Carnival
 

While perusing thorough The Times-Picayune today, I came across this article. It is about this girl who is suing the makers of the "Girls Gone Wild" videos for using her image and embarrassing her. My personal thought on the subject is that she should have been embarrassed BEFORE she bared all. However, I do understand that there are those who will do anything for plastic beads and as long as they keep it in the Quarter that's fine. The moral of the story is … "if you wouldn't do it in front of grandma…"

***Getting on my soapbox*** As a mother, a Krewe member and a lover of Carnival, I do have a problem when people flash me or when they are exposing themselves around children. I have an even bigger problem with the people who encourage flashing. I don't want to see women's breasts. I have my own thank you. However, I would like to thank some of the male flashers. Some of my best laughs have come on days when the temperatures were below 50 degrees. ***Getting off my soapbox***

http://www.nola.com/rose/t-p/index.s...ry/rose10.html

Carnival knowledge
The case of the coed who bared for beads and wound up starring in a voyeuristic video
01/10/02
By Chris Rose
Staff writer/The Times-Picayune

As we enter another grand and ostentatious Carnival season, consider this a cautionary tale:
After her sleep deprivation had worn away, Becky Lynn Gritzke probably thought her romp through Mardi Gras 2000 was nothing but a warm and hazy memory, like it is for so many other college students who drift through our annual Bacchanalian celebration with such admirable, detached blasé.

Ah, youth.

But, one year later, Gritzke's activities that Carnival season came into focus -- very clear focus -- when some friends told her they had seen her celebrating. On television. On a late-night ad for the wildly popular "Girls Gone Wild" video series.

She sure was having fun that Mardi Gras season, if you catch my drift. She caught beads. And the camera caught her.

Turns out, Gritzke, a Florida State University student, is not only featured on the late-night ads for "Girls Gone Wild," she's on the cover of the box the video comes in, she's on the video production company's Web site promotions and she's all over billboards in Europe for a different video series called "American Girls."

This is not the legacy she expected, she says, when she -- if you'll pardon the term -- showed her wits.

So she's suing M.R.A. Holdings, producer of the notorious and gratuitously titillating "Girls Gone Wild" series -- "Mardi Gras Coeds," "Sexy Sorority Sweethearts," "College Girls Exposed," etc. -- for "embarrassment, humiliation, mental pain and suffering and the invasion of her privacy."

Gritzke says the video gives the impression that she was "willing to be associated with and participate in the risqué and sometimes pornographic displays in the videotapes," thus portraying her "in a false light." Gritzke says the camera that caught her flagrante delicto al fresco was hidden from public view. (You are allowed to arch your eyebrow at this last statement.)

And she wants money for all this trouble. No specified amount, just "damages."

M.R.A.'s legal rejoinder was pretty straightforward: When you flash, we make cash.

OK, that phrase doesn't actually appear in any of the legal documents in this case, but it basically comes down to this: M.R.A. says that if you bare all for the wandering masses on Bourbon Street then you have sacrificed your rights to privacy.

And so we find ourselves in another only-in-New Orleans debate. Choose your position on this matter. Now, let's discuss. Where to begin?

Half of you are saying she got what she deserved for coming to our city and acting in such a lewd fashion; she does, after all, concede in her lawsuit that "during the parade and other Mardi Gras celebrations, numerous celebrants, including Plaintiff, removed their shirts or some other item of clothing." (You've got to love the legal dialect. Lawyers could make baking cookies sound like a stilted exercise. But I digress.)

The other half of you are saying: For crimminy Christmas (or insert your preferred term of exasperation here), the girl was just blowing off a little steam. Everybody does it. Does she really deserve this public humiliation for the act? Should these Hollywood sleazeballs be allowed to profiteer from her temporary lapse in judgment?

My response: All these arguments make sense to me. Therein lies the conundrum. It's the annual debate around here: How much is too much? What laws should be relaxed at Mardi Gras to allow the holiday's traditional exuberant self-expression but then, what actions and activities violate the community's "reasonable standards" -- admittedly a near-oxymoronic term during Carnival's waning hours.

Neither Gritzke, her family nor her attorneys returned several phone calls to discuss this matter so the six-page lawsuit against M.R.A., mostly muddled in legalese, is all we know of their thoughts on this matter. They believe M.R.A. should not be allowed to profit from her image. Period.

The "Girls Gone Wild" tapes are "recordings of what is public," says M.R.A. legal rep Ron Guttman. "What happens in public is not private. It's there for all to see. There can be no expectation of privacy. It's a basic First Amendment case and the law says what it says and we win."

Guttman did allow that M.R.A. once made a cash settlement in a similar case but realized that was a bad precedent. "We're not going down that slippery slope again," Guttman said. They have filed a motion to dismiss the suit in the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Leon County, Fla.

Next step is up to the judge.

What do you think? If you want to debate this matter of local import, e-mail me your thoughts and we'll hold a public discourse in this column. But before you rush out to video stores to bear your own witness to this specific case, be advised: As the ad says: "Girls Gone Wild" is not available in stores. Only by mail order and the Internet.

However, if you walk into any French Quarter T-shirt shop or those Bourbon Street lingerie boutiques, you'll find plenty of knock-offs, a dozen or more similarly themed video compilations of varying professional quality.

It's big business, this public voyeurism racket. The "Girls Gone Wild" video series is a constant presence in the Billboard Top 100 sales category.

And these local bootleg tapes fly off the shelves into the hands of salacious consumers from all over the country, so be advised: Now that you know where you may end up if you flash some flesh, well . . . let's be careful out there.

:rolleyes: I can see both sides of this argument. I wouldn't want MY image being used w/o permission, naked or not. But this girl shouldd have known better. Its just beads people! Hell, I'lll give people the beads - I have an attic full og them from the past 22 mardi gras or so. I guess mmy point is sheshouldn't have her image being sold w/o her getting any royalties BUTshe should be very embarassed at her behavior

If you expose yourself in public and get caught on camera its your own fault.

It's one thing to get caught on camera and another toally for someone else to be profiting off of your image. If it was like some random dude who posted a pic on his website I would tell her tough t-i, but when it is a so-called legitimate business venture doing this I don't think that it's right. They need to compensate her because she and all the others like her are a huge part of their slimy and sleazy success. Profits are being made off of THEIR bodies.

Cry me a freakin' river...
 

Too bad so sad for her. :rolleyes: In just a few short years on this earth, I've learned that if you do something you don't want your grandmother to know about, the whole world will know about it before you know it--so don't do it!

It's kinda like Vanessa Williams and the Penthouse pictures--she took the pictures for an art class, and they just happened to end up in the pages of a nudie magazine, and she lost her title. Even though she didn't take the pictures SPECIFICALLY for the magazine, they were still in questionable taste and embarassed her a great deal once they were published. I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it was worth a comparison...right?

There's a "model release" form that models have to fill out for their photos and stuff to be used by someone else... I don't know how it works technically, but I'd imagine that she has a case. The fact that they're selling photos/videos of people who did not give consent is wrong & I'm glad she's fighting them.
H

I agree.

If I were more bored than I am, I would research the law on this issue, but I'll save that for another day. It just doesn't seem right to me. The company really seems to be saying that anyone can use pictures of anyone else (taken in public) for whatever they want. So I guess someone could take a picture of you walking down the street and display it around the world. That's just creepy.

This seems to be just another example of society telling a woman that "she asked for it."

Its one thing for you to stupidly and (i asssume) drunkely flash your breasts in the spirit of the celebration. I can see where an otherwise level headed woman could get carried away with it going on all around her. Hey, some of us have an exhibitionist streak when we're drinking... ;)

And its one thing to flash it in the heat of the moment and get caught on some random guys still camera to be passed around in the days and months to come to his buddies. You'd never know it. Exposure is limited. If you found out, hell yes you'd be mortified, but the likliehood of you finding out is very slim.

But to be distributed worldwide to be viewed again and again and again, to be used in a marketing campaign worldwide-- THERE'S no way you would anticipate that happening, there's no way this company should be allowed to get away with it.

We used to have a webcam in our office. The law states that we had to have a sign in our lobby that clearly stated that when you walk thru our office your image may appear on the web... what if you were interviewing and your current boss didn't know and saw you?

If we have to post that disclaimer for our little office... how can this production company get away with this? When she flashed she intended it to be an of-the-moment thing only, not something captured, mass produced and distributed worldwide-- for that, YEs, she should receive compensation.

Without written permission to use her image like that, she should get some money.

Ex GreekWithout written permission to use her image like that, she should get some money.

I think that's her ultimate goal. Don't really know if she's after loftier ideals...

I have a real problem with what that company did. I saw the Girls Gone Wild tape and I assure you that it probably appeared (for most of the girls on that tape) that they were flashing for 2-3 random guys, and not a camera or film crew. Furthermore, from many of the shots, it seemed to me that the camera was hidden at times. It would have been really easy for the guys to ask "hey, we're making a video and think you're hot and want to feature you - could you say yes on camera or at least sign this little form". I'm sure most people were so wasted that they would have done it anyway, thus clearing the company of any responsibility in this matter. BUT, they didn't do this and I think that most of us know that stuff advertised as "only available on TV" is usually available in any corner shop. I would be livid if I were this young woman, and I hope she wins a shitload of money from them. :mad: :mad:

People should feel free to act a little crazy at Carnival, Spring break, etc. without worrying about their actions turning into a semi-porn video series. :mad:

which was why that was written :D