Update: 20th Century Fox has apologised for the billboard and its depiction of violence against women in a statement. The image is a still captured from a scene towards the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, in which Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is strangled by Oscar Isaac's Apocalypse. The production company attributes the upsetting image to a desire to show how evil Isaac's character is.
“In our enthusiasm to show the villainy of the character Apocalypse we didn’t immediately recognize the upsetting connotation of this image in print form,” Fox said in a statement. “Once we realised how insensitive it was, we quickly took steps to remove those materials. We apologise for our actions and would never condone violence against women.”
What's unclear is whether or not Fox will remove the billboard or if the removal of the billboard is still relevant now that X-Men has been released for a week. We've reached out to Fox for comment.
This article was originally published at 10 a.m.
Rumor has it that Jennifer Lawrence might be getting a solo film for her X-Men character, Mystique. If that pans out, we can only hope the marketing department comes up with a poster that's less demeaning and violent than this number.
The X-Men: Apocalyps e ad shows Oscar Isaac's Apocalypse choking Mystique. The tagline reads: "Only the strong will survive."
The brutal image, which has graced billboards, posters, and subway ads, is facing flak for promoting the idea of violence against women. Actress and director Rose McGowan is among the critics.
"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," McGowan told The Hollywood Reporter. "There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled. The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid. The geniuses behind this, and I use that term lightly, need to take a long hard look at the mirror and see how they are contributing to society.
"Imagine if it were a Black man being strangled by a white man, or a gay male being strangled by a hetero? The outcry would be enormous. So let’s right this wrong. 20th Century Fox, since you can’t manage to put any women directors on your slate for the next two years, how about you at least replace your ad?"
Gender equality advocates and entertainment bloggers have also decried the image as "tone-deaf."
"Images of violence against women are pretty common in the X-Men universe, which is a pretty violent universe," Devin Faraci, editor-in-chief of Birth. Movies. Death., told THR. "The problem is taking this one image out of context and having it be an image that is not fantastical in nature. Setting aside that Apocalypse and Mystique look like Smurfs, it's just an image of a big guy choking out a smaller woman. I have wracked my brains trying to come up with an example of a marketing image like this featuring two men, and I've come up empty."
Anyone else dying to know what Lawrence and Isaac make of this?
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