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Movie posters from Ghana in the 1980s and 90s
- alephnerd 1y agoGhana, not Africa. When will Westerners stop treating Africa as a monoculture.
- fooqux 1y agoThe article says it's from Ghana in the second sentence and other places throughout. Is that not enough?
- zdragnar 1y agoTo be fair, it would be rather odd to use Asia in the title only for the article to refer more oe less exclusively to China or Vietnam.
- Barbing 1y agoGood comparison, thanks, helps put it into perspective. Either of these better titles or no? “…from Ghana, Africa…” “…from Africa’s Ghana…” (China, Asia & Asia’s China don’t really fit so probably not?)
- em500 1y agoOr how about just “from Ghana”?
- mitthrowaway2 1y agoDefinitely not. Ghana, Africa is phrased as though Ghana were a city in the country of Africa.
- fooqux 1y agoTrue, although Asia is also nearly twice the size of Africa, which might have something to do with that.
- ozgrakkurt 1y agoAnd Africa is more than twice the size of Europe, it is fair to complain that they don’t just put Ghana in the title. It is not that the title is unacceptable but it is just wrong and weird
- exFAT 1y agoAfrica's GDP is also 1/10th of Europe's...
- sometimes_all 1y agoAnd Canada's population is 1/20th that of Europe, yet we all know where that is. No need to cherry-pick some random metric and try and justify a point that's not worth justifying.
- exFAT 1y agoMaybe the English-speaking world. I think most people couldn't place Canada on a map. More people than Ghana or any African country, certainly, but that's because it's more famous. GDP is more correlated to this than population or landmass. I'm not justifying anything. I also think it's more polite to say "Ghana" rather than "Africa". I just don't agree with the arguments.
- sometimes_all 1y agoI am fairly certain that most people in the non-English speaking world will also be able to place Canada on the map - I'd assume the French know exactly where Canada is. But I digress; it's not about placing a country on a map. It's more about we know that Canada is a separate country, and it has an identity distinct from other countries in its continent. This goes beyond mere politeness; that you used this word is a bit suggestive. Refusing to acknowledge an identity is far more than just a lack of politeness.
- croes 1y agoYou only see that after the click. I expected different posters for the same movie from different African countries. Imagine buying a cook book of European cuisine only listing UK dishes.
- Elidrake24 1y agoI can appreciate where you're coming from in general, but this article isn't that. All Headlines suck, by their nature they have to cater to the lowest common denominator in who they assume their audience is, so we're using the headline to place an unfamiliar country in a continent that is familiar enough, at least in name.
- alephnerd 1y agoThat is not an acceptable reason for clickbait.
- jchw 1y agoHow exactly is that clickbait? You might not like it, but that doesn't make it clickbait. That's like saying it's clickbait to say Europe in a headline instead of Austria.
- croes 1y agoIf you claim to show the art of a continent but only show art from one country it’s misleading. Like a tour guide for the US and you only list places in Texas.
- jchw 1y agoA tour guide for the U.S. definitely implies that you are going to see a variety of places in the U.S. That's implied by the word "tour" which means something roughly akin to "a journey through several different places". This is merely an example where the writer of the headline believes that the average reader may not be familiar with the country of Ghana. If the demographics include Americans, I'd have to guess they were spot on. (I'm American, I know how Americans are.) Would it really be similarly offensive if a headline referred to something happening in "South America" when actually it happened in Guyana? Or, a headline about something happening in "Europe" when actually it happened in Andorra? None of these headlines are inaccurate. They're just not specific. I can obviously see why this is frustrating but to me it's a complete misunderstanding to blame the person writing the headline.
- hiccuphippo 1y agoA lot of people say America as if it was a country and not a whole continent or two.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoAnd Canadians tend to get upset if you refer to them as an American, though technically they are.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fart-fart-FART 1y ago[flagged]
- ALM 1y agoThe original commenters critique is valid, as the discussion illustrates and ultimately vindicates. This comment you have left in response is dismissive, childish, and lacking of any meaningful contribution. Although, I suppose with a username like yours it should be of no surprise this is all you could meet them with. It is nevertheless disappointing to see such low-brow low-effort commentary on HN, and it is ironically your comment that is misplaced rather than the original commenter.
- fart-fart-FART 1y ago[flagged]
- ALM 1y agoEditorial decisions and biases are relevant discussion points in writing. Subtext may be elusive amongst words, words, and words. You would benefit from embracing maturity and critical thought, as your contributions are a disservice to the community in present form, fart-fart-FART.
- fart-fart-FART 1y ago[flagged]
- Razengan 1y agoWait till you hear about Asian people!
- Reubend 1y agoThese are wonderful. They're so full of character. But I must imagine a "screening" on a TV would be a terrible experience to watch. I guess if you had never been to a full movie theater, you'd never know what you were missing out on.
- Arubis 1y agoIt’s a much more communal experience. Less screen, sure, but a lot more audience participation
- decremental 1y ago[flagged]
- rstarast 1y agoElaborate? I'm not
- wingerlang 1y agoI grew up with VHS tapes on CRT screens. It was totally fine, I watched more movies back then than I do today.
- inglor_cz 1y agoIn Czechoslovakia ~ 1988, video players were rather expensive and complicated to acquire, so we as kids watched movies from cassettes together as well, at the homes of the few who were rich enough to afford them. One of those parents was a truck driver who was able to cross the Iron Curtain and always smuggled something interesting back.
- edge17 1y agoYea, also often the movies were cams from people that recorded in the theater so you can see the audience walking around etc. Quality hardly matters when the real treasure was getting the movie in the first place.
- xeromal 1y agoThe robinhood one is fantastic.
- NoboruWataya 1y agoThat and the Terminator 1 one[0] are genuinely great IMO. [0] https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d5cc5f_5c451a5882264776a485d0b18e8c88d0~mv2.webp/v1/fill/w_680,h_1039,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d5cc5f_5c451a5882264776a485d0b18e8c88d0~mv2.webp https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d5cc5f_5c451a5882264776a4...
- xeromal 1y agoYeah that one hooked me as well
- daveguy 1y agoThe Robinhood one is a direct copy of one of the original movie posters. The others are a lot more interesting, imo.
- mrec 1y agoHow could they leave out the classic Paddington one? https://deadly-prey-gallery.myshopify.com/cdn/shop/files/D1847665-B46A-4BAF-A195-64757BF97A3A_1024x1024@2x.jpg?v=1723902789 https://deadly-prey-gallery.myshopify.com/cdn/shop/files/D18...
- fullshark 1y agoI smiled at this, then immediately wondered if it was a knowing parody, then immediately wondered if was AI generated and got sad.
- donatj 1y agoI had the exact same human experience.
- dfxm12 1y agoLook up deadly prey gallery, the website hosting the picture. They commission some OG artists & some new artists to make new posters specifically in this style. It's legit. This one is signed by Nana Agyq.
- mrec 1y agoDefinitely not AI, but if these are new commissions it's not unreasonable to suspect an element of self-parody, playing up the aspects of the originals that amuse people.
- dfxm12 1y agoYou don't have to take my word for it. Instead of suspecting, please read up on deadly prey gallery, as I had suggested. They go on tour with the posters and some movies. To hear them talk about it and reading through their book, it's obvious that they treat this seriously.
- fullshark 1y ago
- sota_pop 1y agoAll of the ones with Arnold are actually good.
- gjm11 1y agoThe text claims "Always at least one exploding head" and the number of exploding heads in the 20 posters shown is zero. It lists a number of "favourites from the genre" not one of which is actually shown. The text, as you might surmise from the previous two points, has the definite scent of LLMs about it. The net effect of this is that, while I can look at the pictures and admire them (if that's the word) I have no idea whether I can trust anything in the actual text, since any given claim might just be an LLM confabulation. (Which is too bad, since on the face of it it seems quite interesting, and probably many of the things the LLM has generated are in fact true.) Less of this, please.
- latexr 1y agoAnd six of the seven links in the “sources” are dead. For an article published last year. I searched them in the Internet Archive and didn’t find a single match. And we’re talking CNN, BBC, The Guardian, amongst others.
- zahlman 1y agoAgreed, and "definite scent" is underselling it. I didn't even attempt any deep analysis; I just skimmed a bit and found this bit and noped right out: > The posters were typically painted on used flour sacks, sewn together and primed for colour. These weren’t just any flour sacks either — they were durable, easy to roll up, and ready for reuse. > And the designs? Let’s just say they didn’t rely too heavily on accuracy. LLM writing tropes that are so bad, they're good.
- Mistletoe 1y agoA shop near me sells these and they are amazing. Lots more on the instagram. https://www.instagram.com/losone_african_arts/ https://www.instagram.com/losone_african_arts/
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- RRWagner 1y agoNo comments here about the odd non-standard "say yes to say no" sliders for data collection and selling? I've only seen this a few times in privacy settings windows but enough times that I'm now wary of just assuming that gray means opt-out.
- latexr 1y agoNot sure what you’re seeing, but I’ve seen that particular window several times (and no sliders). Very easy to “Disagree” or “Reject All”. Anyway, those are usually avoided in comments unless they are particularly egregious, because as per the guidelines: > Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RRWagner 1y agoGot it! Thanks!
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoLooks like MOBA needs to add a new wing: https://museumofbadart.org https://museumofbadart.org
- huflungdung 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- softfalcon 1y agoThe Kevin Costner Robin Hood one is really well done though
- 5- 1y agobonus: soviet star wars posters: https://www.fanthatracks.com/news/collecting/star-wars-posters-soviet-europe/ https://www.fanthatracks.com/news/collecting/star-wars-poste... (the bbc seem to have lost the body of their original article)
- newobj 1y agoif they're so bad they're good ... they're actually just good. probably because they capture something increasingly rare: the human and personal touch of an artist who's not straight jacketed by "safe mode" marketing, editorial norms, analytics, blah blah blah
- gitremote 1y agoYes, they're amazingly good given they didn't have copies of the original posters, Internet access to get reference images, or even VCRs at home to play the movies themselves. The clickbait title is about "Africa" and "bad", but it's specifically about Ghana and awesome.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- prmph 1y agoWhy not just say movie posters from Ghana? What is connection between these and the concept of African, I wonder? Anyway, I'm Ghanaian, and you can AMA. There's a lot of such art, many on walls of the erstwhile movie houses. Most of them are very realistic and collectible, but I guess only the garish ones command attention and so are easier to make into a story. As a kid I once watched an artist paint one of these on a wall in a few hours, was very cool.
- sigwinch 1y agoThere are some Ghanaian movies trending right now on streaming. And part of the marketing is that Ghana produces way more per capita than Nigeria.
- cm2012 1y agoAre there any Ghana-made movies or shows you would recommend?
- prmph 1y agoContemporary: - Beasts of No Nation (film, shot in Ghana, starring Idris Elba, on Netflix) - Gold Coast Lounge (afro-noir Black/White film, on Netflix/Amazon) - Burial of Kojo (movie, on Netflix) - Azali (movie, on Netflix) Classic: - Deadly voyage (1996 TV film starring Omar Epps, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQiaTWT_YYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQiaTWT_YYI) - Heritage Africa (movie, 1989, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg4UrYJKA_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg4UrYJKA_Y) - Love brewed in an African pot (movie, 1980, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRze5uaNpVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRze5uaNpVw) - Things we do for love (early 2000s TV series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1sQd4BV0lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1sQd4BV0lI)
- kelvinjps10 1y agoThe jursssick one looks sick https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d5cc5f_1dadcd401b9e43c083566d6344b02c2e~mv2.webp/v1/fill/w_592,h_902,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d5cc5f_1dadcd401b9e43c083566d6344b02c2e~mv2.webp https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d5cc5f_1dadcd401b9e43c083...
- scuff3d 1y agoThe Sister Act one is the greatest thing I've ever seen
- JKCalhoun 1y agoIs some ways, that poster for "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is more violent than the actual film.
- low_tech_love 1y agoAmazing images, shitty lazy meaningless AI text.
- fart-fart-FART 1y ago[flagged]
- 29athrowaway 1y agoLooks like the US box art for Mega Man 1. I like this movie poster art. I think it conceptually reflects what you will see in the movie. It also looks genuine and authentic.
- ru6xul6 1y agoThis is intriguing! Reminds me of an old movie theatre in Taiwan that still uses hand-painted posters, until the theatre closed down earlier this year. A BBC article on it: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20181107-the-last-film-poster-painter-of-taiwan https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20181107-the-last-film-po...
- hebelehubele 1y agoThe art style reminds me of Joan Cornella [0] who draws comics with dark, self-deprecating humor. [0]: https://x.com/sirjoancornella https://x.com/sirjoancornella
- betterburnout 1y agoThey look like perfect illustrations for Dungeon Crawl Classics.