
Why Nearly Every Film Ends by Saying It’s Fiction - yurisagalov
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/08/26/the_bizarre_true_story_behind_the_this_is_a_work_of_fiction_disclaimer.html
======
gingerlime
I particularly liked the use of the opposite statement in Fargo[0] despite it
_not_ being a true story.

 _This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in
Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been
changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it
occurred._

Which was later used in the Fargo TV series[1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(film)#Factual_vs._ficti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_\(film\)#Factual_vs._fictional)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_%28TV_series%29#.22This_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_%28TV_series%29#.22This_is_a_true_story.22)

~~~
aaron695
I like specifically in one interview someone recalling telling them they can't
say it's a true story if it's not.

They replied "Why not"

They were fk you to an audience used to watching fiction under certain rules
and they were quite happy to break that.

~~~
jessriedel
Yes, how provincial and constraining are those rules about not lying!

~~~
scrollaway
What "rules about not lying"? Movies are entertainment. Most of them are based
on lies, regardless of what it says at the beginning or in the credits. Actors
are professional liars. Hollywood thrives in fiction; story and tropes.

~~~
jessriedel
Lies are distinguished from fiction by the intention to deceive about the real
world, as opposed to counterfactual imagining.

~~~
oldmanjay
Given that, what point were you making?

~~~
harryjo
The point is, lying is bad, it rips the fabric of society. Fiction is not
lying, it is useful, contextualized nontruth.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Lies are the lubrication of society; you're lied to anywhere between 9-200
times a day.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I see what you did there.

------
mysterypie
> _Irina Yusupov sued the studio, and the jury found in her favor, awarding
> her £25,000, or about $125,000. MGM had to take the film out of circulation
> for decades and purge the offending scene for all time._

I wish articles would make it clear if they are using inflation-adjusted
figures or not. Looking at the source document, the above is not adjusted for
inflation.

Therefore it's $2,200,000 in today's dollars[1]. A non-trivial amount even for
a big studio.

[1] [http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=125000&year1=19...](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=125000&year1=1934&year2=2016)

~~~
ProxCoques
Well said. Giving non-inflation adjusted prices is such piss-poor journalism.
It's as bad as the practice of making time-relative statements like "since
last year", so the reader has to work out what that means.

~~~
nl
Or "summertime". For half the planet that means precisely the opposite time of
year.

~~~
harryjo
It's relevant to the local context of the story. The time of year doesn't
really matter, the season does.

------
ValentineC
I was reminded of the Small Penis Rule after reading this.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/24/books/writers-as-
plunderer...](http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/24/books/writers-as-plunderers-
why-do-they-keep-giving-away-other-people-s-secrets.html)

~~~
wodenokoto
Why can't the small penis be part of the libel?

~~~
mmanfrin
It can, it's just that the plaintiff has to prove they have a small penis.

~~~
Digit-Al
If the small penis is part of the libel then surely the plaintiff has to be
prove he doesn't have a small penis.

~~~
empath75
The small penis isn't the libelous part, just an identifying feature.

~~~
Dylan16807
Which doesn't actually make any sense. It's a fun joke, but you could make the
same "it's just an identifying feature" argument about any libelous part.

------
WalterBright
I'd always thought the reason was obviously because someone lost a libel
lawsuit over it. Read the article, and sure enough, that was it. Nothing
strange about it.

~~~
jcl
I've assumed the same is true of the "views expressed on this DVD do not
necessarily reflect those of (studio)" unskippable disclaimer that is on every
DVD these days. But I'm still curious what specific event motivated it.

------
ikeboy
>It’s only recently that studios have relaxed the disclaimer to allow that
certain films are inspired, in part, by real events—maybe that’s because, in
1967, Felix Yusupov finally died. Now, blessedly, you can say whatever you
want about him.

An estate doesn't have libel rights?

Edit: hm. [https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-
blog/2014/feb/18/def...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-
blog/2014/feb/18/defaming-dead-relatives-european-ruling-right-sue)

Also, it was his _wife_ that was libeled, so his death isn't the relevant
milestone here.

------
pessimizer
I'm missing the strange/bizarre part. MGM, despite their own research, made up
a rape between two people who never met in a film about people who were still
alive. The alleged victim sued and won.

She'd still win today, with or without the disclaimer. Imagine some OJ movie
where they decide to have a subplot about him molesting his daughters, for
dramatic effect.

~~~
harryjo
Or inventing a conspiracy theory around the JFK assassination?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_(film)#Critical_reaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_\(film\)#Critical_reaction)

------
combatentropy
The problem is that the statement at the end of films is always a lie, even
for fantasies.

There is a misunderstanding, mainly among people who write themselves off as
uncreative, that creative people are endowed with a gift, where they can come
up with stories out of nothing. The truth is, they are all inspired by past
stories and experience, and characters are based on parts of themselves or
relatives or friends or people in a newspaper.

There has never been a story created out of pure nothing, that is utterly
original in every way, ever.

Everything is a remix [https://vimeo.com/14912890](https://vimeo.com/14912890)

------
sandworm101
I think the op overstates the power of these statements. Take the south park
intro. It doesn't provide absolute cover for libel. If they make statements
about people that to a normal person's understanding are not clear parody,
they can still be sued. If it looks like Tom Cruise, and talks like Tom
Cruise, and you tell the audience with a strait face that it rapes people,
expect lawyers.

~~~
dalke
It's parody, not libel.

Here's a summary of what the court considers in a libel case -
[https://popehat.com/2015/09/02/satire-vs-potentially-
defamat...](https://popehat.com/2015/09/02/satire-vs-potentially-defamatory-
factual-statements-an-illustration/) .

> Finally, the court will look at the statement from the perspective of the
> audience to which it was directed, taking that audience's knowledge and
> understanding into account. (Seelig v. Infinity Broadcasting Corp. (2002) 97
> Cal.App.4th 798, 809-10.)

> That's why satire and parody are protected even when directed at a fairly
> narrow audience. For instance, when the proprietors of WorldNetDaily sued
> Esquire for a parody suggesting they were withdrawing one of their birther
> tomes, Esquire won because the piece was viewed from the perspective of
> someone familiar with Esquire's history of satire and WorldNetDaily's
> history of nuttery, not from the perspective of a person encountering all
> these figures for the first time. Similarly, my post about the case is
> protected satire even though I made up excerpts from the D.C. Circuit
> opinion suggesting that WorldNetDaily staff routinely molests walruses.

Most watchers of South Park know it has a history of satire, including last
year's "Where My Country Gone?" depicting Trump being raped to death, or years
ago "The China Probrem" portraying Spielberg and Lucas raping Indiana Jones
and a stormtrooper.

Comedy Central's own lawyers have a solid defense against the libel case you
describe.

~~~
sandworm101
> Comedy Central's own lawyers have a solid defense against the libel case you
> describe.

They do indeed. But those defences do not begin and end with a title card
calling everything fiction, as the OP would suggest.

~~~
oldmanjay
Are you a lawyer who specializes in libel or just an assertive internet
denizen?

~~~
sandworm101
A lawyer with background enough to know that parody and libel are not
opposites. I mostly deal with security and IP issues, but I do teach
slander/libel in some of my classes. SouthPark's reliance on parody and the
assertion of fiction aren't absolute defences, especially since much of their
comedy isn't meant as parody nor fiction (See the episodes on Scientology and
Mormonism which while parodic also rely on other defences.)

~~~
dalke
My apologies. I used the wrong term. It's not "parody" but "satire".

No, satire isn't an "absolute defense." I never claimed it was. Nor did I say
they were opposites. I was making a comment about a satire defense specific to
the Tom Cruise and rape scenario you presented.

You wrote: "If they make statements about people that to a normal person's
understanding are not clear parody, they can still be sued"

That is not the criterion. It isn't a "normal person's understanding", but a
viewership who is aware of South Park's history of satire, including straight-
faced satire.

Yes, Comedy Central/South Park could still be sued, but to win it would need
to be a scenario where it's not understood as satire even to South Park's
audience.

~~~
sandworm101
That really depends on the jurisdiction. The UK famously has very different
libel rules, and judges that are much less willing to tolerate satire, hence
the "I'll sue you in England" line in SouthPark's Scientology episode.

Satire/parody-related defences can fall apart when saying something that is
allegedly true (ie "Tom Cruise is gay"). Truth is a defence in the US, but not
in England and other jurisdictions that place privacy above "the public's
right to know". SouthPark has in the past run some serious risks in this
regard, but they seem more restrained lately.

~~~
dalke
When you wrote "If they make statements about people that to a normal person's
understanding are not clear parody, they can still be sued" were you primarily
talking about the UK system?

I see that you write 'defences', instead of the American 'defenses', so I
think the answer is "yes."

The Slate article was talking about a case in the US system (and the HN
readership is US-centric), so I think it's fair to expect that comments which
refer to some other jurisdiction would mention that change.

I ask that you make this context shift more explicit in the future.

Here's a more complete analysis of what a First Amendment defense might look
in the US system in regards to Tom Cruise being called gay:
[http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20051206.html](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20051206.html)
.

One of the more philosophical points in that essay applies to British law. The
Defamation Act 2013 requires serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.
Do you, as a lawyer, wish to defend the belief that it's harmful to call
someone gay when they are not gay?

Reading about that new(ish) law, it seems the updated line should be "I'll sue
you in Belfast."

------
DiabloD3
Does anyone have a better written version of this? The entire thing is
distractingly clickbaitily written and has both not written enough about the
subject, and paradoxically, written too much.

~~~
glitcher
Without an explanation helping to illustrate what was too much and what more
you expected, I fear your comment may suffer from the same paradox.

------
Dylan16807
"but MGM couldn’t do that after casting a real-life brother and sister in
those roles."

Ha, if that was the actual logic then they deserved it.

------
thatcherc
'Nearly every film'? I can't think of the last film I watched where I saw a
disclaimer like this. Maybe I just don't watch a lot of movies that could be
interpreted as true, but this title seems hyperbolic.

Edit: it's at the _very_ end of most films.

~~~
wongarsu
Just checking a few random movies.

Movies I checked that have this disclaimer:

\- Despicable Me 2

\- Django Unchained

\- Inception

\- Jurassic World

\- James Bond: Spectre

\- Avatar (extended cut)

\- Spaceballs

Movies I checked that don't have this disclaimer:

\- Tangled

It's usually among the very last lines of the end credits, among the
statements about dedication to the environment, distance from the tobacco
industry, lack of animal abuse etc. If you're not watching the end credits you
will never notice it.

~~~
DannyBee
"If you're not watching the end credits you will never notice it." Which of
course, makes it mostly meaningless.

If you want these things to have any meaningful legal effect, people have to
know it.

~~~
harryjo
So, EULAs and TOSes have no meaninful legal effect?

~~~
cloudjacker
Historically that's correct.

The software industry has routinely been denied enforcement of their
agreements by the way they make users agree to them

The reaction is some companies have slightly different agreement things such
as making you scroll to the bottom first

But then everyone decides again that the risk is pretty low and user
engagement matters more and the tos agreement stuff takes a backseat again

------
colejohnson66
Can we change the title to something less "clickbaity"? Is that even a word?

~~~
colejohnson66
Edit: Fixed

