F911 Blog: Fahrenheit 9/11 Merchandise?

Tomorrow Fahrenheit 9/11 opens in The New York.

Where is the movie merchandise? The buttons, baseball caps – the t-shirts and vintage leather jackets film fans typically get to look cool and hip among their contemporaries.

Yesterday, I called and emailed Ken Sunshine Consultants, Lion Gates Film PR firm. I was told by the receptionist that Ken Sunshine is in fact Ken's real last name. I would have thought Mr. Sunshine would be on the West Coast rather than the East Coast.


Anyway, here is the jest of the email exchange that I had with Lion Gates Film regarding this article on Fahrenheit 9/11 Merchandise

F911: Tomorrow, I'm publishing a story regarding the lack of
official Fahrenheit 911 Merchandise for the opening of
the film this week.

Can I have a comment regarding this issue?

LGF: What outlet are you writing for?

Please clarify what lack of official Fahrenheit 9/11 merchandise means.

F911: I'm reporting for the F911 News and Information Blog:
http://f911.blogspot.com

As far as I know, there isn't any Fahrenheit 9/11
merchandise for film fans. No buttons, t-shirts,
coffee mugs or leather jackets. If there is, please
direct me to the proper source.

LGF: Correct -- we (LIONS GATE FILMS) are currently not making any f 9/11 merchandise.

Over the weekend, I attended the Fremont Fair outside of Seattle, a two-day event celebrating the Summer Solstice along with the diversity and beauty in the Pacific Northwest.

I talked to singer/songwriter political activists Jim Hinde and Jim Page about featuring their 911 and anti-war/bush material on the front page of f911.blogspot.com as well as candidates running for public office and various issue field petitioners.

On Saturday, I talked to home base business venture, PeaceStuff.com, about the void of Fahrenheit 9/11 Merchandise. The next day owner Kara Ceriello showed up at the fair with a collection of Fahrenheit 911 buttons with a variety of messages on them.

“Take A Republican” (to F911) was the best slogan of the bunch and several people at the fair volunteered to be Fahrenheit 9/11 button models like eleven-year-old Zelda, who remembers seeing Bowling For Columbine on DVD. When I told her that Fahrenheit 9/11 was rated-R, she said it would not be a problem for her “I’ll just go with my parents.” She reminded me that Bowling For Columbine also has an R-rating. (NOTE: Photos of other volunteered models will be published later.)

So, if you want to help promote Michael’s new film with Fahrenheit 9/11 fashion this week, the only source is PeaceSource.com. They will do custom buttons so if you have a catchphrase they can make it up.

If there are other retail outlets selling Fahrenheit 9/11 products, please post links in comments.

Please post product slogans there, too.

This is the digital age. It is not too difficult to down load artwork and make up your own t-shirts, flyers or bummer stickers. I also suggested to Lion Gates Film several weeks ago in an email that a high res image of the Fahrenheit 9/11 posters could easily be made available for downloaded so that fans could make up their own gear.

A dollar donation per download could easily be established. Collected funds could flow directly into a non-profit organization bank like the Iraq Orphans Fund (matching funds could come from a big non-profit funding source like the Gates Foundation).

A Fahrenheit 9/11 merchandising program would not hard be to hard for a single individual to set-up or manage.

I wonder why there isn’t one already in place.