Plagerism in televison? Ugly betty? Reaper? It's everywhere!

@ptrnow (57)
Canada
October 12, 2007 8:19pm CST
Has anyone else noticed that every fall, City Tv comes out with a series that seems as if it was almost a copied from a bestselling movie the summer before? Examples such as last years hit show Ugly Betty and this year's show Reaper each seem to be from movies I have seen over the summer. Ugly Betty - Betty gets an unlikely job at a high fashion magazine with aspirations to be a writer, she ends up working as an assistant for the new editor in-chief. This takes her on a long twisted journey until the latest episode when she was considered a "mode-girl." To me, this seems very much like the summer 2006 hit movie The Devil Wears Prada, where a very similar character encounters a very similar situation, which is abbreviated and shown over a period of two hours. Reaper - appears to be based off of Summer 07's movie Ghost Rider. In Reaper a young male becomes the devil's bounty hunter and fights for good while rescuing the mortal race from the escaped prisoners of hell. In Ghost Rider, based off of a comic book, a young man is also given the chance to become the devil's bounty hunter. Although I am a much bigger fan of Ghost Rider, I also watch Reaper and find it mildly entertaining and sometimes thought provoking, with ties back to the movie Dogma, which I only ever watched once and I absolutely loved it. I am not sure if my opinion has changed much but I think it would have if I was to watch the movie now. So much to think about. Has anyone else noticed these copy-cat shows? If so what do you think, yey or ney? I personally don't mind that we, the general public are able to live in our fantasies with the help of a television show based off of one of our favorite movies. I also think that a television show about a movie is a quick way to decrease movie sales and falsely declare originality. So I am perplexed, on one side I do like the shows, and the movies but on the other side I am disappointed when I realized that the human race has run out of truly original ideas. I think for myself, Pan's Labyrinth was the only truly original, truly honest film I have seen in along time, given that it is in Spanish and you are practically reading the movie, but I think that just adds to it. Maybe next year there will be a show about that... What do you think? What do you recommend as original?Also, as a writer I find myself constantly wondering if my projects are truly original, we would all like to think so. But there have been law cases where an author wrote what they believed to be an original works and it turns out they may have once read another works, forgotten about it and claimed the idea to be of their own. I understand though, with so many people, so many minds doing the same thing it is hard to be original. Does anyone else have that problem? I think it must be a common one. I know once in six grade for a creative writing story I copied an idea I got from a television show, not knowing it was wrong to do so. Plagiarism is a nasty thing, isn't it. So another question I pose is: who's idea was it to start with, do we truly know?r.
2 responses
@vokey9472 (1486)
• United States
13 Oct 07
I will admit that Reaper seems a lot like Ghost Rider, but Ugly Betty is based on Yo Soy Betty, la fea. It was a telenovela that was originally produced in Columbia in 1999. The show was so popular that almost every one has adapted it to their own countries. There is even a sequel to Yo Soy Betty called Ecomoda. The thing with telemovela is that they have a start, a middle and an end. When they get adapted to American television, a series, they can go on forever and as the show gets older it tends to not be so great. The Devil Wears Prada was based on the book by Lauren Weisberger is supposedly based on her own experiences when she worked for Vogue under Anna Wintour. Lauren denies that is the case, but those who know Anna Wintour say that the evil magazine editor is too much like Ms. Wintour to not be based on her. The book came out in 2003 and Lauren worked at Vogue some time between 1999 and 2001. So, if anything, The Devil Wears Prada could have copied Yo Soy Betty since the Betty telemovela was being shown on Spanish television at the time Lauren Wiesberger was working at Vogue. Just my take on things. Happy posting.
1 person likes this
@ptrnow (57)
• Canada
13 Oct 07
Wow, well that was something I didn't know. You're very informative. If this is truly the case, what was the telenovela based on? r.
@vokey9472 (1486)
• United States
13 Oct 07
That is a good question. I have no idea what the telenovela was based on. It would be neat to find out though.
• United States
14 Oct 07
Your right tv shows often use ideas from movies or other tv shows for their plot. Doesn't Betty face want to make you vomit?