Last week, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) received 77 complaints about the posters for the horror film The Last Exorcism. The poster, displayed above, shows a young girl hunched backwards in a dressed stained with blood. The posters were said to cause distress, and were "unsuitable to be seen by children" (The Guardian)
Although "The Last Exorcism" is a horror movie, how can we determine what is too graphic to be put on display? Does this poster just more publicly illustrate the amount of violence in the entertainment industry? Personally, I do not think I would look twice at this poster, which is why I find it curious that it received enough complaints to have it taken down.
As the content within a horror film, is often times, grotesque and thrilling, it comes as no surprise to me that the posters must be evocative of similar feelings. Take for example, the "Dying Breed" poster displayed above. This image, I find far more disturbing, as we are presented with a bevy of dismantled flesh compounded inside a baked good. Subsequently, one poster was banned in Australia, as they thought the content was just far too graphic for a bus shelter. (The Daily Telegraph) To what extent is the placement of these posters more problematic than the content?
The poster above ia advertising Chan-Wook Park's film, (which was released in April 2009) "Thirst". Similarly, both the trailer and poster for this film were banned in Park's homeland of South Korea. The poster shows a priest in what looks like an uncontrollable sexual conundrum with a soon-to-be victim. What separates this poster from the others is that it is not gruesome, or horrific for that matter but more so, displays a "lack of morality." Would a sexually implicit poster be banned in the U.K. or Australia? Or are the content of these posters too culturally relative to ban?
What seems to be a common argument, against the banning of such posters, is that information (whether it be graphic violently or sexually) is already readily available through the internet, or even the news. These posters take it one step further, by forcibly publicizing such "graphic" content. However, as the way we react to certain imagery and advertising is rapidly changing, to what extent are these posters too subjective to regulate?
