Store Apologizes for 12 Years a Slave Mannequin

Social media circles have been buzzing about a supermarket chain in London (Sainsbury’s) that attempted to promote the release of the film “12 Years a Slave” on dvd.  Metro states:

The supermarket chain had displayed a model wearing a similar outfit to Solomon Northup, the protagonist in Steve McQueen’s film, which graphically depicts the horrors of slavery. The mannequin, which was on a stand selling DVD and Blu-ray copies of the Oscar-winning film at a branch in Oxford, wore a ripped beige shirt and black trousers – and even had a twig in the pocket. The ragged clothes didn’t appear to be on sale themselves, but their use as a way of pushing sales of the film was at best a very bizarre PR stunt. It was brought to the public’s attention when a Twitter user took a photo of the stand and uploaded it to the social media site, where it was roundly condemned.

The chain issued an apology since their display went viral. Their twitter page states, “We can only apologise. It’s been taken down from the store. Clearly should never have gone up.”

Here’s the 12 Years a Slave display at Sainsbury’s. You can take home a DVD of the film and even admire a modern-day Solomon Northrup fashion statement slavery piece.

Why a store would decide to do something so profoundly and overtly embarrassing is something the world may never know, but it’s definitely not the first time promotion for “12 Years a Slave” took an obviously uncomfortable route. Remember the poster in Italy that tried to advertise the film? Yeah….

Brad Pitt is the central figure on the poster…despite the fact that he had like 6 lines of dialogue.