Being a saga as successful as that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we can expect reactions of all kinds to its feature films and television series. Eternals (Chloé Zhao, 2021), for example, has the dubious honor of having received the worst rating from critics based on the numbers of Rotten tomatoes, which right now estimates a sixty percent approval rating from professional analysts. But what we never like to see is what happened to it in the IMDb database.
First was the reboot that involved Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016) with women; later, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017) and Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2019) and its feminist lead actress; and, not long ago, Masters of the Universe: Revelation (Kevin Smith, since 2021). All of these works were unscrupulously attacked on the voting and review websites. By viewers irritated by the possibly progressive implications of their stories. And now it was the turn of Eternals.
The reactionary prejudices with ‘Eternals’
As reported The Direct and it has echoed Screen rant, the new film by Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) has endured on IMDb more than 400 votes from one star … without having been released yet, before the platform decided to close the voting to the public, as on similar occasions, until after its release in theaters, on November 5.
What motivates this trolling is homophobia by the two gay characters in the feature film, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Ben (Haaz Sleiman). And it could be objected that there were also more than double the votes with ten stars and other intermediate ones; but the comments written by users who already abominate Eternals without even having been able to see her, they left no room for doubt.
For them, include diverse sexual orientations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe “it is woke“they said, referring to the excesses of activism against discrimination and social inequality. Because potatoes and as if a gay superhero and his partner prevented Chloé Zhao from telling us something properly. And the movie will be better or worse, but reactionary prejudices as these do not serve to argue one way or the other.