It was brought to my attention last night that the international promotional poster for the newly released film Couples Retreat starring African-American actors Faizon Love and Kali Hawk is terribly misleading.
A friend told me that Faizon Love and Kali Hawk both have relatively big roles in this film. But you wouldn’t know that from looking at the promotional poster created for the international market.
Check out the differences between the US market and the International market posters below.
The poster created for the US market. OK so Faizon and Kali have been deliberately placed right at the back (you can just about see them) but at least their names have been included in the list of credits above.
Poster created for the International market (currently seen in Britain and the rest of Europe). Faizon and Kali’s images and names have been removed from the poster!
I would like an explanation!
I look forward to hearing from you Universal!
Racism at it’s finest folks!
LOL…. *shaking my head*
Categories: Laugh Or Cry?
Seeeeeeeeeeen. Its good to have many heads on the ball as then these racist scum cannot slide anything past us without somebody picking it up on it. How long did Universal think that this one would remain out of people’s notice for? They must still think this is 1959 where communication was much slower, no internet was available to the public, the mainstream media was practically the only source for news and they could get away with things like this.
thats disgusting!
ive noticed this with a few films.. over the years!!
I am sure the excuse would be that they are trying to appeal to a broader international audience.. that’s just crap! Would be interesting to see what they have to say.
@tyiscloser
I’ve never actually noticed before. This is pretty bad…. they even erased their names…. LOL…. jeez….
@lanre
Oh yes thats always the excuse… lol
There taking the Pee and the Poo. The actors at hand must be so pissed, I hope they do something about it.
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic!!!
It just shows that racism is still very much alive. A black person is still not regarded as a full respectable human being but a commodity to be sold. We all know if Will Smith or Denzel Washington were in this movie they would not be erased but that’s only because they are commercial viable brands (this still doesn’t mean they are seen as respectable people to “them” though)
sad
well the thing is …
its not only racism!!!
because they probably know what they’re doing in regards to markets .. so they probably know that they need to sell a particular image to a particular market….
but what staggers me is WHAT DOES THIS REALLY MEAN.. IS IT A FACT THAT MAJORITY MAINSTREAM AUDIENCES NEED THE FELLOW LEADING BLACK ACTORS TO BE AIRBRUSHED OUT OF THE CAMPAIGN… i dont want answers from the film companies.. i want a truthful answer from the marketing team.. cos they have the answers i want…..
IS IT REALLLY THAT BAD WHEN YOUR MARKETING A FILM IN EUROPE.. DOES THE PRESENCE OF BLACK ACTORS IN THE ADVERTISING OF A FILM COMPROMISE THE EVENTUAL CROSS APPEAL OF A FILM.. if so ? they need to say so!!
Do you really want an answer from these folks Ty, their sidewinding and slippery PR response may infuriate you even more?
You know what sucks?
My 1st inclination is to ban this flick. But, in doing that, I also affect the success of the very Black actors that are being unfairly treated…dichotomy is a bitch!
At any rate, I hear the movie sucks anyway.
@ Ty
that is exactly the question I asked Janice!! Is it that in order to market a movie to mainstream audiences black faces need to be erased?
I’m thinking that THEIR thinking is that a blackface that is not Will Smith or Denzel to THEM i.e the “mainstream” audience connotes that the film is a “Hood” movie. Any blackface that is not a well known brand like Denzel and Will might mean it is gonna be “gangster” hahahaha so they erase those faces so the message won’t be confusing. I know it is twisted logic but I have thought and thought about this for ages! LOL!
What do you think of my sad theory? this is the only theory I have that makes sense to me.
In a Microsoft advert a few months ago, the American advert featured a black man, while in the advert they did for Poland, the Black mans head was replaced by a white mans, but they forgot to change the black mans hand to a white one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8221896.stm
Racists are so unintelligent its unbelievable!
Well, what do we expect from Bill Gates who has donated $37 billion dollars and counting to Eugenics, a programme to exterminate the peoples of the world starting with and primarily concerning guess who, blacks and other majority races. Abortion is also part of the eugenics programme. Note that it is Gates who is one of the sponsors of the polio vaccine distribution in Africa, which has been giving people the polio virus, crippling and brain damaging children, this is openly admitted and documented:
http://www.newsday.com/polio-surge-in-nigeria-after-vaccine-virus-mutates-1.1369582
Let us also never forget Tuskegee. Now, anyone for a swine flu shot. The point of me bringing this up is to show that they are hitting blacks from all angles and are being quite brazen about it. How many more examples can be shown here that we don’t know about?
Forget the racism in the marketing dept, did anyone actually see the movie?!? While the obvious elimination of the African-American actors from the marketing posters is indeed an issue, I am WAAAAAYYYY more disturbed about how the two black characters were portrayed. Eight curse words in the entire movie, and they came from the loud, ghetto, divorced, overly-sexed, obnoxious token black couple with bad credit!! Seriously, hollywood…is this what you think of us? I was completely ashamed to be sitting in the theater. The first scene where the motorcycle salesman snapped at Fazison like he was a dog had me outraged…and it was downhill from there.
I’m amazed that NOBODY is talking about this blatent racist movie online. It reminded me of another blockbuster hit, that made money of Hollywood’s stereotypical black image….D. W. Griffin’s “Birth of a Nation”
See…
Now I really want to see it. Any instances of blatant racism and shucking and jiving are right up my alley (from a purely exploratory standpoint, of course)…
Did we expect anything nice from the table of Edom?