Esther Kustanowitz: May 2009 Archives

Remember the Woody Allen billboard for American Apparel? Remember the lawsuit for $10M by the Woodman against the "vertically integrated" clothing company that indicated the billboard wasn't in any way approved of by Woody Allen? Well, there's a settlement, and AA will have to pay Allen $5M for the unlicensed use of his image.

But what was that billboard--and the resulting lawsuit-- really about? Woody wasn't wearing American Apparel clothing in the ad, and the ad was in Yiddish, and only appeared on two billboards, one in New York and one in Los Angeles. Mediabistro today shared a letter from AA CEO Dov Charney about what the billboards meant, why he feels AA wasn't treated fairly, and why Woody Allen was wrong:

Along the top of the billboard were the words "Der Haileker Rebbe," written in Hebrew letters. This is Yiddish for "the highest level, extra-holy Rabbi," of which there is only one in the worldwide Hasidic Jewish Lubavitcher community. In Catholic terms, but from a Lubavitcher perspective, it would be like referring to Woody Allen as the Pope. Naturally this was intended as a satirical spoof and not to be taken literally. Posed as a riddle, the purpose of the text was to create a parallel between the sentiment of that moment in the film and what my company and I were experiencing at the time.

Charney is referring to media backlash over what he refers to as "the media fallout resulting from a few sexual harassment lawsuits."

[...]The billboards were designed to inspire dialogue. They were certainly never intended to sell clothes. (And they didn't. We recently hired a market-research company to determine the commercial impact, if any, of the billboards; they found they had no impact on anyone's decision to shop at our stores.) This was not the first time we used a billboard for something other than to promote our products. Before and since we've used them to express social messages; including, for example, our support of immigration reform.

Tina Fey, better find your Sarah specs: Governor Palin has a book deal with HarperCollins to produce a memoir for publication in 2010, the year she's up for re-election.

"There's been so much written about and spoken about in the mainstream media and in the anonymous blogosphere world, that this will be a wonderful, refreshing chance for me to get to tell my story, that a lot of people have asked about, unfiltered," the Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate said during a brief telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. (quoted in Variety)

(Yes, I saw that comment about the "anonymous blogosphere world"-- but I'm going to let it go and focus on the story. You're welcome.)

She will talk about her family, including her daughter Bristol's pregnancy, in the book, which will be written with a yet-to-be-named collaborator. But according to the Variety report, "every word of the book will be her words."

Over at Entertainment Weekly, a writer is now calling shenanigans on "super-skinny actresses who insist they eat like lumberjacks and never get off the couch." The hook for this particular declaration is Kate Winslet's lawsuit against the Daily Mail for libel, stemming from an article that "claimed that the star had underplayed the amount of exercise she needed to stay in shape." That story was in response to a quote Winslet had given Elle: "I don't go to the gym because I don't have time, but I do Pilates workout DVDs for 20 minutes or more every day at home."

EW writer Christine Spines used the story as a launchpad:

[...]at this point, it might be refreshing if she'd just cop to wanting to cut a super-fit figure and working her butt off to achieve her abs of steel. That might actually make her a healthier role model for the girls and women who use screen goddesses as a sure fire way to feel crummy about themselves. Wouldn't the world of celebrity obsession be slightly less toxic if stars came clean about the actual money, effort, and time it takes to look so ravishing? [...] I'm always more interested in stories of struggle and effort rather than the prodigies and natural-born virtuosos.

Personally, I'm with Christine. When I was growing up, I never wanted to hear how easy it was for other girls to get in shape, because it made me feel like there was something wrong with me for finding it difficult. The message should be, "It was hard, but I did it. And you can also do it, but it will also be hard." But celebrities-- who travel in an unreal world of privilege with personal assistants, chefs and trainers and are high-profile even when they don't want to be-- can usually reach fitness goals that the rest of us just can't.

But today I also ended up having sympathy for the scrutiny that celebrities undergo, and how having a life in the spotlight doesn't mean that you won't struggle with your appearance. It came to me via RSS feed: extremely unflattering photos of first American Idol Kelly Clarkson (titled "Kelly Cartman," a reference to the corpulent misanthropic, anti-Semitic kid on "South Park"), accompanied by the nastiest commentary from both the site's writers and commenters trying to outsnark the original post. I'm so appalled, I don't even want to link to it. The photos even had me wondering if there was such a thing as "reverse airbrushing."

There's always something new to appreciate about Star Trek, even for people who have only minimally dipped toes into the mythology of the series and the movies they inspired. For me, there's one episode I constantly refer to: "The Trouble with Tribbles," which is I believe largely considered one of the weakest "Trek" moments. (I guess this makes Tribbles to Star Trek what Ewoks were to Return of the Jedi -but maybe that's a post for another time.) Tribbles are a metaphor for something that seemed innocuous, but grew rapidly out of human control. But I suspect if I were more of a fan of "Trek" the way I was a fan of "Star Wars," I'd begin to see lots of Jewish notes in the characters and the situations they encounter.

Famously, the most Jewish part of "Star Trek" is the "live long and prosper" Vulcan salute gesture, suggested by Leonard Nimoy and derived from the gesture made by members of the Jewish priestly class during a blessing. But as the Jewish Journal's GeekHeeb blog shows us, there are at least four other moments in the series that seem to be Jewishly inspired, and one moment in another popular series which was inspired by both "Star Trek" and the Jewish journey.

Check out the Top 5 here and tell us if they missed any. Also, for those of you seeing the J.J. Abrams reboot of the film series, tell us: what kinds of vestiges of Jewish culture and narrative have been incorporated into the new film?