At the Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards in Beverly Hills on Wednesday night, Brie Larson advocated for more inclusive film criticism. Referencing data from USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Larson reported that 80 percent of film critics who reviewed 2017’s top box-office hits were male. The Room star used A Wrinkle in Time as an example of this lack of parity’s effects: “I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time. It wasn’t made for him! I want to know what it meant to women of color, biracial women, to teen women of color,” she said. “Am I saying I hate white dudes? No, I am not. What I am saying is if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of color, there is an insanely low chance a woman of color will have a chance to see your movie, and review your movie.”
Larson asked for studios to screen movies for critics from underrepresented backgrounds, and to include them in press junkets. “It really sucks that reviews matter — but reviews matter. Good reviews out of festivals give small, independent films a fighting chance to be bought and seen. Good reviews help films gross money, good reviews slingshot films into awards contenders,” she said. “A good review can change your life. It changed mine.”
