Trailer pulled from some screenings in B.C. after dad complains
LANGLEY — A father is calling on theatres to ensure that familyfriendly movies are not spoiled before they start after an uncomfortable outing with his daughter prompted Cineplex to pull a trailer from certain screenings in B.C.
Mike Mitchell said he and his wife took their nine-year-old daughter to a Cineplex theatre in Langley last weekend to see The Miracle Season, a Vancouver-shot drama about a girls’ volleyball team that bands together in the face of adversity.
But before the feel-good flick could get underway, a preview for an upcoming film starring Amy Schumer left the parents feeling horrified, Mitchell said.
His jaw dropped as his daughter watched an unclothed Schumer seducing a potential beau in the trailer for I Feel Pretty. The comedy is about an insecure woman, who after suffering a head injury, believes she has been transformed into a would-be model.
The trailer also shows Schumer shimmying on stage as she partakes in a wet T-shirt contest.
Mitchell said he felt the preview was too explicit for the girlpowered volleyball movie’s young target audience. He was equally troubled by what he perceived to be the I Feel Pretty trailer’s subtext — that a woman’s self-worth is determined by her body image and sex appeal.
“Anxiety, body awareness — these are very, very tender and current issues among teenage and tween-age girls exposed to this,” he said. “What I saw, through a child’s mind, is: ‘If I get naked, I get accepted.’ ”
Cineplex responded to Mitchell’s concerns by removing the I Feel Pretty trailer from the lineup for the G-rated The Miracle Season at the seven B.C. theatres screening the movie.
“We’re in the business of entertaining our guests, and if they found it made them uncomfortable, then we wanted to respect that feedback,” Cineplex spokeswoman Sarah Van Lange said. “If others are upset or had concerns with it, we’re happy to listen to that.”
Of the three or four trailers that are shown before a movie, Van Lange said Cineplex selects about half of the movies being previewed, while the rest are recommended by the film’s distributor. She could not immediately say who made the call to show the I Feel Pretty trailer at Mitchell’s screening.
Trailer lineups at Cineplex screenings can vary from theatre to theatre, she said. The company considers a variety of factors such as a film’s genre, target audience and ratings to select previews that jive with the feature film, Van Lange said.
I Feel Pretty has been designated a PG-rated feature film, according to Consumer Protection B.C.
The consumer watchdog’s director of motion-picture classification said it receives public complaints about trailers only once every two or three years.
“This is a really isolated incident, but it’s something we do take seriously,” Steve Pelton said.
While Mitchell is pleased that Cineplex has taken action, he is proposing that theatres screen trailers only for movies that have the same rating as the feature film they paid to see.
“I took my child to a children’s film, and was shown an adult trailer,” he said. “I want to be given the choice.”
Mitchell insists that he is not a “prude.” It’s not just nudity and sexual innuendo he’s concerned about, but how his daughter is processing these subjects he thinks are beyond her years.
In the I Feel Pretty trailer, Schumer tries to entice a male suitor by showing off her naked body as a “sneak peak of what’s to come.”