I Am Not Bothered by That X-Men Choking Billboard

So, 20th Century Fox apologized to the angry Internet mob for using an image of the X-Men: Apocalypse villain (Apocalypse) choking Jennifer Lawrence’s character (Mystique) on a billboard promoting the film.

“In our enthusiasm to show the villainy of the character Apocalypse, we didn’t immediately recognize the upsetting connotation of this image in print form,” Fox said in a statement on Friday.

“Once we realized how insensitive it was, we quickly took steps to remove those materials,” it continued. “We apologize for our actions and would never condone violence against women.”

The billboard became an issue the way that only the most important of things do: An actress (Rose McGowan) came out said it was offensive:

“There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film,” McGowan said to The Hollywood Reporter last week.

“The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid,” she added.

Sorry, but no. No one flagged the billboard because a villain committing acts of violence is the entire premise behind every superhero movie ever made, and the only the only “stupid” thing happening here is the level of outrage.

#share#Now, to be fair, the billboard is striking — and I can maybe kind of see how some people might have been kind of turned off by it. Personally, I found it about as upsetting as seeing Homer choking Bart on The Simpsons (read: not at all) but in any case, the reactions here went way, way beyond “kind of turned off.”

Because of this billboard, Fox actually felt the need to clarify that it in fact did not support committing acts of violence against women. Is this a joke? First of all, anyone who would see this billboard and think, “Oh, I guess it is cool to strangle women” would have some underlying psychological problems so severe that not even Hollywood promotional material could solve them. Secondly, once we take gender out of the equation, all we have is a (fictional) villain doing something evil to another (fictional) character — which, from what I understand based on knowing what words mean, is exactly the kind of thing that villains are included in stories to do.

But as crazy as all of this may seem, it isn’t new. Last year, at the artist’s request, DC Comics canceled a cover design because people complained that the Joker — a villain — attacking Batgirl was — yep! — sexist and promoted violence against women.

So, here’s my question: Are Hollywood’s female characters supposed to be treated the same as its male characters or not? I keep hearing that they are, but outrage such as this makes me unsure. After all, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been any outrage had Apocalypse been choking a male character on the billboard. Actually, no, I take that back . . . there probably would have been outrage — something along the lines of, “Wow, here we have this strong female character in the film and for some reason, there are only men on the billboard!” complete with a Lawrence-led feminist hashtag campaign calling out Hollywood for treating female characters unfairly.

#related#Honestly, what the hell was Fox supposed to do? Make a billboard saying “We Love Women, Go See X-Men!” with random images of Lawrence’s character looking strong and tough splattered all over it? Stop making movies that feature male-against-female violence altogether? Replace them with a series about a female hero whose superpower is her period?

If companies continue to apologize for the innocuous, then the innocuous will eventually become unacceptable. And once even the innocuous is unacceptable, what is there left to work with?