Legal Reality Bites Screenwriter

For most of us, the release of a 10th anniversary DVD means bloopers and behind-the-scenes commentary. For screenwriter Helen Childress, it meant another chance to be sued — for defamation over "Reality Bites," that 1994 Winona Ryder flick about a group of post-college singles in Houston.

Unfortunately for Childress, it’s not a suit that’s easy to shake. This week an appeal court disagreed with her lawyers that “the challenges facing Generation X in the early 1990s” was a topic so worthy the film should qualify for special protection from lawsuits.

So Childress and her co-defendants will have to continue fighting Troy Dyer — not the “rebellious slacker” played by Ethan Hawke, but a real financial consultant who went to USC film school with Childress. The Wisconsinite claims potential clients have been asking if he’s the same guy as the one in the movie.

The defense tried to get the suit thrown out early on by claiming the movie was about a public-interest issue, the kind of speech that gets more protection from suits under the state’s anti-SLAPP law.

You can’t really blame them for trying. The argument has worked before, like for a San Francisco radio show that got sued when its hosts insulted a contestant from the Who Wants to Marry A Multimillionaire TV show.

But the "Reality Bites" creators were not so lucky. Stating what seemed to be an obvious point, the Second District Court of Appeal concluded that “not all speech in a movie is of public significance.” More to the point, “the representation of Troy Dyer as a rebellious slacker is not a matter of public interest.”

Dyer has told the courts he would’ve sued sooner, but the statute of limitations passed him by — until the anniversary DVD opened up another window of opportunity.

Childress, meanwhile, has said Dyer gave her express permission to use his name, claiming it was an inside joke because he was really so straight-laced and conservative.

— Pam Smith

Comments

[Quendrith]

Helen Childress is a pioneering screenwriter. Her place in Hollywood history is beside Lenore Coffee, Frances Marion and Anita Loos. She deserves the respect that her talent merits. A frivolous lawsuit is a crying shame. Childress earned her stripes and is "worthy" of being the voice of a generation that also deserves respect. She should be protected from this kind of nuisance behavior from a third party who clearly has earned quite a bit of publicity and cache from riding on her talent and obstructing her career.

Ad Astra,
Quendrith Johnson
www.screenmancer.tv

[Troy Dyer]

Dear Ms. Q:

My company, Dyer Financial, Inc., is completing its research on the case against Helen Childress and Universal. Recently, and came across your misinformed
comments regarding my lawsuit (as being frivolous).
You do not know the definition of the word. You know
even less about my life. I do indeed agree with you that Helen is hard-working, but not necessarily talented with respect to the final draft of "Reality Bites" --as much of her dialogue was taken from me (and others) verbatim. Thank you for your future research and proper considerations before posting knee-jerk and ornery commentaries at online legal blogs or websites.

Troy Dyer

[mla]

Oh Troy, you must be a very unhappy person. Won't you find another way to vent your anger or try to gain some satisfaction in life rather than trying trample others? Life is short.

[Rachel Summers]

The above most likely wasn't Dyer; hopefully, he'd know better than to discuss details of a suit he was just beginning to pursue.

I'm sympathetic to Ms. Childress, but she really should have changed the name--it's standard operating procedure for studios to research character names and places and make sure they're not too similar in various aspects to existing persons/locales (unless of course, the person/place is meant to be more or less biographical). Her claim that she was given permission informally by Dyer may be correct, but a verbal agreement won't hold up in court.

I guess the moral is: get everything in writing, lest your friends stop being just that?

Kind of a sad coda to this film--the supposed 'idealistic philosopher' turns out to be more like the 'yuppie executive' after all. But hey, the latter persona is assuredly better for his career. Like a really aggressive form of image maintenance...