In the five years since Rotten Tomatoes launched its Critics Outreach and Grant Program, the platform has given more than $600,000 to diversify the field of entertainment criticism, including $500,000 to media inclusion scholarships and other initiatives and $100,000 for networking events. In addition, among the 1,000-plus critics it has added to its famous Tomatometer, half are women and 24 percent are people of color. In all, 66 percent of the new Tomatometer-approved critics hail from a historically excluded background in part as a result of allowing freelance critics (61 percent of new adds) and those from newer outlets (13 percent).
And although other entities in the entertainment ecosystem seem to be turning away from their DEI priorities, Rotten Tomatoes is pushing forward. The company renewed its $25,000 donation to the Toronto International Film Festival Media Inclusion Initiative to help accredited press from historically excluded identities afford festival attendance, bringing its total gifts to the initiative to more than $100,000 since 2018.
“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,” director of critic engagement Jenny Jediny said in a statement. “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.”
As such, Rotten Tomatoes has formed new partnerships with three community-based nonprofits. It is supporting GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ Crimson Honors Scholarship for LGBTQIA+ women and nonbinary students of color; sponsoring the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2023 Arts & Entertainment Media Institute; and serving as a founding partner in Gold House’s Futures Accelerator for aspiring and emerging Asian Pacific entertainment and business journalists. Gold House also partnered to present a Critics Edition of the Rotten Tomatoes Lab virtual series.