Film criticism and reporting has a bro problem and it's never more evident than it is whenever Kathleen Kennedy's name comes up.
Now that I've had my delicious Saturday night curry, I would like to further expand up on my points in regards to the bro problem of film criticism and reporting, particularly online. Buckle up, kids!
A couple of months ago, the wonderful @patrickhwillems did a video on the importance of film criticism. In it, he touched upon how many people are turning to chatty YouTube vlog reviews over traditional critics in the written form.
Willems expanded on how more were putting their trust in the casual reviewer whose style is rooted in their deliberately non-professional manner, and how this tends to limit the criticism we consume because those voices are so uniformly straight white dudes who like Batman.
I think this problem has seeped into film reporting as much as criticism, both on YouTube and in web coverage of the industry: It's the same faces, the same opinions, and the same narrow approach to the topics in hand, all under the guise of being just dudes chatting it up.
There's nothing wrong with this approach. It's clearly popular & frequently entertaining, but it's becoming increasingly dominant, especially on YouTube. Too often, the work isn't especially substantive & veers into some questionable areas.
I watched one video where a guy tried to spin a "just asking questions" conspiracy that James Franco may have been nominated for an Oscar this year but the Academy chose to quietly remove it and add a new Best Actor nominee. That's not just bad reporting: That's 4Chan territory.
I've seen so many reports on trailers, industry news, box office, etc, that's mostly vague platitudes with no real meat on the topics in hand. Sometimes, basic information is missed out, like info on source material or how the names of people involved are pronounced.
I get why most of this stuff is heavily geared towards the same topics - Marvel, DC, Star Wars, the major franchises - because hey, got to get the clicks. I sympathize. It's a tough model to work in. But why does everyone have the same opinions & approaches?
This is also an industry problem: The big publications still primarily employ straight white dudes to cover the big stories, regardless of their reputations. Need I go into that old history again?
It's an internet problem too. There aren't a massive amount of women, PoC, LGBTQ+ people, etc, doing YouTube based film criticism & reporting. Can you blame anyone for wanting to sit out working on a site whose comments sections are infamously nasty?
And it's such a wasted opportunity too, because there are great people on YouTube bringing fresh approaches to film & pop culture criticism/reporting. They take advantage of the platform's tools & model to reinvigorate old issues. We need more of that.
The bro problem of our industry leads to the same exclusionary tactics we see happen in every field with gender & racial disparities: You have to be 10x as good as mediocrity, avoid substance because that makes you an evil SJW, and pretend comment death threats don't bother you.
And while I'm at it, you can criticize Kathleen Kennedy all you want (seriously, no women directors on Star Wars yet?), but let's not pretend that the most prominent woman director in the industry in charge of a geek bro idol getting this level of hate is par for the course.
