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Notes -
Is Germany "a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct genocide"?
Okay, more seriously (and less "bare link" phrased, Jeopardy-style, in the form of a question), does anyone else see things like this as part of an overall "strategy" by the left that strongly parallels the behaviors in recent years of "woke Hollywood" and game studios? That is, use identity politics as a tool to paint critics and opponents as bigots ('you don't hate our all-female reboot because it's a soulless cash grab with lousy writing and acting, you're just a sexist', 'you didn't vote for Kamala only because you hate blacks and/or women,' etc). "Schrödinger's critics": your opposition is just a few unimportant bigots who don't represent the audience/electorate and don't really matter; but when your movie/game/candidate flops, it's because of the immense power those same opponents have over the viewers/players/voters. The problem is that too many people are listening to fringe voices (whether that's YouTube movie critics, video game reviewers on Twitch, or 'purveyors of right wing misinformation' like Fox News and x.com), instead of professional, establishment movie critics/game journalists/political commentators; and we need to figure out how to mute those fringe voices. Taking your established fanbase/demographics for granted, and excoriate them if their support starts to wane ('how can you call yourself a Tolkien fan and not watch Rings of Power?' 'Sure, the Democrat party's policies do nothing for you, but you have to vote blue no matter who anyway' [a position I've seen left-wing YouTubers state in response to the election]).
In short, that you, the filmmaker/game studio/Democratic party, don't answer to your audience/voters, the audience/voters answer to you. You do not have to earn their dollars/votes, you are entitled to them, and if they aren't buying what you're selling, then they're wrong, and the strategy is to lecture them on what horrible bigots they are until they start watching your movie/playing your game/voting Democrat. And calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist. (That "Unfortunately, this decision affects the wrong people" bit is wild coming from those making the decision in question — as if they have no agency over this decision, but it is instead somehow just a natural consequence somehow emerging automatically.) As Jim put it: "Doing an audit of federal government expenditures is the death of democracy, and doing a customer survey is openly fascist."
Even shorter: it's treating that Simpsons bit with Principal Skinner that's become a meme — "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." — as a marketing/campaign strategy.
There’s a difference between strategy and reflex. I think what you’re seeing from Hollywood is the latter. Mass media hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that it’s Balkanizing.
Producers want to be culturally relevant. Audiences want to feel like they’re witnessing the next big thing. Both are measuring success by the moviegoing culture of their childhoods. Neither has adapted to the realities of modern movie distribution, which has made movies much more accessible but also softened their cultural impact.
The easiest way for producers to defend their egos (and budgets) is cherry-picking. Conveniently, technology has also increased the accessibility of reviews, diluting the influence of movie critics. As it turns out, it’s much easier to discredit Internet randos than critics with skin in the game. “Racism” is occasionally a convenient way to gerrymander a line around the loudest critics of a film.
Audiences buy in whenever it is in their own interest. The obvious examples are all-female reboots and 80s nostalgia grabs, but I’ll add another genre: the Christian drama. It doesn’t matter if Fireproof is critically panned; it fills a market niche. They’ve got their own awards and their own box-office success.
Hollywood doesn’t want to play to that model because it spent so long as the cultural touchstone. Hence, racism.
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