The Artful Jurist

If you’ve been reading the blog, this should come as no shock to you…

From the people who brought you the Beanie Babies, now they’ve come out with two new dolls that resemble bronze skinned little girls and that just happen to be named Sasha and Malia — which just happen to be the names of President Obama’s children. Gosh! What’re the odds?

A spokesperson for the toy manufacturer, Ty Inc., is quoted by the Associated Press as saying the names were chosen for the dolls only because they’re “beautiful names” and not because they have anything to do with any real people we might have seen in the news lately. That the dolls just happen to have the same names as the Obama children, and that they just happen to somewhat resemble the children, and that they just happen to have come onto the market at the time that the children’s father just happened to become President of the United States is just one of those kooky coincidences.

Ah, you’d have to think that Jimmy Durante — who in the musical Jumbo famously answered a police officer’s question “What are you doing with that elephant?” by responding “What elephant?” — would be exceptionally proud right now.

Okay, I guess we’ll just have to give Ty Inc. all the benefit of the doubt. After all, Malia and Sasha are just such common names (practically as common as Jane and Mary, right?) that the dolls could’ve been modeled after just about anybody. And I’m sure the other dolls in the company’s TyGirlz line — the ones they’ve dubbed Paris, Britney, Serena, Lindsay, and Hillary — also have no connection whatsoever to anyone famous.

Ahem. Anyone buyin’ this rationale?...Yeah. That’s what I thought.

So if, just as a hypothetical, we were to presume this incredible coincidence wasn’t just an incredible coincidence, could the Obamas sue the toy manufacturer? Well, as mentioned in an earlier blog post, there’s such as thing as a right to publicity, in which people — including celebrities — have a right to control their own image and likeness. Don’t the Obama children have a right to at least a share of the profits someone else is making from the commercial exploitation of their likeness?

Not that the TyGirlz would ever do such a thing, mind you! Just a little legal hypothesizing.