Real Sarah Marshalls Mad Over Movie Ads



A lot of people liked Judd Apatow’s latest comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which billboards peppered many cities in the US with sayings like "YOU SUCK, SARAH MARSHALL" and "MY MOTHER ALWAYS HATED YOU, SARAH MARSHALL."

Needless to say, the real life Sarah Marshalls weren’t amused:

one of the several thousand real life Sarah Marshall’s in the U.S., this one from Greenfield, Massachusetts, has been seriously irked. "I was shocked to see all the billboards and posters that hated against me and people with my name," she says. “It’s just so bizarre.”

To say the least. "My friends are kind of picking on me about it,” she says of the in-Sarah’s-face promotion campaign for the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall [watch the movie trailer and see interviews with the film’s cast]. “I had a neighbor who said they saw all these ‘I hate Sarah Marshall’ signs, and I saw the TV commercials.” That’s when the snit hit the fan for this Sarah Marshall and she decided to mount her own campaign. Call it “the Marshall Plan.” She made her own sign. It said, “YOU SUCK JUDD APATOW.” (Source: Fancast by Quendrith Johnson, Photo: Sarah Marshall (duh!) at Fancast - Thanks Linnea!)

Another Sarah Marshall complains about the choice of words in the ads:

"When you’re walking down the street, it gets a little wearing even though you know it’s not you and has nothing to do with you," said Sarah Marshall, 34, who lives in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. "You see . . . words like ‘hate’ and ’suck’ with your name over and over again. It just doesn’t feel pleasant inside."

Her mother, 70, who has the same name, says she cannot wait until the movie debuts and the signs are taken down. "I’m very, very upset," the upper East Sider said. "I’m an old person. It’s today’s lingo and today’s jargon but it’s a little rough for my taste." (Source: NY Daily News article by Jessica Durando, Photo: Antonelli/News)

But not one particular Sarah Marshall was quite happy with all the attention: a professor of art at The University of Alabama, who owns SarahMarshall.com, is thankful of the 20,000 people who have (mistakenly) visited her website since the movie was promoted.

Now, in her own "Marshall Plan," Sarah Marshall (the professor) is asking all Sarah Marshalls of the world to unite in respond to the ad campaign!


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Posted on April 25, 2008 at 7:31 pm by Alex
Category: Advertising, Movies & SciFi



12 Comments to "Real Sarah Marshalls Mad Over Movie Ads"

  • bean
    April 25th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

    To be fair, Judd Apetoe is one of the worst movie producers in the last ten years. He really does suck.

  • the robot child
    April 25th, 2008 at 8:43 pm

    You know it’s just a movie ad right ladies?

    Oh well they’re getting their moment in the spotlight. -o-

  • Alannah
    April 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

    They may have taken this far, far too seriously. What happened to peoples ability to take a joke, to allow themselves to be the foil on occasion. It happens to every one once in a while, and the person who plays along is usually much better liked than the whiner.

  • Carolynn
    April 25th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    At first I thought this was a link to something on The Onion.

    oh and it’s Judd APATOW. If you are going to criticize someone, maybe you should get their name right…

  • jessleigh
    April 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    I have a great friend named Sarah Marshall, and it is weird to see her name everywhere.

  • JamesM
    April 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Okay, these Sarahs crying about their names being plastered on advertisements have got to be the biggest group of crybabies I’ve ever seen. Amusingly enough, I know a Sarah Marshall and she thinks the ad campaign was hysterical. These other Sarahs are using a poor reason to attention whore, by feigning a victim complex.

  • Thomas
    April 26th, 2008 at 11:27 am

    I feel like checking the phone book for Sarah Marshalls.

  • L
    April 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    Once might be funny. But to see it everywhere (and to have your friends keep rubbing it in) must be tiring. I can see their point. The people who can’t are probably the same people who would enjoy this kind of movie.

  • smak
    April 26th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

    Get. The. F***. Over. It.

    Seriously, Sarah Marshalls of the world. People with thought patterns like yours are the reason why there are disclaimers for every potentially “hurtful” or idiotic demonstrated in the media.

  • Sarah Marshall
    April 26th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    my name is sarah marshall, and even though I can see where these other Sarah Marshalls are coming from, I wouldn’t even think of making my own poster that says “you suck Judd Apataw”. If her friends made her feel that bad about the posters, I guess maybe she should find some better friends. I know this is a joke and I found it rather amusing, and by the way, the movie was hysterical!

  • ted
    April 26th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    That’s funny, because without the comma, the signs are telling people they suck Judd Apatow.

    I think I would have remembered doing that…

  • fancastfan
    April 29th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Hi, just a note to say thanks for the mention of Fancast in your post. The real-life Sarah Marshall story is a cute one. And your readers may be interested in Fancast.com as a movie resource. In addition to fun features like this, we have some wonderful movies on the site, full-length and TOTALLY FREE. I’ve caught “Mullholland Drive” and “Sideways” so far, both of which I had missed when they were in the theaters. The movies are at http://www.fancast.com/movies
    Cheers,
    Jim (for Fancast).

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