When Parody Gets Personal
First Amendment considerations in evaluating major media broadcasts and publications that mock specific individuals
In this article I consider two high-profile examples of multi-billion-dollar companies widely acknowledged to have depicted real-life individuals as villains in their broadcasts and publications.
Good On Paper
On June 23, 2021, Vanity Fair published an interview with Iliza Shlesinger in which the blonde comedian describes at length how the bad guy in her new movie Good On Paper is based on a real person who she once had a romantic relationship with in real life.
She made her ex-boyfriend the bad guy in her movie. She not only wrote the screenplay, she also starred in the movie.
In the Vanity Fair interview, Shlesinger states that “for legal reasons” she isn’t publicly mentioning the real name of the person who her movie is about. He is a nobody. He is not a celebrity, or a politician, or a major business person; although he was surely a very bad boyfriend.
That’s example number one, for now. Here’s example number two:
Captain America
On March 31, 2021, Marvel Comics published a Captain America comic (Number 28 in the series) in which author Ta-Nehisi Coates parodies a Canadian college professor and bestselling self-help psychologist named Jordan B. Peterson by turning Peterson into the comic book’s evil villain, Red Skull.
For the same “legal reasons” cited by Shlesinger, neither Coates nor Marvel has publicly acknowledged the fact. It was Peterson’s own fans who first noticed the connection and brought it to his attention.
The title of Peterson’s bestselling self-help book is, 12 Rules for Life.
In the Captain America comic written by Coates, Nazi supervillain Red Skull is portrayed next to a text box that reads, “Ten Rules for Life.”
In case that left any doubts, adjacent text boxes in the same panel make reference to key themes of Peterson’s work, and to the political controversy that made Coates and so many others hate him. The centerpiece of the panel is a gross misrepresentation: a text box intentionally conflating founding psychologist Carl Jung with some obscure racist politician from Australia a hundred years ago.
This reference to “Karl Lueger” is revealing: because it demonstrates the point at which parodies become lies.
Peterson has no interest in Lueger. Ta-Nehisi Coates is the one who is interested in Lueger. Coates has a politically motivated interest in vilifying Peterson. That’s what this is about. Coates has leveraged his position of influence to falsely and very publicly associate Peterson with things that Peterson never said or did.
Peterson has almost certainly said some things that you and I disagree with. However, we can only hold him accountable for what he actually said— and we must allow him the grace to change his mind. We must not descend into false accusations.
As we consider situations like this, we need to be very careful before we automatically and habitually voice our support for one side or the other.
And yet, in all the articles I reviewed, the major media outlets which covered this story essentially concluded, “Peterson deserves whatever happens to him, because we disagree with his politics.”
But it’s noteworthy that even those politically biased mainstream media outlets had no doubt whatsoever that Marvel’s fictional supervillain had in fact been rewritten as a parody of a real human being who is still alive today.
The connection was so obvious as to be undeniable. Even the media admitted that, yeah, Marvel Comics parodied Jordan B. Peterson by depicting him as Red Skull.
Legal Ramifications
Parody of public figures is a long-cherished tradition protected by the First Amendment.
The parody of private individuals is a little shakier from a legal perspective. Although making a movie to vilify your ex is some seriously next-level revenge, Shlesinger surely has every right to tell her own story: and because she has not publicly named the person she depicted in her screenplay, he apparently has no recourse to a lawsuit alleging defamation.
However, now that one Netflix writer has told Vanity Fair in an interview that a fictional movie character is actually based on a real person, one wonders how many other times Netflix writers have done the same thing.
And this brings up a serious question of propriety. Where is the boundary? At what point does “revenge-movie-scripting your ex” cross the line from self-expression to defamation, or even harassment?
Courts have long held that individuals have a right to own their own likeness. Consequently, movie studios that represent an individual on screen without that individual’s authorization may be held liable for copyright infringement violations, for the unauthorized use of that individual’s likeness. That’s why movies have those boilerplate legal disclaimers that “no similarity to real persons is intended or implied, and any actual similarity is purely coincidental.”
However, in an era where the multi-billion-dollar movie studio companies have begun picking on private individuals with no resources to speak of, the chances that an aggrieved individual could successfully challenge the wealthy and powerful media companies in court, is somewhere approaching nil.
Nonetheless, there is still a chance; and an individual who found herself or himself represented on screen in a film production or television show commissioned and distributed by one of these major media corporations, could potentially have a case worth arguing.
Shlesinger’s public statement to Vanity Fair sure pokes a big hole in that boilerplate legal statement at the end of every movie claiming that any similarity to real persons is “purely coincidental.” We now know for a certainty that this is not true.
So, why should you be concerned if multi-billion-dollar companies appear to be incorporating derogatory narratives about private individuals into their broadcasts, screenplays, movies, TV shows, and publications? After all, in the two examples discussed here, one was a very bad boyfriend, and surely deserved to be parodied on screen; and the other has voiced some very controversial opinions in media interviews, which arguably makes him a public figure and therefore arguably subject to being parodied in print. You, by way of contrast, are absolutely perfect in every aspect of your personal life, right? Always have been? And you have never said anything controversial, ever in your life, and nobody has ever been offended by anything you’ve ever said, right? (Except for the people you intended to insult and upset; but they deserved it, right?)
I don’t know, it sounds to me like you might make a good villain in an upcoming movie. Maybe they will depict you as a mass-murdering psycho, but don’t worry: they’ll change just enough of your details that it will be hard for you to prove your case in court.
Power Imbalance
Of course, Shlesinger has a right to tell her story about her bad relationship.
But on the other hand, consider the power imbalance involved here!
She has the resources of a multi-billion-dollar company at her disposal, and the guy she utterly destroyed in this manner has no means of responding.
I believe her when she says that he lied to her. It sounds like a terrible experience, and I'm sorry she went through that.
The problem is, in the Vanity Fair interview, Shlesinger states that “two thirds of that movie are true.” (Emphasis added.) As we all know, the Devil is in the details: so if one third of the movie is completely false, then that leaves a lot of room for Netflix to spread defamatory narratives in the name of comedy.
Similarly, parody is a long-established literary tradition, supported by the free speech principles of the First Amendment. However, publishing a lie about an individual is defamation, which can have serious legal repercussions.
Defamation, incitement, threats, and sedition are generally seen as exceptions to our usual principles of free speech. Leveraging your multi-billion-dollar corporation to publish a work that falsely associates a modern Canadian psychologist with Nazi Germany and some obscure long-dead racist from Australia, could reasonably be described as defamation for profit.
Where is the border between parody and defamation? I can’t say for sure. I suspect it’s one of those flexible borders with a perplexing tendency to move this way or that depending on who’s asking the question.
I don’t have all the answers, folks. It’s a complex issue. But as with all the most complex issues, ignoring it will not make it go away.
It bears further discussion.
