Hunger Games fans around the world are buzzing about the forthcoming final installment. Everywhere you go, there are Mockingjay - Part 2 promotional photos and posters featuring Jennifer Lawrence. That is, everywhere except for a few cities in Israel, where Lawrence has been removed from posters for the new film.
According to Haaretz, in Israeli cities like Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, posters featuring Lawrence's character, Katniss Everdeen, have been replaced with posters that show only a fiery crown.
Why remove the star of the Hunger Games franchise from posters promoting the movie?
"We discovered that public posters with the image of a female are often torn down in Jerusalem, while Bnei Brak does not allow posters with female images,” a rep from the movie’s Israeli PR firm said.
Haaretz reports that a statement from the Bnei Brak municipality said there's a regulation in place that prevents hanging posters of women “that might incite the feelings of the city’s residents.” Regulations like this have affected film marketing in foreign countries before. Vulture pointed out that the Israeli Sex and the City movie poster "only featured Stanford Blatch and a shoe."
"Unfortunately we are subject to unofficial coercion that forces us to be more careful," Liron Suissa, VP of marketing for the company responsible for the posters, Nur Star Media, told Haaretz.
It's interesting that this "unofficial coercion" has struck again with this particular movie. After all, Katniss Everdeen has become a feminist icon, and one of the central themes of the Hunger Games story is fighting systemic oppression of expression.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT