Cat-and-Mouse for a Trashy Trailer

A trailer for the forthcoming film "Kick-Ass" that depicts a girl wielding a gun and using highly, highly profane language is igniting debate about how Hollywood advertises its R-rated films on the Web.

Movie marketers in recent years have increasingly relied on raunchy ads known as "red-band" trailers to stir interest in their films. While most trailers are approved for broad audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America, the red-labeled variety usually include nudity, profanity and other material deemed inappropriate for children. Many theaters refuse to run these trailers, but they are widely distributed online — and that is at the root of the current dust-up. "Studios hide behind the notion of an age requirement for these trailers, but it's pure fiction," said Nell Minow, a lawyer who reviews films for radio stations and Beliefnet.com under the name Movie Mom. "It's easy for kids to access, and that's exactly how the industry wants it." Moreover, the severity of age policing varies, with some sites — including the Trailer Park section of MySpace, which had the red-band version as of Tuesday — seemingly leaving it to the honor system and asking for only an easily lied-about birth date. (A MySpace spokeswoman, Tracy Akelrud, said the site used other controls to detect under-age users. "If you are under 17, you will be blocked," she said.)