Thursday, January 24, 2008

Seeing Double


I have always been struck by the similarities between these two movie posters. The first one is for ANGEL (1984), a movie about a teenage girl who is described as a "High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood Hooker by Night". The second poster is for ICE PRINCESS (2005) and this movie is about a teenage girl that goes "From small town Mathlete, To big time Athlete". In both posters the "good" girl is on the left chastely holding her books with her normal world featured in the background and on the right, the "bad" girl is displayed all tarted up for her secret life as Sin City looms behind her. Both girls have their backs to their secret other life showing that they are two sides to the same coin, different but essentially the same. They are going to have to decide which world to live in, but the hard line drawn down the middle of the poster tells us that once the decision is made, there's no going back. It's not going to be an easy decision to make because in both posters the normal world suffers from inclement weather as the storm clouds gather in Angel's world and the Ice Princess' farm has been immobilized by snow, but Sin City sparkles with clear skies and promises of fun.

Obviously, these movies aren't the same. ANGEL is a gritty low budget B movie about an underage girl that hooks when her family abandons her and ICE PRINCESS is a family friendly Disney picture about a young girl who wants to be a professional ice skater. Yet, I can't help but wonder why the same images were used to promote both movies. Is this how Hollywood sees teenage girls or am I reading too much into this?

4 comments:

*Mark* said...

great minds think alike I guess, Brian.
I saw that Ice Princess poster years ago and immediately thought: ANGEL '84 !!

wasn't Susan Tyrell fantastic as foul-mouthed Solly
when she called Dick Shawn a c-nt.

Mr. Sophistication said...

That's really funny. I just put Angel in my Netflix queue last week. Haven't ever met anyone that's even heard about it.

Donna Lethal said...

If someone tried to remake "Angel" today they'd probably get arrested.

Donna Lethal said...

I can't find a copy of the cover, but back in the early 90s, "Mrs. Guardian Angel," Lisa Sliwa, aka Lisa Evers, did a self-defense video. On the cover it said, "High-fashion model by day, Guardian Angel by night!" I never saw her in any "high fashion" magazines, but the cover was pure "Angel."