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Posters with peace signs is not ‘end of world’ stuff

Last week, Warner Bros. Pictures pulled the plug on Amanda Bynes’ disgraceful display of the peace sign in the original What a Girl Wants poster. It seems the index-middle finger combination that is all the rage with kids these days may possibly be construed as an obvious stance on the part of Sony Pictures against the ever-so popular war in Iraq.

In the poster, Bynes is also wearing a tank top decorated with an American flag and is flanked by British guards. That girl should learn not to combine symbols of the esteemed Coalition forces with such an abomination of a peace sign.

Right across the corridor at the multiplex is the skin-tight, leather rear of Cameron Diaz who also had the audacity to pose for a marketing campaign and place her own political message in the poster.

With the war plan going so smashingly, any un-American statement by a celebrity using a movie poster needs to be squashed immediately. However, Sony Pictures has declared the offensive two-finger combo will stay.

OK, let’s get back to reality here. These are posters, people. They are not antiwar protests. They aren’t even pieces of art anymore. Rather, they provide an alternative for wallpaper in the bedrooms of 11-year-old girls who think the world of a midriff-bearing ex-Nickelodeon star. Or, they entice teenage boys to run out and see an ex-model-turned decent actress run around in skimpy clothing in a big-budget action flick.

Sony should be applauded for sticking to its guns and Warner Bros. should be ashamed. To kowtow in order to save a few measly bucks on a flick like What a Girl Wants is ridiculous.

But let’s look at the nature of these things. It shouldn’t be too surprising that marketing departments are cowardly backing off at the behest of the American public. These are the same people who got in trouble nearly two years ago for quoting a fake critic from a small-town paper to booster acclaim for sure-to-be bombs. These are the same minds who trimmed Queen Latifah’s posterior for some Chicago promotional items, only to later admit to it with some cock-and-bull story about it being a digital mistake in proportions.

The only thing that’s out of proportion is the ratio of paranoid movie execs to people in the real world who care that a poster has a peace sign. After all, wasn’t that Nixon’s thing?