The Ecstacy of Influence

Influence- aka plagiarism. I don't think so. In Lethem’s essay on plagiarism, he not only defends plagiarism, but he discovers it. He realizes that artists use plagiarism all the time in different ways, either to recreate or use as inspiration. Many versions may be made of an original idea, but these versions are all copies. The copies may be better than the original- they may be completely different with few similarities or the opposite. All type of recreation are considered plagiarism because you are borrowing the original idea, however sometimes it’s worth it. Good ideas can be made better. Great ones can be expanded and remade into something new without losing the idea. Lethem found examples of recreation in cartoons, “If nostalgic cartoonists had never borrowed from Fritz the Cat, there would be no Ren & Stimpy Show; without the Rankin/Bass and Charlie Brown Christmas specials, there would be no South Park; and without The Flintstones—more or less The Honeymooners in cartoon loincloths—The Simpsons would cease to exist.” The cartoonists borrow other ideas and create something new, something of their own. But it has a different purpose this time. When the author changes, the purpose changes, and that makes it okay. I find examples of recreation ALL the time in music. Hip hop artists recreate older songs by adding a rap track onto it- making it their own by adding an extra beat. Lil Wayne recreates a Beatles song, Help!, adding his rap track and speeding up the beat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3tnw4GJmDo Is this plagiarism? It is clearly not his own song but is he passing it off to be? The Beatles were a very famous band with very famous songs and Lil Wayne switching it up only amped it up and made it fun for kids today to listen to. Sometimes plagiarism just renews the idea- in a form that keeps it up to date. I also ALWAYS hear just single lines from older rap songs being used in new rap songs. It borrows one idea and puts in into a completely new composition. I have heard this done by different hip hop artists and artists from their own songs, it might not mean the same thing but the exact same line is repeated. It happens here, where there used to be a song called “99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”, and there is a song now that starts saying “I’ve got 99 problems, and they’re all bitches”, this is kind of a dumb example but it was off the top of my head… I really do hear this happen all of the time in hip hop songs where artists are almost responding and including other artist’s lines into their own songs. Is that plagiarism? I think this is what Lethem was talking about, when he admitted that he would hear certain lines from books or audio tapes and realize they were apart of earlier works. Movies are the same way. They are constantly coming out with remakes of older movies with new actors and new technology. This isn’t stealing because like Lethem comments on there is that aspect of receiving permission, but it still is a redo. A new director, with a new vision, takes a script and makes it his or her own. That is one of the excellent sides of borrowing works and ideas because it makes it work in an up to date fashion that allows the work to live in today’s pop culture. Lethem uses his own examples of redone movies, but I like the example of Charlie and the Chocolate factory, which was redone in the past few years to bring the characters, and the factory setting up to date- creating a new magical place for children to imagine. Lethem basically concludes by saying that when an original idea is created it would be a waste not to share it and elaborate on it. The “artistic creation” is a “gift to the economy” and once the creation has entered into the economy of artistic creation it may appear in several forms- and many artists may share it. It is like an economic boost for artists who have something new to work with and mold into different forms of art whether that be in movies or music or stories or whatever you want it to be. I think it’s all about sharing, recreating, updating, and keeping it alive.