No Guns on ‘Jason Bourne’ Posters?

Matt Damon returns to the big screen as his action hero alter ego Jason Bourne this weekend. It’s been nearly 10 years since Damon portrayed the amnesia-suffering, ex-CIA renegade spy. The franchise was almost stalled by a modestly successful continuation of the story — without Damon filling the action hero’s shoes.

The 2012 installment, “The Bourne Legacy,” introduced a new spy character in Jeremy Renner and only made audiences pine for more bone-crunching action from Damon, someone who normally reserves time in his work schedule for more high-brow drama attempts like “Interstellar” or “Promised Land.”

Dunham has recently shown her support for an effort to vandalize promotional posters for the film.

Now Damon is back, along with “Bourne Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass, and anticipation is high for the return of the franchise’s unbeatable spy.

The new film even titles itself with a simple “Jason Bourne” as further proof for how much audiences and producers have been salivating for Damon to jump back into his iconic role. The film has been predicted by some to open north of $60 million — all the more impressive when you consider the many box office disappointments so far this summer.

However, not everyone is pleased with the return of the popular action franchise. Count “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham as among those already deriding “Jason Bourne.”

Dunham has recently shown her support for an effort to vandalize promotional posters for the film “Jason Bourne” by removing images of firearms from the artwork. The call for vandalism against “Jason Bourne’s” gun-toting posters came after producer Tami Sagher (“Girls,” “How I Met Your Mother”) posted a picture of a “Jason Bourne” poster with an image of a gun cut out of the frame.

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“Hey New Yorkers, what if we do some peeling and get rid of the guns in the ‘Jason Bourne’ subway ads,” she wrote on Instagram with the image adding, “So tired of guns.” Lena Dunham voiced her support on the social media platform saying, “Good idea … Let’s go!”

The “Bourne” franchise is one where guns should be expected. After four movies, fans and producers know the hard-hitting action the movies need and how much fans are clamoring for it. No one should be surprised that the stories in these films require guns for their action and a poster that would show one.

Damon was asked about Dunham’s views towards the film’s promotion as well as the push to alter “Bourne” posters in an interview with E! News. The well-known gun control supporter ignored the larger implications of one artist broadly demonizing another’s work and voiced modest disapproval.

“I totally get it. I mean especially given what’s going on recently, and I get not wanting to see a picture of a gun right now, and I don’t blame her at all.”

Related: Matt Damon’s Misguided Gun Ideas

But, he added, “I mean for the marketing purposes of ‘Jason Bourne’ — I mean he is a guy who runs around with a gun, so it’s not gratuitous marketing, but certainly in light of recent events I understand that impulse to want to tear the gun out of the picture.”

Co-star Julia Stiles had a little more to say on the subject, and rightly pointed to the strange rush to judgment Dunham and people like Sagher are making about a film involving those big bad things called guns.

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“Obviously there’s an incredible amount of violence going on in the world and in the United States right now that’s devastating, but this movie’s perspective is not one that glorifies or makes heroic the idea of being violent,” she said. “I feel like it promotes the idea of questioning violence and questioning your government.”

But for Sagher and Dunham, an image of a gun immediately implies pro-violence, pro-gun, etc. — strange, considering art is supposed to be about context.

However, Dunham is unfortunately a voice that doesn’t often seem able to look beyond her own myopic worldview.

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Dunham has been hailed time and time again by the media as a voice for the millennial generation. This is despite “Girls” playing to only a limited audience, and Dunham’s views often being ridiculed more than celebrated — like when she released an embarrassing video for President Obama’s presidential campaign comparing her vote for him to her “first time.” Then there’s her current devotion to Hillary Clinton.

Even her endorsement of the idea of vandalizing “Jason Bourne” posters has caused more of a media stir than a cultural one. The effort to remove guns from “Bourne” posters appears to be limited — and not affecting anticipation for the film in the slightest.