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Have you noticed that movie studios love to objectify an attractive actress by showing off her assets from behind on movie posters? Emily Asher-Perrin of Tor certainly spotted the trend and put together a convincing case about how awfully cliched it is.
Here’s how Asher-Perrin describes the mystery adding pose and why movies love to use it for actresses:
Well, it typically does a good job of showing off all of a lady’s assets for one. And I’m sure if an actress isn’t quite so curvy, showing off her posterior sounds like a good way of ramping up sex appeal. It’s also a pose that tells you, in no uncertain terms, “I’m here for you to objectify me. It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad about it.”
Another design cliche to add to the one-trick pony that is Hollywood movie posters. See the whole body of evidence here. [Tor via Neatorama]
Movie Posters Love to Show a Man Standing Alone Looking At Something
Movie Posters From a Parallel Universe
The Evolution of Movie Poster Colours, Visualised
These posters look good to me
All of a sudden my Monday feels a little joyful.
Surely most of the above are comic-book/video game adaptations. Neither of those mediums are well known for their subtle, nuanced characterisations of either men or (especially) women, so it’s no surprise that carries through to the film.
You should look up “Most common super power”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostCommonSuperPower
To me, the fact that toe female protagonist has her back to you shows she is strong, focused and does not have much time for your and your games. If you notice they are all looking back with serious looks and are brandiching weapons the majority of the time. not bending over with slutty stares which to me just reinforces the image of power that the actress is portraying.
You guys are just all perverts. ;P
3 of those posters are Joss Whedon productions, no coincidence I’m sure
Several are TV shows are not movies…
I don’t think using a bit of sex-appeal is necessarily objectifying women. The chick that wrote that is probably a feminist or something. Nothing that a good seeing to wouldn’t sort out.
shut up. stop saying words
But if I stop making clever jokes, you won’t be able to retweet them out of context…
as if that doesn’t make you seem misogynist enough already
also they’re not “clever jokes”, they’re disgusting words strung together
OK – so “Feminism” is about equal rights, and hopefully we are all for that here.
Whatever this woman is she is not the poster child for feminism I assure you.
She does seem to go over board, I mean Lara Croft had a huge amount of ex appeal before the movies, and taking a picture which wasn’t has hot as that would be sacrilegious.
Totes. The same thing happens with men on movie posters, except in Taylor Lautner’s case, he isn’t objectified so much as zoomorphised….
I actually think the pose is more to do with two things – firstly it’s a visual style, which as the one-trick-pony link demonstrates is more about repeating on a theme to establish a visual identity. Secondly, these are (can’t speak for them all) very strong female characters; at least the ones I know are, they’re independent and challenge outdated Hollywood stereotypes – that being the case, I think the designer is attempting to put them in a pose that makes them stand out strongly. The view of the but-cheeks isn’t the only way to do that, of course, but it’s the best way to throw in the other asset the characters have going for them.
It’d be just a little bit too comically ironic if the designers of these posters had completely missed the fact that characters like Lara Croft, the girl from Sucker Punch, Catwoman, et al use their beauty to manipulate men, who are portrayed generally a much weaker in their company.
Surely the poster for the film the Uninvited should be here?!
imokwiththis.jpg
yeh, lets create a world where good looking women can’t get famous by showing their ass on movie posters – and instead have to become a fascinating character / make some valuable contribution to humanity / etc
sure they’d love that