Filmaker's accusations against Malia Obama -Inspiration or Plagiarism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've watched the clips and the filmmaker is being ridiculous. Both films use a couple very common filmmaking tropes (kids playing patty cake), that's about it.

Agreed. The short film director made an adaptation of a scene from The Color Purple that is often referenced by black women and that particular scene is a big, big part of black pop culture. I’m sure she wouldn’t deny this.

Malia’s commercial is more akin to the hand clapping game clip from Elmo’s World. It’s totally different from the short film.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QVv7F9zGKmQ

Remember she is the Director not the writer. We are talking about what a director is in charge of. That Elmo clip looks nothing like the scene she directed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've watched the clips and the filmmaker is being ridiculous. Both films use a couple very common filmmaking tropes (kids playing patty cake), that's about it.

Agreed. The short film director made an adaptation of a scene from The Color Purple that is often referenced by black women and that particular scene is a big, big part of black pop culture. I’m sure she wouldn’t deny this.

Malia’s commercial is more akin to the hand clapping game clip from Elmo’s World. It’s totally different from the short film.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QVv7F9zGKmQ

Remember she is the Director not the writer. We are talking about what a director is in charge of. That Elmo clip looks nothing like the scene she directed.

True, but Malia’s commercial is a homage to hand clapping games and the other is a homage to the Color Purple. I don’t see a similarity at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It brings up an interesting conversation about the privileged getting even wealthier off the backs of those less privileged. The woman who may have inspired Malia's work struggles to make a living in the industry. Malia could be unemployed for the rest of her life and will still be wealthy. I think the right thing to do would be to give this woman some credit even if everything was legal.

I think the interesting nature of the convo plus a touch of grandiosity and self-importance is what got this young filmmaker to accuse Malia Obama of plagiarism.

The pattycake device lacks originality AND the storyline of the commercial is different. There is no need for credit. Nike does business with celebrities. The young filmmaker would never have gotten the job because she is not a celebrity. That's how the world works.

Her accusations are definitely making people take a look at her work. If it wasn't a famous person involved, she wouldn't have bothered. When she makes her comparison highlights reel it looks way more similar than in finished version.

The Lady A controversy troubles me. I don't think there's any harm here.

The young filmmaker should devote her efforts to warding off AI, not Malia Obama. AI is great at producing generic themed work. It makes fairly decent poetry on demand.

[Anonymous]

Obama and Nike PR bots are working overtime to squash this. It is clear as day plagiarism, Malia was literally at the premier and ripped it off for this commercial mere weeks later. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

How did Malia not deserve a Nike contract?

Nike is for celebrities. Most of them are mid-career and rich. This is normal even if it's not admirable.

The incoming quarterback at my kid's university has been guaranteed more than $10M in NIL. Universities are supposed to be about learning, not sports!!!! But hardly anybody cares about that. This is the culture we live in.

Malia was chosen because she is aspirational. At least she is trying to work for a living and not based on her looks or influencing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is incredibly easy to come up with a similar idea to someone else's, in any form of art, because in essence everything has already been thought of. And with the volume of content being created, it's impossible to check one's work against every single existing piece of work.

Hence why there will always be accusations of cheating, especially ones targeted towards famous people, because they will be more vulnerable to negative press.

This is a ridiculous charge, given the innocuous similarities; and the target being a President's daughter makes me think it was intentionally fabricated, instead of being merely a good faith accusation.

Exactly. No one would have brought this up if Malia Obama wasn't involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It brings up an interesting conversation about the privileged getting even wealthier off the backs of those less privileged. The woman who may have inspired Malia's work struggles to make a living in the industry. Malia could be unemployed for the rest of her life and will still be wealthy. I think the right thing to do would be to give this woman some credit even if everything was legal.

Why? Is credit actually due?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

ok, this is funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

How did Malia not deserve a Nike contract?

Nike is for celebrities. Most of them are mid-career and rich. This is normal even if it's not admirable.

The incoming quarterback at my kid's university has been guaranteed more than $10M in NIL. Universities are supposed to be about learning, not sports!!!! But hardly anybody cares about that. This is the culture we live in.

Malia was chosen because she is aspirational. At least she is trying to work for a living and not based on her looks or influencing.

Fun fact, those dollars that are brought in by the sports teams often fund the other sports teams/activities that otherwise would not exist. I get you hate athletes, but it is not the topic at hand. Did Malia still an idea? I guess only she can answer that, and I will wait to see her speak her truth, but the scenes are eerily similar. Cannot deny that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

How did Malia not deserve a Nike contract?

Nike is for celebrities. Most of them are mid-career and rich. This is normal even if it's not admirable.

The incoming quarterback at my kid's university has been guaranteed more than $10M in NIL. Universities are supposed to be about learning, not sports!!!! But hardly anybody cares about that. This is the culture we live in.

Malia was chosen because she is aspirational. At least she is trying to work for a living and not based on her looks or influencing.

Fun fact, those dollars that are brought in by the sports teams often fund the other sports teams/activities that otherwise would not exist. I get you hate athletes, but it is not the topic at hand. Did Malia still an idea? I guess only she can answer that, and I will wait to see her speak her truth, but the scenes are eerily similar. Cannot deny that fact.

PP. I actually support that athletes get paid in NIL for what their work produces. But I think it's a sham that we give so much lip service to them being normal students when they are new, self-made multimillionaires who don't actually need to be at school and often don't graduate. There is no natural fit between universities and anything beyond club sports except what our culture has evolved over the past 100 years. And it's a pretty American phenomenon.

I don't really care what else the revenue producing sports pay for. The point is Anerican culture values some sports a lot in cash terms and creates celebrity out of it. Nike exists at that intersection of money, sports, and celebrity, and Malia Obama is just another logical celebrity for them to work with given what Nike is all about.

[Anonymous]

PP again. Found the Business Insider article.

Check out the quotes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/malia-obama-nike-commercial-similarities-my-short-film-2025-5

"It speaks to a larger issue of brands not supporting independent artists and opting for folks who already have name recognition, which doesn't breed innovative films or original storytelling. If they wanted these shots that were similar to my shots, why not hire me to direct?"

-I would say it's because they don't care about innovation or the indie artist's shots. Nike wanted to borrow some Obama female brand halo.

"no one wants to be the first person to bet on me — coupled with the fact that I'm young and don't have an established name"

-Yes, that's exactly right. It's how the world works and blaming others is not going to fix it unless you go viral and get a big GoFundMe kitty due to going viral.

"Sometimes it can feel like filmmaking is something that's supposed to be a hobby for the wealthy rather than something that can actually be a career."

-Yes, the above is basically true. The arts are less lucrative for most people. Indie filmmakers need to own their choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spoiled millionaire nepo baby with a Harvard degree she didn’t deserve, gets a Nike contract she didn’t deserve, then immediately steals from a poor Black female peer. Shameful!

How did Malia not deserve a Nike contract?

Nike is for celebrities. Most of them are mid-career and rich. This is normal even if it's not admirable.

The incoming quarterback at my kid's university has been guaranteed more than $10M in NIL. Universities are supposed to be about learning, not sports!!!! But hardly anybody cares about that. This is the culture we live in.

Malia was chosen because she is aspirational. At least she is trying to work for a living and not based on her looks or influencing.

A rich druggy layabout deserved a Nike contract, why? What in the hell has she done to warrant a Nike contract?

[Anonymous]

She immediately proved she didn’t deserve the contract by immediately stealing someone else’s work. Because she’s talentless. It’s like a dim rich kid who gets bribed into an Ivy and is popped for cheating his first semester. Never deserved to be there in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've watched the clips and the filmmaker is being ridiculous. Both films use a couple very common filmmaking tropes (kids playing patty cake), that's about it.

Idk. I saw clips laid out on top of each other and there is definitely a striking similarity, and I’m usually very skeptical of claims like this. It would not make me comfortable if I was the filmmaker.

Caveat is that I saw the clips side by side from a person who assembled them on Twitter and you can’t believe anything there any more. So, idk.

I agree! The scenes are strikingly similar and you could write a short paper about all the similarities in cinematic style/technique/etc how do you know where the line is? Perhaps she saw the film and it just stuck with her and she didn't even know her ideas were coming from there or not. I have not heard of other lawsuits like this. I have with music. Do different industries define plagiarism differently?

This lawsuit will go nowhere

Yes there have been others they never win.

This is an extremely hard part of our laws ie copyright laws