Story Archive

Hollaback at This

Aspiring actress Shoshana Roberts responded to a Craigslist post and won a $200 video gig. Now she’s suing the producers for using her “creative content, performance, image, likeness and persona for the purposes of advertising or trade without her prior written consent,” for which she wants $500,000. If that sounds like a lot, she says the video has gotten her online threats and put her in a “disturbing” situation. Among the defendants: Hollaback, which crusades against “street harassment” and is one of the creators of the viral video of Roberts walking around New York for 10 hours getting “harassed.” Also among the defendants: TGI Fridays, which parodied the video in an ad showing a giant mozzarella stick moving through the city and receiving male attention. Hollaback criticized the ad when it came out, with deputy director Debjani Roy saying “It is insulting to make a spoof of a person’s real trauma.” (AC/New York Daily News) ...But paying her $20 an hour to suffer “real trauma” isn’t insulting at all.