Peg Kerr's Journal

The folks who brought us the Help for Haiti campaign, Andrew Slack of The Harry Potter Alliance and the rest of fannish folks he coordinated with to create the Imagine Better project, started dreaming big when news came that The Hunger Games was going to be made into a big movie. Why not harness that activist spirit to use the movie release to talk about hunger issues? And so they dreamed up a social media campaign called Hunger is Not a Game, which seeks to connect fans of the books (and movies) to the global food justice movement. See an article about it in the New York Times here.

Fans starting from the stories they love to make the world a better place. Sounds wonderful, right? But apparently not to Lionsgate, because on the very day of the movie release, Lionsgate sent a cease and desist letter, ordering Imagine Better to stop the campaign because it “is causing damage to Lionsgate and [their] marketing efforts.” See the cease and desist letter as reported here and here; the letter ends: "We are truly making an effort to work with you on this. We have the ability to take down your sites as a violation of our trademark and other intellectual property laws. We hope that will not be necessary as this is too serious a subject." Note the juxtaposition: "We want to work with you" with "We will Shut. You. Down."

Dumb move, Lionsgate. Very, very dumb. And the internet told them so. A change.org petition was set up and the response on social media has been swift. As the Leaky reporter puts it:

What is most startling about all of this, in my opinion, is how extremely aggressive Lionsgate is being, not even bothering to veil their threats of takedown and worse. Despite all of this, Mr. Slack has responded, cool as ever: “Fans have been changed by this story and have expressed a wish to change the world based on the message of this story. I would hope that Lionsgate would celebrate fans, not pick on them, for taking the message of their own movie seriously. It’s amazing that they’re working with two great partners already to fight hunger. But why get in the way of fans who are working with a third one?”

Do you see anything wrong with Andrew’s suggestion? No? Us neither. Finally, as Leakycon Lit-Day Organizer and Queen of the Internet Maureen Johnson puts it, “PR people and all relevant others: it’s shortsighted (and stupid) to try to protect your “brand” from positive fan involvement and charity. Also, if you (again PR and relevant types) think you can control the media narrative anymore-that kind of thinking will bite you in the ass.”

Lionsgate seems to have cottoned on. The LA Times now reports that Lionsgate is backing down.

As well they should.

Found out about this here. Alex Carpenter of The Remus Lupins, Jason Munday of Ministry of Magic and Kristina Horner of the Parselmouths offer this parody ("My Eclipse") of 3OH!3 and Ke$ha's "My First Kiss." The point being that as a role model, Bella frankly, well, sucks.



You can download the song here. ( Here are the lyrics )

Alex Carpenter has just released an EP of music for The Hunger Games, by the way, called Freedom in Panem. Download it here.