by Dan Wilbur
You may have heard that Paramount apologized for "inadvertently" depicting the events of September 11th on a poster for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Here is the poster if you haven't seen it:
I would be willing to give the studio the benefit of the doubt if it weren't for the fact that this kind of advertising has been used by Hollywood for years. For some reason big studio advertisers think they can pull the wool over our eyes and we won't be able to see how they're exploiting tragedies in their promotions just to get some extra attention. Take a look:
Ummm... I guess this is some kind of Rom Com, but the title and image of the Titanic is really offensive. People died on that boat! Don't use it to promote your movie!
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Apparently they made yet another one of these Star Wars movies but they gave it the provocative name "Apollo 13" and actually show a spaceship going around a planet that looks a lot like our moon! This is grossly insensitive to the American people who are old enough to remember the harrowing details of those astronauts who risked their lives in the name of science! I mean, really.
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I don't see anything "great" about dressing like Hitler for a "Comedy." Disgusting!
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Same goes for this one. So many people died in World War 2. I don't care what your weird war movie is about when it exploits what the Greatest Generation did for us.
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Air Bud (a movie for children!) has a poster with a clear nod to the Challenger Disaster.
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Too soon!
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Ugh! JFK is barely in this movie! Just because the President is featured in the first five minutes doesn't mean you should sneak in that picture of his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. It's downright weird and slimy advertising trying to slip that in there!
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Extremely offensive! How did someone let this poster get made?