The image above was taken from a movie poster advertisement for the 2018 Marvel Studios film Avengers: Infinity War. According to IMDb, this movie ranks in the #6 spot under the category of the Best Superhero Movies as of 2020.
As with my previous post on the Black Panther movie, this poster is very busy, and a little overwhelming to some at first glance. Let’s focus on the female and male characters on the poster. Remember to keep in mind that, in order to analyze this poster, we must take away any prior knowledge/backstory and view the poster as just that. Below, the Goffmanian Analysis will be used to analyze the poster:
- Relative Size = The vast difference in the ratio of women to men in film posters is evident here. Of the 20+ characters shown on this poster, only 7 are women. While some of the male characters are much smaller in size, the women are consistently smaller than the men. This seems to have been intentional to place more of the power on the males’ shoulders.
- Licensed Withdrawal = Looking at all 7 women, we can see that 6 of them do not make eye contact with the camera. While it can be argued that a few of them look powerful/strong in their stances/facial expressions, it is still giving them a sense of inactivity to have them look away from the camera. It doesn’t allow for the audience to connect with them as a person, rather as objects to be looked at.
Shared by: Maddie Glosny
Image Credit: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1t8xCe9jwL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
