So 45 and 6 -
six - on Rotten Tomatoes.
This kind of antagonistic outrage marketing has been going on a while, but I feel Velma is like a tipping point,
so bad that even defenders can't defend it, and maybe, just maybe, they might be a tiny bit more open to some discussion and counterarguments.
Lance845 wrote:The more vocal and the more consistent the usual crowd of haters are the more likely the art is to address them in the art. Art imitates life.
These ass holes were going to throw a hissy fit. They knew it. They addressed them head on. Those hissy fit throwers were never their audience.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:They may be taking a page from She Hulk, which also took on the usual haters, pretty successfully. I suspect if the Velma show is good there will still be many hate-watchers who constantly complain about how unenjoyable the very enjoyable parts of the show are because it’s “not for them” or they wonder “who is this [widely enjoyed and well-regarded] show even for?”. The writers could mine a lot of material from that situation.
Ah, so the shows only
pretended to be clunky, tonedeaf, bitter and spiteful beforehand. What a clever idea to speak to the people who won't like your show and partially prove them right, rather than display the merits of your show to a hopeful audience! Marketing genius.
What do you mean, 'being tonedeaf and spiteful
were the merits'?
Joking aside, I'll let you into a little secret why many reactions to a show are preemptively hostile. Not all, but many. It's to do with two old sayings: 'once bitten, twice shy' and 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me'.
Gender, politics, all the rest, isn't the thing. It's these things being used disguise and excuse bad writing, terrible ideas. It's these things being used as a marker of quality in themselves, to excuse
everything else in the show. Do it long enough and it becomes lazy and transparent, and the premature reaction becomes pavlovian, like a dog that keeps getting whacked with a paper when the bell is rung. It's not
all 'oh the haters are out in force
just because Velma's brown', it's 'Velma's brown, how much do they expect this to cover for dull, shoddy scripts?'
It's gotten so that universally liked shows, apparently well made, become the exception and a pleasant surprise. Like Andor, and even a lot of shrieking about the casting in House of the Dragon turned into 'oh, this show's actually pretty good'.
And so the 'we've got women and poc! (good writing, what's that?)' marketing has evolved into 'only right wing nuts hate our show with women and poc.
You're not a right wing nut, are yoouuu...?'
When you use this as an argument and justification, you've played right into someone's hands. The studio's, probably. But I wouldn't write off a few showrunners either.
A.T. wrote:Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.
Maybe so, but I remember it was mostly used to market things to kids that were so 'radical' and xxxtreme' that it'd shock their uptight parents.
This is how we advertise to adults now, apparently.
Lance845 wrote:No. I am not talking about actual performance. Ghost Busters: Answer the Call is not a good movie. That is not what I said.
What I said is that it was getting hate before anyone saw a single image of the cast in costume. We had 1 logo image with the press announcement of an all female Ghost Busters and the hate started then.
What I am saying is that consistently, these shows get review bombed before they even release.
You have to be actively ignoring the time line of events to not see this happen over and over again.
Even the situation with Ghostbusters: Answer The Call was overinflated. Do I need to link a Science Man Explains video here? Again, not that there were no hateful comments, but someone at Sony saw an opportunity and ran with it. And studios have been running with it, to some extent, ever since. You don't wheel Dan Aykroyd out to rail about 'basement dwelling clan members' beforehand, and then have him sheepishly mutter about how 'that director won't be with the studio again' afterwards, without looking foolish and having people think something's up.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Don’t worry, Mrs Whitehouse.
Modern TeeVees come not only with an “off switch”, but a great many channels of other things for you to watch.
Ah! Is it something like how web browsers come with a back button? I see.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Ignoring it is easy. I detest Rick and Morty. That stuff is everywhere. Yet….I still manage to ignore its existence and just be about my life.
Imagine everything slowly turning into Rick and Morty.
warboss wrote:Don't be ridiculous; it's not mythical. Half of them are posting in this thread!
So what's that? One... two... a dozen, divided by two? Sounds about right.
lord_blackfang wrote:So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
Not sure if serious, but in any case this is the mindset that makes me despair. Any negative reactions to a bad show are politicised into 'right wing haters', until we get a show so bad that the 'badness' can't be handwaved away, and the cognitive dissonance horseshoes the whole thing into 'right wing conspiracy'.
I'll reiterate: too often what you call 'wokeness' is played up in a show to disguise it's clumsiness. What we have with Velma is close to peak clumsiness. It's not 'woke' (well, a bit), it's not right wing, it's just
bad.
lord_blackfang wrote:Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.
Lance845 wrote:Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
These kinds of argument are like "why do you get so worked up about a space wizard movie for kids,
lol". They're terrible deflections, some kind of
ad hominem fallacy or something close to it, designed to sidestep and invalidate any reasoned debate. (Even if it
is about space wizard movies, and their quality) They're insulting to the intelligence and they're beneath you. Please don't.
LunarSol wrote:Outrage has a much more positive effect. It's cheaper to make and drives more "engagement" than happy.
To a point. Are we at that point yet? Maybe... 6% of the journey left to go?
