Shia LaBeouf's plagiarism may be a case of cultural 'affluenza'

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/18/shia-labeouf-plagiarism-cultural-affluenza

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It's been a bad week for renowned actor and less renowned filmmaker Shia LaBeouf, and an even worse week for plagiarism. In a series of tweets, LaBeouf admitted on Tuesday that he "fucked up" by failing to acknowledge that the short film he passed off as an original work was actually inspired by, if not an entire rip off of, a graphic novella written by artist Daniel Clowes. By way of apology, LaBeouf tweeted that in his "excitement and naivete as an amateur filmmaker (he) got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation". Naivete and excitement may well have played their part in this fairly brazen breach of etiquette, but considering LaBeouf's previous run ins with plagiarism (even part of his twitterized apology seems to have been copied) it may be that the young actor has been afflicted with a bad case of cultural "affluenza".

I haven't seen the short film (Howard Cantour.com) at the center of the controversy because it was removed shortly after it was released online, on the shortoftheweek.com website, following Buzzfeed's report that it was uncomfortably similar to Clowes' 2007 comic, Justin M Damiano. But considering that Clowes' reps called it an almost direct adaptation of the work, and that LaBeouf made no attempt to deny the allegation and immediately apologized to "all who assumed I wrote it", it's reasonable to assume that there was some heavy lifting involved. Oddly, when the film debuted at Cannes over a year ago and no one noticed that the characters and dialog were not original, LaBeouf didn't feel any compulsion to undo the audience's assumption that he wrote the film. Could it be that he thought he could get away with it, or that he didn't realize there was anything to get away with?

As many critics and commenters pointed out in the past few days, this is not LaBeouf's first brush with plagiarism. Earlier this year, after creative differences (aka a spat with Alec Baldwin) prompted the young actor to withdraw from a Broadway production, he pasted whole chunks of an Esquire article titled "What is a Man?" into an email to his former co-star, without using quotation marks or acknowledging the author, Tom Chiarela. This wasn't that big of a deal – or at least it wouldn't have been – had LaBeouf not chosen to share the private email exchange with Baldwin and the play's director with the general public on twitter. LaBeouf messed up again when it emerged that his opening apology tweet on Tuesday was copied from the Yahoo Answers site.

Copying isn't particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else's idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.

Neither of these incidents are particularly significant of themselves. Using quotation marks when you're quoting someone is the polite thing to do obviously, especially if you're making a public statement, but It's not like LaBeouf profited in any direct way from passing off another person's words as his own – as he might have done with his short film. The more notable issue about these incidents, particularly the ill considered apology tweet, is that it fuels the speculation that he has a plagiarism problem: that he seems to think that if someone else's work speaks to him in some way, he's entitled to repurpose or repackage it at will.

This brings me to my diagnosis of cultural affluenza. The term "affluenza" first surfaced during the trial of Texas teenager Ethan Couch, who killed four people and paralyzed one in a drunk driving accident. He was sentenced to probation rather than prison after his defense team successfully argued that because of his parents' wealth, he had been brought up in a consequence-free environment. However crazy the judgement itself may have been, the idea that a person with excessive wealth and privilege might also have an inflated sense of entitlement does make a terrible sort of sense. It may be that LaBeouf's meteoric rise to stardom – and the privileged life that goes with such early success – might explain in some way his apparent inability to understand that he doesn't get to pass off a story written by someone else as his own, just because he likes it.

Or maybe I'm being too nice and he just tried to pull a fast one and didn't get away with it. Either way, he has been busted and is already learning that actions do have consequences. Clowes retains the copyrights to his work and his publisher, Fantagraphics, said in a statement that the artist is pursuing his legal options. The embarrassment surrounding the incident may cost LaBeouf more than any financial penalty, but hopefully he will learn to observe a few basic niceties like using quotation marks, thinking before he tweets, and not pretending to have written something he hasn't.

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