Apart from the ambiguous message carried by these posters (Watch this film or I’ll kill you?) and apart from the embarrassing phallus references (What a big weapon. I hope it isn’t compensating for deficiencies elsewhere), and apart from the irony of a society that claims its greatest fear is young men running around with guns, but fills every available public space with images of sexy old men running around with guns, apart from any of that - how boring?
How mind-numbingly boring can urban life become? Over and over again, a man pointing a gun. Occasionally a woman pointing a gun. How many times can the same hackneyed image be produced and reproduced, before one brave child will point and ask, “hold-on, haven’t we seen all this crap before?” and the entire townsfolk can collapse into a heap of laughter and relief?
Well don’t hold your breath. We can only assume the image gets repeated because it generates the most custom. It’s like the way ad-campaigns for detergent persistently return to two women chatting in the kitchen (two Cs in a K, as the ad-industry charmingly describes it.) While it’s possible to sell soap by quoting Goethe, filming in Venice and hiring Vanessa Redgrave to do the voiceover, if two mock-Dorises in a mock-semi works best why not stick to it?
Like sex, violence never fails to catch the eye. Indeed one could denounce Page 3 in the very same terms. Every day, six days a week, for 40 years, a photograph of a pair of breasts. But clearly it’s not like that for the punters. Every day is in fact a different pair of breasts, or perhaps the same pair of breasts but from a different angle, or accompanied by a different smile, or leer.
Presumably the same microscopic differences are at play in the "bang! bang!" posters. Depending on the bus stop, you might be threatened by a cool man or an angry man or a sweaty frightened man being pursued for a crime he did not commit. He may be a goody or a baddy or a bit of both. He might look anxious about killing you or so casual he doesn’t even interrupt his mobile phone call. If it’s a female assailant she may also throw-in a huge pair of sweaty breasts just to guarantee a fix on your attention.
Presumably it’s these subtle differences that prevent the moviegoer from noticing and despairing of the repetitive imagery. Instead, they feel enticed and compelled to purchase the product.
Arguments about cause and effect regarding violent cinema are as old as cinema itself. Rather than open that can of worms, a more solid complaint can be levelled at advertisements for violent films. If some humans wish to spend their leisure time sitting in the dark watching graphic re-enactments of the worst aspects of human behaviour, it certainly is possible to construct an argument to defend their right to do so. But two can play the civil liberties card. Those of us who are repulsed by such images should also have the right not to have them thrust in our faces.
