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[T]he ad campaign for "Captivity" is not only a literal sign of the collapse of humanity, it's an assault. I've watched plenty of horror - in fact I've made my share. But the advent of torture-porn and the total dehumanizing not just of women (though they always come first) but of all human beings has made horror a largely unpalatable genre. This ad campaign is part of something dangerous and repulsive, and that act of aggression has to be answered.

As a believer not only in the First Amendment but of the necessity of horror stories, I've always been against acts of censorship. I distrust anyone who wants to ban something 'for the good of the public'. But this ad is part of a cycle of violence and misogyny that takes something away from the people who have to see it. It's like being mugged (and I have been). These people flouted the basic rules of human decency. God knows the culture led them there, but we have to find our way back and we have to make them know that people will not stand for this. And the only language they speak is money. (A devastating piece in the New Yorker - not gonna do it.) So talk money. Remove the rating, and let them see how far over the edge they really are.

from Remove the Rating for Captivity

These are interesting words coming from Joss Whedon, whose's made a few contributions to depictions of violence and torture on TV of his own. He wrote this in connection with a movement which is pressing the MPAA to remove the rating for the movie Captivity, because After Dark Studios used the ad after the MPAA had rejected it. The MPAA is empowered to deny a rating for a movie after a studio pulls an antic like this, but it's still up in the air whether they will actually do it.

A small pic of the ad can be seen here, and a pic of the ad which replaced it (hardly better) can be seen here. They could be triggery. I've got descriptions of both behind a cut.

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After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon is playing the "oops" card, claiming that the four-frame ad was never meant to be used. This paragraph, from the article quoted above, is interesting:

He added that the images on the billboard are not an accurate representation of the film, which stars Cuthbert as a woman who awakens to find herself being held in a cellar. "This movie is certainly a horror movie and it's about abduction, but it's also about female empowerment," Solomon said. "We reshot the ending so the main character ends up in as much of a positive situation as the situation could allow. There is no rape or nudity in it, though it should be an R-rated movie. For the audience it's made for, it's satisfying to that audience. I'm sure that's not the same audience that's complaining about the billboards."

Not an accurate representation of the film. Huh. I'm glad to hear it doesn't have any rape in it, at least. But it sounds like a very different movie from the one hinted at in the campaign. Also from the article above, this puts the whole thing in a new light:

"Captivity," director Roland Joffe's film about a man and a woman who are being held captive,

So, wait. It's about a man and a woman who have been kidnapped? That's interesting, given that there's a notable lack of, well, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered men in the ad campaign.

Generally, when an ad campaign doesn't accurately reflect the film, the film's a stinker. Or it's a decent movie but people who feel misled by the ad campaign give bad word of mouth. Here, though, they were clearly aiming to attract an audience made of people who expect to see a woman kidnapped, tortured, and killed. I don't think it is hyperbole or foaming-at-the-mouth-ranty to see this as an assault on all of womankind. It's interesting, too, that the movie this audience would expect to see is not the one (assuming the description above is correct) they'd actually get... meaning that the studio, for whatever reason, thought that a movie about 'female empowerment' in response to abduction wouldn't sell.

But a new line of thought comes to mind. Suppose the campaign is deliberate guerilla marketing. The campaign raises a buzz, but threatens to get the studio in trouble. The studio pleads "oops, we never meant to use this because it's over the top and furthermore, it's too different from the actual film, so no advertiser in their right mind would use the campaign to promote this movie anyway." Whaddaya think, right, wrong, maybe? Did the studio hope to use the divergence as part of a master plan to avoid being held accountable for 'accidentally' promoting violence against women to boost their revenue?