Hollywood's wildest movie promo: LA theatre offers free tickets for Emma Stone’s Bugonia if you shave your head

On October 20, 2025 the legendary Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos’ new Hollywood film tested the limits of movie-event culture where attendees at Los Angeles’ Culver Theater were offered free tickets if they were already bald or willing to shave their heads on-site.

Yes, you read that right!The Los Angeles cinema has asked movie-goers to shave their heads in exchange for a free screening of Bugonia and the stunt is not just marketing, it is a statement. In a culture where transformation often hides behind filters, this moment shines a light on the power of visible change, identity play and the thin line between gimmick and authenticity. The reason is that Stone’s character is forcibly shaved in the movie, a literal shedding of identity in a surreal narrative about conspiracy, alienation and power.

Transformation as ritual

Shaving one’s head has long been a marker of personal reinvention from religious devotion to fashion statements to cinematic symbolism. In Bugonia, the haircut becomes more than a plot point, it becomes a symbol of powerlessness, exposure and rebirth. In an interview with EW.com, Stone herself said of the experience, “The first shower when you’ve shaved your head? Oh my God, it’s amazing.” That ecstatic line signals something deeper.

It hints at the fact that transformation can feel electric, terrifying and liberating.

Marketing meets identity

The decision to extend the head-shaving to real-life viewers blurs the line between film and experience. It invites us to ask, "What are we willing to change about ourselves for art? For culture? For belonging?" Attending becomes a ritual. Participating becomes symbolic. The stunt may be tongue-in-cheek but it touches on serious cultural themes of conformity, performance and self-image.

As Reddit users on r/Cinema pointed out, the scheme sparked both excitement and resistance, “So 95% men,” one commenter quipped, revealing how even a fun concept invites commentary on body-image norms.

What the message means for us

If an actress shaves her head for a film and calls it freeing, what does it say about attachment to hair, to appearance, to self-presentation? The event underscores how movies now are not just watched but lived and the spectacle of a free ticket with on-site barber becomes part of the narrative.

Empowerment through vulnerability is seen in the act of shaving where one can feel like giving up control but control is an illusion and the film plays with that.

The marketing leans into voluntary loss of control and reframing it as choice. The question “Are you bald or willing to shave?” functions like a door-knocker. It is literal, yes but symbolic. Will you step across? Will you change yourself to witness the change?You don’t have to shave your head to take the lesson home. Ask yourself what external identifiers you cling to (hair, clothes, social status) and what happens if you release them.

Consider how you engage with media. Are you a passive observer, or a participant in the cultural moment? Embrace rituals of change as even the small ones like a haircut, wardrobe refresh or silence for a day, can shift perspective. Recognise that transformation is not just about gaining something but often about letting go.In the end, the Bugonia event reminds us that culture is not just consumed, it is enacted. Sometimes in the most visible, even absurd ways and maybe that is okay, because visible change stirs internal change. The haircut, the free ticket, the staged ritual are fun but they are also asking, "What are you willing to lose to see the world differently?".