Cynthia Erivo calls out fans who made their own Wicked poster (poptalk.scrubbles.tech)

submitted 18 hours ago by scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech to c/movies@lemm.ee

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Fans customized the Wicked movie poster to more closely match the original Broadway poster.

Original Broadway Poster:

Movie poster:

Some fans, disappointed by the poster, altered it to be closer to the original, moving Grande’s hand and lowering the brim of Erivo’s hat to cover her eyes. The edits prompted Erivo to respond. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen

“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” Erivo continued. “The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”

So, this seems like a completely reasonable reaction to fans making fan content.

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[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago

Stolen from reddit

[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Huh. This is why you need a PR team.

[-] stewie3128@lemm.ee 24 points 5 hours ago

The ego and vanity is astounding. And the movie poster sucks because she's looking straight at the camera.

[-] rothaine@beehaw.org 10 points 7 hours ago

In the original Broadway poster and the fan edit, it looks like they're up to something--there's some mischievousness at play, some wickedness.

I don't really know what the full-face one is supposed to convey.

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 12 points 8 hours ago

Totally proportionate reaction.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 24 points 11 hours ago

Bit of an overreaction if you ask me

[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Theatre kids gonna theatre

[-] kshade@lemmy.world 26 points 11 hours ago

This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen

Congratulations I guess?

[-] nobody158@sh.itjust.works 41 points 14 hours ago

Imo the fan one is better. They should have done the red lipstick with a smirk rather than green and looking bored.

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 17 points 12 hours ago

I read the text before the post title and thought it was some witchymemes joke rant about people stereotyping witches which would have been kinda funny. A shame that she's serious.

[-] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago

As an occultist, I was offended. /s

[-] scbasteve7@lemm.ee 60 points 16 hours ago

If it was her decision that her full face should be on display, the backlash should be evidence enough that someone else gets paid to make those decisions, not her.

The original looks boring. She has absolutely no emotions on her face. There's no mystique, no 'wickedness'. Even the composition looks like something a high schooler in Photoshop class would make.

The edit isn't perfect either. But at least it pays homage to the original in more than just image. It adds that mystique back, and makes her look more menacing.

What it truly boils down to is ego. Although the edit is better, and so many people agree on it, it doesn't show her full face. And she can't let that go.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 29 points 16 hours ago

Guaranteed this whole thing came up before that it didn't match the style. She showed her cards and now makes it sound like she was the one who pushed against matching the original. Now that the fans see it and dislike it (probably like they warned that fans would), she's mad about it. It really sounds like she pushed for this design so it wouldn't hide her face and now she's furious that fans reacted in the exact way that was predicted.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 27 points 17 hours ago

Nerve status: Struck

As we all know snapping at the fans, especially over matters of source material accuracy, always works out well for everyone involved in the making of the adaptation.

[-] Banichan@dormi.zone 19 points 16 hours ago

Fans did a service on that one

[-] bigbrowncommie69@hexbear.net 16 points 18 hours ago

Yeah unless there's any black women who want to educate us on the reality that black women have been historically had their eyes erased or something, this is just fucking weird.

They didn't even like try to edit her to make her "more white" or something, like in terms of her facial features.

Sometimes people are seriously just oversensitive and looking for enemies where there are none.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 11 points 18 hours ago

As a white person I'm definitely not the one to say if that's bad or not - but yeah that would be 100% a teaching moment - because I am not aware of anything like that. Instead of slamming down the hammer of "most offensive thing I've ever seen" for what I can only see as a fan poster that's mimicing one that already exists she could have said something like "I understand why they did this, but here is why I disagree with it". Personally as a fan of wicked, I was disappointed by the poster. Not enough to make my own, but the original poster was iconic to me.

[-] bigbrowncommie69@hexbear.net 8 points 17 hours ago

Agreed. And the biggest issue for me with the official poster is the lack of vibrancy. It's the drab "serious adult reboot" colours for some reason.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 17 hours ago

Makes me worried they completely missed the mark for what Wicked as a show was and Hollywood'ed it all up

[-] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 17 hours ago

She didn't mention race in her complaint. What makes you believe it's a factor?

[-] Dragonstaff@leminal.space -3 points 13 hours ago

How specifically similar to this instance does the erasure of Black women need to be? Yes, Black women are dehumanized all the time. It's common for movies to turn Black people into animals and objectify Black women in any number of ways.

That is what is offensive about the fan edit. In the original movie poster she is a person. Her eyes are meant to connect with the viewer. The fan edit specifically takes that away from her.

[+] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -26 points 16 hours ago

I mean that fan poster looks terrible, so I get why she's pissed.

fans prefer that poster?

weirdos.

[-] Darkard@lemmy.world 17 points 13 hours ago

[+] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -32 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

let people enjoy erasing someone's face and hurting their feelings?

that's not okay and it's offensive and shameful to defend them.

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Being a public figure or an actor in a piece of art invites criticism. If they can't handle that basic fact, get a new career or a therapist

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -3 points 3 hours ago

"Being a public figure or an actor in a piece of art invites criticism"

being an actor does not invalidate a person's feelings.

"If they can't handle that basic fact"

she is handling it by expressing herself, letting people know what erasing her image makes her feel like.

your disrespect and dismissal of her personal feelings is disgusting.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 9 points 7 hours ago

She's literally playing a fantasy witch who has already been played by dozens of other actresses. She's the only one out of all of the previous ones to get upset about this.

If she wants to be noticed for her face, then playing an iconic villain who has been played so many times before isn't her place to be. Fans care about elphaba, her character. She is new to the franchise and making demands of fans who have loved the character much longer than she's been in it.

[+] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -7 points 5 hours ago

fanart is valid.

she is not "making demands".

The actor is telling people that it hurts her for them to erase her face from the poster.

"She's literally playing a fantasy witch who has already been played by dozens of other actresses."

that does not make this actor less of a person who deserves basic courtesy and respect.

"She's the only one out of all of the previous ones to get upset about this."

being erased is upsetting. she is allowed to be upset.

"If she wants to be noticed for her face, then playing an iconic villain who has been played so many times before isn't her place to be"

victim blaming.

Just play the character, we don't care who you are.

shameful.

"She is new to the franchise"

you should still respect her feelings.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Her feelings are unjustified and come off as narcissistic. I would be more open to the idea that she was being erased if she wasn't on literally every other poster for the movie. Fans made a poster that they felt more closely resembles the original poster from the franchise that was made over 20 years ago. To assume anything else is a very large stretch.

For her to react this negatively over a fan making their own version of a poster says a great deal more about her, and to me does more damage to her reputation than a poster ever could.

There are literally entire sites and databases dedicated to fan generated poster art. The entire Harry Potter series has thousands of posters that don't include the actors faces and are based off the books. Are those "erasing" the actors? Have we seen Ian mckellan go on a tirade because fans made a two towers poster that doesn't include his face? No, because it's not about them and they don't care.

If her feelings are hurt over one tiny person making a poster that doesn't include her face then that's her problem she needs to tackle herself, not dump on the people who were excited to see her play elphaba.

So yeah. I'm not accepting the victim blaming title because i don't see her as a victim. She made herself a victim in her own mind when one fan did this. You know who I see as the victim? The fan who was probably really excited to see this movie, so excited they made their own poster, and then had the Hollywood celebrity call them out publicly who now has people like you defending her for basically calling this person (who again all we know is just a super big Wicked fan) basically the devil

Literally all she had to do was nothing and it would have passed with no one noticing.

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works -3 points 3 hours ago

"Her feelings are unjustified and come off as narcissistic."

her own feelings are justified and not subject to your or anyone's approval.

her feelings are justified.

they come off as narcissistic only to you because you do not see her as deserving of feelings.

this is your problem, not hers.

"For her to react this negatively over a fan making their own version of a poster says a great deal more about her, and to me does more damage to her reputation than a poster ever could."

her reaction does not invalidate her feelings or her basic humanity, both of which you are shamefully dismissing as irrelevant.

"Have we seen Ian mckellan go on a tirade because fans made a two towers poster that doesn't include his face?"

this situation is about a different person, Cynthia erivo, whose feelings were hurt, not Ian, whose feelings were not hurt.

"that's her problem she needs to tackle herself,"

she is. she is explaining her feelings to the public, which as an actor is very natural.

she isn't attacking other people, she didn't "dump on the people", she is explaining how she was hurt and how this feels to her, personally.

read her statement, you apparently have no idea what it says.

"now has people like you defending her for basically calling this person (who again all we know is just a super big Wicked fan) basically the devil."

neither erivo in her statement nor i here have called the creator " basically the devil" or attacked this person at all, in any way.

we're talking about the feelings of Cynthia, and her basic humanity, which you are shamefully dismissing as irrelevant.

there was no attack in this statement, it is an explanation of how she feels as a result of being erased from a work she cares about.

you don't respect and are dismissing her perspective, feelings and her right to express her feelings, which is offensive and shameful of you.

[-] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 8 hours ago

Well I think it was offensive of Cynthia to erase the original artist's vision and it's shameful of you to defend her.

Both of you have hurt my feelings, and therefore you are in the wrong.

[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 11 points 12 hours ago

When you are an actor portraying a character, especially a character that is a cultural touchstone, you are lending your voice and appearance to that character.

I understand the emotional reaction but I think many actors would say, 'that isn't your face they are retouching, it is your character's. Learn the difference for best results.'

this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024

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