RACISM OR MARKETING TACTIC

Universal is facing a potential PR mess for its decision to digitally remove the names and images of the only black couple in ‘Couples Retreat’ on the film’s UK movie poster.

According to England’s The Daily Mail, a Universal spokesman said the updated ad was released “to simplify the poster to actors who are most recognizable in international markets.”

But some are calling foul on the complete removal of actors Kali Hawk and Faizon Love from the film’s poster. “I think this was an ill-conceived move,” Mediawatch-UK director Vivienne Pattison told the Mail. “We celebrate diversity in Britain and we could have coped with seeing the same poster used in America.”

In the U.S. version (above, left), all eight principal stars, including Hawk and Love, are seen standing knee-deep in water with their names displayed above. For the UK version (above, right), a different backdrop is shown with only the six (white) actors and actresses on display.

“Any discrepancy between the posters is cause for alarm because it makes racist assumptions about target markets,” says Ann Simonton, founder of the non-profit organization Media Watch. “But this is a somewhat common response to how advertisers target audiences. So much of advertising depends on our ignorance and it’s important for the consumer to remain ignorant. When they eliminate diversity, it maintains this false view of our world. It’s sickening to think about what the industry’s motives are, but it’s important that they be called on it.”

Daily Mail film critic Jason Solomons weighed in over the weekend, noting, “We don’t cater much for the black cinema-going audience in this country, which is a great shame, so it seems strange that when there are black stars in a major feature film, this fact isn’t promoted. And, in terms of business decisions, this seems a pretty counter-productive one.”

For its part, Universal has acknowledged the omission, saying it regretted offending anyone and is abandoning plans to use the revised poster in other countries.

But you have to wonder: If they regretted offending anyone, why would they alter the poster in the first place?

It’s not uncommon for movie studios to alter promotional materials of U.S. movies for foreign markets. Of course, the title and tagline often is changed to reflect the respective country’s language (sometimes to detrimental effect). But as opposed to clarifying the meaning and story of the movie, deleting any mention of Love and Hawk from the film’s advertising is, at the very least, a highly bizarre decision. It’s hard to imagine Brits staring at a poster with a black couple, scratching their heads and thinking, “How did they get on the island?”

More puzzling is how Universal, if the decision was in fact a conscious one to increase sales of the film, thought this would be a positive to the overall response of the movie. Surely there must have been one person who knew they would get called out on this, right? The studio’s decision may have stemmed from the fact that black actors and actresses historically have had a tougher time appealing to foreign audiences than domestic ones. But the cost/benefit of adding the grosses of the minute moviegoer demographic who won’t see films with minorities in it hardly seems like a justification for an avalanche of bad PR and continued fostering that “minority” = “doesn’t sell.” (Incidentally, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was the third highest-grossing film in the UK this year).

Playing angel’s advocate, let’s go with the studio’s “recognizable” argument for a second. As Gawker astutely points out in the “Not Racist” section of their “Is It Racist?” post, “Who has ever heard of Faizon Love (maybe best-known for his turn as Big Large in 2007′s ‘Who’s Your Caddy’) or Kali Hawk (Popcorn Girl (uncredited) in ‘Celebrity’)?” They’re not known stars stateside, yet still made the final cut of the U.S. poster. Why should things be any different internationally?

To be fair, this practice of photoshopping out, and adding in, minorities is hardly an uncommon one. In August, Microsoft had to publicly apologize for its decision to replace the head of a black actor with that of a white man on the website of its Polish business unit (though strangely leaving in the original actor’s hand.) One website even devoted a page to the practice.

It’s more likely that the decision was made in an effort to increase grosses rather than out of a discriminatory maliciousness and inherent hatred of minorities. The studio’s decision to cut out Love and Hawk seems mostly based on one color: green.