August 25, 2025 • 47 mins
How do we break the woke monopoly in Hollywood? To find the answer, we tell the story of Rotten Tomatoes – the film review site that exposes the silent gatekeepers of Movie City. Along the way we hear from film critic Christian Toto, purveyor of conservative-friendly film enthusiast site HollywoodInToto.com. We also hear the late Andrew Breitbart describe a blueprint for winning the culture war. It may seem like the woke mob has a stranglehold on Tinseltown. But there is a way to loosen its grip…if the forces that want to save America have the will to commit to the plan.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
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Speaker 1 (00:52):
This episode was originally broadcast on May fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Almost without fail, whenever they get a chance, Hollywood likes
to sucker punch half of a Maya America, whether it
be a TV series, film, or award shows. Movie City
constantly rams its hate for Middle America down our throats.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh thank you, President Trump, Thank you for watching. I'm
surprised you're still isn't it past your jail time?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Nowadays, if you are racist, you're probably a Republican.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
It's no longer down with Trump.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's Trump by feel by Clarence Thomas, I'm like harassing
you right now. Nearly one hundred percent of content coming
out of Tinseltown takes a cheap shot at half the country,
and Middle America is tired of it. What will it
take to break this woke monopoly of Hollywood?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm Patrick Carelci and I'm Adriana Cortes, and this is.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans of the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing in the truth. Welcome
to Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
How do we break the woke monopoly of Hollywood? To
find the answer, we tell the story of Broughten Tomatoes,
the film and TV review site that inadvertently exposed the
silent gatekeepers of movie City. Along the way, we hear
from Christian Toto, the purveyor of Hollywood intoto dot Com
and a film critic that has analyzed the anti American
bias of Tinseltown for decades. It may seem like the
(02:49):
woke mob has a stranglehold on the storytelling industry, the
very institution that defines and drives American culture. But there
is a way to loosen its grip if the forces
that want to end wokeness have the will and foresight
to commit to the plan.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Not long ago, two campaigns faced off in a race
for American votes.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Maybe he's not as rich as he says he is.
Speaker 7 (03:15):
You need tremendous stamina.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
The battle couldn't have been more lopsided. It was the
Juggernaut against the Buffoon. The Juggernaut was hands down the
overwhelming favorite. Its campaign had an enormous funding advantage, a
whopping three times more than the Buffoon. On the issues,
the Juggernaut campaign had an orthodox Democrat approach. It portrayed
Hispanics as victims and whites as their oppressors. It pushed
(03:40):
amnesty and universal health care.
Speaker 8 (03:43):
I thought this campaign finally gave us an opportunity to
achieve universal health care.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And promoted the idea that anyone that preferred a border
barrier was deplorable, even evil.
Speaker 9 (03:53):
We will not build a wall.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
The Juggernaut was no doubt the establishment media's favorite. The
underdog Challenger, on the other hand, was thought to be
a bona fide laughing stock with an approach that appeared
almost designed to turn off conservatives. Its campaign thrived on
crude language, jokes and insults.
Speaker 10 (04:13):
Now she suffers from a thing called loser's remorse he lost.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And even included a wife with a penchant for posing
nude traits that grossly undercut the pro family message of Republicans.
On the issues, the Challenger took a diametrically different approach
than the Juggernaut.
Speaker 10 (04:30):
But we have some bad ombras here and we're going
to get them out.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Buffoon highlighted the problem of drug trafficking at our
poorest southern border, and we.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
Have to build a wall for people, for gangs, for drugs.
The drugs has never been a problem like we have
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But perhaps most notably, the media hated the Challenger with
a passion. At the time the two campaigns launched, the
pundit class gave the Juggernaut a sixty six percent favorable rating.
The raunchy underdog received a paltry twenty nine percent favor bit,
so when early voting kicked off, you wouldn't have been
alone in thinking that the buffoon was going to lose
(05:09):
in an historic landslide. But as the votes started rolling in,
the two campaigns were inexplicably neck and neck. Then something
surprising happened. Conservatives put the crass and lewde behavior aside
(05:32):
and began rallying around the underdog. Through the glass shattering
shrieks of the elite pundits, the buffoon found an audience
in Middle America. In the end, when all the American
votes were tallied, to the astonishment of anyone paying attention,
the underfunded, lampooned, buffoonish challenger defeated the juggernaut.
Speaker 9 (05:55):
Sorry to keep you a waiting, complicated business. Complicated.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
The critics couldn't have been more wrong. Of course, you
may have assumed we've been talking about the twenty sixteen
matchup between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and we probably
led the witness a bit, But you'd be wrong in
that assumption. What we traced was the battle between two
twenty thirteen movies launched in the same week Elysium starring
(06:20):
Matt Damon and We're the Millers starring Jennifer Aniston and
Jason Sudeikus, and this matchup unexpectedly highlighted a media bias problem.
It is not only plaguing political journalism, but Hollywood media
as well. Simply put, film critics are to the left
of the mainstream media, and they have effectively constructed a
barrier that blocks overtly Middle America films and TV shows
(06:43):
from ever being made.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
The twenty thirteen box office battle between the blockbuster budgeted
sci fi movie Elysium and the low browse slapstick comedy
Were The Millers bears a striking resemblance to the twenty
sixteen presidential race. The values Elysium of Spouse could have
been pulled directly from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Elysium was
a dystopian film where the privilege lived behind a barrier
(07:11):
on a luxurious space station with access to technology that
could cure any ailment, but that tech was being kept
from the poor Hispanics by the white elites. Just like
Hillary Clinton. The movie was pro amnesty, pro universal healthcare,
and anti border barriers.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Palyllegals are now in custody.
Speaker 11 (07:29):
Mamin Yes, send them to dequotation, get them off this habitat.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And with the then budget of over one hundred and
fifteen million. Also, like the former First Lady, Elysium had
near unlimited access to funding. Likewise, where the Millers carried
many of the traits of the Donald Trump campaign, The
comedy was a story of a bunch of buffoonish characters
that came together to form a makeshift family to defeat
a Mexican drug cartel.
Speaker 12 (07:55):
Well you have a lovely family.
Speaker 9 (07:57):
Oh, thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (07:58):
This is my son Kenny Miller right here, and my.
Speaker 14 (08:00):
Lovely daughter Casey Casey Miller.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
That's right, And I'm David Miller.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We're the Miller's, Like Donald Trump. It was crass, crude
and funny.
Speaker 15 (08:10):
Yeah, you know, I got my hands full of here
a couple of hooky teenagers.
Speaker 16 (08:15):
Yeah, I'm going through all those typical teenage girl issues
like finals and college applications and am I gonna get
asked to prom Plus, I haven't gotten my period in
like two months, which is really weird because I've mostly
just been doing a ha.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It inadvertently pushed the strength of the family and the
perils of a broken border.
Speaker 17 (08:37):
Bringing anything back into the United States, Sir sir, are.
Speaker 10 (08:41):
You bringing any counter back back into the United States?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And with a production budget of less than a third
of Elysium, it was no doubt the scrappy underdog. Like
the mainstream media with both Hillary and the Donald, Hollywood
critics loved Elysium and hated for the Millers. The conservative
media saw Jennifer Aniston's film, with its pro family undertones,
as a stealth right wing movie, and it got behind
(09:05):
the comedy by the time the domestic box office was done,
US moviegoers voted in the form of ticket sales against
the recommendation of the Hollywood media. Where the Millers made
roughly forty seven percent more than Elysium in US domestic
(09:25):
ticket sales. America chose the buffoon over the juggernaut, just
like they did in twenty sixteen with Donald Trump. The
twenty sixteen election and the twenty thirteen box office battle
revealed a glaring liberal media bias. In both cases, the
expert journalists were at odds with the public voter. But
(09:45):
where conservative politicians regularly squeak out a win within their
biased media ecosystem, conservative themed films not only have a
hard time racking up a w they even have a
difficult time coming into existence.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
At the time where the Millers launched, we were good
friends with the producer of the film. It was and
is a devout liberal. He was shocked that conservative audiences
liked his movie and hadn't intended on making a right
wing friendly film, and that would come as no surprise
to insiders in Hollywood. They all know it's near impossible
to make an overtly conservative film, and that's because the
(10:20):
Hollywood media would suffocate that right wing baby in the crib.
Through our research of Rotten Tomatoes, an aggregator of film reviews,
what Red Pilled America has learned is that the film
media has a greater liberal bias than political media, and
it's not even close. Like every product, films live and
(10:42):
die on promotion. What capitalists would ever put money into
a product that has no reliable promotional vehicle. By doing
a deep dive into Rotten Tomatoes, we discovered a secret
tinsel Town gatekeeper, a system that in effect blocks overtly
pro American films and TV shows from ever being made.
This matters because the storytelling industry defines American culture. Storytelling
(11:06):
establishes America's values and what's good and evil. It makes
narratives into reality. If you've ever wondered how the sexualization
of children made it into the mainstream, or how the
victim or presser narrative has become so prevalent, or why
so many believe cops kill unarmed blacks even while the
data proves the opposite. If you ever wondered how all
(11:26):
of these messages have made it into the mainstream, look
no further than the storytelling industry of Hollywood that has
been pumping that false poison into the American bloodstream for decades.
What Rotten Tomatoes shows is that the film industry media
is effectively a woke gatekeeper of Hollywood, a gait that
overtly pro American films rarely get passed. To understand how
(11:48):
this rigged system was established, you first must go way
back to the rise of the duo that would eventually
put Rotten Tomatoes on the map and would ultimately become
the prototype of the Hollywood film critic. Life is short.
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Speaker 2 (13:19):
Welcome back to Redfield America. Roger Ebert was born in
nineteen forty two in the Illinois city of Urbana.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
My dad was an electrician at the University of Illinois.
My mother was a bookkeeper with a small loan office
in downtown Urbana.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Roger had a great admiration for his father, a fact
that would no doubt inform his later politics.
Speaker 8 (13:38):
He was a workingman, a Democrat, blue collar, a union member,
also kind of an intellectual. He read a lot. He
was very interested in current events. We were always watching
the talk shows on Sunday morning and listening to the
commentators on the radio.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
As a young boy, Roger fell in love with the
art of movie making.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
I started going to the movies as a kid in Champagne, Urbana,
went to the Prince's Theater on Main Street. My Aunt
Martha would take me to the movies over in the
big Palaces and Champagne. And then in high school I
started going to the Art Theater, which showed movies like
Citizen Kane, movies by Felini Bergmann, the Angry young Men
from Britain, Cassavettis, and the other American independents.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Now, in the late nineteen fifties, filmmaking was not an
art form that a kid could just start doing. That
writing was I wanted.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
To be a newspaper man almost from the beginning. My
best friend who lived across the street, Hal Holmes. His
father was a city editor of the News Gazette and
took us on a tour of the office and they
gave me my byline set in a piece of lead
so you could use a stamp pad by Roger Ebert,
and I thought, boy, that's for me. I want to
be a newspaper reporter. So I wrote for the grade
(14:50):
school paper, I produced a neighborhood newspaper, and of course
I worked for the News Gazette starting as a junior
in high school.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
His parents were supportive of his writing.
Speaker 8 (15:03):
To stay out all night, two nights a week to
work for the News Gazette, I had to have a
special work permit and some kind of a pass because
of the curfew, and they supported that because they could
tell that I wanted to be a writer, and that
was fine with them.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Roger would go on to study journalism at the University
of Illinois and got involved in the college Film Society.
You would eventually enter the doctorate program at the University
of Chicago, but then an opportunity came along that made
him change.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
Course, I had done some writing for the Chicago newspapers.
I did book reviews and feature pieces for the Saturday
entertainment section of the Chicago Daily News. And I applied
to the Daily News for a job, and my letter
wound up with the Sun Times, and Jim Hoag, who
was then the managing editor or perhaps the city editor,
called me in and hired me.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Roger dropped out of the PhD program, and so.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
I went to work at the paper in the fall
of sixty six, and on April first of sixty seven,
I became the film critic. My predecessor retired, the feature
editor gave.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Me the job.
Speaker 8 (16:07):
So I just I lucked out into my entire career.
I mean, people say, how do you get to be
a movie critic? I guess my answer would be, I
have no idea. With me, it was good luck, right place,
right time.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Roger Ebert would become a prolific film critic at the
Chicago Sun Times. He wrote entertaining articles intended to make
sophisticated cinematic stories accessible to a broader audience. Roger would
often recommend foreign and independent films that he believed would
be appreciated by normal folks. As a result, Roger Ebert
would win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in nineteen seventy five.
(16:42):
It was a huge moment not only for Roger but
for the profession of film criticism. The arena was finally
taken as a serious endeavor. Before Roger Ebert, the profession
was plagued with poor pay and hostility from the studios.
At one point in the mid nineteen forties, MGM famously
sued a film critic for what they perceived as unfair
(17:02):
negative reviews of their film. The film industry largely looked
at the film critic with disdain. That with Roger Ebert's
Pulitzer win, the profession was elevated to a new respectable plateau.
It was around the time of his award that Roger
was encouraged to team up with this crosstown rival.
Speaker 8 (17:22):
We were asked Gene Cisco and I to do a
movie review show, and I think we were both kind
of hesitant because we had a rivalry. He was at
the Tribune and I was at the Sun Times, and
we didn't have a real warm relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Even with their competitive relationship, the two respected one another.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
Jane was very smart. He also had very high standards.
He didn't compromise easily, so.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
In nineteen seventy five, the two decided to give the
movie review show a shot. It launched on PBS's Chicago affiliate.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Point of our show is to sort of be a
news magazine about movies, and we want to show you
what's playing in, what's coming to town, and also maybe
take you behind the scenes and show a little bit
about the movie business.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
At first, the two were a bit stiff. It would
often take them around eight hours to record one thirty
minute episode, but it wasn't long before they began to
understand the medium of television. They rebranded the show Sneak Previews,
and they began to toy around with the rating system.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
Both Gene and I like it, and that's why it
says yes next to both of our names, we recommend
you see this movie.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Roger would later reflect on the show's success.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
I think we respected each other and we both knew
what we were talking about. The important thing about that
show is that it's not about gossip. It's not about
who's in rehab, who's getting divorced, what did they wear
to the premiere. It's about movies.
Speaker 18 (18:47):
They made film criticism cool and fun, even though I
don't think they were technically cool and hip.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That's Christian Toto, a film critic and purveyor of hollywoodantoto
dot com, a film enthusiast's website where Christian posts his
movie reviews and editorials on the film industry.
Speaker 18 (19:02):
They or the face of film criticism for quite a while.
I think we know you could always open your newspaper,
old school in your hand newspaper and read the reviews,
but what they did took it to a different level.
They were extremely passionate about films.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
You're wrapping yourself in the flag of children, and I'm saying,
go see.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
The Black Stallion instead, there's a film a Little John.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
I'm not wrapping myself in the flag of showing. You're
wrapping yourself in the flag of the sophisticated film.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
No boring at all, no boredom, boredom with Benji.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
Rout that any child is going to be bored by
this movie. And indeed I found the nature photography to
be very interesting myself.
Speaker 18 (19:38):
They love to bicker about films. That's that's probably one
of the reasons why.
Speaker 8 (19:42):
I do what I do.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
In nineteen eighty two, they moved from PBS to a
commercial television network called WGN, and they rebranded their show again,
naming it At the Movies.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
This fall, WG entertains you like never before with at
the Movie.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Our full time job is going to the movies.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
So join us this fall for at the Movies, the
movie review program Saturday evenings at six point thirty here
on WGN TV nine.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And it was a WGN that Roger Ebert came up
with what would become their iconic catchphrase.
Speaker 17 (20:13):
Roger just walked in one day and says, I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
That's a former producer of their show.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Thumbs up thumbs down.
Speaker 12 (20:22):
The most famous thumbs in the universe, as far as
I'm concerned, was created here at WGN.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
I'm giving this movie thumbs up as a comedy.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
I think you totally missed the point.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
And I don't know why you missed the point.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
When a movie got two thumbs up, film studios would
print it bold right at the top of their movie advertisement.
Speaker 8 (20:40):
Another agreement, though, two thumbs up for FX and FX
is the only double thumber on this show, right.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
That's right, the only two thumber upper, if you will.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
The gimmick was a hit It became so popular that
they trademarked the phrase two thumbs up again Christian Toto.
Speaker 18 (21:00):
The thumbs up thumbs down was iconic, and they did
it in way that was entertaining.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They became nationally recognized and were invited on the most
important shows of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
From our Chicago buread Genius fiscal, Please welcome.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
It's fun to have these gentlemen with us. Roger Ebert
and Gene Siskel.
Speaker 8 (21:16):
Roger Ebert is film critic with the Chicago Sun Times,
and Jene Siskel is in the same capacity for the
Chicago Tribune.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Would you welcome Rodger Ebert and Jeane Siskel.
Speaker 18 (21:24):
And they became the face of the critic.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Because of Siskel and Ebert, the film critic became a
sought after job at newspapers. So in the Reagan era
of the nineteen eighties, when the mainstream media began to
slowly take on a more openly liberal posturing, the film
critics that those newspapers naturally fit the same liberal mold.
Speaker 12 (21:42):
Chicago film critics Jane Siskel and Roger Ebert judged movies
like Roman Emperor's Deciding a Gladiator's Fate a thumbs up
or thumbs down could mean success or death at the
box office.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
A liberal gatekeeping network began to quietly form in every
corner and crevice of America. A hint of this liberal
leaning could be seen in Siskel and Eber review of
an up and coming filmmaker.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
My choice for the number five movie of the year
was the funniest single movie of the year, in my opinion,
a documentary called Roger and Me. This was the movie
with a fairytale story made by a man from Flint,
Michigan named Michael Moore, who sold his house and held
a weekly bingo game and garage sales to raise money
for his hilarious and sometimes really wounding attack on what
(22:27):
General Motors had done to his hometown. After a decade
in which America has worshiped at the shrine of higher
profits and more ruthless business executives, here is the movie
a lot of people were waiting for. Are raucous, angry, funny,
unforgiving counterattack against corporate greed. The amazing thing is that
the whole movie is so entertaining. At last, the have
(22:47):
nots get back at the heat.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Which is the tradition of American movies. I mean the
movies were always the little man's way of getting back.
Knocking off the banker's hat with a snowball one of
the earliest images in any silent film, and this picture
knocks off a lot of bankers hats with a fusillade
a snowball.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Progressive activist filmmaker Michael Moore was universally heralded by the
film critic community. They made more than new Hollywood it boy,
and this new kingmaker power of the critics would come
in handy because Hollywood's films began to have a negative
impact on American culture, and the industry needed a helping
hand to defend against the bipartisan attack on its content.
(23:29):
By the nineteen nineties, Hollywood started getting blamed for the
sexual depravity and violence that was becoming commonplace in America.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
The police come right from the underground, but got it
back then gangster rap like NWA's The police had become
all the rage, and in the wake of its birth,
violence erupted in ghetto hotspots like South central Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The violence erupted after the acquittal of four white policemen
in the beating trial of black motorists Rodney King, there's
been looting, buildings have been set ablaze, and some motorists
have been dragged from their cars and beaten.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Hollywood added fuel to the fire with films like Oliver
Stone's Natural Born Killers, which depicted a young couple embarking
on a violent killing spree.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Amy Many, Money, Moo, Caitcer, Riddick Bostow.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The filmmakers claimed the movie was a commentary on the
media's glorification of violence. Whether that was true or just deflection,
the film undoubtedly raised the bar for gratuitous violence on
the big screen. By the time the nineteen ninety six
election cycle kicked off, Republicans and Democrats alike evowed each
other out of the way to be the first to
criticize Hollywood's new low, including the GOP presidential front runner
(24:45):
Bob Dole.
Speaker 9 (24:45):
One of the greatest threats to American family values is
the way our popular culture treats them and ridicules them.
Our music, movies, television, and advertising regularly push the limits
of decency, and they bomb our children with destructive message
of casual violence and even more casual sex. And I
(25:08):
concluded that we must hold Hollywood in the entire entertainment
industry accountable for putting profit ahead of common decency. Televisions
and movie screams and boom boxes and headsets are windows
on the world for our children tonight. My challenge to
the entertainment industry is to accept a calling above and
beyond the bottom line, to fulfill a duty to society,
(25:30):
which provides its profits help our nation maintain the innocence
of its children, prove to us that courage and conscience
are live and well in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Almost immediately Ciskel and Ebert came to Hollywood's defense.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
What he's trying to do basically is suck up to
the far right. And we might as well notice that.
The fact is that when Senator Dole attacks rap music,
he's using code words. What he's doing basically is he's
trying to draw a wet She's trying to say, those
terrible people over there are perverting our their central American
(26:04):
values with their bad ideas about violence and about the family.
It's just a specious argument. If you want to talk
about violence in our society, let's get serious for real,
and let's talk about guns. Why is it that guns
in the movies are bad, but they're okay in our streets.
Speaker 9 (26:19):
Can anybody explain.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
That to me?
Speaker 8 (26:22):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
The mainstream media and Hollywood journalists alike heaped praise on
the duo for their defense of Tinseltown. Siskel and Ebert
had become the pied pipers of the entire film critic community.
Where they went, critics followed, and that should have been
no surprise. The entire industry had been captured by the left.
Like the two Thumbs up inventors, the film critic community
(26:45):
may not have agreed on what was or wasn't a
good film, but they almost all unanimously agreed on their politics,
because once the left took over the mainstream media, they
logically populated their newsrooms with like minded liberals, including the
film critic positions. As the late night nineties arrived, Ciskel
and Ebert may have been at the pinnacle of this
(27:06):
amorphous film critic community, but a new development was about
to come along to dethrone them and at the same
time reveal the entrenched bias of the entire Hollywood media.
(27:38):
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Speaker 1 (27:53):
Welcome back to red Pilled America. As the dot com
boom was reaching its peak in nineteen ninety eight, a
designer at a small website design company was about to
a machine that would eventually take over the entire business
of film criticism.
Speaker 15 (28:07):
I had a web design firm that I co founded
with my cto Stephen Wang.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's Patrick Lee, one of the founders of Rotten Tomatoes.
The creative director of his design company was a guy
named Senduong. Sen was a huge movie buff who was
struck by how studios promoted their films. He noticed that,
for some odd reason, movie ads were always filled with
(28:33):
positive film review quotes, even when the movies were crap.
So in nineteen ninety eight, Sen came up with an idea.
Speaker 15 (28:40):
He was a huge Shaky Chand fan, and basically when
rush hour came around, he wanted to know what everyone
was saying about it. So Sen's idea was like, what
if I take all the quotes from professional critics, only
good and bad, and put him in one place. And
that's kind of how Rotten Tomatoes was born.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Sen came up with a rating system for his new website,
and it looked an awful lot like ciskel Niebert's thumbs
up and thumbs down, but with a minor phrase change.
He called it fresh and rotten. It was a throwback
to the days when audiences would throw rotten tomatoes at
bad stage performances. If a critic reviewed a film positively,
Sen's system would count that as a fresh tomato. If
(29:16):
they didn't like the film, that would register as a
rotten tomato. If the film was given sixty percent or
above in positive reviews, it would be deemed fresh. Any
movie that garnered less than sixty percent positive ratings would
be considered rotten. What Sen couldn't have known at the
time was that his site was revealing the entrenched liberal
(29:36):
bias of Hollywood media. Shortly after the birth of the site,
Rotten Tomatoes began posting the list of film critics they
used for their Tomato rating system, and if you dug
into that list, it wasn't hard to see that the
pool of critics were almost universally liberal. In fact, in
twenty seventeen, we did a study on the film critics
(29:57):
populating Rotten Tomatoes, and the results were eye opening. We
found a massive liberal bias. The liberal media outlets on
the site outnumbered conservative outlets by a ratio of nineteen
to one, but when looking at the individual approved film critics,
the disparity was even more jarring. Rotten Tomatoes approved liberal
(30:18):
film critics outnumbered conservative critics by roughly thirty three to one.
There were definitely film critics with no discernible political position,
but the structure of their rating system was clear. Rotten
Tomatoes wasn't necessarily trying to create a model that represented
(30:40):
the movie going public. What it had created was a
snapshot of the film critic community. Again, Christian Toto.
Speaker 18 (30:47):
Rotten Tomatoes is essentially a mirror. It's a mirror that
reflects the film world and the film critical world. So
some of its flaws are not really its flaws. It's
the world's in general and their issues, and you'd look
at sort of ideological diversity. The reason why they're so
few critics on there who lean right is that there
were so few critics in the world who leaned right.
(31:08):
So that's not Rotten Tomato's fault.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Christian is one of the very few right of center
film critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and when we say very few,
we mean you can practically count them all on one hand. Therefore,
if a movie with conservative values entered theaters, it was
almost certain that it would get a rotten rating, if
it could even get reviewed at all. Seemingly by circumstance,
(31:32):
Senduong built a grossly biased system that's stealthily built on
the iconic success of Siskel and Ebert. The site was
launched in nineteen ninety eight again Rotten Tomatoes founder Patrick Lee.
Speaker 15 (31:44):
We were hosting the site for him for about a year,
and during that time, you know, he was putting a
lot of time into it on the side, and it
was kind of affecting his work, and we were like, oh,
we don't know if it makes sense for you, and
you putting so much time into this.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
But then the team got a signal that they were
onto something.
Speaker 15 (32:00):
Roger Ebert wrote an article for a magazine pointing on
his favorite movie sites, and Rotten Tomatoes was one of them.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
It was a huge thumbs up for the young website.
Ebert was, of course a king of film criticism. With
his recommendation, in a sense, he transferred his credibility to
Rotten Tomatoes, and the timing was perfect for the upstart website.
Earlier that year, Gene Siskel had been diagnosed with brain cancer,
en ailment he'd died from in less than a year.
(32:27):
From diagnosis, Siskel and Ebert's domination of the film criticism
world was coming to an end. In addition to Roger
Ebert singing Rotten Tomatoes praise, the website got mentioned on
the dominant search engine of the time, Yahoo. Then the
team got a clear message that Hollywood was taking notice.
(32:49):
One day in November nineteen ninety eight, Rotten Tomatoes got
a huge spike in traffic. The team had no idea why,
so they tracked the IP address of where the traffic
was coming from, and it turned out that it was
originating from the animation studio Pixar. The studio had just
released the film A Bugs Life, and apparently the workers
at the studio were going to Rotten Tomatoes and refreshing
(33:12):
their page in mass to get updates on the film's reviews.
Hollywood was now using the site.
Speaker 15 (33:18):
So we were like, Hey, if Pixar's using this, if
Roger Ebert's using this, maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
So Patrick Lee moved his company's resources away from its
web design business and put a team of twenty five
on Rotten Tomatoes. Then he went out and raised a
million dollars to fund the project.
Speaker 15 (33:34):
When we raised in January two thousand, Internet bubble bursts
two months later. The problem in the bubble burst was
not only that people couldn't raise money anymore, but most
Internet sites were reliant on ad revenue. That ad revenue
is mostly coming from other Internet sites, and so people
couldn't make money anymore because these Internet sites didn't have
the money to buy the ads anymore. So when you
(33:55):
cut up all the funding and cut out revenue, these
businesses are going out like closing left and right. I
think we identified about one hundred competitors potential competitors when
we first started. Pretty much within a year, I think
like ninety percent of them were out of business.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Though.
Speaker 15 (34:09):
It was like a pretty tough time, and we actually
had a cut from twenty five people down to seven
over the course of a year.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
For the next few years, the team struggled to stay afloat.
Patrick Lee even resorted to sleeping under his desk for
six months. With everyone in the dot com business going under,
the Rotten Tomatoes team began looking for an exit, someone
to purchase the company so that they could make their investors'
money back. A company named Ign Entertainment, a video game
(34:43):
and entertainment media website, started negotiating to purchase Rotten Tomatoes. However,
things started to stall a bit, but as the negotiating
dragged out, the Rotten Tomatoes team got a boost from
an unlikely character.
Speaker 10 (34:56):
This move is actually getting it's getting great reviews.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
While interviewing actor Mark Ruffalo, humorous John Stewart began plugging
the film review site on Comedy Central's The Daily Show,
will you.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
Ever go on Rotten Tomatoes? No, Rotten Tomatoes is like
it's like a website that reviews movies before they I
guess before they.
Speaker 17 (35:13):
Come out, or did we get any any You got
very good reviews.
Speaker 10 (35:16):
You've got full tomatoes, which is good like not rotten ones. No,
if you get a tomato, that means that a certain
percentage of people say it's good. I think it's over
like seventy percent say it's good, and if not, you
get I'm not even sure why they do this an asterisk,
which makes no sense in terms of a tomato so
if your movie is bad, there's an asterisk next to it,
(35:36):
and if it's good, a delicious tomato, then we got
a delicious to meal delicious tomato, so congratulations.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
It was a pr windfall. Roughly two months later, ig
In acquired Rotten Tomatoes. I think we ended up selling
for ten It's ten million dollars, which isn't a huge number,
but back then, you know, everything else our investors invested
in in tech once to zero. For us to even
be around and for them to make some money off
of the investment with actually I think pretty hard at
(36:04):
that time. Over the next two years, films would slowly
begin using their tomato rating in their movie advertising. Then
another tragedy would work in Rotten tomatoes favor.
Speaker 17 (36:15):
When did you sense Rotten Tomatoes had really popped?
Speaker 7 (36:19):
You know, it was around the time that Ebert really
slowed down in his writing.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's Rotten Tomato's former editor in chief, Matt Atchity. In
two thousand and two, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The disease severely impacted his health. By two thousand and six,
he left his at the movie show for good. He'd
continue writing, but Roger Ebert would eventually lose his ability
to speak. The disease took his life in twenty.
Speaker 7 (36:45):
Thirteen, and you know, there was that first round of illness,
and we started seeing that people were quoting our scores
in the media, people in Hollywood, in Hollywood, and you know,
a lot of movie coverage would get you know, oh,
this movie did this well on the Tomato meter, and
they would quote the scores.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
By twenty ten, Visionary Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs added
Rotten Tomato ratings to its movie purchase and rental service,
and you.
Speaker 11 (37:09):
Can see a synopsis of the movie, the actors, director, producers.
You also can get user ratings, and you can see
the Tomato meter up there for the first time, and
you can get detail on the actors, what other films
they've been in, etc. The director, and you can actually
read reviews from rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Google would eventually add the Rotten Tomatoes ratings score for
all movie searches on the site. Rotten Tomatoes was the
new king of film reviews, and at the time, the
film industry was going through a dramatic shift.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
In two thousand and two, one point five to eight
billion domestic movie tickets were sold. It was an all
time high, but that would prove to be a peak.
In the years that followed, that number went on a
steady decline. By twenty seventeen, only one point two four
billion tickets were sold, three hundred and forty million less
movie tickets. The COVID shutdowns in twenty twenty led to
(38:13):
a staggering decline. That year, roughly two hundred and twenty
million tickets sold, a decrease of one point three billion
less tickets. By twenty twenty three, the number of tickets
sold only partially recovered to roughly eight hundred and twenty
five million, an almost fifty percent decline from its peak.
The lazy response is to blame the trend on streaming technology,
(38:35):
but this downward trend predated the popularity of YouTube, smartphones,
Apple TV, cheap flat screens, the rise of social media
streamers like Netflix, Amazon, Prime, Hulu, and the Great Recession
of two thousand and eight. The decline started before all
of those trends kicked off. And even more surprising, this
decrease in ticket sales started while both the number of
(38:56):
movie screens were increasing and the number of films released
each year was on the rise. The US film industry
has been spending more money but getting decreasing ticket sales
at home. How was this happening. The answer is simple,
woke globalism. Around the same time the domestic ticket sales
reached a peak in two thousand and two, the international
(39:17):
box office surpassed the domestic box office for the first
time and never looked back. By twenty twenty three, the
domestic box office brought in roughly nine billion dollars. The
foreign box office, by contrast, brought in a wopping twenty
four billion dollars. So Hollywood no longer cared about pro
American movies. It wanted to appeal to a global community,
(39:40):
which was and is far to the left of Middle America.
This Hollywood drift towards globalism can also be seen in
its moves with Rotten Tomatoes. For years, Hollywood studios had
tried to outsmart moviegoers in film critics before Rotten Tomatoes
became dominant. If a stinker of a film got universally
bad ratings, the studio would simply find some nobody of
(40:02):
a film critic that liked the film and add their
positive review to its advertising. In one case, a studio
even created a fake film critic.
Speaker 17 (40:10):
Movie review quotes expose this fake if you ran out
and saw a Knight's Tale in the Animal Based on
the glowing blurbs of one David Manning of Connecticut's Ridfield Press,
the reviews are fictional and film critic David Manning does
not exist. Manning was the creation of Columbia Pictures Marketing Department.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
But by two thousand and six the power of Rotten
Tomatoes couldn't be denied, so over the course of the
next ten years, in a series of moves, both Warner
brother Pictures and NBC Universal took indirect ownership stakes in
Rotten Tomatoes. With domestic tickets declining, the two studios didn't
(40:49):
attempt to come up with the better system that helped
foster movies that appealed to conservatives, and it was clear
the audience was there passion of the Christ American Sniper,
and even were the Millers were clearly successful because of
conservative audience. Studios that owned Rotten Tomatoes could have pushed
it to implement a system that better represented the American
(41:09):
movie going public, but they did not. Instead, they continued
the system that led to a liberal to conservative film
critic bias of thirty three to one. And this is
important because movies rely on promotion to sell tickets.
Speaker 14 (41:24):
It really sucks that reviews matter, But reviews matter.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
That's actress Bree Larson speaking in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 14 (41:31):
Good reviews out of festivals give small independent films a
fighting chance to be bought and seen.
Speaker 18 (41:37):
Good reviews help.
Speaker 11 (41:38):
Films gross money.
Speaker 18 (41:39):
Good reviews slingshot films into awards contenders.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
A good review can change your life.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It changed mine. With film critics being nearly all liberal,
not only do conservative themed films have a hard time
getting positive reviews, they have a hard time getting reviewed
at all. Again, Christian Toto, go look.
Speaker 18 (41:56):
At either What does a Woman or Ladyballers.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Both films produced by The Daily Wire.
Speaker 18 (42:01):
You might get maybe eight to nine reviews.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
And of course Christian is right. The small twenty seventeen
indie film Ladybird has received four hundred film critic reviews
on Rotten Tomatoes. By contrast, Deneche Desuz's twenty sixteen Obama's
America was the highest grossing documentary movie of twenty twelve.
It received a paltry thirty four reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 18 (42:25):
I think the Deli Wire pr team reached out to
a critic, and the critic went on Twitter and said,
I'm not going to review this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
If you don't have an avenue to promote your film,
then it'll likely never get made. That's how Rotten Tomatoes
and Hollywood blocks anti woke, pro American movies from ever
getting made. But let's be honest, conservative media carries some,
if not most, of the blame of this rig system.
One of the biggest complaints we've received over the years
from filmmakers is that when they make a movie, they
(42:54):
can't get conservative media to cover it. Very few right
leaning outlets have someone dedicated to covering culture. We know
that firsthand here at Redfield America.
Speaker 18 (43:03):
There still is a reticence across the cultural landscape on
the right to share works, and that's a real issue.
And also there's a lot of competition. So if outlet
A gets into the movie business all of a sudden,
outlets BC and D may not give them much coverage,
if at all, because they are a competitor, and that's
a problem as well.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Think journalist Andrew Breitbart understood how to break the left's
monopoly of Hollywood. In two thousand and nine, he launched
a website called Big Hollywood. At the time, he was
asked why he launched the site.
Speaker 14 (43:35):
The Conservative movement proper did not embrace Ronald Reagan initially,
but it eventually came to accept him as the standard
bearer of conservatism. He was successful less because he carried
conservative principles, but because he came from Hollywood and he
understood the importance of communication and pop culture. It took
(43:56):
them a long time to realize that that magic was
a good way to sell conservatism righte eyed optimism, and
so the conservative movement needs to go focus on Hollywood
in countless ways. It needs to encourage its young to
go out to Hollywood to become screenwriters, actors, producers, below
(44:16):
the line workers. It also needs to focus on Hollywood
proper film reviews and become engaged in the debate out there.
It's interesting that we have so many people in the
conservative movement who write about legislation and political controversies every
single day. As matter of fact, there seems to be
(44:37):
about fifty people writing on the same subject all day long,
but very few people focus on pop culture. And pop
culture is the DNA of who we are, and we
export that through the satellite dishes, and in our DVDs,
and on the television screen, and in films across the world.
And if we don't alter that DNA, if we don't
(44:58):
try to inject in it, our best qualities are not
our worst quality. Our faith is in the hands of
people who don't agree with us, and that faith isn't
people in Hollywood that we disagree with right now, So
we have to take them on using their skills.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Which leads us back to the question, how do we
break the woke monopoly of Hollywood. The answer is clear.
We need to build the same structure that the left
has used to make Tinseltown its own little monopoly. Yes,
we need to foster screenwriters and actors and editors and musicians,
but we also need to create an ecosystem of amplifiers
(45:52):
that promote their work. We need film reviewers and music
reviewers and awards shows that promote and celebrate excellence in
the arts. When Brie Larsen was speaking out about the
importance of film reviews in making and selling movies, she
wasn't advocating for an environment that would propel conservative films.
She was actually arguing to make Hollywood more woke by
(46:13):
hiring more woke critics.
Speaker 14 (46:15):
I do not need a forty year old white dude
to tell me what didn't work for him about a
Wrinkle in Time.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
It wasn't made for him.
Speaker 7 (46:22):
I want to know what that film meant to women
of color, to biracial women, to team women.
Speaker 18 (46:31):
Of color, to teens that are biracial.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Ree Larson and the film industry at large understand the
power of storytelling, and they are doing everything possible to
keep it there. Monopoly. We must, you must get engaged
with pop culture because if we don't, if we allow
the woke mob to continue their monopoly on the institution
that defines what it means to be American, and we
deserve whatever they have in store for this country.
Speaker 13 (46:56):
The new documentary entitled God and Country, which looks at
the history of Christian nationalism in America and how Donald
Trump and members of the far right have twisted Christianity.
Joining Us Now one of the film's producers, Emmy Award
winning actor and renowned filmmaker Rob Reiner.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adriana Cortez for
Informed Ventures Now You can get ad free access to
our entire catalog of episodes by becoming a backstage subscriber.
To subscribe, just visit Redpilled America dot com and clud
join in the topmenu. That's Redpilled America dot com and
(47:37):
click join in the topmenu. Thanks for listening.
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Before we start the show, just a reminder to share, like,
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(00:29):
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RPA merch is always made in America and never stuck
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Speaker 1 (00:52):
This episode was originally broadcast on May fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Almost without fail, whenever they get a chance, Hollywood likes
to sucker punch half of a Maya America, whether it
be a TV series, film, or award shows. Movie City
constantly rams its hate for Middle America down our throats.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh thank you, President Trump, Thank you for watching. I'm
surprised you're still isn't it past your jail time?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Nowadays, if you are racist, you're probably a Republican.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
It's no longer down with Trump.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's Trump by feel by Clarence Thomas, I'm like harassing
you right now. Nearly one hundred percent of content coming
out of Tinseltown takes a cheap shot at half the country,
and Middle America is tired of it. What will it
take to break this woke monopoly of Hollywood?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm Patrick Carelci and I'm Adriana Cortes, and this is.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans of the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing in the truth. Welcome
to Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
How do we break the woke monopoly of Hollywood? To
find the answer, we tell the story of Broughten Tomatoes,
the film and TV review site that inadvertently exposed the
silent gatekeepers of movie City. Along the way, we hear
from Christian Toto, the purveyor of Hollywood intoto dot Com
and a film critic that has analyzed the anti American
bias of Tinseltown for decades. It may seem like the
(02:49):
woke mob has a stranglehold on the storytelling industry, the
very institution that defines and drives American culture. But there
is a way to loosen its grip if the forces
that want to end wokeness have the will and foresight
to commit to the plan.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Not long ago, two campaigns faced off in a race
for American votes.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Maybe he's not as rich as he says he is.
Speaker 7 (03:15):
You need tremendous stamina.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
The battle couldn't have been more lopsided. It was the
Juggernaut against the Buffoon. The Juggernaut was hands down the
overwhelming favorite. Its campaign had an enormous funding advantage, a
whopping three times more than the Buffoon. On the issues,
the Juggernaut campaign had an orthodox Democrat approach. It portrayed
Hispanics as victims and whites as their oppressors. It pushed
(03:40):
amnesty and universal health care.
Speaker 8 (03:43):
I thought this campaign finally gave us an opportunity to
achieve universal health care.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And promoted the idea that anyone that preferred a border
barrier was deplorable, even evil.
Speaker 9 (03:53):
We will not build a wall.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
The Juggernaut was no doubt the establishment media's favorite. The
underdog Challenger, on the other hand, was thought to be
a bona fide laughing stock with an approach that appeared
almost designed to turn off conservatives. Its campaign thrived on
crude language, jokes and insults.
Speaker 10 (04:13):
Now she suffers from a thing called loser's remorse he lost.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And even included a wife with a penchant for posing
nude traits that grossly undercut the pro family message of Republicans.
On the issues, the Challenger took a diametrically different approach
than the Juggernaut.
Speaker 10 (04:30):
But we have some bad ombras here and we're going
to get them out.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Buffoon highlighted the problem of drug trafficking at our
poorest southern border, and we.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
Have to build a wall for people, for gangs, for drugs.
The drugs has never been a problem like we have
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But perhaps most notably, the media hated the Challenger with
a passion. At the time the two campaigns launched, the
pundit class gave the Juggernaut a sixty six percent favorable rating.
The raunchy underdog received a paltry twenty nine percent favor bit,
so when early voting kicked off, you wouldn't have been
alone in thinking that the buffoon was going to lose
(05:09):
in an historic landslide. But as the votes started rolling in,
the two campaigns were inexplicably neck and neck. Then something
surprising happened. Conservatives put the crass and lewde behavior aside
(05:32):
and began rallying around the underdog. Through the glass shattering
shrieks of the elite pundits, the buffoon found an audience
in Middle America. In the end, when all the American
votes were tallied, to the astonishment of anyone paying attention,
the underfunded, lampooned, buffoonish challenger defeated the juggernaut.
Speaker 9 (05:55):
Sorry to keep you a waiting, complicated business. Complicated.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
The critics couldn't have been more wrong. Of course, you
may have assumed we've been talking about the twenty sixteen
matchup between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and we probably
led the witness a bit, But you'd be wrong in
that assumption. What we traced was the battle between two
twenty thirteen movies launched in the same week Elysium starring
(06:20):
Matt Damon and We're the Millers starring Jennifer Aniston and
Jason Sudeikus, and this matchup unexpectedly highlighted a media bias problem.
It is not only plaguing political journalism, but Hollywood media
as well. Simply put, film critics are to the left
of the mainstream media, and they have effectively constructed a
barrier that blocks overtly Middle America films and TV shows
(06:43):
from ever being made.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
The twenty thirteen box office battle between the blockbuster budgeted
sci fi movie Elysium and the low browse slapstick comedy
Were The Millers bears a striking resemblance to the twenty
sixteen presidential race. The values Elysium of Spouse could have
been pulled directly from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Elysium was
a dystopian film where the privilege lived behind a barrier
(07:11):
on a luxurious space station with access to technology that
could cure any ailment, but that tech was being kept
from the poor Hispanics by the white elites. Just like
Hillary Clinton. The movie was pro amnesty, pro universal healthcare,
and anti border barriers.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Palyllegals are now in custody.
Speaker 11 (07:29):
Mamin Yes, send them to dequotation, get them off this habitat.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
And with the then budget of over one hundred and
fifteen million. Also, like the former First Lady, Elysium had
near unlimited access to funding. Likewise, where the Millers carried
many of the traits of the Donald Trump campaign, The
comedy was a story of a bunch of buffoonish characters
that came together to form a makeshift family to defeat
a Mexican drug cartel.
Speaker 12 (07:55):
Well you have a lovely family.
Speaker 9 (07:57):
Oh, thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (07:58):
This is my son Kenny Miller right here, and my.
Speaker 14 (08:00):
Lovely daughter Casey Casey Miller.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
That's right, And I'm David Miller.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
We're the Miller's, Like Donald Trump. It was crass, crude
and funny.
Speaker 15 (08:10):
Yeah, you know, I got my hands full of here
a couple of hooky teenagers.
Speaker 16 (08:15):
Yeah, I'm going through all those typical teenage girl issues
like finals and college applications and am I gonna get
asked to prom Plus, I haven't gotten my period in
like two months, which is really weird because I've mostly
just been doing a ha.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It inadvertently pushed the strength of the family and the
perils of a broken border.
Speaker 17 (08:37):
Bringing anything back into the United States, Sir sir, are.
Speaker 10 (08:41):
You bringing any counter back back into the United States?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And with a production budget of less than a third
of Elysium, it was no doubt the scrappy underdog. Like
the mainstream media with both Hillary and the Donald, Hollywood
critics loved Elysium and hated for the Millers. The conservative
media saw Jennifer Aniston's film, with its pro family undertones,
as a stealth right wing movie, and it got behind
(09:05):
the comedy by the time the domestic box office was done,
US moviegoers voted in the form of ticket sales against
the recommendation of the Hollywood media. Where the Millers made
roughly forty seven percent more than Elysium in US domestic
(09:25):
ticket sales. America chose the buffoon over the juggernaut, just
like they did in twenty sixteen with Donald Trump. The
twenty sixteen election and the twenty thirteen box office battle
revealed a glaring liberal media bias. In both cases, the
expert journalists were at odds with the public voter. But
(09:45):
where conservative politicians regularly squeak out a win within their
biased media ecosystem, conservative themed films not only have a
hard time racking up a w they even have a
difficult time coming into existence.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
At the time where the Millers launched, we were good
friends with the producer of the film. It was and
is a devout liberal. He was shocked that conservative audiences
liked his movie and hadn't intended on making a right
wing friendly film, and that would come as no surprise
to insiders in Hollywood. They all know it's near impossible
to make an overtly conservative film, and that's because the
(10:20):
Hollywood media would suffocate that right wing baby in the crib.
Through our research of Rotten Tomatoes, an aggregator of film reviews,
what Red Pilled America has learned is that the film
media has a greater liberal bias than political media, and
it's not even close. Like every product, films live and
(10:42):
die on promotion. What capitalists would ever put money into
a product that has no reliable promotional vehicle. By doing
a deep dive into Rotten Tomatoes, we discovered a secret
tinsel Town gatekeeper, a system that in effect blocks overtly
pro American films and TV shows from ever being made.
This matters because the storytelling industry defines American culture. Storytelling
(11:06):
establishes America's values and what's good and evil. It makes
narratives into reality. If you've ever wondered how the sexualization
of children made it into the mainstream, or how the
victim or presser narrative has become so prevalent, or why
so many believe cops kill unarmed blacks even while the
data proves the opposite. If you ever wondered how all
(11:26):
of these messages have made it into the mainstream, look
no further than the storytelling industry of Hollywood that has
been pumping that false poison into the American bloodstream for decades.
What Rotten Tomatoes shows is that the film industry media
is effectively a woke gatekeeper of Hollywood, a gait that
overtly pro American films rarely get passed. To understand how
(11:48):
this rigged system was established, you first must go way
back to the rise of the duo that would eventually
put Rotten Tomatoes on the map and would ultimately become
the prototype of the Hollywood film critic. Life is short.
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Speaker 2 (13:19):
Welcome back to Redfield America. Roger Ebert was born in
nineteen forty two in the Illinois city of Urbana.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
My dad was an electrician at the University of Illinois.
My mother was a bookkeeper with a small loan office
in downtown Urbana.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Roger had a great admiration for his father, a fact
that would no doubt inform his later politics.
Speaker 8 (13:38):
He was a workingman, a Democrat, blue collar, a union member,
also kind of an intellectual. He read a lot. He
was very interested in current events. We were always watching
the talk shows on Sunday morning and listening to the
commentators on the radio.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
As a young boy, Roger fell in love with the
art of movie making.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
I started going to the movies as a kid in Champagne, Urbana,
went to the Prince's Theater on Main Street. My Aunt
Martha would take me to the movies over in the
big Palaces and Champagne. And then in high school I
started going to the Art Theater, which showed movies like
Citizen Kane, movies by Felini Bergmann, the Angry young Men
from Britain, Cassavettis, and the other American independents.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Now, in the late nineteen fifties, filmmaking was not an
art form that a kid could just start doing. That
writing was I wanted.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
To be a newspaper man almost from the beginning. My
best friend who lived across the street, Hal Holmes. His
father was a city editor of the News Gazette and
took us on a tour of the office and they
gave me my byline set in a piece of lead
so you could use a stamp pad by Roger Ebert,
and I thought, boy, that's for me. I want to
be a newspaper reporter. So I wrote for the grade
(14:50):
school paper, I produced a neighborhood newspaper, and of course
I worked for the News Gazette starting as a junior
in high school.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
His parents were supportive of his writing.
Speaker 8 (15:03):
To stay out all night, two nights a week to
work for the News Gazette, I had to have a
special work permit and some kind of a pass because
of the curfew, and they supported that because they could
tell that I wanted to be a writer, and that
was fine with them.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Roger would go on to study journalism at the University
of Illinois and got involved in the college Film Society.
You would eventually enter the doctorate program at the University
of Chicago, but then an opportunity came along that made
him change.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
Course, I had done some writing for the Chicago newspapers.
I did book reviews and feature pieces for the Saturday
entertainment section of the Chicago Daily News. And I applied
to the Daily News for a job, and my letter
wound up with the Sun Times, and Jim Hoag, who
was then the managing editor or perhaps the city editor,
called me in and hired me.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Roger dropped out of the PhD program, and so.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
I went to work at the paper in the fall
of sixty six, and on April first of sixty seven,
I became the film critic. My predecessor retired, the feature
editor gave.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Me the job.
Speaker 8 (16:07):
So I just I lucked out into my entire career.
I mean, people say, how do you get to be
a movie critic? I guess my answer would be, I
have no idea. With me, it was good luck, right place,
right time.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Roger Ebert would become a prolific film critic at the
Chicago Sun Times. He wrote entertaining articles intended to make
sophisticated cinematic stories accessible to a broader audience. Roger would
often recommend foreign and independent films that he believed would
be appreciated by normal folks. As a result, Roger Ebert
would win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in nineteen seventy five.
(16:42):
It was a huge moment not only for Roger but
for the profession of film criticism. The arena was finally
taken as a serious endeavor. Before Roger Ebert, the profession
was plagued with poor pay and hostility from the studios.
At one point in the mid nineteen forties, MGM famously
sued a film critic for what they perceived as unfair
(17:02):
negative reviews of their film. The film industry largely looked
at the film critic with disdain. That with Roger Ebert's
Pulitzer win, the profession was elevated to a new respectable plateau.
It was around the time of his award that Roger
was encouraged to team up with this crosstown rival.
Speaker 8 (17:22):
We were asked Gene Cisco and I to do a
movie review show, and I think we were both kind
of hesitant because we had a rivalry. He was at
the Tribune and I was at the Sun Times, and
we didn't have a real warm relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Even with their competitive relationship, the two respected one another.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
Jane was very smart. He also had very high standards.
He didn't compromise easily, so.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
In nineteen seventy five, the two decided to give the
movie review show a shot. It launched on PBS's Chicago affiliate.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Point of our show is to sort of be a
news magazine about movies, and we want to show you
what's playing in, what's coming to town, and also maybe
take you behind the scenes and show a little bit
about the movie business.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
At first, the two were a bit stiff. It would
often take them around eight hours to record one thirty
minute episode, but it wasn't long before they began to
understand the medium of television. They rebranded the show Sneak Previews,
and they began to toy around with the rating system.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
Both Gene and I like it, and that's why it
says yes next to both of our names, we recommend
you see this movie.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Roger would later reflect on the show's success.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
I think we respected each other and we both knew
what we were talking about. The important thing about that
show is that it's not about gossip. It's not about
who's in rehab, who's getting divorced, what did they wear
to the premiere. It's about movies.
Speaker 18 (18:47):
They made film criticism cool and fun, even though I
don't think they were technically cool and hip.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
That's Christian Toto, a film critic and purveyor of hollywoodantoto
dot com, a film enthusiast's website where Christian posts his
movie reviews and editorials on the film industry.
Speaker 18 (19:02):
They or the face of film criticism for quite a while.
I think we know you could always open your newspaper,
old school in your hand newspaper and read the reviews,
but what they did took it to a different level.
They were extremely passionate about films.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
You're wrapping yourself in the flag of children, and I'm saying,
go see.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
The Black Stallion instead, there's a film a Little John.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
I'm not wrapping myself in the flag of showing. You're
wrapping yourself in the flag of the sophisticated film.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
No boring at all, no boredom, boredom with Benji.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
Rout that any child is going to be bored by
this movie. And indeed I found the nature photography to
be very interesting myself.
Speaker 18 (19:38):
They love to bicker about films. That's that's probably one
of the reasons why.
Speaker 8 (19:42):
I do what I do.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
In nineteen eighty two, they moved from PBS to a
commercial television network called WGN, and they rebranded their show again,
naming it At the Movies.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
This fall, WG entertains you like never before with at
the Movie.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Our full time job is going to the movies.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
So join us this fall for at the Movies, the
movie review program Saturday evenings at six point thirty here
on WGN TV nine.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And it was a WGN that Roger Ebert came up
with what would become their iconic catchphrase.
Speaker 17 (20:13):
Roger just walked in one day and says, I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
That's a former producer of their show.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Thumbs up thumbs down.
Speaker 12 (20:22):
The most famous thumbs in the universe, as far as
I'm concerned, was created here at WGN.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
I'm giving this movie thumbs up as a comedy.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
I think you totally missed the point.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
And I don't know why you missed the point.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
When a movie got two thumbs up, film studios would
print it bold right at the top of their movie advertisement.
Speaker 8 (20:40):
Another agreement, though, two thumbs up for FX and FX
is the only double thumber on this show, right.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
That's right, the only two thumber upper, if you will.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
The gimmick was a hit It became so popular that
they trademarked the phrase two thumbs up again Christian Toto.
Speaker 18 (21:00):
The thumbs up thumbs down was iconic, and they did
it in way that was entertaining.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They became nationally recognized and were invited on the most
important shows of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
From our Chicago buread Genius fiscal, Please welcome.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
It's fun to have these gentlemen with us. Roger Ebert
and Gene Siskel.
Speaker 8 (21:16):
Roger Ebert is film critic with the Chicago Sun Times,
and Jene Siskel is in the same capacity for the
Chicago Tribune.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Would you welcome Rodger Ebert and Jeane Siskel.
Speaker 18 (21:24):
And they became the face of the critic.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Because of Siskel and Ebert, the film critic became a
sought after job at newspapers. So in the Reagan era
of the nineteen eighties, when the mainstream media began to
slowly take on a more openly liberal posturing, the film
critics that those newspapers naturally fit the same liberal mold.
Speaker 12 (21:42):
Chicago film critics Jane Siskel and Roger Ebert judged movies
like Roman Emperor's Deciding a Gladiator's Fate a thumbs up
or thumbs down could mean success or death at the
box office.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
A liberal gatekeeping network began to quietly form in every
corner and crevice of America. A hint of this liberal
leaning could be seen in Siskel and Eber review of
an up and coming filmmaker.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
My choice for the number five movie of the year
was the funniest single movie of the year, in my opinion,
a documentary called Roger and Me. This was the movie
with a fairytale story made by a man from Flint,
Michigan named Michael Moore, who sold his house and held
a weekly bingo game and garage sales to raise money
for his hilarious and sometimes really wounding attack on what
(22:27):
General Motors had done to his hometown. After a decade
in which America has worshiped at the shrine of higher
profits and more ruthless business executives, here is the movie
a lot of people were waiting for. Are raucous, angry, funny,
unforgiving counterattack against corporate greed. The amazing thing is that
the whole movie is so entertaining. At last, the have
(22:47):
nots get back at the heat.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Which is the tradition of American movies. I mean the
movies were always the little man's way of getting back.
Knocking off the banker's hat with a snowball one of
the earliest images in any silent film, and this picture
knocks off a lot of bankers hats with a fusillade
a snowball.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Progressive activist filmmaker Michael Moore was universally heralded by the
film critic community. They made more than new Hollywood it boy,
and this new kingmaker power of the critics would come
in handy because Hollywood's films began to have a negative
impact on American culture, and the industry needed a helping
hand to defend against the bipartisan attack on its content.
(23:29):
By the nineteen nineties, Hollywood started getting blamed for the
sexual depravity and violence that was becoming commonplace in America.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
The police come right from the underground, but got it
back then gangster rap like NWA's The police had become
all the rage, and in the wake of its birth,
violence erupted in ghetto hotspots like South central Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The violence erupted after the acquittal of four white policemen
in the beating trial of black motorists Rodney King, there's
been looting, buildings have been set ablaze, and some motorists
have been dragged from their cars and beaten.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Hollywood added fuel to the fire with films like Oliver
Stone's Natural Born Killers, which depicted a young couple embarking
on a violent killing spree.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Amy Many, Money, Moo, Caitcer, Riddick Bostow.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The filmmakers claimed the movie was a commentary on the
media's glorification of violence. Whether that was true or just deflection,
the film undoubtedly raised the bar for gratuitous violence on
the big screen. By the time the nineteen ninety six
election cycle kicked off, Republicans and Democrats alike evowed each
other out of the way to be the first to
criticize Hollywood's new low, including the GOP presidential front runner
(24:45):
Bob Dole.
Speaker 9 (24:45):
One of the greatest threats to American family values is
the way our popular culture treats them and ridicules them.
Our music, movies, television, and advertising regularly push the limits
of decency, and they bomb our children with destructive message
of casual violence and even more casual sex. And I
(25:08):
concluded that we must hold Hollywood in the entire entertainment
industry accountable for putting profit ahead of common decency. Televisions
and movie screams and boom boxes and headsets are windows
on the world for our children tonight. My challenge to
the entertainment industry is to accept a calling above and
beyond the bottom line, to fulfill a duty to society,
(25:30):
which provides its profits help our nation maintain the innocence
of its children, prove to us that courage and conscience
are live and well in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Almost immediately Ciskel and Ebert came to Hollywood's defense.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
What he's trying to do basically is suck up to
the far right. And we might as well notice that.
The fact is that when Senator Dole attacks rap music,
he's using code words. What he's doing basically is he's
trying to draw a wet She's trying to say, those
terrible people over there are perverting our their central American
(26:04):
values with their bad ideas about violence and about the family.
It's just a specious argument. If you want to talk
about violence in our society, let's get serious for real,
and let's talk about guns. Why is it that guns
in the movies are bad, but they're okay in our streets.
Speaker 9 (26:19):
Can anybody explain.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
That to me?
Speaker 8 (26:22):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
The mainstream media and Hollywood journalists alike heaped praise on
the duo for their defense of Tinseltown. Siskel and Ebert
had become the pied pipers of the entire film critic community.
Where they went, critics followed, and that should have been
no surprise. The entire industry had been captured by the left.
Like the two Thumbs up inventors, the film critic community
(26:45):
may not have agreed on what was or wasn't a
good film, but they almost all unanimously agreed on their politics,
because once the left took over the mainstream media, they
logically populated their newsrooms with like minded liberals, including the
film critic positions. As the late night nineties arrived, Ciskel
and Ebert may have been at the pinnacle of this
(27:06):
amorphous film critic community, but a new development was about
to come along to dethrone them and at the same
time reveal the entrenched bias of the entire Hollywood media.
(27:38):
Do you want to hear red pilled America stories ad free?
Then become a backstage subscriber. Just log onto Redpilled America
dot com and click join in the top menu. Join
today and help us save America one story at a time.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Welcome back to red Pilled America. As the dot com
boom was reaching its peak in nineteen ninety eight, a
designer at a small website design company was about to
a machine that would eventually take over the entire business
of film criticism.
Speaker 15 (28:07):
I had a web design firm that I co founded
with my cto Stephen Wang.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's Patrick Lee, one of the founders of Rotten Tomatoes.
The creative director of his design company was a guy
named Senduong. Sen was a huge movie buff who was
struck by how studios promoted their films. He noticed that,
for some odd reason, movie ads were always filled with
(28:33):
positive film review quotes, even when the movies were crap.
So in nineteen ninety eight, Sen came up with an idea.
Speaker 15 (28:40):
He was a huge Shaky Chand fan, and basically when
rush hour came around, he wanted to know what everyone
was saying about it. So Sen's idea was like, what
if I take all the quotes from professional critics, only
good and bad, and put him in one place. And
that's kind of how Rotten Tomatoes was born.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Sen came up with a rating system for his new website,
and it looked an awful lot like ciskel Niebert's thumbs
up and thumbs down, but with a minor phrase change.
He called it fresh and rotten. It was a throwback
to the days when audiences would throw rotten tomatoes at
bad stage performances. If a critic reviewed a film positively,
Sen's system would count that as a fresh tomato. If
(29:16):
they didn't like the film, that would register as a
rotten tomato. If the film was given sixty percent or
above in positive reviews, it would be deemed fresh. Any
movie that garnered less than sixty percent positive ratings would
be considered rotten. What Sen couldn't have known at the
time was that his site was revealing the entrenched liberal
(29:36):
bias of Hollywood media. Shortly after the birth of the site,
Rotten Tomatoes began posting the list of film critics they
used for their Tomato rating system, and if you dug
into that list, it wasn't hard to see that the
pool of critics were almost universally liberal. In fact, in
twenty seventeen, we did a study on the film critics
(29:57):
populating Rotten Tomatoes, and the results were eye opening. We
found a massive liberal bias. The liberal media outlets on
the site outnumbered conservative outlets by a ratio of nineteen
to one, but when looking at the individual approved film critics,
the disparity was even more jarring. Rotten Tomatoes approved liberal
(30:18):
film critics outnumbered conservative critics by roughly thirty three to one.
There were definitely film critics with no discernible political position,
but the structure of their rating system was clear. Rotten
Tomatoes wasn't necessarily trying to create a model that represented
(30:40):
the movie going public. What it had created was a
snapshot of the film critic community. Again, Christian Toto.
Speaker 18 (30:47):
Rotten Tomatoes is essentially a mirror. It's a mirror that
reflects the film world and the film critical world. So
some of its flaws are not really its flaws. It's
the world's in general and their issues, and you'd look
at sort of ideological diversity. The reason why they're so
few critics on there who lean right is that there
were so few critics in the world who leaned right.
(31:08):
So that's not Rotten Tomato's fault.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Christian is one of the very few right of center
film critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and when we say very few,
we mean you can practically count them all on one hand. Therefore,
if a movie with conservative values entered theaters, it was
almost certain that it would get a rotten rating, if
it could even get reviewed at all. Seemingly by circumstance,
(31:32):
Senduong built a grossly biased system that's stealthily built on
the iconic success of Siskel and Ebert. The site was
launched in nineteen ninety eight again Rotten Tomatoes founder Patrick Lee.
Speaker 15 (31:44):
We were hosting the site for him for about a year,
and during that time, you know, he was putting a
lot of time into it on the side, and it
was kind of affecting his work, and we were like, oh,
we don't know if it makes sense for you, and
you putting so much time into this.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
But then the team got a signal that they were
onto something.
Speaker 15 (32:00):
Roger Ebert wrote an article for a magazine pointing on
his favorite movie sites, and Rotten Tomatoes was one of them.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
It was a huge thumbs up for the young website.
Ebert was, of course a king of film criticism. With
his recommendation, in a sense, he transferred his credibility to
Rotten Tomatoes, and the timing was perfect for the upstart website.
Earlier that year, Gene Siskel had been diagnosed with brain cancer,
en ailment he'd died from in less than a year.
(32:27):
From diagnosis, Siskel and Ebert's domination of the film criticism
world was coming to an end. In addition to Roger
Ebert singing Rotten Tomatoes praise, the website got mentioned on
the dominant search engine of the time, Yahoo. Then the
team got a clear message that Hollywood was taking notice.
(32:49):
One day in November nineteen ninety eight, Rotten Tomatoes got
a huge spike in traffic. The team had no idea why,
so they tracked the IP address of where the traffic
was coming from, and it turned out that it was
originating from the animation studio Pixar. The studio had just
released the film A Bugs Life, and apparently the workers
at the studio were going to Rotten Tomatoes and refreshing
(33:12):
their page in mass to get updates on the film's reviews.
Hollywood was now using the site.
Speaker 15 (33:18):
So we were like, Hey, if Pixar's using this, if
Roger Ebert's using this, maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
So Patrick Lee moved his company's resources away from its
web design business and put a team of twenty five
on Rotten Tomatoes. Then he went out and raised a
million dollars to fund the project.
Speaker 15 (33:34):
When we raised in January two thousand, Internet bubble bursts
two months later. The problem in the bubble burst was
not only that people couldn't raise money anymore, but most
Internet sites were reliant on ad revenue. That ad revenue
is mostly coming from other Internet sites, and so people
couldn't make money anymore because these Internet sites didn't have
the money to buy the ads anymore. So when you
(33:55):
cut up all the funding and cut out revenue, these
businesses are going out like closing left and right. I
think we identified about one hundred competitors potential competitors when
we first started. Pretty much within a year, I think
like ninety percent of them were out of business.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Though.
Speaker 15 (34:09):
It was like a pretty tough time, and we actually
had a cut from twenty five people down to seven
over the course of a year.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
For the next few years, the team struggled to stay afloat.
Patrick Lee even resorted to sleeping under his desk for
six months. With everyone in the dot com business going under,
the Rotten Tomatoes team began looking for an exit, someone
to purchase the company so that they could make their investors'
money back. A company named Ign Entertainment, a video game
(34:43):
and entertainment media website, started negotiating to purchase Rotten Tomatoes. However,
things started to stall a bit, but as the negotiating
dragged out, the Rotten Tomatoes team got a boost from
an unlikely character.
Speaker 10 (34:56):
This move is actually getting it's getting great reviews.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
While interviewing actor Mark Ruffalo, humorous John Stewart began plugging
the film review site on Comedy Central's The Daily Show,
will you.
Speaker 10 (35:05):
Ever go on Rotten Tomatoes? No, Rotten Tomatoes is like
it's like a website that reviews movies before they I
guess before they.
Speaker 17 (35:13):
Come out, or did we get any any You got
very good reviews.
Speaker 10 (35:16):
You've got full tomatoes, which is good like not rotten ones. No,
if you get a tomato, that means that a certain
percentage of people say it's good. I think it's over
like seventy percent say it's good, and if not, you
get I'm not even sure why they do this an asterisk,
which makes no sense in terms of a tomato so
if your movie is bad, there's an asterisk next to it,
(35:36):
and if it's good, a delicious tomato, then we got
a delicious to meal delicious tomato, so congratulations.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
It was a pr windfall. Roughly two months later, ig
In acquired Rotten Tomatoes. I think we ended up selling
for ten It's ten million dollars, which isn't a huge number,
but back then, you know, everything else our investors invested
in in tech once to zero. For us to even
be around and for them to make some money off
of the investment with actually I think pretty hard at
(36:04):
that time. Over the next two years, films would slowly
begin using their tomato rating in their movie advertising. Then
another tragedy would work in Rotten tomatoes favor.
Speaker 17 (36:15):
When did you sense Rotten Tomatoes had really popped?
Speaker 7 (36:19):
You know, it was around the time that Ebert really
slowed down in his writing.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's Rotten Tomato's former editor in chief, Matt Atchity. In
two thousand and two, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The disease severely impacted his health. By two thousand and six,
he left his at the movie show for good. He'd
continue writing, but Roger Ebert would eventually lose his ability
to speak. The disease took his life in twenty.
Speaker 7 (36:45):
Thirteen, and you know, there was that first round of illness,
and we started seeing that people were quoting our scores
in the media, people in Hollywood, in Hollywood, and you know,
a lot of movie coverage would get you know, oh,
this movie did this well on the Tomato meter, and
they would quote the scores.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
By twenty ten, Visionary Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs added
Rotten Tomato ratings to its movie purchase and rental service,
and you.
Speaker 11 (37:09):
Can see a synopsis of the movie, the actors, director, producers.
You also can get user ratings, and you can see
the Tomato meter up there for the first time, and
you can get detail on the actors, what other films
they've been in, etc. The director, and you can actually
read reviews from rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Google would eventually add the Rotten Tomatoes ratings score for
all movie searches on the site. Rotten Tomatoes was the
new king of film reviews, and at the time, the
film industry was going through a dramatic shift.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
In two thousand and two, one point five to eight
billion domestic movie tickets were sold. It was an all
time high, but that would prove to be a peak.
In the years that followed, that number went on a
steady decline. By twenty seventeen, only one point two four
billion tickets were sold, three hundred and forty million less
movie tickets. The COVID shutdowns in twenty twenty led to
(38:13):
a staggering decline. That year, roughly two hundred and twenty
million tickets sold, a decrease of one point three billion
less tickets. By twenty twenty three, the number of tickets
sold only partially recovered to roughly eight hundred and twenty
five million, an almost fifty percent decline from its peak.
The lazy response is to blame the trend on streaming technology,
(38:35):
but this downward trend predated the popularity of YouTube, smartphones,
Apple TV, cheap flat screens, the rise of social media
streamers like Netflix, Amazon, Prime, Hulu, and the Great Recession
of two thousand and eight. The decline started before all
of those trends kicked off. And even more surprising, this
decrease in ticket sales started while both the number of
(38:56):
movie screens were increasing and the number of films released
each year was on the rise. The US film industry
has been spending more money but getting decreasing ticket sales
at home. How was this happening. The answer is simple,
woke globalism. Around the same time the domestic ticket sales
reached a peak in two thousand and two, the international
(39:17):
box office surpassed the domestic box office for the first
time and never looked back. By twenty twenty three, the
domestic box office brought in roughly nine billion dollars. The
foreign box office, by contrast, brought in a wopping twenty
four billion dollars. So Hollywood no longer cared about pro
American movies. It wanted to appeal to a global community,
(39:40):
which was and is far to the left of Middle America.
This Hollywood drift towards globalism can also be seen in
its moves with Rotten Tomatoes. For years, Hollywood studios had
tried to outsmart moviegoers in film critics before Rotten Tomatoes
became dominant. If a stinker of a film got universally
bad ratings, the studio would simply find some nobody of
(40:02):
a film critic that liked the film and add their
positive review to its advertising. In one case, a studio
even created a fake film critic.
Speaker 17 (40:10):
Movie review quotes expose this fake if you ran out
and saw a Knight's Tale in the Animal Based on
the glowing blurbs of one David Manning of Connecticut's Ridfield Press,
the reviews are fictional and film critic David Manning does
not exist. Manning was the creation of Columbia Pictures Marketing Department.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
But by two thousand and six the power of Rotten
Tomatoes couldn't be denied, so over the course of the
next ten years, in a series of moves, both Warner
brother Pictures and NBC Universal took indirect ownership stakes in
Rotten Tomatoes. With domestic tickets declining, the two studios didn't
(40:49):
attempt to come up with the better system that helped
foster movies that appealed to conservatives, and it was clear
the audience was there passion of the Christ American Sniper,
and even were the Millers were clearly successful because of
conservative audience. Studios that owned Rotten Tomatoes could have pushed
it to implement a system that better represented the American
(41:09):
movie going public, but they did not. Instead, they continued
the system that led to a liberal to conservative film
critic bias of thirty three to one. And this is
important because movies rely on promotion to sell tickets.
Speaker 14 (41:24):
It really sucks that reviews matter, But reviews matter.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
That's actress Bree Larson speaking in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 14 (41:31):
Good reviews out of festivals give small independent films a
fighting chance to be bought and seen.
Speaker 18 (41:37):
Good reviews help.
Speaker 11 (41:38):
Films gross money.
Speaker 18 (41:39):
Good reviews slingshot films into awards contenders.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
A good review can change your life.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
It changed mine. With film critics being nearly all liberal,
not only do conservative themed films have a hard time
getting positive reviews, they have a hard time getting reviewed
at all. Again, Christian Toto, go look.
Speaker 18 (41:56):
At either What does a Woman or Ladyballers.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Both films produced by The Daily Wire.
Speaker 18 (42:01):
You might get maybe eight to nine reviews.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
And of course Christian is right. The small twenty seventeen
indie film Ladybird has received four hundred film critic reviews
on Rotten Tomatoes. By contrast, Deneche Desuz's twenty sixteen Obama's
America was the highest grossing documentary movie of twenty twelve.
It received a paltry thirty four reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker 18 (42:25):
I think the Deli Wire pr team reached out to
a critic, and the critic went on Twitter and said,
I'm not going to review this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
If you don't have an avenue to promote your film,
then it'll likely never get made. That's how Rotten Tomatoes
and Hollywood blocks anti woke, pro American movies from ever
getting made. But let's be honest, conservative media carries some,
if not most, of the blame of this rig system.
One of the biggest complaints we've received over the years
from filmmakers is that when they make a movie, they
(42:54):
can't get conservative media to cover it. Very few right
leaning outlets have someone dedicated to covering culture. We know
that firsthand here at Redfield America.
Speaker 18 (43:03):
There still is a reticence across the cultural landscape on
the right to share works, and that's a real issue.
And also there's a lot of competition. So if outlet
A gets into the movie business all of a sudden,
outlets BC and D may not give them much coverage,
if at all, because they are a competitor, and that's
a problem as well.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Think journalist Andrew Breitbart understood how to break the left's
monopoly of Hollywood. In two thousand and nine, he launched
a website called Big Hollywood. At the time, he was
asked why he launched the site.
Speaker 14 (43:35):
The Conservative movement proper did not embrace Ronald Reagan initially,
but it eventually came to accept him as the standard
bearer of conservatism. He was successful less because he carried
conservative principles, but because he came from Hollywood and he
understood the importance of communication and pop culture. It took
(43:56):
them a long time to realize that that magic was
a good way to sell conservatism righte eyed optimism, and
so the conservative movement needs to go focus on Hollywood
in countless ways. It needs to encourage its young to
go out to Hollywood to become screenwriters, actors, producers, below
(44:16):
the line workers. It also needs to focus on Hollywood
proper film reviews and become engaged in the debate out there.
It's interesting that we have so many people in the
conservative movement who write about legislation and political controversies every
single day. As matter of fact, there seems to be
(44:37):
about fifty people writing on the same subject all day long,
but very few people focus on pop culture. And pop
culture is the DNA of who we are, and we
export that through the satellite dishes, and in our DVDs,
and on the television screen, and in films across the world.
And if we don't alter that DNA, if we don't
(44:58):
try to inject in it, our best qualities are not
our worst quality. Our faith is in the hands of
people who don't agree with us, and that faith isn't
people in Hollywood that we disagree with right now, So
we have to take them on using their skills.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Which leads us back to the question, how do we
break the woke monopoly of Hollywood. The answer is clear.
We need to build the same structure that the left
has used to make Tinseltown its own little monopoly. Yes,
we need to foster screenwriters and actors and editors and musicians,
but we also need to create an ecosystem of amplifiers
(45:52):
that promote their work. We need film reviewers and music
reviewers and awards shows that promote and celebrate excellence in
the arts. When Brie Larsen was speaking out about the
importance of film reviews in making and selling movies, she
wasn't advocating for an environment that would propel conservative films.
She was actually arguing to make Hollywood more woke by
(46:13):
hiring more woke critics.
Speaker 14 (46:15):
I do not need a forty year old white dude
to tell me what didn't work for him about a
Wrinkle in Time.
Speaker 4 (46:20):
It wasn't made for him.
Speaker 7 (46:22):
I want to know what that film meant to women
of color, to biracial women, to team women.
Speaker 18 (46:31):
Of color, to teens that are biracial.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Ree Larson and the film industry at large understand the
power of storytelling, and they are doing everything possible to
keep it there. Monopoly. We must, you must get engaged
with pop culture because if we don't, if we allow
the woke mob to continue their monopoly on the institution
that defines what it means to be American, and we
deserve whatever they have in store for this country.
Speaker 13 (46:56):
The new documentary entitled God and Country, which looks at
the history of Christian nationalism in America and how Donald
Trump and members of the far right have twisted Christianity.
Joining Us Now one of the film's producers, Emmy Award
winning actor and renowned filmmaker Rob Reiner.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adriana Cortez for
Informed Ventures Now You can get ad free access to
our entire catalog of episodes by becoming a backstage subscriber.
To subscribe, just visit Redpilled America dot com and clud
join in the topmenu. That's Redpilled America dot com and
(47:37):
click join in the topmenu. Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Adryana Cortez
Patrick Courrielche
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