Writing Celebrities

Rodge Glass & Sam MIlls on Using Public Figures in Fiction

Over the weekend, news broke that Scarlett Johansson is suing French author Gregoire Delacourt for using her name in his novel The First Thing We Look At. In the novel, a mechanic becomes obsessed with a Johansson lookalike. For the first 60 pages, he even believes that the object of his affection is the American film star, before the character’s real name is revealed. There doesn’t appear to be anything libellous in the depiction of ScarJo, but according to reports, the actor is pursuing Delacourt for ‘breach and fraudulent use of personal rights’. If she is successful, the implications could be far-reaching, with authors worrying that they might not be able to use real people in their fiction again. To find out more, I spoke to two writers who have used British celebrities in their novels: Rodge Glass, whose novel Bring Me The Head of Ryan Giggs tells the story of an embittered Manchester United youth player, and Sam Mills, who imagined an author-worshipping cult in her book The Quiddity of Will Self. 

Firstly, I asked whether the authors had formally approached their subjects, and whether they had any back up plans if permission had been refused – would we have seen Bring Me The Head of Nicky Butt, or The Quiddity of Ian McEwan? For Rodge, this hadn’t been an issue: ‘I believed it wasn't necessary as long as I wasn't saying anything libellous about him. My book is obviously a fiction, and being about an invented player who is obsessed with Giggs I didn't feel anyone would falsely believe it was making genuine accusations against him. We were careful with the disclaimer at the start of the book though.’ Sam did approach her subject, after having worked on the book for nine years, and was fortunate that Self has a relaxed attitude towards his public persona: ‘I wrote him a letter via his agent. Initially he emailed me and asked to see some sample material, and then he replied with a letter typed on his Olivetti saying that the parts of him that were in the public eye were ‘there to be bent, spindled and otherwise mutilated’, adding that ‘I just want to be misunderstood’. He also said that he read the chapters with amusement and enjoyment, so he took it in good humour. I was slightly surprised that I got away with the book at all, given how outrageous parts of it were, but if he had objected I wouldn’t have proceeded with the submission to publishers.’

Interestingly, neither writer felt at all constrained by writing about celebrities. For Rodge, ‘it opened up lots of possibilities. Real public figures already exist in the imaginations of readers. That's incredibly liberating.’ If Ryan Giggs is a background figure in Bring me The Head Of, Will Self gets much more direct treatment in Quiddity: ‘given that a ghost slips into Self’s study and then into him, and he presides over a huge orgiastic initiation ceremony, you can see I wasn’t inhibited at all. I wrote it without commercial considerations or any concern for what anyone would think about it – it was less to do with boldness and more to do with me being engrossed in the creative process.’ This attitude has its drawbacks though. Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park depicts the author doing coke at a party with real-life friend Jay McInerney – at a reading I attended, Easton Ellis said that McInerney had not been impressed by the depiction, satire or not.

Using a famous name means that readers will approach your book with some pre-conceived ideas, as Sam points out: ‘You might attract some of their fans, but I also lost potential readers who assumed the book won’t work for them unless they’re an expert in the works of Self, which isn’t the case. That I was a female novelist taking on this subject matter was a problem. I was more concerned with getting my prose right, crafting every sentence, than I was even with Self’s work. I find it interesting that some people find it hard to imagine this – I’ve seen blogs that say the book must be ‘an emotional gush, a release of pent-up emotion!’ or ‘one woman’s sexual fantasises put into a novel’. Nobody accused Spike Jonze & Kaufman of releasing their secret crushes when they made Being John Malkovich. It is hard for people to imagine a woman might write this type of book as a cerebral and satirical work. Satire has traditionally been a very masculine domain – from Jonathan Swift through to HIGNFY - whereas female fandom has traditionally been associated with hysteria, with Beatlemania and so on. But I want to invert those stereotypes.’  Rodge’s subject was enveloped in an image-changing scandal shortly before his book was released, creating a subtle shift in readers’ perceptions: ‘We had announced the book and I'd written a full version when the allegations started, but apart from a couple of very small tweaks I left the text as it was rather than try to respond to the scandal. As it happens, the book appeared to contain all sorts of references and inferences which were purely in the minds of readers. A couple of scenes read completely differently, given that Giggs was no longer seen as the last gentleman of the game. That's what I love about contemporary fiction. You write about the world around you, and the world bites back. That doesn't happen with Victorian dramas.’

Both authors were clear when asked whether any public figures should be off-limits for novelists. Mills argues that most public figures fictionalise themselves as a matter of habit, and novels merely extend this process: ‘An author friend of mine was advised by Hemingway’s ex-mistress to have a figura – a public persona which is separate from a private persona. I think this dichotomy exists naturally with most celebrities; our perceptions of most public figures are quite fictionalised and caricatured anyway. Therefore I think we ought to be able to write about them in the realm of fiction because I think that readers will understand that it is an imaginative act that blurs figura and reality. The world of journalism is a completely different field where public figures should have rights if lies are printed about them. I think it also depends on the tone and spirit of the piece. No matter how outrageous my book was in places, ultimately I think Self is our greatest living novelist and it was intended as a tribute to his genius. I think Johansson should have taken the novel in good humour, as it sounds like the author is a fan of her work.’ Intention is important for Glass too: ‘We live in a world where it happens all the time - whether it's The Iron Lady, dealing with Thatcher's dark days while she was still (just) alive, or The Queen investigating the Diana period while Elizabeth is still in Buckingham Palace...or Ben Stiller appearing in Family Guy with huge ears, flying off into the sky by flapping them. I think the question is not WHO but HOW. If it's done for a good reason, artfully, with satire or humour, then great. If it's banal then the problem isn't the celebrity, it's the writing.

Finally, I asked whether they would consider writing about a public figure again. Glass was positive: ‘I have thought about a Giggsy sequel - The Tao of Ryan Giggs or even Bring Me the Head of Alex Ferguson. But not yet. Meanwhile there are many characters in LoveSexTravelMusik - Charles Dickens gets a cameo in the Piazza Del Popolo for starters. So yes. Why not?’ Mills also intends to, but could see potential difficulties: ‘I wouldn’t centre an entire novel around a public figure, but given that I write satire, you can make a sharper political point by using a real person rather than alluding to one. My next book, The Bankenstein of London Fields, is about the riots and the financial crash (and a midget Tyrannosaurus Rex), and there is a politician I’d like to include in the book but I’m not sure if I can get away with it this time, as my portrayal of Will was affectionate but this won’t be.’

Personally, I see the ability of the artist to create fictional versions of real public figures is an important privilege. Satire plays an important role in holding the powerful to account. If today an actor objects to a portrayal in a novel, what is to stop a politician or media tycoon objecting to a spoof of them in Private Eye, for example? Recognisable names can also be important in locating fiction within real-world situations. Creating avatars can be obfuscatory. One novel I read recently, set within the London ganglands of the 1960s, contained an extremely accurate depiction of the death of boxer Freddie Mills, but used a false name, along the lines of Teddy Hills. Elsewhere in the book, real names were used, so this move into semi-fictionalisation was confusing. Do we really want to force authors to jump through these hoops every time they reference a real-life event? Sam Mills’s point about figuras is important: modern celebrities have teams around them who seek to control every detail of their public image, from ghosted twitter feeds to staged photoshoots. Subversion of these managed identities is a valid response to an increasingly airbrushed media landscape. Whatever the merits of Johansson’s lawsuit, I hope writers will not be afraid to portray real figures in their work in future.