This press release just arrived in my mailbox:
EXPELLED Producers to Yoko Ono: Let it Be
(Dallas, TX) – A new front has been opened in the culture wars. Ben Stein’s EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed stunned detractors by opening as the nation’s #10 movie last weekend. Out for less than one week, it has already become one of the top 25 documentaries of all time.
Opponents of the film have attacked everyone and everything in it. They have attacked the producers, the star, the music, and film itself. They have even attacked those who have seen it. Now they want to change the Constitution.
Yoko Ono and others have now filed lawsuits challenging the film’s use and critique of John Lennon’s song Imagine. One of the suits seeks to ban free speech through preliminary injunctive relief which essentially means that they are trying to expel EXPELLED as it is now being shown in theaters.
“If you really listen to the lyrics of Imagine then you realize that it represents everything that the Neo-Darwinists want. ‘Imagine there’s no Heaven…No hell below us…Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too…’ That’s exactly what the Darwinist establishment wants to do: get rid of religion. And that’s what we point out when we play less than 15 seconds of the song and show some of the lyrics on screen,” said Walt Ruloff Executive Producer and CEO of Premise Media.
Executive Producer and Chairman of Premise Media Logan Craft explained, “The fair use doctrine is a well established principle that gives the public the right to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary and criticism. While some may not like what we have to say or how we say it, we have the free speech right to do so – just as other political and social commentators have been doing for years.”
Premise did not pursue a license for the song and had no obligation to do so. Unbiased viewers of the film will see that the Imagine clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech. The brief clip – consisting of a mere 10 words – was used to contrast the messages in the documentary and was not used as an endorsement of EXPELLED.
But the irony of this lawsuit was not lost on the film’s star Ben Stein, “So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to ‘Imagine no possessions’? Maybe instead of wasting everyone’s time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, ‘imagine all the people sharing all the world…You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the World can live as one.’”
For more information or to book an interview, please contact Megan Erhardt (ext. 136) or Mary Beth Hutchins (ext. 105) at 703.683.5004.
i’m not sure if she has a legal leg to stand on, but it’s kind of understandable that she’d be upset that ‘one of the top 25 documentaries of all time’ uses one of her late husband’s songs to prove that he was part of an evil global conspiracy to destroy truth and morals and that may or may not be sort of responsible for nazism and the holocaust. this whole fiasco kind of reminds me of the end of bowling for columbine where michael moore shamelessly ambushes an elderly, slightly senile charlton heston. i think it’s a sad commentary on the state of discourse in our culture when those tasked with truth telling—artists in genera,l and documentarians in particular—think that this sort of thing makes a relevant point. first of all, it’s rather convenient for the documentarians that neither john lennon or charlton heston were capable of defending themselves. and secondly, it’s outrageous that this sort of thing even flies considering they’re blatant ad hominem arguments, which everyone knows—or at least ought to—are logically fallacious and the last resort for desperate argumentation.
actually i just remembered a conversation i had a while back with a lawyer regarding fair use. i guess i’d filed it away under ‘video’ in my mind so it didn’t occur to me to apply it here. anyway, he said that basically the biggest misconception about ‘fair use’ is that it constitutes a legal authorization. he said that properly understood, it’s more of a legal defense which is why many larger organizations take a very conservative interpretation of it. they feel that even if the court rules in their favor, since it’s not a protection against being sued in the first place, it’s not worth the trouble. anyway, obviously the press release is slanted but i think either the legal team and the pr team aren’t communicating clearly or they’re being a little disingenuous, invoking the first amendment like that.
“this whole fiasco kind of reminds me of the end of bowling for columbine where michael moore shamelessly ambushes an elderly, slightly senile charlton heston”
Except that I don’t seem to recall John Lennon being elderly or slightly senile when he wrote that song. I can remember being offended by the lyrics when I was first introduced to it while attending a Model UN conference in high school, that when we were all supposed to do a group singing of it, my mouth remained shut because what Lennon “imagined” had already been put into practice in Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China and a host of imitators.