the ask@AAR: What happens when writers fictionalize the lives of others?
I, like much of the writing attached world, have been unable to stop thinking about Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson whose feud was covered in depth by the New York Times this week. Here’s the gist as summarized by Jenny G. Zhang at Gawker:
The Times piece is, to its credit, ambiguous about who is the asshole here. On the one hand, it’s clear that Larson not only used Dorland’s life–which Dorland had copiously shared in a private Facebook group the two were in–she took words Dorland wrote and placed them as hers in her work of fiction. Dorland, who donated a kidney to whomever might need it, clearly wants adulation for her kindness–she doesn’t appear to be someone that doing good is, in and of itself, its own reward. To complicate matters, Dorland is White, Larson is mixed-race Asian American.
Many writers, most famously Celeste Ng, have come down firmly on Larson’s side. The Guardian made fun of Dorland’s claim. Others on social media have been on Dawn’s side and her case has been allowed to go forward in the courts.
I’m not sure what I think about the merits of either woman’s actions here–and that’s not what I’m interested in today. I am curious if, when mining the lives of living people, if those who write fiction have carte blanche to write whatever they wish. And if they do, do they owe those whose lives they’re reimagining a heads up or a thank-you? And if they don’t, why not?
Thoughts?
I have to say that the @kidneygate Twitter account is the gift that keeps on giving. If you have any remaining interest in this story, check that account for tweets from the past few days. The new revelations do not disappoint. (You may not agree with, or even believe, all of what’s posted, fair enough, but as far as some of the screenshots go, yikes.)
TLDR: The more that comes out about the Larson/Dorland story, the more reprehensible I find the behavior of Sonya Larson, Chunky Monkeys, Grub Street, and NYT article-writer Robert Kolker (and possibly whoever else may have edited his article).
On the @kidneygate page–you’ll have to scroll down to catch everything from the past few days–note the comments about Larson’s CV and her recently changed Twitter banner pic. Larson strikes me as a woman who knows exactly what she is doing.
Also: The more that is revealed, the more dismayed I am by the way the NYT story seemed to be crafted (whether by author Kolker alone or with assistance from some other editor at the NYT) to portray Dorland as a less sympathetic character than I suspect she actually is.
For example, Kolker said of Dorland “This wasn’t her first lawsuit claiming emotional distress. A few years earlier, Dorland filed papers in small-claims court against a Los Angeles writing workshop where she’d taught, accusing the workshop of mishandling a sexual-harassment report she had made against a student. After requesting several postponements, she withdrew the complaint.”
When I originally read that part of Kolker’s article, I wondered if Dorland was perhaps an overly sensitive woman who had a pattern of filing grievances at the drop of a hat over imagined slights. I personally believe my reaction is what Kolker hoped for. YMMV.
But now that I’ve learned more about that previous complaint and its handling–thank you @badartfriendo–my impression is that this does appear to be a wrongful-termination filing, not a vague claim of “emotional distress”. (It’s not clear to me if LA Writing Workshop actually terminated her employment without notice or if their unwillingness to investigate her harassment complaint and provide Dorland a harassment-free workplace gave her no choice but to step down.) Dorland tried to have the case mediated but subsequently dropped the complaint because the LA Writing Workshop folded.
So why did Kolker even mentioned the previous lawsuit against LAWW in his article? How was it relevant to her case against Larson, unless Kolker wanted to portray Dorland as over-litigious and over-sensitive? SMH.
It’s definitely true that writers get ideas from real life all the time, and often from the people we know–duh, we see and hear the most from them and about them.
HOWEVER.
In this case, Larson took not just any acquaintance’s story, she took another writer’s personal story and turned that story into a condemnation of the person who lived it. That’s….. very uncool. VERY. Even before the lying about it and stealing the exact words to use as a shiv on that first person. There were so many ways Larson could have changed up the story and still kept her theme, and she chose none of them. She WANTED people–at least in her writing circle, which overlapped with Dorland’s–to know that it was Dorland she was savaging. Which is SO VERY NOT COOL, no matter how self-aggrandizing you may find Dorland’s FB posts.
And–the kicker–what Dorland actually did is an incredible generous, noble act, and being public about it in an effort to inspire others to do the same is…also a good deed.
The comments Kathryn linked to on metafilter is excellent on the legal arguments. I wondered about Larson’s contracts as well (for anyone who hasn’t seen a publishing contract, the author guarantees that the work is entirely their own, and does not infringe any copyright; there are big penalties if that’s found not to be the case).
I found the whole story fascinating — I’ve read the original NYT article, quite a few of the comments there, various Twitter threads, and the whole MetaFilter thread (https://www.metafilter.com/192846/Do-writers-not-care-about-my-kidney-donation#8158275).
My impression is that Dorland actually doesn’t dispute Larson’s right to use the details about her kidney donation in a short story, although she made it clear that she was hurt by the fact that Larson did not tell she was doing so and she was dismayed by how her disinterested donation became the spark for a story about poor difficult Asian American woman refusing to play the grateful recipient when the rich white woman kidney donor shows up and demands gratitude and acknowledgement. Writers develop stories all the time based on their own lives and the lives of people they know. In stories where someone else’s experiences merely provided a jumping off point, as a courtesy an author may show the story to the other person or ask their permission to use that particular experiences or mention them as an inspiration in the acknowledgements or dedication. But lots of times writers don’t do this because the event, the character, the experience have been totally transformed and is no longer recognizable. And for the most part I don’t have a problem with this borrowing and fictionalizing of the lives of others because that is literally part and parcel of the creative process and for the most part the end production is definitely worth it. I get to read stories, listen to music, watch theatre and television, or go to museums and experience all sorts of wonderful stories and art. But of course people can use this creative process to create works that make fun of people, and they can, as Larson did, make it very clear to their in-group that they are holding someone up to ridicule. And there is usually little one can do about this type of fictionalizing — where even if actual creative piece is “great art”, you feel dismay at how the author discounted you and your feelings.
Larson didn’t just use Dorland’s experience as a jumping off point for a story, she used Dorland’s own words from the letter Dorland wrote to the recipient of her kidney. If a writer is quoting directly from someone else, especially if they are quoting verbatim someone else’s words that are fixed in some media (and that probably includes facebook, twitter, and blogs), the writer needs to acknowledge that they are doing this in some way to avoid a charge of plagiarism and/or copyright infringement. Ideas can’t be copyrighted – but the expression of an idea can be. Dorland’s main complaint is that Larson plagiarized her letter and therefore violated Dorland’s copyright in that letter.
From what I’ve read (including some of the material that came out from discovery phase of Larson’s lawsuit against Dorland) my sympathy tends more towards Dorland than Larson. I do think that Larson had the right to create a story sparked by Dorland’s experiences and that she wouldn’t have necessarily had to inform Dorland that she had written the story if it actually had been the story she had originally claimed it was–a story about race and mental health issues that used a meeting between two women: one upper-class, white and a narcissist; the other, the poor, Asian, and an alcoholic. But including Dorland’s actual words without obtaining Dorland’s permission, lying about the plagiarism to Dorland and others, and slagging Dorland for being so tacky as to donate a kidney makes this feel not so much like a story about fictionalizing someone else’s life, but more a story about exploitation and cruelty.
I read the original story and I could not get over how awful Larson and her friends are. The way she basically gaslighted Dorland in her emails. Telling her how she “valued” her friendship to allay her suspicions while she’s ridiculing her behind her back.
I get that Larson and her friends all really feel they are “better” than Dorland. They practically ooze disdain when they speak of her. I felt like I needed a shower after reading it though. Particularly the way all of her friends knew she copied Dorland’s letter and had based it on her, yet were outraged at Dorland’s **Audacity** to challenge Larson.
I have a few questions for the writers on AAR. Larson and her friends seem to think it is ok to make use of another person’s story and words if it is helpful to their own storytelling. Asking permission is not necessary, nor is disguising the words if the words are really perfect for you. Is that perspective common amongst writers or just this particular group? Isn’t there some professional code of ethics they teach in writing programs? I can understand finding inspiration from someone but not depicting them in a way that is identifiable. And definitely not using their exact words while portraying them in a very unflattering light. It seems unethical to me, and it shows a lack of creativity on Larson’s part. There were so many ways she could have manifested her inspiration without this blowing up on her.
This whole situation reminded me a great deal of Janet Malcolm’s very impactful piece called “The Journalist and The Murderer”.
It begins with her saying “ Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.”
The piece is specifically about Joe McGinniss who famously wrote the book “Fatal Vison” about Jeffrey McDonald (who was convicted of murdering his wife and children but maintains his innocence to thus day) and pretended not only to be his friend and that he thought he was innocent but that the book he was writing would help exonerate McDonald.
McGiniss not only sat with the defense at McDonald’s trial, he wrote letters after it to McDonald saying he was not tried fairly, was innocent etc. to keep him cooperating about the book.
McDonald’s lawyer had even made the writer sign an agreement saying he would not give away defense secrets and would only portray McDonald in a flattering way in the book. Instead the book he wrote said McDonald was a narcissist and a murderer. McDonald only was told what the book really was when excerpts were read to him during a TV show that filmed his shocked reaction.
It was so egregious that even thought McDonald was a convicted murderer at the time, he sued the writer and a jury awarded him a six figure payout in damages.
I do remember that case. It was much more clear cut as there was a contract in place and McGinniss lied repeatedly. I am sure other writers condemned him at the time. But what about writers who “borrow” from friends, family and acqaintances? Where is the line that must not be crossed? Other than the courts, who polices that line? These are rhetorical questions, I know there is no real answer. It seems that writers are mostly left to police themselves, with perhaps their publishers as a backstop if they are worried about potential legal ramifications.
I think that any story is potentially fodder for a writer. I used to love “Law And Order” when it was on tv-and so many of those stories were gleaned from news headlines but they were changed. No one quoted people directly or plagiarized them and the story often had a twist that made if quite different from the news that inspired it.
I think what makes the Larson-Dorland case so egregious is not only that Larson plagiarized Dorland directly but it was done with such ill intent.
In my opinion, she clearly set out to humiliate Dorland as well as create a story and had ill will towards her, which just exacerbated her other illegal behavior.
I think there are lots of authors who “borrow” personalities for their stories but are clever enough not to directly copy or do anything to open themselves for liability.
J.K. Rowling based her braggart of a Wizard Gilderoy Lockhart on someone- but she won’t say who. When fans speculated it was about her ex-husband she quickly shut that down. She’s not foolish enough to open herself up to legal problems with a little bit of petty writing inspiration.
I think it’s pretty clear that Larson not only wanted to write a story that humiliated Dorland, she also wanted Dorland and everyone else to know it and she should take the punishment for it.
There are lots of ways one can look at this, right? Legally, ethically, and compassionately.
Legally, it seems as if the courts routinely say if you use someone else’s work without permission, that’s a problem. Larson clearly used Dorland’s words and that’s why the case has been allowed to go forward.
Ethically, it’s hard to think Larson was behaving in ways that most of us would vet. Not only did she use Dorland’s words and life story, she did so in a way that makes many uncomfortable. If Larson had defended herself by just using “it’s art” I think many might have had more sympathy for her. But pulling racism into it and belittling Dorland has made Larson’s side harder for many to support.
Compassionately, Larson’s behavior is a failure in my opinion.
That’s a good way to look at it. I guess Larson’s behavior, although abhorrent, is perhaps a teensy bit understandable as she believes she is acting in her own self-interest, however misguided she might be. What I find difficult to understand is the behavior of her fellow writers, especially Celeste Ng, who egged her on and defended her. Why did they participate in pages and pages of cruelty and encouragement of theft? How did they benefit? What writers’ cause are/were they championing? It seems to be a sick culture if it represents all writers. I sincerely hope it doesn’t.
It’s very clear it wasn’t just about “art” for Larson. She channeled a lot of feelings and resentments she had during her life and somehow focused them on Dorland.
Dorland, while awkward and often clueless, was never mean or did anything bad, or even wrong.
Larson’s group comes off as not only mean but wildly entitled. They actively encouraged and defended what they knew was plagiarism and were outraged and offended that Dorland first wanted to befriend them, and then challenge someone who was simply “out of her league”. It read like the plot of a bad high school movie where the gauche female outsider is bullied for being too optimistic, simple and enthusiastic by the in crowd.
If Dorland is that poor of a writer and a person then why did Larson have to use her letter, practically word for word?
I’m asking myself how this story would be viewed if Dorland had been a person of color and Larson had been white rather than half white/half Asian and therefore entitled to identify as a POC.
After reading the entire original story and all the facts it seems clear to me that the only reason Larson wasn’t vilified by everyone who heard the facts was because she was a person of color and had used that partially as a defense. In addition she had another woman author and person of color back her up.
If it were the reverse Larson would have been publicly forced into many apologies by this point and I don’t think anyone would be defending her.
I am sure she has had challenges in her life but the plagiarism and her intent has nothing to do with past injustices. I also don’t think Dorland did anything improper to Larson and there is no indication Dorland was ever unkind to anyone.
I’m team “everyone is a little bit of an asshole” vis this one.
It may be worth pointing out, in case anyone missed it, that Celeste Ng is hardly an impartial observer or innocent bystander in this. She was involved throughout and was egging on Larson, as the texts Larson submitted into evidence showed, including the infamous “Dawn Dorland and her one kidney can go f— themselves” text.
https://twitter.com/sommillionaire/status/1446842449264091145?s=21
She comes off very poorly in all this, and one of the meanest of the mean girls. I haven’t read her (beyond her texts) and certainly won’t.
Also, most of the court filings have been made public, which paint a different picture on some of this than the NYT article or other stories have conveyed. The Twitter feed @kidneygate has been posting a lot of the documents, and it seems clear that Larson and Company were massive jerks. (Dorland and Larson both worked for the same writers’ organization based in Boston. Dorland went to HR to complain about Larson plagiarizing her letter, and the same higher-ups pretending to conduct an impartial investigation were slamming Dorland behind her back on their group chats with Larson, including this: https://twitter.com/MNeta2001/status/1446944103120314370
Dorland is likely a mess, but these are horrific people.
OMG, these are adults?
BTW: I really appreciated Alan from Boston’s 10/10 comment in the Comments section on the NYT article. Food for thought right there.
Interesting post by a user named “Eyebrows McGee”, dated October 10:
https://www.metafilter.com/192846/Do-writers-not-care-about-my-kidney-donation#8158275
(If the link doesn’t take you directly to the post, just search the page for “posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:41 PM“. This will appear at the end of the post, which is an interesting read.)
Yes, yes and yes.
Also did anyone else notice the overly formal, condescending way Larson and Ng constantly referred to Dorland? Both in Larson’s emails to Dorland and Ng’s defense of Larson. I kept expecting them to refer to themselves as Dorland’s “betters”.
Just so I said it:
I hugely admire the donation.
No matter why she did it, she did it.
The courage of giving a kidney to an unknown person is huge, and the gift is enormous.
I do not care for motives or wishes, it is utterly huge, and a great example to many.
I had not even thought or known about this possibility, and I am nearly sure that I am too much of a coward to do this, but just having to think about it in the face of this story:
My great respect to Dawn Dorland for her act of altruism.
100% co-sign. I don’t care if she’s the whiniest person on the planet (and not saying she is) I wish a million more “selfish” people like her existed.
I applaud her going through an invasive surgery and all the complications associated with it to donate to a complete stranger. I don’t care if she took out a billboard dedicated to herself. I will still applaud her. What has this Larson person ever done?
Like most people, I admire people who donate their kidneys, especially to a stranger. That Dorland expected praise and maybe even publicity for doing so only makes her human. There is not a person on the earth who doesn’t enjoy praise; this desire inspires a lot of good deeds. Her pursuit of Larson’s friendship makes her more vulnerable, and even sadder. Her reading Larson’s ridicule–or at least, public contempt–must have been crushing.
That said, it’s a truism that everything and everyone are grist for a writer, and sadly, Dorland supplied that grist, herself in a public (or semi-public) forum.
However, Larson lacked the wisdom to avoid a lawsuit and the humanity to disguise Dorland’s words. For Larson to cry that she was victimized by racism is a betrayal of those people who gave their lives to end racism.
This is a story of the naivete of Dorland and exploitation by Larson.
At some point in the past two decades we decided that the only good altruism was unselfish altruism which, I think, is almost unheard of. We all do good things for a combination of reasons–making our world a better place, following the tenets we were raised with, seeking serotonin, hoping for approval, etc…. This condemnation of Dorland seems to me to be wrapped in a sort of fake idealism, the likes of which makes people less likely to be kind. The whole thing is a big bummer.
This! As you say, people do good deeds for many reasons, such as wanting approval, assuaging feelings of guilt, fearing god’s wrath, etc. Few people are going to donate an organ (at risk to their own future health and the well-being of their family) simply because it’s a good thing to do, and the donation should be its own reward.
Also, when people invalidate a person’s “good deeds” simply because those people don’t approve of the deed-doer’s known or assumed motivations, such invalidation is likely to extinguish that person’s “good deed” behavior down the road. And that’s fine, if extinguishing such behavior is the intention. Be careful what you wish for, though.
Which brings me to a LifeSource article from May 2021 that says this:
Currently, ethnic minorities are in desperate need of more organ, eye and tissue donors. They represent about 60% of the national organ transplant waiting list but only about 30% of actual donors.
If this is true, Larson’s decision to write a story targeting a white organ donor for her “white savior” behavior was ill considered. The need for more organ donors is real. Disparaging one because her motivations (known or assumed) are not to your liking is a bad move, IMO. Perhaps Larson should be grateful for whatever it is that motivates a person to become an organ donor, given the need for more donors. I’m just saying.
I cannot agree with this enough. Think of all the people who are famous that are known for supporting research or causes they have a connection with.
Should people who raise money or awareness for illnesses they have, or that exists in their family be shamed because it’s not wholly “unselfish”?
Michael J. Fox’s has a foundation for Parkinson’s Disease, should be be ridiculed and shamed because it’s not for Breast Cancer or an illness he doesn’t suffer from?
Larson sounds completely horrible and insufferable to me.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Larson was so busy focusing on (and dare I say perhaps even enjoying?) the opportunity to call out a white person on some perceived “privilege”, she missed the larger picture.
I doubt you are alone on that limb!!
There are so many kinds of privilege–Larson’s focus on race alone doesn’t really work here because in almost every other arena, Larson’s privilege dwarfs Dorland’s.
Plus it doesn’t make sense in this context.
Dorland is clearly suing for plagiarism and possibly the cruel intent behind the writing. Is there a white author who also plagiarized Dorland and humiliated her that Dorland isn’t suing? Otherwise it makes zero sense to bring up any kind of “discrimination” or even race.
Larson just sounds like she is trying to find any excuse for her horrible behavior and there just isn’t any.
I don’t know the facts behind the Dorland-Larson dispute, but it seems to me that writing about an identifiable contemporary risks crossing the line between literature and gossip.
And that’s a land people love to traipse in!
I think that privacy is valuable. Personally, I would never exploit what someone has made public on social media in a way that could be traced back to a specific person. And I am pretty sure that I never reveal things on social media that could be traced back to the real me—at least, nothing really private or embarrassing. I don’t think there is any way to justify using someone’s actual words for your own book. I also think you are a fool if you think something you have published in social media will be private. If you want to keep something private, write a letter. (Remember them?)
If you think what you posted on social media will be kept private, you are a fool. If you use what someone thought was private for your own commercial purposes, you are not someone for whom I have any respect. (Expletives deleted)
I agree with your sentiments and I think one thing that Dorland has in her favor is this was a private Facebook group. She limited who could see it and considered these people her friends. She didn’t post it on Twitter or Instagram or an unprotected Facebook page for all to see.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) nowadays almost everything we say or do is caught on record even if we don’t know it. So a fleeting sentence even said in anger can come back to harm you if you are careless.
I don’t think you have to be careless–you can just have said something at one point in time that is now verboten.
Most first world thing ever. Someone donates an essential organ and the talk is around how her motives weren’t pure. Just dumb.
I think Ms. Dorland has learned a valuable lesson about over sharing on social media. You don’t have to put your whole life out there, even if it is a private Facebook group and you are looking for validation of your good deed. The good deed itself is it’s own validation. Readers can question Ms. Dorland’s motives for posting about her organ donation, but in the end she did a good thing no matter what her motives were. As for Ms. Larson, other posters here have said it better than I can. I do feel that Ms. Larson treated Ms. Dorland poorly. A writer can take inspiration from Ms. Dorland’s story, but don’t use her words and call them your own. Ms. Larson’s story actually says more about her than it does about Ms. Dorland.
Definitely yes a heads up and a disclaimer are needed.
When you go to “Go Fund Me” to make a donation they encourage you to share the fact that you donated thru social media so that others will be inspired to also donate. The organization Dorland donated thru encouraged her to go public to encourage others to also become living donors.
Dorland set up a private facebook group for about a dozen select friends and family. She mistakenly though that Larsen was her friend and invited her to this private facebook group, Larsen accepted and then read everything Dorland wrote without posting anything herself. About a year later Dorland asked why no word from Larsen (whom again she thought was her friend). Later on she learned that Larsen was just mining the facebook posting so that she could write a take down of Dorland (and in the process portray living donors as awful people).
With friends like Larsen who needs enemies.
For the specific incident, I am only going by your summary above, since I had not otherwise read about it. I definitely see the action of the author as the first wrong.
What the whole thing is a symptom of is a serious failing of modern culture: a loss of understanding of the difference between FACT and FICTION! Other recent symptoms: denial of climate science, anti-vaxxing, the previous U. S. Presidency, etc.
This incident is a small-scale personal example, but the overall problem is literally endangering the survival of our country and our whole species.
If you get a chance to read the original article you should. It’s really well researched and includes a lot of pretty astonishing information. It’s definitely not a “feel good” read but it certainly gives you a good taste of what both women’s personalities are.
It was a bit of a thing back in my teen years to pick up a pot-boiler by someone like Harold Robbins or Jacqueline Susann and try to identify the real-life equivalents of the thinly-veiled fictional characters and events contained therein. (Robbins even fictionalized Susann in THE LONELY LADY!) But those books always featured the standard copyright page disclaimer of “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is a coincidence.” I think Larson would have been on firmer legal ground had she not used Dorland’s Facebook posts verbatim. It’s one thing for a writer to be inspired by the situations (positive or negative) she observes and then to use that as grist for the fictional mill, quite another to make the source of the inspiration so obvious that it clearly leaves the writer open to legal action. By using Dorland’s own words in what is ostensibly a work of fiction, Larson will be hard-pressed to retreat behind the legalese of “it’s just a coincidence.” I’m reminded of a statement at the beginning of one of CD Reiss’s books (possibly the one with a hero who appears to a mashup of Shawn Mendes/Justin Bieber/Justin Timberlake) where she wrote something like, “If you think you recognize a character in this book, you don’t—you’re just lucky.”
Slightly o/t, but I just downloaded CD Reiss’s latest book, MAFIA QUEEN, this morning and here’s her comment on the copyright page:
“This book is a work of fiction. I made up the characters, situations, and sex acts. Brand names, businesses, and places are used to make it all seem like your best real life. Any similarities to places, situations, or persons living or dead is the result of coincidence or wish fulfillment.”
That’s how it’s done!
I really strongly dislike lack of clarity in the grey area between fact, expose, report vs. fictionalized stuff, or any other type of “as if”. I also mostly avoid docu-dramas for that reason.
Taking inspiration from a real story is fine, it probably happens all the time, sparking imagination, but then using it as is, recognizably, without giving the real person a chance of consent, input or at least a chance to brace themselves for your publication, that makes me extremely uncomfortable. Actually using people’s own words appears quite icky to me, unless you have their explicit consent to do so.
For my taste, when you want to write a story based on real events and persons, with the full freedom of your invention, not asking them anything, then the facts need twisting, changing, adapting so that the real life facts and the original person become veiled and ideally unrecognizable. I would want an author to take the element they find fascinating (here: maybe a non directed donation & wanting praise for it?) and put it in a setting where it becomes remote from the original, real story somehow. Then they can tell me what they think this is, and how it impacts, and who the hero and the villain is, in their story, not in the real world.
Only in historical fiction I tolerate such blending as a way to look at a time and a place otherwise inaccessible. But even there, I need to find out whether I am told the historical facts right, or whether I am getting a story about a historical figure that has nothing to do with them, and what really happened to them. I do a lot of research before reading such books so I must really want to read about a place, time, person to do all that.
Agree with most of what Elaine says below.
I only read what you write above, I have no other information on this story, and comment on just what you ask, as I understand it.
This made me think about a few aspects of the highly successful “The Crown”. I doubt that anyone in the British Royal Family were approached prior to the scrip being written, the “veracity” of much of it approved or there was given much thought as to how member of the family felt about how they were portrayed. As I understand it, the producers have declined to have any sort of short comment at the start of an episode to say it is fiction, not fact and it would appear from what I have read, that many viewers, particularly those not living in the UK, view the whole jumbled mess as FACT when clearly much of it is not.
So, with regard to the Larson/Dorland fiasco, I would make three comments. First, permission of living people ought to be sought before writing a book, making a film, etc. Second, I agree that Dorland was right to seek redress. She may have shared it on Facebook but it is indicated that it was a private group and should remain so. If it had happened to me I would have considered it a gross invasion of my privacy. Bringing colour into it just ramped up the emotion and, IMO, was a deviation from the actual matter at hand. Third: caveat emptor Facebook users because you never know when it will turn and bite you in the arse!!
Fictionalising the lives of the living is a very messy area, feelings can be outraged, people and their families hurt and demoralised and as a result people can be damaged and badly hurt. Tread with care, authors, and make sure you have a damned good lawyer on retainer is all I can say.
Elaine, you are right that many people view these fictionalized accounts of people’s lives as fact. My mother-in-law is an intelligent, educated woman, but she believed everything “The Crown” told her about Charles, Diana, etc. I kept reminding her this was fictionalized, that these were private conversations, and no one knows what was actually said and how people actually behaved, etc. But she still believed the show to be mostly true. I believe the producers should issue a disclaimer. And I agree with everything you said about the Dorland/Larson case. Well said.
I have not watched The Crown, but I know people who have. People need to remember that it is a work of fiction and that things said or done in private may be completely different from what is being portrayed. We do not know these people even though we hear a lot about them. Public appearances can be deceiving.