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stayfree - Stay Free! | 5 February 2001

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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: stayfree AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Stay Free! | 5 February 2001
  • Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 16:49:49 -0400


NEW YORK EVENT - FEB 23

New York University is having a one-day conference on anti-corporate
activism ("culture jamming") this month, and so in an effort to combat my
#1 phobia (not counting cockroaches), I'm going to give a little
talk.....so will Reverend Billy and folks from Billionaires for Bush or
Gore, Dyke Action Machine, and Green Maps, and others.

Friday, Feb. 23
FREE!
NYU, Jurow Hall, Main Building
100 Washington Square East

For more details look here:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/media/html/cultjamsch.html



GAG OF THE WEEK

In an effort to insure that its embarrassing reality show "Temptation
Island" has no redeeming value whatsoever, Fox Broadcasting has refused to
run a commercial for a contraceptive (a spermicide called Encare) during
the program. According to a Fox rep, quoted in WSJ 2/1/01, the network
doesn't run ads for birth control products _unless they mention disease_.
(!) Too bad this bizarre logic (promiscuity is fine but contraception
isn't?!) doesn't apply the Fox's programming or maybe we'd REALLY have
something fun to watch; imagine the inhabitants of Temptation Island having
to discuss gonorrhea before sleeping with one of the models.



SUPERBOWL

Competition for the worst Superbowl commercial this year was FIERCE,
particularly among ads catering to a singular theme: "people bad, products
good." Three commercials went for cheap yuks by portraying paramours who
lie to or kill their sweetie (a guy fakes sick so he can ditch his wife and
ride around in an SUV; a woman disposes of her couch potato
boyfriend/husband with the help of a vacuum cleaner; and an office slug
sits and tosses pencils in the ceiling to avoid going out with his SO). But
the grand prize goes to the Pepsi spot in which a young white guy subjects
himself to--gross!--sitting next to people on the subway. He copes by
fantasizing about leaping into an ad that he sees on the train and joining
the scantily clad bathing beauties pictured therein. Unfortunately for our
hero, his vision is ruined when he imagines the people on the subway in the
pool with him. (At which point I fantasized about getting the woman from a
Snickers commercial to drop a couch on him.) Oh, will the comedy ever end...




NEW ON THE SITE

Just added piece by Jay Huber from the most recent issue of the magazine:

The High Cost of Free Speech:
In US courts, freedom of speech increasingly means freedom to advertise
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/freespeech.html


Also, for those keeping track of the free speech issue, there's a new case
worth noting: A guy in California, Mark Kasky, has filed suit against Nike
for false advertising. The false statements in question were about Nike's
labor practices -- they did not appear in ads, but were in press releases,
letters to university presidents, and Nike's web pages. This raises some
interesting questions: can PR campaigns be held accountable to the same
"truth" standards as advertising? Or will commercial speech, in this
instance, be considered political speech, which is protected as free
speech? If the distinction between commercial speech and free speech holds,
then it would be illegal for the commercial party--Nike--to lie but not
necessarily its critics.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/29/MN1
34078.DTL

A curious sidenote: the ACLU has weighed in on the matter -- in support of
Nike. The ACLU has filed an "amicus curiae" brief stating that the
company's speech cannot "be denied full First Amendment protection on the
ground that the communication may also bring commercial benefit to the
speaker." In other words, the ACLU says that Nike and other corporations
should be allowed to lie to the public about labor practices, under the
First Amendment. Anyway, the ACLU's position on this one reminds me of a
particularly prescient ONION article:
"ACLU Defends Nazi's Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters"
http://www.theonion.com/onion3211/acludefends.html


more later,
carrie





  • Stay Free! | 5 February 2001, Carrie McLaren, 02/04/2001

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