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Marking Difference in American Commerce: Trademarks and Alterity at Century's Ends*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Rosemary J. Coombe
Rosemary J. Coombe
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
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Extract

Since 1930, the mascot of Robertson'sR Marmalade, England's GolliwogR (who looks like Buckwheat, but a bit more nattily attired) has appeared on over 20 million pieces of merchandise—from teapots to toothbrushes to T-shirts … When Golly was criticized in 1984 by some of England's “oversensitive” black population, a Robertson's spokesman righteously declared, “the Golly forms part of our national tradition and attacking it is an attack on a part of British culture.”

This anecdote attracts both our cultural and legal attention. Capturing the central role of trademarks in national culture, it also points to a politics of ownership and protest. Accounting for its significance theoretically, however, is no easy task. Somehow, it resists easy accommodation in any of the three dominant approaches towards the commodified imagery of late capitalism.

Type
“Intervention”
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall/automne 1995 , pp. 119 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1995

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