Yup, this is what we do with our long weekends in this house...

[mstakenidentity]

As many of you know, Omniprop Productions will be performing Aristophanes Lysistrata at the Melbourne Fringe Festival later this year. It will be represented in the Fringe Guide by this image:



The question is, should we also use this image for the poster? So far we think yes if only because we can't be arsed doing that much work on it again. We though we should get some quick opinions from others, so I said I'd ask the internet.

Internet? Think this would make a good poster?

Comments

[whooz-queen.livejournal.com]

Im going to be the naysayer. I don't like it because of the lingerie. I could live with it if the female figure had white drapes instead of modern lingerie.

I wish that less female submissive photography would be used for this type of thing, Im tired of it in modern advertising. Yes it gets attention quickly and easily, but is it really the message we want to put out there?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Sorry to jump in here, but I actually like the lingerie. It makes a wonderful series of contrasts - against the sheet, the model and you've got this awesome split between this ultra-modern clothing and the wee little Greek soldiers. Finally, I think it would have really washed out the model's skin to have her only in white, on a white background - she's already quite pale and there's a good change that she'd come across as even paler that way.

[mstakenidentity.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thank you. It is good to know how the image comes across to others.

I actually liked the lingerie because there is a bit of fuss made in the play about the women putting on their "see-through underwear". I'm a classics nerd- I like referencing the text in the image :-)

The way I hoped the shot would come across, is that women's bodies- and their sexuality- are a battlefield. In the play the women deliberately and overtly exploit their usually submissive sexual role and use it to invert their political and military roles. The woman is big, strong, alive; the men are small, impotent plastic figures- game pieces if you will.

And in the last scene of the play a naked women is brought on stage and the soldiers use her as a map of Greece to work out boundaries, which we were trying to reference, but if we had her naked it would limit where we could advertise our play (and frankly, as the model, I wouldn't do it).

I think for now we'll stick with this image, but sincerely, thank you for the feedback- I will keep thinking about it, and about other ways to get the same ideas across.

[whooz-queen.livejournal.com]

I know, its hard, and I can appreciate the work that you've put into it.

I guess that to me that the image is not 'big, strong, alive' woman. She (you) is lying down, faceless, soft, submissive, secondary to the action on the stomach. If you'd used a board and had the female's face scowling over it, I would call that more female dominant as an image. Or two women facing each other, side on, over a battlefield/chess board situation. Ideas, bum, pulling them out thereof. :)

[harkon.livejournal.com]

Actually the image looks fairly different if you rotate it clockwise. The only thing that makes it look a bit wrong is the position of the little men.

[fasangel.livejournal.com]

But that isn't the message of the play. The illusion of women being submissive and secondary, basically powerless is part of the subtext (or even full text) of the play, compared to the illusion of the powerful soldiers and their weapons controlling everything.

[fnoo.livejournal.com]

You know me, and I know me, and I really can't believe I'm saying this, but..

I agree.

People are going to look at the ad because of the bare stomach and lingerie and then turn away when they realise it's about some classics play.

It's also probably going to make some of the people that you actually want to attract to the performance vaguely uncomfortable, especially if it's plastered everywhere.

[fnoo.livejournal.com]

.. good photo, though. I'm just not sure that it's a good idea to put it to this use.

[nclean.livejournal.com]

You think that sleazy-oggler-types will be deterred because it's "some classics play"? Wow, I must have a very different view of classics play from others because to me, classics plays default to ending either in everyone dying or in orgies. Or possibly both. Possibly lethal beatings with oversized phalluses.

[fnoo.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a sleazy-ogler type... yeah, probably.

The venn diagram in my head says that the ogler circle is huge compared to the classics circle, and while there's significant overlap... wouldn't it be better to just target the classics people directly? :)

[mc-shamo.livejournal.com]

This one ends in an orgy.

It also has more erection jokes than you can poke a stick at (and they're of about that standard).

[nclean.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that you're going to be staging the orgy??? Wow, that is being bold. Hats off to you!

[mc-shamo.livejournal.com]

Will that make you buy a ticket?