Kick-Ass Trailer Kicks Too Much Ass

I know it only made it in as a scapegoat, but the appearance of Kick-Ass in the movie section of today’s New York Times was every bit as humorous as you would expect. The film, out April 16, is based on the comic book series by Mark Millar about a group of vigilante super heroes as heavy on violence as helping the innocent. The movie stays true to the comic’s graphic content, promising a barrage of blood and profane language from the likes of Nicolas Cage to an 11-year-old girl and everyone in between. The R-rating is a given, but the problem with such violence based films then becomes the trailer, which according to the Times piece is a viral nightmare.

It would be hard to promote a movie such as Kick-Ass without featuring a ton of gratuitous violence. It would be possible, but it would be a marketing failure. The reason this movie is getting such a good buzz is its supposedly taboo treatment of the subject, which explains the aforementioned 11-year-old’s use of ‘cunt’ and ‘giant cock’ in the trailer. Such scenes require the trailer to be determined red-band, a way for the Motion Picture Association of America to play Big Brother and make it mandatory for viewers to enter their age before watching the clip. The article, as well as any internet literate individual, is well aware that these trailers are almost immediately reposted on sites that do not uphold the age verification clause, thus exposing America’s youth to words and images they’ve gasp… probably already seen on the bathroom stall a million times.

Kick-Ass takes no shame in its scarlet R. In fact, the sort of controversy being drummed up by sources like the Times is better marketing than they could have dreamed. Of course it’s fucked up for an 11-year-old girl with a purple wig to call a guy a cunt before shooting him in the mouth; that is why comic books exist, and that is why movies based on comic books are almost guaranteed jackpots in the theater. And shockingly, both red-band trailers I was able to dig up still required me to enter my age (yes, if I was 13 I could easily lie, but if the Times is going to make a big stink, they can at least take solace in their small victories).

Kick-Ass is available in any bookstore, and Barnes and Noble isn’t about to start carding the kids hanging out in the comic book section. Its R rating will also keep the ‘too-young’ crowd from watching it in theaters, though with the red-band mandate on the trailer, it will become an even more coveted DVD release. Red-band watchdogs seem to be discouraged that they can’t police the trailers that premiere in Europe, since the Motion Picture Association is a definitively American undertaking (surprise surprise, those European versions always make their way back to the Motherland), but perhaps it would better serve those critics to realize how much more clout they’re providing the trailers with their naysaying. Check out what all the fuss is over here and here.