‘SHOCKINGLY SIMILAR’

Filmmaker Accuses Malia Obama of Copying Her Work for Nike Ad

Natalie Jasmine Harris says she “noted a lot of similarities” between her short film and the former First Daughter’s Nike commercial.

Malia Obama celebrated a major career accomplishment when she directed her first commercial this month, but one fellow filmmaker isn’t too happy. On Friday, filmmaker Natalie Jasmine Harris spoke to Business Insider to detail the concerning similarities between the Obama-directed Nike ad and her own 2024 short film, Grace. Specifically, Harris, 27, took issue with a sequence in the ad featuring two young Black girls playing pat-a-cake in a setup she says looks “shockingly similar” to an early scene in Grace. Harris’ short screened at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where the director says she met Obama, 26, whose own short, The Heart, also premiered. While hesitant to call Obama’s ad a direct ripoff of Grace, Harris says she and her filmmaking team have “noted a lot of similarities” between the two, “from the camera angles to the shots to the framing composition and the color palette.” On May 5, she posted a shot-by-shot comparison to X, writing, “I know art often overlaps, but moments like this hit hard.” However, Harris says she isn’t frustrated with Obama herself, but with the “larger issue of brands not supporting independent artists and opting for folks who already have name recognition.” “If they wanted these shots that were similar to my shots,” Harris told Business Insider, “Why not hire me to direct?”