American Apparel to Woody: We’re Sorry (and We’re Parodists)
By Daniel Treiman
American Apparel is apologizing to Woody Allen after he filed a $10 million lawsuit against the trendy T-shirt monger for its unauthorized use of an image of him dressed in Hasidic garb on a pair of billboards.
“We deeply admire Woody Allen as a filmmaker and an inspiring social and political satirist,” the company said in a press release. “We sincerely regret offending him in any way.”
But, given that words are cheap and lawsuits are expensive, American Apparel also tried to cover its tuchus from legal standpoint, claiming that the billboards featuring the image of Allen (filched from his film “Annie Hall”) were not, in fact, intended to sell underwear, but were rather “meant strictly as a social parody.”
The question, of course, is what aspect of society, exactly, were the underwear-purveying parodists parodying?
Could it be, given that an American Apparel rep had originally told the Forward, “Woody Allen is our spiritual leader,” the billboards were an ever-so-ironic commentary on the company’s own social and spiritual shortcomings? But that would be more satire than parody.
April 1, 2008, 3:33pm
Woody Allen v. American Apparel
By Daniel Treiman
The holy rebbe is pissed.
Last spring, trendy underwear maker American Apparel, known for its sexually charged advertising, put up a pair of billboard ads that were unusually tame.
The billboards, in Los Angeles and New York, featured an image of Woody Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew from his masterpiece Annie Hall, alongside Yiddish script that read “der heyliker rebe” (“the holy rebbe”). At the time, an American Apparel spokeswoman explained to the Forward, “Woody Allen is our spiritual leader.”
Only one problem: It seems American Apparel didn’t get Woody Allen’s permission first — and so the ads came down as quickly as they went up.
Now, the Associated Press reports, the nebbish-y movie-maker is getting even: He’s filed a $10 million lawsuit in federal court against the edgy shmatte maker.
We’ll have to see how the folks at American Apparel feel about their spiritual leader now.
Hat tip: Brad Greenberg’s God Blog.
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