Tv blabs, movie blabs, book blabs. Lots of blab, but no flab.

Tuesday, June 28

I'm Not That Insane

I like it when I'm not the only one concerned about the disturbing lack of thought that goes into marketing a film. While wandering the aisles of Target last week I noticed the abundance of Batman Begins merchandise in the toy section. Everything from figurines to costumes. All aimed at the under 12s.

Batman Begins has an M rating here.

Now that is only an advisory rating; so parents may accompany younger children to see the film. What sort of mixed signal is the marketing sending to the potential audience? OFLC deem the film not suitable for children to see unsupervised, but produce toys that will encourage children to hound parents into submission.

And that was before I'd seen the film!

Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and am seeing it again tomorrow (hopefully followed an accompanying post here). As for whether I agree with the several under-12s that were in the cinema during the session I attended, I don't think they should have seen it. Some of it was a little scary for me to look at!

Then tonight's Mediawatch reveals "monstrous marketing Batman!", where, on one page of The Sun-Herald are cross-marketing advertisements with kids magazine, K-zone, for Batman prizes and on the opposite page the reviewer writes "Critic’s warning: Non stop fights and violence. Thanks to the edgy script... the result is obviously not for kids."

Am glad I'm not the only one concerned.

2 viewers interjected with:

Blogger Draic said...

Come to think of it, this weekend my 10-yr-old brother was showing me his K-zone magazine containing an interview with Christian Bale. At the time, I was only wondering what fun they expected kids to get out of the interview (I only remember they talked about Bale's weight changes and how tight the batsuit was), but it is actually quite alarming, now that I think on it.

3/7/05 11:56 pm

 
Blogger Casyn said...

Indeed! That is disturbing. As if kids need more reason to think about weight and whether they need to develop issues about it.

4/7/05 1:22 am

 

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