Agatha All Along Isn’t Receiving Backlash Like The Acolyte. Maybe It’s Because The Acolye Just Wasn’t Very Good

Lately, there has been a narrative that if people don’t like a project led by women or diverse individuals, it is because they are all “white, straight, manbaby, toxic troll, whiney pants, bigots.”  Or maybe it’s because the show just wasn’t very good, and it happened to have diverse characters.

Case in point: “The Acolyte” vs “Agatha All Along.”

Both the Lucasfilm Disney+ show “The Acolyte” and the Marvel Disney+ show “Agatha All Along” feature female leads, people of color, LGBTQ+ characters, and witches. Yet “Agatha All Along” doesn’t get the “toxic hate” that “The Acolyte” did.

In fact, the Marvel show’s Rotten Tomatoes score is 83% critical and 81% audience, just two points apart.

Meanwhile, “The Acolyte” has a much wider gap, with a critical score of 78% and an audience score of 18%, 60 points apart.

Right off the bat, it seems that the scores are more aligned with “Agatha All Along.” While I am sure some review bombing was at play with “The Acolyte,” it isn’t to the level that the media tried to make it. While publicity was shown on the downvoting, people were upvoting it to offset it.

The media and stars exacerbate issues.

When it comes to backlash regarding these shows, the media seems to play a large role in amplifying “issues” for clicks and encouraging stars to decry fans, making the fans even angrier.

With “The Acolyte,” the stars and media caused issues from the beginning. Painting those who didn’t like the show as “bigots” and “trolls” while claiming that their criticisms were invalid but “fair criticism” was okay. Then again, any criticism was met with name-calling.

Perhaps Lucasfilm does not properly train its actors for the media, or the actors lack experience.

When “The Acolyte” wasn’t performing well, Amandla Stenberg made a video shaking her butt and calling people “racists” for not liking her show. While a very small minority could indeed be racist, there is no way that everyone who didn’t like the show or even skipped the show could be.

In contrast, veteran actor Carrie Anne Moss recently did an interview where she said that cancelations happen,

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been asked that question a lot today, and it’s funny because, you know, when being an actor, you’re in shows all the time that are canceled and it’s in the beginning, it’s kind of a bummer. And then you just learn to not really be invested. You can’t be, it’s a protection mechanism.”

There is a reason why celebrities are trained for the media. Marvel seems to do a better job on this front. 

When it comes to “Agatha All Along,” other than the initial media boost where one reporter kept trying to create drama about it being “the gayest Marvel show ever,” we haven’t seen the issues out of the cast, showrunner or even the media that we did with “The Acolyte.” Joe Locke started a bit but stopped.

The cast is not perpetually making statements against the “bigots,” and the media isn’t doing multiple hit pieces a day against the Marvel fans.

The media claims people hate diversity

If the media’s claim that people hate “diverse shows” is accurate and that the cause of “The Acolyte” ‘s failure was not because it was a lousy show, why are they not doing the same for “Agatha All Along?”

Because the narrative of the Marvel show doesn’t need to be changed, people are seemingly liking it, and it is performing well in the viewership ratings.

Even if it doesn’t do as well as “The Acolyte,” the budget on “Agatha All Along” is significantly lower, allowing more leeway with the suits.

A bigger budget does not necessarily mean a better show; chasing fans off is a bad idea.

Frankly, the media did not do Star Wars any favors by trolling the audience.

The incessant hit pieces on “trolls” and “bigots” did not help “The Acolyte.” If anything, they increased the animosity towards the show and cast. Diversity does not necessarily mean that a show is bad. However, audiences will respond more negatively if the product feels like check boxes over substance or the IP. Not all criticism is rooted in bigotry, and the media perpetuating that it is did not help win people to the show.

If you search terms like “The Acolyte bigots,” “The Acolyte Trolls,” and “The Acolyte toxic,” you will find far more fan-bashing results than you will search “Agagtha All Along” with those same three words.

“Agatha All Along” also has diversity; some may argue that it’s sometimes agenda-driven. Still, people are more willing to overlook that because the show is well done and the media (and actors) are not out there calling them names for having criticism.

At the beginning, it looked like it could go that direction, but Marvel must have stopped it, as it did not go that way, at least from the cast.

It all just indicates that maybe the real toxicity and brand-damaging behavior might be coming from the media and audience reaction to subpar projects.

But that’s my opinion.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!