NEWS: An Invitation...To Captivity

CULTURE: An Invitation...To Captivity

Happy Captivity Day! Here is some information for you -- whether you're celebrating by watching Elisha Cuthbert get tortured half to death or if you plan to observe the big day quietly at home with a book.

By now I trust we’re all familiar with the film and the controversy. Not just about the film -- but about the marketing.

Although the movie’s original offending billboards were quickly yanked the damage (magic?) had been done and the film suddenly became a lightning rod in a raging debate about the direction that horror films have taken.

The Suicide Girls helped usher in a new era in torture porn er..gorn…I mean horror at the premiere party at Hollywood’s Privilege nightclub.

This gentleman seems to do fine in captivity (parties)

(you can tell he's a gentleman from his sharp attire.)

A fine time was had by all at the premiere. Except the MPAA who are now rating party decorations as well as films and film advertisements. Yes, the MPAA drove by the premiere party (they only have one car -- long story) and became quite irate. They rang the film's producers and demanded that the origianally-banned billboards that were hung as decorations for the bash be re-removed. Jeez! WhatEVER!!!

It remains to be seen if audiences will judge the Elisha Cuthbert film directed by Roland Joffe film on its merits. On Friday the 13th, you’ll get to see for yourself.

However you feel about Captivity and its marketing, filmmakers should not be held hostage by the MPAA and told how to market their films, let alone how they decorate their parties. The MPAA already does their job not so well. Let's not add to their already bungled work load.

There is an SG NEWS BOT now ?

They probably couldn't find a human editor capable of putting a spin on 'we like money and free publicity' with a straight face.

Ha! I didn't even notice who wrote the article, and thought you guys were just being smartasses.

Is SG getting paid by the inches devoted to this movie or what the fuck?

I'm all-for 'torture porn' when it has some underlying point as the Hostel series does, but I really don't see any purpose to this film whatsoever other than utter depravity. I'm not saying it should be banned at this point, but I really don't believe it was a film that needed to be made.

Be quiet and take your empowerment like a good girl.

I couldn't agree more. And furthermore, the article is misleading. The MPAA has absolutely zero authority to demand anything from these film makers as it concerns their marketing. What they do have, however, is the ability and privilege to change the film's rating based on the graphic nature of its print ads, which is exactly what they threatened to do. Painting this as an issue of censorship is wrong. Films submit to the MPAA on a voluntary basis and use their ratings as marketing to demographics. After Dark was afraid of the box office effects of an NC-17 rating brought about by their disgusting billboards. This is not an issue of straight-up censorship, no matter how the author chooses to portray it.

Torture porn needs to fucking die, pun intended.

I really don't give a rat's ass about this film, the controversy surrounding it in the world at large or here on this site or the sexual politics of it's director. However, I am a bit tired of having these promotional ads mixed in with the normally amusing, diverting and sometimes informative news here on a site that I'm already paying for. I do hope that the SGs involved had a good time or were at least adequately remunerated for their efforts.

It certainly seems that way...

Your statement is misleading as well - the MPAA rating is voluntary - if you don't want your film to screen in any movie theatre in America, you certainly don't have to submit it for rating - but since it is pretty much necessary for theatrical exhibition of any size, I'd say it's an unspoken, if not official, requirement. When the people holding the reins of such an organization require changes to a film so as to match up to their set of acceptable standards, which in turn influences the reach and earning potential that film has, then that my friend is a form of censorship.

But you're right on one thing: torture porn definitely needs to to fucking die.

yep, evil genius salome calls it~!

The association of the film with SG seems so offensive and so OFF -- the opposite of celebrating erotic and empowered women -- which is what i thought this site was about??

*le sigh*

I totally agree with that. I hate that people try to make movies that "go against convention". Just because it's something new to the big screen doesn't mean it's a good idea. It's appalling as opposed to artistic.

Seconded.

*sigh* Everything I could say about this whole brouhaha I have already said in the relevant threads. But, to reiterate:

People just need to calm the fuck down. It's a movie, not the end of world, not the end of "feminine empowerment," etc. It's images on celluloid w/make-believe people in a fairy world full of gumdrop kidnappings and rainbow torture. And kittens.

"Any publicity is good publicity" rings true here.

-TM

It stops being just a movie when I walk down the street and see their grotesque ads which have been deemed unfit for mass public consumption by the governing body assigned to regulate such matters. I'm a big boy, I can take seeing that shit, but dude, if I'm taking my niece out for a stroll, I don't want these douchebags getting away with shoving their offensive shit in her face.

I have no issue with the movie or torture porn or whatever, if people wanna check it out, then great. If people wanna make it and try to make some dollar off it, then cool. Just keep it the fuck outta my face.

the horror film genre is simply evolving, just like man kind did hundreds of the thousands of years ago. Psycho killers are going from stalking and hunting their pray to placing them in captivity and torturing them.

in all seriousness, I find it somewhat ridiculous that the MPAA would change the rating of a film just based on the advertising. "The Passion of the Christ" billboards may have been more tasteful, but the actual film was far from it...snuff like that should be traded on the black market

okay, not really since we all know the black market stuff is...well, real, while "the passion" was cleverly cruel make-up.

all the same, even if a handful of people see empowerment the message tends to be lost on the vast majority of people. As is the case with most controversial films. films like Borat, Fight Club and, yes, even "The Passion" (Which, despite it's depravity, was at least more accurate, at least according to the Bible, than "Apocalypto") were all given harsh criticism because the whole is more than the sum of its parts...if these films were just about violence or bigotry, then yes, they would be terrible awful examples of our society's taste in entertainment. Just like IF there is a message of feminine empowerment in "Captive" (and there damn well better be, if SG is involved) then the controversy is one of the best ways to bring it to light...I'd be just as disturbed if it wasn't controversial.

What exactly is so empowering about showing up to some commercial promo event organized by some sleazy dude who bragged 'I'm gonna bag me some SG's to promote my cash-in movie'.

I'm sure they were very good at whatever it is they did, but really providing publicity for a website by playing eyecandy at some event, at the request of some guy cashing in on the latest fad, is not all that empowering in my mind.

I doubt anyone even cares about the movie, it's just tragically hilarious to see the way people interpret things like 'empowering' around here.

I think every time the subject of SG & empowerment comes up the thread should be moved to the Silliness board. SG is a company and the whole empowerment idea is their mission statement. If I came on here and said that the purpose of Mary Kay Cosmetics was 'To give unlimited opportunity to women.', everyone would just roll their eyes. I would be told that MKC was a company. While some women may have a positive experience, the primary interest of the company was in moving product. I like SG and they provide a unique and enjoyable product, but the altruistic branding just seems a little silly.

Why do the girls have to be doing something 'empowering' 24 fucking 7 around here?

Why can't they just do whatever the fuck they want to, wherever the fuck they want to, without someone telling them they aren't doing the 'right' thing?

Jesus, I spent the day yesterday at the laundromat doing my husband's laundry, dropping off his dry cleaning, and making sure he had what he needed before he got home. That probably sounds shitty to a lot of you people out there, but that is the life I live because I CHOOSE to do so. I am more than happy to be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen when my husband gets home from work, and if that, in your mind, makes me less than an empowered woman, go fuck yourself.

Having choices and making them despite what others will think about you is what is empowering. Being your own person, living your own life, pursuing your own happiness is what takes strength. I could call men pigs all day long and not shave my armpits, and that doesn't empower me any more than making my husband's coffee in the morning.

I'm so sick of people saying what women should and shouldn't be. If you wanna be eye candy at a party, a stripper, a hooker, a lawyer, a mom, whatever, fucking do it.

you know, the more ridiculous the uproar around this movie gets the more i want to go see it. i was originally completely not into it because i think that sub-genre is retarded, but i might check it out purely because of how everyone says it's depraved and meritless.

though the downside to seeing it is that you can guess from the first half of the trailer that the guy locked up with her is the captor. it's not exactly going to be a thrill ride.