Monday, June 28, 2010

Barbie, Political Philosopher

Toy Story 3 offers many pleasures and not a little wisdom. I absorbed them with a shocking output of tears, both the laughing kind and otherwise. At one point, too, I raised my fist in solidarity, moved by the political philosophy voiced by Barbie (brilliantly played by Barbie). I liked Barbie's quote so much that I put it on a t-shirt:

Pop Political Philosophy shirt

Nice, huh? Click on the picture to customize the shirt for your build and style.

Fellow Bluebook geeks will notice that, despite its graphic fripperies, the shirt sports a proper legal citation. Scholars might take comfort in the fact that I crosschecked the quote against the junior novel version of Toy Story 3. Lawyers for Disney/Pixar must admit that my usage falls within the traditional bounds of the fair use defense to copyright infringement, and Hasbro cannot justly complain that the shirt's use of "Barbie" violates that trademark.

Tyrants might not like the shirt, granted. But Barbie showed us what happens to tyrants. I won't say more about that, here; just go see the movie!

UPDATE: Notwithstanding law and logic, Zazzle.com pulled the shirt almost immediately after I posted it for sale. I'm currently trying to correct the matter. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Crossposted at Agoraphilia and The Technology Liberation Front.]

2 comments:

B. said...

Did you also notice that the movie was strongly in favor of private ownership (toys go to 1 kid) over communal ownership (daycare)or rather that there should be a choice between the two? Interesting.

Anton Sherwood said...

Since there's no Zazzle picture to link to, how about showing the text?