Netflix Win Affirmed in Drag Queen Vicky Vox’s Likeness Lawsuit

Drag queen Vicky Vox failed to revive her lawsuit accusing Netflix Inc. and several creators of an animated series of using her likeness without permission.

A First Amendment trademark shield applies to Netflix’s use of Vox’s likeness because it doesn’t identify her as the source of the show and is artistically relevant, according to an opinion issued Monday by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Vox argued that the Rogers test, which is used to determine permissible use of marks in expressive works, doesn’t apply to her claims under recent US Supreme Court guidance. However, the court rejected that saying “if a background character with no dialogue in a ten-second scene of an animated series does not trigger the Rogers test, then it is hard to imagine when the Rogers test would ever apply.”

Netflix in 2021 released a series called Q-Force about “a group of underappreciated queer spies who must save the planet from various dangers,” the opinion said. Part of an episode, the show’s official teaser, and a still image Netflix provided to a publication feature a character with Vox’s “voluminous red-orange hair styled with a center part, defined, close together eyebrows, cat-eye make-up, face shape, nose structure, full jawline, high cheek bones, [and] full bodied figure.”

Vox, also known as Lance Hara, sued Netflix and producers of the series in 2023, bringing federal claims of unfair competition and false endorsement and state right of publicity claims. The US District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the federal claims with prejudice, holding the series was an expressive work entitled to heightened protection under the Rogers test.

Following the district court decision, the Supreme Court restrained the test in Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products LLC. Vox appealed, arguing the test is no longer applicable to her case after Jack Daniel’s.

Vox misinterprets the Supreme Court’s narrow decision, the Ninth Circuit panel said. “This case presents a quintessential example of when the Rogers test applies to the use of a trademark in an expressive work following Jack Daniel’s,” according to the opinion, because her likeness wasn’t used to designate the source of the series.

“While it is understandable that Vox would not want her image to be reduced to a prop or background element, the allegations fail to establish that Vox’s likeness was used by Defendants as a mark,” the panel said, because it sets up a punchline to a joke and “helps ground the scene of a West Hollywood gay bar in realism.”

Even though Vox’s close friends, coworkers, and fans expressed confusion about her connection to the show, the court held the allegations are insufficient to escape the Rogers test.

Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez authored the opinion on behalf of the court. Judges Richard R. Clifton and Jennifer Sung joined.

Valkyrie Law Group PC represents Hara. Davis Wright Tremaine LLP represents Netflix.

The case is Hara v. Netflix Inc., 9th Cir., No. 23-3768, 7/28/25.