Newsflash! Best Man Holiday beat out ‘THOR’ in box offices across the country this weekend and while that’s great news in itself, USAToday couldn’t just write that and move along… nope. Didn’t work that way.
Instead, the media giant set off a social media firestorm Sunday with a headline that many found racially insensitive.
“’Holiday’ Nearly Beat ‘Thor’ as Race-Themed Films Soar” was the original headline that the publication posted online but only until ‘Black Twitter’ got a hold of it!
Read the twitter complaints that followed USA Today’s ‘race-themed’ headline PLUS find out what the media giant subsequently did about all the backlash below…
‘Best Man Holiday,’ Universal’s romantic comedy sequel from writer-director Malcolm D. Lee did surprisingly well this past weekend with $30.5 million in box-office sales. Which was quite impressive since it debuted against the Marvel superhero sequel, ‘THOR’, which took in $38.4 million.
Instead of stating that the film did well despite initial projections, USA Today posted the ‘race-themed’ headline, which drew a ton of criticism online.
The original ‘race-themed’ tweet was deleted, it will forever live on in the tweets after many continue to expressed their disappointment.
USA took heed to the massive complaints,and soon changed their headline to read, “’’Holiday’ Nearly Beats ‘Thor’ as Ethnically Diverse Films Soar.”
But changing the title from ‘race-themed’ to ‘ethnically diverse’ drew complaints as well.
The story also mentioned the box-office success of “Fruitvale Station” and “The Butler,” two films also have predominantly African-American casts and many feel that USA Today is throwing shade at the fact that African-American films are now making a huge mark in Hollywood and box-office numbers are showing it.
USAToday hasn’t made an ‘official’ comment about the situation but the twitter messages are certainly getting through! The headline has since been changed a second time.
As of the writing of this post, it now reads: “’Best Man Holiday’ Nearly Beats Mighty ‘Thor,” which is what is should have read in the first dayum place.
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