Film critics are often criticized themselves for being the wrong audience for a movie they've panned. Whether it's old white guys who aren't the right audience for a Tyler Perry movie or old white guys who can't appreciate a "chick flick," the subjectivity of certain reviewers is sometimes even called out for being too racist, sexist or otherwise prejudiced. We saw a high level of apparent chauvinism going on recently with the release of Sex and the City, and now it's happening again with Mamma Mia! Last Friday, in Despite my half-belief that Hendrix has a point about some male critics, I didn't want
Out of 134 critics (including one review by a couple and excluding one review with no name), 98 are men and 36 are women (give or take one or two whose gender could not be verified by name and Google search alone). Of the men, only 46% gave Mamma Mia! a negative rating, while of the women, a comparative 44% reviewed the film negatively (our own Jette Kernion gave the film a positive review). Considering the film's current score of 54%, it seems that males and females feel about the same towards the movie. At least as far as professional movie viewers go.
Meanwhile, with regular folk, it's not surprising that female moviegoers are rating Mamma Mia! higher on the IMDb than the males are. Though, despite IMDb voters' apparent accuracy with their placement of The Dark Knight as the greatest film of all time, there is a high margin of error in terms of the site's ability to reflect everyone. Just noting that more males voted on Mamma Mia! than did females is a sign of this. There's no way that more men went to see the film than women; but it's likely that more men rate movies on the IMDb.
So, those of you women who went to see Mamma Mia! with a guy, did you hear any sexist remarks afterward?
*I apologize for assuming that Hendrix was female, and I very much thank commenter Josh Bell for pointing out this ironic fallacy.
1. How about hating ABBA. I love Musicals I see almost all of them. But ABBA is like hearing nails on a chalk board. That alone is enough to make me not want to see it.
Posted at 1:14PM on Jul 22nd 2008 by Eric