Rotten Tomatoes: Five years of pushing for greatness with the critics community outreach

Long before there was Date Night or Nahhh… I was putting a lot of faith and hope into what a Rotten Tomatoes score was before pushing for a Date Night - plenty of big bucks and cringe flicks averted because of it. So it’s vital to put big respect on the film/TV rating go-to on its five-year anniversary of its critics community outreach and grant program.

It’s really all about pushing the culture forward and giving more voices an opportunity to weigh-in on the newest releases and those box office numbers. Here’s to another five more.

Rotten Tomatoes, entertainment fans’ go-to resource for movie, TV and streaming recommendations, announced today the five-year anniversary of its Rotten Tomatoes Critics Outreach and Grant Program. Formed in 2018, the program aims to increase representation in entertainment criticism through the addition of more diverse critics to its Tomatometer critics pool, and contributions to key film festival inclusion initiatives, scholarships, mentoring programs and more.  

To celebrate the milestone, Rotten Tomatoes has renewed its $25,000 donation to the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Media Inclusion Initiative, which provides financial assistance to accredited press from underrepresented groups to help them attend the festival. Since 2018, Rotten Tomatoes has donated more than $100,000 to the TIFF Media Inclusion Initiative.

"At Rotten Tomatoes, we are dedicated to serving entertainment fans worldwide and are incredibly proud of our work over the past five years to increase representation among entertainment critics,” said Jenny Jediny, Director of Critic Engagement at Rotten Tomatoes. “In addition to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives across our Rotten Tomatoes platforms, we’ve supported scholarships, mentoring programs, and film festival press inclusion initiatives, which have provided access to critics who historically have not been given early access to entertainment content like their counterparts at longer-tenured media outlets. And we’re not doing it alone – there are dozens of organizations we’re working with who are equally committed to creating an inclusive, equitable environment for current critics and the next generation.”

This year, Rotten Tomatoes has forged new bonds with three key organizations working to increase diversity and representation in entertainment criticism. With GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, Rotten Tomatoes has supported the Crimson Honors Scholarship for LGBTQIA+ women and nonbinary students of color. Rotten Tomatoes has also collaborated with Gold House on the Futures Accelerator: Journalism mentorship program for Asian and Pacific Islander (API) journalists and critics, and filmed a new virtual panel for its “RT Labs” series, a free online educational resource platform designed to support aspiring critics through recorded expert panels, interviews, how-to guides and more. Lastly, Rotten Tomatoes has worked with The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), providing sponsorship support for their 2023 Arts & Entertainment Media Institute.

“We at GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics could not be prouder of the work we've done with our partners at Rotten Tomatoes. Thanks to their generosity, together we've been able to support, nurture and fund important young voices among emerging critics through our Crimson Honors College Critics awards, which this year supported three queer-identifying women and non-binary critics with financial assistance to pursue their important work. We are so proud to partner with such a dedicated patron of underrepresented voices in film and television criticism, particularly at a time when these diverse perspectives are in danger of being silenced. Because of Rotten Tomatoes' stewardship of this program to elevate talented and promising LGBTQ+ critics, the next generation of criticism is all the brighter,” said Walt Hickey, President of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

"Gold House has been building support and momentum for Asian representation in the entertainment and media space for the past five years, but a critical piece to that progression is equipping diverse writers who can help interpret and critique these narratives and act as a critical funnel to society broadly. We're so excited to partner with Rotten Tomatoes to build this much-needed educational program for this next generation of Asian Pacific critics to collectively power cultural change. We're hoping this is just one of the many ways we can work towards a transformative shift in the media industry for a more inclusive and representative journalism landscape, where Asian Pacific writers play an integral role in shaping narratives that define our present and future,” said Christine Yi, General Manager of Gold House Futures.