Re: Advertising violations

On 3/26/99, Peter Yu <peter_yu[_at_]email.msn.com> wrote:
>
> The main problem why the fictional persona argument does not work
> in Vanna White is because the court, most notably the Ninth Circuit,
> fails to define fictional persona consistently. If a fictional
> persona refers to the abstract persona that is ORIGINAL and
> independently created by writers, Vanna White's role in the game
> show certainly does not constitute a fictional persona, but rather
> her human persona. The Norm character of Cheers, however, depicts
> an original fictional persona, for that persona is substantially
> different from George Wendt's own human persona.

I've always agreed with the dissent in the Vanna White case, and thought the court was pretty much wacko on this one. Mr. Yu's posting, distinguishing between fictional personas and real personas, recalls part of the problem for me: Vanna White's persona is only one of the several personas that could have been suggested by the robot. If you watch Wheel of Fortune in other countries around the world, you'll find that Vanna White's "role" is played by other models (actresses? I dunno: they pretend to enjoy turning letters, they pretend to think that everything the host of the show says is brilliant, and they pretend to think that the prizes are really exciting; that's kind of like acting).

The robot could have been any of them. I just don't understand why Vanna thinks she has the monopoly on letter-turning, or why the 9th Circuit agreed with her.

-Ari

Ari Kahan
<akahan[_at_]netcom.com>