Anger Over X-Men Posters Showing Jennifer Lawrence Being Strangled

A storm is brewing over billboard posters promoting ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ in the US which show Jennifer Lawrence’s character being strangled.

The huge ads feature the strapline 'Only The Strong Will Survive’, and show Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse choking Mystique.

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Actress Rose McGowan is among those who have torn into the studio, sharing a post on her Facebook page which has slammed 20th Century Fox for using the image, declaring 'f**k this s**t’.

User Kelly Morgen appealed for others to share her post too, which reads: “I recently passed two billboards for the new X-Men: Apocalypse movie along 880-N, and IT WAS NOT OKAY.

“I felt angry, uncomfortable, and shocked to see a frightened woman being choked by a man. Given this freeway usually sports anti-domestic violence billboards, it was jarringly out of place. If this billboard bothers you, regardless of your gender, please repost and share this. The producers show know this sort of marketing is profoundly NOT OKAY.”

McGowan has since spoken the The Hollywood Reporter, calling the decision to use the image 'offensive and, frankly, stupid’.

“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,” she said.

“There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled. The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid.

“The geniuses behind this, and I use that term lightly, need to to take a long hard look at the mirror and see how they are contributing to society. Imagine if it were a black man being strangled by a white man, or a gay male being strangled by a hetero? The outcry would be enormous.

“So let’s right this wrong. 20th Century Fox, since you can’t manage to put any women directors on your slate for the next two years, how about you at least replace your ad?“

She went on to say: “I’ll close with a text my friend sent, a conversation with his daughter. It follows: ‘My daughter and I were just having a deep discussion on the brutality of that hideous X-Men poster yesterday. Her words: 'Dad, why is that monster man committing violence against a woman?’ This from a 9-year-old. If she can see it, why can’t Fox?”

Meanwhile New York blog EV Grieve has also posted a picture of one of the posters, which has been defaced with the message 'This violence in my kid’s face is not okay’.

X-Men expert and writer Jay Edidin added to THR: “It’s gratuitous, it’s offensive in completely useless ways. Offensive isn’t always necessarily bad, but this is offensive in ways that serve absolutely no purpose, and while it does depict a scene from the actual film, it’s also a terrible representation of the movie as a whole.”

Many have also taken to Twitter to voice their bafflement.

So far Fox has not commented on the matter.

Image credits: Fox/Twitter/EVGrieve