I have a killer headache.

Plastered across every possible out-of-home format in Los Angeles:  buses, billboards, bus stops, digital billboards, wild postings– a single poster design is screaming out for attention.  Simple, clean, featuring the slim and attractive Mr. Kutcher and Ms. Heigl, two actors who, in a perfect world, would remain inside the TV box, overacting their way to obscurity, never to be rendered epically outsize by film.

I digress.

Yes, the movie’s going to be bad, and we can all tell that without even viewing the trailer, but the posters represent something deeply vile about American culture.

Killers.  Individuals who take the lives of others.  This is a solemn, irreversible, traumatic, godlike, primal, vicious, and serious transaction.

This movie poster contains no other implication of substance within the title than consumption of human life.  The man and woman used as actual letters in the word/title “Killers” literally embody the concept.   And this method of taking life must be accomplished by gunshot, no?  A happy Pantone pink gunshot splatter dots the i in the stark pink font.

Who are these judges of life and death?  Squeal!  It’s just a couple of silly jokesters, people!  Look how sexy they are, wielding their weapons of execution carelessly!  Even incorrectly!  Because how crazy is killing a dude, really?  You just have a gun, and then somebody’s dead.  Maybe they’re dead.  I dunno.  I dunno even how to hold this thing.  But I’m a killer, like, a hot one.  Lemme check my lipstick.Every time this ad assaults me, I get angry.  Anyone who’s ever had a friend shot, had a gun held to their head, experienced a holdup, needs a gun to protect themselves, or merely observes proper gun handling procedures would likely find this ad triggering.  (I’d use a word other than “triggering” so as not to be punny, but there’s no other term for this.  Telling.)

You don’t have to be part of that group to find it offensive in its ignorance.  But given the way America treats guns, murder, and violence in Hollywood films, it’s ingrained in our consciousness to accept it, laugh, and move on.  Simple, right? Maybe not, if you never had to deal with finding this.  NSFW.

What do you think about the Killers poster campaign?