John Green Defends ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ Movie Poster Tagline

The Fault in Our Stars author John Green is defending the tagline for the movie adaptation of his best-selling YA novel.

The poster shows stars Shailene Woodley, who has oxygen tubes in her nose, and Ansel Elgort lying on the grass face to face. Underneath the title is the tagline, “One sick love story.”

Woodley plays Hazel Lancaster and Elgort plays Augustus Water, two teens who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love.

Critics of the tagline included Entertainment Weekly writer Erin Stecker, who called it “awfully glib for a film that’s going to depict the story of two teenagers who meet at a cancer support group and are dying.” But Stecker also noted that it was “in line with the kind of goofy gallows humor that both the lead characters deploy throughout the story.”

Similarly, VH1 writer Kate Spencer said she was initially turned off by the poster.

“But then I recalled Hazel and Augustus, and their humor, wit and wonderfully dry, sarcastic take on the crap hands they were both dealt,” she wrote. “That is what lifted them from the page and made them truly human to me.”

John Green defended the tagline on his Tumblr, and noted that he didn’t write it or have any say in the decision to include it on the poster.

“That said, I like the tag line. I found it dark and angry in the same way that Hazel is (at least at times) dark and angry in her humor,” he said.

“I mostly wanted something that said, ‘This is hopefully not going to be a gauzy, sentimental love story that romanticizes illness and further spreads the lie that the only reason sick people exist is so that healthy people can learn lessons.’ But that’s not a very good tag line,” he continued. “I like the tag line because it says, literally, the sick can also have love stories. Love and joy and romance are not just things reserved for the well.”

Green added, “Also, a major Hollywood studio released a movie poster in which the female romantic lead has visible evidence of her disability, which is damn near unprecedented, and I’m thrilled they put her face—and her cannula—on the poster.”

He also said fans can buy a copy of the poster by donating $35 to Project for Awesome, which began in 2007 as a way for video creators to “take over YouTube in the interest of good” for one day of the year. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to charities chosen by the Nerdfighter community.

[Image via Gage Skidmore]