Amandla Stenberg defends messaging New York Times film critic: “I do get tired of people talking about my chest”
The Bodies Bodies Bodies actor received criticism online after sending an Instagram message to critic Lena Wilson
Aux News Amandla Stenberg
On Thursday, Bodies Bodies Bodies actor Amandla Stenberg posted a series of videos on Instagram defending a controversial DM she sent to New York Times film critic Lena Wilson, following the critics’ review of the slasher-comedy which referred to the film doubling “as a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage,” according to Variety. The actor’s response comes after Wilson posted the original Instagram DM online, causing a wave of criticism towards Stenberg from supporters of the film critic.
“Your review was great,” wrote Stenberg in her message to Wilson. “Maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you would’ve watched the movie!”
Posting the Instagram DM onto their TikTok account, Wilson commented that they were “devastated” by Stenberg’s message, saying, “I’m posting it because I don’t want this person who has more social power than me to think that it’s fucking okay to do something like this.”
After a day’s worth of backlash online, Stenberg responded to all of the criticism via her Instagram, saying that she meant to come off as joking in her message to Wilson.
“I’m receiving a lot of commentary on the internet for being a very naughty girl and for sending a DM that I thought was hilarious,” said The Hate U Give star. “There’s this film critic and her name is Lena Wilson. She wrote a criticism of a movie I just had come out called Bodies Bodies Bodies. She described in her review the movie as a ‘95 minute advertisement for cleavage,’ which I thought was hilarious. I’m proud that a piece of work I was a part of was described as such in such a renowned publication.”
After releasing a bit of laughter, Stenberg continued, “I thought it was hilarious. I thought because Lena is gay, and I am also gay, I thought that as gay people we would both find this comment funny. I was also curious to know what Lena would say to such a statement. Lena decided to publish it and also says that I am homophobic for saying that.”
In the video, Stenberg explained that one of her reasons behind messaging Wilson’s line focusing on cleavage continued the actor’s multiple career experiences of others discussing her appearance since she was a teenager.
“It’s quite surprising the amount of commentary I receive on my boobs is so extreme,” Stenberg added. “I wore this tank top in this movie because me and the costumed designer felt it fit the character well. I do get tired of people talking about my chest. There seems to be a lot of unwarranted conversation about my chest.”
Stenberg finished off the video by saying, “Lena, I thought your review was hilarious. I thought my DM was funny. I did not mean to harass you. I do not wish you any harm. You are allowed to have your criticism on my work and I’m allowed to have my criticisms of your work. I wish you the best.”
313 Comments
Ah, the classic “I was only joking” excuse.
The original dm was quite obviously a joke
The original DM might have been a joke, but since more than half the people here didn’t read it that way, it’s the very opposite of “quite obvious.”Don’t mistake your perception for correct identification of objective truth.
More than half the people that comment here lately are absolute dullards.
Nah, this is the classic “this black person is attacking me” nonsense from an entitled yet fragile while person.
You seem fun.
Ahh, the classic “fragile white person” trope.
‘Doing the thing you’re complaining about’ is a strange way to achieve the goal of being someone I’d want to sympathize with. And the critic’s thin skin? She might wish to find another job.
Fuck Lena Wilson.
So the reviewer makes a reductive comment about how the movie is just an advertisement for cleavage, a star from that movie sends a private message joking that if the reviewer had paid more attention to the film than the cleavage, maybe she would have gotten more out of it, and somehow the reviewer is a victim?Wow.
To be fair, the DM doesn’t come off as being joking unless it was followed by a 😉 or a /s or something.
This is the problem. It may sound one way to the writer when they type it out, but it can sound completely different in the reader’s head. Then there’s the vast majority who don’t know what sarcasm is.
To be more fair, even if “it was just a joke” is a cover, and the DM was actually sent in spite, it’s still a pretty tame statement and a pretty major overreaction by the reviewer.
I can’t tell if you’re joking (damn this medium!) but if not, I’d say having an exclamation point pushes it towards possible joking.
Eh, I usually don’t take an exclamation mark as an indication of joking in text, usually you’d want to use an emoji or /s to indicate that kind of thing.I work with people who think ‘!!!!!!!’ is an appropriate way to end a question in an email.
do you think that Amandla Stenberg thinks the critic was literally just looking at her tits for 95 minutes?
is the film just a close up shot on her chest for 90 minutes? if so its a fair complaint then
I don’t really have any insight into what she thinks, do you?I have no clue, it very well might be a close up shot on her chest for 90 minutes. Is it?
So the reviewer makes a reductive comment about how the movie is just an advertisement for cleavageI’d have to see the movie before I could say it was reductive, cause that’d be a valid criticism of some movies.If a movie really does focus on boobies to sell tickets, it’d be weird to tell a reviewer to stop focusing on the focus on boobies.
On the other hand, the film is called Bodies Bodies Bodies. At worst, it does what’s on the tin.
It’s about time a movie featured cleavage.
Speaking as someone who has seen the movie and is also a huge fan of cleavage, I did not find the cleavage to be distracting or even a thing worth thinking about. This movie takes place mostly in the dark lit by cellphone cameras. There’s no actual nudity. Stenberg’s character shows cleavage but not excessively so, she’s just wearing normal clothes that happens to show some cleavage. Like people often do. Because the movie takes place over the course of a single night her character doesn’t change clothes. Wilson’s take, and response, is dumb. Stenberg is right to want people to focus on her film and not her tits.
The movie does not focus on cleavage even a little. The remark in the review is bizarre.
Watched it today. Outside of an early scene in which several characters, men and women, are in swimsuits in a pool, everyone wears, like, normal clothes for the majority of the film, which is also set mostly in the dark. Even Amanda’s outfit is barely revealing. The comment was stupid, and Amanda’s response was deserved.
It’s not a valid criticism of this movie. There’s some people in bikinis and wearing low cut shirts (really just Amandla Stenberg’s character once they leave the pool, as others have said) because they’re twentysomethings having a party but cleavage is not focused on. The camera doesn’t linger creepily on closeups of their bodies or anything, and despite how it may come off in marketing it’s not a like a traditional slasher either where there’s gratuitous nudity. The focus is on this group of supposed friends being dumb and passive aggressive to each other.
So what you’re saying is that it’s pretty low on the I Know What You Did Last Summer-o-Meter.
I’ll let you be the judge:(But yeah I think Jennifer Love Hewitt’s looks in I Know What You Did Last Summer were more “an advertisement for cleavage” than this)
It’s totally reductive. Bodies Bodies Bodies is one of the best movies I’ve seen in theaters in a while. Funny and smart and insightful and the “cleavage” was probably the least notable aspects of it for me.
“that’d be a valid criticism of some movies.”Including some written by well-respected film critics!
It doesn’t focus on boobies at all. Only one character has cleavage and its meant to be at a house party.
If you’re an artist, you don’t go after a reviewer. And that was hardly the only comment the reviewer made.
Yep. That’s kind of the trend these days – critics can’t figure out why they’re not insulated from criticism of their criticism.Can’t put my finger on why that’s such a familiar thing.
To be honest, it seems like everyone’s getting a bit hung up on the word ‘cleavage’ here. In context of the quote as it appears in the actual review, the reviewer seems to be intending it as a general shorthand for “scantily clad young women” rather than literally referring to cleavage and only cleavage in the way everyone seems to be interpreting it. So while it’s still kind of a dumb and reductive choice of words, I doubt it was intended solely and purely as a dig at Ms Stenberg specifically because she is the only one to literally show cleavage, the way it was taken.
But even so, the characters… aren’t scantily clad. Outside of the second scene of the film, in which five of the seven characters are in the pool, in swimsuits, the rest of the film everyone is wearing pretty normal clothing. It’s such a weird comment to make in her review, because it’s utterly baseless. It’s not even a particularly *sexy* film. There is some kissing, some tame talk about sex, and that’s pretty much it.
Oh, it’s still a dumb criticism, no argument. It just seems to be a dumb criticism being applied to the movie as a whole, not just Amandla Stenberg personally.
“I’m posting it because I don’t want this person who has more social power than me to think that it’s fucking okay to do something like this.”
Either AVC missed a chunk of the story that makes this make sense ( I know, I know) or Wilson’s a fucking idiot.
Yeah, I reread that bit trying to figure out what I was missing that makes sense of that. It doesn’t matter how much ‘social power’ someone has if they DM you, because it’s not public unless you make it so. If Billie Eilish slid into my DMs to call me an asshole, I’d be alarmed and confused, but it wouldn’t have the devastating force of her 100 million followers.
Wait, Billie Eilish didn’t slide into your DMs and call you an asshole?What did I ever do to her?!
Alas, no. All I get is daily positive affirmations from Chris Elliott.
that sounds nice.
Is Chris Elliott still a thing?
She did slide into my asshole and call me a DM.I mean, I haven’t been a Dungeon Master in 20 years!
She did slide into my asshole Strange moniker for your basement, but to each his own.
GM, yeah sure. DMs are just D&D, more grown-up RPGs like Call of Cthulhu use GMs.
Quit your job and DM for Billie Eilish,
Of course it matters how much power someone has, “social” or otherwise. Didn’t you learn anything from the #metoo movement? Power comes with implicit threat. If Louis CK privately asks if you want to watch him masturbate, you might feel fine simply saying “no” and walking away. But if he had the power to destroy your career, his question reads differently.It’s the same in this situation: Wilson, a lowkey public figure who requires good social media standing for her career, could have her life made absolutely miserable by Stenberg’s fanbase.So a strongly worded suggestion that she alter her reviews reads as a threat.
You know what you did to Billie, don’t act confused!
I audibly guffawed at that line from her. She sounds like a clown.
She’s very young, but still, somebody should have stepped in with the ol’ “The Internet is Forever” line.
For once, the AV Club isn’t missing anything (up to that point; a lot has happened since). There was literally the DM and then the tiktok about social power.
It makes perfect sense. (Whether one agrees with her about the power dynamic is a different story, but her intention makes perfect sense)>> That actress Amandla Stenberg has more social power than writer Lena Wilson.
It’s such a smarmy thing to say but totally consistent with the recent trend of co-opting the jargon of self-help and pop sociology to bolster your own position. When you have no real leg to stand on, accuse someone else of “silencing” or being “toxic,” or “or “gaslighting” or “abusing their privilege” and it’s game set match. Not to say these phrases don’t describe actual phenomenon, but the way they’ve been strategically weaponized is fucking exhausting.
Grooming. Say she was grooming.
the recent trend of co-opting the jargon of self-help and pop sociology to bolster your own positionWhich is a lot of what Bodies Bodies Bodies is about, ironically. In her defense, it would be weird and uncomfortable for a lot of writers to have someone they’re writing about DM them complaining about the review. And it could make you think that this person who is more powerful than you could use that power to hurt your career if you criticized their work further. But that’s essentially a slippery slope argument, not what actually happened.
Yeah I was gonna say, it’s almost too ironic (or is it fitting?) that this critic seems to be exhibiting the self-important, “look at my mild victimhood” behavior that’s skewered in the film. It’s very Rachel Sennott’s character. “I’ve never told anyone this but…. I have body dysmorphia.”
Yeah I have no problem with Stenberg in all of this. This Lena Wilson person seems very melodramatic and attention-seeking…I don’t want that kinda shit out of a film critic, I’ll be sure to avoid Wilson’s film reviews now.
This story came up in my news feed from another site, and that article made it sound like the NYT reviewer found the comment homophobic (presumably she didn’t realize that the woman making the comment was also gay). If that’s the case, it’s a simple misunderstanding blowing up on social media. The next step is that they meet randomly at a wedding, then get stranded in an airport together, where they fall madly in love.
presumably she didn’t realize that the woman making the comment was also gayNo, she did. She said “the homophobia is coming from inside the house.” I don’t get what’s homophobic about it though. Yeah, the fact that you’re attracted to women may have had some bearing on the fact that she accused you of staring at her tits after you wrote about cleavage, but that doesn’t make it homophobic unless I’m really missing something.
Yeah, if a dude had written that review I can’t imagine people would be nearly as critical of the DM, or defensive of the critic (who is an asshole, lesbian or not).
It’s kind of a wild line of thought, but tbh I’ve been noticing more and more reviews that get weirdly personal towards the actors/directors/etc involved in a way that, coming from not quite a colleague but certainly someone in adjacent industry, feels pretty inappropriate. (My personal favorite it the kind where the critic makes an inappropriate clinical mental health diagnosis.)
Probably because you’re noticing more and more reviewers who are younger and younger, and make everything about their own subjective experience. (I know, I know, get off my lawn, hey you cloud, etc)
Being a film critic has always been subjective, of course, but there was a time that it aspired to be more about the experience of a general audience, rather than an autobiographical rundown of the reviewer’s viewpoints.
Definitely agree there, but there’s still a huge difference between a Pitchfork-style “what I did on my summer vacation” in lieu of a real review which is merely unhelpful vs. borderline slander because you have some sort of a personal conspiracy theory about a person involved in the project.
The part you missed is this: Stenberg has the power in this situation. Whether it’s social media following, industry clout, or sheer financial power, it’s still power.So let me put it another way: If Harvey Weinstein, in his heyday, sent an abusive message to a reviewer after they wrote a review, that reviewer would be justifiably upset. Not because Weinstein was an ugly, angry man, but because he had a lot of power… and when you harass someone and you have power, it’s doesn’t read as a jokey moan, it reads as a threat.
You didn’t miss anything, just recently Wilson put out a video in which she says she has no formal training for criticism because it’s a natural talent within her… probably because her dad is the editor at the New York Times.
Wilson put out a video in which she says she has no formal training for criticism because it’s a natural talent within her…I’m not very impressed with what Lena Wilson has said and done so far but, that said, I watched that video and I don’t think you’re being fair. She has a degree in film studies and, while she acknowledges her family journalism connections as privilege, she has a stronger journey to being a NY Times critic than “her dad works for the paper”. She used reviews on her personal site to secure a position with a small publication and then used work with the small publication to secure a position with NY Times.
lolol because that’s the usual road to a crticism position at the NEW YORK TIMES
Or she saw an opportunity to craft a perfect example of passive aggression and couldn’t pass it up.
Oh, but Wilson’s “devastated”! She’s over there in the corner weeping into her be-clutched Primark faux-pearls hoping that we’ll take sympathy on her.
In the same tiktok that she implied Jennifer’s Body is a good movie! Unbelievable.No really, watching the video, she gives no actual reason why she was “devastated” by this direct message.And then says “i dont want anything more to come of this” in her mass public video to her followers.
both can be true
Example 1,548,461,201 of why social media is a fucking nightmare of a communication tool.
It is sort of weird all around. The response did not sound like she was joking. It sounded like she was annoyed at the criticism (which honestly is a criticism of the choices of the film makers). But it is also weird to take a DM and post it publicly complaining about Stenberg’s “social power”. Was this visible to the wide world? Seems sort of Streisand effect-ish.
Yes, but now I’ve heard of this person, when I hadn’t before. And so have you. And that’s called trying to grow your audience!
She was Rue in The Hunger Games, and The Internet had Words about her casting. So it’s not like Amandla Stendberg was a complete internet nobody; she’s been subject to The Internet from the moment she arrived on the scene.
I intended ‘this person’ to refer to the movie reviewer – the implication being that she publicized a private communication with a higher-profile person in order to raise her own.
I don’t even remember the reviewer’s name, and I read the article.
Armond White?
I want to see it more now, just to see who’s right.So yeah, brilliant viral marketing all around, intended or not.
Yeah, I’ve got to see it now. If only to see this chest everyone has apparently been talking about.
Honestly, I think if Stenberg would have just said it out loud and not in a DM this would have gone away as a nothing burger, because that is very reductive review of the movie.
But then the world wouldn’t have learned what a complete dick this Lena Wilson person is.
Jesus, you’re really mad about this aren’t you?
It’s schadenfreude, friend.
The current landscape feeds off your divisive, petty outrage. It’s the fuel it shovels into the ovens to generate more and more click$. Your impotent, indentity-based rage is invaluable to our corporate overlords. On behalf of them, thank you.
Damn you’re so fucking cool, bro. Kinda seems like you’re the one with a grudge against the world though, Fonzie.
I am. The world is a shitty, shitty place thanks to people like you.
So sorry the modern world has conspired to leave you sexless, son.
How exactly is me calling this lady an asshole categorically different from your bizarre rant about me and my responsibility for the decline of civilization, you sad sack?
Clicking and commenting is doing the same thing. The corporate overlords don’t care if you think this is dumb or you care with your whole heart. You’ve engaged. You’ve fed the beast. The only way to win is to not play. Everyone on this article, me included, have lost.
Didn’t really have an opinion on Stenberg before, but I thought she handled this pretty much perfectly while Wilson is really stretching to victimize herself. Sending the DM was probably misguided, but I believe Stenberg that it was a joke that was supposed to be good-natured ribbing. Wilson framing it as an attack and claiming that Stenberg is attempting to use her “social power” against her, when Wilson was the one who made it public, is absurd.
It doesn’t read like a joke
She could be dead fucking serious and it wouldn’t change how ridiculous Wilson’s reaction was.
You’re not intelligent
Who cares. If a critic says something tasteless and rude about an actor/movie are they supposed to be above reproach? I doubt she’s the first person to get a sarcastic note after writing a review.
No, it doesn’t read like a joke, it reads like a valid criticism of a reviewer’s dumb take.
I can’t say I agree that the power dynamics between an actress I’ve never heard of and a NYT film critic are so lopsided (in favor of the actress) to make this a scandal, which seems to the argument made by the critic.
If I’m a costumer, dressing a hot rich person going partying with her 20-something friends in the summer, am i going to put her in a mid-aughts combo of going out tanktop/exposed bra or a sweater? She can’t help her boobs. This whole thing reeks of principals who send girls home because the boys can’t concentrate.
Did you actually read the article? It is nothing like that.
Having seen the movie and read the review… it kind of is like that, mostly because the movie doesn’t emphasize cleavage at all, and the vast majority of it is women in totally normal clothes walking around in the dark. Claiming the film is a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage says far more about the reviewer than the film itself.
I might be able to help her boobs. I’m here if anyone needs.
Pfft. What kind of moron harasses critics over their reviews and then publicizes it? What spoiled, entitled behavior. Cash the checks, do good work, get your revenge that way.
Did you read past the first paragraph?
I think you’re confused.
What kind of moron would call someone else a moron without bothering to get the most basic facts of the incident correct?
The AV Club!!!
I dunno…I’d be much more convinced if I knew that as soon as you hit “Publish,” you immediately did a “The Aristocrats!” hand flourish.
Oh I do . . . I do. . .
Big fail there, putz.
A quick recap: The actor DM’d the critic over the review. The critic cried, “Harassment!” and made the private DM public.
Ya played yourself.
You’re a fucking waste of space.
Lesbian or not, it’s clear the author of the review is using her white womanhood to try and become the victim when messaged by a black actress she wrote a review on.
Or get the digits. I vote for the latter.
Good lord Mr. Fantastic, THAT was a stretch! Even Stenberg does not go there. You have two women, one who is trying to claim social bullying (in a DM no less) and one who is claiming to be the victim of body shaming, when the comment was directed at the studio (A24) and their body of work in general.
Stenberg is not crying victim here.
Except that they actually did accuse the critic of ogling them, over a throwaway line in a very mild review, no less.
Lol you’re an embarrassment to humanity.
It’s a good thing you aren’t going to reproduce.
Ok David
So, Gay Karen then?
Completely unrelated to Gay Karens, is Bari Weiss still an employee of the Old Gray Lady? Maybe this clown was hired to take her job but was just slid around until she hit an open position.
Isn’t Weis running a school for Hitler Youth now?
They prefer to be called “Libertarians”.But yes, she quit the NYT after no one there would fire her, proceeded to play the victim and whine about cancel culture anyway and is now attempting to open a “university” with a bunch of grifters from the so-called Intellectual Dark Web. No idea how far along the project is or if anything will ever materialize from it, though.
No idea how far along the project is or if anything will ever materialize from it, though.Don’t sell yourself short–I’m pretty sure you can figure out that second bit.
No, what’s clear is your racist assertion that this is some “white womanhood” power play to keep a black actress down.
WOKE HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Is this satire?
You are dead on correct.
I think you meant: It’s clear that a movie star was using their power to implicitly threaten a journalist.
This is exactly the take they published at “Out” magazine. A white woman relied on the stereotype of black aggression. The people in this thread certainly didn’t read that article.
You’re dumb as hell
I went and read the actual review. Here’s the full quote. “The only thing that really sets “Bodies Bodies Bodies” apart is its place in the A24 hype machine, where it doubles as a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage and Charli XCX’s latest single.” Stenberg isn’t singled out. The review is negative, and frankly, I think Stenberg was at least partly reacting to that. Wilson wasn’t being personal.
The only person with visible cleavage (admittedly from the pictures I have seen) is Amandla. And as a someone with big boobs, it is very easy to show cleavage. It’s kind of shitty to exist as someone with a bigger chest and then be criticized as your movie being an advertisement for cleavage. It’s the same thing women who have internalized misogyny do and Lena should think a little bit more why the one person in the movie with visible cleavage is enough to reduce the entire movie to that
Exactly. I’ve seen the movie and, outside of a brief pool scene at the beginning, Stenberg is the only one with actual cleavage. So it makes sense to feel personally targeted.
Regardless of the original review or Stenberg’s reaction to it, Wilson taking the private conversation public while simultaneously complaining about how Stenberg’s public persona gives her power is absolutely absurd. It’s one of those cases where the reaction overshadows the initial infraction.
Right, she’s framed this as if Stenberg posted about the review so she could rally her fans to attack the critic, when she’s the one who made the DM public. And that’s before you get into the claim of homphobia. Deranged behaviour.
You’re an idiot
Neither was Stenberg, but Wilson Karened the hell out of the situation.
Implying someone can’t do their job because they are distracted by their own sexuality is pretty personal, actually.
Implying someone can’t do their job because they are distracted by their own sexuality is at least a little bit personal, I think.
Context? In The AV Club?
I don’t know who either people involved are, and the Internet was a mistake, but…I…don’t care…
Lena Wilson was trying to shoot her shot is all.
So a few comments are talking about how the “advertisement for cleavage” comment is needlessly reductive, but that is not really the focus of the review. In context it is just a minor few words in broader review of this film (she did not really like it) and A24 productions in general:
The only thing that really sets “Bodies Bodies Bodies” apart is its
place in the A24 hype machine, where it doubles as a 95-minute
advertisement for cleavage and Charli XCX’s latest single. Overused
Twitterspeak like the words “toxic,” “narcissist” and “gaslighting” have
been lampooned in plenty of other projects, as has the fragility of well-heeled young people. There are certainly other slashers in this vein. The genre persists, in part, because audiences love to watch fat cats go splat.The comment above is not targeted at Stenberg, but at A24.Still, I stand behind my other comment (and that of other people) that it makes zero sense for Wilson to go public with it.
Overused Twitterspeak like the words “toxic,” “narcissist” and “gaslighting” have been lampooned in plenty of , as has the fragility of well-heeled young people.
And then she unironically complains about Stenberg’s “social power” as somehow relevant to a DM.
The comment being short and off-the-cuff doesn’t make it any less bizarre or inappropriate for the film at hand.If I say “Martin Short is a 72 year old Jamaican comedian who worked alongside such luminaries as Steve Martin and Chevy Chase and has received multiple medals from Queen Elizabeth II, and he currently resides in Los Angeles” you’re going to hone in on the one very obviously weird and wrong part of my statement even though it’s far from the central point of it.
Like a lot of others in these comments… I’m really failing to see how the reviewer is the victim here? She zeroed in on Stenberg’s body, and I don’t blame Stenberg for throwing some serious side-eye at that. It’s reductive as fuck.
Nah
No she didn’t. Here’s the full quote, which of course AVC couldn’t be bothered to actually include. It’s just a shit review. Whoever this Stenberg person is isn’t even mentioned. “The only thing that really sets “Bodies Bodies Bodies” apart is its place in the A24 hype machine, where it doubles as a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage and Charli XCX’s latest single.” Funny how the only people who seem genuinely bothered by all this is, of course, people in comment sections. Oh, and shitty AV Club writers, natch.
Christ, both of these people need to get the fuck off of social media. If you’re an actor, don’t DM film critics with a passive aggressive “jokes.” If you’re a film critic, don’t post tetchy TikTok videos in response. I’m still theoretically a couple of decades away from my “old man yells at cloud” phase of my life, but it really feels like Young People These Days have have lost any sense of professional boundaries – and social media, where everyone is simultaneously public and private, has played a huge part in that shift.
To lose sense of any sort of boundaries means you have to have had it first. To say that social media has turned billions of people into thoughtless, soulless, attention-whoring monsters with no senses of boundary, subtlety, context or humor is putting it overwhelmingly lightly.
And here you are, making comments, hoping for stars.(j/k, couldn’t resist. and I gave you one)
The only star I’m interested in is Larry Storch.
He’s dead.
So are you.
If I’m dead then all of us are
Literally nothing wrong with Stenberg’s message.
Content-wise? It’s less bad than Wilson’s response, but it’s rarely, if ever, a good idea to DM a stranger.
Seems way, way classier than attacking someone on Twitter (after blocking them).
What if…you didn’t take to social media at all, which was my point?
An Instagram DM is the current online equivalent of a phone call or a letter, not “social” media. It’s fine.
“An Instagram DM is the current online equivalent of a phone call or a letter…”Yes, and that is a problem. Having the capacity to instantaneously send a “private”—notice how we’re all talking about his DM despite its supposed non-social nature?—message to a complete stranger without a second thought is a problem. If Stenberg was limited to those other, far less convenient options, maybe she would have put more thought into her “joke.” Or maybe it would have occurred to her that actors picking fights with critics, no matter how justified, is rarely a good look, and not bothered contacting Wilson directly. If Stenberg was upset about the review, there are numerous ways of publicly and professionally expressing her displeasure. In fact, I think a (carefully worded) Tweet would’ve been more appropriate in this case. But we’re all on social media and we all “know” each other even though we don’t really, so she went with rattling off a “casual,” “private” passive aggressive attack at Wilson, who took it in the worst possible way. And I’m obviously not letting Wilson off either, whose response was petty and delusional and way out of proportion. Neither behaved professionally.
Get back to us when you figure out what you want to criticize about her beyond just you wanting to criticize her.
Thanks, but I’ve been quite clear. Get back to me when you want to actually want to respond to what I wrote instead of tossing off something glib.
Yes, your thesis that social media is to blame but then also she shouldn’t have communicated privately but instead should have used social media appeared to have been super well considered.
A) DMs *are* social media. That’s the point I’m making, which you’re refusing to get. Social media platforms make it supremely easy to communicate with perfect strangers and share those communications with other strangers, to the extent that we lose sight of the wisdom or repercussions of reaching out. We also tend to lose sight of how easily putatively “private” messages can be retained and weaponized. Social media completely blurs the line “private” and “public” in ways that traditional media simply do not.B) I said a well-worded Tweet was *more* appropriate, in that Stenberg would at least be engaging with Wilson as a fellow public figure, thus establishing some professional distance. *Ideally* Stenberg would have stayed off social media altogether and ignored the negative review.
So social media is bad, but so are private communications, so what she should have done was engage publicly on social media. Got it.Why not just come clean about whatever your real grievance is?
Sigh.“So social media is bad, but so are private communications”“DMs *are* social media. That’s the point I’m making, which you’re refusing to get.”“…so what she should have done was engage publicly on social media. Got it.”“*Ideally* Stenberg would have stayed off social media altogether and ignored the negative review.”I really have been trying to address your points in good faith. Could you please try reading what I wrote next time?
That was responding to what you wrote. You should consider trying to be consistent if you want to appear to have a real position.
An actor could have made a phone call or sent a letter back to a critic back in the 50s, bruh. No different than the DM. But Wilson’s response was to respond to the private message in public while referring to Stenberg in the third person and never talking to her like someone who works for a newspaper might want to fucking do. The only way Wilson could have done that in the 50s is if she tried to publish it in the paper she writes for or somehow getting a radio interview out of it. And honestly, her editors would and should have likely responded by saying “You spent the last 2 hrs trying to get fired, is that it? Please, let’s act like you never put this on my desk”, and the reporter or even tabloid gossip regurgitator she would have been seeking an interview with would have been like “…so what’d she say back? Wait, you’re just publicizing your hurt feelings without talking with the person who hurt them? What are you, 13 years old? Wait, you’re a critic for the Times? Now this IS a story. Please, continue to debase yourselfImean pour your heart out”.
What your response represents is a person of a generation whose never had their name in the phone book trying to find the digital equivalent of a fainting couch, not a remotely rational response to an at worse trollish private message.
Shit, my first response would have been to disbelieve entirely it was Amandla Stenberg, blocked them, and gone on with my fucking day. And I’ve sent worse DMs to better strangers. Boohoo. FFS.
“An actor could have made a phone call or sent a letter back to a critic back in the 50s, bruh.”They could have indeed. And yet most didn’t.“But Wilson’s response was to respond to the private message in public while referring to Stenberg in the third person and never talking to her like someone who works for a newspaper might want to fucking do.”You folks are so eager to pile on that you’re ignoring the fact that I’m saying stuff like “And I’m obviously not letting Wilson off either, whose response was petty and delusional and way out of proportion.”
An actor could have made a phone call or sent a letter back to a critic back in the 50s, bruh.In total fairness, while not impossible those were much more time consuming and much less convenient options. Our hypothetical 1950s actor would have had to either get a phone book or connect to an operator, acquire the journalist’s number, go to a physical landline, and then actually dial the numbers and wait for the connection to be made, all the while hoping they were home / at the same location the phone was at in order to receive the call. Or, alternatively, they’d have had to go to their desk, get a pen and some paper, write a letter, get an envelope and stamp, find the journalist’s address, and then post the letter. And the fact that these were more time-consuming processes would mean that there was a greater chance that at some point in either process, the actor might eventually calm down, decide “Eh, you know what, fuck it, it’s not worth it,” and decide not to go through with it, or at least calm down enough from their initial irritation to moderate the eventual message. They might not, of course, but there was a greater chance that they would. I think the OP’s point is just that social media / internet communication in general has created an environment where people can near-instantly fire off angry messages to and about relative strangers who have pissed them off without stopping to consider whether or not doing so is a particularly good idea or not. And, well, one way or another it doesn’t seem to have been so for either of the participants in this little drama.
notice how we’re all talking about his DM despite its supposed non-social nature?…because Wilson publicized it. It could have been a letter, or a fax, or a telegram, and Wilson could’ve taken a picture of it and shared that. It could’ve been an email and the level of effort (taking a screenshot) would’ve been exactly the same.
My first point was that if Stenberg was limited to phone calls and telegraphs she would have been less likely to contact Wilson in the first place – cold-calling strangers is an entirely different experience from “sliding into their DMs,” and I find it interesting that people are accepting on faith that they are equivalent. Stenberg shouldn’t have reached out to Wilson, full stop – little upside and considerable risk, as this drama demonstrates.My second point was that, pre-social media, both reaching out to strangers and broadcasting one’s opinions to millions of people were considerably more difficult. There were downsides to that, naturally—hence the internet—but advantages as well. 50 years ago, if Stenberg had sent her telegraph, how exactly was Wilson going to “publicize” it? Call up the paper and ask them to print it? Who would’ve noticed, who would’ve cared? But in the social media age, where every aspect of our lives is easily publicizable and broadcastable, and internet journos are ravenous for content, we have to content with an unending flurry of feuds and beefs.
50 years ago, if Stenberg had sent her telegraph, how exactly was Wilson going to “publicize” it? Call up the paper and ask them to print it? Yes.Who would’ve noticed, who would’ve cared?The readers. Especially in 1950 when newspapers were far more widely circulated and read than today. This kind of public feuding isn’t new. Print tabloids still exist. They’re usually at the checkout aisle in the grocery store. Your points are objectively correct. If Stenberg didn’t have the option to DM Wilson, she would have been less likely to reach out. Broadcasting one’s opinions to millions of people was considerably more difficult before social media. My perspective is that gossip culture and its demand for content predates social media and the internet, and Wilson comes off looking waaaay worse off in this entire interaction than Stenberg. You think they both look bad, so I understand why you feel the way you do.
Why not? Wilson’s supposed to be a journalist. Privately contacting a journalist with feedback on their public writing isn’t out of line. Wilson could have used the DM as an opportunity to have a dialogue with the actress, rather than calling attention to it publicly in an effort to preemptively declare herself a victim to the world. Would it have been better if Sternberg had thrown out the same message publicly, and tagged Wilson on it? Then it might actually be what Wilson’s accusing her of—using her maybe-greater online following to harass and intimidate Wilson.If you can publicly call someone’s movie an advertisement for cleavage, you can privately (or even publicly) accept criticism from the person whose cleavage was most on display. If you’re going to be “devastated” if someone calls you out on it, maybe don’t sexualize your snark. Or, have the guts to stand by it rather than pretending you’re a victim.
A) DMs aren’t actually private, as this drama demonstrates, but their putatively personal nature makes it easier for the “victim” to make it look like the “aggressor” is stalking or harassing them. B) If Stenberg wanted to provide feedback and “initiate a dialogue,” she didn’t choose her words very wisely or carefully. “Jokes” can always be taken the wrong way, and this was pretty clearly meant to be more than a joke. I’m not saying Stenberg is wrong or out of line; just pointing out that, again, it’s rarely a good idea to DM a stranger.C) Wilson’s response—and apparently I keep having to emphasize this—was delusional. And her argument that this was some power-move on Stenberg’s part is completely ridiculous, as there’s functionally zero power inbalance between a young actor and New York Times film critic. Heck, I’d say the balance is more in Wilson’s favor. But…I still think there wouldn’t have been a story—or nearly as much of a story—if Stenberg had just tweeted about it instead of sending “jokey” DM. Something like “disappointed to read that Bodies is a ‘95-minute advertisement for cleavage’…kind of assumed the NYTimes would have more to comment on than my chest” wouldn’t have provided much wind for Wilson’s sails. (And ideally, Stenberg probably should’ve just let it slide, aside from the mentioning it interviews). Again, DMs have a reputation for being something harassing creeps send to strangers, and that just made it easier for Wilson to paint Stenberg as trying to start a personal feud.
A) DMs aren’t actually private, as this drama demonstrates, but their putatively personal nature makes it easier for the “victim” to make it look like the “aggressor” is stalking or harassing them.You keep claiming this, but unless I’m missing something about IG (I’m not on that one and have never used it) that DM wasn’t viewable by anyone but Wilson and Stenberg until Wilson publicized it. If that’s the case, then it’s as private as anything gets these days. The only thing that this demonstrates is that someone can publicize words that were addressed only to them, which is something that’s as old as the written word itself.As for the rest: Wilson initiated this by writing—publicly and in the pages of one of the world’s most powerful newspapers—a negative review of a movie starring Stenberg in which Stenberg’s performance is barely mentioned other than that bit of snark about cleavage, which can very reasonably be interpreted as a direct slam on Stenberg herself. Under those circumstances, it’s not on Stenberg to initiate a dialogue. She was insulted, and she responded in a way that was as snarky as the insult, while also calling out its sexism. Honestly, I think her comeback was a nice piece of work. You can rewrite it to be nicer or more politic, but she wasn’t writing a Letter to the Editor of the Times, she was writing directly to someone who’d insulted her. You can say she should’ve not responded, but I doubt anyone (other than maybe you) would’ve said she shouldn’t respond if the person throwing the cleavage dig out there was male.As I wrote—and I wrote this as a person who’s been in situations similar to Wilson’s, where you write things that are critical and snarky and you don’t necessarily expect the subjects of your criticism to respond—when you get a response, it’s on the writer to then decide how (or if) to respond in turn. You can let it go, but if you’re a journalist in any way, the go-to response is to engage in dialogue. Sometimes all you’ll get back is more insults and someone telling you you don’t know how to do your job, but a surprising amount of the time people will actually be willing to engage and discuss things. I know folks who have turned someone writing in to call them an asshole into an on-the-record interview. It’s just good professional practice. (And none of this is new or exclusive to the age of social media.)I think at least we agree that Wilson chose the worst of her options. And maybe we should just leave it at that.
Implying the critic was unable to do her job because she was distracted by breasts is pretty rude. If it was a joke, it wasn’t a very good one.Both parties look very foolish here.
Implying the critic was unable to do her job because she was distracted by breasts is pretty rude.
When the critic comments on the movie’s overwhelming amount of breasts despite said movie placing no emphasis on breasts at all and the vast majority of the film featuring women wearing perfectly normal shirts shot in a non-gaze-y way, it’s entirely fair to say the critic brought something to the theater that the movie itself didn’t provide.
Well, if Lena genuinely was just making shit up, her review wasn’t worth acknowledging in the first place. Amandla shouldn’t waste their time with engaging such bad faith criticism.
This is what happens when you teach an entire generation that being the victim is the most important thing in any social interaction.
And this comment is what happens when dudes never get laid but think it’s everyone else’s fault.
That’s a uniquely specific and wildly out of left field conclusion. Curious where your head is at that that came to mind.
Oh, dudes complaining about an entire generation in an angry but counterfactual way are often incels. It’s possible it may not be true in your particular case, and maybe you’re just like an dude who has had sex sometimes and is irrationally angry for other reasons, but my generalization was at least as accurate as yours.
I’m not the OP, bub.When you’re shitposting, you need a better balance between speed and accuracy.
Oh my bad. You’re just his champion? Sure showed me!
Many people — of all genders — do indeed feel.the end to identify as victims and claim their victimhood as part of their status or identify. Because many people crave attention, even when it’s negative, and social media makes finding it easier.Since the original comment doesn’t mention women or gender whatsoever, the childish snark about misogyny and incels just reads as projection. And lazy.Just labelling everyone who makes a comment about the abundance of over-sharing by people claiming victim status as misogyny or not getting laid is both juvenile and closed-minded. And ironic.Many people are truly victims of awful things. But not everyone is. And, yes, many people seem to think they are, and that everyone needs to know about it…And then that anyone who doesn’t agree must be some incel or angry misogynist. In reality, some people will always crave drama, and some people will find them exhausting.
Maybe before you jump in to defend the honor of the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic creep, you might pause and consider the possibility that I happen to be very familiar with this particular incel.
BRAVEEEEEE
Lol you have no idea how embarrassing pretty much everything you think is
Oh clearly you don’t know the guy he’s replying to very well. He’s just a troll, and should be ignored completely. How he keeps oozing his way out of the greys here is a testament to how far this place has fallen since its heyday.
Nothing you’ve ever said or thought matters to anyone
Love your name, but he goes by “recognitions” now.
Lol
It’s embarrassing enough when random Twitter users desperately try to make themselves out to be victims, but when it’s a journalist? Yeesh, where’s the self respect?
Ironically, the movie was kinda ass…
Ms. Bakalova is going to learn what a fickle lover is the American audience.
I recommend she get in touch with Taika Waititi.
None of this matters. Get off the internet. All of you. It’s melting your brains.
‘Celebrity comments on comments about their comment’ now accounts for 93% of all entertainment news
– The AV Club
Can’t wait for Tom Hanks to weigh in!
Yes, god knows nobody ever discussed celebrity feuds before social media.
there were celebrity feuds but they weren’t comment-section-based
Why can’t you just get hit by a car or something
Celebrity?
Rachel Sennott also has a nice rack of lamb. Great sketch writer too.
Wow, this is fucking dumb.
An article like this should at least include a picture (if not a slideshow!) depicting the anatomy in question. Whatever happened to journalistic ethics?!
Neither of these two people warrant any coverage.
I got yer headline right here:
TWO BOOBS CARRY ON ABOUT TITS!you’re welcome.
Ha!
I feel like this is the one time where the A.V. Club’s snark would have been appropriate. I don’t know why it’s missing because everyone involved is fucking stupid and deserves to be laughed at.Stenberg should not have responded to a mildly negative review that doesn’t even single her out. Her excuse that she thought the review was “hilarious” and that she was just joking. Neither the review nor the response look like a joke. Considering her job, she should build a thicker skin.Speaking of someone needing a thicker skin, what was Wilson thinking? She writes reviews for the New York Times and she thinks that response was crossing the line??? And what was the logic behind publishing the post? She thinks making a DM public removes Stenberg’s social power? Never mind that; she thinks Amandla Stenberg has social power??? What is she even doing in that line of work?
In what way did that not read as a joke?
The primary intent of a joke is to elicit a laugh and is usually unserious. I believe Stenberg was being sincere and her primary intent was to voice a complaint. Her complaint employed snark, which might read as funny, but that doesn’t make it a joke.
Joke or not, it’s a valid complaint about a review that, had it been written by a dude, would probably have been dismissed as misogynist garbage.
It would appear that you are unaware of what a joke is, friend.
In the way that it didn’t
Well, I didn’t hear anyone laughing.
I assume that you were part of a large group reading it at the same time, right?
AVC couldn’t possibly have been snarky about this truly moronic non-story because SOMEONE MENTIONED THAT THEY WERE GAY and that should always be taken VERY VERY SERIOUSLY. How DARE you suggest ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING ELSE.
Outside of an early (and brief) pool scene Stenberg is the only character whose costume shows any cleavage, so while the reviewer didn’t call her out by name, hers is the only cleavage she could possibly be talking about.
To be fair, Stenberg is 23, and posting dumb shit on the internet is pretty much what 23-year-olds do. This Wilson person looks to be in her mid-to-late 30s so she has less of an excuse.
This had to have been really difficult for you, choosing who to defend in this story. My condolences.
Eh, I’m 30 and I post dumb shit on the internet all the time (as I’m sure most of you are aware). Sometimes people don’t grow out of it.
I think we have enough evidence at this point that working at the NYT sets back mental development considerably.
And you’re a dumb fat asshole who nobody cares about.
Stenberg has 11m likes on her TikTok. Her 700K fans could make your life miserable if you were a journalist on the receiving end of their ire.
It’s not the number, it’s the intensity. I like many famous people but I don’t like any of them enough to go harass someone else on their behalf. At the stage she is in her career, it would be very surprising if Stenberg could create that kind of reaction. Which, I will mention for clarity, is absolutely not what she was trying to do here anyway.
Johnny Depp’s fans on the other hand, feel emboldened to casually chat about wanting to murder Amber Heard so there ya go.
This is true, but in total fairness that might be why Stenberg privately DM’ed her instead. It was the journalist who made it public.That said, Stenberg’s original DM still comes off as at least a little passive aggressive.
The only reason any of those fans know that anything happened at all is because Wilson chose to make a private conversation public. She actively courted attention where there had been none and then attempted to use said attention as proof that she’s a victim.It was weird as hell.
I’m very confused at what Lena Wilson thought she was accomplishing. I’m no big fan of Amandla Stenberg in so much as I know her from her movies, but I’m indifferent to her beyond that. Amandla’s DM wasn’t exceptionally funny. I’m not sure she was calling Lena Wilson out for being a lesbian so much as just commenting on a comment Wilson made, but beyond that, if I’m reading this right, Amandla didn’t comment publicly until after Wilson did. She just sent a DM. So to claim she was using her social cache against you seems…weird. It seems more like Wilson is using Amandla’s social cache to increase her followers.
She accomplished being the white woman victim of the week and needing to take her Twitter account private.
You’re soooooooo brave
Sorry I don’t speak incel.
No, but you sure seem to call everyone an incel. I’m sure there’s nothing to read into there though huh?
Kid, you’re the person I call an incel, owing to your revanchist need to attack and troll women and every conceivable minority. Men with sex lives don’t do that.
It’s a good thing nothing you’ve ever said or thought matters to anyone.
Given the dozen replies you made to my comments last night, it’s pretty clear that you really, really care when people point this out, kiddo.
Nah.Also lol at “dozen”. You write like a not particularly intelligent for his age 16 year old. Use more buzzwords – it comes off super well.
No one likes you David
The only thing I can add is I had never heard of this film, but looking it up, was surprised to see it was directed by Halina Reijn, who’s done a lot of good work in Dutch-language movies and TV. If there actually was a lot of cleavage in this film, well… Dutch cinema isn’t exactly shy about showing off the human figure.
I don’t do Twitter or whatever social media this happened on but I assume one can respond to DMs? Maybe a response like: “Are you being serious? I don’t care about you, your tits or your silly softcore slasher film. It sucked, you suck, your tits are nothing special and your name is a damn typo. I hope you sink into obscurity so I can stop correcting my autocorrect. Bye.” That’s probably how I’d have handled it.
It appears that we have Karens in the comment section as well.
I didn’t say it was a good response, just an honest one. Better than immediately publicizing the interaction and claiming to be a victim, certainly. Although I suspect Stenberg carefully phrased her message so as to be deniably disagreeable. The old “I wasn’t being a jerk, I was just joking” defense.
I mean, it’s Wikipedia, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amandla_(power)
Super awesome dumb racist is positive Zulu name must be a misspelled English one.
See, this is why social media doesn’t matter. There’s no way to tell if the person on the other end gives a F about you. Usually they don’t. There’s also no way for them to know everything you do (like Zulu name spellings). Put them together and the other person doesn’t give a F about you, or what you know, and it just doesn’t matter.
Attestation for that being a Zulu name? I don’t care and you seem to so do the work for me then I’ll believe you. Anyone can say any name comes from anywhere.
Just like everyone can be an ignorant, chauvanistic asshole!
I mean, anyone who was alive during the struggle against Apartheid and paid literally any attention would be familiar with the primary mantra of that movement “Amandla,” which means freedom.This is one of these cases where your deflection just further reveals your ignorance.
I actually don’t have much recollection of the slogans of political movements that occured when I was a child, on another continent, in a language that I have no proficiency in. Since you’re clearly not ignorant in that regard could you let me know what kind of slogans the Red Army used to keep their spirits up during the Long March? In phonetic Chinese and English, please.
Yes, because these two cultural events are equivalent. In the future, don’t assume that every word that isn’t English is a fucking typo. It makes you look stupid.
And how do you think returning to this conversation over and over in a futile attempt to chastise me makes you look?Also the Long March is a far, far more important historical event than the fall of the Afrikaaner government of South Africa and Mao is a much more important historical figure than Nelson Mandela. But both are likely at a considerable distance from each of us temporally, geographically and culturally. That’s why they’re comparable.
Same as you, only I’m not doubling down on my ignorance.Maybe next time consider not assuming that it’s the black person who is the idiot.
God you’re uninteresting. For your sake I hope you aren’t more than 16 years old
Except in this situation you make a living writing movie reviews and in fact patently care about it. Try to keep up.
I would imagine writing a review of a bad movie is akin to doing a shitty job so not only would I not care about it after I was done in would do my best to forget the whole thing and move on to something I enjoy.
You imagine wrong. Writing a review of a truly bad movie is the best break a critic will ever get. Were you around for the Ignatiy Vishnevetsky days?
I was and I can understand the sentiment as it’s certainly the best opportunity for creative writing a critic receives. I just can’t help but think that the critic who enjoys being negative may look for reasons to be negative especially if it brings them greater renown. It kind of validates the stereotypes about critics being angry people whose real passion is destruction rather than refinement or elucidation.
Her name is very dumb. That is my only takeaway from any of this.
Alright tough guy, thanks for showing us how cool and edgy you are. You don’t deserve to have Mr. Peanutbutter as your avatar.
“and your name is a damn typo.”- ok this made me laugh
After seeing that this writer has pictures of Rory Gilmore on her home page, I’m not at all surprised she was this thin-skinned about receiving criticism, real or perceived.
Devastating burn.
Best comment.
*Checks Amandla’s instagram*
Post gone.
*Checks Lena’s viral tweet*
These Tweets are protected
Looks like the social media purge happen.
The cleavage comment in the review itself feels like such a wild takeaway from BBB, tbh
Once they get this all ironed out, they should trade names
“I’m posting it because I don’t want this person who has more social power than me to think that it’s fucking okay to do something like this.”Is this person a literal fucking child? I’m not familiar with her writing.
Ehh I’m team Amandla on this? Yeah it was salty/immature to send that DM but the critic said something weird and objectifying about her in a major publication, so I don’t get the high horse and the dramatic fragile “this is not fucking okay” response. Screencapping and sharing to followers seems like a clout chase move and you know you’re basically sending internet teens to harass this girl.
Do we have to pick teams?
Yeah, Stenberg didn’t do anything wrong. Her claims about how she intended the message seem pretty believable, plus there’s this very weird puritanical streak going through parts of sOcIeTy these days, even from people on the Left. It’s like the valid criticism of objectification in art somehow got mixed up with the decidedly less valid criticism of almost any technically-unnecessary display of sexuality. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little titty (or dick) for the sake of a little titty (or dick) sometimes.Besides, criticizing a slasher flick for being too sexual is like criticizing a musical for having dance routines — it’s not the main focus of the genre, but it pretty much goes hand-in-hand with everything that is. Anyway, writers do tend to be a little overly sensitive about their profession. (Source: I write.) That’s all this story really is.
I want to see the cleavage movie now.
Maybe the film critic was looking at Amandla’s butt-crack…
Lolll, jfc, this comment section is worse than the original non-story.To all of the good AVClubbers who rightly jumped ship: you are missed
Was just thinking the same thing. Yeah, I’m gonna continue to not read AV club anymore.
Do love commenters pretending they’re above it while rolling in the shit with the rest of the pigs.
Just love commenters who start a comment with “Do love…”I’m not pretending. Is the shit over there better? We could roll in yours. It sounds like you’re in a very bad mood. My condolences.
If you were above it you wouldn’t be here. Be the change you want to see and leave.
You first
I’m not the one complaining about the AVC. I’m complaining about one commenter who I’ll happily ignore from here on out. Byeeeeeee.
I’m seeing the history of your posts. Seek help.
Oh no, how “devastating”. I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone that critics often tend to be some of the most thin-skinned people around!
This story has no winners.
Since when does cleavage need advertisement?
“Why isn’t everybody making me famous in the way I want to be famous, dang it?!”
First line of the review:
“Perhaps best known for releasing jaw-dropping original films like
“Moonlight” and “Midsommar,” the film distributor A24 is also in the
business of glamorizing youthful nihilism. Its co-produced HBO series
“Euphoria,” where teenage sex bombs dress up their thousand-yard stares
in glittery eye shadow, is an easy example.”
If you think Euphoria is glamorizing anything, you should probably not be a media reviewer.
lena wilson’s dad is an editor at the times. that’s all you need to know about her.
So if she was an editor for Fox News…or am I missing something?
Meaning her video crowing about how she just “has a natural talent” for criticism is bullshit. She got the job at 24 because Dad hired her with his editorial clout, or had someone else do it.
I read this site.
I read the times.
But I don’t read the times for their film reviews, I used to read this site, and is various stablemates, for my entertainment news, now?
I’m mainly around because I’m too old to change habits. 🙂
My point?
My point is that I read both of these sources, and I had never heard of either of these people.
Once I started familiarizing myself with the story, starting on Jezebel, particularly Amanda’s response, like most people here, I feel the reviewer’s response was out of line, and made so many odd assumptions about the comment.
And then I had to go through and learn that this wasn’t just about their professional lives, but also their personal ones (though, wait, is there a difference anymore?) because this was a joke between, Amanda thought, two gay women, but one of them didn’t take her comment as a joke, and instead, as an attack upon her sexuality, gender, etc.
And while I see her point, after Amanda’s apology, we should be done, yeah?
Yeah.
Lena Wilson appears to be one of those who believes free speech means immunity from being called the fuck out.
This makes them both come off as absolutely insufferable.
Well, tough titties.
EVERYTHING IS ABOUT MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Then stop showing them in revealing clothing idiot! But you know it’s a BIG part of your “talent.” SMH…..
At least she has something to distract attention from her unattractive face. And all the clown makeup doesn’t help…..
The internet was a huge mistake. This is the dumbest time to be alive.
I guess I have to go Google: “Amanda Sternberg tits…”
…oh. ok. Got it.
The irony is, between the hints of snotty passive-aggression in the self-described ‘hilarious’ original message and the ridiculously and unnecessarily defensive overreaction drenched in unearned self-righteousness of the response, both kind of come off as if they were characters in Bodies Bodies Bodies. This is also a good case study for why social media should really have some kind of fifteen minute “are you sure you want to send / post this?” cool down timer.
LMAO Lena Wilson is a pretentious, self-righteous hack whose daddy is an editor at NYT. She’s out here bragging about “natural talent” and “writing’s in her genes” like, no, that’s not how it works.
Lena Wilson is not a serious critic if she’s putting up crybaby thin-skinned response videos insisting she’s a good critic, earned her job 100%, and didn’t even need training to do the job…
“Social power” literally means nothing in a dm, and the movie wasn’t even close to what the critic tried to make it out to be. This whole thing is just a massive L for Wilson in my eyes.
Wilson is the one who originally brought up the cleavage, the fuck are they trying to pull?
Lena Wilson sure sounds like a motherfucking idiot and attention whore.
I’m leaning towards ETA (everyone’s the asshole) here.
It’s not fair to larger-chested girls to act like everything they do or wear is inherently sexual, and it’s not fair to go up to a total stranger and go, “this is a thing my queer friends would laugh at, so a total stranger who is also queer will take it the same way my friends do.”
“Wilson commented that they were ‘devastated’ by Stenberg’s message” Wilson’s twitter says her pronouns are “she/her.” Why the misgendering?
I have but one thing to fault Amandla Steinberg in this case, and that is that her name is “Amandla”. My fingers refuse to type it without having to consciously decide on every letter. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE, L? YOU DON’T BELONG THERE! ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER!