Well, that's the thing. RPF uses a real person's name and characteristics, and often uses them in intimate situations.
I've seen a lot of people arguing not that it's good, but that they can get away with it, or why it's really not that bad. No one seems to want to actually defend it and say it's great and so forth. Why? Because there's that essential lack of consent on the part of the person in the story. Fiction at least makes the effort to protect people who've been fictionalized. RPF takes exactly the opposite approach.
Legally speaking the use of long-dead historical characters is an accepted practice. One can't write about the Civil War and leave out Robert E. Lee. You'll notice that it's extremely rare of Lee's biographers to write porn about him, or to put him in fictionalized stories which portray him doing things he didn't in fact do. There's a certain respect there. That basic respect is what's lacking in RPF.
It should also be noted that parody and satire are specifically excluded from libel/slander laws, which is something else RPFers like to try and argue. Not saying you said that, but it's something else that could be headed off at the pass.
It's fiction. Doesn't matter if somebody fictionalized a real person---by concealing certain features---like their name, for God's sake----they're still trying to protect that person. The writer is making the effort. The RPFer is not.
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Date: 2005-03-17 12:41 pm (UTC)I've seen a lot of people arguing not that it's good, but that they can get away with it, or why it's really not that bad. No one seems to want to actually defend it and say it's great and so forth. Why? Because there's that essential lack of consent on the part of the person in the story. Fiction at least makes the effort to protect people who've been fictionalized. RPF takes exactly the opposite approach.
Legally speaking the use of long-dead historical characters is an accepted practice. One can't write about the Civil War and leave out Robert E. Lee. You'll notice that it's extremely rare of Lee's biographers to write porn about him, or to put him in fictionalized stories which portray him doing things he didn't in fact do. There's a certain respect there. That basic respect is what's lacking in RPF.
It should also be noted that parody and satire are specifically excluded from libel/slander laws, which is something else RPFers like to try and argue. Not saying you said that, but it's something else that could be headed off at the pass.
It's fiction. Doesn't matter if somebody fictionalized a real person---by concealing certain features---like their name, for God's sake----they're still trying to protect that person. The writer is making the effort. The RPFer is not.