Girls Gone Wild

If you watch TV late at night, you've seen the ads: montages of young women flashing their breasts at Mardi Gras, partying naked on spring break or frolicking in dormitory showers. The Girls Gone Wild videos are like porno versions of cheesy "reality TV" or "funny home video" shows, with exhibitionism, public sex acts and hedonism instead of car crashes or pet tricks.

Recent releases from GM Video, the twisted geniuses behind Girls Gone Wild:

A female Florida State student is suing the producers of the Girls Gone Wild videos for secretly videotaping her flashing her breasts at Mardi Gras. She says she didn't know she was even in the videos until friends told her they saw her on TV ads and billboards. Legal experts say precedent is unclear, as "case law has not recognized privacy claims in public places, such as on the street. But courts have recognized a right not to have one's image commercially exploited."
Tallahassee Democrat (Sep 2001)

A calendar photo of the Florida State student who's suing Girls Gone Wild. (Link snagged from Chicks Suck.)
Campus Calendars

Good article about the FSU coed who showed her tits at Mardi Gras, then found herself prominently featured on TV ads, box covers and billboards for the Girls Gone Wild videos. She has sued the Girls Gone Wild producers for "embarrassment, humiliation, mental pain and suffering and the invasion of her privacy," but they counter that "if you bare all for the wandering masses on Bourbon Street then you have sacrificed your rights to privacy." This New Orleans Times-Picayune piece weighs local opinion on the case as Mardi Gras season 2002 commences.
New Orleans Times-Picayune (Jan 2002)

You've probably seen this story already. A female Southwest Texas State University student won a $5 million lawsuit against the producers of Wild Party Girls videos. Amber Kulhanek went to South Padre Island for spring break, went across the border to Matamoros one night, got drunk in a bar and participated in a wet t-shirt contest. A few months later she saw herself in national ads for a Wild Party Girls video on the E! cable network, a red strip proclaiming "Too hot for TV" stamped across her naked breasts. There are lengthy discussion threads at Metafilter and Fark about this story.
Austin American-Statesman | Metafilter | Fark (Mar 2002)

A Texas judge has dismissed the $5 million judgment awarded to a college student whose image was used in TV ads for a Wild Party Girls video without her permission. Her lawyer misspelled the name of the company that produces the videos. The judge ruled, "Plaintiff took a five million-dollar judgment against an entity called Arco Media Group, Inc. No such entity exists. The proper entity, The AccroMedia Group, Inc., was not properly named as a Defendant in the lawsuit, and was not properly served with any citation or petition, and further, Plaintiff took the default without notifying this Defendant of any hearing on the matter so as to afford Defendant a chance to contest the charges and put on a defense."
San Marcos Record (Apr 2002)

In case you missed this in The Onion two weeks ago.

Nation's Deans Meet To Discuss Problem Of College Girls Going Wild
GAINESVILLE, FL— Calling the trend "a black mark on academia," deans from more than 300 U.S. colleges converged on the University of Florida campus to address the growing problem of out-of-control, sexy sorority sweethearts baring it all for the cameras. "In recent years, a number of filmmakers have brought to light the shocking antics of hot young girls from the wildest party schools," said Tulane University dean of students Dr. Anderson Brand. "We must take appropriate action to address this wild, uncensored revelry." Brandishing one of the mail-order videotapes, University of Connecticut dean Charles Burton said, "I could not believe what happened when those crazy co-eds got back to their hotel rooms. Nor, I suspect, could anyone."

The Onion (Apr 2002)

Snoop Dogg has signed on to host his own Girls Gone Wild video, to be called Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style. I can't wait to see the late-night commercials for that.
TV Guide (May 2002)

At LA Weekly, Paul Cullum profiles amateur porn entrepreneur George Martin, owner of GM Video and a pioneer in the public hedonism genre. In fact, much of the footage in the Girls Gone Wild titles is purchased and recycled from earlier Martin releases, with GM logos intact, which has in turn boosted Martin's sales. Cullum tags along on a GM shoot at Lake Havasu on the Arizona-California border "to observe and figure out just what skills a person must master in order to separate a boatful of coeds from their clothes and inhibitions."
LA Weekly (Nov 2001)

One of my favorite sites, Daily Radar, has joined the ranks of dotcom casualties. The site combined videogame news and reviews with stoopid, adolescent riffs on pop culture. Their front page now declares, "The internet soufflé has collapsed (you probably read about it in the news), and Daily Radar is no longer publishing." Old material is still online, including: a buyer's guide to the Girls Gone Wild videos (they're not all pretty much the same, insists this discerning reviewer); and useful suggestions for spring break cruising, entitled "How To Yell At Girls From A Mid-Size Convertible Hertz Rent-A-Car." (All links dead as of January 2002.)
Daily Radar

The producers of the Girls Gone Wild videos won a federal lawsuit filed by a girl who went wild and flashed her breasts to a cameraman three years ago. (Nov 2002) ~~

Girls Gone Wild

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