True Detective plagiarized?

[Jon Lebkowsky]

"if he had just fucking mentioned Ligotti in his written materials and
subsequent interviews"

I guess you missed this link in the Slate article, so I'm calling it out
here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/02/02/writer-nic-pizzolatto-on-thomas-ligotti-and-the-weird-secrets-of-true-detective/


On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:27 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> This is exactly the point - the Ligotti content (whether it was
> paraphrased, plagiarized, borrowed, inspiring, or subtle shades of all of
> these)completely defines the series (well, Season One, anyway). When I
> watched the first episode, specifically the car scene with the two
> protagonists, I was blown away by the great dialogue, and started telling
> people what an amazing writer Pizzolatto was. I was particularly surprised
> to discover that Pizzolatto had written the entire series himself - usually
> there are multiple writers credited, along with many uncredited writers.
> That only increased Pizzolatto's prestige in my eyes. And now I feel
> somewhat bamboozled.
>
> Some people have said, "well, it's a TV show - what are the characters
> supposed to do, drop references every time they refer to someone else's
> ideas?" No. But before it was a TV show, it was a manuscript. I actually
> got to read the series bible, where Pizzolatto pitched the project (he
> emphasized the shifts between the two time periods as the defining
> characteristic of the series), and laid out the entire plot, episode by
> episode. Aside from changing the location from Arkansas to Louisiana, the
> series was remarkably faithful to his bible. This is exactly the place,
> when he was proposing the series to HBO and actors, where he should have
> said: I've inserted multiple references to writers as diverse as Ligotti,
> Moore, and Chambers, which will add some deeper elements to the story and
> characters. That he didn't do this is really egregious, in my opinion.
>
> For the rebuttal to describe TD as a "pastiche," is disingenuous, because
> it's a pastiche of some very obscure (well, maybe not for a lot of the
> people on this list)references. While the Yellow King references could be
> easily searched, Cohle's Ligottian influences were harder to track down,
> and obviously, far too many people had assumed they were original. Look, if
> he had just fucking mentioned Ligotti in his written materials and
> subsequent interviews, I'd have no issue with it. Plagiarism is about the
> hijacking of obscure and unsung writers' material (extremely well-known
> works can only be referenced, not plagiarized)), and if this guy is up for
> a writing Emmy based on using someone else's ideas without crediting them,
> well, at the very least, he should apologize.
>
> Charles is absolutely right: stripped of Ligotti's ideas, this is a very
> prosaic story - the standard-issue grieving, burnt-out cop finds
> redemption. The first descriptions of Season Two are out (this one takes
> place in California), and it's populated by similar cliches.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Charles Albert
>
> The debate about whether or not it qualifies as plagiarism is reasonable.
> With respect to the other question, Pynchon without his sources would still
> be prose of the very highest order, stripped of Ligotti, True Detective
> would be Law & Order SVU with a drawl....
>
> love,
> cfa
>
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>



-- 
Jon Lebkowsky (@jonl)
Jon at Tumblr <http://weblogsky.tumblr.com/> | Google+
<https://plus.google.com/107989370857115020482/posts> | Twitter
<http://twitter.com/jonl> | LinkedIn
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlebkowsky> | Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/jonlebkowsky> | Polycot Associates
<http://polycotassociates.com>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20140807/4c166470/attachment.html>