I’m all for questioning marketing aimed at kids, but thisseems to me to be uninformed pearl-clutching at its most ridiculous:
Seriously? This argument is premised on the idea that PG-13 movies and comic books are both exclusively aimed at children. Trust me, I’ve got a 40 year old who will happily regale me with the finer details of the Hulk’s showdown with Wolverine, or why the Green Lantern movie wasn’t really boring and incomprehensible, if you know the story already. I’m also pretty sure there were a lot of 21-40 men who thought that commercial was amusing and appealing.
I really want these people to sit down and read some of Alan Moore’s more twisted work and experience a total nervous breakdown as they imagine all the children reading these comics!
Can Wolverine get drunk with a healing factor? I’m sure there’s some in-universe explanation…
Well, he’s Canadian. He should sell Molson, the beer that Candians try to pretend is actually different, better, and higher alcohol content compared to Coors (guess which are true).
As someone who has followed Wolverine since X-Men #96, selling beer sounds entirely in character. In fact, I expect him to be pitch-man for cigars next.
There is a mindset that comic books are for children and that’s that. There was a case about ten years ago where a comic book retailer was convicted of selling an adult comic, market as adult and kept in a section that said “Adults only.” The prosecution said “comics are for children” and argued that the comics were to entice kids to read the obscenity.
Ahhh! I’m 30 and I love Wolverine. What is more apropos than beer?
I’ve been reading my husband’s old Wolverine comic books, along with pretty much everything else X-men. The 1980s and 1990s Marvel books are full of advertisements for action figures and toys.
Right now I’m collecting the current title Wolverine and the X-men. You know what they advertise now? Life insurance.
On the one hand, I see your point: it’s ludicrous to think all comic books are written for or solely enjoyed by or even marketed to children (especially under 12). There is a heavy market of adults interested in comic books, including titles like X-men.
On the other hand, there is extensive marketing of X-men to children. So it’s not ridiculous to think that children (or at least teenagers) will be watching these commercials on TV and connecting them with material that they are interested in watching and expected to have access to. Thus the concern that the marketing campaign is a sneaky way to market to teenagers.
It is a complicated topic when one product is exclusively limited to adults and a different product has cross-market appeal. If the ad campaign were limited to bars and premovie ads for Rated R movies, etc, then it could be more strongly argued it is not intended to interest teenagers. That would also reduce the visibility of the campaign to the claimed adult market, and thus the effectiveness of the campaign.