Oct 12, 2012 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Excerpted from The Hollywood Reporter: Peter Berg, the writer-director of the Friday Night Lights movie and television series, is not pleased that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has co-opted a phrase from the show for his campaign appearances.
In a letter to the Romney campaign sent Friday and obtained exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter, Berg calls the use of “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose” an act of stealing. “Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series,” Berg writes in the letter. “The only relevant comparison that I see between your campaign and Friday Night Lights is in the character of Buddy Garrity — who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan.”
Romney has used the “Clear Eyes” phrase — which originated as a rallying cry for the high school football team on the FNL television series — in several campaign speeches, and it appears on his Facebook page. The Republican presidential nominee and his wife, Ann, are fans of the series, which ended its five-year run on NBC and DirecTV last year. Romney said in Iowa earlier this week that the phrase is “compelling.” “That’s Americans,” he told an audience. “We have clear eyes — we know what we believe. Full hearts — we love this country and we can’t lose. This is a time for Americans to make a choice. We’re going to take back this country.”
Peter Berg
