Barbie-in-a-Blender Day
p2pnet.net News:- National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day. heh.
The guys at Down Hill Battle told us about this a few days back and we’ve been trying to figure out a way to get it in.
The event is being organized by international student movement Free Culture and one of the people up front is Nelson Pavlosky of Diebold fame who told p2pnet:
“We’re all about p2p communications – the broader idea of p2p in life”.
That’ll do it : )
So what’s Barbie-in-a-Blender all about? It’s a campaign to support free speech rights in the US and was inspired by Mattel, maker of Barbie dolls, against Utah-based artist Tom Forsythe.
In 1999, Forsythe created a series of photographs entitled “Food Chain Barbie” portraying nude Barbies in suggestive poses among kitchen appliances. Mattel filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement and demanding that Forsythe stop selling prints. The case was finally settled on June 30th, 2004 when a federal judge ordered Mattel to pay Forsythe $1.8 million in legal fees and court costs, calling Mattel’s suit “frivolous” and “unreasonable.”
“The Forsythe case highlights the increasing challenges faced by those who wish to comment on popular icons, symbols, or cornerstones of culture, most of which are copyrighted by large corporations,” says Free culture.
“If you want to talk about the problems with society, all of the widely recognized figures are copyrighted,” says Pavlosky. “In the past, cultural icons belonged to everyone … [now] if you want to use a relevant character to critique society, you’ll get burned by companies who can silence you, not by winning in court, but by outspending you and forcing you to cave in or lose all your money.”
“Outspending you and forcing you to cave in or lose all your money” – a favoured entertainment industry tactic.
Thus, Freeculture.org has launched National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day project at www.barbieinablender.org and YOU have been invited to submit artistic pieces inspired by Forsythe’s “Food Chain Barbie” series to blended@barbieinablender.org for the site’s upcoming gallery of submitted work.
July 27th is the shut-off date.
July 14th, 2004 at 8:15 pm
I’m a parent and I’d like to se ALL barbies put in a blender!
July 15th, 2004 at 2:03 am
my wife collects barbie, and i collect transformers. dont put toys in the blender, give them to me!