Broken Online Review Systems: Through the lens of Ghostbusters

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't think there is that kind of stigma. The thing is, if you publicize a film or game or whatever with a vibe of: "This time it's girl power!", then that shows itself an insecurity about the source material imho, much how a film marketed with "gay is okay now" or "smartphones are next cool thing".

Well, what it shows you in this case is that the film was overseen by Amy Pascal. She'd been rather obsessive about female lead properties in her time at Sony. Ghostbusters had her fingerprints all over it. She apparently had a pretty strong hand in forcing Ivan Reitman off the project so she could bring in Feig. Never overestimate the amount of damage a meddling studio executive can cause to a project. The fun of the Sony leaks is you can read all about it right from the horse's mouth.

Because "now it's done by women" is a very bland choice in itself.

I agree, but I also think the casting of women was incidental to the film being bad. The film had poor studio oversight and a lot of crossed wires during its development. Feig is not incompetent, and neither are the actresses working on the film. There's no reason a reasonably entertaining "Girl Power" Ghostbusters could not have been delivered. When things go bad at the executive level, though, shit runs downhill.

Sony tried to cash in on an aging license and due to timing it passed through the hands of an idiot, who fumbled it enough that by the time it hit screens it was a lumbering abomination (if you think I'm being mean, read some of her emails...half of them leave you concerned she recently had a stroke). It's not really a Trank situation because Feig was given carte blanche due to Pascal's infatuation with him, so it was more like a "reverse Trank", where the director was given too MUCH oversight and power and had no one to rein him in.

A proper Feig/Reitman collaboration with a competent studio executive providing harmony would have been nice to see, but oh well.

Yes, please cast aside your opinions based on your gender!

It was a joke, dunam. I'm a joke maker.

 

[TechNoFear]

Earlier this year, I also looked at IMDb?s user rating skew for television shows. 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. Men were tanking the ratings of shows aimed at women.

I don't think that graph says what Hickey thinks it does...

Hickey is assuming that the ratio of male to female reviews is an indication of what sex the show is aimed at (which I do not totally agree with..).

So shows around 50% share are equally aimed at both sexes.
The -1 difference for ~50% share shows indicates that women give higher ratings (by +1) in general.

Shows with 10-20% are rated approx 0 difference, indicating women lowered their rating by 1 for shows aimed at males.
Shows with 80-90% are rated approx -1.5 difference, indicating men lowered their rating by 0.5 for shows aimed at women.
[eg Men's ratings did not vary as much as women's as the shows became more aimed at the opposite sex.]

So it appears it is women who are voting down men's shows.

Or men's shows are just not enjoyable for women (totally aimed at men) while women's shows have a more universal appeal (contain some content for men).

Or a host of other factors that are not reflected in this data...

 

[Lacedaemonius]

Earlier this year, I also looked at IMDb?s user rating skew for television shows. 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. Men were tanking the ratings of shows aimed at women.

I don't think that graph says what Hickey thinks it does...

Hickey is assuming that the ratio of male to female reviews is an indication of what sex the show is aimed at (which I do not totally agree with..).

That's not a claim that's made in that graph, so I'm going to gently suggest that maybe skimming this and assuming that you got one over on the author isn't a winning strategy for you.

 

[TechNoFear]

That's not a claim that's made in that graph, so I'm going to gently suggest that maybe skimming this and assuming that you got one over on the author isn't a winning strategy for you.

I'm sorry, what claim is not made in the graph?

Hinkey claims that the graph shows that '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.'

Which relies upon interpreting the data as 'that the ratio of male to female reviews is an indication of what sex the show is aimed at'.

[EDIT: I am only interested in the data and how it is being interpreted, I do not think people voting for TV shows is of much importance in the bigger picture.]

 

[sky14kemea]