Chapter 429: Reverse Operation

Chapter 429: Chapter 429: Reverse Operation

In fact, the emergence of Brokeback Mountain happened to strike a chord with the subtle mentality currently prevailing in the North American film industry.

For a long time, major European film festivals had always been proud and aloof, turning their noses up at Hollywood’s assembly-line commercial films and even most North American arthouse films.

They had always maintained a critical and prejudiced eye, rarely granting their highest honours to American films. This had caused Hollywood, which prided itself on being the world’s film centre, to feel perpetually stifled, always wanting to produce a truly top-tier masterpiece to break through the prejudices and shackles of the European film scene.

Now, Brokeback Mountain had won the Golden Lion for Best Picture at the Venice International Film Festival, becoming a bona fide top-tier European award-winning masterpiece.

With its texture, cinematography, narrative, and human depth all fully realised, it precisely satisfied the "need for vindication" of the North American film industry.

Consequently, major awards bodies, authoritative publications, and professional critics had held this film in high regard and anticipation from the very beginning, proactively setting aside their prejudices to seriously examine this major arthouse film from Hollywood.

In no time, positive professional reviews flooded the internet, and major mainstream media outlets published long-form critiques, sparing no praise.

The New York Times gave it a perfect rating, with a sharp and precise assessment:

"Ang Lee uses the gentlest and most restrained Eastern lens to capture the most poignant and regretful Western fated love. There is no deliberate sentimentality, no intense conflict, only the use of negative space and forbearance to outline a restrained, deep affection spanning several years.

It interprets the struggles of human nature, the shackles of worldly conventions, and the helplessness of love to the fullest extent; it is the most humanly profound love masterpiece of the year."

The Hollywood Reporter focused on praising the film’s narrative texture and character portrayal:

"Heath Ledger and Jack Gyllenhaal’s performances are natural, portraying the restrained, repressed affection, the unavoidable regrets, and the struggles under the heavy pressure of worldly conventions with profound depth.

The entire film’s visuals are ethereal and beautiful, its pacing slow and delicate, breaking through the narrative shackles of traditional love stories, leaping out of the framework of worldly romance, and capturing a universal loneliness and regret that everyone can empathise with."

The Los Angeles Times went a step further by defining it as the top contender for the Oscar race:

"Brokeback Mountain is more than just a love story; it is a profound philosophical inquiry into human nature, freedom, restraint, and destiny. It wraps heavy reality in a gentle shell and uses beautiful imagery to tell of unsolvable regrets. It is a rare top-tier arthouse masterpiece from Hollywood in recent years that can transcend circles and heal hearts."

Authoritative review websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic gave it uniformly high opening scores. The professional critic circle reached a near-unanimous consensus, recognising it as a masterpiece of the year that combined artistic height, visual beauty, and emotional resonance, firmly locking in nomination spots for multiple Oscars.

But as the buzz skyrocketed, controversy followed.

As the film’s core was gradually dissected by some audiences, a minority of conservative viewers, traditional religious groups, and retro-minded individuals began to issue sharp negative evaluations, leading to a polarised public opinion.

Many conservative media outlets bluntly attacked: "The film deliberately beautifies niche love, defies traditional marriage values, and conveys distorted emotional guidance, easily misleading public aesthetics and perceptions."

Even more extreme netizens flooded social media with abuse, openly calling for a boycott of the film, urging theatres to remove related screenings, and refusing the spread of such subject matter.

For a time, praise and abuse intertwined, and the polarisation of public opinion became increasingly evident.

Facing the anticipated negative controversy, the marketing team led by Robert formulated a safe plan at the first opportunity.

Following the usual marketing conventions for arthouse films, the team planned to treat it with a cold shoulder, completely ignoring the negative comments while simultaneously guiding trending topics, diverting public attention, and suppressing the spread of extreme boycott rhetoric.

They aimed to make it difficult for ordinary viewers to see the controversial negative reviews, leaving only high-quality, positive word-of-mouth to avoid the subject matter controversy backfiring on the film’s box office and Oscar campaign.

Just as everyone was preparing to follow the plan to suppress public opinion and smoothly navigate the controversy period, Irene, after learning from her father, Francis, that Brokeback Mountain’s Oscar nomination was a certainty, proposed an operation plan that left everyone stunned and completely counter-intuitive.

"No need to suppress the heat, and no need to treat it coldly." Irene sat in her office chair, her expression calm and her tone firm.

"Contact the paid trolls, reverse-amplify it, and actively amplify the discriminatory rhetoric. Let us make the controversy regarding the boycott and abuse go viral. However, be careful: all negative evaluations must be focused entirely on sexism and discrimination, while the film’s quality itself remains unquestioned. Let the entire internet see this controversy."

As soon as these words were spoken, the conference room fell into dead silence. Robert’s face was full of astonishment, and he immediately spoke up to dissuade her, his tone full of confusion and worry:

"Irene, this is absolutely impossible! The subject matter is already controversial; lowering the temperature is the optimal solution right now. If we actively amplify the negative abuse and boycott voices, once public opinion spirals out of control and the narrative goes off-track, it will directly destroy this movie. The word-of-mouth will collapse, our reputation with the general public will plummet, and it will be a devastating blow to both the Oscar campaign and the box office. The risk is too high!"

Other team members chimed in, and no one could understand such a risky, almost self-destructive operation.

In everyone’s cognition, arthouse films feared controversy and abuse the most; keeping a low profile and stabilising word-of-mouth was the only way out. Actively inciting conflict and magnifying negative public opinion was no different from digging one’s own grave.

Irene looked at the tense and anxious expressions of everyone and just smiled lightly, her eyes full of confidence in this special public opinion strategy.

She did not over-explain the logic of "reverse traffic hype" that had circulated on the internet for many years in her past life—the game of "becoming famous through infamy, breaking circles through controversy" that the paid trolls of the future were most skilled at and fond of—but simply signalled everyone to execute it.

"Just do as I say; I have my own sense of proportion."

With the superior’s order landed, the team, despite being full of doubts, could only obey. After all, Irene Coppola had never made a mistake.

Soon, a large number of paid troll accounts flooded Facebook, forums, and film review communities, deliberately posting extreme discriminatory remarks, wildly promoting boycott slogans, banding together to smear Brokeback Mountain, and infinitely magnifying the film’s controversy.

Suddenly, the anti-fan rhetoric was overwhelming.

"Is the movie deliberately uglifying the traditional cowboy image? Shooting the tough guys from Westerns as wimps is unwatchable, though the scenery is nice, and the visual texture is on point."

"The female characters in it are all tools. Is the director misogynistic? It is just to set off the deep affection of the two male leads. Even I felt like I was being implicated."

"The shirt folded together at the end made me cry, but then I thought, this is not true love, it is a tragedy for two families."

The originally scattered, insignificant negative voices instantly formed a large-scale momentum.

Large-scale abuse, boycotts, and exclusionary rhetoric flooded the entire internet, even gradually forming small offline groups that spontaneously organised small-scale street protests to openly boycott the film’s release, calling on the entire public to refuse to watch Brokeback Mountain.

On one side was the year’s masterpiece praised by professional critics and the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture; on the other was the internet-wide abuse, boycotts, and offline protests.

Two diametrically opposed public opinions collided fiercely, instantly detonating all of Hollywood and sweeping across social networks throughout the United States.