Wolfe has three packaging options for controversial title
Some retailers passed on film for word titty
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 8/14/2008
AUG. 14 | Some retailers don’t like a certain colloquialism for the word breast. As a result, Wolfe Video is offering three packaging options for its award-winning Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
Wolfe’s title is available in three different packaging options.
Retailers can order the DVD with its original title intact, a tamer version stamped Itty Bitty Ti**y Committee or a version that takes the word out altogether with Itty Bitty Committee. The DVD streets on Sept. 2.
Despite some retailer concerns—two chains that are regular Wolfe customers are passing completely on the film—label president Maria Lynn said the originally titled box is the most popular version. “This title will still do well, but it should have been everywhere,” she said. “All of this over a word that is so innocuous.”
The film, which chronicles a group of women advocating against implants, won the Jury Prize at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival and was an official selection at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival.
All Itty Bitty versions are wrapped in the same artwork, prominently featuring two girls kissing.
Lynn said she is perplexed over the attitudes of the chains that won’t take the title, because they’ve long been supporters of the label’s signature lesbian product. These retailers, one book specialist and one rental chain, had no problems ordering Wolfe’s earlier releases When Night is Falling or The Gymnast, among others, featuring similarly provocative art.
It comes down to retailers polarized over the connotations surrounding the word ‘titty,’ said Lynn, noting that as a woman, she personally finds the term more humorous than hateful. She said she hears worse language on popular TV series.
“You have [Saturday Night Live sketch] ‘Dick in a Box’ win an Emmy last year, and the word ‘titty’ is offensive,” said Lynn.
Wolfe’s predicament somewhat resembles First Look Home Entertainment’s recent decision to offer both explicit and safe box art for horror film Day of the Dead. The raunchier packaging art, featuring a zombie throwing up eyeballs, wound up the bestseller.
