The Academy Sues Gift Bag Company to Ensure You Don’t Associate Them With This Vibrator

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Imagine if, in the middle of the Oscars ceremony, every celebrity’s $230,000-or-so gift bag started coming to life, vibrating, emitting steam uncontrollably, and even applying breast lifts to surprised celebrities. (Presuming, for some reason, they’re carrying these bags around with them.)

This appears to be exactly what the Oscars want people to stop imagining. Forbes, The Daily Beast and a series of other publications recently reported that the famously expensive gift bags being handed out to acting and directing nominees would include a Haze Duel V3 Vaporizer, “vampire breast lifts” and a “Nuelle Fiera Arouser for Her.” Because these lists led to pieces like one the Telegraph published, whose headline reads “The Oscars’ sexist $200,000 goodie bag shames women,” it seems the Academy wants to make it exceedingly clear that they have nothing to do with these stigmatizing bags.

They’re therefore suing Distinctive Assets — the company that assembles the grossly opulent bags — in the California Federal Court for trademark infringement. The Hollywood Reporter alleges they had warned them against using their trademark last year, when similar confusion about Academy affiliation arose in the media. Formerly, the brand had used slogans like “Everyone Wins At The Oscars®! Nominee Gift Bags,” and “Everyone Wins Nominee Gift Bags in Honor of the Oscars®,” and in the lawsuit, according to THR, the Academy also complains that they used the OSCARS trademark on in a Tweet linking to the Daily Beast article.

The lawsuit reads:

The Academy has no affiliation, connection, or association with Distinctive Assets’ “gift bags” or their contents, and certainly does not sponsor, endorse or approve of Distinctive Assets, its services, or the products it promotes…Indeed, the recent wave of media stories concerning the Infringing Bags suggest that Distinctive Assets issued a press release to a multitude of media outlets that left readers with the definite impression of a connection between the Infringing Bags and the Oscars.

(But, you know, for pages and pages.) From here, they even reference the aforementioned Telegraph piece as an example. It makes perfect sense that right now, at a time when the Oscars are under heavy scrutiny by the public following the all-white actor/actress nominations, the organization seems to really want to avoid anything that’d make them further look archaic or problematic.