Fresh, stale, or politics? The Melania doc's Rotten Tomatoes score, explained

About this episode

The episode explores the contrasting Rotten Tomatoes scores for the documentary 'Melania' and the implications of audience and critic reviews.

Melania , a documentary about the first lady, has a 10 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but a 90 percent score from audience members, an unusual discrepancy that raises the question, how did Rotten Tomatoes get those scores anyway? Show notes: The 'Melania' movie audience: Older white women ( NPR ) Melania’s Movie Shows Signs of Bulk Buying to Boost Box Office: Guru ( The Daily Beast ) You Can Thank 'Rush Hour' for Rotten Tomatoes ( Vice ) Rotten Tomatoes Owner Says ‘Melania’ 99% Audience Score Is Not ‘Bot Manipulation’: ‘Reviews Are Verified… Users Bought a Ticket to the Film’ ( Variety ) Credits: This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and Grace Tatter. It was co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Kalyani Saxena, and edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

People in this episode

Hosts: Kalyani Saxena, Grace Tatter, Ben Brock Johnson

Topics covered

• documentary
• Rotten Tomatoes
• audience reception
• film criticism
• politics
• Melania Trump

Keywords

• Melania
• Rotten Tomatoes
• documentary
• audience score
• critic score
• film reviews
• politics
• first lady

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rotten Tomatoes, NPR, The Daily Beast, Vice, Variety

Books & works: Melania

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