Talk:Black Is King

Production company

Hi Jedi94! Thought it would be best to start a discussion here. Parkwood Entertainment has been named as the production company in the film's credits and in all of these sources: 1234567. I hope that we can follow this majority. Bgkc4444 (talk) 14:01, 5 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

No one's denying that Parkwood Entertainment is one of the film's production companies, but we also have sources from reliable, reputable trade publications within the film/entertainment industry, including The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, and here again, that also explicitly report Walt Disney Pictures as a production company with Parkwood. The studio's logo is also included at the beginning of the film's opening credits. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 19:06, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jedi94: We should follow the majority of sources, and the majority of sources state that Parkwood Entertainment is the sole production company. Furthermore, the Variety article just copied what was on this Wikipedia article before, which is why Beyoncé is credited as "music by" and "producer", which she is not, and as the sole writer, director and cast member. Bgkc4444 (talk) 16:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

You are forming your own conclusion with your unsupported claim about Variety "copying" Wikipedia. We have seperate reliable secondary sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that report two production companies. According to Wikipedia's guidelines, when we have sources with contradicting information on a subject and none of them can be demonstrated unreliable, then the article should include both pieces of sourced content to maintain a neutral point-of-view for the reader. We do not choose which one of them is true. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 03:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jedi94: My claim is not unsupported. The writer copied from this Wikipedia article, including the mistakes for every category, as you can see here. According to the conflicting sources guidelines, "If the issue is a simple matter of fact (e.g., a birth date) but cannot be resolved, this can be reported by presenting the apparently most plausible choice in the text while adding a footnote with the alternatives." As the majority of sources (and all bar one accurate source) indicate Parkwood Entertainment as the sole production company, it is the most plausible choice, and therefore we should present that in the text. Thank you. Bgkc4444 (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

Where does it exactly show that they copied it? How did you determine that Walt Disney Pictures being an additional production company is an implausible choice? Not only is it supported by the 3 provided sources, the film also opens with the company's production logo and was produced for and released on Disney+, so it is certainly within the realm of plausibility if we go down that avenue of logic. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 05:52, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@TropicAces: @Greg Dahlen: @Alecsdaniel: @Hummerrocket: @NinjaRobotPirate: Pinging other editors that have been active on this article or worked on similar conflicts, so that this discussion doesn't stagnate as just a back-and-forth with no consensus. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 06:16, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

The information that Variety used was wrong. Every single category (directed by, produced by, etc.) they got wrong. This shows that they didn't base that material on an official source or statement, and the history of this article shows that the false information presented was also present in this article.

I never said Disney being a production company for this film was an implausible choice, because The Hollywood Reporter source is a reliable source. But it certainly is the least plausible choice because every other reliable source says that Parkwood Entertainment were the sole production company. It doesn't matter whether it's in the "realm of plausibility" or not because the Wikipedia guidelines that you sent me clearly state that the least plausible choice should not be included in the text, and your edit is the least plausible choice.

Yes, it was released on Disney+, but that means Disney has the distribution rights, not that it is the production company. That is why the beginning of the film states: "Disney+ presents a Parkwood film". Anyways, we are looking at reliable third-party sources, which almost all say that Parkwood is the sole production company. Bgkc4444 (talk) 08:19, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

I’ve seen some sources (those listed, plus like, Metacritic) list only Parkwood, but I think the fact others like THR list Disney, plus the fact the film is centered around a song from a Disney film, produced exclusively for Disney’s streaming platform, puts the benefit of the doubt on Walt Disney in-fact being a fellow production company. My two cents. TropicAces (talk) 15:15, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@TropicAces: We should be following the reliable sources, and the vast majority say Parkwood is the sole production company. As Disney being a production company for the film is the least plausible choice because of the difference in its mention in reliable sources, it should not be included in the text. The film is not centered around a song from a Disney film, but based on an album inspired by The Lion King. The album's labels are Parkwood and Columbia, not Disney as other Disney soundtracks are, which further shows that the album and film did not have production input by Disney. Yes, it was produced for Disney's streaming platform because it uses ideas from a Disney film, but that does not indicate in any way that the production company of the film was Disney, and the credits of the film explicitly say "Disney+ presents a Parkwood film". Bgkc4444 (talk) 15:25, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

About the reviews

@Bgkc4444 and Alecsdaniel: I was evaluating whether this article needs semi-protection (I decided it doesn’t) and I noticed the beginnings of an edit war between the two of you about reviews. Please come here to the talk page to discuss your differences, and maybe reach agreement or some kind of compromise. Do not WP:Edit war. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought this into the discussion. As mentioned, the paragraph starts by saying that the work was reviewed positively, but that there were some questions about how does it actually help the Black community of Africa. The answer that "she doesn't have to actually do that, she's not a politician" is a bit strange, but it is still a valid question asked in those articles. With an approval rate of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, naturally the reader will want to know if there was any criticism, but that section only focuses on the praise the work received, which doesn't make it neutral. Alecsdaniel (talk) 09:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Thank you for this!

@Alecsdaniel: I have a few points here:

1. As there is a discussion started here, you should not be continuously forcing your edits onto the page.
2. You should be attributing these statements to the people who wrote them.
3. You want to ask "how does it actually help the Black community of Africa", but there is no evidence that this is an aim of the film, and in fact those involved in the film have stated that the message of the film is for the African diaspora, and not for Africans on the continent.
4. If you want to represent certain writers' views, you need to represent the views present in the source with due weight, meaning that you cannot take one negative sentence (out of context and that is rebutted in the same source, see point 5) from an overwhelmingly positive review and add it to the article giving greater emphasis on the very minor negative point.
5. You are misrepresenting the authors' views. In the first source, Young rebutts the point you added, saying that there are "limits of a production like this" and that "Beyoncé takes great pains to associate Blackness not just with literal kings and queens, but also with community, consciousness and greatness" (which Beyonce has said is the aim of the film and not literal regality). In the second source, the point you added was said by a Twitter "user who goes by Radiocranberry" and "college student Grace Bassey", whereas the authors of the article disagree and say "Actually, we don't mind the animal prints so much. As a Kenyan professor living in the U.S. and a Nigerian doctor living in Nigeria, we believe that ultimately Black Is King is a timely celebration of Blackness. Considering the current global push of the Black Lives Matter movement and the increased international advocacy against racism, the time has come for a film like this." In the third source, the author immediately says after writing what you added "But Beyoncé is a singer, songwriter, producer, director, and dancer, not a historian or politician, so it’s hard to say that Black Is King oversteps any boundaries in its simple mission to elevate Black beauty and foster Black unity." You called this "a bit strange", but that's the answer your source gives, not me.

There's nothing wrong with adding negative points, but please make sure they are represented fairly and they follow the Wikipedia guidelines. Thank you! Bgkc4444 (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

• 1. I revered the edit before I saw this conversation, so, it is ironic of you doing the same thing;
• 2. Not a reason to remove the reviews, you can complete their names if you wish to;
• 3. Beyonce herself called it a "love letter to Africa" and her mother "the beauty of Africans before colonialism", which, sounds like it pretty much includes actual Africans;
• 4. The paragraph we were talking about literally started by stating that the reviews were positive as well, but that certain questions were asked;
• 5. You can't say I am misrepresenting anything, since I just quoted them. Opinions on Twitter are valid if they are used in an article from a respected source (in this case, the NPR), as they represent the voice of the public, I didn't link to one tweet and called it a source. You are free to add an explanation and more context if you feel like it.

You are one of the main editors of this article and you are showing a clear bias, often fans of singers like Beyonce and Lady Gaga take control of an article and remove anything that could have a remotely negative tone. Even films like Citizen Kane with 100% approval on RT have mixed/negative reviews presented in the article and your decision to completely focus on the positive aspects of all reviews fails NPOV. Alecsdaniel (talk) 06:03, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

On the third point, according to the people who worked on the film as well as critics, the film is for the African diaspora to connect to their motherland.

On the fourth point, yes, but as I said you need to give due weight to the critics' opinion. If a critic gives a fully positive review, which includes a negative sentence that they themselves refute, you can't say that they're all positive reviews by-the-by and then spend a paragraph stretching out the negative points.

On the fifth, of course you are misrepresenting their views. You cannot take a sentence out of context and say that this is their negative opinion when they clearly refute the negative point that they bring.

You also cannot say that a critic believes a certain negative point said by a random Twitter user because they brought it in a review to say that it's wrong.

I'm not sure why you're making personal attacks on me because I would certainly not put you in a box as a "Madonna fan" to try delegitimise your points. As I have said, there is nothing wrong with adding negative reviews. Just follow the guidelines. Bgkc4444 (talk) 08:31, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

It is not a negative opinion per se, but it does call into questioning certain things. Even the mostly positive reviews (which are included in this article as being only positive) mention that the narrative is a bit clunky and there isn't much of a story, yet those points, despite being made in various links in this article, are not included anywhere. I didn't stretch anything negative, I was made sure to mention the fact that the review was positive, but it did raise a valid point. Again, it seems you are just ignoring what I was saying? I straight-up gave a quote from Beyonce about the film being about Africa, but your response was about "other people". Fine, we can take both into consideration and say the film is a dedication to Africa, but also to the Pan-African community. Also, it is not a personal attack, my comment about those fandoms come from my direct interaction with those fandoms. Then again, it seems like we are running in circles, so we may need input from other users. Alecsdaniel (talk) 10:08, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

You need to accurately reflect the sources' views. If the author writes a positive review, in which they bring a negative point that someone on Twitter said in order to immediately say that the negative point is false, you cannot A) give more weight to the negative point than to the rest of the positive review, or B) claim that the author believes the claim that they explicitly refute. You cannot collect these points that the authors themselves refute just because you personally think they're "valid" and want to add negative reviews to this article.

No-one said the film isn't about Africa. You said that you wanted to include "questions about how does it actually help the Black community of Africa" in this article. I then said that "there is no evidence that this is an aim of the film, and in fact those involved in the film have stated that the message of the film is for the African diaspora, and not for Africans on the continent." You then replied that Beyonce said it was "a love letter to Africa", which does not support your claim. Again, if you have any evidence that the aim of the film is to "help the Black community of Africa" then please cite a source here.

I request that you go through WP:UNDUE, which should hopefully clear some things up. The guidelines say that the article "should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." Furthermore, it says that "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." The guidelines also say "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." Therefore, you finding a point to be "valid", or a Twitter user raising a point, or a journalist raising a point in order to immediately refute it, does not mean we should include these claims in the article. Bgkc4444 (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

Five paragraphs of regurtitated praise and you're quibbling over a few measly sentences suggesting less-than-flattering yet valid thoughts? Forget personal attacks. We're dealing with a Beyhive attack... isento (talk) 14:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

So it would seem ... Alecsdaniel (talk) 08:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Removal of select review quotes

The above discussion seems to have stalled and gotten too long to read, so I've opened this instead. In short, Bgkc4444 removed Alecsdaniel's addition of select quotes of politically critical viewpoints about the album. So, should this content be removed? Please keep it shorter and more to the point this time, giving reasonably extensive comments further down. isento (talk) 22:57, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Votes

• Keep - Anastrophe (talk) 00:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Keep - The sourced content. Netherzone (talk) 00:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Keep, but precise wording could use some refinement.(Summoned by bot) - In short, it seems to me that both sides have a hold of a valid piece of the equation here. WP:WEIGHT is often a particularly difficult issue to balance in the case of critical response to an artistic work, because the views are often very idiosyncratic and focused in many different directions (even for a broadly celebrated or reviled work)--which is of course one of the fundamental properties of all art. As a general rule, the standard approach to this situation across articles on this project relating to popular works is to include even minority views, as there really is no other pragmatic approach and the community seems to be in agreement (albeit one that is not codified in any policy or formal style guidance I am familiar with) that this is a very different situation from bootstrapping a minority view about an empirical topic: after-all, properly attributed, such a statement does not say that "Subject is X" (at least not in Wikipedia's voice), but rather "Critic Y feels that Subject is X". For what it's worth, this is only an essay, but it does seem to validate this approach.

All the above said, that makes the attribution and larger contextualization quite critical. In the present case, I think the language could use some tightening in that regard. To begin with, the grammar/syntax need some work in general. But more to the point of the topic of discussion here, the lead-ins (particularly that of the second NPR review referenced, seem to suggest that what the reviewers are commenting on is something that should be regarded as fact, rather than one reviewer's take. Therefore, while the quotes themselves are probably acceptable, even as a weight matter, and are attributed in the general sense, the language around them needs to be made more neutral so that it does not massage extra implication of veracity or legitimacy into the statement than it it would get by standing on its own. Snow ^{let's rap} 01:40, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, snow. I think it's the first time in my 14 years here that I've ever been the first person to vote on something, so the formatting eluded me. :) Anastrophe (talk) 02:39, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

No problem--I'm glad the edit was received as helpful. :) I generally will not edit another editor's comments, even for refactoring, unless I am fairly certain it would be welcome. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:07, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Remove or change to better reflect authors' views. Bgkc4444 (talk) 02:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444
• Keep, but refine - echoing Snow Rise's vote. isento (talk) 02:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Keep per my arguments made in the previous section. Alecsdaniel (talk) 08:09, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• I can't think of a single valid, policy based reason for removal of the review. Removal of sourced content has to be based on policy. The section is entitled 'Critical Reception'. NPR is a perfectly reliable source. It's a review. It's perfectly fine for inclusion. Anastrophe (talk) 00:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• I see no reason not to include the content and the related citation in a reliable source added by editor Alecdaniel. For the record, I have no opinion on the film itself nor have I seen it; nor have I had interactions with the involved editors. I received an automated bot ping to contribute to this RfC which is the reason for my participation here. Netherzone (talk) 00:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• In summary, the edits misrepresent the views of the sources' authors and cannot be included as they are according to the Wikipedia guidelines. Alecsdaniel added the material in question because he wanted to address "how does it actually help the Black community of Africa", as he says here. However this is not an aim of the film in the first place, as the film is targeted to the black diaspora, as these sources show. Furthermore, the viewpoints he includes cannot be attributed to the authors, with the authors even explicitly refuting the arguments that Alecsdaniel claims they believe. In the first source, Young herself rebutts the point he added, saying that there are "limits of a production like this" and that "Beyoncé takes great pains to associate Blackness not just with literal kings and queens, but also with community, consciousness and greatness" (which Beyonce has said is the aim of the film and not literal regality). In the second source, the point he added was only said by a Twitter "user who goes by Radiocranberry" and "college student Grace Bassey", whereas the authors of the article disagree and say "Actually, we don't mind the animal prints so much. As a Kenyan professor living in the U.S. and a Nigerian doctor living in Nigeria, we believe that ultimately Black Is King is a timely celebration of Blackness. Considering the current global push of the Black Lives Matter movement and the increased international advocacy against racism, the time has come for a film like this." In the third source, the author immediately rebutts what Alecsdaniel claims they hold, writing "But Beyoncé is a singer, songwriter, producer, director, and dancer, not a historian or politician, so it’s hard to say that Black Is King oversteps any boundaries in its simple mission to elevate Black beauty and foster Black unity." When discussing this, he justified the inclusion of the misinformation by saying here that he personally believed the points to be "valid", which should not warrant their inclusion. Lastly due weight should be given, so that if a review is overwhelmingly positive and brings one negative point to immediately refute it, we should not write a brief few words that the review was positive and then spend the rest of the paragraph spreading out the negative point, as it further misrepresents the authors' views. Bgkc4444 (talk) 02:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

What you described in the last sentence - overwhelmingly positive accompanied by a negative point - was the structure of the section before you removed those brief negative points. The section as it currently stands is a massive, unreadable wall of acclamatory quotes, meaning it's not neutral in form. Just because we cite a few critical viewpoints from otherwise positive appraisals does not mean we are misrepresenting any author. We are merely demonstrating viewpoints, which is the point of a section like this (WP:SUBJECTIVE). And it is a verifiable observation that "There are two kinds of reactions to Beyoncé's new Black Is King video: lavish praise – and deep criticism. The praise comes from her many fans and from many reviewers. The criticism often comes from Africans." If you're going to burden readers with a press-release-like eyesore five lengthy paragraphs long, the least you can do is give some representation to this established trend of criticism. Now, while WP:SUBJECTIVE says common interpretations should preferably be attributed to experts in the field, at least cite one such expert - say, the NPR writer - reporting this trend of criticism among a substantial group of listeners. Especially when the political use-value of the album is also criticized to some degree by experts like Jenkins in the Vulture piece (among the sources removed), where he devotes a paragraph to this aspect. isento (talk) 02:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Bgkc, would your concerns be addressed by adding a bit more of the attributed quotes in question, such as to provide additional context/nuance to the views of the critics cited? Based on some of the perspectives shared above, I think there may be a good chance that such an approach would be viewed as non-controversial. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Snow Rise that would definitely help Bgkc4444 (talk) 03:07, 14 August 2020 (UTC)Bgkc4444

Excellent: perhaps you could provide the additional original language from the sources that you would like to see added (or even a rewrite of the sentences in question, if you feel so inclined), and we can see if there is broad support for the additions/changes. But I'm not meaning to put you on the spot here: it is not incumbent upon you to do this work in order to stand by your position, so please treat this as an invitation, not a requirement. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)