No matter what a film is actually about, the marketing leading up to its release is going to be the initial impression that the audience has going into it. If done poorly, it can lead to people not realizing what a story is actually about, and even discounting a movie because of it. A lot of films have this problem, especially when their trailers don’t do a good job of conveying what the actual message or plot line of the movie is going to be about.
Recently, there has been a discussion around this very topic with the upcoming movieDon’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde. Florence Pugh, one of the stars of the film, even criticized the way the movie has been marketed herself, and it has led some people to become concerned that the marketing of the movie is going against the very themes that the film is actually trying to explore. So much of the marketing has been focused on the men and the sex present in the movie, to the point where a lot of people aren’t even aware of what story the film is trying to tell in the first place.
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Don’t Worry Darlingis a thriller that follows a 1950’s housewife (Florence Pugh) who lives in a utopian community with her husband (Harry Styles), as she begins to suspect that something disturbing may be lurking under the surface of their supposedly ideal society. This is something that was made clear even fromthe initial trailer, but this plot was ultimately overshadowed by the rest of the marketing, as many people weren’t even aware that the movie was supposed to be a thriller.
This is due to the fact that the initial trailer drew a lot of buzz for including clips of intimate sex scenes between Pugh and Styles' characters, which was the element that soon dominated the conversation surrounding the movie. Even though they tried to make it clear what the movie was about, the raunchy scenesinvolving Harry Styleswere the main thing that the cultural conversation wanted to talk about. People who hadn’t watched the full trailer and only saw clips of the sex scenes online came away with the wrong impression of what the film is about, and were shocked to later learn thatDon’t Worry Darlingis actually a dark social commentary.
In arecent interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Pugh herself commented on this, saying, “When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry…Obviously, the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that. That’s just not what I’m going to be discussing because [this movie is] bigger and better than that. And the people who made it are bigger and better than that.” While the debauchery of the ’50s and sex itself is part of what the movie focuses on, it’s not the only thing - or even the main thing - that should be getting attention from the media when the project is about so much more than that.
So much of the conversation aroundDon’t Worry Darlinghas been dominated not bythe actual movie itself, but by the drama surrounding those involved in making it, specifically Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles' rumored (but never officially confirmed) relationship behind the scenes. The relationship and the subsequent media coverage of it have been more on the forefront of most people’s minds than the film itself, once again proving Pugh’s point that the public interest in the film is more about Styles' involvement than anything else, since he’s one of the biggest pop stars on the planet right now. The movie which is fundamentally about male control over women is being overshadowed by one man who happens to be in it.
This isn’t Styles' fault, of course, but it’s more the fault of the society that is more interested in him than the movie itself, and the marketing feeds into that. The trailers and other marketing surrounding the film never forget to remind the viewer thatHarry Styles is one of the starsof the movie. Including the clips of the sex scene between him and Pugh in the trailer just serves as a way to pique interest by providing shock and awe (as most people aren’t expecting to see something like that in a trailer), but it makes it seem like the movie is just about sex when it’s really about so much more.
It wouldn’t even be a problem if the film was focused on sex, necessarily, but it clearly bothers both Pugh and others who have been anticipating the film that a story with such feminist themes is being reduced to being “the movie where Florence Pugh and Harry Styles have sex”, when that’s just one small aspect of it. So many people didn’t even know that the film is a thriller, which just shows that the marketing hasn’t been focused on the right things. It makes sense that they might want todrum up attentionfor the film by using Styles' stardom to their advantage, but when it overshadows everything else and even conflicts with the very theme of the film itself, then there’s a larger problem that needs to be addressed.
Maybe all of it is a clever ploy to get the conversation flowing about how society is more interested in the actions of men than they are in any ofthe women around them, as that would fit with whatDon’t Worry Darlingis about, but it’s more likely that it’s just a very tone-deaf misstep on the part of the marketing team. It’s reminiscent of howThe Hunger Gamesbecame such a huge cultural event and spectacle when the story itself is a critique about capitalism making pain and suffering into a spectacle. Sometimes that’s simply the nature of things in the entertainment industry, as they become the very idea that they were trying to destroy in the first place.
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