These trolls, clearly trying to ruin everyone else’s fun, have claimed to be moviegoers who were assaulted at Black Panther showings for trying to see the movie while being white.
These accounts gained steam last night claiming that they were assaulted by Black moviegoers while attempting to see Black Panther, often coupling their claims with pictures stolen from cases of real assault. The tweets, which quickly gained enough notoriety to earn a debunking on Snopes.com, seem to follow a general formula: a story about a Caucasian person going to see Black Panther, followed by a Black person confronting them, claiming some variation of “this movie isn’t for you,” before turning violent.
According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles police department confirmed that there have been zero calls in LA about any disturbances showing the film, and there have been no confirmed reports of any sort of racially motivated violence occurring in relation to the film. This seems to be nothing more than an incredibly malicious use of social media. Recently, James Gunn himself tweeted in response to the rumours, calling them racist (he’s right) and encouraging readers to not be scared away from the theatres.
The racists are out and rearing their ugly heads with lots of fake tweets about violence at #BlackPanther screenings. In truth, people from all walks of life have been enjoying the film together this weekend. Don’t let this BS scare you away. ❤️ https://t.co/CSdlcpVuPp
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) February 17, 2018
If you want to see some of the tweets in question, you can click through to either of the links in this post. Be warned that they do use disturbing images, some from real cases of violence.