The Oscar-nominated film Green Book is controversial for many reasons, chief among them is its problematic treatment of race in the United States, but it’s causing a much less serious stir in the Philippines for its, er, interesting promotional poster.
Viral online this week is this piece of work, which looks more like a grade school project than a Hollywood movie poster. Apart from the mismatched clipart and funky font, the tagline also reads like copywriter took on the “bad description of a good movie” challenge.
The Philippine tagline reads, “Driver, bodyguard, problem solver, and a true friend,” technically not wrong but a laughable oversimplification.
Green Book is comedy-drama based on the relationship between African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his driver and bodyguard the Italian-American Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), who drive through the American South in the 1960s.
The film was meant to portray an unlikely friendship that helps both characters grow but it’s been criticized for using narrative and racial tropes. The Shirley family has also disputed the film’s entire premise and said that the two men were never actually friends.
Despite the backlash, the film received five nominations for the upcoming Oscars, including one for Best Picture.
Netizens have been sharing digital versions of the Philippine poster online and The Guardian‘s website has even written about it, but Coconuts Manila wanted to see if the poster is actually being used out in the wild.
We visited our local cinema and found out that, yes, it exists.
As a comparison, here’s Green Book’s more muted international poster.
Netizens were perplexed by the Philippine poster’s graphics.
Filipino film critics Philbert Dy tweeted: “The local poster of Green Book is insane.”
The local poster of Green Book is insane. pic.twitter.com/AJwrJAc19x
— Phil Dy (@philbertdy) February 6, 2019
“The day has finally come! The day [I] get to use/tweet this monstrosity of a poster,” netizen @harounsiladjan wrote, followed by a Philippine flag and a laughing emoji.
https://twitter.com/harounsiladjan/status/1093035964929196033
@macjohnearl had to see it to believe it. “[H]oly sh*t that Philippine version of the Green Book poster is real I thought it was just satire,” he said.
https://twitter.com/macjohnearl/status/1092811796329652225
@bisexualcolin did not know how to react at all. “[T]he poster of green book for my country…… no words…. absolutely no words.”
https://twitter.com/bisexualcolin/status/1092808014137094145
Did you see this poster in your cinema? What was your first reaction? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @CoconutsManila.
