Is this Ad Offensive?

     Many city dwellers in NYC are complaining about this aggressive ad that is all over the city. Some have even gone as far as to write letters to Fox executives demanding that all of these X-Men: Apocalypse posters be taken down immediately. As a comic book fan, I know how pivotal this moment is when the villain, Apocalypse, dominates the depicted female hero, Mystique. However, to the millions who aren't well versed in the world of Marvel comics, this picture is simply a muscular man choking a blue woman to death.

     As much as I love superhero movies and the ads that come along with them, I don't think that it was a smart choice to use this particular image on so many posters. In being very knowledgable of the X-Men comic books, I also know that Fox could have easily portrayed a scene of a male protagonist being choked out or beaten down by the villain. This ad radiates a vibe of male-domination, and I don't think that it should be all over NYC. The way people are reacting to the poster, Fox is only losing potential viewers of its latest X-Men film.

     In Miss Representation, the idea of women being inferior to men intellectually in movies was discussed. This ad takes the idea of inferiority to the extreme, and has to depict a muscular behemoth choking a female. While the two characters are clearly portrayed as non-human, the represented genders are obvious. With the title reading "Only the strong will survive," it is being implied that the men are the strong, and the women are the weak. There's also something so belittling in the way that with one hand Apocalypse is squeezing the life out of his victim, while she helplessly struggles for life. The female has a look a powerlessness, while the male a look of dominance.

     In my opinion, it was a huge marketing error to publish this ad all over NYC. For this particular movie at least, Marvel has given its female protagonists an image of weakness and inferiority to male antagonists. With its new movie Captain Marvel coming out in 2018, I'm interested to see how the company will have its latest female protagonist fare against her male nemesis.