Idle bigots with too much time on their hands are trying to cause harm to a vulnerable group simply because they exist in the media.
The date has to finish in “Y.” Review bombing is nothing new, but the latest film to fall prey to deliberate attacks is “Bros,” Billy Eichner’s homosexual romance comedy, for the heinous offense of depicting a romantic relationship between people who aren’t wearing beige sweaters.
Reviews for “Bros” have been positive thus far at the Toronto International Film Festival, thus the sudden drop in the film’s IMDb rating—from 7.4 to 6.1—where the vast majority of reviews have been rated at only one star is very odd.
If you’re familiar with Rotten Tomatoes, you know that the site divides its ratings into those from critics and those from regular moviegoers.
Since the film hasn’t even opened in theaters yet, there are no audience reviews available, yet TIFF attendees and critics have given it a unanimous 94%. Even though it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened here, the fact that it keeps happening is incredibly frustrating.
Now that the film has been published, IMDb has disabled user ratings because it’s clear that the low scores were from homophobic trolls who, instead of reviewing movies online, should be reading, drinking water, touching the grass, and cleaning their own buttcracks.
Bigotry Will Not Stop History
A quick note to any homophobes who may have come into this page and found their way to this section: your hatred will not halt progress, and your bigotry will not stop history.
The fact that “Bros” is the first studio film to star an all LGBTQIA+ main cast and the fact that it is really, really wonderful will not be altered by a wave of negative reviews.
People like Billy Eichner are going to keep being outspokenly gay and doing odd work that disrupts the current quo, regardless of how many times you spend 30 seconds clicking a button to declare “one star”
As a result of “Bros” and Joel Kim Booster’s fantastic “Fire Island,” 2022 has been a banner year for gay rom-coms, despite a failed review bomb attempt due to the overwhelmingly positive reception the picture received.
Any homophobes reading this will be disappointed to hear (lying, I love it) that writing negative reviews of “Bros” won’t prevent the movie from being released.
The film “Bros” will premiere in cinemas, be seen by many, and ultimately make its way to a streaming service, where it will be accessible to an even wider audience. Not having an IMDb rating won’t stop that from happening; all you’re doing is irritating the people whose job it is to remove fake reviews.