Smelling a Rat

Even though my nephew works at Pixar (I love saying “full disclosure”) I was unaware of the following controversy until we were opening presents on Christmas eve.

Some genius at Disney and/or Pixar had the bright idea of marketing a French wine to coincide with the opening of the animated feature Ratatouille last year. Starting in August, a limited edition of 500 cases was to have been sold through Costco, but the sale was shelved by Disney because of “a trickle of inquiries and complaints” by California winemakers and, ostensibly, opponents (unnamed) of underage drinking. According to a Disney spokesman, “The pressure to pull the Ratatouille wine had been particularly strong from The Wine Institute of California, a San Francisco-based trade group that represents 950 California wineries. Domestic vintners were upset that the film promoted a French product.”

Nancy Light, spokeswoman for the Wine Institute, said her group complained to Disney “because the Ratatouille label, with Remy holding a rat-sized glass of wine, appeared to violate the spirit of the code of advertising standards that all institute members must follow. The code bans the use of any advertising that might appeal to people below the legal drinking age by using photos of very young models or cartoon characters.”

“…appeared” to violate the spirit of the code? Well, hooey and phooey on behalf of Ratatouille.

Looking beyond the apparent motivation of protecting sales of California wine by invoking a righteous stand of shielding our young, I think what it comes down to is that the middle-to-older mindset in America, even those people entrenched at Disney, is that just because a character is animated (and therefore a cartoon) means it’s directed at children. Don’t they even look at their own product these days? If it’s Mickey Mouse, yes, if it’s Remy (the rat) in Ratatouille, definitely not. Is Disney trying to sell a plush Remy? I’m afraid to look. I don’t think putting a modern animated animal, even a cute one, on a bottle of wine promotes underage drinking; it’s just open-market P.R. and a promotional gimmick for the movie! If it works and makes us want to see the movie or buy the wine…well, so be it!

Whether it was behind-the-scenes chicanery or actual righteous indignation that scuttled the project, I still think it was a dumb reaction. But to put it in its proper perspective, it turned out to be to my advantage since I benefited from the debacle (due to some insider trading…see disclosure above) and got a bottle of it under my Christmas tree! Cheers!