Remember there used to be ads on tv — maybe there still are, but all the ads on my teevee are narrated by Don Draper now — where they’d have Humphrey Bogart drinking coca-cola with Louis Armstrong and stuff like that? Could Republican candidates do that with Reagan, have it look like they’re chilling with Reagan or getting endorsed by Reagan? I realize they might not be able to use political footage because his family might object, but what if one of them bought the rights to some Reagan movies and used footage from that? This seems so obvious I wonder if maybe this has already happened and I missed it.
Question
by DougJ| 39 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Trurl
It’s an interesting idea. But I suspect that the Family would have veto power over the use of his image to promote things – even a “non-profit” one like an election campaign.
They’ll have to settle for an unidentified-as-such Reagan impersonator.
cathyx
You wonder about some odd things.
Citizen_X
Oh gawd no. Those ads creeped me right the fuck out. Hell, half of them were wingnut slashfic starring TEH DUKE (starbursts!).
RP
There are right of publicity laws in states like California and New York that would make it very difficult to produce those ads without the family’s consent. Even an impersonator would run afoul of those laws.
Marsala
That would probably be too shameless even for the Republicans.
Crusty Dem
This would work if executed properly, I just doubt any of the GOPers could pull it off without looking like a total ass.. Which is a common problem for them..
Lol
There’d be very little the Reagan family could do legally actually. It’d depend on what footage was used (copyright laws) but free speech issues would trump all.
Now whether a Tv station would run the ad is another question.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
“The last thing George said to me, ‘Rock,’ he said, ‘sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.”
Montysano
Fake video can now be produced that is indistinguishable from reality (which in my old-fart opinion is an ominous thing). So yeah: with top-shelf tech talent, it’s completely possible.
scottinnj
Sorry DougJ but as usual the Onion was there first on how best to use Reagan’s legacy.
http://www.theonion.com/video/zombie-reagan-raised-from-grave-to-lead-gop,14385/
Lol
No court is going to rule you can’t invoke past presidents in a campaign commercial.
Tom
Ronald Reagan? The actor?
TK412
Why would it necessarily be a Republican who poses with Reagan? Barack Obama has spoken deep admiration for The Gipper:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/3263/
Frank W.
Yes, good ol’ Saint Ronnie… I don’t know if any politician has been quite so deified in the last 50 years. Another case of a perhaps pleasant but largely plastic character becoming something quite mythic. Oh, I suppose a random troll will say that Obama supporters do the same thing, but whereas we’ve all heard liberal Dems. bemoan Obama’s shortcomings, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Republican do anything but murmur praise for Saint Ronnie. No wonder he would be an effective-if-deceased spokesman for today’s Repub. politicians.
fasteddie9318
Now it’s all ready for production.
GregB
I can already see the wheels turning in Michele Bachmann’s head and she’s planning on remaking the From Here to Eternity beach scene with Ronald Reagan.
The Republic of Stupidity
Good lord..
What a morbid idea…
What would you call them…
Martin
I think Palin is the only one that can get away with an ad with her giving Reagan a blowjob that wouldn’t backfire with the base. My money is on her to try this.
justawriter
Bedtime for Bonzo with Michelle Bachmann in the Diana Lynn role and OMG the potential substitutions for Bonzo are endless.
jibeaux
To any normal audience, such an ad would scream “WE’RE REALLY SORRY ABOUT YOUR CHOICES. IT SUCKS THAT THIS GUY ISN’T AROUND ANY MORE. DOES IT HELP IF WE KIND OF FAKE IT LIKE HE IS? NO? I UNDERSTAND. REALLY, IT HURTS US MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU. WORTH A TRY, THOUGH.” but again, my problem is that it’s hard for me to view things outside the lens of normality.
DougJ in Damascus
Hey, where’d I see this guy?
Brian
Well, if BlackBerry can make use of Obama’s image for ads in China, why not?
ChrisNYC
There’s a picture floating around with a ghosty RR toasting Palin. I know this from the red blogs — sometimes people post the picture, just the picture, as a comment. Ha! Fantastic!
Judas Escargot
Why stop there? Collect all known footage of Reagan that’s legal to use, throw it on a Watson-class machine, and voila!, a full-on Reagan Simulacra (Cyber-Gipper?), ready for 2016.
Nothing in the Constitution says that the President has to actually be human, after all. Or alive.
Imagine the debates: “Tsk tsk. There you go again,” (beep, click, whirr). Audience bursts into laughter and applause. Cyber-Gipper in a landslide.
RossInDetroit
It must be impractical or they’d have done it already.
cleek
and then maybe some liberal group could dig up footage of Reagan as union boss. have a little faux-debate with one of today’s anti-union kocksuckers.
ChrisNYC
There’s also ghosty Reagan shaking hands with Palin. “Rest easy, big guy, I’ll take it from here.” I love this stuff.
NonyNony
Hm. Well there’s that “Natural Born Citizen” clause that that the birthers like to harp on. While I might not have much sympathy for the “natural born” arguments I’m pretty sure you still have to be a “citizen” to be eligible for the Presidency.
And then there’s that pesky age requirement. I’m afraid cyber-gipper is going to have to wait until he’s 35 just like everyone else.
Nash
Every day seems one day closer to “Robocop” . . .
Citizen_X
I had to find this. Here it is.
Why Reagan is ghoulish green, I don’t know.
Judas Escargot
@NonyNony
Valid points, all. But IMO you misunderestimate the creativity of GOP lawyers and the SCOTUS once they realized what was possible.
I like cleek’s idea of re-instantiating union-era Reagan, also. With today’s tech, we could even run multiple virtual instances of Ronald Reagan simultaneously, each from a different era, with a different opinion and demeanor.
Then again, Romney’s already in the race.
bjacques
@Tom 12:
I see whut u did ther.
The likenesses of a lot of famous dead people, like Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe, are owned by a management agency. They police unauthorized usage of images of their “clients” and then trot out them out to dance like zombie strippers, to hawk some product or another.
qwerty42
Well, here is just the movie: Desperate Journey. They could then join “Dutch” in a fight with the nazis.
JCT
Wow, Peggy Noonan would lose her cookies with happiness.
alwhite
Sheesh – Don’t give those clowns any more ideas about how to fellat the zombie Reagan!
Anonymous At Work
Reagan family would have veto power over that. The movie studios would own the images of the film footage. Big difference in incentives to license it out.
rumpole
Problems are as follows:
1. Clearance from motion picture studio for clips
2. Rights of publicity in CA survive death. The fact that he’s in the clip and the clip is licensed does not insulate the defendant from liability (Check the wendt case. Airport licenses robots that resemble Cliff and Norm from cheers for the bar. Norm sues. Norm wins under california rights of publicity)
3. There may be false attribution issues as well. The First Amendment won’t necessarily protect these uses.
On the other hand, clips of him acting as president would be different, and I don’t know the answer to that.
Jebediah
Doug @ @1
Go on and get me my old movie stills
Go on and get me another roll of pills…
Jebediah
That’s Montgomery Clift, honey!