Today’s pressing moral question is: Is Warner Bros. exploiting the tragic death of Heath Ledger in its marketing campaign for The Dark Knight? And the answer, in my book, is: No.
I say this with full awareness that big-budget studio productions need all the major marketing muscle they can get. And Warner has a right to recover its investment.
But the fact is, Ledger isn’t being pushed in our faces in trailers, TV spots or publicity any more than Jack Nicholson was when he played the same Joker character in Tim Burton’s original Batman. I mean, how do you preview and promote a movie featuring a wildly flamboyant villain like the Joker without showing the actor who plays him? It’s inevitable, and it’s not a case of heartless exploitation by Warner.
In fact, the only thing that’s bugged me about this film’s pre-release onslaught has been the preposterous floating of the notion that Ledger will be awarded an Oscar based on his performance.
I say this not because I believe his performance to be bad. I say it because it’s preposterous to start claiming someone is clearly an Oscar front-runner when we’ve got five-plus more months of movies for 2008 to see. Oscar nominations and victories are a case of the top five candidates being whittled down to the top one, and there will always be good performances (especially early in the year) which fall off the radar as stronger ones arise.
Since we haven’t seen dozens more performances to come, it makes no sense to start speculating about Oscar glory so prematurely. If Ledger pulls a Peter Finch and wins a supporting actor statuette, so be it. But to make that call now is idiotic. Besides, we’ll be flooded with enough Oscar hype and hooplah at year’s end, and by the awards show in February we’ll be sick of it. There’s no need to start beating a clamorous Oscar drum now — in July! I mean, get a life.
So what do you think? Is there anything heartlessly exploitative of Ledger in Warner’s marketing of The Dark Knight, beyond the fact that any major movie must exploit its star power to make money? And how does this campaign compare to, say, that of The Crow after Brandon Lee’s death? Also, beyond on-screen dedications, in what ways should proper respect be paid to an actor who dies before a film is released in which he performs?
Some might argue that the greatest respect of all is to make sure everyone sees it.
Popularity: 34% [?]
July 16th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
One proper way to pay respect to an actor who dies before a film is released in which he performs, is to dedicate the film to that person. Media-Selections, which has some of the movie commentary some of the time, shares the respect that you display for the dignity of artists by discussing this issue.