American Critic Kyle Smith Seems to Have a Blatant Preference When It Comes to Movies
This Guy Noticed a Critic's Startling Trend for Films Starring Black Actors
By Mustafa GatollariOct. 4 2018, Updated 6:58 p.m. ET
Black Panther's commercial success has spawned countless social media posts, stories, viral moments, reactions and dialogues that run the gamut from "yaaaassss" to "yo, it's just a movie."
For me, it's hard to find anything in the Marvel Universe to top Thor: Rangarok in terms of sheer entertainment value, but it's also hard to deny the cultural significance of an entire cast of black actors crushing it in fictional Wakanda on the big screen in such a massive production as Black Panther.
Plus, the fact it made so much money is a huge, huge plus.
#BlackPanther will leap past the $800M mark at the global box office this weekend https://t.co/WQcuIev2mc pic.twitter.com/dC1qiCIAJG
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 3, 2018Like all works of art, the quality of a film is open to interpretation. The majority of Black Panther's reviews are positive, but there are some outliers. Which isn't surprising, I mean there are some people who claim to have liked Justice League, even though it is objectively awful, so that's to be expected.
However when Astead Wesley of the Boston Globe took a look at critic Kyle Smith's review of Marvel's foray into Wakanda, he noticed a recurring trend with some of Smith's reviews.
That movies featuring black actors don't seem to be Smith's cup of tea.
[pulls out magnifying glass]
I'm noticing a pattern pic.twitter.com/qIlYnww5OR
— Astead (@AsteadWesley) March 5, 2018He started sharing screencaps of Smith's opinions on films featuring African-American artists, whether they're actors, directors, producers, or artists.
OK, so Get Out wasn't his favorite. Cool.
Umm, I don't really see anything particularly hyperbolic about this headline when compared to other Time covers.
But, uh, I liked 12 Years a Slave?
Alone, this tweet doesn't look so bad, but when you consider all the other ones Smith sent out, like Astead says, there's definitely a noticeable pattern in his taste of films.
Further searching got Astead and other Twitter followers shaking their heads.
I'm literally just searching movies w/ black ppl and having a 100% accuracy rate lol pic.twitter.com/JrNvfVksvM
— Astead (@AsteadWesley) March 5, 2018Smith turned up in the thread to explain/defend his reviews. But it didn't further his cause.
And this movie is a hell of a lot more radical than Selma https://t.co/ahKlyjTPY9
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) March 5, 2018As people pointed out that Birth of a Nation was revisionist history.
The Birth of a Nation film was an incredible injustice to black and American history. Turner’s identity was completely reinvented and the slave rebellion wasn’t appropriately highlighted. That movie was a sham riddled with historical inaccuracies.
— The Doctor (@Asmooth718) March 5, 2018Well, he writes for the national review. Conservative media's job is to stoke anger and fear within their readership, to keep them afraid, keep them buying guns, keep them being racist, etc. He's just doing his deplorable job
— Obie Of Course (@osanders75) March 5, 2018There were some people there to point out that Smith wasn't completely biased, however.
He liked Hidden Figures, possibly by accident
— Paul E (@palecur) March 6, 2018As Smith kept insisting.
I assure you I’ve said far more disobliging things about George Clooney movies than I have about Spike Lee’s.
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) March 5, 2018But people kept posting examples that were pretty damning.
What do you think?
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