 If you look at sites like Buzzfeed, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Vanity Fair, or Teen Vogue, you'd think that every new movie or show that comes out is problematic. How many times have you seen articles, blogs, and social media posts positively outraged about some casting or story choice in a movie that's just about to come out? Between accusations of cultural appropriation, racism, sexism, body shaming, ableism, every decision a filmmaker might make is potentially offensive to somebody. And even when the pundits and blue checkmarks don't get upset about a new movie's sins, we still get stories about how other people, often the wrong people, are mad about something they shouldn't be. It's a never-ending cycle of outrage. And the twist is, I think we do need to talk about it. But it's not the potentially problematic aspects of cinematic storytelling I'm interested in. What I want to talk about today is the idea of manufactured controversy and how outrage bait gets turned into cheat marketing campaigns that get people talking about mediocre films. So hit the subscribe button, ring that bell icon, and maybe grab yourself some popcorn, because we're going to talk about Ultra Woke Hollywood on this short edition of Out of Frame. We've all seen this scenario play out a bunch of times over the last few years. A movie, or even just the trailer for it, gets released. One of the actors, or perhaps the director, says something mildly controversial on a press tour. Maybe an acolyte of the Church of the Perpetually Aggreved finds something, anything objectionable in the trailer or just in the rumors floating around about a movie they haven't even seen, and they rant about it on Twitter. Then industry reporters take those tweets and publish a string of articles about the controversy. Now it doesn't even take many tweets or a large number of people getting upset to kick this off. All reporters need is enough to write the story. And as other bloggers and influencers react to those stories, the outrage escalates and the cycle continues. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, but it's becoming more and more frequent. Although one thing I have noticed is that so far it usually happens with films that aren't actually good. The most recent example of this is the new HBO Max release, The Witches. If you're unfamiliar with the issue with The Witches, you're not alone. In the 2020 adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, witches are real, they hate children, and they're not human. They're described as having no hair, no toes, mouths that spread nearly ear to ear filled with sharp teeth, and claw-like hands. And indeed, that's what they are in the film. The production team used visual effects to make those changes to the actor's appearance. The end result, specifically for the claw hands, looks mostly normal, except for being elongated and lacking a couple of the middle digits. A few members of the limb difference community pointed out on social media that the witch's hands bear some resemblance to those of someone with ectrodactyly, or split hand syndrome. They were concerned that children would associate someone with the condition, or who is just missing fingers, with the scary evil witches. Both Warner Brothers Studios and Anne Hathaway, who played the role of the Grand High Witch, issued very public apologies. Articles were published, and for a few days anyway, people were talking about the movie. But here's the thing, the witches is not a good film. It's boring. The characters are terrible. The plot makes no sense. The effects are garbage. It's genuinely one of the worst movies I've ever seen. None of this is to say that people shouldn't necessarily be annoyed by the look of the witch's hands, but I'd argue that if it weren't for that controversy, nobody would have talked about the movie at all. Very few people would have even seen it. This is an unfortunate trend, and it's getting worse. A lot of this started back in the mid-2010s when we started to see more complaints about actors portraying characters with backgrounds and ethnicities different from their own. But before we really get into that, I want to be super clear about something. I'm not talking about Mickey Rooney's disturbingly racist Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'm not talking about slapping some eyeliner on a British woman and pretending she's Chinese, in Dr. No, when there were multiple competent actresses in the film who could have gotten the part of Miss Tarot instead. Stuff like that is worth criticizing, and it's generally good that we have moved away from this kind of whitewashing, because that was always based on intentional, racially motivated exclusion. But that's not usually what people get upset about today. I'm talking about outrage over casting decisions like Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi in the live action version of Ghost in the Shell, even though the whole point of that character is that she's a woman inhabiting a synthetic body that looks nothing like her original self. I'm talking about people who got mad about putting Christian Bale in Exodus Gods and Kings when they should just forget that that movie exists. I'm talking about everyone who's angry at casting Gal Gadot, an Israeli woman, as Cleopatra, even though she's literally from the same part of the world. This kind of outrage is unnecessarily restrictive. Some folks who seem to make being offended a full-time job even object to straight actors playing gay characters, or cisgender actors playing transgender characters. But a good faith interpretation of someone of a different background is precisely what actors are supposed to do. It's how we get world-class performances in movies like Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don't Cry, Rain Man, The Imitation Game, The Machinist, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Matt Damon isn't a math genius. Charlize Theron is an Africaner born to blue-collar parents in South Africa, not a lesbian serial killer from Michigan. Matthew McConaughey doesn't have HIV. Aquafina isn't a middle-aged man from New Jersey. Chadwick Boseman was born and raised in South Carolina, not in Wakanda or even anywhere in real-world Africa. Actors shouldn't have to be exactly the thing they're portraying in order to be great in the roles they're paid to inhabit. That's the whole point of the profession. Again, this does not mean that we should return to the bad old days of Hollywood where only white people are allowed to have lead roles and where women, ethnic or racial minorities or LGBTQ people are erased or replaced with grotesque caricatures. Nor should actors, directors, producers, or anyone be shut out of the business because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. But not only is all this outrage over actors simply doing their jobs not helpful to historically underrepresented demographics, it's also a recipe for making bad art. Unfortunately, playing up controversy is a recipe for effective marketing. Bringing this back to the witches, I don't think having the character's hands resemble extradactally was meant to be offensive. But at the risk of sounding cynical, I can't help but observe that the movie got more publicity when people started making a big deal about it on Twitter. And all the articles that boost outrage on social media are basically just free marketing. It's what PR people call earned media. Manufacturing controversy is like deliberately creating a sort of Streisand effect because at least some people will go see a movie just to thumb their noses at the ones who object to it. It's also really easy to see this approach to marketing taking root across more and more areas of society. Marketing firms like Whedon and Kennedy, Gray, BBDO, and Ogilvy are increasingly pushing outrage and controversy as a way to get people to buy whatever it is they're selling. From shoes, shaving razors, and Barbie dolls, to political candidates and ideologies. And they give each other awards for it. But the woke marketers have also, perhaps accidentally, created a perfect incentive structure for a regression in representation in popular media. I've said this many times before on this show, but incentives matter. We live in a world where outrage and getting offended is fashionable. It's almost a status symbol for some people. And the more outrage something produces, the more attention it gets. As a result, these incentives make it easy for anybody to exploit outrage to get clicks, shares, views, and if we ever get back to a world where people go to the movies and theaters, dollars at the box office. It may now be more lucrative to be excluded from an industry in order to play the victim than it is to actually get the gig. And no matter what, it's an incredibly divisive tactic that pits people against each other and contributes to increasing polarization. This is a really bad direction for society. But you need to understand where the problem actually lies. And it's not actually with the marketing firms or the companies trying to get people to watch their movies or buy their soda. The problem is us. Or, more specifically, the problem is everyone who believes that there's some kind of righteousness in outrage. Marketers are simply responding to what's working. And as long as grievances get attention, some people with an agenda will always be there to stoke the flames. So, if you're offended by, or just don't like a particular movie or TV show or any other kind of art, you don't have to consume it. It takes basically no effort to change the channel or even stop watching altogether. What you shouldn't do is become so enraged that a piece of art even exists that you demand an apology from the creators or try to have their work destroyed. This is not how we move forward as a civilization. It's how we encourage regressive attention seekers by giving them exactly what they want, rent free space in our own minds. Instead, we need to take the power away from those who offer nothing but anger and division. So, the next time someone tries to get you to give them free publicity by selling you their products or ideas based on outrage, try choosing not to take the bait. Hey everybody, thanks for watching. From my perspective, there's a huge difference between criticizing something you don't like and participating in outrage culture. Where's that line for you? Leave a comment and let me know. Also, please check out our Out of Frame Behind the Scenes podcast. It comes out every Friday, but supporters on Patreon get early access and special bonus content. So, if that interests you, please consider becoming one of our patrons. Check out the links in the description. And as always, be sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel, hit that bell icon, and follow Out of Frame on Twitter and Instagram. See you next time.