Hello Kitty and Character Representation

Image source: www.taxisingapore.com

DidYouKnow that Hello Kitty is not a cat? This discovery has only been found out and shared to the world by Christine Yano, an anthropologist, who was preparing for a big Hello Kitty exhibit for October in Los Angeles. Too bad it isn’t in the Philippines, but what importance can we, in hindsight, lift from this revelation? I asked a friend of mine who’s an attorney in Manila, and he pointed me to two very familiar things that we always see but never seem to give greater notice: Depiction of Minors and All Persons Fictitious disclaimer.

Character depiction ranges in many ways and some fall under scrutiny of legal parameters. One such category is age. If a character to be depicted is (depending on the country) under aged, then it could fall into illegal circumstances, if said character will, at any time during the depiction, do adult themed activities like drinking or having sex.

Remember the statement in movies (especially rated R ones) that says “All characters depicted are 18 years old and above”? This secures that under aged depiction does not illegalize a movie. This is especially true for, and let’s not be prudes about this, porn since sex and any sexualization of a minor is illegal in most countries and a porno production can be shut down for something as simple as not having shown the Depiction clause and having a character that looks too young to participate in said porn.

Another very important clause is the All Persons Fictitious disclaimer. This protects a film from claims to libel and defamation. The statement goes like “All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” If you follow the series How I Met Your Mother, in one episode, Ted Mosby went to see a film that had a character named Jed Moseley. In the course of the movie, Ted saw how it was a retelling of what happened between him and his ex-girlfriend Stella but only in the worse and inaccurate light of him.

How does this play in with the previous Hello Kitty revelation? Well, according to Sanrio, Hello Kitty isn’t a cat. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat.” Sanrio defends further that she is never depicted on all fours unlike her pet Charmmy Kitty. It’s important for Sanrio to accurately disclaim that Hello Kitty and her friends are not animals and will not be expected to act as such. They are just regular people characters with anthropomorphic features and they, too, have pets.

This is important to avoid misrepresentation and thus is the same case with most other works. Of course, there shall always be justifiable exemptions like in the case of real life retelling or bodies of work that needs the device to tell a story in an artistic way like The Lovely Bones. How about you, do you see any other things you can learn from the big Hello Kitty reveal?