A Scary Side Of Plagiarism

The recent news that Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister, may have lifted a line from a movie for use in A Journey, his published memoir, has cast a new spotlight on an old sin.

But if it’s true, then this might be the strangest example of plagiarism since English dramatist Ben Jonson (1572-1637), a true Renaissance man, came up with a word (“plagiary”) for the theft of another’s intellectual work.

It remains to be seen whether Blair did, in fact, plagiarize a quote that was the work of Peter Morgan in his script for “The Queen,” the highly acclaimed 2006 film -- and a personal favorite -- starring Helen Mirren, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II.

As I see it, the strangeness is not owed to the possibility that a world-class politician could be accused of plagiarism. After all, here in the U.S., Vice President Joe Biden was a senator campaigning to become President in 1987 when he admitted to borrowing without the bother of attribution. Biden acknowledged that in writing a paper for law school, he had plagiarized a law review article.

For some odd reason, it seems that people tend to be more forgiving when the alleged plagiarist is a politician --- a dabbler at writing, instead of someone who had made his name by it. Possibly, it has something to do with low expectations.

Had he been a wordsmith by trade, Joe Biden might have experienced career ruination or at least a serious stain on it. Although he dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination in 1988, he managed not only to endure, but to ascend eventually to the second-highest office in the land.

Of course, Tony Blair has already been to the political mountaintop, so worries about the impact on his career are hardly a factor. But this is a matter of honor and few things can prove as hurtful to honor as even the hint of plagiarism

In Blair’s case, the accusation means that in his book, the former prime minister allegedly took a line from a movie script --- one that had been imagined by Morgan as the words Blair heard during a private meeting with Queen Elizabeth.

In the film, which is really about the sequence of events and attitudes following the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the conversation takes place early on, as the two meet at Buckingham Palace following Blair’s election.

Morgan admits that he has no knowledge of what the Queen actually said.to Blair, but these are the words he put in her royal mouth, as spoken by Helen Mirren: “Well, you are my tenth prime minister, Mr. Blair. My first, of course, was Winston Churchill.”

In recalling the conversation in A Journey, Blair recounts it in a way that seems to follow the screenplay for “The Queen” a bit too closely, in the eyes of the script’s writer.

Now some well-known authors have found themselves in some pretty hot soup in recent years over charges of plagiarism. Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose are two whose reputations were damaged.

But whenever I come across the word for theft of intellectual property, the most shocking example that comes to my mind is one that didn’t involve any heads of state, members of a royal family or renowned writers. On the contrary, I am reminded of an episode that involved a contest, held by a community newspaper based in New York City’s Queens County, for youngsters at local schools.

This particular tale of plagiarism was a quiet one, which I recall because I was working at the newspaper when it happened. The annual competition was held prior to Halloween and students would submit their scary stories for the chance to be judged a winner. Selected honorees had their stories, along with their photo, published in the newspaper and received a cash prize.

Unfortunately, one year yielded a crop of winners in which one of the young honorees proved less than honorable, after a reader notified the newspaper that a student’s story was, in truth, the work of a certain published author.

After the charge of plagiarism was determined to be true, the school was notified and its principal was stung to learn of it. Dropping from pride’s peak to plain embarrassment, he promised to contact the child’s parents and inform them that the prize money would have to be returned. When he called back, however, the school administrator was even more troubled: not only was the student’s mother unapologetic, but she made it clear that the money would not be returned.

According to the principal, the mother believed that it had been the newspaper’s responsibility to detect the plagiarism before selecting her child’s scary story as a winning entry. As word of this circulated internally, everyone who made their living by the written word or had anything to do with the contest went from anger to disappointment in their reaction. In the end, we mostly felt sad for a child in need of good guidance whose deprivation was unlikely to end with a contest.

Since that happened, I’ve found that plagiarism cases no longer shock me. As for the controversy involving Tony Blair, I’ve thought it over, only to find that I cannot remember anything like this: somebody who had been part of a two-person conversation behind closed doors allegedly swiping the words that somebody else – a third party who wasn’t in the room -- concocted for the purpose of a film script.

Reportedly, Blair claims that he had not seen “The Queen.” This likely seems odd to most people familiar with the movie, since Blair is such a main character in it.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve thought of going to the movies, but didn’t, for one reason or another. In some cases, by the time I was ready to see a particular film, it was no longer playing on a local screen. But I can say with certainty that if I were being portrayed by an actor in a major motion picture -- or even a low-budget one -- I wouldn’t be waiting for its DVD release. As it is, “The Queen” has been accessible in that manner for some time.

At this point, it’s unknown how the matter of Tony Blair’s published remembrances will play out. But the lesson remains the same: when it comes to the marriage of storytelling and good writing, honesty is the simple noun that is worth more than a hatful of inspired adjectives. There’s no need to make the process any scarier than it is already.