A filmmaker and former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives is suing HBO and Showtime after he tuned in to see his movie played on the pay cablers and instead was treated to soft-core pornography.
James L. Mann "Bubba" Cromer Jr., who served as a South Carolina legislator in the 1990s and is currently the elected "Reading Clerk," made a comedy in 2008 called "The Hills Have Thighs" and hired an agent to increase the film's profile. Earlier this month, he saw an ad saying "Thighs" would be shown at 1:30 a.m. on Showtime Networks' the Movie Channel (it also aired on HBO's Cinemax channel). Cromer was so excited that he called all his friends, including some at the South Carolina House of Representatives, and told them to tune in. He also used Twitter and Facebook to get the word out.
Alas, "to Plaintiff's horror, the film that Showtime and HBO exhibited as his work was in fact soft-core pornography, with which Plaintiff had absolutely nothing to do," according to the complaint, filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court. "Defendants' wrongful representations that Plaintiff is involved in making and co-starred in a pornographic film have subjected Plaintiff to extreme scorn, humiliation and emotional distress."
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