In the story about the Zack and Miri make a Porno poster being banned for vaguely hinting at sex, I wrote about the Wanted poster of Angelina Jolie holding a huge handgun in front of her head and bowing her head to it touching the barrel to her forehead. I was saying it was rather two faced to ban an innocent poster that vaguely hints at a natural sex act when we’re looking at this gun reverence poster.

Now I hear that the UK Advertising Standards Authority have banned a Wanted poster for glamorising gun violence, but not the one that features that huge image of Jolie and the handgun, but this rather less intrusive montage of shots from the film.

What I can’t understand is what exactly about this is glamorising gun violence? You can see a larger image over with the original article at the Guardian.

It doesn’t even show a gun in full view, in fact out of all the images there are only three I can see a gun on, and two of them are very obscured. If this is influencing people then our world is filled with mindless morons who can’t even be trusted to open a packet of cornflakes without using the sharp scissors to stab someone to death.

As I keep saying, the problem isn’t the images here, it’s people having access to guns and their desire to shoot people that’s the problem.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to that Zack and Miri make a Porno poster when it hits the UK shores, if it does that is.

According to the article in the Guardian:

The ASA said the line "Six weeks ago I was just like you … and then I met her … and my world was changed forever" suggested McAvoy's character's life had been changed for the better since he had become an assassin.

Eighteen people complained about the Wanted (Filmstalker review) poster to get it banned, eighteen.

The ASA did have this to say about Universal Pictures comments:

"Universal Pictures stated that they were aware that the current climate was sensitive and believed the text and images were relevant to the advertised film and communicated the themes without causing serious or widespread offence…

…We concluded [the] ads … could be seen to condone violence by glorifying or glamorising the use of guns…”

However it looks as though they did see the sensible and pragmatic side as the EIGHTEEN complaints were only partially upheld against the millions who have seen the film and haven’t embarked on a mad killing spree. They concluded that the adverts were…

"…unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence" because "most members of the public would understand that the posters reflected the content of an action film"

Yeah, because we’re adults.

Universal have decided not to use the advert again though, not even to rework it, and why the hell do they need to? We’ve just talked about it, it’s been featured on the Guardian site, it’s going to be seen by perhaps just as many people as would have seen it on the streets, and this will be a more targeted audience too.

Mission accomplished.