Report: Amazon Studios Scrapped Ranking Shows Based On Audience Scores Because It Revealed “Audiences Found Queer Stories Off-Putting”
John F. Trent
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A new report claims that Amazon Studios scrapped an audience ranking system after data revealed audiences were put off by “queer stories” and themes.
Rosie O’Donnell as Vi in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
This new report comes from The Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters who details that Amazon’s “reliance on testing and data led to a clash late summer” specifically following a marketing meeting regarding the company’s A League of Their Own series.
Masters notes during this meeting an Amazon executive pointed out “that data showed audiences found queer stories off-putting and suggested downplaying those themes in materials promoting the show.”
D’Arcy Carden as Greta, Melanie Field as Jo, Abbi Jacobson as Carson, Roberta Colindrez as Lupe, and Kelly McCormack as Jess in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
On top of this, Masters also detailed, “Multiple sources say [Amazon’s system] often ranked broad series featuring straight, white male leads above all others.”
According to the report, the show’s co-creator Will Graham “launched into an interrogation of the system,’ which resulted in Amazon dropping “the system of ranking shows based on audience scores.”
Melanie Field as Jo in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
This new report appears to lend credence to a previous a rumor from Hollywood insider WDW Pro at That Park Place that claimed multiple Hollywood focus groups chose a dummy police show versus a woke-styled police show.
WDW Pro detailed that the dummy police show was based on hacked together episodes of Starsky & Hutch that featured “two young detectives (two white guys, one Ivy League and the other a good o’l boy) are partnered in Vegas where they cultivate informants, recurring girlfriends, every episode includes a fistfight with chairs and bottles flying, every second episode has a car chase, alleys with blowing newspapers, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, unnecessarily overpowered firearms, muscle cars on the strip, Vegas location used to the hilt – from grungy and run down to full on glam.”
Chanté Adams as Max and Gbemisola Ikumelo as Clance in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
In contrast the woke-styled show was allegedly a legitimate show that was being pitched to a number of streaming services including Netflix that followed a POC policewoman in a southern where “she is shocked by the racism, sexism and abuse of power of her new colleagues as well as their poor relations with the communities they serve.”
Not only did the show feature themes about racism and sexism, but it muddied the moral waters as the policewoman “doesn’t know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys anymore and has to watch her back on and off duty while she tries to initiate change both in her department and in her community.”
Priscilla Delgado as Esti, Molly Ephraim as Maybelle, Rosie O’Donnell as Vi, Kate Berlant as Shirley, Abbi Jacobson as Carson in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
This report also appears to have credence in national polling done by Rasmussen Reports. The organization found that only 28% of American adults “believe the emphasis on ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’ by companies like Disney is making children’s entertainment better.”
They found that 45% of American adults “think the push for ‘inclusion’ is making kids’ entertainment worse.”
Roberta Colindrez as Lupe, Kate Berlant as Shirley, Abbi Jacobson as Carson, D’Arcy Carden as Greta, Melanie Field as Jo, Molly Ephraim as Maybelle in A League of Their Own (2022), Amazon Studios
What do you make of this new report that Amazon Studios scrapped their audience ranking system because “audiences found queer stories off-putting?”
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