Sunday, March 29, 2015

Oh, Mary Sue, really?

Friday, Cedric ("Oh, Mary Sue, who did that to you?") and Wally ("THIS JUST IN! LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO THE MARY SUE!") called out The Mary Sue for basically turning what a commentator at The Mary Sue rightly called "astroturf" into an 'article.'

That actually might be the least of The Mary Sue's problems.

The Mary Sue prides itself on 'civility' which is why it's so damn useless.

See, if Slate makes a mistake, the people who comment there will scream out loud for the error to be corrected.

But at The Mary Sue, every one's so genteel under their afghans and sipping their chamomile tea, that they don't want to upset anyone by pointing out factual errors.


Lesley Coffin's got a history of errors (her Lew Ayers biography was both a whitewash of Ayers' sexuality as well as riddled with factual errors such as the names of people).

So it's no surprise that her "Re-View: Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, The Marvel Movie Nobody Remembers," which The Mary Sue published last Thursday, would have errors.

What is shocking is that one error would be so obvious.

What's further shocking is how low the journalistic standards are at The Mary Sue because no one caught the error.

The article demands a basic correction.

The article goes on for over 1970 words.

It pretends to be about the film Sheena: Queen of the Jungle -- a film which Coffin thinks she's so far above and so much more intelligent then.

But here's the thing, when Sheena opes, when the credits roll, they get the star's name right.

Tanya Roberts.

Not Tonya.




That's from Tanya's official website.

She is the star of the film, what kind of idiot writes nearly 2,000 words about a film while repeatedly getting the name of the star of the film wrong?

And what does it say about the hideously stupid editors at The Mary Sue that they don't know Tanya Roberts' name.

She was the last new angel on the TV show Charlie's Angels.  She starred in The Beastmaster, was a Bond girl in A View To A Kill and played Midge on That 70s Show for over 70 episodes.

She's not exactly obscure.

The Mary Sue maintains, "We promote, watchdog, extoll, and celebrate women’s representation in all of these areas (and more!) and work to make geekdom safe and open for women."

You're not promoting or extolling when you publish an essay about a film that gets the female star's name wrong.  You're not watchdogging when you insult an actress by mispelling her name repeatedly.

Fix your damn error.