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I am in the process of reading it. I never understood the disclaimer at start, that "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is pur
by iib 5y ago
I am in the process of reading it. I never understood the disclaimer at start, that "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental." in works were I saw it. Is this usually written to defend one legally, even though the events have clear, non-coincidental resemblance to real-life events?
- lkrubner 5y agoA roman à clef is protected legally. It's why a movie like Citizen Kane was protected, despite the fact everyone knew it was about Hearst.
- idealmedtech 5y agoPrecisely. There was a film early in the industry's history (Rasputin and the Empress, early 1930s) that depicted events from a real person's life in a very negative (and most importantly, false) way and the studio got the pants sued off them. Hence the disclaimer edit: it was Rasputin! Here's a Slate article describing the events: https://slate.com/culture/2016/08/the-bizarre-true-story-behind-the-this-is-a-work-of-fiction-disclaimer.html https://slate.com/culture/2016/08/the-bizarre-true-story-beh... edit2: Here is a secondary source from Stanford, which is drier, but also less subject to hyperbole: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/HistoryWired/Davis/DavisAuthenticity.html https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/HistoryWired/Davis/DavisAu...