When Jennifer's Body released in 2009, it bombed among fans and critics due to poor marketing that led to an unjust domino effect of negative reviews. Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody's teenage horror movie would undoubtedly be better received in 2021, but its audience at the time may not have been fully prepared for the nuances of its content. While the movie is largely celebrated today, it doesn't change the fact that the marketing harmed its initial release and led to the screenwriter's departure from the industry.
Starring Megan Fox as Jennifer Check, Jennifer's Body follows the titular character as she develops demonic powers, which necessitates a need to kill her male classmates. When she and her best friend Anita "Needy" Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) visit a local tavern, the band Low Shoulder sets their sights on Jennifer as their chosen virgin sacrifice to the devil in exchange for indie boy band fame. But, she's not a virgin, which results in her becoming a succubus demon instead. Ten years after its release, Diablo Cody and Megan Fox got together (via an ET Live reunion) to discuss the impact the movie's commercial failure had on them both personally and professionally. Fox even blames herself for Jennifer's Body's poor reception. Cody and Fox agreed that it was poor marketing that led to negative critical reception, as the movie was marketed as an overly sexual horror flick centered around catering to the male gaze, which it is not.
There are several factors that play into how mishandled the marketing of Jennifer's Body was, as Fox and Diablo discuss. At the time, Fox was unfortunately considered for little more than her looks, and was sometimes cast to boost sex appeal and draw in a male audience. As such, the marketing framed the movie in a direction meant to capitalize on Fox's looks and reputation, but Cody was firm in her beliefs that Jennifer's Body was a movie for women. According to the interview, the screenwriter received an email from an unnamed person in marketing that stated the worth of the movie was "Megan Fox hot": just three words. Jennifer's Body is worth so much more than its attractive lead actor. It has become more apparent in retrospect that the movie is full of socially relevant discourse and nuances about being a young woman while navigating a world that oppresses and hyper-sexualizes them.
In 2020, Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman released, and shares far more similarities with Jennifer's Body than one may immediately assume. Both movies are about women getting revenge on men who believe they have a right to their bodies, wish to strip them of their autonomy, take advantage of them, and use them as they desire. However, their biggest difference is how they were marketed. Promising Young Woman's trailer didn't hide its plot behind the attractiveness of its lead actor, Carey Mulligan. Instead, it put the revenge plot at the forefront. Jennifer's Body's trailer, on the other hand, hid its core premise through sexually appealing marketing aimed at satisfying a male gaze that it was never truly intended for in the first place.
Jennifer's Body largely encomes what the #MeToo movement aims to highlight — women are taken advantage of by men, who get away with it. While Promising Young Woman is one of the few comparable movies to Kusama and Cody's horror movie, it also has received acclaim and largely positive reviews since its release, which can be attributed to its artistry as well as more pointed marketing. Promising Young Woman never tried to appeal to audiences by making it into something it's not.
Now, Jennifer's Body is largely celebrated by women and is considered a feminist horror movie due to how important it was both when it released and today. Even Cody has stated that women in their early 20s - who were likely too young to see it when it hit theaters - have discovered it in the years since and thanked her for making it. Marketing is undoubtedly to blame for why Jennifer's Body bombed, but a faction of devoted fans helped redeem its reputation over time, paving the way for other movies to succeed where it initially - and unfortunately - failed.
