Wednesday, March 14, 2018

"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message. Everything burns": Disney's Diverse $250 Million 'A Wrinkle in Time' Bombs, but Movie Critics Celebrate the Victory Over Whiteness it Represents

There can be no doubt Disney's $250 million (Production & Advertising budget) A Wrinkle in Time is a monumental bomb. The media spin on this box office disaster has been hilarious, with one Hollywood Reporter writer letting slip why we must celebrate the multicultural abomination of a beautiful work representing the richness of a white culture being supplanted by the current year diversity mandate... 
 Ava DuVernay's film was destined to disappoint, given the outrageously high bar set for female and minority directors. Disney marketed A Wrinkle in Time to theatergoers like no other film in recent memory. 
A monumental bomb, but the money was well spent. It's about sending a message to whitey. Your culture and history belongs to us now...
I went to the movies about once a week in the past month (I'm talking civilian screenings, not ad-free press previews), and each time, I saw a Wrinkle trailer with director Ava DuVernay in close-up, telling the audience what making her fantasy children's adaptation meant to her. DuVernay, whose last two films (the MLK bio Selma and the mass-incarceration doc 13th) racked up three Oscar nods in as many years, thus became the face of Wrinkle, despite more recognizable castmembers like Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Chris Pine. (In contrast, you won't see Steven Spielberg's mug in the Ready Player One trailers.) DuVernay's central role in selling Wrinkle is a testament to her popularity as a spokesperson for inclusion in Hollywood. 
As the first live-action $100 million project helmed by a woman of color, A Wrinkle in Time had to tell two feel-good stories: that of a biracial teen (played by Storm Reid) learning to love and trust herself, and that of female artists and artists of color triumphing in an industry that has traditionally disregarded their perspectives and contributions. 
But Wrinkle didn't deliver on either count. Mixed to negative reviews led to a disappointing $33 million opening weekend at the box office. With a 42 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating and a middling B CinemaScore, the film underwhelmed critics and adult audiences (kids gave it an A–), weighed down as it was by a messy script with too many affirmational platitudes and not enough character development. I'll happily defend the (wildly ambitious, immensely personal) movie on its own merits. But first, it's important to note the ludicrously unfair burden that Wrinkle was saddled with as soon as DuVernay signed on and turned protagonist Meg into a biracial girl: It had to be both artistically dazzling and a commercial hit in order for it to be considered any kind of success. 
Grossly put, the "system" was rigged against it. DuVernay certainly proves herself as such with Wrinkle. As a critic, I probably wouldn't indiscriminately recommend the film, but I appreciated that it was a planet-hopping movie with a girl of color at the center. I also admired the injection of the floridly supernatural into West Adams, a historically black neighborhood in Los Angeles (not far from where DuVernay grew up), and, of course, the beauty of the various extraterrestrial terrains, some of which brought me to tears. DuVernay certainly proved wrong naysayers who have dismissed her filmmaking talent in the past and attributed her meteoric rise to saying the right thing. 
A Wrinkle in Time is, arguably above all, a visual feast. So DuVernay didn't make a "good" movie. What she has made is an endlessly watchable one, and I hope critics, at least, will soon embrace those other elements in addition to the film's social milestones — just like they'd do with any other notable movie. "Isn't it nice to hear filmmakers of color talk about craft?" 
DuVernay asked Korean-American filmmaker Justin Chon during a Q&A for his film Gook. There's nothing to be gained from shortchanging DuVernay's racial and feminist accomplishments with Wrinkle. But I hope one day we can appreciate the film beyond them, too.
The racial reimagining of A Wrinkle in Time, though it is critically viewed as a poor movie and commercially a money loser for Disney, must be appreciated because it's a racial and feminist accomplishment. 

And only bigots would dare disagree, with poor audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes a reminder white people should no longer be allowed a public opinion when it comes to important works of art that must be must be appreciated because it's a racial and feminist accomplishment...
More than a month before Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” arrived in theaters, an “audience review” appeared on Rotten Tomatoes that offered an isolated comment from user “Jonathan G”: “Piece of shit remake of a wonderful book.” The “review” posted on February 5, weeks before DuVernay’s big-scale Disney adaptation of the beloved Madeleine D’Engle book was set to hit theaters.It wasn’t even the earliest “review” to appear on the aggregation site. That one hit the web January 7, when user “CGF M” wrote in a half-star review: “This film is going to fumble and should not deserve any recognition. The original novel is better than what is already being presented. It’s one big cliche, the acting seems dry, the only performance I can possibly say that will be GOOD is Chris Pine’s, that’s it. Casting just for the sake of diversity or being politically correct does not make a film, Disney. The effects also, they do not look good.” 
More than a month before Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” arrived in theaters, an “audience review” appeared on Rotten Tomatoes that offered an isolated comment from user “Jonathan G”: “Piece of shit remake of a wonderful book.” The “review” posted on February 5, weeks before DuVernay’s big-scale Disney adaptation of the beloved Madeleine D’Engle book was set to hit theaters.It wasn’t even the earliest “review” to appear on the aggregation site. That one hit the web January 7, when user “CGF M” wrote in a half-star review: “This film is going to fumble and should not deserve any recognition. The original novel is better than what is already being presented. It’s one big cliche, the acting seems dry, the only performance I can possibly say that will be GOOD is Chris Pine’s, that’s it. Casting just for the sake of diversity or being politically correct does not make a film, Disney. The effects also, they do not look good.” 
“A Wrinkle in Time” currently holds a 36 percent rating from RT’s audience reviews alone (critical consensus holds it at a “rotten” 42%), but many reviews make it clear — whether by posting date, or stated outright — their authors haven’t seen the film, and are voting based on perceptions. These blurbs favor words like “looks like” or “seems like,” or even a reflexive comment like the film had “horrible screening reviews.” A “Wrinkle” criticism that regularly surfaces on the RT audience reviews is it’s “PC” or too beholden to “diversity.” One user even asked why the film “murdered” its white leads (it didn’t, it just cast them differently).IMDb has a similar problem with its own “User Score,” which allows registered users to rate a film on its scale of 1 to 10 stars only after the film has been released or screened at least once. (“A Wrinkle in Time” currently holds a 4.1 rating on the site.) However, most users don’t write a review; they tick off a star rating and move on.
The resounding failure the diverse reimagining of A Wrinkle in Time means little to anti-white movie critics who view the movie as a success because it's a rebuke against white privilege, structural inequality, and the implicit bias of a system based on white supremacy and white standards of beauty (did we get all the current year zeitgeists?). 

In the words of the Joker from 2008's The Dark Knight, "It's not about the money. It's about sending a message. Everything burns."

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But first, it's important to note the ludicrously unfair burden that Wrinkle was saddled with as soon as DuVernay signed on and turned protagonist Meg into a biracial girl: It had to be both artistically dazzling and a commercial hit in order for it to be considered any kind of success.
Grossly put, the "system" was rigged against it. DuVernay certainly proves herself as such with Wrinkle."

You piss on and show your finger to the "system" (changing details of the story to fit your agenda) and when things don't work out, it is because the evil white-based system is rigged and racist.

If I decided to produce a movie where I made some of the founding fathers outwardly gay and it met backlash, could I just say that the system is rigged or would it be homophobia?

"I want to see someone who looks like me" seems to be the new mantra for colored, er, people of color these days. They don't seem to care a whit about how incredibly hypocritical this is after whites put up with decades and decades of "skin color doesn't matter".

It's pathetic to see how diversity of all colors seems to think that living by double standards will somehow catapult them past whitey. Once you get to the top you guys going to think of all the big ideas, lead the way, and put in the big effort that it takes to stay at the top? Ha ha, yeah right. Hence they will never be at the top- not with whitey around, that is.

Anonymous said...

"There can be no doubt Disney's $250 million (Production & Advertising budget) A Wrinkle in Time is a monumental bomb."

So much for the power of advertising to shape culture.

"It's about sending a message to whitey."

What good does it do to send a message if no one receives it? A message that no one is there to hear is like the tree that falls in the forest with no one around. Did it really fall at all?

SKIP said...

Let's see ROOTS or SELMA with a White cast and listen to the howls! lol

Californian said...

Why don't they show "A Wrinkle in Time" in the Wakanda theaters? I am sure there would be millions of enlightened Africans who would line up to see it.

Californian said...

What positive message could be sent to black girls? To stay in school? To get married? To respect the law? To not give their children absurdist names? To be proud of real African accomplishments (there are a few) instead of inventing fantasy science fiction kingdoms?

There is a real tinge of desperation in the "Wrinkle in Time" affair. Like blacks pretty much recognize that they have been unable to fit into White society. So someone has to shell out $250 million to provide more "positive role models," as if there are not enough television commercials with upper middle class black doctors or whatevers. And how's all that positive role modeling working for Africans in America? Has it cut down their rates of illegitimacy or school dropouts? How are black girls rebuilding Detroit?

One silver lining here is that the money Disney(tm) shelled out on this movie will undermine any profits from "Black Panther" (assuming there is no creative accounting going on here).

Anonymous said...

They want us dead. They will stop at nothing. Look at the people you love and remember that.

Anonymous said...

Disney should always be written (((Disney))). It's an anti-White propaganda machine now.

Anonymous said...

RE: "West Adams, a historically black neighborhood....."

West Adams was developed and built by whites starting in 1880. Later, many silent film stars lived there. As they moved to Beverly Hills, blacks later moved in.

More like "Another place whites built and setttled, later occupied by blacks" Like Harlem.

Paintjob Theory said...

“Piece of shit remake of ___________”

Pretty much sums up almost everything (((Hollywood))) has served up in the last couple decades.

Remember, this shit is NOT for the benefit of black Africans. (((They))) didn't remake this movie in blackface hoping to get black fans of the book to show up in theaters just like (((they))) don't black Africans in commercials whitewater rafting because someone thinks they're going to make their money back by selling them kayaks or that putting some negro in a suit selling mutual funds is going to get any Africans to start planning for the future. This is never about selling a product to blacks, but selling the idea of blacks are "just like us but with a different paintjob"(TM) to gullible whites.

We are on a dangerous precipice here. (((They))) double down with this propaganda while flooding once safe and prosperous neighborhoods towns and states with dangerous African sub-humans. We are rapidly approaching the point where we are demographically replaced and it won't even matter but as more and more people who have only ever seen the negroes of (((Hollywood))) and (((Madison Ave.))) get a taste of TNB reality which breaks first? The mass hypnosis/insanity of people going along with paintjob theory or our tolerance for these intolerable stone age primitives?

Anonymous said...

Come on, what did you expect from (((Disney )))
Mr Turner

Anonymous said...

A quarter billion (((shekels))) for a remake Planet of the Apes in a more peaceful setting? You bet!

Anonymous said...

Sending a message to Whitey? And what message is that: "We hate you and are going to take all your accomplishments as our own?"

This is the future if the Demorats gain power again. It will be full blown war on whitey (and would have been already if Hillary had won).

Sick n Tired said...

Some good news for a change!


https://wsvn.com/news/local/nearly-200-arrested-in-florida-undercover-investigation/

Anonymous said...

Hollywood in general and Disney in particular are the cultural Marxist's "tip of the spear."
They bastardize everything they touch, poison what they produce, and expect us to pay for the privilege of indoctrinating our children with their twisted vision of the past, present, and future.
Happy with that?

Anonymous said...

The Communists and Liberals have to keep propping up the blacks, to make it seem that they can create, and contribute to a functioning Society, when just a look at Haiti, or any black run Country in Africa, shows that they are totally incapable of it. Scientifically speaking, blacks are still at least 50,000 years behind us on the Evolutionary scale. Blame Mother Nature for that.

Anonymous said...

How about we crowdfund a remake of 'The Anne Frank Story' with a young negroid sow as the hidden young (((girl)))?

Think (((they))) will like that? Or allow it?


To see who rules over you, see who you cannot criticize...

Oh God!! So effin true!!

Anonymous said...

I believe most of the numbers for Black Panther aren't even real. It's the effect of its perceived success that's far more important to (((Hollywood))) than its actual box office receipts. Like the bomb, A Wrinkle in Time, losing $250 - $300 million here and there won't make a dent in the (((Hollywood))) financial empire. They make films like this, and the five or so obligatory holocaust and Civil War films each year, to strengthen their position in the culture war, not to make billions of more dollars they don't really need. (((Hollywood))) doesn't care if these films fail; it's mission accomplished either way.

Justin Igger said...

Cultural Marxist propaganda. Nothing more. Blacks dont want to be treated as equals, they want to be treated as more than equals. When they feel they have been "empowered" enough blacks and hispanics will put yt in concentration camps, well any of the ones still alive.

Anonymous said...

There is a real tinge of desperation in the "Wrinkle in Time" affair.

There is a real tinge of desperation in the "liberal America" affair. Why are they so focused on movies?

If liberals were truly confident in their beliefs then they wouldn't be wasting so much time on fiction.

Liberals believe so much in equality that they want Whites to constantly watch their pro-diversity films. Why bother with White people at all? Liberals could pool their money and fund their own Wakanda. Show us Whites how "ignorant" we are. A dozen Hollywood producers could dump a 100 million into Selma. Start the revolution!

D-FENS said...

“How about we crowdfund a remake of 'The Anne Frank Story' with a young negroid sow as the hidden young (((girl)))?”

Ann Frank - The Musical! Get the negress from the Cherios commercial to play Ann.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is bragging about taking down VDare tonight.

Sick n Tired said...

The best way to voice your opinion to these SJWs is to not support anything they do. Hollywood is collapsing on itself, people don't pay $15-25 to see a movie at a theater full of teens, when they can watch it on cable in their own home for $6, or wait until it's in a Redbox machine foe $1.50. And even that is a stretch because of the garbage they flood the markets with and the big push for diversity. I think Hollywood is looking towards blacks to be the next cash cow, so they are crowbaring and remaking all these movies with black characters, trying to fill theater seats. The last movie I saw in the theater was Avengers, Age of Ultron, and it was ok. Since then I have gotten rid of cable, I no longer own a tv, and can honestly say I don't miss it. Especially when I go out to a bar or someone's house and see the crap they are watching, or the upcoming new shows for the season. People will occasionally ask me if I saw the latest episode of .... And I love the look on their faces when I say "No, I don't know what that is" and they start to try and describe it to me, to which I always reply "Yeah I don't own a tv or have time for that crap".
I find I'm also much happier without one, I have time to exercise, go for walks around my neighborhood, talk to my neighbors, get extra sleep, and I'm saving on cable/internet. Starve the beast & live in the present. I will always take time to visit this site though, keep up the good work PK & posters!

Unknown said...

"A Wrinkle in Time", being a 'young adult novel' captivated me as a 6th. grader and I was eager to see it put on the Big Screen. Alas, when I heard about the casting I knew it would be a (((POS))). Let us sincerely pray (((they))) don't decide to butcher D'Engle's "Lathe of Heaven".
The last movie my husband & I attended was "Guardians of the Galaxy"; a rollicking adventure tale that was entertaining without any subliminal messaging. Those types of movies are, sadly, far and few between these days.

AR in Illinois said...

My wife has been slow on the uptake of red-pilling, even though she was run out of her south suburban Chicago neighborhood back in the 80's. So, I started playing the Norwegian movie The Wave last night. She wasn't paying attention at the beginning due to the foreign language but then I got on her and told her to give it a chance. 10 minutes later she was totally into it. At the end, I pointed out to her that there wasn't ONE black in the entire movie. My point being that a lot of other countries don't cave into this "diversity " bs. BTW this is a GREAT movie.

Dirty South Side said...

I remember reading Wrinkle as a kid. Fantastic book. Read the next two also; both great. Lots of deep, esoteric, spiritual meaning woven through some great stories. I've long hoped that this book would be a movie some day. Then I saw a trailer, last winter. YES!

Then I saw THE OPRAH. And a young black girl who was obviously Meg. You know, red-headed, porcelain-skinned, very white Meg - the actual protagonist of the story.

A black girl. Meg.

I recently read an article about the movie; it quoted the empowered, stronk, black womyn director as saying, referring to Meg, "I knew I wanted her to have dark skin." Yes, because color is irrelevant goy- I mean, whitey! Well, it's irrelevant so long as whites are excluded and/or blacked, because THAT is true diversity.

Do I have a problem with black girls starring in movies? Not a bit. Do I have a problem with Marxist Negroes and their (((paymasters))) purposely fucking up a great story, what is in essence an ANTI-COLLECTIVIST story, to push their bullshit anti-white commie agenda? Hmmmmm...

And I agree with those who think that the box office books for Black Panther are being cooked for propaganda purposes. It's too neat. It's too pat. It's too convenient. However, it is HILARIOUS that the movie is basically an ethno-nationalist story; seeing the wounded butthurt that flowed from BRA/(((MSM))) when the Alt-Right enthusiastically embraced the movie's core message of "our country is for our people" was quite satisfying.

Black Panther I'll probably watch for kicks, so long as I don't have to put shekels in (((pockets))) to do so, once the bullshit surrounding it has died down. But A Wrinkle In Time? Fuck. That.

It's actually a series of five books; as mentioned before, I've read the first three. I think it's time to get a copy of all five books and read them again. It will be much more enjoyable that enduring a Disney-Oprah-Blacked ruining of such a fine piece of fiction - with a female protagonist, written in 1963, no less. Shouldn't that have been enough?

No. Nothing is ever enough for the likes of The Oprah, her racist cohorts, and their even more racist (((paymasters))).

Fuckers.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many of the morons who went to see Black Panther saw any of the previous Marvel super hero films or Wonder Woman. I'd bet the percentage is fairly small. The success of Panther was due to a vast propaganda campaign that started many weeks ago.

Anonymous said...

I believe most of the numbers for Black Panther aren't even real.

Oh they're real, around 20% of the White population will show up for any comic or action movie. Just look at how many of those garbage Transformer movies they were able to make. They get that crowd plus all the White guilt ridden liberals and schools that bought tickets. Even Black churches are buying tickets.

Augustus said...

Maybe Rachel Dolezal could play Ann Frank. I saw Dolezal once, and I swear she could pass for white.

Anonymous said...

I´ll gladly watch a movie about people of other races, unless it´s a story that has been taken and twisted to fit some pc agenda.

Lets take for instance the movie/cartoon Moana. I don´t usually watch cartoons with my kids but that one had a really enjoyable story. Anyone can watch it and feel a connection to their ancestors. If it had not been a cartoon I think I would have still liked it, based on the story. After watching it I took out a huge book I own about the world myths and I read to my kids about the real myths of the people from the movie.

I can also see the value in films about gangsters and ghettos and the way things are in real life.

But when they put blacks into shows about Europe in the middle ages etc I just... can´t. And please don´t use stories written by white people about white people and turn them black. POC´s would go crazy if we did that to their stories.

Anonymous said...

This shit won't end until there is a financial collapse that wipes out the value of debt, paper savings, the dollar, financial endowment$ of communist non-profits (Ford Foundation, Brookings Institution, Gates Foundation et al.) and most importantly, universities, the command and control centers of Cultural Marxism. Until then we must prepare and endure. Even Donald Trump "The King of Debt and Bankruptcy" cannot prevent this financial implosion, only delay it a little while.

I would still rather have Prez. Trump in the White House when the implosion occurs than the Queen Bitch. With him in charge we will have about a 50/50 chance of coming out the other side of the crisis. After national bankruptcy, (de facto, not de jure) there will be no money for the Cultural Marxism factories like Disney to churn out crap like their blackety, blackety, black movies. Nothing else will end the reign of Cultural Marxism that is at the root of all these troubles except national bankruptcy, bitter medicine that it is to swallow.

Anonymous said...

". . . the White guilt ridden liberals and schools that bought tickets. Even Black churches are buying tickets."


I rarely watch TV news but I saw a local news story in the Boston area when the Wakanda movie came out. The idiot reporter was jumping up and down with excitement with a crowd of blacks/browns behind her also (literally) jumping up and down after watching the movie. Some enormously round, 500 Lb. "Reverend" was telling the reporter how wonderful the movie was, now "they" had something called "positive roll models", whatever that is. The "Reverend" then told the reporter (live TV) that all the tickets were purchased by some do-gooder Communist foundation, the nogs didn't buy one damn ticket.

It was the same all over the country, many of the tickets were purchased for the black/brown utes by "charitable" foundations, the utes didn't buy anything. White children also went on "field trips" to get the communist indoctrination too through their schools. Without the captive school children audience and the "free" tickets for the utes, how many Wakanda tickets were really sold?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Anonymous said...

You get it.

Anonymous said...

Jesus F. Christ. The article goes so low as to even butcher the author’s name. Her name is Madeleine L’Engle, not effing “D’Engle”.
I swear, have they no shame?
Mallory M.

Anonymous said...

A young black girl looking for her father.

LOL

Anonymous said...

There's an end to all this. Black arts have been reduced to the point where they started. Dick Gregory covered all that ground more than 50 years ago. Only now, it's just not so elegant complaints and banal observations. How many ways can you say that "White people talk different than us."

Unknown said...

Big Yellow Ball go up, and then go down. Moon comes and everyone dance around. What time is dat? No time for racism.