The Ram SB Ad is, in my view, the single most offensive commercial I have ever seen. The problem is not using King to sell trucks, the problem is they used excerpts from one of his most sacred speeches (given a few weeks before he was murdered, included in his funeral) to sell trucks, ignoring the fact that the explicit point of that speech was a condemnation of consumerism and the commodification of human value. Quite literally the commercial was doing the exact thing King in the speech was condemning in the strongest terms.
The King children have been squabbling for years about how to manage King’s legacy. The King estate, controlled I think by the two sons, controls rights to content and images of Dr. King, and the brothers have generally been willing to sell rights for commercial activities (but did not do so for the Selma film, which is why there are no uses of King speeches there). The King Center is either controlled by or more sympathetic to Bernice King (daughter), and they have generally been against selling rights for profit, and have been trying to keep things in the public trust. The King Center was against the commercial, but had no legal basis to stop it. The King Estate licensed the material and approved of the ad. On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 8:16 AM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV < [email protected]> wrote: > > An ad for Ram Trucks with parts of the civil-rights pioneer's "Drum Major > Instinct" speech in its soundtrack was *not* approved by the Martin > Luther King Jnr Center for Nonviolent Social Change (there'd've been > serious fine print therein if it had been), and ripped by its leader > Bernice King among others... > > THR > <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/super-bowl-dodge-commercial-featuring-speech-by-martin-luther-king-jr-draws-backlash-1081690> > (link), including 'toob... > > B > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
