If you’re the kind of person who reads gaming websites, you’ve probably already seen the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer – it’s the 𒉰most viewed video game reveal in history, reaching 90,421,491 YouTube views in 24 h💜ours. Even my partner, who doesn’t often play video games, ran downstairs roaring about the trailer upon its debut. It’s going to be one of the biggest game releases of the decade.
So naturally, there have already been a ton of articles written analysing every aspect of the GTA 6 trailer. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Is that girl in the bikini Lucia? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Is it telling the story in reverse? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Is it going to be woke? Articles are being 😼written daily about the trailer, despite it being a mere minute and a half in length. One particular genre of article that’s interested me is those that collate exactly what references each shot is making to real like Floridian culture. Grand Theft Auto has always drawn from and paಌrodied reality, and having the sources its taking from identified is very cool.
I’m A Lot Like Joker From The Movie Joker
One reference it made was to the Florida Joker, a former tattoo model named Lawrence Sullivan. Sullivan first got famous because his mugshot wen🧸t viral, with his distinctive facial tattoos being a point of fascination on social media. He got arrested for aiming a gun at passing vehicles in 2017, and he didn’t have a permit. He was arrested again in 2018 for violating his probation. But he’s mostly known for his mugshots.
There was a character in the GTA 6 trailer that looks a lot like him – it’s hard to deny that he inspired the character. Sullivan recognises this, which is why he&rs🌼quo;s now demanding $2 million from Rockstar in compensation for using his likeness wi♌thout his consent. It’s extremely unlikely that he’ll ever get anything from Rockstar - the li𝐆keness could easily be excused as parody.
Roger Clark, the actor behind Rockstar’s other huge game Red Dead Redemption 2, ꦰactually stitched Sullivan’s TikTok where he made the demands to tell 🃏him Rockstar is “lawyered up”, knows “exactly what they can and cannot get away with”, and that he should “use the notoriety they just threw your way to your advantage” as he won’t be “getting a job at Home Depot with that face”.
Legality Vs. Ethicality
I’m not here to argue that Sullivan has a case against Rockstar and he’s actually got a shot at getting a cool two million from them – he doesn’t. He’s a public figure, his picture was in the news꧅, and there’s a very slim chance he can get compensated for fiction made from publicly available records. Lots ofꩲ art is made with inspiration from real life, and Grand Theft Auto is explicitly satirising Floridian culture, so it makes sense that it would satirise real Floridians as well.
But I can’t help but feel that there’s something gross about it. In his TikTok, Sullivan says, “Y’all took my likeness. Y’all took my life.” And he’s not wrong. I think about the ethics of stealing details for fiction a lot, as a writer – I repurpose things I’ve done, people I’ve met, and things I’ve heard for my creative work, but the people I use as inspiration aren’t identifiable by the vast majority of people in the world. Florida Joker’s name and face are astonishingly easy to find online, unlike moꦿst of the other people referenced in the trailer, largely due to his existing notoriety, and the striking similarity of his video game representation to his actual face. By using a representation of him, Rockstar has given him fresh notoriety, bringing renewed attention to him and his background, including his real name. The other characters may have been taken from viral videos, but Sullivan is by far the most identifiable.
It’s tough to imagine your worst moment captured as part of the biggest media event of the decade. I don’t know why Sullivan aimed a gun at passing cars, if he has mental health issues, or really, anything about him. But it seems cruel to take what could po⛄tentially be someone’s rock bottom and put thﷺat in the public eye so quickly and so prominently, without telling them first, let alone without compensating them. It’s almost cruel, especially considering he’s so much more recognisable than the rest of the people referenced in the trailer.
A Milli, A Milli, A Milli
Does Sullivan deserve $2 million for going viral five years ago and getting referenced in an incredibly popular game trailer? That’s for a judge to decide, if he decides he actually wants to sue. But I think it’s rough that he’s in this position at all. I’m all for parody and satire, but putting easily recognisable, potentially disadvantaged people on blast feels an awful lot like punching down. Yeah, Florida is wild and people do weird stuff, but Rockstar isn’t taking into account the kind of impact that kind of intensified spot🍸light can have on these very real people its referencing. Maybe Roger Clark is right, and all Sullivan can do is use the fame he’s been suddenly given. That’s still a bad outcome.
The GTA 6 Teaser Has Wormed Its W🔯ay Into My Brain Like No Trailer S⛦ince The Force Awakens
The GTA 6 𒁃trailer🌌 demands to be watched again and again.
