I’m not quite sure what I would do though a few things come to mind (I’m pretty predictable in certain regards). Now what would you do if you had $10,000,000 and were Woody Allen?

I just got online to read the news to find that there’s some progress in Woody Allen’s suing American Apparel over the use of his image, which he hadn’t endorsed, claiming the billboards had damaged his reputation. Now AA is turning the tables:

A clothing company known for its racy ads is fighting Woody Allen’s $10-million lawsuit accusing it of damaging his reputation by arguing that the company can’t ruin what the film director already spoiled himself.

The 73-year-old Allen started the fight against American Apparel Inc. when he sued the company last year for using his image on the company’s billboards in Hollywood and New York and on a Web site.

Allen, who does not endorse products in the United States, said he had not authorized the displays, which the Los Angeles-based company said were up for only a week.

Now the company plans to make Allen’s relationship to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18, according to the company’s lawyer, Stuart Slotnick.

“Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week. I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image,” Slotnick said.

“Certainly, our belief is that after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

One billboard featured a frame from “Annie Hall,” a film that won Allen a best director Oscar. The image showed Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew with a long beard and black hat and Yiddish text. The words “American Apparel” also were on the billboard.

Allen’s lawsuit said the billboard falsely implied that Allen sponsored, endorsed or was associated with American Apparel.

Slotnick said it was not a cheap shot to bring up Allen’s sex life in a lawsuit over the billboard and Internet ads.

“It’s certainly relevant in assessing the value of an endorsement,” he said, noting that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps lost endorsement power after a photograph surfaced of him using marijuana.
[Full article]

And just because it’s so much fun, here’s Annie Mall by One Two:

And also, by Middle’s popular demand:

About the author

froylein

30 Comments

  • woody allen always exhibits the jewish guilt in all of his movies, he probably lives out his fears and insecurities of his childhood, such as his failure to make his parents happy

    but he has a great conscious

  • froylein you could always model with some of american apparel swimwear

  • Because your anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Because you were warned that if you continued ALL of your comments will be erased.

    You’ve persisted in posting here and it appears that Froylein doesn’t mind your innocuous comments, but I find what you stand for reprehensible. My opinion is that you should have no voice on our site at all because you were given ample fair warning and I refuse to have us serve as a platform for your bigotry.

    My position on this remains the same. I’ve missed a few comments where our schedules permit you to post while I’m not around, but you should expect your comments to be erased with regularity and consistency.

  • I would give up 10 million dollars for a chance to make Dov suffer.I would love to beat this sweat shop freak into the ground.Middle i tried to suagr-coat this,the best i could.

  • Middle, as long as CTC stays on topic, we could consider it some kind of repentance phase. Maybe if you called me “my German butterfly” more often, I’d not be so partial to giving CTC more chances than he deserves. 😉

    J.Miller, if you familarize yourself with measures taken in developing policies, you’ll see that Dov’s position is shared by many do-goodniks. It’s all good and nice to run projects through funding, but the only thing that is good in the long run is sustainability. Economic liberalism is a strong ideal in the US. Philanthropic ideas are great, but the balance needs to be right, otherwise projects remain just that, namely projects, which per their nature are short-lived. And no, I don’t wear AA, but that is mostly because I’ve got a different, distinctively European style of clothing. If I were into the designs AA produces and I had to choose between that brand or one that makes use of real sweatshops (16h-workdays, no weekends off, no holidays, no healthcare, employment often means ownership as one’s work is a way of paying back debts, child labour, working with toxic materials etc.), I’d know what to choose.

  • I grew up in a working class family and have always been pro union.The man is a drug addict and is a cross between C.Manson and Ted Bundy.The only reason his company makes money is because of the slave labor.Plus who says Mr Charney does not impose(16h-workdays, no weekends off, no holidays, no healthcare, employment often means ownership as one’s work is a way of paying back debts, child labour, working with toxic materials etc.)When he cannot make a profit this company will go to china. As for fashion the clothes i wear are made by pro union american companys or the higher end bespoke stuff from europe.

  • As for the last two paragraphs ask CK to check out the lost and found section. :}

  • I don’t know Dov Charney in person, so I cannot comment on his personality, but from what I’ve read his attitude towards his workers is progressive. A lot of high-end companies have already outsourced their workforce; if you pay attention to what the labels say, it’s often “designed in the US”.
    Even a lot of the customized European stuff is made in the far-East. They take your measurements and have the suits tailored e.g. in Malaysia. I once spoke with someone who does the handbag purchases for renowned Parisian department stores, and he told me that those handbags that cost up to tens of thousands on average cost 3 Euros in design, material, production, shipping and labour per piece and are also manufactured in Asia.
    There are very few brands that still produce in Europe, e.g. Trigema, Birkenstock – even Barbour imports and just claims their wax cotton jackets are still made in Britain.

  • J.Miller: We’ve written about American Apparel ad nauseum. To liken Charney to mass murderers is uhm… quite inaccurate. No drug addict could run a company the size of American Apparel. We’ve already documented the conditions of his workers and his factory and the benefits they enjoy which, along with more money, are on par with, if not better than any union shop in the US. And AA has already moved to China. Last year they opened two stores selling American made apparel to the Chinese. I find that pretty damned amusing – like seeing a Ford in Japan!

  • Ok Ck lets not fight.I will not say anything bad about one of your sponsors.Wink Wink

  • I don’t know Dov, have never received anything from him, write on Jewlicious for free so I’m not beholden to anybody and while I admit that he seems eccentric from news reports, I admire what he’s doing.

    We’ve debated this here before at length, but I find the attacks on him to be ridiculous. What, he’s employing thousands in Los Angeles at good wages with benefits in an industry that is almost entirely overseas? Yeah, what an asshole he must be. What, he’s opened stores all across America and other countries that pay leases at a time when lots of chains are going belly up and he employs workers in those stores at reasonable wages with benefits? Shoot him! Oh, I see, he takes photos of young women and puts them in ads without photoshopping the hell out of them and without using 6’2″ tall bulimia victims to market his clothes? Throw the bum out on his ass!

    I mean, really, take it out on Hugh Hefner or somebody who really put nudity and sex in the American imagination. Or take it out on virtually every other apparel manufacturer in the US because they’re overseas using the cheapest labor they can find in the most favorable anti-worker climates they can find, unlike American Apparel. Take it out on Walmart and Target for selling those clothes. Take it out on Vogue for popularizing the notion of what is beautiful in a woman as opposed to Dov Charney’s ads.

    The one thing I’ll agree with is that the dude needs to lose the beard.

  • froylein i dont blame you for liking me, lots of girls have the hots for me

  • froylein hehehehe, funny

    actually plenty of girls came on to me, i doubt saying stuff like “hi, you are looking nice today, so wanna spend some time alone”

  • “hi, you are looking nice today, so wanna spend some time alone”

    That doesn’t constitute as classy either; nothing to brag about.