Sadly, you need to register. Can someone sum it up?

Harridan | June 06, 13:24 CET

The search works alright without the need of registering, but the link, takes to a registered required page.
The mention is cool, but looks a lot like those meta-whedonesque reports we had in other occasions, whenever the boss-man (or would that be joss-man, nah that's weird) post something big.

Numfar PTB | June 06, 13:29 CET

Got it, thanks. I like the gist of it - why do people like to see how kids are hacked apart when they do not want to see the sacrifice of war on the soldiers?

Harridan | June 06, 13:31 CET

I was able to get into the article without registering. Interesting take on things, from what I read.

deepgirl187 | June 06, 15:34 CET

A friend of mine posted his thoughts on it on the Minot Daily News as well.

NickSeng | June 06, 16:06 CET

I seriously cracked up - in that way that hurts your heart, though - when I read this from Tim Palen in the article - we were reading the paper in the car on the way to work, and we had to pull over and stop the car:

"But what about his severed-head poster? Why isn't it vulgar too? 'There's a way for Bijou to hold her head in her hand and do it elegantly instead of gratuitously,' he says. 'It's the flourish and technique brought to it that makes all the difference.' "

Oh, pul-leeez, pull the other one. Who's kidding themself?

Though, of course, for me, the main issue isn't so much one of tastefullness vs. vulgarity - but maybe that's one of the things he has to say to himself every day in order to swallow what he does for a living - if he still has any doubts.

"I can do this vulgarly, or I can do this tastefully, and with panache."

Try a live frog every morning..

QuoterGal | June 06, 23:17 CET

Himself, QuoterGal; there's only one of him. :-)

I have to say, though, that while I found the pic of Bijou with her head *very* disturbing, I also found it somewhat...graceful, for lack of a better word. The fact that those two impressions can coexist is interesting, I think. I would never dare speak for Joss, but I believe he would also see an aesthetic difference between the Hostel ad campaign and the Captivity one.

On an amusingly personal side note, Eli's comment about the boar meat version of the poster was that it looked like his mom's artwork (she's a rather well-known artist). With that I don't actually agree, but I imagine Cora was rather pleased.

[ edited by OzLady on 2007-06-06 22:29 ]

OzLady | June 07, 01:28 CET

I was discussing the Captivity advertisements earlier this week, and I remembered the poster that really struck me as not suitable for any occasion was the image of Elisha Cuthbert being suffocated with a plastic bag over her head. I saw it online and wanted to show the image to my teacher as an example of what we discussed about women and violence in advertising, but now I can't find it. Am I making this image up? I remember having an extreme gut reaction to it when I saw it.

Celina | June 07, 02:13 CET

Not seen that one. The poster they've gone with in UK cinemas (or the only one i've seen anyway) is the 'buried alive' one which I still found pretty disturbing but largely in a 'horror poster' sort of way (burial alive is definitely one of my 'things') since it only obliquely ties sex to violence (Ms Cuthbert's t-shirted boobs are pressed against the glass as the dirt pours on top of her).

I'm not a fan of the headless 'Hostel II' poster but I do kind of get what he's saying. To my mind there is a difference between a gruesome image presented crudely, solely to shock (or sell) and what you might call 'art which is also gruesome'. Context is everything.

(as a - non-gruesome ;) - example, I was reading the other day about 'Operation First Casualty', a theatre group of Iraq war veterans who re-enact aspects of that war on US city streets. Some of it might be disturbing, even irresponsible but it's certainly not being done just for the sake of it or for mere commerce)

Saje | June 07, 02:36 CET

I thought I'd seen one that had Elisha Cuthbert with a plastic bag over her head, but I can't find it now, either. Sorry.

ormaybemidgets | June 07, 07:16 CET