The Obama x Curious George T-shirt controversy

by Andy on May 21, 2008

ph2008051403615 The Obama x Curious George T shirt controversy

I’ve just realised that none of my tee blogging brethren have gone near this story, which probably means I should steer clear too, but if its on a t-shirt and its news then I think I should at the very least alert you to its presence. Basically, a tavern owner in Georgia thought it was a good idea to produce a t-shirt which had Curious George, a cartoon chimp for those of you that are unaware, on it with the slogan “Obama in ’08″ written underneath. The Bar owner, Mike Norman, claims that he doesn’t mean any offence with the t-shirts, and that he just thought that the monkey and Senator Obama looked alike. He’s still selling the t-shirts (who on Earth would buy one?), but the owners of Curious George (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) aren’t particularly happy about their image being used in such a way, so whilst free speech ensures this guy can create such a t-shirt, copyright law will probably mean that he can’t do so for very long.

Read all about it at the Washington Post [Photo Credit: Same WP article]

  • http://tcritic.com Karl Long

    In the US I would say that states are often culturally different enough you feel like you’re going from one country to another. This kind of crap makes me sad for America, racism is an albatross around this nations neck.

  • http://andrewbowness.com Andy

    Yeah, I’ve never been to any rural parts of America (just NY, LA, LV and Florida), and I didn’t want to tar all southern Americans with the same racist brush since I know they aren’t, so this is actually the 4th version of this article that was waaay watered down from my first few drafts.

  • http://shirtspotting.wordpress.com/ Markus

    “I’ve just realised that none of my tee blogging brethren have gone near this story…” HA!
    Been there, done that. Last friday! http://shirtspotting.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/rednecks-vs-humor-vs-pc/
    I pat on my shoulders and give myself an imaginary hi-five for seeing something first, which I usually never do.
    Germany douze points!

  • http://andrewbowness.com Andy

    My bad Markus, Google Reader doesn’t show youtube embeds so I didn’t understand the text and then didn’t see the video. And judging from recent Eurovision entries I think that’ll be the only douze points that Germany will be getting this week!

  • http://blog.cameesa.com/ Kamil Chmielewski

    Obama, a monkey…..that’s not racist at all……yeah right. That guy is an idiot for printing that and I’m surprised he hasn’t got beat up yet…..yay for free speech.

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