Like the Shoe, See the Film?

The subtle yet deliberate preponderance of luxury items on movie posters for films directed at women is worth noting.

I first saw this phenomenon about seven months ago, when ads for 'Four Christmases,' the Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn holiday comedy started popping up on bus shelters, atop taxis, and in magazines. It was such a generic design: the two stars dressed in all black, defiantly posed back to back, smiling in a 'here comes trouble' sort of way, poised to crack wise. Were it not for the fact that these stars were adorned in red ribbons and bows and Reese was standing on a pile of boxed gifts, this could have been a poster for just about any film and any subject matter.

Let me back up for a second. Reese is standing on a stack of boxes. It is fairly common knowledge that she is quite petite. Stand her (or digitally place her) next to Vaughn, who wouldn't feel out of place at a Big & Tall, and you have a whole lot of height disparity. To balance out the focus of the poster, the designers of the ad placed little Christmas presents under her feet and dressed her in a pair of up-to-there Louboutins.

Notice I did not say heels. I said Louboutins. Because that is precisely what they are.

I am of the belief that absolutely nothing in advertising is incidental. There is nothing about the final product that is an accident. Every single splashed droplet of milk on a box of Corn Flakes is placed there to serve a specific purpose. The instantly recognizable lipstick-red soles of Christian Louboutin heels could have been turned to black with the click of a mouse. But a deliberate choice was made to include them. Subtle advertising by Louboutin (who, by the way, does not advertise), total styling coincidence, or a sly ploy to attract a potential movie-goer who would recognize the shoe and think it might be more of a 'fashion movie' than the rest of the poster lets on?

I had no desire to see 'Four Christmases,' and yet I did. I was at my mother's house on Christmas Eve and she wanted some nice light holiday fluff. This was what she chose, and my honey baked ham sat in the seat next to her, popping Junior Mints, and as the lights in the theater dimmed, I hoped that maybe this was one of those secret 'fashion movies' after all. I mean, not along the lines of this movie or this movie, but maybe at least a notch above 'Transformers'? Aside from a bright Pucci caftan in the first five minutes, it was decidedly not, but my mom had a fun time, and that's what counts.

Earlier this week I was walking around Union Square and came face to face with a twenty-foot tall movie poster for the upcoming Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds film, 'The Proposal.' And holy Bergdorf's credit card bill, but there were those Louboutins again! At eye level, no less!

And now, on to the not-so-subtle. These placements move beyond the world of shoes. Recall the much-loathed Renee Zellweger vehicle from earlier this year, 'New in Town.' Apparently it was about a cosmopolitan executive who has to temporarily move to rural Minnesota.
Once upon a time, film posters and promotional materials showed the status of the film's characters and luxurious world that they inhabited by clothing them in furs, jewels, and fine fabrics. Then again, brand recognition, while still vital to advertising, was not as ubiquitously infiltrated into our culture as it is today, where it has seeped into something as tiny as a detail on a movie poster.

I am not saying that any of this - the deliberate placement of brand-specific luxury goods on movie posters for films directed at a female audience - is necessarily bad. It is just something that is becoming more and more common, and I'm interested in why. These movies are not 'fashion movies.' Maybe the movie posters for 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'Sex and the City' didn't use those kinds of images because they didn't really need to. The name of the films screamed 'fashion!' all by themselves. And as long as tickets are sold, the end justifies the means.