Publisher to film critic: No strong women in reviews!

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/11/20/newspaper-owner-tells-critic-no-reviews-of-films-featuring-strong-women/

Niagara Falls Reporter, a weekly, was sold recently, apparently to Don Draper.

Parlato told Calleri in an email that “I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta. where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females. i believe in manliness. …If you care to write reviews where men act like good strong men and have a heroic inspiring influence on young people to build up their character (if there are such movies being made) i will be glad to publish these.”

The issue got attention with Calleri's first-person account on Ebert's blog,

http://blogs.suntimes.com/foreignc/2012/11/post-2.html

which led to this from the publisher about commenters: "While I enjoyed the unintentionally funny and immature rudeness of Calleri and some of the writers who posted comments [on Ebert's site], some, I suspect, may have a deep-seated daddy issue. They simply hate the idea of a strong, powerful man in their cowardly and effete new world."

The critic quit, but no doubt future reviews will be thus --

The Little Mermaid: Loved it!
Mulan: Hated it!

 

Now there's a quitting of a job I could get behind. Was the publisher's former job that of Akin's press agent?

 

Given the NFR's already-sterling reputation, hard to imagine the previous owner/publisher could've found someone even worse to take over the paper (an alt-weekly tabloid, if you hand't guessed), but he pulled it off.

Once upon a time, I almost ended up writing a column for them. Now I'm thinking that turning them down was a really, really good choice.

 

How dare Clarice Starling try to match wits with Hannibal Lechter!

 

The publisher is a retrograde foof, but the world is hardly worse off for being denied the writer's efforts in print. Sometimes you can copy edit with a light touch and other times you need a chainsaw. That thing needed a controlled burn.

 

I wonder which current film would feature female characters submissive enough to meet this publishers' rigorous standards....

 

I'm sure he could find many in the back room of his local video store

 

Maybe that's what the film critic for this paper should be reviewing, Cold Cat!
(On a side note, who do I send my resume to?)

 

There are still video stores?

 

I bet this publisher really likes gladiator movies.