Identity and How Much of it Do We Own?

Recently, Ellen Page, star of Juno, was asked on Reddit's AMA about working on video games and how the character of Ellie from The Last of Us looks and sounds like her. Ms. Page was understandably upset by this considering she is receiving no monetary compensation for this. However, two things must be acknowledged.

One, movies have become the apex of our society. There is nothing higher on the commercial and critical fronts of entertainment. Therefore every medium is bound to pull things from it. The Long Halloween, the seminal Batman tale, paraphrases lines of dialogue straight from The Godfather. The entire Call of Duty franchise takes things from films, from the look of the characters (Soap and the guy from Tears of the Sun with the mohawk) to the names of sections and certain scenes. The reason being these products use film influences so liberally is because of film being successful. And that inspires writers and artists to try and capture that cinematic experience. People love movies. Therefore taking things from movies in order to fulfill a wanted look makes sense. After all, Ellen Page is not the first, last or thousandth actor to have their likeness copied. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Mike Tyson and Bruce Lee have had their images copied umpteen times and have formed the archetypes of most video games, be they shooting or fighting or what have you. Moreover, the film Aliens practically created the "space marine" character and wrote most of the banter between soldiers, marines or commandoes in shooters.

Second, she didn't do anything. She didn't do anything to deserve money. She didn't do anything at all. In fact, all that happened was a character looked like her. So what if the character looked like her? What if the character was an exact carbon copy of how Ellen Page would act that role? So what? She didn't spend time rehearsing and studying and acting out the character. People will play that game and if they don't know that the character isn't Ellen Page, all it does is boost people's awareness of her. Free publicity as far as I'm concerned. And when she acknowledges or brings up The Last of Us, she is reciprocating what they did for her.

I suppose the question some one might pose to me is, "How would you feel if your likeness was used without your permission?". I would love it. People would be like, "Hey, you look like that guy from that game". Who wouldn't dig that? Maybe the character is popular and they're willing to pay me to act in it. Or maybe a rival company would steal me away. Or maybe I wouldn't give two balls because who really cares at the end of the day? If people have any smarts they know that Ellen Page's likeness was being used and they register that her value aesthetically and as an actress is so great that people steal her image. Or at least that's how I think.