A pair of leggings with images from Steven Spielberg's 1993 historical drama Schindler's List found at a thrift store is polarizing the internet after a comedian shared an image of the item.
The patchwork design on the leggings featured Liam Neeson from the film as Oskar Schindler–the real-life German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who helped save the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.
Also prominently featured was the Image of the "girl in the red coat"–who symbolized the innocence of the people being slaughtered–standing on the railroad tracks leading to Auschwitz.
Comedy writer Emily Murnane sarcastically tweeted the image with:
"Babe, what’s wrong? You’ve hardly worn your Schindler’s List leggings."
Her tweet has gone viral since its posting on April 17.
There was some demand for the item.
The original photo of the leggings was taken by social media user Elise Grace Brown, who shared it with @thriftstoreart on Instagram after finding the item on a rack at Goodwill in Long Beach, California/
Although such designs on artisan sites are common and are generally protected from copyright laws under fair-use guidelines, not everyone found the merchandise design amusing.
Redbubble, a global marketplace for these types of print-on-demand merchandise, "restricted" sales of other products like iPhone cases, shower curtains, and mini-skirts that featured the same design credited by the designer and seller “angelbertran” after the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on the viral leggings.
Redbubble spokesperson Marissa Hermo told JTA in a statement:
“The artwork referenced in this article has been restricted and we are adding additional monitoring measures as a result."
The spokesperson added that the items featuring characters from the movie “can be seen as trivializing the subject matter.”
“With all content uploaded by third party users, occasionally there are content issues that arise that do not comply with our protocols," said Hermo.
"We proactively monitor the marketplace each day and work to restrict certain designs from specific products when not appropriate.”
Speaking to HeyAlma, Brown–who shared the photo of the leggings to @thrifstoreart–said of the item:
“I just want to be really clear that, aside from Thrift Store Art, I haven’t posted anything about them because I’m an Episcopalian-raised, European white woman and it’s not my story to tell."
"I’m giving them to a Jewish comedian because that feels like the best place for this story."
She emphasized that the leggings make her "feel very uncomfortable and don’t belong to me for comment other than noting they exist and passing them on to people who can speak to their existence and humor, or lack thereof.”
How long the Schindler's List leggings were on sale is uncertain other than the fact that they retailed long enough to be purchased and later brought to a thrift store.
