Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
Rap star and actor 50 Cent is revisiting the controversy from a year ago when Paramount Pictures (and Clear Channel) decided to take down billboards for his film Get Rich or Die Tryin’ due to protests. Critics and activists accused the film’s outdoor billboard ad (featuring the back of “Fiddy” holding a microphone and a gun) of promoting gun violence.
Fast forward to the present, and apparently 50 Cent hasn’t forgotten about the gun ad controversy. According to the entertainment news service WENN, the rapper is bothered by the Casino Royale posters for the new Daniel Craig James Bond film:
50 Cent is accusing Hollywood of double standards after seeing the new James Bond holding a gun in posters for Casino Royale – a year after billboards of him sporting a weapon caused a furore.
The rapper — real name Curtis Jackson — is appalled by the fact no one has raised a fuss about Daniel Craig’s gun-toting posters when he was castigated for posing with a weapon in billboards for movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
He says, “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ comes out and they want to protest because they see a gun in my hand but James Bond comes out or Mr + Mrs Smith will come out with guns and it’s acceptable.
“You can see any kind of gun there is to see on the covers of films. You can go in Blockbuster and see every gun that was ever made.”
The rap star calls for one universal ruling about weapons in movie posters – and he’ll accept whatever the Hollywood film police decide.
He adds, “Let’s not start with 50 Cent and stop with 50 Cent. Let’s do it everywhere else and make it unacceptable period. I would gladly join the rest of entertainment if we get there.”
50 Cent (correctly) points out that there is no standard as far as the depiction of guns on movie posters. The MPAA and studios don’t really have clear guidelines with regards to guns in key art. In fact, what is and isn’t allowed on domestic one-sheets isn’t always clear and tends to change with the times (and political climate).
For example, as we’ve mentioned in the past, studios sometimes avoided showing a character wielding two guns on a U.S. domestic movie poster. This is why Angelina Jolie is holding the trademark “akimbo” dual pistols, but it is implied as only one hand gun is visible on the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie poster. You’ll notice Jolie’s left hand and pistol conveniently fall into a shadow on the one-sheet. Times change, or more accurately, the lack of consistency continues, and everyone from Jada Pinkett Smith to Kate Beckinsale happily wields two pistols.
Another example of “gun control” in posters: Back in the 1970s, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character would happily point his trademark .44 Magnum directly at the viewer on a Dirty Harry movie poster. But in later years, some studios avoided showing a large gun barrel pointed directly at “camera” on a one-sheet. Enter James Bond and the Goldeneye teaser poster, and suddenly it became acceptable again to point a large firearm directly at the viewer. Then everyone from George Clooney to Bruce Willis started giving the proverbial “stick ‘em up”.
Sometimes the rules can change as a movie poster is being produced. In 1999, shortly after the Columbine high school massacre, Sony Pictures was set to release the Jean-Claude Van Damme action film Universal Solider: The Return. Before anyone could even think to complain, the studio suddenly became “gun shy” and quickly revised the Universal Solder: The Return movie poster by removing all the rifles from the small row of soldiers at the bottom of the poster and had it reprinted.
Is 50 Cent right? Is there a double standard with regards to firearms on movie posters?
With all the recent events in Lebanon, we came across this post on The Sulla Institute weblog:
I saw the flag used by Hezbollah and it occurred to me that it looked as if it was inspired by the movie poster for the Otto Preminger film EXODUS. Very odd… that was a movie that portrayed the Jews creating the state of Israel in a very heroic light.
Yes, that is odd… and a bit of a reach… just like all those arms reaching for a rifle (or an AK-47 assault rifle in the case of the Hezbollah flag) in both designs.
The Exodus movie poster was designed for the 1960 film by legendary graphic designer Saul Bass (Bass also designed the film’s title credits). The Exodus poster remains one of the more interesting Saul Bass movie poster designs — particularly for his ability to blend an illustrated graphic (the silhouetted arms extended with the gun overhead) with a photographic element (the fire burning away the image of the poster).
The yellow Hezbollah flag design features:
Across the top is a quotation from the Koran, from which Hezbollah took its name — “Verily the party of God shall be victorious” — and at the center is an AK-47 in silhouette, in the hand of the Shiite martyr Husayn, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. In the background is a depiction of the globe, suggesting Hezbollah’s role in the worldwide umma, or community of Muslims. Along the bottom of the Hezbollah flag is written “The Islamic Revolution in Lebanon”.
We will leave it to others in the “blogosphere” to determine the value in saying the Hezbollah flag is “ripping off the Jews” by comparing it with a movie poster designed by a Jewish graphic designer for a movie about the creation of the state of Israel. (The imagery of a gun raised overhead isn’t exactly a singular idea or uncommon image.) It does give something for political pundits to link to on their weblogs. It is interesting how movie posters can sometimes be associated with current events, controversies and politics.
For the new film Lord of War, Nick Cage plays an arms dealer dealing with the moral implications of his line of work. As a gun runner, Cage is (at least as he’s represented in the movie poster key art) literally made for the job.
A Lord of War teaser banner spelled out a “Got Guns?” tagline (derived from the ubiquitous “Got Milk?” campaign) with the lettering composed entirely of guns. That photo mosaic via firepower idea is taken a step further in the Lord of War one-sheet, with a portrait shot of Nicholas Cage formed out of bullets. This particular style of illustration invokes a magazine cover/editorial feel, which is probably appropriate to the film’s subject matter. That and people love guns.
Another interesting feature of this one-sheet is the placement of the poster’s billing block. Rather than running the credits at the bottom, the Lord of War credit block is on a single line running around the 4 outer edges of the poster. While some film advertising art directors love doing this, this type of credit block placement rarely makes it into a final one-sheet design. The reason: if there’s one thing that producers hate is not being able to read their names in the already tiny/compressed credits on a one-sheet, much less running upside-down, sideways, and so on. (The only other example of an outer edge billing block we can remember on a one-sheet is for the Miramax film 54, starring Mike Meyers.)
We’ve covered hidden (and perhaps unintentional) sexual imagery in movie posters before, but film studios often make phallic imagery front and center as part of a marketing hook. The most recent example is the leaning penis tower of Pisa as a visual pun in the new poster for Rob Schneider’s upcoming comedy Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. (Apparently the sequel will cover all the unanswered questions posed by Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.) And if you haven’t gotten your fill of symbolic penises, look no further than 40 Days and 40 Nights, Howard Stern’s Private Parts, the appropriately titled Prick Up Your Ears, or any one-sheet poster centered around a large gun.
