Entirely Coincidental

By Russel D McLean

One of the strangest stories I read over the last week was this one:

Scarlett Johanson suing an author for using her likeness in his works (or saying a character looks like her).

But it brings up an interesting point of where real life and fiction collide. After all, many authors use real life people as the basis for characters to varying degrees. I’ve certainly named a few characters after people I know (mostly it’s a private joke and they’ve asked or I’ve asked, and even then I’ve been careful about what I do to these characters). The character of “Sooty” Soutar in Father Confessor is loosely based on someone I know both in terms of name and his physical presence. I’ve been namechecked in a few works of fiction, once or twice by nicknames rather than my real name.

Once, I was even accidentally "cameoed" in a book by a writer I know who had a particularly horrific character work out of an address I used to live at. I knew it was a coincidence (the writer in question had no idea that used to be my address, and he certainly didn't intend for anyone to believe this character we in any way related to me) but people I knew didn’t, and had assumed it was a joke in bad taste. Its now become a joke in quite good taste, of course, and an object lesson in how despite your best efforts you’re probably going to wind up getting some people confused about real life and fiction.

And of course then there’s Peter James using a character by the name of Amis Smallbone as a stab at a public figure of words who rudely dissed him.

But where does the line end?

All characters in this work of fiction bear no resemblance to persons living or dead?

To what degree?

In American Psycho* there’s a scene where Tom Cruise shares a lift with our protagonist. There’s a dialogue between the two. Nothing particularly terrible. In fact it’s kind of bland** But it got me wondering, in light of Johansson’s case, what was Cruise’s reaction to the cameo and how did he feel to be associated with this kind of character, even in passing?

At what point do we pass into use for public domain? Without using celebrities and their public personas for comparison or even scene setting, how can fiction in any way relate to the real world as it is now? They become short hand for certain associations. In the same way that music, objects and brands can be used to say something, so can the association of a certain type of celebrity. To say that someone has a Tom Cruise smile, or Roger Moore eyebrows brings with it a cultural association that sets an immediate kind of mood.
Not only that, but it helps to ground works in a certain place or time. For example, set a book in the eighties or beyond and talk about Roger Moore eyebrows, it makes sense. But set that book in the mid-1700s and the comparison is not only anachronistic but it destroys any suspension of disbelief.

Hate on Dan Brown as much as you like, but he’s very clever in using celebrity shorthand for his character descriptions. By comparing Langdon to Harrison Ford “in Harris Tweed” he sets up a very immediate association in the reader’s head, especially given Ford’s associations with characters whom Brown would like the reader to identify his character with (Indiana Jones - - yes, Langdon isn’t a brawny kind of guy but he is a man who investigates the mysterious and by making that association, Brown is able to get readers to accept the kind of journey upon which Langdon embarks)

But how much can or should we use celebrity in our fiction? Tom Cain’s debut novel used the real life death of Diana Princess of Wales as a starting point, but refused to name her specifically, perhaps relying on the implication of her life as enough of a hint to readers as to what he was really talking about. And of course a number of authors have fictionalised famous people in often unflattering ways. Ellroy’s depictions of historical figures is often disturbing and unsettling. Is he using them fairly? Certainly he uses them to service his view of the world and the use of them helps us to believe that what he is writing about is plausible is not actual.

There are lines, certainly. Lines that should not be crossed. If American Psycho had for example implicated Cruise in some horrific act that was at odds with what we know him as a public figure then that would be a cause for him to complain, in the same way that I might complain if someone used a “Russel McLean” who was a no good piece of shit dog killer in their fiction and who lived at my address and shared my taste in clothes, music and so forth.

But what point are you public enough to be fair game for fiction writers? At what point can you not complain if you are used merely as a comparison or in a purely fictional sense where it is very clear that this is not the real “you”?

I understand why Johansson might be unsettled at the idea of being mention in a fictional work. But is it any different to appearing in the National Enquirer or a tabloid where rumour is reported as truth?

And more importantly, if we were not allowed to let elements of reality – specifically the mention and use of public domain figures such as celebrities – intrude on our fiction, how would that affect our storytelling and the way that it relates to readers? Its not a question that I have an easy answer to, but I suspect that were we not to use famous faces as signposts, were we not to include an element of the real in our fiction, then it would make it that much harder for readers to engage with our work as it would be unable to function as a reasonable simulacra of the real world.

*I know it’s a classic but I’m in the midst of it right now and finding it a bit of a slog

**Which is the point, of course.

Identity

By Russel D McLean

Apologies for the late post today - I was rather caught up in paid writing work! 

About eight or nine years ago, I got a call from my friend John (whom I haven’t seen in ages – hey, buddy, promise I’ll be in touch soon). John was recently out as a gay man and rather enjoying things from what I could tell. Anyway, after all the usual preamble you get with a friendly phone call, John said, “Look, is there something you want to talk about?”

I didn’t have anything I wanted to talk about that I could think of. But he insisted. Like this was something serious. And we played that game people do, where neither of them really wants to say anything in case they’re wrong. It took John to finally say: “I saw the profile.”

The profile in question was on a gay dating website. He sent me the link. And I saw that there – under a pseudonym (oh how I wish I could remember it) was me. I knew it was me and not just someone who looked like me because the profile pic was taken in a bar I frequented at the time. And, in fact, I had a copy of the very same photo. It had been taken on a night out with the English Literature Society of Dundee University. I should add, it wasn’t an incriminating photo, although my eyes were a little glazed. This wasn’t a photo already on the net. This was one you’d have had to scan in.

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

I was confused at first. My sexuality is pretty comfortably heterosexual. And if I did come out, I probably wouldn’t use a gay dating site, just as I never used a straight dating site (which might explain why I spent eight years single). So what was my image doing there? And what were some of these activities I apparently enjoyed? And why did I describe myself as a bear?*

After the conversation got less awkward, when I realised what he was talking about, I explained to John that I hadn’t posted the profile. I had no access to it. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would post an image of me there. But it had to be someone we both knew because there were only a select number of people would have access to those particular photographs.

What nagged at me even more was the fact that whoever had posted it there hadn’t tipped me off to the fact that they had done so. They hadn’t linked to anything personal about me, they hadn’t posted my email address or forwarded messages of interest (maybe the profile got none) or used it in some way to spread rumours about me.

They had just posted the profile.

And let it sit there for over a year until John stumbled over it while looking for a date.**

I still don’t know who did it or why. Was there an end game? Was it a practical joke that never reached a punchline? Was it some weird kind of revenge? Was it someone so shy they thought that posting an image of me would give them more chance at getting a date than posting their own features?

I contacted the site and told them that my image was being used without my consent. Proving this got a little complex and I wound up posting a photograph of myself to my then blog holding a newspaper so that the site’s operators could determine I was who I said I was. The profile was deleted with no further incident. But the site knew very little about the details of who had set up the profile. I was intrigued, however, to learn that it had been dormant for six months, almost as though whoever had set it up had forgotten about it or got bored. Or maybe had been unable to achieve whatever end game they were looking to (I still don’t know what it could have been - - but I was rather proud to learn I’d got a lot of views, at least)

Or perhaps they had achieved their goal. Perhaps it had nothing to do with me, and all they had needed was an image that was not them. Because they didn’t want anyone who knew them to find them or because they somehow thought I might be a more attractive proposition (believe me, the likelihood is that I wasn’t). Maybe they met someone and forgot about the profile. Or maybe…

Or maybe…

I was thinking about this again recently when a writer friend of mine discovered someone trying to set up a facebook account in their name. In this case, the fakester was befriending actual friends of the original but again there seemed no real gameplan, no attempt to spread real malice. It was just someone co-opting someone else’s identity and… well… sitting there, online. Doing nothing.

So why?

Why do it?

The internet is an odd place, where identity is fluid and where you can gain a fresh start merely by tapping in a few letters on a keyboard. You can become someone or something utterly unknown to those who would recognise you in day to day life. You can become someone else. Someone you create. Or, in odd cases like these, someone you co-opt.

For crime writers, it’s a creepy (and inspiring in fictional terms) thing to think that the people we’re talking to may not be the people we’re talking to. What if John had, rather than calling me, private messaged the profile? Would he have worked out that it wasn't me?

And what if the profile wasn't expecting someone who knew their image to get in touch?

I still think about the person who put my picture online.

I still wonder why they did it.

But this isn’t a novel. Its not a movie. Resolutions in life are never near, and the fact is I’ll probably never know who they were, or why they put my picture on their profile. And in some ways its more intriguing that I don't...

*For those not in the know, I discovered it meant a hirsute and usually large man. I don’t mind that at all. If I was on the scene I think I’d be comfortable with that description.

**Let’s quickly point out this was a fairly tame dating site, so it wasn’t like my image was being posted around the seedier corners of the internet – this was men looking for companionship with men and little else.