Background violence

Film studio 20th Century Fox came in for some criticism over their decision to use a poster showing comic book character Mystique being held by the throat to promote X-Men: Apocalypse.

Former Collider and AMC Movie Talk host & producer and general movie commentator John Campea posted a defence of Fox's decision and a sometimes petty counterargument to the criticisms of Rose McGowan.

John's counterargument is basically a straw-man. Rose McGowan was pretty clear that it was the use of the image as an advertisement, specifically a billboard poster, that was the issue. She wasn't criticising the movie for featuring a female character being held by the throat by a villainous male character.

"Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, she elaborated on her frustration, saying: 'There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film. There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled."


John counters Rose by talking about the meaning and symbolism of the imagery and similar imagery in other media, and in particular other films, such as the introduction to Darth Vader in Star Wars (now known also as episode 4, A New Hope).

Everything he says about how that image is a visual cue that presents a certain kind of power, and in particular dominance, is basically correct; as is his claim that portraying such actions does not mean in and of itself that the imagery is intended to condone that particular use of violence.

Except of course the 1977 Star Wars marketing didn't predominantly include posters of Darth Vader throttling some helpless rebel. And if it had, that would have been weird.

The choice that Rose McGowan and others are criticising here isn't to feature a scene in a film whereby a villainous character holds a female character by the throat at some point in the story. Yet that's essentially what John is countering with his examples.

As Rose McGowan and plenty of the Tweeters who criticised the poster said, it was the strange decision to select that image as a representative image of the film in order to sell it to the wider public who would view it while going about their day that was the issue. To make that a public image in that way was a bizarre call by Fox: 'Hey come see our latest superhero action-fantasy film, it features a woman being strangled by a bully - you'll love it!'

Allan Shifman put it well in his tweet: "This #XMenApocalypse billboard of Oscar Isaac choking Jennifer Lawrence is a pleasant backdrop for a date night."

(To be fair to Fox, they have apologised and withdrawn the poster.)

Rose went on to refer to an anecdote about the reaction of a 9-year-old: "Rose noted that her friend had been talking to his nine-year-old daughter about the poster when she asked: 'Dad, why is that monster man committing violence against a woman?'"

John completely ignores Rose's key point about context. That is, the poster has none. The X-Men films are popular, but large portions of the public who see the billboards will not necessarily be familiar with the nature of the characters or the X-Men story. To them, they are like the young girl, wondering why an image of a man treating a woman terribly is the wallpaper to their day out walking, shopping, eating, playing.