To each their own, Rose is absolutely right, but for me it's obvious that that's the point of the promo. It shows how dangerous Apocalypse is. I can't imagine people seeing this image and thinking it's cool to choke someone. It's the complete opposite feeling.
I don't see how this specifically relates to abuse to women. Apocalypse is violent to everyone (and in fact some male characters suffer more in the movie). The movie definitely doesn't say it's ok to use violence.
Fox shouldn't apologize.
While you and I are mostly in agreement, Rose McGowan is absolutely right about nothing.
There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film...There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled. The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and, frankly, stupid.
1. This is not casual violence. This is not a man choking a helpless woman because she spilled a glass of milk. This is an image of a physical conflict between two super-powered beings as the fate of the world is in serious danger.
2. This is not even an image of "just a woman getting strangled" by a man. I've never seen regular men or women who like these two in real life, but I admit, I haven't traveled the world all that much. Maybe Apocalypse and Mystique resemble actual people from some remote country?
3. The tagline of "Only the strong will survive" has been on every poster for the film, and not just this one with Mystique.
4. Mystique is a main protagonist of this film. Many action movie marketing campaigns have highlighted protagonists (both male and female) who are in danger of being hurt or killed by an antagonist. This is nothing new. It's a marketing technique, and there are people who will want to see whether or not this character (who I'm sure some/many fans care about) is able to escape from this precarious position.
5. There's no context in the ad? Well, I suppose for those people who have never heard of the "X-Men" and haven't seen any of the films or commercials/trailers for the film before, they might see that billboard and go, "Look, there's a blue guy choking a blue lady. Wonder what the deal with that is."
However, for most people who don't live under a rock and at least have peripheral awareness of the franchise, the title alone (showing that it's an ad for an X-Men movie with an ominous subtitle) should provide more than enough context to grasp what's going on in the image -- one mutant trying to kill another mutant. And anyone who's at least seen one more X-Men films (consisting of 8 films, 6 of which feature Mystique) or have had any contact with other kinds of X-Men media will absolutely have any and all context needed to understand the poster and recognize that it isn't attempting to glamorize violence against women.
6. Beyond that, Mystique is probably the furthest possible thing from a helpless damsel in distress, or a victim of abuse. In every one of her film appearances, she's been showing to be kicking the living **** out of men (and women), and even murdering several.
This whole thing is just another ridiculously pointless "issue" for people to pretend they're offended by. Rose McGowan, in particular, is likely desperate to have her name in the media in anyway possible. She is probably the least important person in Hollywood right now. Her biggest claim to fame of this decade will be "Rose was offended by an X-Men billboard and got the studio the apologize", literally.
Setting all that aside, I will say that this movie poster/billboard is probably one of the worst, laziest, and most uninspired/uninventive movie posters I've ever seen. It's just awful in every way.
