Amazon/MGM has decided to issue a trigger warning on Zoe Kravitz’s “Blink Twice,” which was originally called “Pussy Island” before the MPA forced Kravitz to change the title.
Kravitz’s directorial debut is set to hit theaters tomorrow, with Amazon opting to warn viewers of “upsetting” content in the #MeToo thriller, which was partly inspired by Jeffrey Epstein.
The film stars Naomi Ackie as a woman invited to join a tech billionaire (Channing Tatum) on his private island. You can only image what happens next. Amazon shared the trigger warning on social media ahead of the film’s release:
We are proud to finally share Blink Twice with audiences in theatres worldwide this week. “Blink Twice is a psychological thriller about the abuse of power, while this is a fictionalised movie, it contains mature themes and depictions of violence - including sexual violence. This may be upsetting or triggering for some viewers.
I can’t remember a studio ever posting a trigger warning on social media for one of their movies before. Is this going to become a thing now? If anything, it’s free publicity as it might lure more people to go see it.
“This kind of notice should definitely become a standard for movies going forward,” one social media said, while another praised: “Thank you for this message and I hope more movies will do this in the near future.”
Meanwhile, other users claimed Amazon’s trigger warning was “handholding” viewers and actually constituted “spoilers” of the film’s content.
Last week, Kravitz stated that the MPA told her that it wouldn’t advertise a film called “Pussy Island,” and this forced her to change the title to “Blink Twice.” “It was made very clear to me that “pussy” is a word that we, our society, are not ready to embrace yet,” Kravitz told Entertainment Weekly.
“There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, whether it be the MPAA not wanting to put it on a poster, or a billboard, or a kiosk; movie theatres not wanting to put it on a ticket.”
“Pussy Island” has been met with more than decent reviews. It currently stands at 71 on Metacritic and 77% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I’ve already tackled the recent trend of “trigger warnings.” Recently, Cate Blanchett, Quentin Tarantino, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes all rallied against its usage, which has been slapped on such classics as “Gone With the Wind,” “Goldfinger,” “Blazing Saddles,” and “Dumbo.”
Trigger warnings tend to treat audiences as little children. It comes out as a lecture, as if being told you’re too stupid to process a film, or work of art, on your own. You basically need to be talked down to. It amounts to an absolute insult to our intelligence.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.