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Discuss: Are Male Critics Sexist Against 'Mamma Mia!'?

by Christopher Campbell Jul 22nd 2008 // 1:02PM

Filed under: Music & Musicals, New Releases, Universal, Critical Thought

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 her his review, New York Sun critic Grady Hendrix* noted that Mamma, "has been getting generally good reviews, but it's also been getting trashed by some critics who all have one thing in common: They're men." And the claim has now been escalated by Liz Smith, who quotes Hendrix in the Page Six section of today's New York Post.

Despite my half-belief that Hendrix has a point about some male critics, I didn't want her his claim to go unchecked. Especially because her his review went out on the same day that most newspaper reviews went out. Meaning, how could she have known the true demographics of all negative and positive reactions? Going through all the Mamma Mia! reviews sampled on Rotten Tomatoes, here is what I discovered:

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.

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Tags: chick flicks, ChickFlicks, featured, mamma mia, MammaMia, the dark knight, TheDarkKnight

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