your uncreative soul
Just finished watching Studio 60 (it's on after Heroes and I was still knitting that sock). I don't really care for the show so far; it's just a rewarmed West Wing, although the performances are good. But their treatment of plagiarism tonight? Awful.
The plot was that a jr. writer, worried about losing his job, plagiarized a small time standup comic. The way this writers' middle management handled it was to 1) make excuses and 2) not give him up to the lead writer. The lead writer respected the middle management for this.
This galls me no end! I mean, JT Leroy, I find terribly clever. Kaavya Viswanathan, pitiable yes, but also totally at fault.
I'm surprised a writer of Aaron Sorkin's caliber would give tacit approval to plagiarism, even under the guise of "he's young, give him a break." In the academic and publishing worlds, there's a zero-tolerance attitude. It's different in the professional world, you're allowed to riff. (Case in point: the current VW ads with Slash, which look exactly like Apple ads.) But the act of plagiarism portrayed in Studio 60 was a word-for-word ripoff. Is that okay with comedians? I wouldn't think so, maybe I'm wrong. Dave George, weigh in here.
I've ratted out two plagiarists. The first one was in highschool, in the annual poetry booklet (to which I hadn't submitted any work. No sour grapes here.) Some girl's cheesy poem -- I didn't know the plagiarist -- was taken from Seventeen magazine. I put the magazine with the poem circled on the teacher's desk, saw the light dawn, and left without waiting for further reaction. No idea if there were any consequences.
The second was a student of mine who had copied out of Sports Illustrated, which I'd read at the dentist office the previous week. I'd personally given his class the plagiarism lecture. He probably bet he could get away with plagiarizing SI, as I'm a chick. So I called him into office hours, showed him a copy of the plagiarized work, and said "guess what happens next?" -- he was expelled from the university within the month. I still gloat over that one.
That guy's probably outearning me tenfold at least by now, don't you think?
The plot was that a jr. writer, worried about losing his job, plagiarized a small time standup comic. The way this writers' middle management handled it was to 1) make excuses and 2) not give him up to the lead writer. The lead writer respected the middle management for this.
This galls me no end! I mean, JT Leroy, I find terribly clever. Kaavya Viswanathan, pitiable yes, but also totally at fault.
I'm surprised a writer of Aaron Sorkin's caliber would give tacit approval to plagiarism, even under the guise of "he's young, give him a break." In the academic and publishing worlds, there's a zero-tolerance attitude. It's different in the professional world, you're allowed to riff. (Case in point: the current VW ads with Slash, which look exactly like Apple ads.) But the act of plagiarism portrayed in Studio 60 was a word-for-word ripoff. Is that okay with comedians? I wouldn't think so, maybe I'm wrong. Dave George, weigh in here.
I've ratted out two plagiarists. The first one was in highschool, in the annual poetry booklet (to which I hadn't submitted any work. No sour grapes here.) Some girl's cheesy poem -- I didn't know the plagiarist -- was taken from Seventeen magazine. I put the magazine with the poem circled on the teacher's desk, saw the light dawn, and left without waiting for further reaction. No idea if there were any consequences.
The second was a student of mine who had copied out of Sports Illustrated, which I'd read at the dentist office the previous week. I'd personally given his class the plagiarism lecture. He probably bet he could get away with plagiarizing SI, as I'm a chick. So I called him into office hours, showed him a copy of the plagiarized work, and said "guess what happens next?" -- he was expelled from the university within the month. I still gloat over that one.
That guy's probably outearning me tenfold at least by now, don't you think?
Stealing material is probably the #2 topic of conversation amongst comics. (#1 is boobies.) There's a special, extra toasty, section in Hell for hacks who steal material. (Carlos Mencia, I'm looking in your general direction.) But I think stealing creative ideas, whether it's corporate, comedic or otherwise, is just plain wrong. Still, it's almost celebrated by some. It's like I always say, though, bad artists copy. Great artists steal. See what I did there? I stole that from Picasso.
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