Kevin Smith's movie poster censored by MPAA, replaced with stick figures

Katie sez, "After being told by the MPAA that the poster for his new movie, 'Zach and Miri Make a Porno' was too obscene, Kevin Smith came back with a hilarious hand-drawn version." MPAA causes ‘Zack and Miri’ Poster to become BETTER (Thanks, Katie!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Dillenger69

I’d have never seen the stupid poster (or known the movie existed) if the MPAA hadn’t “banned” it.
TammyTones

Wow…. That’s really subtle. I had to really look at the image to see why it was banned.
What a bunch of morons.
Now their new poster doesn’t have the actors on it.
oh well.
themindfantastic

If they only cut the very bottom of the poster it would have been okay I bet, but the humour wouldn’t be there (the implied ‘going down south’ for those of you who didn’t see it) and I don’t really care for the new one (but it is better than the old one either way, they both kind are eennnhhhh.
romulusnr

It took longer than it probably should have for me to see any reason why there would be a problem.

And even then I’m kinda dubious.
pepsi_max2k

damn you ken miller, you’re everywhere! when’d he get so famous anyways?
romulusnr

@7: See, censorship in the US is never the easy cut-and-dry censorship that, say, Saudi Arabia will undertake. It’s always more complicated.

MPAA has power because theaters have power because prudish vocal members of society have power. Those people will avoid theaters that show movies, and often the movies themselves, rated above R, and shame those who do. So, theaters only show movies rated R or lower to avoid the fallout.

There’s no reason for any movie maker to get their film rated — if they are OK being locked into the indie movie house / festival / IFC / hard-to-find DVD circuit and out of the megaplexes.
Super Nate

For those of you that remember, Xeni posted about an alternative rating system that I personally find far superior to the MPAA’s black box system. Any movie rated under 5.5.5 isn’t good enough for my toddlers!

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/08/a-better-movie-ratin.html
Adam Fields

I have to point out an extremely similar poster I made in 1994 for a campus debate group:

http://www.hedge.net/fields/philo_posters/marriageisjustalicensetofucklegitimately.jpg
Anonymous

@9:

That’s not the caseâ€”Parker and Stone have stated that when ‘Orgazmo’ got an NC-17, they received little information about why the MPAA rated it as such, but thanks to the studio backing of ‘Bigger, Longer, & Uncut’ they received detailed information about what would need to be cut for an R. This was one of the most damning points made in ‘This Film is Not Yet Rated’, because they’ve been through the process as both outsiders and insiders.

And the story #7 mentions is definitely the tactic they used for ‘Team America’.
SamF

heh, the “censored” one reminds me of a particularly hillarious “Whitest Kids U Know” sketch.
gobo

The “censored” version is a much better poster than the original, honestly. It’s better designed, more intriguing, more eyecatching (whitespace is so rare on movie posters that it stands out in a theatre), and the title is far clearer.
squirrelgirl

seriously if you haven’t seen This Film is Not Yet Rated, go find a copy ASAP
fedor23

I love that guys movies, can’t wait to see this one does anyone know when it’s coming out.
Drew Blood

@24 Halloween last I checked
Clay

@22

Spot on. The first poster is amusing in a middle-school sort of way, while the latter one harks back to some of the greatest fourth-wall-breakers of the 70s and 80s.

The first is about a movie. The second one is about a controversy.
bondjamesbond

Like they say “any press is good press”…

You have to love Kevin for his solution to this….
pauldrye

Roger Ebert had nothing but effusive praise for the movie after seeing it at the Toronto International Film Festival. I’m taking that as a good sign that Smith is back at the top of his game after a bit of wandering lately.
brownsauce

I can has fake controversy? The older of the two posters is lame too, with him basically mugging just as he did on the Knocked Up poster.
roryrhorerton

The Onion’s AV Club has one of the best articles I’ve seen about this, the comparison shots of Dane Cook posters are worth looking at, at the very least.

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/86032
Misfitina

Yay! In the genre of juvenile boy humor, Kevin Smith will prevail over Judd Apatow. Yay for motion pictures. *sigh*
kromekoran

reminds me of when the MPAA forced the South Park guys to change the title of the movie from All Hell Breaks Loose, because apparently “hell” is not a good word to put in a movie title (but what about Hell’s Angels, or more recently, Hellboy?), scares the little children I’m sure. so they changed it to Bigger, Longer & Uncut, a not so subtle allusion to the male reproductive organ. or at least not so subtle to everyone except the MPAA.

the MPAA and its rating board is run by clueless dullards who seem to make shit up on the spot if it rubs them the wrong way.
Master Mahan

If Dane Cook has already used your gag, the MPAA did you a favor (even though Smith’s poster does it better by providing some equality).
KevinC

On a side note, the MPAA didn’t get the ‘Bigger, Longer, and Uncut’ reference until after they approved it. They thought, a bigger, longer southpark espisode instead of a dick. After they realize what it meant and wanted it changed, the creators basically said, “Ohh, no…you already approved it.”
In an interview, they said that they would make scenes that they did not intend to use to give the MPAA something to cut as well as make scenes worse than before. To their surprise, they got approved. And, can I just say, WHY THE HELL IS THERE AN ORGANIZATION TELLING PEOPLE TO CUT SCENES FROM THEIR MOVIES??? Seriously? This kind of censorship is ok?
padster123

The MPAA are a creepy joke.

Watch “This Film In Not Rated” again, as others have said. It’s a blast.
ZippySpincycle

The MPAA gives idiocy a bad name. Time to watch This Film Is Not Rated again.
assumetehposition

Huh-huh, “titillating”, huh-huh-huh.
SC_Wolf

@ KEVINC #7
In all fairness, the MPAA merely reports “We will rate this film you submited as NC-17,” or “We will rate this film you submitted as R.”

It’s the studio executives who then tell people to cut scenes from their movies out of fear the loss of box office revenue caused by the percentage of theaters and advertising outlets which refuse to have anything to do with the NC-17 rating.

Of course, this doesn’t really make it suck any less.
goldfishboy

I’d put money on the MPAA having accepted the poster if it had only had the left-hand image.
sonny p fontaine

maybe they though Elizabeth Banks was naked from the waist down.
sonny p fontaine

…and not a natural blonde
Torley

I hope this has a positive Streisand effect!