True Detective: Night Country showrunner Issa López pulled a now stereotypical publicity stunt after a show was criticized for its poor quality, she claimed she’s a victim of review bombing and decided to blame “the bros and hardcore fanboys.”
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis in True Detective: Night Country (2024), HBO
As reported by Variety, in a now-deleted tweet about the show’s then subpar 69% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, she begged her followers to inflate the score.
She said, “So, if you liked last night’s [episode] of [‘True Detective: Night Country‘], and have a Rotten Tomatoes account, maybe head over there and leave an audience review?”
Next, she blamed men for the alleged review bombing, “The bros and hardcore fanboys of [Season 1] have made it a mission to drag the rating down, and it’s kind of sad, considering all the 5 star ones.”
Issa López on X
In a subsequent post, she appeared to respond to a bunch of negative feedback she received.
Issa López on X
In another follow-up post she explained why she deleted her original one.
She wrote, “Ok. I removed a post. I despise review bombing of any kind, but A: our audience score in RT is much better now, and B: I used a generalization about who was bombing. And [generalizations] are ALWAYS a mistake. And! SO MANY beautiful bros and TD S1 hard-core fans loved our ep!”
Issa López on X
The series’ audience score on Rotten Tomatoes has marginally increased to 71% as of the time of writing. It has an average rating of 3.7 out of 5.
True Detective: Night Country Rotten Tomatoes score
While not on Rotten Tomatoes, the show appears to be getting way more 10 out of 10 scores than 1 out of 10 scores on IMDb, throwing water on the whole review bombing theory.
The first episode of the series has a 7.7 out of 10. There are 630 perfect 10 out of 10 scores on IMDb, which makes up over a fifth of all reviews. In contrast, there are only 240 1 out of 10 reviews. That’s less than 8%.
True Detective: Night Country IMDb scores
López’s initial tactic of blaming men for poor audience scores is something that has been part of the standard Hollywood playbook for years now.
Back in 2019, Elizabeth Banks deployed the tactic before her Charlie’s Angels film even hit theaters. She told Australia’s Herald Sun, “Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money.”
She added, “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
Next, Banks whined about men’s taste in films, “They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre. So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it’s all about, yes, you’re watching a Wonder Woman movie but we’re setting up three other characters or we’re setting up Justice League.”
Elizabeth Banks speaking at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con International, for “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Maybe the most infamous example of blaming men for a film’s poor audience scores was Rian Johnson in reaction to The Last Jedi.
Johnson decried his critics, of which there were many given the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score sits at a rotten 42%, as manbabies.
He shared in June 2018 on Twitter, “What we talk about when we talk about manbabies.”
What we talk about when we talk about manbabies
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Johnson then attempted to hide his attack on critics behind a fake harassment campaign against actress Kelly Marie Tran that the media created in order to deflect from the film’s atrocious quality.
He wrote, “On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.”
On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine. https://t.co/yhcShg5vdJ
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Johnson then shared, “Done with this disingenuous bullshit. You know the difference between not liking a movie and hatefully harassing a woman so bad she has to get off social media. And you know which of those two we’re talking about here.”
Done with this disingenuous bullshit. You know the difference between not liking a movie and hatefully harassing a woman so bad she has to get off social media. And you know which of those two we’re talking about here.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Johnson later stated, “Your “implication” was not an implication at all, it was explicitly stated in your tweet: you’re conflating critiquing a movie with being an abusive asshole to people online, when it’s clear as day they are two seperate things & we’re condemning the latter and not the former.”
Your “implication” was not an implication at all, it was explicitly stated in your tweet: you’re conflating critiquing a movie with being an abusive asshole to people online, when it’s clear as day they are two seperate things & we’re condemning the latter and not the former.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
However, Johnson exposed his own falseness when he responded to one user who claimed he ruined Star Wars writing, “Ok, I have to draw the line at you dragging your drooly little manbaby butt across the wheel of fortune answers account. Back to the swamp, you’re free/blocked.”
Ok, I have to draw the line at you dragging your drooly little manbaby butt across the wheel of fortune answers account. Back to the swamp, you’re free/blocked.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 7, 2018
It is interesting that López backtracked so quickly, maybe PR people at HBO have figured out that attacking potential viewers without any evidence is probably a terrible idea and leads to ruined franchises, job losses, and other negative outcomes.
What do you make of López’s comments?
