December 24, 2011
The Warner Brother Who Stole Christmas
At the Harry Potter Alliance, we are inspired by stories, not empty words. Words are just words while stories require action.
And so I look to great storytellers like Dickens and Seuss with the hope that maybe this Christmas whatever mysterious force opened the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch will open the heart of those at the top of Warner Bros.: CEO Barry Meyer and Senior Vice Presidents Barry Ziehl and Ana de Castro. Not simply for the sake of one underprivileged child like Tiny Tim who at least had the support of his family and the children of Whoville who always had each other, but for scores of kids who have experienced something far more brutal: being kidnapped from their families and forced to work as slaves on cocoa plantations.
On behalf of the Harry Potter Alliance, I have informed Mr. Meyer that given that our partners at Free2Work gave the chocolate company that WB uses an “F” in human rights, there is a reasonable chance that Harry Potter chocolate is being made by child slaves. If we could, we would phone the police about this situation and have them bring these children back to their parents and their perpetrators to justice. But apparently Mr. Meyer and the others at Warner Bros. would do no such thing even if there were a police to call. Because this Christmas they aren’t lifting a finger to aid these children.
When presented with the facts – and there are lots of them – Warner Bros. has simply ignored us. Not at first. No. At first Barry Meyer praised us for the way we’ve protected so many children in the past. He told us that their ethical sourcing guidelines are a “contractual component of every product licensing agreement” and any violation of that licensing agreement would result in Warner Bros. taking “corrective action immediately.”
So when I showed Mr. Meyer, Mr. Ziehl, and Ms. de Castro the “F” report card and explained what it meant regarding child slavery, I thought they were going to take “corrective action immediately.” They did not. Instead they acted like the Grinch who had “a heart two sizes too small” and ignored us. After months of this, I finally told them that I would have to report their uncooperative behavior to JK Rowling. They replied immediately, saying they did an investigation and everything with Harry Potter chocolate is consistent with their ethical sourcing guidelines. Great! Almost. I asked them for evidence. They refused to give me any. I said, “come on, you do realize this is for children right?” Their stony silence was as bad as a “bah humbug!” in the face of Bob Cratchit advocating for Tiny Tim.
So the Harry Potter Alliance has given them until New Year’s to show us their findings. With the clock winding down, however, things are looking grim. If they can’t prove that their cocoa sourcing is indeed above board, if they continue to ignore us without word or explanation, then they are in for a rude awakening. They will soon understand how the Harry Potter Alliance went from nothing but the hope and inspiration of the Harry Potter series to winning first place in the Chase Bank Community Challenge out of over 10,000 organizations, sending five cargo planes of supplies to Haiti, donating about 90,000 books across the world, building a library for an elementary school in Brooklyn, funding the protection of thousands of civilians in Darfur and Burma, and breaking records in advocacy efforts for LGBTQ equality.
I haven’t given up hope just yet. I believe in Christmas miracles. Perhaps Warner Bros. will be visited by the ghosts of Public Relations Errors past, present, and future and realize that being pro-apathy in the face of child slavery is bad PR. Or perhaps like the Grinch, their hearts will simply grow three sizes larger.
At this point, with the attitude they have shown us thus far, it may really take a Christmas miracle. But I’m a story lover and I think miracles are possible, so here’s hoping that Warner Bros. comes round to caring about children. It would be quite a Christmas present for humanity.
Jodi
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Im going to be praying to Santa tonight in the hopes he’ll grant me this Christmas wish!
Maxine Bennett
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This is disturbing. I’ll be hoping, and if there’s a campaign or something I could probably find a way to pitch in, let me know.
Karen M. Henton
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To be honest, Andrew, I’ve never seen any big US company make a decent product connected with a franchise. I remember when the first Harry Potter movie came out, I was at the Japan premiere as I live and work here. After the film I went to a little shop they had set up next to the theater, and there were so many lovely things to do with Harry Potter, all made in England. There were of course Hogwarts scarves and gowns, I got some lovely stickers, a sweet and well made wooden tic-tac-toe set with little golden pieces and stationery designed in subtly good taste. I don’t know if those things were sourced, but it was in the early days of the movie franchise and JKR was saying at the time that she wanted most proceeds to go to charities she designated.
I think you know the history of the big corporations in our country, Andrew. I’m sure you also know what kind of traps they get forced into by other bigwigs in their group. Here in Japan, it’s not just a matter of who’d connected to businesses supporting slavery, but who’s sourcing the food we eat everyday to avoid radioactive contamination from the Fukushima fallout. It’s been a nightmare to get shops, stores and restaurants to come clean on where their ingredients come from and the government here has refused to come up with food safety regulations with teeth. The Japanese government wants to stem the falling birth rate on one hand, yet on the other hand takes away life by not guaranteeing food safety. WB is doing the same, it wants everyone to enjoy the products of its franchise while not guaranteeing the safety or humaneness of the sources. Except there’s millions of Japanese locking horns with the government here, you’ve got very few joining you in your efforts, that’s what makes this so frustrating I know. We’ve even got Michael Moore locking horns with lots of these bigwigs and, with all that he’s done in all these years, look how far he’s gotten. How hard do you think it was for JKR to ACCEPT this whole movie thing in the first place? You think she didn’t know what monsters like WB would do with her lovely story? It’s very commendable that she was able to win with David Heyman, an English cast and numerous crew. You think it’s not a huge headache for her, with all the fine print, to go along with what WB assures her is fine? This thing has gotten way bigger than what she could handle from the success of movie one, I really sympathize with her as there is no one I know more concerned with the plight of children AND adults everywhere.
But what about the lovely packaging and amazing TASTE of your Fair Trade chocolates? All you have done reminds me of those first Harry Potter goods that were so in keeping with the spirit of the story. The ones I got at Universal are packaged perfectly but are huge things that taste horrible and cost a fortune. That’s all that’s out there, right? Instead of locking horns with WB heads, why not focus on finding a way to get JKR’s endorsements for your wonderful chocolates? Then with that endorsement, get help marketing them. They need to be in packages a bit more secure than now, maybe elongate the little locking flaps or make them tighter. This is doable within the ecological guidelines, isn’t it? I for one will certainly be buying more of your chocolates. Even WB’s great packaging and holographic cards don’t beat yours for design and taste! We can say that 19 years later, The Ministry for Magic under Kingsley and Hogwarts under Headmistress McGonagall changed the packaging and number of frogs to better reflect a new humanity/ecology conscious student body! You could sell enough chocolate to secure your creation legally, so when (and I do mean WHEN) the day comes where WB approaches you for the right to sell what you have YOU will be the boss.
I understand and applaud your efforts to approach WB head on, but sometimes the nah-nah-ne-nah-nah I’ve-got-something-you-don’t approach gets better results in the long run.
Hope you consider all this, good luck to you Andrew and Happy New Year!
-Karen