Well, I have a Substack now! It's time to talk about the ethics of Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman.
It is discrimination against the long-winded community that Instagram won't let me post this in one caption.
Dear Reader,
I read Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman yesterday and I’d like to talk about the ethics of the book (not the caliber of writing), so fair warning, there are spoilers and brief mentions of alcoholism ahead! If you’ve never heard of this book and still want to keep reading, just for context: the book was based on an unconventional 2011 GQ interview between Chris Evans (“Gabe Parker”) and Edith Zimmerman (“Chani Horowitz”). To be clear, the book is narrated from the perspective of the journalist but wasn’t written by Edith Zimmerman.
I have two major questions here:
FIRST: is it ethical to use another writer’s profile piece for profit without permission or acknowledgment? In reading the article last night…boy, the book skirts awfully close to outright plagiarism, to the point that I can’t even list all the factual similarities. Zimmerman’s lens through which she sees Evans is almost identical to Horowitz’s lens through which she sees Parker. It’s no coincidence that Parker is given more characterization than Horowitz in the book.
Furthermore, Sussman writes multiple reviews of the article in the book (“Apparently, Horowitz is a fairly beloved celebrity interviewer. This reviewer could not say how or why—even the profiles included in her collection of essays are self-serving and self-centered. Everything is about her. It’s kind of cute at first, the way it’s cute when your child asks you a precocious question, like ‘Daddy, why is the grass green?’ But when that question is asked over and over and over again, it doesn’t seem cute. Instead, it seems likely that something is wrong with your child and their intelligence. One only has to read her infamous interview with Bond star Gabe Parker to realize exactly why she’s gotten any attention for her mediocre writing.”) and Sussman ends her reviews with “Chani Horowitz is a slut.” Given that the audience knows the book is based on this real interview, is it ethical to critique it, especially in this way? I definitely don’t think it’s right to refer to the journalist as a slut (even in a fictional review) given that your audience knows it’s based on a real person, which brings me to…
SECOND: is it ethical to write a book based on two real strangers’ lives without permission or acknowledgment? This isn’t the same as drawing inspiration from your own life experience or a real person in your life, in which case 1) you have a shared ownership over the experience and 2) you’re writing about someone through your specific lens because you personally experience them through that specific lens. In the absence of ownership (or basic acknowledgment), should the book be published for profit?
The audience knows that this is based on a real interview, but even if they didn’t, they would figure out pretty soon that Gabe Parker in particular was based on Chris Evans’ public persona. The character is nominally different enough not to get sued (which I think is why neither Zimmerman nor Evans appear in the acknowledgments), but it’s similar enough that a reader would absolutely pick up on it. The irony isn’t lost on me that Evans is planning to do something similar to Gene Kelly. I’m not an Evans fan (do they call themselves Efans?) so I’m probably missing similarities here, but: Parker/Evans loves dogs, he played beer pong in one of his TV interviews, he didn’t have a beard 10 years ago and now he does, he’s got an all-American image, he was the star of a major action franchise that required him to diet/wax and oil his chest/sign a strict contract clause, he’s more connected to his folksy hometown than he is to L.A., he’s self-deprecating and affable, he plays games at his parties, he’s close with his mother and sister, et cetera.
Sussman adds alcoholism to the character, which is a large part of why I question whether it’s ethical to profit off a real person’s life without permission or acknowledgment. I read the interview last night, and Evans drinks beer and talks about how his publicist asked him not to drink too much. When the audience knows that your character is based on a real person and when that real person drinks in the interview, is it ethical to portray this real stranger as an addict? Please note that I’m not implying he is (neither I nor Sussman know him), but rather that 1) I’m genuinely not sure if Sussman added in alcoholism because of the lines about drinking in the article and 2) the character lines up so closely with Evans in other respects, so I think it’s a bit too much like portraying Evans himself as an alcoholic. Either the audience could get the entirely wrong impression about Evans himself or Sussman could have accidentally written about something he isn’t comfortable sharing publicly, and both options are terrible.
If you think there are ethical issues here (please tell me what you really think; I want to have a discussion here), where does that leave published fanfiction that uses real people’s likenesses (or lives, in the case of something like the After books)? Personally, I think the first issue (“is it ethical to use another writer’s work”) is clear in that fanfiction (based on fiction, even if it’s for profit) is in conversation with an original fictional text rather than directly lifted from a real interview/experience. Fanfiction expands on/counters/reinvents the original fictional text. If published fanfiction is unethical, then so is Wide Sargasso Sea or The Three Musketeers or The Once and Future King. But is it ethical to publish fanfiction for profit when it’s based on real people? Is it ethical to use real people’s likenesses (*cough* Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver) for the cover art? I don’t know. Please tell me any and all thoughts you have about this, I’m dying to talk to someone about this!
Love, Lily
This is such an interesting question, where do you draw the line ethically? Is it different if the writer has a relationship with the real people? Based on how their fictional selves are shown? If I write a novel based on a traumatic childhood, but add in speculative features that obviously remove it from the known world, is that ok? I don't actually know, but I'm fascinated with the question. This use makes me feel uncomfortable, but I like to sit with that a little because I enjoy a book making me a bit uncomfortable, so the source of the discomfort is worth exploring. Thank you for sharing this, you've given me something to chew on today.