The hit Britcom Pride told of the alliance in the mid-1980s between gay activists and striking miners – miners on strike, that is, as opposed to men who look especially fetching in headlamps. The movie could hardly be accused of shoving its characters’ sexuality down the viewer’s throat. Shoving anything down anyone’s throat was out of bounds for this oddly chaste movie where men only get in bed together to cuddle, sex toys are brandished exclusively by middle-aged women in gales of laughter, and same-sex kisses are confined to the shadows. But it was still too much for the US home entertainment market, where every trace of the words “lesbian” and “gay” has been expunged from the DVD and Blu-ray versions, with activists referred to on the cover blurb as “London-based” rather than gay. It would be a nice instance of reappropriation if this term caught on as a euphemism: “Mum … Dad … I’ve got something to tell you. I’m … I’m … London-based!”

But Pride is far from the first film to be mis-sold by its own marketing. Here are eight other betrayals-by-poster …

What incredible crash diet did Melissa McCarthy go on in preparation for her comedy-cop movie with Sandra Bullock? After all, everyone knows that her breakthrough movie, Bridesmaids, would have made more than a measly $288m worldwide if only she had sported a waist the width of a champagne flute. But guess what? There was no diet. It was the film’s distributor 20th Century Fox, who ungraciously subtracted approximately 30lbs from the star with Photoshop.

Instant weight loss … poster for The Heat (left) and Melissa McCarthy as she looked in the film. Photograph: Allstar/20th Century Fox

There was an outcry when Steve McQueen’s slavery drama was promoted in Italy using enormous likenesses of Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender. Neither man is the star of the film (Pitt only has a cameo) and both are conspicuously caucasian. The actual star, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is reduced to a tiny near-silhouette beneath them. Defenders argued that whatever tactics persuaded audiences to see the picture were justified. Critics bristled at the idea that any movie, but especially this one, should wear whiteface for marketing.

Who was the slave? 12 Years a Slave film poster for Italy (left) and the UK version (right). Photograph: Allstar

The US poster for Stephen Frears’s film about the life and death of the promiscuous gay playwright Joe Orton suffered a more subtle slight than that visited on Pride – more of a fudging than a disavowal of content. While the UK poster featured the title in garish pink, curving upwards to suggest a phallus in a state of some excitement, American audiences were enticed instead with the promise of a tasteful (though entirely non-existent) love triangle between Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina and Vanessa Redgrave (who played Orton’s agent, Peggy Ramsay).

Ménage à trois? The UK poster for Prick Up Your Ears (right) and the US version suggesting a love triangle. Photograph: BFI

It was never likely that London Underground would wave through explicit advertising materials for a French cruising-and-killing thriller that put the “cock” in “Hitchcockian”. But the naked figure being discreetly pleasured in the background of the gaily-coloured UK poster had to be removed. This left behind his sexual partner, the one who had originally been doing the pleasuring, but who now appeared to be doing pressups. One final touch: snazzy shorts for all the formerly-nude men on the poster.

Where’s he gone? The original Stranger by the Lake poster (left) and the version for London Underground with shorts and man left doing press-ups. Photograph: PR

Fans of this unloved Matthew Horne/James Corden comedy are thin on the ground. So the number who were bothered about the concealment on the DVD cover of the first word in the title must scarcely reach double figures. But all of us should defend a film’s right to be called Lesbian Vampire Killers. We must even – and this is a bitter pill to swallow – defend the right of Horne and Corden to make the film without the threat of censorship. A spokesperson from the distributor said: “We were asked by a number of retailers to cover up certain parts of the cover, and we complied with their requests.” Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda were among those that sold the censored cover, but all denied requesting its delesbianisation.

You’ve been warned … Lesbian Vampire Killers DVD cover (left) and the version for supermarkets (right). Photograph: PR

The Dixie Chicks ignited controversy when they declared themselves in 2003 to be not only opposed to the invasion of Iraq but ashamed to hail from the same state as the then president George W Bush. Their subsequent revilement in the rightwing US media is detailed in this documentary. Its posters revisited an image from the cover of Entertainment Weekly, in which the trio had appeared naked and daubed with contradictory slogans including “Proud Americans”, “Saddam’s Angels” and “Dixie Sluts”. The US poster added towels to the band members’ bodies, while both that and the Canadian advertising doctored the slogans, changing “Sluts” to “Bimbos” and excising completely “Saddam’s Angels”.

Coverup … Shut up & Sing Film Canadian poster (left) and with added towels for US (right). Photograph: PR

The UK poster for this witless Vince Vaughn marriage-counselling comedy attracted justified complaints when it became apparent that all the cast members were featured except for the African-American couple played by Faizon Love and Kali Hawk. The US equivalent rectified this error, though it still consigned them to the background. One irony is that it’s the sort of film that its stars might now “forget” to include on their CVs: it may be that Love and Hawk ended up being luckier than they realised at the time.



Forgotten someone? Couples Retreat film poster without Faizon Love and Kali Hawk (left) and with (right). Photograph: PR

This Belgian mockumentary, purporting to follow a hitman around as he blithely dispatches his targets, was released amid a furore over screen violence in the early 1990s. While its poster obeyed the rule that any guns in advertising must be aimed neither at the camera nor at any figures within the image, the sight of a baby’s blood-spattered dummy proved controversial. It was changed to a pair of dentures in those territories where baby-killing is frowned on but the slaughter of the elderly or toothless continues to provide general amusement.

