Troy Smith

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:23:19 -0800

Ban blightful billboards for extreme violence movies: See email below to the CEO of CBS Outdoor at ray.nowak@ cbsoutdoor.com Mr. Nowak, There are several campaigns getting started to ban billboard advertising in the Santa Monica - Wilshire district of Los Angeles thanks to your putting up torture porn billboards for the Captivity film. You only have to do a Google search to see the incredible depth of public anger at CBS Outdoor for your actions. To add insult to injury, there are still many Captivity billboards still up that show a young women's face with tears behind bars getting ready to be mutiliated, tortured and killed. There are billboards for the movie Hostel II as well which is a movie where women are kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and killed for the enjoyment of sick people in our society who get a sexual thrill from this torture porn. You need to remove these violent billboards now - before you lose your lucrative billboard advertising in Los Angeles. There are many City Councils that I have been in touch with ready to ban billboards in their neighborhoods. As CBS Outdoor does not care about public safety or the degrading and cheapening of our city with these ads for violent torture movies, you deserve to lose all your billboard advertising rights. I will work at garnering support from the City Councils of Venice, Santa Monica, Hollywood and other areas and have them start limiting access to billboards. You need to change your policy and not allow any billboard advertising for extremely violent movies that cause a danger to Americans. The women and children of America hope that you have some corporate reponsibility and do the right thing! Regards, Troy Smith Venice, CA See articles below MPAA Please do not rate the movie Capitivity for reasons of public safety. Watch CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and all you see everyday is more young women and children being abducted, raped, tortured, murdered. The greedy irresponsible Hollywood media, and Lionsgate Films in particular have a strong impact on society. Why do you think they advertise cigarettes in movies and people start smoking? They show rape, torture and killing of young women and children constantly and of course it happens more and more in real life. So please protect the public and remove the rating for Captivity. And force billboard companies to take down their disgusting ads for the movie that are still all over LA. I am sick of seeing that woman's face crying behind bars ready to be tortured and killed. You allow these types of billboards for Hostel II and Captivity all over the city in bus stops and everywhere scaring the hell out of young children and cheapening and degrading our once great city. This type of violent billboard blight has to stop now! Step up and do the right thing! The women and children of America are hoping that you have some guts. Othewise, you at the MPAA are just as guilty as the Hollywood torture porn producers for all the innocent victims of these type of crimes! I hope that you can live with yourselves. Regards, Troy Smith After Dark and Lionsgate films have been forced to discontinue their marketing campaign for their new Elisha Cuthbert starring torture porn movie Captivity, after an outcry of public disgust and outrage in Los Angeles and New York. The Hollywood Reporter says the campaign included billboards and taxi cab top advertising using pictures of Cuthbert in various stages of imprisonment. Normally, I’m the first to jump on the freedom of expression band wagon but in this case I’m on the side of the publicly outraged. The posters show, and even glorify the captivity and torture of a woman. Bad enough that we have movies like Hostel and Turistas doing it, but at least those are things people choose to see by walking up to the box office and buying a ticket. When it’s on a billboard, it’s thrust into your life and the lives of your kids whether you want it or not. Here’s what they had on the posters: One shows Cuthbert’s face being covered by an ominous rubber glove with the caption “Abduction” above it. Another shows her face behind a metal fence, with a bloody finger poking through below the caption “Confinement”. The third depicts Cuthbert’s face covered in white gauze with tubes shoved up her nose beneath the word “Torture”. The fourth and final billboard is titled “Termination” and shows a female body with the head thrown back. Actually, let’s just call it a corpse. After Dark and Lionsgate have begun removing the ads, but I doubt they mind. Come on, they had to know this would piss people off. It’s standard horror movie marketing these days. You release completely unacceptable marketing materials, wait for people complain about it and stir up controversy (thus getting your film’s name in the papers), and then you do a mea culpa and pull everything. You’ve just gotten your film a ton of publicity and it cost you absolutely nothing. The only surprising thing here is that the MPAA actually approved the billboards, while axing similar marketing materials for other horror movies. Unless the state starts issuing fines for this sort of thing, expect to see the same tactic used again on whatever the next torture porn flick is.

Adam Villani

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:54:24 -0800

Yes, of course I'm real. You've just got a pet peeve that I don't. Not everyone shares your sensibilities. Hell, I can't stand mayonnaise, but I'm not asking for it to be outlawed.

Daniel

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:02:56 -0800

Personally, when I've had a freeway commute, I've enjoyed having billboards break up the visual monotony. You're an actual person, right? I'm just checking.

Ted

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:49:03 -0800

Billboards per se are not bad and are part of the urban landscape. The issue is more about how and where the billboards are placed. Regency Outdoor is a company which spends more on Legal fees then they do on anything else. Think about that for a minute-- their entire business models consists of putting up illegal signs in plum areas, charging exorbitant rates for them, and then fighting cities for years and years to keep them up-- Nice work if you can get it!

Adam Villani

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:04:54 -0800

From the vehemence of the anti-billboard people, you'd think they were railing against legalized crack houses or city-sanctioned prostitution. Opposition to billboards is hardly universal. Personally, when I've had a freeway commute, I've enjoyed having billboards break up the visual monotony. Sure, nobody wants a billboard marring a scenic vista, but in the middle of the city, what's the harm done? All it really boils down to is an aesthetic preference. If there's really enough public opposition to billboards, then sure, go and ahead and ban them. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're removing a moral scourge from the community or that they're necessarily blight the way a dilapidated building or graffiti is.

Daniel

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:14:18 -0800

The city is giving up and giving in to a vexatious litigant (or a bunch of them), basically. It's as simple as that. If they had any spines at all, they would launch a massive campaign to expose this extortionate use of the legal system by these "media" corporations. Can you imagine what would happen if millions of Los Angelenos rallied together and promised to boycott companies that advertise on those particular companies' billboards until they stopped the lawsuits? Of course, that would require imagination, foresight, and courage in a City Council, and our City Council is...well, it is what it is.

LAist: Are Billboards Blightful?

Troy Smith

Adam Villani

Daniel

Ted

Adam Villani

Daniel