I suppose that every standup comic that has ever poked fun at George Bush or Elizabeth Taylor or any other celebrity is therefore guilty of bad manners. Satire then is very bad manners. Doonesbury is extremely bad manners.
Yeah, actually, sometimes I do. All those Michael Jackson jokes? Not funny. Elizabeth Taylor jokes are both stale and often cruel. The difference is that bad manners is not equal to illegal or wrong. Tactless and tacky, yes. Wrong, no.
So far as I can tell the line gets crossed when reality gets ignored completely, and when it gets sexual. Comedians work with actors' and politicians' actual *actions*; they don't make stuff up entirely. Satirists might depict George Bush in bed with Tony Blair, but the medium, in this case, makes it clear that this is not true. Stories, on the other hand, are much harder to parse or allow the reader to make that distinction. Not least because the actors who are usually RPS material might be well-known, but they're not well-known enough for anyone outside the fandom to know what is real, and what is the author's depiction of their 'persona.' RPS fans are all pulling from the same public pool of info, maybe. But the rest of us are not aware of this stuff. "No, that's *my* Dom/Elijah/Viggo/whoever," you can say. But unless you go point-by-point and explain to me all the places where it's not the *real* Elijah, how the heck is a casual reader gonna know that?
Re: Access... Sure, the internet isn't Jay Leno. It's better: it has Google. And the Internet Wayback Machine. Either of which can bring up the supposedly remote little story, one you may have even erased a while ago, cached and saved, at the touch of a button. The actor, his publicist, his family, his employers-- they can all find this in 10 seconds. So forget the idea that it's some little tucked-away thing that they're never gonna know about. Actors *can* work computers, you know (despite the rumors).
no one really has interest in except the fans.
I assume you mean RPS fans? Because if not, then every fan of Russell Crowe, or Elijah Wood, who is too new or too out-of-fandom to even know fandom exists, is going to be shocked as hell when they encounter RPS. Of course these people can find the stories too, the same way I just mentioned : Google Lynx WebCrawler Lycos etc. Sure, they'll probably back away, shocked and disgusted, and never comment on it. But you never know what'll get back to the actor, and what won't.
One other point about Satire/Parody: most of those apply to public works, not public people. If you take anything you say about a public person too far, yeah, it is slander or libel.
"Oh, but I'm not saying anything bad..." Maybe it's not intended that way. But messing with someone's alleged behavior and sexuality to the point of unrecognizability can still be regarded, by them, as detrimental. In the end, they get the final say about what they consider harm. The RPS writers don't. Even if they mean it nicely, and adore the actor-- if the actor doesn't want it, they will/can sue, as you mentioned. I just don't get why you'd want it to get to that point. Fantasize, write about it, knock yourself out. But why make it public? Why not have a private list? That's the part I really, really don't get.
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Date: 2005-03-18 03:00 am (UTC)Yeah, actually, sometimes I do. All those Michael Jackson jokes? Not funny. Elizabeth Taylor jokes are both stale and often cruel. The difference is that bad manners is not equal to illegal or wrong. Tactless and tacky, yes. Wrong, no.
So far as I can tell the line gets crossed when reality gets ignored completely, and when it gets sexual. Comedians work with actors' and politicians' actual *actions*; they don't make stuff up entirely. Satirists might depict George Bush in bed with Tony Blair, but the medium, in this case, makes it clear that this is not true. Stories, on the other hand, are much harder to parse or allow the reader to make that distinction. Not least because the actors who are usually RPS material might be well-known, but they're not well-known enough for anyone outside the fandom to know what is real, and what is the author's depiction of their 'persona.' RPS fans are all pulling from the same public pool of info, maybe. But the rest of us are not aware of this stuff. "No, that's *my* Dom/Elijah/Viggo/whoever," you can say. But unless you go point-by-point and explain to me all the places where it's not the *real* Elijah, how the heck is a casual reader gonna know that?
Re: Access... Sure, the internet isn't Jay Leno. It's better: it has Google. And the Internet Wayback Machine. Either of which can bring up the supposedly remote little story, one you may have even erased a while ago, cached and saved, at the touch of a button. The actor, his publicist, his family, his employers-- they can all find this in 10 seconds. So forget the idea that it's some little tucked-away thing that they're never gonna know about. Actors *can* work computers, you know (despite the rumors).
no one really has interest in except the fans.
I assume you mean RPS fans? Because if not, then every fan of Russell Crowe, or Elijah Wood, who is too new or too out-of-fandom to even know fandom exists, is going to be shocked as hell when they encounter RPS. Of course these people can find the stories too, the same way I just mentioned : Google Lynx WebCrawler Lycos etc. Sure, they'll probably back away, shocked and disgusted, and never comment on it. But you never know what'll get back to the actor, and what won't.
One other point about Satire/Parody: most of those apply to public works, not public people. If you take anything you say about a public person too far, yeah, it is slander or libel.
"Oh, but I'm not saying anything bad..." Maybe it's not intended that way. But messing with someone's alleged behavior and sexuality to the point of unrecognizability can still be regarded, by them, as detrimental. In the end, they get the final say about what they consider harm. The RPS writers don't. Even if they mean it nicely, and adore the actor-- if the actor doesn't want it, they will/can sue, as you mentioned. I just don't get why you'd want it to get to that point. Fantasize, write about it, knock yourself out. But why make it public? Why not have a private list? That's the part I really, really don't get.