# Richard Linklater by sued for DAZED AND CONFUSED depictions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-linklater-by-sued-for-dazed-and-confused-depictions/268912 "2004-10-13T00:24:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-linklater-by-sued-for-dazed-and-confused-depictions/268912/1 "2004-10-13T00:24:42Z")
[Link](http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15116,00.html) > [@](#): > > Three former high school classmates of Richard Linklater are suing the filmmaker and Universal Pictures, claiming the trio has suffered constant humiliation after their last names were used for characters in Linklater’s 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused. > The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on behalf of Richard Floyd, Bobby Wooderson and Andy Slater, alleges the filmmaker failed to get the men’s consent when he wrote the Dazed screenplay and supposedly used the men’s names and likenesses for some party-hardy slackers. If you’ve seen the movie (which I highly recommend) the characters in question are the quarterback played by Jason London (“I may play football but I will never sign that”), the stoner played by Rory Cochran (“Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip, hip lady, man”) and the brilliant Matthew McConaughy character, Wooderson ("That’s what I like about them high school girls man, I keep getting older, they stay the same.’) These guys are saying the movie used their real last names but insist that they are not really like the characters in the movie. > [@](#): > > As new audiences discovered Dazed and Confused over the years, the three men say they increasingly found themselves being ID’d by fans who would not only ask for autographs, but also assume–wrongly, the men insist–the fictional counterparts were based on them. It seems paradoxical to me to claim that the characters are not based on them but then to insist they’ve somehow been used without permission. This movie came out in 1993, btw, so I don’t know why it took eleven years for these guys to decide they’d been wronged. I strongly suspect that this is just a charade to try to wring some money out of Linklater and I hope it gets dismissed. Besides, all writers use real life people as inspiration for characters. Huck Finn was based on a real childhood friend of Mark Twain. Charles Schulz’s Peanuts characters were based on real kids he knew as a child. There’s even a real Kramer. Where does this end? I hope these guys get nothing. _Dazed and Confused_ was a brilliant film and part of the reason was its uncanny realism. You can’t expect an artist not to let real people and events influence his writing and characters. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-linklater-by-sued-for-dazed-and-confused-depictions/268912/2 "2004-10-13T00:26:10Z")
Gah, could a mod please remove that ghastly “by” from my thread title? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-linklater-by-sued-for-dazed-and-confused-depictions/268912/3 "2004-10-13T00:39:55Z")
Wooderson, Floyd and Slater. These last names scream COMMON so how can they even prove that they’re _the_ Wooderson, Floyd and Slater that Linklater used for inspiration? And I somehow doubt these three morons are getting approached for autographs by fans. Unless they’re going around telling people “the three guys from Dazed and Confused are based on us!” It’s here that their lawsuit falls apart. This will get laughed out of court. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-linklater-by-sued-for-dazed-and-confused-depictions/268912/4 "2004-10-13T00:45:29Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > There’s even a real Kramer. Where does this end? Didn’t he try to sue Seinfeld/Larry David for similar reasons? IIRC, his suit got laughed out of court. Hope this case follows the precedent.