“How does Obama look there? With his eyes closed! Like he’s inspired! … It was a good joke” -Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, commenting on the new Benetton ad that shows him kissing U.S. President Obama.
At last report, the Vatican is still threatening to sue Benetton over similar ads showing the Pope kissing an Muslim imam.
November 21, 2011:
“This is a grave lack of respect for the pope, an offence against the sentiments of the faithful and a clear example of how advertising can violate elementary rules of respect for people in order to attract attention through provocation” -Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, commenting on clothing chain Benetton’s new ad showing a (Photoshopped) Pope Benedict kissing a Muslim imam
Benetton… boldly going where even PETA hasn’t gone before (though probably only because they hadn’t thought of it).
Benetton is, of course, no stranger to controversial and deliberately-shocking ads (some past examples); and in fact earlier this year, as part of the same “UNHATE” campaign, they gave us President Obama locking lips with Chinese leader Hu Jintao.
(Nobody really seemed to care about that one. It got virtually no press attention, and Rick Perry didn’t even try to use it as a campaign issue)
I should mention that a large banner displaying the Pope/imam ad was hung from a bridge near the Vatican, which probably crossed the line between edgy advertising and just plain obnoxious.
The Vatican issued statements calling the photo manipulative, disrespectful, and “partly inspired by hate” — in addition, obviously, to being unauthorized — and demanded that Benetton pull the doctored photo from its ad campaign. Benetton did so. The Vatican now says that it will “take legal action” against Benetton, though they haven’t been specific about either the grounds or exactly what they want.
Some people have compared this to American Apparel’s 2009 billboard featuring (without his permission) an image of Woody Allen (from his film Take the Money and Run) dressed as a Chasidic rabbi (not, by the way, kissing the Dalai Lama). Clearly the American Apparel billboard was presented as an endorsement, which just as clearly the Benetton photo was not: nobody could possibly believe that Pope Benedict and a Muslim imam agreed jointly to be spokesmen for Benetton and decided to seal the deal with a kiss.
(Israeli Prime Minister Netanyanu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas are similarly shown kissing in a Benetton ad, and it’s not likely those two will ever agree on anything)
In the American Apparel case, Allen sued for $10 million, and eventually settled for $5 million. This case is — or at least should be — best remembered for American Apparel’s line of defense: faced with the inconvenient problem of having no defense (come on, who doesn’t know that you can’t imply a celebrity’s endorsement without his knowledge or agreement?), they went with the argument that since Allen’s public image had been tarnished by his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, his former girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Allen’s endorsement had little or no value anyway, so whatever they were “stealing” was essentially worthless.
Seriously, on how many different levels is that wrong?
But back to the original question: Was the Benetton photo tasteless? maybe; disrespectful? you betcha — I mean this is the Pope, after all — but what grounds does the Vatican have for a lawsuit, especially now that the photo’s been removed from the campaign (though of course due to the nature of the Internet, it will always exist)?
Perhaps this is an instance of suing to set precedent for future defense; if they don’t sue this time, the Vatican would have a weaker case for claims of damage from future ad campaigns.
They’ll sue in an Italian court, of course, which means they don’t have to find something in American law, but something in Italian law. IF, however, they were proceeding under American law, I would guess the Church would use a trademark tarnishment claim, while the Pope himself would use misappropriation of personal likeness.
Is it worth noting that nothing about this ad in any way motivates me to buy any Benetton products? Probably not… I’m not in the demographic anyway.
Tacky, tasteless, yes. And it would never induce me to buy anything from Benetton.
And I completely agree that the ad is disrespectful to the Pope. But I think Ratzo ought to get used to it – he doesn’t deserve any respect.
I don’t know Italian law, so I don’t know if he has grounds. In this country, it is not actionable to disrespect someone. Fortunately.
By the way, would it be possible to subscribe to the comments in some way? Or a notification of new comments?
I would guess that this use would fall under satire or parody, and as such be considered “fair use”
After all, the pope is a celebrity, and the idea of him publicly engaging in a homosexual kiss with anyone, much less an apparent muslim imam, is ludicrous.
It would have been even funnier, mind you, if this had been a condom commercial.
I’d use the “Roger Rabbit Defense”… only when it’s funny.
Copyright has a fair use provision, and parody is an accepted fair use of copyright. Trademark law, on the other hand, also has a fair use exception, but parody isn’t covered. And privacy law (of which misappropriation of private image is a part) has no fair use at all.
So, Benetton would win against whoever owns the copyright to the picture they photoshopped, but lose to the Church and to the Pope. Truth is, though, that Benetton wouldn’t really care if they won or lost… it’s about getting your name out there, and that’s done. They get the street cred with their target market by tweaking the noses of the powers that be.
That said, when they have to close all the stores because they’re infested with locusts and frogs, well…
What in that picture would have copyright protection? I see no symbols, logos, or other specific identifiable items that appear to be protectable. Similarly, I don’t really see grounds for your claim of a privacy violation, since this was undoubtedly a mod of a publicly taken picture (certainly not something taken by a friend in private and stolen from the Pope’s photo album) of a public figure.
Sorry, I meant trademark protection…
There are two trademark elements… the Pope’s uniform, and his likeness. As for the photo, if the Pope hasn’t permitted it’s use for purposes of endorsement, it’s an infringement of his rights to use it as such.
Chakolate, there’s an RSS feed for the posts, so there’s probably an RSS feed for comments. The magazine does have an IT guy, so I’ll ask him.
I can think of 2 possible grounds for a lawsuit. One is libel. For something to be considered a parody, it should be obvious that is the case and not just show an event that is “ludicrous” as one poster said. Secondly, the “unhate” concept of the ad implies that the Pope and the Muslim world hate each other, which could be considered provocation although it would seem to be trying to promote the opposite message.
Benetton’s primary purpose in using offensive images is simply to generate free publicity (and even bad publicity is valuable; Benetton has been doing this for decades). They could have avoided all of this simply by using the classic (and authentic) photo of Honecker kissing Brezhnev, except for the fact that most of the teens and tweens that Benetton hopes to ensare as customers had not even been born when Brezhnev died.
Or they could have gone with the classics: Bugs Bunny kissing Elmer Fudd, Roger Rabbit Kissing Eddie Valiant, maybe throw in Sammy Davis Jr. kissing Archie Bunker…
I think calling the Pope gay is definitely defamation. Most would assume it’s not serious, unless they were to see a false-but-realistic picture of him kissing another man on the lips…
I don’t think it’s any more “disrespectful” for the Pope than it would be for anyone else, but there are laws restricting a company’s legal right to advertise using the image of a living or recently deceased public figure. That’s true in the EU as much as it is in the US, Canada, or Japan.