Cameo Clips

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi decided that a woman seen for three seconds at a religious meeting in the movie 'Borat' could proceed with her claim of misappropriation of likeness for commercial gain. Johnston v. One America Productions Inc., 2:07CV042-P-B. 'Borat' is a pretend documentary about a fictional foreign character who films real people on the premise that he is making a movie about U.S. culture. One scene shows a Pentecostal camp in Mississippi at which Borat acts as if he has been converted. In the scene, plaintiff Ellen Johnston lifts her hands in a religious gesture. The district court noted: 'It is undisputed that the movie Borat was a commercial enterprise, shown in theaters across the United States and Europe, and is now widely distributed in DVD format. It is also undisputed that the defendants did not obtain the plaintiff's explicit permission to be featured in any other film except a 'religious documentary' that would be shown in a foreign country ' not a major motion picture shown across the nation and Europe.'

The district court also allowed Johnston to proceed with a false-light claim, explaining: '[I]t is beyond mere speculation that there are jury questions of (1) whether the Pentecostal scene portraying the plaintiff waiving her arms in religious praise in response to Borat's apparent conversion would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position ' such that a person in the plaintiff's position would believe others would believe she willingly participated in a mocking of her religion; and (2) whether 'the defendant [knew] that the plaintiff, as a reasonable [person], would be justified in the eyes of the community in feeling seriously offended and aggrieved by the publicity.”