hasn't had audience reviews yet. should be interesting.

The 10-part Tweet has 11 tweets, which renders it completely invalid.

I cant imagine anyone wants to read all of those tweets

The gist of it is in the first one, I know this is the Eboard and it's ok to be lazy.

hunter2012 said:

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The gist of it is in the first one, I know this is the Eboard and it's ok to be lazy.

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its not a question of being lazy

"Fans objected to character changes for shock value."
"But objecting to character changes for shock value is bigoted if they're black or female characters."
"Bigots objecting to ****ty choices gives studios cover against real critics."

WTF do you think you're doing right here? You can't say that criticizing blackwashing and womanwashing as lazy and misguided is bigoted and then complain that that exact thing that you're doing is what gives studios carte blanche to make **** choices and then chalk criticism up to strawman bigotry. Maybe all those "bigots" are just ten steps ahead of you and saw this did what it was long before you did.

Gonna need more popcorn for this.

I don't buy it. I think most people are capable of being able to separate the two when they choose to go or not go. And in today's world, unless you go on opening night there are countless unfiltered movie review to read. Few people will go to see a bad movie just to support some abstract cause.

So there's some valid points here along with some pretty big reaches. My big one:

Quote:

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The studios save money both by avoiding expensive veteran writers…

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This is pretty much pure conjecture. Rian Johnson wrote The Last Jedi. Paul Feig was one of the writers on the female Ghostbusters. Gary Ross (Hunger Games) was one of the Oceans 8 writers.

fig96 said:

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So there's some valid points here along with some pretty big reaches. My big one:

Quote:

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The studios save money both by avoiding expensive veteran writers…

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This is pretty much pure conjecture. Rian Johnson wrote The Last Jedi. Paul Feig was one of the writers on the female Ghostbusters. Gary Ross (Hunger Games) was one of the Oceans 8 writers.

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Yep, the concept is valid. It's frankly common sense in this age of dumbness we now live in.

Agree on the conjecture though or at least I won't say that happens because I don't keep up with who writes stuff in Hollywood. But the diversity force field is certainly a thing to stave off legitimate criticism. It's a basic tactic in all phases of life these days.

It's like the old force field of when someone would play the Jesus card or America card back when that used to work.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was trash. It wasn't funny. It wasn't entertaining. That's all I took from this. Afterlife was legit.

C@LAg said:

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I tried fan-bating once.

too much blowback.

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*slow clap*



Let's just leave this thread here

Is OP referring to ****ty characters like Rose Tico
in the Star Wars movies? I hated that character because the scenes she was in were cringey AF.

The Star Wars sequels were among the most crappily written movies that I've seen in recent years. Mostly rehashing from the earlier movies, especially in The Force Awakens. The Rose character had the basis of a decent character arc and good motivation for being in the resistance, but when you bring in all the preachiness through the saving of the racing horse things or the saving what we love line, you expose your own motivations in political terms rather than anything the character might believe.

I stopped reading the tweets when this idiot begins whining about bigotry and POC non-sense.

Is it too hard to just come up with new characters for these POC/women to portray? I will not rush out to see this new Little Mermaid (not really in the target audience with a teen daughter who prefers gross-out horror stuff to Disney these days), but even if she was still little, I'd not be excited about that movie. This dingbat person would call me a bigot I suppose, but she can pound rocks for all I care. The Little Mermaid is clearly not a non-white character, no matter if we're going back to the Anderson tale or the Disney cartoon. Another poster claims the actress can sing, which is great and is certainly a requirement for the role. So you're telling me that there aren't any white actresses that can sing? Or is it that you are more interested in a political statement? (Spoiler alert - it's the latter).

There have been suggestions of Idris Elba portraying 007. No issue on that with me even though the character has always been portrayed as white. I don't know if Fleming actually wrote the character as white, having never read the books, but James Bond seems to be a character who could be any ethnicity. Given he is in Britain, and especially given the time period in which the original novels were written, chances are high that the character should be white, but in the current time there is no reason why he could not be non-white.

Superman as a black man? Another who has always been white from his origins in the 30s to present day. Could he be black? I suppose so, but that as a film is likely to fail due to going against a very well known expectation rather than any bigotry. I would see it as a Superman fan, but Superman as a black man would not be my first choice. Of course, if they can do something like Red Son, where Kal-El crashed in the USSR rather than the USA and became a commie superhero who was still white, I suppose they could pull of a black Superman.

Thor as a woman? I've never read the comic, but seems to my memory that the comic was a rather recent thing. I would object to the idea that Thor is suddenly female. The recent movie handled it alright (overall the movie was not that great but not because of Jane Foster wielding the hammer) although I'm not recalling how JF became worthy for the hammer.

Bottom line - audiences, POC, and women would be better off if the writers would develop new characters and tell better stories rather than just co-opting existing characters for "shock value" alone or re-telling old stories so often.

I think this is both real, and blown out of proportion by people looking for something "woke" to be mad about. If you immerse yourself in the social media spin cycle you will never fail to find outrage.


Studios have always pushed back against critics, and I don't think questioning critics motives is exactly new either.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Superman as a black man? Another who has always been white from his origins in the 30s to present day. Could he be black? I suppose so, but that as a film is likely to fail due to going against a very well known expectation rather than any bigotry. I would see it as a Superman fan, but Superman as a black man would not be my first choice. Of course, if they can do something like Red Son, where Kal-El crashed in the USSR rather than the USA and became a commie superhero who was still white, I suppose they could pull of a black Superman.

Thor as a woman? I've never read the comic, but seems to my memory that the comic was a rather recent thing. I would object to the idea that Thor is suddenly female. The recent movie handled it alright (overall the movie was not that great but not because of Jane Foster wielding the hammer) although I'm not recalling how JF became worthy for the hammer.

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This was an impressive rant and completely missed the point of the tweets, but you do you.

These two points are completely off, though. In your rage at seeing a black person or woman on the screen, you failed to realize that 1) Black Adam is an established comic book character. This is not just a case where they decided to make Superman black. (Although, granted, Black Adam was a white guy in the comics).

2) Jane was a Thor in the comics (first happened in 1977). So again, this is not some "woke" Hollywood writers retconning a character.

BowSowy said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Superman as a black man? Another who has always been white from his origins in the 30s to present day. Could he be black? I suppose so, but that as a film is likely to fail due to going against a very well known expectation rather than any bigotry. I would see it as a Superman fan, but Superman as a black man would not be my first choice. Of course, if they can do something like Red Son, where Kal-El crashed in the USSR rather than the USA and became a commie superhero who was still white, I suppose they could pull of a black Superman.

Thor as a woman? I've never read the comic, but seems to my memory that the comic was a rather recent thing. I would object to the idea that Thor is suddenly female. The recent movie handled it alright (overall the movie was not that great but not because of Jane Foster wielding the hammer) although I'm not recalling how JF became worthy for the hammer.

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This was an impressive rant and completely missed the point of the tweets, but you do you.

These two points are completely off, though. In your rage at seeing a black person or woman on the screen, you failed to realize that 1) Black Adam is an established comic book character. This is not just a case where they decided to make Superman black. (Although, granted, Black Adam was a white guy in the comics).

2) Jane was a Thor in the comics (first happened in 1977). So again, this is not some "woke" Hollywood writers retconning a character.

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Reading apparently is not your strong suit, it would seem, as I plainly stated that I stopped reading the tweets as soon as I saw the word bigotry.

I love how you assign "rage" to me based on what I wrote here. But as you said so eloquently, you do you. Oh, and when someone posts something with which you disagree, it's a "rant". Got it.

I did indicate that I knew Jane was a Thor in the comics, although again, I plainly stated that I have not read the comics, ever, and only recall a recent iteration where Thor was some big boobed gal rather than what I have come to expect solely based on a series of recent movies. I also plainly stated that the most recent Thor movie handled Jane as a wielder of the hammer in a decent fashion, in case you missed that in all my raged-filled rantings.

Black Superman has not been made, to my knowledge (other than a line in a F&F movie). I do know that Michael B Jordan has been announced as potentially portraying Superman in some future movie, but having never read the comics, I can't say if Superman has ever been portrayed there as a black man. Perhaps since you know everything about the comics and are so much more enlightened, you can tell me whether Supes has ever been black in the comics? I honestly did not know the character Black Adam existed until I started seeing the trailers for the movie, so I don't give a crap whether he's supposed to be black or white. You say he is white in the comics, so I'll take your word for that. Had to look up The Rock's ethnicity, as I always thought he was Samoan or some such Pacific Islander, but see that his father was a Black Canadian. Ok, so we're giving him the Obama treatment - he's a black man and nevermind any other heritage in there. Great.

That's alot of tweet to state the obvious. "Movie people do stuff for free publicity", no **** Sherlock.

PatAg said:

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hunter2012 said:

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The gist of it is in the first one, I know this is the Eboard and it's ok to be lazy.

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its not a question of being lazy

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No, it's a question of challenging your perspective which makes you uncomfortable, especially when done in intelligently. And if you can read message boards during normal work hours, will assume you can read all 10+1 tweets relatively quickly without blowing up your daily schedule.

Of all the characters to be hung up on race, the Little Mermaid is an odd one to me.

She's only white because she was written by a guy 150 years ago in one of the whitest countries imaginable (Denmark was over 95% people of Danish origin into the 1990s) and if anything it makes perfect sense for a member of an undersea race to have a different skin tone than people on land.

Diverse casting also brings in historically underserved audiences, and while it doesn't matter to some representation does matter. If it didn't benefit the corporations in some way they wouldn't do it.

PatAg said:

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hunter2012 said:

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The gist of it is in the first one, I know this is the Eboard and it's ok to be lazy.

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its not a question of being lazy

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I've said this before, someone could post the secret to immortality as a Twitter thread and I wouldn't read it.

The only thing worse than a Twitter thread are the jackasses that post pictures of text to try and get around the character limit

Preach

fig96 said:

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Diverse casting also brings in historically underserved audiences, and while it doesn't matter to some representation does matter. If it didn't benefit the corporations in some way they wouldn't do it.

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Does it though? That's what I'm questioning. Does Hollywood have sales numbers that show increased revenue if x demographic is represented in the cast and pushed in the films' promotional tour? How does antagonizing the fanbase, by calling their criticism racist, before the release improve views at launch? Are sympathy/solidarity views really that many more than a rabid fanbase that wants a good story and a good cast? In a prior discussion with TCTTS, I was left with the impression that it's political decisions by the studios even if it's at the cost of revenue. It's a marketing decision to avoid negative publicity of having a lily white, male lead cast, versus a diverse cast and using them as a cover to excuse a poorly scripted, poor SFX, and/or poorly acted franchise. Notice how they largely do not do this with non-franchise stand alone movies.

I would be curious to see viewership demographic trends, I'd bet white male audiences are viewing less and less movies and shows than before, so studios are chasing other demographics to make up for lost revenue.

fig96 said:

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She's only white because she was written by a guy 150 years ago in one of the whitest countries imaginable (Denmark was over 95% people of Danish origin into the 1990s)

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Oh, okay. I guess that's a good enough reason.

EclipseAg said:

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fig96 said:

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She's only white because she was written by a guy 150 years ago in one of the whitest countries imaginable (Denmark was over 95% people of Danish origin into the 1990s)

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Oh, okay. I guess that's a good enough reason.

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Now imagine the outrage if a snow white pigmented actress was the "Woman King". A white actress playing a monarch in Africa with no explanation why a white woman would be in charge of an African nation would be riot level triggering. Of course it makes no sense, and critics would say so. For example, Gal Gadot has been raked over the coals for her upcoming Cleopatra role. The critics are crying about the role being played by a white woman despite the fact that the historical Cleopatra was from the Ptolemy Family and they were freaking Greek. Greek.

EclipseAg said:

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fig96 said:

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She's only white because she was written by a guy 150 years ago in one of the whitest countries imaginable (Denmark was over 95% people of Danish origin into the 1990s)

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Oh, okay. I guess that's a good enough reason.

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The point is that unlike other characters, her skin color/racial make up isn't an inherent aspect of her character.

Superman, for example, would be a different story if Clark Kent grew up as a young black kid in the farmlands of Kansas. Changing the background of a fairy tale mermaid in a made up kingdom has zero effect on the story.

fig96 said:

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She's only white because she was written by a guy 150 years ago in one of the whitest countries imaginable (Denmark was over 95% people of Danish origin into the 1990s)

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So you recognize the mythos is white. You recognize the culture that spawned it is white. You just choose to inject pluralism into the story because your values, and then you complain about people who desire it "stick to its source."

Whats happening in Hollywood is they are putting an ad to sell a red Ferrari. When you get there its blue, and then you look under the hood and its Ford Escort. Yeah...it has the body of the Ferrari, but it doesnt have the engine and it wasnt what was advertised.

If you want to make tales with black characters go for it. Surely there are good stories out there. But taking existing IP and adding blackface is insulting to everyone involved. By making a story of black mermaid, you are signaling that black representation exists only by co-opting white culture.


I got news for you, most people want to see a pale redhead, virginal Ariel, not "diverse female lead"

My view....

If a character has already been visibly portrayed and entered into mainstream culture, then any future representation of that character should resemble as closely as possible the original representation. Any character that has not been represented is fair game unless source material clearly states otherwise.

Regarding the Rings of Power; if Galadriel was recast as black, Asian, or an other race then I would have an issue as Galadriel is described as fair skinned in the books and has already been portrayed by Cate Blanchett. The dwarf queen Disa or Arondir? No issue whatsoever and doesn't bother me.

I view the portrayal of Ariel in the same light as if they changed the hair color to blonde instead of red.

Benefits could be revenue, PR, new fans, etc. If it was clearly hurting the bottom line in a significant way then you'd see at least a change.