Instead of criticizing Hollywood for making movies that suck, the corporate media have decided to attack the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
This is as desperate as it gets.
The far-left Vulture is tearing into the 25-year-old site as the “most overrated metric in movies” and one that is “erratic, reductive, and easily hacked[.]”
Launched in 1998, Rotten Tomatoes invites movie critics (now in the thousands) to file their reviews, which are then assigned a “fresh” or “rotten” rating. If at least 60 percent of reviewers like the movie, the movie is given a “fresh” rating. Below 60 percent leaves you with a “rotten” rating.
In other words, Rotten Tomatoes is a review aggregator with a binary “good/bad” result.
Vulture spends about three thousand words reheating past criticisms from the likes of Martin Scorsese. There’s also a sordid tale of a small distributor offering $50 for reviews and convincing some of those paid reviewers not to publish their negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, resulting in a higher score.
There is also a ton of lament for the lost world of the “influential critic,” along with frustration over Hollywood tailoring its movie and television content to earn a “fresh” score. But…
The real question is, Why now?
Rotten Tomatoes has been Rotten Tomatoes for 25 years. Rotten Tomatoes has been highly influential for over 15 years. So…
Why now?
Why this attack now?
Let’s begin with some disclosure…
- I’m not a fan of Rotten Tomatoes.
- Although I qualified more than 15 years ago, I have not joined Rotten Tomatoes.
- I have never been paid to write a review.
- But that’s only because no one has offered.
With very rare exceptions, I find that 99.9 percent of Rotten Tomatoes’ reviewers fall into three categories: 1) didactic leftists who review from a political rather than artistic point of view, 2) studio suck-ups who love the swag, and 3) a combination of one and two. So, no, I’m not a fan, and Rotten Tomatoes has failed so often in guiding my choices that I don’t bother looking anymore. The site’s biggest problem is that woke, left-wing garbage is graded on an affirmative action curve.
As far as me not joining Rotten Tomatoes, that’s only because I think joining is stupid.
But back to the question of… Why now?
There are three answers to that question, the first being the easiest…
Disney.
Over the last 18 months or so, almost all of Disney’s movies and streaming shows have been getting murdered at Rotten Tomatoes and, by extension, in the ratings and box office. And when the Disney Grooming Syndicate is unhappy, the earth rattles as corporate media sycophants strap on battle gear.
Tell me, what else has changed over the last 25 years?
That’s it. That is all that has changed: Disney’s fortunes have reversed.
What? For 30 years, Siskel and Ebert delivered their verdicts with thumbs up/thumbs down… For 25 years, Rotten Tomatoes has done the same with fresh/rotten… But only now is binary judgment an obscenity against art.
Please.
The second reason is that guys like Disney CEO Bob Iger need a scapegoat.
You see, Hollywood will never admit its product sucks because doing so would be an admission the public rejects Hollywood’s political agenda. So Hollywood needs a scapegoat, and why not Rotten Tomatoes? Blame it on reviewers, even though 99.9 percent of reviewers share Hollywood’s politics but still can’t bring themselves to give all this woke crap a pass. That’s how bad the product is.
The third answer is that this article is the first cannon shot across the Rotten Tomatoes’ bow. The goal is to pressure the site into changing its template into something that will better serve the studios. Disney doesn’t want to see another $430 million Indiana Jones and the Dial of Disney Grooms Kids torpedoed at Rotten Tomatoes. Disney wants glowing reviews, and this assault on Rotten Tomatoes—who will undoubtedly acquiesce—is only the beginning.
Rotten Tomatoes is a lousy and useless site, but Rotten Tomatoes didn’t ruin movies. Woketards ruined movies, and now the woketards are hoping to game the system to get the kind of glowing scores that will sucker us into laying down our money for their lousy product.
Even if it works, it will be temporary.
This all goes back to the imminent loss of cable/satellite TV. For four decades, the studios made billions producing content no one watched but still paid for. Merit wasn’t an issue with cable because 100 million American households paid for dozens of channels they never watched. Streaming is not only killing cable; streaming requires merit. We have to like what you offer to pay for it. The result? Every streaming outlet not named Netflix is losing billions, and the studios and their media sycophants are running out of moves.
This dumb attack on Rotten Tomatoes is an act of naked panic.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.