Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is considering legal action against a Georgia tavern owner selling T-shirts depicting presidential candidate Barack Obama as the Curious George monkey character.
In a statement, the Boston publisher, which owns the book rights to Curious George, said today the firm finds the T-shirt “offensive and utterly out of keeping with the values Curious George represents.”
The statement, issued by Houghton spokesman Richard Blake, added: “We are monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to possible legal action.”
WGBH-TV, which co-produces a “Curious George” children’s television show, has also denounced the use of Curious George in the controversial T-shirt.
A tavern owner in Georgia has been peddling the shirt with a picture of a happy Curious George eating a banana above the words “Obama in ’08.”
The tavern owner, who some have described as an “ultra-conservative,” has denied to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the T-shirt is racist. But protesters outside his tavern say the comparison of Obama, who is an African- American, to a monkey is an old racist stereotype.
