Advertise Here

  • Geek Guys Get Misogynistic When A Lady Dislikes The Avengers

    11 Comments »Pearl ClutchingApr 26, 2012

    By

    Foreground: Amy Nicholson. Background: The Internet.

    By now a big chunk of film critics have seen next week’s The Avengers and by and large they have loved the geekgasm that is Joss Whedon writing and directing a superhero team movie starring a bunch of the last three year’s tent pole superheroes.

    But then Amy Nicholson came along and she did something absolutely radical.

    She didn’t like The Avengers.

    This, in and of itself, is not a big deal. The film is at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes which means Ms. Nicholson is in the minority, and as she’s a person she is allowed her own opinion.

    Only wait, she didn’t actually dislike it that much. She gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Sure she said she knew more about the fighting panda in Tekken then she did about some central characters, and yes she said it wasn’t ambitious enough, but whatevs. That’s her opinion.

    Only the roiling darkness of the geek guy sector of the internet disagrees. They’ve come out in full force. Her review up on Rotten Tomatoes has over 300 comments last I checked. The average review has under 10.

    Over at Box Office Magazine, where her review is located there are nearly 100 comments which say things like:

    Rotten Tomatoes Update: We’re in at 38 fresh reviews versus your one desperate cry for attention, you ridiculous laughing stock. I checked your other “reviews” listed on RottenTomatoes and it’s obvious you don’t know what you’re doing. When is this writing thing going to fizzle out, so you can start making your own jewelry?

    and

    Her boss/lover says it’s better than having her make the coffee and answering phones and besides what else was she going to do with that creative writing degree daddy paid for?

    And really, if you’re a woman on the internet with opinions that don’t gel with the Geek Guy squad? This is nothing new. The most commented articles on this very site are all video game reviews where I didn’t like what all the gamer guys love. I get emails and tweets and anonymous messages on Tumblr carefully explaining why my tiny lady brain can’t comprehend the majesty of man.

    What surprises me are the myriad of white knights coming to her defense and demanding Box Office Magazine and Rotten Tomatoes immediately delete the most offensive comments.

    What will that accomplish? That’s not me being a righteous lady. I’m genuinely asking.

    Right now those comments exist and they’re awful but people are talking about them! There is an honest discourse about geek bullies going down and if those comments had been immediately deleted that would not have happened.

    It’s tough. Figuring out what should stay and what should go. I personally hate censoring people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion even if I find those opinions to be gross, and in this case, with such a mainstream critic getting verbally assaulted, it seems like a bad idea to delete the comments. It feels less like keeping the conversation on track (is Avengers good?) and more like sweeping all the misogyny under the rug.

    So what do YOU think. When is enough enough? What’s your breaking point? Should sites keep up the vile bile or delete it forever?

Related Posts

Commenting Policy

FemPop reserves the rights to edit and/or delete comments that detract from fun and exciting conversation. Stay witty, use uppercase letters, and keep polite. Disagree! Prove your point without resorting to gaslighting or mansplaining! If you really bug us or have come here just to be nasty your comment will be deleted or worse...all the vowels will be removed and you'll look like an idiot.
  • Adam James

    105,000 users of Rotten Tomatoes have marked “The Avengers” as something they want to see.  Even if we assume every one of the 300 comments she has received is horribly nasty and vile, that’s less than one third of one percent of the fans excited about this geek movie. 

    Find me any group on the internet where one third of one percent of them *aren’t* nasty and vile, and I will be utterly shocked.  It hardly seems fair to plaster the headline “Geek Guys Get Misogynistic” atop of such slim numbers.  May as well publish articles reading “Conservative Republicans Back Obama” if that’s all the higher of a percentage you need to justify such statements.

    • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

      They’re geeks, they’re guys, and they’re misogynists? How is that not accurate?

      • Darknight001

        your piece in a few ways lumps all fans of this movie in with misogynists.  While this hardly as bad as degrading a woman who didn’t like the movie, it’s still a type of generalization that makes it harder to have the kind of engaged discussion that would hopefully teach people to be more aware of gender issues. Now that’s not to say you shouldn’t express people are complicit, there are just possibly more constructive ways to do so.

        • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

          No.

  • Casey Squires

    On censorship: You run the risk of getting lambasted when you go against the grain in public.   The right to express your contrary opinion is irrevocably tied to others rights to say vile and disgusting things in response.  

    On Misogyny: If the first person to rate Avengers ‘rotten’ was a man the response would have used different offensive devices, but to the same degree of vitriol. 

    • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

      I agree. It’s why I generally don’t remove rude comments from this site. It comes with the territory.

      And I also agree that if she were a white man they would have used some other language. If she were a black man it likely would have been racist language. Very true, doesn’t change the fact that what they said WAS incredibly misogynistic. 

      So how do you handle it? Because just sucking it up gets incredibly frustrating. Is there some other way to deal with it. Some way where we don’t just tell the attacked to “deal with it?”

  • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

    1. I like your gross leap of logic. Interesting. 

    2. Misogyny is misogyny. Just because it isn’t intentional doesn’t stop it from being misogyny. Just because women actively engage in misogyny because of their own internalize misogyny doesn’t change what it is. I’m not turning her into a martyr. All I did was point out how this particular case has given rise to a lot of discussion already. In fact, you’ll notice that I point out that what happened to her isn’t new or different. Good job reading.

    3.  Adorable. Laughing. Love it. Especially how you got your feelings hurt because someone apparently made grand sweeping statements about a group you identify with. You’re adorable forever.

  • http://twitter.com/Toasthider Dave Harris

    I’ve seen a lot of people react with hostility to negative reviews of the Avengers.  I read some of the comments on this particular review though, and a lot do seem gender specific.  Obviously it’s a vocal minority of nerdy fans, but people could assume, not entirely unfairly, that all male nerds are aggressively sexist.  That’s what bothers me most about it, just how it reflects badly on me and other male nerds.

    • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

      Most mail nerds I know are really awesome guys that aren’t aggressive, angry dudes that like to spew hate because they have nothing better to do. Most male nerds I know are kind and considerate and really, really awesome.

      So it frustrates me when I see dudes like that giving geek guys a bad name. But how do we stop them? How do we weed out the awful ones? Especially in comments on websites. 

  • geoff kl

    reviewer proof movie.

    if one is going to make a negative review, one best come up with substantial critique…saying that there is no character development, is like saying there was no character development in the final harry potter movie…or the final star wars movie….avengers is not a stand alone

    the anti women stuff is wrong…but comeon…this is the net…where trolling is an art

    • http://fempop.com/ Alex Cranz

      I don’t really care what she said and as I haven’t seen the film yet I won’t agree or disagree with her review.

      But I’ll disagree with anyone who uses nasty and misogynistic language to attack her. And I’ll disagree with anyone who uses the excuse, “this is the Internet.” just, no. Anonymity is not a license to be an asshole no matter what people think.

Advertise Here

Share

Share on Tumblr