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Movie Marketing

Movie Marketing Madness: The Danish Girl

danish_girl2015 has been a big year for movies that reflect where we are in society. Freeheld told the story of a landmark case in the fight for benefits for same-sex couples. Carol was all about tearing down preconceived notions and societal norms and accepting that, as many people say, “love is love” and should be at least accepted if not celebrated and certainly not shamed or reviled. We’re at a cultural moment where, as I’ve said before, things are changing pretty fast and movies are reflecting that, albeit at maybe a slower pace than TV and other video content is.

Now we have The Danish Girl. The movie tells the story of Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikandar). When Gerda needs a model for a painting of a woman she gets her husband to pose, but doing so opens up something within him. He adopts the female persona of Lili and begins dressing in women’s clothing, becoming more and more feminine over time, eventually coming to terms with the feeling that he really is, or was meant to be, a women. Finally he seeks out gender reassignment surgery and becomes the first recorded person to undergo that surgery.

The Posters

Just the one poster was created and released. It shows Redmayne as Liki, not Einar, in front of Vikander. So it’s an image of two striking women who are obviously close. Choosing to show Redmayne as Lili means they’re going all-in on the major selling point of the movie, which is not only that performance but also the conceit of the gender identity issue. The whole image is kind of washed out, giving it a nice classic touch.

The bonafides of the cast and crew are at the top, including director Hopper’s previous prestige movies and Redmayne’s Oscar win. And at the bottom we get a bit of copy that sounds like it could be pulled from 2015: “Find the courage to be yourself.”

The Trailers

The first trailer opens by showing what appears to be a pretty standard period romance as Redmayne and Vikandar are obviously in love as a new married couple. But then a joke involving her asking him to put on a dress to pose for a painting shifts something in him and the rest of the run time shows Redmayne’s character dealing with the repercussions of that, including becoming “Lily” first in name and dress and then seeking what would turn out to be the world’s first gender-reassignment surgery.

We move much more quickly to the heart of the matter in the second trailer, which makes sense since it’s only a minute long. So this one skips much of the prelude and gets right to Redmayne’s character dealing with the confusion he struggles with and the decision he finally makes.

This one is a little less effective just because, without the scene-setting intro we aren’t as invested in the characters by the time we get to the issues of transition and identity. Still good, and buoyed by the critical blurbs it includes, but not as moving as the first one.

Online and Social

The official website isn’t very robust, but that’s not unexpected given this is a small release.

The second trailer appears at the top of the page, with both trailers as well as the TV spot in the “Inside the Film” section. After that there’s a brief “Synopsis” followed by a gallery of “Photos” that contains both stills and behind the scenes images.

danish_girl pic 1

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

This isn’t the kind of movie that has a ton of potential for promotional partners so there were none. But there was at least some TV advertising do with commercials that played like mini-trailers, showing Einer’s transformation into Lili and the stress it causes on his marriage as well as the reactions from people around him who declare him insane.

Media and Publicity

The movie was on a lot of “most-anticipated movies” list for the last quarter of the year, but press really picked up as it debuted at Venice at the outset of festival season. That included lots of coverage of Redmayne and the amount of research he did to accurately portray a transgender person and how this could be another in a string of awards-worthy performances for the actor. There was also some discussion of how Vikander gives an outstanding performance and how the movie is as much about her journey as the spouse as it is about the character who’s actually going through the transition. Close to release Redmayne made an appearance on a popular LGBT YouTube channel to discuss why he took the role and more.

One of the major points of the publicity was how this movie fit into a long line of culturally and societally tolerant bits of culture from Denmark, which has a long history of both sexually open cultural conversations and such. That story would also talk about how the cast and director came to the project and what they were trying to do by telling this story.

danish_girl pic 2

There were some stories about the actual paintings themselves by the real-life pair and what they did or didn’t expose about who they were and what they felt, including how little Edgar revealed of his true nature in his works. That story also goes into detail about how the cast worked to recreate some of the paintings to make them more believable on-screen.

There was also coverage about how the script for the movie had been circulating around Hollywood for a decade or more, with projects planned but always falling apart at some point. Now, though, there was finally the right cultural moment for it to come to the screen with other pieces of pop culture having laid the groundwork it’s now being built on.

Redmayne would admit – bravely, I think – that until he started researching the role he was largely unaware of many of the issues surrounding the transgender community even today.

Overall

Again, this campaign – and indeed the movie as a whole – benefits greatly from happening at this particular moment in history. A year or two give or take and the reception would be very different. Indeed as some of the press above says, it didn’t happen because the cultural moment wasn’t quite right.

The campaign as a whole hits a nice consistent note, not only by focusing on Redmayne’s character and his emotional journey but just in the look and feel. The whole thing looks like a painting or a tintype photograph. That gives the campaign a timeless, classic look that’s wholly in keeping with the time period it’s set in. The movie has benefitted from strong word of mouth coming out of early screenings and this campaign should reinforce that with the general audience.

Discussion

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