Today's News: Charlie Sheen for president

I presented this to MovieScene the other day:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/148363/nieuwe_poster_charlie_sheen_voor_machete_kills


It's not the first Machete Kills poster I reported about (they tend to be released one at a time) and it's not the most good looking either (no scantily clad women here), but it's still a fascinating piece of advertising. And that's not so much because of Charlie Sheen's involvement, it's because of Carlos Estevez', which is Charlie's real name. But why did they use it on this poster? After all, the point of a character poster like this is to lure audiences to the movie in question by showcasing the popular actor(s) involved (if any). Granted, Charlie Sheen isn't exactly an audience draw the likes of Will Smith, Brad Pitt or Robert Downey Jr., but he's still fairly well known and has the potential to intrigue prospective viewers, if only because they're surprised to see him in this type of movie (the same way people were surprised to see Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan and Robert De Niro in the previous Machete film). But if you market your star actor with a name few people will know to be his in your advertising campaign, you risk shooting yourself in the foot.

I bet it's a latino thing. After all director Robert Rodriguez is a proud latino as is half the cast. Plus, these films deal with latino issues and tend to shake things upside down a bit (or at least, the first movie did, but I reckon its successor will do likewise), making the latinos the heroes and the average white Americans the ruthless villains. Bringing Sheen's latino background to the fore could be a matter of acknowledging aspects of latino cultural identity for Rodriguez. What's more, Sheen/Estevez plays the role of the American president, suggesting a desire for full latino equality in terms of political office. If a black guy can do it, why not a latino, eh? The question as yet is whether this particular president is a good guy or not, which is still a bit vague. If he is not, we have a clear latino bad guy this time around, instead of only racist white trash villainy. That could make for an interesting debate, but it's simply too soon to start it now based on this poster alone. Beter wait until the movie is out, which for a Dutch audience might take a while longer since we still don't have a set release date, unfortunately. But hey, it's never too early to speculate. Or to look forward to exploitation based action flicks like this. I liked its predecessor and I have complete faith in Rodriguez, so I have no reason not to look forward to seeing Machete kill some more. Now the proposed third installment, titled Machete Kills Again... In Space! has me kind of worried though...