
‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken - thampiman
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ghostbusters-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-internet-ratings-are-broken/?ex_cid=538fb
======
throwaway13337
The new ghostbusters movie looks awful - it's not a thing about women leads,
it's that it looks really bad in a way the original isn't. I know that's
subjective, but watch the trailer:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-
yZXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw)

Just bad.

There are a lot of bad movies, but this one walks around in the corpse of a
much loved and nostalgic intellectual property that a bunch of people wanted.
They got that.

Is this really about sexism?

This pattern has shown up a lot recently when an intellectual property is used
by something that the original audience doesn't fit into (e.g. the last fable
game that got canceled). It's a pretty silly use of an IP - the original
audience is where the value comes from.

~~~
Mimu
The movie looks really bad but as someone who saw the movie, it's actually
pretty good and funny. The quatuor works perfectly, there is no feminism
message at all, it's just a good comedy.

Maybe it won't be your type of humor, but this is not a bad movie in any way.
People are just rating the movie without seeing it, which is pretty stupid in
the first place. Because of that I expect the score to be much higher,
hopefully a lot of people won't listen to the haters and see for themselves.

~~~
kennywinker
Simply casting typically male roles (comedic lead, scientist, etc.) with
female actors is feminist. The movie doesn't need to have a feminist "message"
to be feminist. Note: when I say feminist I mean that entirely as a good
thing.

~~~
meira
> Simply casting typically male roles (comedic lead, scientist, etc.) with
> female actors is feminist.

No, it is not. Print roles as male only that is mysogenic. Comedic lead and
scientists are only typically male roles because they are - and a lot of freak
White guys are trying to "fight hard" to prevent that móveis and the internet
changes it.

------
croon
I actually agree with much of the articles reasoning, other than the title,
and everything about Ghostbusters:

> More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say —
> go out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging
> entertainment aimed at women, and that appears to be happening with the new
> “Ghostbusters.”

The thing with the new Ghostbusters has nothing to do with them being women.
I'd see Bridesmaids 2 or any other comedy with Kristen Wiig (probably have),
and I like Paul Feig fine.

The problem with the new Ghostbusters is that it's not Ghostbusters, not that
it's necessarily a bad comedy.

The old Ghostbusters is shot and built up as a dark disaster movie, that just
happens to be really funny. The new one is a Paul Feig movie (again, not
knocking). It doesn't fit.

I noticed the same thing in the last season of Veep when Ianucci left. Instead
of it shot more like an Office-type documentary (without the interviews, like
its predecessor The Thick of It), if you look at the Christmas episode (of
Veep) as the clearest example, it's shot like any other honestly mediocre
sitcom, with saturated colors and honestly phoned in jokes.

Sorry about the tirade, but as a guy who does like good female media (Broad
City and Lady Dynamite are my latest favorites), seeing this argument be made
with terrible examples is unfortunate.

~~~
meira
The thing is that we have been in the work of parody for so long time that we
don't ever know were it started. Get the Rocky series blockbuster, for
example. We had a much better history, with a black man and boxe. But then
someone stole the idea and put a white man against his worst enemy: another
white man with diferent world view (Russians).

I find it funny how most of people that discredit the OP conclusion also
thinks they are right when they are in the opposite situation. I don't see you
Bros complaining when Hollywood whitewash history.

And last, when did you guys started to think that the "old" stuff is yours?
They have legally owners, and they can change to fit or create a better
history/world (and some guys like you keep thinking in ways to put it worse),
like star wars and the woman and black as main characters.

~~~
croon
> The thing is that we have been in the work of parody for so long time that
> we don't ever know were it started. Get the Rocky series blockbuster, for
> example. We had a much better history, with a black man and boxe. But then
> someone stole the idea and put a white man against his worst enemy: another
> white man with diferent world view (Russians).

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "someone stole" the idea of Rocky for
Rocky IV. Sly both wrote and directed that. It's as regular a sequel as
anything.

> I find it funny how most of people that discredit the OP conclusion also
> thinks they are right when they are in the opposite situation. I don't see
> you Bros complaining when Hollywood whitewash history.

I explicitly said that I'm not discrediting OPs conclusion, I however did not
agree with how they arrived there.

The collective "Bro"-thing I don't feel worthy of responding to.

> And last, when did you guys started to think that the "old" stuff is yours?
> They have legally owners, and they can change to fit or create a better
> history/world (and some guys like you keep thinking in ways to put it
> worse), like star wars and the woman and black as main characters.

I can't answer for "us guys", only for me, but I have no problem with them
doing whatever they want with Ghostbusters. All I am saying is that the
reviews in this specific case isn't about sexism, but the movie not being at
all relatable to the original one(s) in tone. Nothing to do with gender. As
much right as they have to make the movie, the fans of the original have a
right to opinions on it, without it being sexism, simply because the new
characters happen to be women.

Personally I liked the new Star Wars, but it's entirely beside the point, but
since you brought it up: SW:TFA was so true to SW:ANH that I'm inclined to
call it a true remake, much in how Interstellar worked as an homage/rehash of
2001 with slight twists. I happened to like that one too.

------
frign
When I saw the new Ghostbusters trailer in the cinema (yes, I still go there),
I thought it was a parody film. I'm not kidding.

Nowadays, people always try to find ways to be offended. A women-led movie got
bad ratings? It must be the patriarchy! Nobody wonders if it might have been
just a bad movie, as I, as a man, also enjoy women-led movies (I mean movies
in the cinemas, not what you think :P). Hoewever, the new Ghostbusters just
looks like a big horrible painful joke, and that's why the ratings tanked.

Given it's so hard to even assess statistically, how many men are among movie
raters, this entire article stands on weak feet.

~~~
xbmcuser
Have you watched the movie

------
ZenoArrow
I won't argue that an average score on its own doesn't provide you with
information about the diversity of opinion that led to that average, I'm sure
we could do better in this regard. Perhaps something like Amazon does with the
graphical representation showing how many people gave each star rating on a
product review.

What I do have two problems with is the framing of this article when it comes
to the new Ghostbusters film. This quote is a useful starting point for
looking at those problems:

"More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say — go
out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging
entertainment aimed at women"

First of all, is the new Ghostbusters film meant to be aimed at women? If you
look at it at a superficial level perhaps. To me, when you take on a beloved
film franchise, you should make something that stays true to the spirit of the
earlier films. The earlier Ghostbusters films have appeal across the board,
why can't the new film have the same?

Secondly, the issue people are having with the Ghostbusters reboot is not
really because all the new Ghostbusters are female. I, for one, think it was a
good idea to do so, as it provided something new, and could have helped it to
break from conventions whilst still providing something recognisable as a
Ghostbusters film. The main problem people have with the film (and yes, they
are just basing it on trailers at this point), is that it appears to be a
generic, formulaic comedy with Ghostbusters dressing. For example, with the
'sassy black lady' Ghostbuster, the vast majority of the backlash isn't
because she's a woman, the majority of the backlash is because she's playing a
hackneyed stereotype. There were other parts of the trailers that were
similarly paint-by-numbers Hollywood comedy.

Perhaps the trailers did the film a great disservice and there are better
moments to be found in the film itself, but early impressions are not too
great IMO.

~~~
rasz_pl
No, main problem is its another effing REBOOT hijacking original name.

~~~
pyre
Technically the original movie wasn't the first to use the "Ghostbusters"
name, and there were some legal issues around that. This is why there was a
"Ghostbusters" cartoon that _was not_ tied to the movie franchise, and a "The
Real Ghostbusters" cartoon that _was_ tied to the franchise.

------
EdSharkey
The original Ghostbusters was a laugh, but what made it so memorable for me
was the weird texture and depth built-in to its lore and tech. Classic!

The previews I've seen of the reboot present like schlock; some writing-by-
committee mess. Based on my recent disappointment watching Finding Dory, I
suppose muddled writing to be a common affliction in Hollywood, even for the
top studios.

------
marak830
How does the author know which reviewers are female or male?

I do wonder how the review sites could allow reviews for a movie that isn't
released yet, seems the few prerelease viewers isn't worth the chance of being
gamed(or guarantee?)

------
fauria
There is a movie rating website called filmaffinity
[http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/main.html](http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/main.html)
that has an interesting feature called "Movie Soulmates".

It matches your movie ratings against the rest of the users, selecting the
ones with a highest coincidence.

Then you can discover unseen films highly rated by people with, allegedly,
your same taste.

I also found Tastekid [http://www.tastekid.com/](http://www.tastekid.com/) and
FilmFish [https://www.film-fish.com/](https://www.film-fish.com/) quite
accurate.

------
belorn
I strongly enjoy movies by Studio Ghibli, and they mostly are female-led. Lets
look at the latest, exclusively female-led movie from 2014 called When Marnie
Was There.

IMDB: Men made 7779 votes with average 7.7, women made 2881 votes with average
7.9

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398268/ratings-
male](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398268/ratings-male)

That is 0.2 points difference. If we look at ponyo, the difference is even
less, with 0.1 points difference. If there is a bias, it is not exactly
tanking the rating, and someone would have work hard to identify if its
because women rate women-led movies higher than average, or males who rate it
lower.

------
gambiting
I have no opinion on Ghosbusters, but I just wanted to add that maybe it's not
all out of spite and out of hatred towards media aimed at women? I'm a man and
I would on average rate any rom-com that I saw with my fiancee much lower than
she would - but at the same time, she would usually rate any action move that
I liked much lower than I would. It's not because I hate women or she hates
men - it's just.....not everything is for everyone? I have no idea how you
would reflect it in ratings though?

~~~
timv
The argument of the article seems to be that meta-ratings sites don't handle
that class of movie well, more than it is claiming that "men are misogynistic
and hate any media aimed at women".

To some extent it's the nature of a polarising topic. It's just that when it's
a male/female split, it's easier to detect and analyse, so it's easy to build
an article around.

The argument here is when men post internet reviews of "female oriented
films", they tend to be far more critical than women are of "male oriented
films". And in this case at least, (based on people who probably haven't seen
the movie) men are more likely to post negative reviews of "female movies"
than women are to post positive reviews.

So, to use your example, Internet meta-scores for rom-coms are not very
helpful. Sure, if your fiancee wants to see one, you can work out how much
you're going to hate it based on how badly other men reviewed it, but if she
wants to go see one with her sister, then the internet scores tell her almost
nothing. She really wants to know "do people who normally like rom-coms like
this movie?" but she gets to see a relatively meaningless "5 out of 10" (based
on 10 women averaging 9/10, and 20 men averaging 3/10)

------
mafro
I don't buy that Ghostbusters success will hinge on the gender of the lead
actors - the leads in the new film have a lot to live up to in Dan Aykroyd and
Bill Murray.

~~~
kennywinker
The trick is the controversy. I know a lot of people who absolutely love Total
Recall. There was a remake a few years ago, and it was bad (like everyone
expected). People saw it or didnt, and nobody complained about it "ruining
their childhood" or publicly boycotted it. I can't help but feel the different
reaction is due to the gender recasting.

~~~
belorn
Similar statements was made when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out, and
it had nothing to do with gender. How does Jar Jar Binks fit with your theory?

~~~
kennywinker
Nobody complained about it doing that prior to its release. It was hotly
anticipated. Lineups around blocks were lined up. when it turned out to be
bad, decades of anticipation turned to outrage. That was all after it came
out.

~~~
belorn
You mean, the trailer for ghostbuster turned decades of anticipation to
outrage, but in the case of star wars, the trailer was fine but the actually
movie wasn't?

------
dcw303
This is mostly covered in the article, but anyway:

I see a few overlapping effects here:

1) Aggregators like Tomatometer rank based on broad appeal. That's why Toy
Story is one of the highest scored of all time (if you don't like Toy Story,
you're _dead inside_ ), and Fight Club can be beloved to many but still not A
grade.

2) Audiences are slowly getting tired of cynical reboots. Sure, I understand
the harsh reality that means Hollywood has to play as risk averse as possible,
and that recycling beloved IP has slightly-better-than break even results on
average, but you can't expect movie watchers to gush over story retreads.

3) Yes, the loudest and most obnoxious voices on the internet are also the
ones who will go to the most trouble to tank your reviews. This is not
specific to movies. The fact that men are doing this for Ghostbusters does not
reveal an inherent misogyny overall, just that said mysoginistic neckbeards
are more likely to invest their time in trolling the internet (the 4chan
effect).

I have no trouble with an all female lead cast. I just wish they didn't waste
all that potential on such a crappy regurgitation.

~~~
kennywinker
So you've seen it already?

The internet matters. A cultural consensus has formed and that means a lot of
people won't see this movie because the internet "decided" it was bad before
anyone had seen it. The way I see it, a small number of overtly mysogynist
trolls exploited a widespread subtle cultural mysogyny to tank a movie.

------
invaliduser
Ratings (for movies or whatever) are not broken, they just are a limited model
of appreciation by a cohort. All statistical models have their limits, that
does not make them «broken», just somewhat inaccurate (ie. with varying levels
of accuracy).

The author shows it with the gender of the voters, but it would very probably
have been the same with IQ, education level, zipcode, country, income level,
etc

------
d8421l01vv4r
>Essentially, male users were more likely to rate television shows with a
female-heavy audience lower than female users would rate male-centric
television lower.

If you look at the gender breakdown on imdb for movies that have been out for
a while (meaning that people have actually have had the time to watch them),
it seems like the differences between the genders are nowhere near as big as
for the new ghostbusters movie. The original Ghostbusters for example is 7.8
(m) vs 7.6 (f) [0]. It doesn't look like imdb provides the gender breakdown of
votes in their publicly available dataset[1], but it would be interesting to
see someone preform a more rigorous analysis (than me looking at movies I can
remember at the top of my head).

[0] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/ratings-
male](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/ratings-male)

[1] [http://www.imdb.com/interfaces/](http://www.imdb.com/interfaces/)

------
MatthewWilkes
Ghostbusters may not be out where the author is from, but it certainly is
here. It's not possible to dismiss all of the reviews as bogus.

------
lowmagnet
> So, do you have a preconceived notion of how good or bad the “Ghostbusters”
> movie is going to be? Of course you do, you clicked on an article with
> “Ghostbusters” in the title.

I blindly clicked because of fivethirtyeight in the url.

------
wanderer2323
"if we aggregate the ratings, they don't show what we want".

"we blame men who obviously didn't even see the movie, don't ask us how we
know".

~~~
tunesmith
... because the movie wasn't out yet...?

------
Fifer82
The last "movie" I enjoyed was Terminator 2. Not too long after that, I
realised that I had seen all possible combinations of ways that you can tell a
story in 90 minutes.

Music Industry and Film Industry have essentially just become about
personalities and big money. They can peddle garbage because everyone buys it.

I just hope that books are not next because that is all that remains of
quality entertainment.

~~~
onion2k
There's only seven possible plots for books, so I guess they're over too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots)

~~~
a_imho
I would find it very hard to fit e.g. the Song of Ice and Fire into any of the
7 categories without moving the goalposts.

~~~
onion2k
I know. The "seven basic plots" idea works, but only if you completely ignore
the subtly and nuance of story-telling that authors have used most of the
time. The point I was making was that you _can 't_ just boil every movie since
Terminator 2 down to a rehash of what's come before. If the poster I was
replying to is going to be over-simplify film plots then you also have to
accept we can over-simplify book plots to get to the same point.

------
rasz_pl
>Men were tanking the ratings of shows aimed at women.

Yes. and Im one of those men. Maybe, just maybe STOP marketing those 'women
shows' to men?

Remember recent Deadpool marketing campaign around Valentines Day painting it
as a romantic comedy? This is what most 'movies and shows aimed at women' do,
because they just cant let of the male market $$. "Hey go watch this cool new
SciFi movie" never mentions its a Urban fantasy romance novel with 70% screen
time taken by woman protagonist crying on someones shoulder.

