Magazine Cover Analysis #4

This is a magazine cover from Total Film for the 2005 film King Kong. The cover image is of the films 2 main leads, the man with his arms around the woman as if protecting her from something unseen to the audience. The characters positioning is telling for the audience, the man protecting the woman reinforcing the gender stereotype of woman acting as the "damsel in distress" with the man being the brave hero. The characters costumes also tell the audience that the film is set in the past rather than modern-day as they are clothes you would expect from the 1930's rather than 2015. Having the female character dressed in all-white connotes vulnerability and innocence and tells the audience she is a protagonist rather than the films villain, although anyone with even a passing knowledge of films should be fully aware who the villain is in a film called King Kong. The mans costume juxtaposes the woman's being dark in colour, reinforcing the idea of his character being brave as he stands out more and does not wear any vulnerable white colours. This would be why the image used shows the characters in a long-shot rather than a close-up to show their costumes to the audience in order to give extra information about the film.

The background of the cover is typically dark and mysterious, drawing focus to the characters rather than the setting. If the audience looks closely enough they can make out the characters are standing in some sort of cave, alluding to the films exotic setting but not giving too much information away. The lack of any clues as to how the iconic King Kong character will look in the film is intentional, and something that most of the films promotional campaign excluded as well. This raises enigmas and makes the audience want to watch the film to see the giant ape. This films main USP would be the fact that it is a modern reboot of a classic monster film, allowing for better CGI and visual effects to create a more realistic monster, therefore not giving away that part of the film works to entice audience members to go and see the film to find out.

The text used for the film is large, capitalised and boldened, drawing comparisons with the magnitude of the films antagonist and drawing attention of readers to the film. The use of yellow on the cover for the article titles and the King Kong title stands out against the mainly black background to again, draw readers attention and make the magazine stand out in shops against other magazines.