The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has rejected Taxi On the Dark Side’s poster as being “not suitable for all audiences.” However, posters for The Hills Have Eyes 2, Saw IV, Hostel Part II and The Eye seem to be suitable for children.
What’s offensive about this image? The detainee in the hood. Well, actually just the hood. An MPAA spokesman said: “We treat all films the same. Ads will be seen by all audiences, including children. If the advertising is not suitable for all audiences it will not be approved by the advertising administration.”
Seems kind of silly to me when we see worse on the evening news and I’ve seen worse movie posters (like those linked above) when going into the cinema. I’m glad about the backlash though because the poster is well-designed and seems to get the point across. Lastly, I’ve heard about a movie that I hadn’t heard of prior to this. What are your thoughts, if you have/had children would you find this offensive?
My name’s Jen; I’m a cynical, sarcastic, ex-drummer who is fond of dark humor. I've held way too many factory & retail jobs but finally found my calling one Christmas holiday in a dark, musty basement. I am now a CSS & XHTML web standards looney and can be found daily—when I’m not at my Mac—at the local fair-trade coffee shop buying an iced-soy mocha no matter the temperature.
I am also the owner of Pop Stalin Design specializing in CSS & XHTML web design as well as custom WordPress themes.
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Martin: I fixed that link, thanks for letting me know about it.
I only get the green on black text ad.gif if I press any of the mentioned poster links.
Any idea why? Using Fx, allowing popstalin.com on NoScript didn’t solve it.
Still weird that it’s banned, I didn’t even recognize the hood when I first saw it.