Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has been made to pray. Filming had to be stopped countless times due to positive cases of coronavirus within the team. Then, when the nightmare seemed to be over, Marvel Studios decided to reshoot almost the entire movie late last year. At last, the next may 6, the sorcerer will return to theaters. However, there is already controversy: the movie poster has been censored in Italy because Cumberbatch makes a gesture that does not mean the same thing in all cultures.
Be careful with the gestures you make to Italians
The week is about gestures and Italians. A few days ago, a young Russian driver got into a lot of trouble after celebrating a podium finish with a somewhat apt Roman salute that he dedicated to his teammates. The Italians ended up expelling him from the team. And he didn’t like too much the gesture that Benedict Cumberbatch makes in the poster of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnesswhich has been censored in Italy and, probably, it will also be withdrawn in other Mediterranean countries.
But… What has Strange done this time to be censored? The Marvel superhero appears on the poster making the famous metal symbol, also known as ‘maloik’ or ‘mano cornuta’. This gesture is used in rock and metal, although many British and Americans also use the gesture as a symbol of rebellion.
Where does the symbol of the horns come from?
Any self-respecting metalhead throws half a concert of his favorite artist doing the horns with his hand. The gesture Ronnie James Dio made it popular in the early eighties. When he replaced Ozzy Osbourne as lead singer in Black Sabbath, Dio thought he had to have his own hallmark—Osbourne used the victory sign at his concerts. And, according to Ronnie James Dio, he took the grandmother’s gesture from him, from italian origin. Like many other Italians, she used it to ward off evil spirits and ward off the ‘evil eye’ (malocchio).
In fact, in Asian cultures like Buddhism, the gesture was used for exactly the same thing: expelling demons, warding off illness, and curing negative thoughts. However, popular culture made an association between the horned hand, the heavy metal of Black Sabbath and the satanic currents. On numerous occasions, Dio has defended himself by saying that the gesture was not malicious, but in the end that connotation won the game. Hence, Doctor Strange’s gesture has been deemed inappropriate for the Italian poster and has been replaced by a less interpretation-prone gesture.
But… Was Dio the first?
Finally, there is still a lot of debate about the origin of the gesture itself within rock. Before Ronnie James Dio, the American band Coven has used the gesture on the cover of one of their albums – and they have been associated with Satanism even more than Black Sabbath. Interestingly, John Lennon also made a similar gesture on the cover of Yellow Submarine. However, the one from The Beatles did it with his thumb extended, which means ‘I love you’ in the language of gestures.
