LOS ANGELES, CA — Zack and Miri may have made a porno, but they’re not allowed to advertise it in many traditional movie advertising venues.Print and video advertising containing the title of the new Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been rejected by newspapers, television stations, cable channels and outdoor sites, according to a spokesman for the film’s distributor. The reason? Evidently the word “porno” is not suitable for children.
Among the organizations that have complained about the ads is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who requested the ads be dropped from their games on the Fox Sports Network after viewers griped about the word. According to a Dodgers spokesman, when parents must interrupt viewing to explain “porno” to their children, the family atmosphere of baseball is compromised.
Philadelphia, PA, refused to allow posters for the film to appear at city bus stops, and posters in Boston, MA, have drawn criticism from child-development experts. Even online news articles about the controversy have misspelled the offensive word in headlines in order to avoid trouble with search engines.
The Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film, is both amused and frustrated, according to marketing chief Gary Faber. After the Motion Picture Association of America forbade the company from distributing ads that contained playfully risqué images of stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Weinstein replaced Rogen and Banks with stick figures, assuming that would make the ads palatable among the family values set.
The tactic only increased the outcry, fostering accusations that the company was attempting to mislead viewers with the child-like artwork.
“The whole idea was, our hands were so tied on all previous entries we’d given them that this ad was meant to be the innocuous one that would get approved everywhere,” Smith told CNN.
The real problem wasn’t the stick figures, though; it was the title of the film.
“If they want to call the movie Zack and Miri, that’s fine, but Zack and Miri cannot make a porno on my bus shelters,” Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler told CNN.
According to Diane Levin, a professor at Boston’s Wheelock College and the author of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, the film’s title sends a message to children that making pornography is an acceptable profession.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno, opening October 31st, is about two platonic best friends (Rogen and Banks) who decide the quickest way out of their mutual financial hole is to make an X-rated movie. Hilarity reportedly ensues. The movie received an “R” rating from the MPAA.
“It’s a comedy. It’s a joke,” Faber said. “We’re not advertising a porno. It’s not a porno. The word ‘porno,’ it’s not supposed to turn you on. It’s supposed to make you laugh.”
Faber said the Weinstein Co. has developed an ad for the movie that omits the title in favor of stick figures and the slogan “Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks made a movie so outrageous that we can’t even tell you the title.”
