The Hollyweird Legal Round-Up is our weekly guide to the latest entertainment lawsuits and lawyerly pud-slinging, written by our legal correspondent, real-life Hollywood lawyer “Buttockus Finch.” (Probably not his real name). This week, he takes on Ellen Page’s leaked “nudes,” and Lindsay Lohan’s latest allegation that someone is trying to copy her.
Drop your c*cks and grab your socks! Then grab your c*cks again, because this week is all about
1. Click Bait.
Read: Click, ‘Bate. Last week this site posted a banner photo of kosher Wonder Woman-elect Gal Gadot.
A coincidence that this was the most commented-upon story of the week? My heart tells me no. Because I work in an Industry that does not put much of a premium on originality, I searched for a legal story involving GalGa (probably a suboptimal nickname). Sadly, in vain–you’d think somebody would be suing her for, I don’t know, forcing them to rethink the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or whatever. Nada. Nunca. However, by doing a Boolean on “litigation” AND “the ladies,” I was, like Mel Gibson at a Leni Riefenstahl film festival, not disappointed.
2. Leaking Nude Nontroversy.
In some quarters, video games are considered “entertainment,” so here I go. The medium has apparently progressed since I played Pong on the way home from Studio 54, so now you need to get movie stars to be in the things. Ellen Page, known for rawdogging Michael Cera in Juno and setting the record for most expository questions in Inception, put on the Andy Serkis suit to be the model for Beyond: Two Souls.
Fine, here she is:
Oh goddamit, thanks for the hardoff. You’re a cute enough girl, Ellie–maybe dial back the quirk a couple of notches in your photos and let the boys do what boys do.
AAAAAAaanyhooters, word got around recently that in one scene that features young Page showering–and again, I must note that Space Invaders was a hit despite the absence of virtual bathing–it was possible to anthromorph the neural pixelation or whatever and change camera angles so as to see binary cooter. Some European websites posted still images and received stern rebukes from game owner Sony.
“Does this mean that Ms. Page is very unhappy with the leak? Lawsuit incoming, perhaps?”
When a “news” “story” leads with a question, the answer is invariably no.
“Ellen Page may not be happy about the nude renders . . . that hit the Internet last month, but it seems as though she’s not pursuing (nor had she pursued) any legal means to get the images removed.”
F*ck. Thanks for getting my hopes up, Sony. This could have been a kind of interesting case–obviously (?) Page’s contributions to the game creation process did not include detailed tittay or pudenda modelling, so she would have been complaining about her fake face being animatroned onto somebody else’s fake body. Which, weird, but maybe still actionable.
Missing the point.
I didn’t post a link to the NSFW screen shots, because they’re weak, and if you’re incapable of finding worthwhile stroking material on the Internet you don’t deserve to climax. However, the link above from eskimopress.com, “The Proud Nordic Entertainment Press” (this one), includes the full clip of the shower scene. It doesn’t show any of her bits, but much more alarming, it has her taking a lengthy (and, might I add, boring) shower WITHOUT USING SOAP. You’d think Page would be concerned about the effect that would have on her image, unless she’s cool with people imagining her body covered in moist dirt.
So there are murky issues involving celebrity video game appearances, but Page won’t be blazing any trails in clarifying them. Women of Show Bidness, are there any among you courageous enough to take on the interactive world?
3. Grand Theft Zero.
Enter sweet sweet Lindsay Lohan, the face that launched a thousand legal actions.
An obscure game called Grand Theft Auto V (not to be confused with V, V for Vendetta, Henry V, Eugene V. Debs or Ellen Page’s pixelated V) was released a few months ago with little fanfare and was able to scrape together $1 billion in sales in 3 days. I just reread that sentence and shifted the focus of my practice to interactive–call me Rockstar Games! Apparently, any mention of a felony arouses Lindsay from her stupor (“whose auto did I grand thieve?”), and this time it may have possibly allegedly inspired her to call a lawyer that doesn’t handle criminal defense.
“Lohan’s lawyers are currently crafting a lawsuit demanding Rockstar pay for the use of Lindsay’s image in the game.”
Note: I know zero about darkhorizons.com, but I linked to them because 1) they summarized the situation pretty well and 2) screw TMZ and Deadline. Now, let’s look at the cover art for GTAV to see what 2013 Lindsay considers her “image”:
To remain the soul of journalistic integrity, I looked at this drawing for quite some time. Mostly because I assumed that Lohan had spotted her silhouette passed out under the boardwalk, and partly because the foreground image gets the job done. Then it occurred to me that she thinks that the woman in the bikini resembles her. So after I spent an hour ROTFPMHBSL (that’s “rolling on the floor pissing my Hugo Boss slacks laughing,” newbs), I had to give Lohan credit–it takes a nimble mind to see yourself in that image. Especially when the yourself in question is this:
True, there are also moments within the game itself that supposedly depict Double L. Here’s me posting a begrudging link to TMZ, only because I hate you and myself and they include a video clip from the game at the bottom. Watch it at your peril.
Four thoughts I had while watching that GTAV clip.
1) the woman doesn’t look much like Lohan.
2) in a game about horrible driving, making a character that’s supposedly Lohan the passenger on the back of a motorcycle seems like a wasted opportunity.
3) the rest of the game better be more exciting than the lengthy commute they show here.
4) the most offensive depiction I see is of black guys, all of whom should file a big class action and Multi-Million Man March into court.
Still, if Lindsay claims to be the basis for the cover art, there are better explanations. The website of record reported the fairly convincing theory that the drawing is based on model Kate Upton upskirt lesbo oiled up (clicks). Visual non-evidence evidence:
The Plot Thins. Turns out, the actual model for the illustration is Shelby Welinder, not Lindsay Lohan, and definitely not Kate Upton bloomers knickers burka (diverse clicks). OR IS IT?
Here’s a comparison shot of Welinder and the drawing:
I got this photo from a Brazilian site, which is wildly entertaining if you translate the Portuguese into English:
“Shebly [sic] on his [sic] twitter, posted note showing that she was even hired by rockstar! ‘It’s cool to see all these people referring to me as a porn star or a slut.’”
And the most supposedly-convincing evidence is Shelby’s contract proving that she was hired as a model by Rockstar. Which, fine, but that doesn’t mean the drawing is based on her. She only looks more like that picture than Upton does if you focus on the, how can I put this, face. Plus, if you wanted to sell a product to young men in 2013, would you rather use the image of the most famous bikini model in the world or someone plucked at random out of blonde chick Gitmo? Conundrum!
Overall, Upton would have the best argument for filing suit. Any action Lohan might pursue would be fruitless from a legal perspective, but possibly successful as a pathetic attempt to keep her name in the press, which leads me to believe it will happen. Seriously, Rockstar, why isn’t one of my phones ringing? I reached out to you, like, paragraphs ago.
The lesson as always, ladies: if you’re not Kate Upton, there’s a living to be made by looking very much like Kate Upton; if you are Kate Upton, and you’re in the market for new counsel, get at me girl; and if you’re Lindsay Lohan, occasionally try looking in a mirror that isn’t horizontal. My final 1,003 words for you this week: