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from the scared-of-a-woman-who-could-kick-their-ass dept.
Lebanon's economy ministry says it has asked the country's security agency to ban the 2017 Wonder Woman movie because its lead actress, Gal Gadot, is an Israeli.
A senior security official says no formal request has been received yet, and that the ban would require a recommendation from a six-ministry-member committee.
[...] Lebanon is officially at war with Israel and has a decades-old law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling or having contacts with Israelis.
Supporters of the boycott took to social media to campaign against the movie.
@TimesofIsrael Please don't watch the movie wonder woman, boycott.
The star gal gadot is a pro-IDF Zionist who herself served in the terrorist organization pic.twitter.com/fvWSHRIx2w
— Tee (@boyzinthehoood) May 29, 2017@GalGadot you showing your support just shows you are as evil as the Israel army baby killers # boycott #WonderWoman
— Zam m (@zam18028526) May 30, 2017Israel is sick..and the new Wonder Woman supports it! Boycott Israel! https://t.co/QJ1FCGzfkh
— Nick Littlejohn💿 (@nickmlittlejohn) April 10, 2016
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @12:53PM (7 children)
Mostly correct.
I had a theory that maybe pushing progressive "girl power" using a relatively hot chick was a reaction to the somewhat dismal Girl-Ghostbusters film from 2016 starring several not so hot chicks, but I was bored enough to look up the WW 2017 article in wikipedia and they film WW in late 2015 before Girl-Ghostbusters failed after release, so that theory was proven wrong. Eventually they'll probably be a reaction from Hollywood to the Girl-Ghostbusters but it'll likely take awhile longer. Maybe next year they'll be a post-Girl-Ghostbusters reaction movie.
I would theorize this film will fail because "special effects demo reels" sell best to tween video gamer boys, and adult hottie might not sell well to that demographic "Shes like my mom but she kicks butt instead of interrupting my gaming by doing laundry in my basement". Because making sense has never been much of a priority for Hollywood they'd probably have done better to match their actress to the audience resulting in an 11-year old girl being wonder woman (well, wonder girl, I guess) or at most a young looking teen "wonder-teen". Or abandon hollywood and its tired formulas and produce something other than a special effects demo reel that might sell to more people, I donno, do a Bollywood and have her break out into interpretive dance periodically. The odds of my watching it are very low but for sheer novelty alone the odds are better that I'd watch the theoretical Bollywood version than the boring Hollywood version. I'd have to get pretty liquored up first and I don't much drink so the odds are looking bad. My daughter, who should be the target market because she's young and therefore has poor taste in entertainment, thinks it looks too violent based on the trailer. The hokey campy censored for TV series from 40 years ago because it wasn't fetishized violence thats all Hollywood can produce today. Theaters likely to be pretty empty.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:38PM (3 children)
Or abandon hollywood and its tired formulas and produce something other than a special effects demo reel that might sell to more people ...
This is a terrible idea.
... I donno, do a Bollywood and have her break out into interpretive dance periodically. The odds of my watching it are very low
And that's why.
Hollywood is very risk-averse these days, and for good reason too: people just aren't watching stuff at the cinemas much any more, for many reasons. You could probably argue it's a chicken-and-egg situation, but it's hard to say. But the way things are now, it just isn't very likely they'll get that many people into cinemas to pay $10-15 a ticket for a movie by doing something really original and different, and production costs are enormous, so they stick with what works, which is "special effects demo reels" and sequels to decades-old franchises and movies aimed at teenagers. Currently, this formula is working for them; they make very good money on movies, with relatively low risk, so why would they want to do things differently to please some older malcontents who aren't going to cinemas anyway and admit as much?
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:02PM (2 children)
Less cultural influence every year until they go away completely.
Its the same narrowcasting problem TV and pro sports have. Statistically nobody watches relatively popular TV shows anymore, sports is for old white boomers, etc.
You can make money off an ever decreasing audience for a long time, but eventually you got major problems that you can't cost cut your way out of.
The decline of newspapers is another interesting example.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:32PM (1 child)
That simply isn't the case with movies (at least the "special effects demo reels" you refer to): the audience has gotten ever larger, mostly thanks to foreign exports. That's why these movies have such dreadfully simple plots and dialog: they're easy to translate into different languages and foreign audiences will understand them and not feel left out because of too many cultural assumptions contained.
See this link [hollywoodreporter.com]: the global box office revenue hit a record in 2015 (which itself surpassed the record hit in 2014) of $38B. Here's another one [latimes.com]: thanks largely to China, Hollywood is making more money than ever. From that article: "It was a similar tale for Universal Pictures' "Everest" and 20th Century Fox's "Kingsman: The Secret Service," two films that did far better overseas than they did in the U.S. And increasingly, it's the international response that matters most to Hollywood."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:59PM
Dreadfully simple plots have always been the forte of action movies.
There is nothing new there.
Action movies aren't any dumber than they ever were, its just that the economics of foreign markets have caused hollywood to make more action movies.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:40PM (1 child)
I didn't bother with Ghostbusters because it took soooooooooo long to get out the door, and that after trying so hard to get the original people back and failing: i figured they probably said: "meh, lets just kick this thing together with dogs, no burrows, no.... ummmm, okay, lets use women, fine whatever and lets start making money off this cow shit" (like sooo many movies lately).
Last movie i saw at the theatre was the second Star Trek reboot. Other than that, i look at what they have to see and i just can't be bothered.
Rather just stay home and watch quality stuff: "The man in the high castle", "Game of Thrones", 99% of "Black Sails".
Might think about going to the drive-in if there is something good on, though....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @05:23PM
They made two big mistakes as far as I saw it that kept me away at least:
1) Making it a reboot instead of a sequel featuring the daughters of the original Ghostbusters. That probably would have been better received by many of the fans of the original.
2) Most of those women just aren't that funny, especially the one who specializes in acting like a black stereotype for laughs. Ernie Hudson didn't engage in such buffoonery in the original films, so why does the female version of Winston?
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:14PM
On the other hand, my (high school-aged) niece will go and see it, because she has been impatiently waiting for a Wonder Woman movie since she was five, when I diverted her from an obsession with Disney Princesses to one with kickass princesses, like Diana "Wonder Woman" Prince and Leia Organa. Princesses with swords and blasters are So Much Cooler to an active little girl than ones whose only talents are clothes-wearing and belting out pop ballads.
And if I know my niece, she will drag her family (including, kicking and screaming, her younger brother), her gaming group, and the rest of her friends into the theater with her.
So, y'all don't have to see it--we've got ya more than balanced out! :)