promotional images of failtasticness. or just badness.

[meganbmoore]

Multiple times today, I have seen this promotional image for The Tudors.  Click on the link if you want, but it's basically Henry VIII sitting on a throne made of naked people.   Had I hads an interest in the series before, I probably wouldn't now.

Anyway, it got me thinking about shows that I was completely turned off of by promorional images alone. 

First up, we have Caprica, which first had this:



I know the actress is older, but we have here what appears to be a sexualized, naked teenager with strong woman = temptation into evil imagery going on.

It was followed by this:



Lookit!  Powerful seeming men staring sternly at the apple that has been connected to the naked teenager, ever-so-subtly connecting the choice the men hae to make with the temptation represented by the naked teenager.  (Note:  I am specifically referring to the imagery and themes in the pictures, not the show itself.)

Would I have watched Caprica without these?  Probably not, as I wasn't fond of the bit of BSG that I saw, but still.

The kicker, though, is this Glee image:



So, we have 2 non-white teenaged girls and a disabled white boy in a dumpster.  The disabled boy's wheelchair is overturned and mixed in with the trash.  All the confident-looking white people are surrounding the dumpster, but not in it.

Would I have watched Glee without seeing this all over the place when it was first getting attention?  Probably, as I like things where people randomly burst into song and dance, but from what i've heard, not watching was probably the right choice.

I'm sure there have been plenty of other things that I haven't watched that I may have without promotional images, but that will do for now.

So, listies, what are some shows/books/movies/etc. where you've been alienated from the actual product based on the cover/promotional images, whether it's for Fail, awfulness, or a squick or implied trope that turns you off, etc.?  (Romance novel covers aren't allowed, unless you have something Special up your sleeve.)

Comments

[cofax7]

OMG that Glee ad! I cannot BELIEVE that someone approved that.

The ads for Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles frequently involved Summer Glau's disassembled torso, with power lines etc trailing out of her intestines. They were pretty horrible in the women=pieces of meat imagery. Happily the show itself was so much better than the advertising.

[torachan]

The Glee ads are notoriously failtastic. There's also one where everyone else is jumping in the air, and Artie is...falling out of his wheelchair. Or the one where the Mean Teacher, Sue, spray paints a line across the kids at chest level...and it goes across Artie's face.

[meganbmoore]

Thankfully, I forgot about those when it came time to watch SCC, and remembered them after.

[anenko]

The Glee image is beyond horrible. I'm sure some people would defend it by saying the show is being "ironic." Would someone actually have had to throw Artie into the trash?

[lady_ganesh]

A running joke in the show is that Artie (among other cast members not in the 'in crowd') are physically thrown in dumpsters and the like, so...yes.

[meganbmoore]

There's one bit of horror that I hadn't heard of yet.

[lady_ganesh]

The chief method of bullying is the 'Slushie in the the face,' but there's some physical threats, too.

One of the interesting things about that image, actually, is it reminds me some of the changes in the show-- the depiction of the physical bullying has mostly gone from 'lol, isn't that funny?' to 'oh wait, this is an actual threat.' I mean, it's still fail-tastic on many, many levels, but it's interesting to see the evolution and how some things actually have gotten better.

[lady_ganesh]

The Glee image is also missing four additional cast members-- three of which are POCs.

[meganbmoore]

I can't decide if that's good or bad...

[lady_ganesh]

To be fair to the producers, I suspect it's more a matter of who they thought the central cast would be when they started filming-- and two of the POC's are still pretty much filler characters, while the blonde and Hispanic girls are getting more attention/lines.