A couple questions about Woody Allen’s $10 million lawsuit against American Apparel, which put up billboards in Los Angeles and New York last year that pictured Allen (without his permission, he claims) as a Hasidic Jew (in a still from Annie Hall) and included a Yiddish caption reading "Der Heiliker Rebbe" ("The Holy Rabbi"). First, how is this image of the septuagenarian art-film director, captioned in an alphabet and a language that few can read, supposed to sell clothes to hipsters? That makes about as much sense as having William S. Burroughs do Nike ads. (Oh, wait…) Second. Allen’s lawsuit states that he doesn’t do commercial endorsements in the U.S. — what about elsewhere? He’s written and directed a series of ads for an Italian grocery chain. And he used to do commercial endorsements in the U.S., as evidenced by this 1967 magazine ad for clip-on sunglasses.
If any of you PopWatchers can find clips or stills of other ads featuring Allen, send us links in the comments section below. We promise that more people will check them out than saw Cassandra’s Dream.
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Speaking as someone who CAN read that alphabet, and language, it’s pretty funny that they actually spelled the word ‘Holy’ wrong. The word should be ‘heiliGer’, I’ve never heard that word with a ‘k’ sound. And now you know.
American Apparel didn’t ask. End of story. EW = boring.
writing and directing a commercial is a lot different than being in one. i don’t see the point here
Ugh, I hate American Apparel anyway. I had to stop picking up the Philadelphia Weekly, because the practically pornographic American Apparel ad on every week’s back cover violates my company’s sexual harassment policy. Seriously.
What’s with the Woody-bashing here? A company used a celebs image without paying them or asking. How is Woody wrong for suing.
Need I cite the ‘88 lawsuit that Flynt won making this type of public figure satire lawful. At best, the publicity is worth the $10 million that he wont get.
How is this satire? It’s just a still from a movie. Is the caption supposed to be a joke?
Lots of celebrities who don’t do endorsements in the United States will do ads overseas. I just don’t think a writing/directing job overseas and an ad from several decades ago are going to help American Apparel at all. None of that implies they should be able to use his image without permission.
The only thing that works here is if it’s a parody like Blanket said but they’re going to have to explain HOW it’s a parody in court.
I don’t like Woody but I think he has a case here.
If I were a celeb, and saw my mug on a billboard without my consent, I’d be ticked. And so would you if you had half a brain.