Have you seen the new issue of Esquire?

[heidi]

The New York Times has an article today about Esquire's piece on Heath Ledger's last days; there's two quirky things about it that the Times highlighted:
1. It's a work of fiction; and
2. It's written in first-person diary form.

In other words, it's Real Person Fic, but unlike other recent fictionalizations of real people (like the "I'm F*cking..." vids on Jimmy Kimmel), obviously, this time the person being fictionalized could not participate or consent.

It can't be libel or slander because you can only defame a living person, and it isn't clear that anything in the article could be deemed defamatory anyway. There are possible "trademark" issues, except they may be mitigated by the fact that Esquire didn't plug the article on the magazine's cover; it's just there, inside, on one of the pages.

Also, the Times says the article is labeled as fiction; has anyone seen their actual "disclaimer" language?

I'm interested in what people think of this piece - for me, even though I generally don't have a problem reading RPF as long as it's labeled so that people who stumble across it don't think it's truth, the story feels a little ghoulish and I would probably have no problem with it if they published it next winter, but it's barely been eight weeks and it's still too fresh to have any purposeful context.

I'm interested in a way, though, whether the family tries to take any action against Esquire over this - because I know some fandomers regularly fret about the subjects of RPF or TPTB taking action against Real Person Fic, but couldn't this become that sort of precedent-setting case *if* the family got extremely upset about it?

Some things are completely out of any of our control.

Comments

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

It IS ghoulish; I'd feel the same way if someone posted it to LJ.

I also feel like the difference is that lots of people read Esquire, and they don't read it *looking* for RPF, whereas if you find RPF on LJ, you probably wanted to find it, or wanted to find fannish works of some kind. But I'm not sure that's a defense.

This is also a case where even if the family sued, I'm not sure it's applicable to fandom because of the for profit/not for profit difference, but I could be wrong.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That is creepy. JMO!

[(Anonymous)]

My opinion: Totally inappropriate! It crosses way over personal boundaries. I get creeped out by any RPF, but this is profiting on interest in the poor guy's death! I agree with your point that the person fictionalized couldn't give consent. Not only that, his poor family!

That being said, I'd have no problem with a RPF about a person who'd been dead 100 years. Shakespeare In Love comes to mind--guess that's RPF!

[rafikiven.livejournal.com]

Ooops, left an Anonymous message b/c I didn't realize I wasn't signed in!

Totally inappropriate this close to his death. Maybe in 20 years it would be OK.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I had a subscription to Esquire I'd be writing to them to cancel it.