The Sunday Times began this piffle with Jon Ungoed-Thomas' ill-informed article Jonathan Ross's wife Jane Goldman spawns girl assassin, 11. Unsurprisingly, the Mail were quick to join in the attack, with the suspiciously similar Jonathan Ross's wife Jane Goldman causes outrage with film featuring a foul-mouthed 11-year-old assassin, which they placed very prominently on their website.
Two things need to be pointed out immediately.
One: Goldman is only a co-writer of the screenplay. The other co-writer, Matthew Vaughn, is also the film's director - yet he is hardly mentioned in either story.
Two: the film is based on a comic book by Mark Millar. He invented the character of Hit-Girl, the foul-mouthed, eleven-year-old assassin, but the Mail doesn't even bother to mention him.
So references to 'Goldman's film' and her 'spawning' the character aren't exactly accurate.
As for the so-called 'outrage', it's as mythical as you might expect. The New York Times published an article about the film's red band trailers (ones that have swearing and violence in), based on the concerns of one person, who writes her reviews under the title Movie Mom.
Both articles quote Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at Kent University, but he seems to be making a generic point about about movie violence and doesn't mention Goldman at all.
So a bit of manufactured outrage used to attack another member of the Ross family. What a surprise.
But on reading the Mail's version, the resemblance to the Sunday Times' article is too strong to be coincidental. As the Mail article says Furedi 'told the Sunday Times' his view, it's reasonable to assume the broadsheet article must have existed first.
Sunday Times:
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Sunday Times:
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Sunday Times:
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Sunday Times:
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Sunday Times:
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It doesn't look good, does it?
And this isn't the first time a Mail article has looked suspiciously similar to another story from another paper.
On an earlier post about yet another claim of plagiarism against the Mail, an anonymous comment pointed out these two articles:
Exhibit A - AC Transit bus brawler has video past by Angela Woodall in The Oakland Tribune.
Exhibit B - Bus assault pensioner, 67, starred in second YouTube altercation last August... when he was Tasered by police published on MailOnline.
I emailed Woodall about the claim. She said they had used her work without attribution and confirmed that she had written an email to the Mail about their 'strikingly similar' story, but which they had ignored. She also sent me a copy of her email to them.
Here's a section from Woodall's article:
And from the Mail's version:
And with these articles following on from the claims made against the Mail's Chris Johnson for plagiarism, is anyone going to call the Mail and its editor, to account?
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Frank Furedi? Isn't it a small world, politically speaking. I'd wondered what Uncle Frank was up to these days, and it's a little sad to see the former guru of Living Marxism reduced to quote-whoring.
ReplyDeleteOh, and more than half an hour reading Mark Millar comics would leave you prepared for this sort of content. He's always traded in sensationalism and shock value, a bit like Ross in fact, and would love this sort of coverage if they'd bothered to mention him. It's all a bit desperate even without the obvious plagiarism.
As usual, the final paragraphs are the most revealing.
ReplyDeleteHere's what really sticks in their craw:
"Goldman met Ross when she was a young newspaper columnist and married him when she was just 18."
So not only did she marry disgracefully young, but she used to be one of them. Just think: any one of the Moir/Platell/DAILY MAIL REPORTER crowd could have married a wealthy bloke like Ross, but it had to be *her*.
Couldn't there be some sort of copyright law to deal with plagiarism? I know that if I did something like that at university I would fail. Although, the government did plagiarise a document for the dodgy dossier and got away with it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if a member of the public copied stuff, they would be hunted down like dogs.
The Mail also ignores another thing - Kick-Ass looks bloody (in every sense of the word) great. Can't wait to see how much outrage they can fit into their review.
ReplyDeleteAll those quotes just make me want to see this movie even more. Though they left out my favourite line from the trailer where Hit Girl tells Kick-Ass he can find them by getting the mayor to shine a signal in the sky that's in the shape of a giant cock.
ReplyDeleteRichard Simpson's article in today's Mail is also suspiciously similar to the Sunday Times article.
ReplyDelete