X-Men Billboard Slammed For Depicting Violence Against Women
"The fact that no one flagged this is offensive..."
A billboard ad for the recently-released X-Men: Apocalypse film showing a female character being choked has been slammed for depicting violence against women which has led to calls for it to be removed.
The billboard shows the film's antagonist, Apocalypse (played by Oscar Isaac) choking Mystique (played by Jennifer Lawrence) with a tag line that reads, "Only the strong will survive".
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, US actress Rose McGowan blasted the advertisement and targeted film studio 20th Century Fox.
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"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 said.
"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 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?
"I’ll close with a text my friend sent, a conversation with his daughter. It follows: ‘My daughter and I were just having a deep discussion on the brutality of that hideous X-Men poster yesterday. Her words: 'Dad, why is that monster man committing violence against a woman?' This from a 9-year-old. If she can see it, why can’t Fox?"
Meanwhile, director of gender violence and rights for the International Center for Research on Women, Jennifer McCleary-Sills, questioned why this particular still was chosen.
"The argument that it shouldn't be offensive because they are mutants doesn't hold any water...and what really is the challenge here is the intentionality of it," McCleary-Sills said.
"You could have chosen any from the thousands of images, but you chose this one. Whose attention did you want to get and to what end?"
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