Lionsgate has released an updated poster for the 10th anniversary of La La Land, altering Ryan Gosling's bent wrist in his dance pose with Emma Stone. The change was made after Gosling's public complaints about the pose.
What was the 'La La Hand'?
In a 2024 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Gosling called it the “La La Hand”, saying the pose “haunts” him because he didn’t realise the dance scene would be used for the film’s poster. During filming, he said, he had ignored the advice of choreographers and flattened his hand where Stone had hers in perfect line with the rest of her arm.
“I thought it’d be cool to put my hand like that,” he told the WSJ. “Now when I look at it, and I have to see it all the time, you know what would have been cooler than this? That,” Gosling said, imitating a straight wrist. “It just killed the energy that way.”
Why did Lionsgate change it?
Lionsgate executive vice president Justin Manfredi unveiled the “minor adjustment” at an event at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, saying the actor loves it. “We let him know and he approved it,” said Manfredi. The studio announced the change with: “Well, Ryan, you have been heard!”
Fan reactions
Some fans are outraged. “This sucks. The gay little wrist ruled. It was a reminder that, while La La Land is a movie about a straight relationship, it’s also a musical, which is the gayest genre. Plus this kind of revisionism flies in the face of the nature of time. Gosling made a decision to have a gay little wrist, and now it’s a part of film history. No take-backsies,” Jason P Frank wrote in Vulture.
Other fans felt the original wrist reflected the characters' mismatched relationship. “I had never noticed it till today, but I do prefer the original if nothing else for the subtle hint that they are on different paths,” wrote one Redditor. “They should have fixed the hand and changed the font to Papyrus,” wrote another, referring to Gosling's Saturday Night Live sketches. “This is gonna be evidence of the Mandela Effect for so many people in five years,” another added.
