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A red band trailer was cut to feature Jennifer unzipping her top and telling a guy, “You want it?” It was basically teasing male audiences into thinking that Megan Fox gets them out in this film. The trailer also hinted that Anita and Jennifer will make out (they do); likely done to make guys think that this is a film where two teenage girls take their friendship to the next level. Of the scene where her lead characters lock lips, Cody said, “Obviously we knew people were going to totally sensationalize it.”

Cody and Kusama may have aimed the film at women, but Fox’s marketing was clearly targeting men. “Written and directed by women, Jennifer’s Body is a film made in a women’s genre about women’s problems,” said Newitz, believing that the film would have found success if marketed towards women. Or maybe the film was secretly Cody and Kusama’s multi-million dollar aim to try and convert boys into feminists.

“I don't know if selling the film as a straight horror film and selling it primarily to boys is really going to do any of us any favors,” said Kusama of the marketing when talking to MTV. Newitz seemed sure that fewer women saw Jennifer’s Body, yet 20th Century Fox’s own research during the film’s opening weekend showed that 51% of the audience was female. Successfully drawing in both male and female audiences has to be seen as a good thing. Unfortunately there just didn’t seem to be enough of them to keep the film afloat.

There aren’t many horror films with two females in the lead, one a hero, the other a villain (Ginger Snaps being one of the few that comes to mind). It was actually quite refreshing to not hear the characters talking about their relationships every five minutes. This is exemplified during a phone conversation where Jennifer tells Anita, “I am a God.” Also, Anita is the one who makes an effort to try and save her boyfriend Chip. With this in mind, some teenage boys were probably put off because there wasn’t really anyone on screen they could identify with, especially since most of the guys end up getting killed.

Following Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Jennifer’s Body was Megan Fox’s first film in a lead role with her name above the title. It was perceived that she would draw in a large male audience simply due to her presence. I mean, here’s an actress who was voted #1 sexiest woman by FHM readers in 2008 and was #2 in Maxim’s Hot 100 of 2009. Yet between the release of Transformers and Jennifer’s Body, to some, Megan Fox had managed to become a contentious figure.

Be it comparing Michael Bay to Hitler, or describing how High School Musical is about molestation, her provocative remarks made her distinctive as well as ridiculous. Because of her overexposure in the media, website Asylum wanted August 4, 2009 to be “A Day Without Megan Fox.” Regardless of whatever she did, they weren’t going to write about her and they managed to get other men’s sites to follow suit. It just seemed weird that these sites would boycott her because of the "overexposure" that they themselves helped create.

In September 2009, a few days before Jennifer’s Body opened, a letter signed “Loyal Transformers Crew” appeared on director Michael Bay’s website, claiming Fox to be “dumb-as-a-rock,” “ungracious,” “thankless” and an “unfriendly bitch.” Bay himself said that he did not condone the letter nor Fox’s quotes. She may have made for a great read when it came to interviews or crazy quotes, but she also happened to turn some people off of paying to see her headline a film. People love to hate her. And some girls just don’t want to see a film starring a super hot actress that their boyfriends secretly think about when they’re doing the dirty with them. This is an actress who has said how even when growing up she has “always gotten along better with boys” and girls didn’t like her because of that.

Megan Fox is absolutely perfect for the role of Jennifer, yet the film quite possibly alienated a good chunk of its potential audience simply by casting her. In an interview with The New York Times, Fox described why she thought the film performed poorly at the box office, saying, “the movie is about a man-eating, cannibalistic lesbian cheerleader, and that pretty much eliminates Middle America.”

I missed Jennifer’s Body on the big screen and only got around to viewing it when it was broadcast on TV. I was drawn to the film because of Diablo Cody. As a horror movie, I did not find it at all scary. But then the horror is less about trying to make the audience jump and more about what a teenage girl goes through. As a comedy the laughs are there and I was entertained. Low Shoulder’s sacrifice of Jennifer is done in such a casual way that it manages to be both funny and horribly tragic. Anita’s straight explanation to Chip that Jennifer is evil and Jennifer’s description of Aquamarine are the comedy highlights of the film. Jennifer’s Body stands out for being witty and original, but on the run up to its release, there was unfortunately a lot more working against the film than for it.

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