What are some real-life examples of the cliché of a true story (i.e. nonfiction) published with all the names changed and the disclaimer that the names have been changed to protect the innocent?
Obviously stretching the definition of “innocent”, but in the film Goodfellas, nearly all the names aside from Henry Hill were changed – Jimmy Burke became Jimmy Conway, Paul Vario became Paul Cicero, etc.
The Spike TV show 1000 Ways to Die presumably depicted real-life incidents with all the names changed, although its connection to reality was often dubious at best.
Genie, the subject of an infamous case of severe child abuse, wasn’t actually named Genie. Her given name is known if you dig into it, but it’s still left hidden in most sources. Peculiarly, it shows up in Google’s summary of the Wikipedia article on her, but not in the article itself (it apparently did at one time, but it’s been redacted not only from the article, but from the talk pages about it).
Finding “Genie’s” real name took me about two minutes. Googled “Genie real identity.”
ETA: As anyone around in the 1970’s knows, Sybil Isabelle Dorsett was an alias for a so-called multiple personality victim. Later revealed to be Shirley Ardell Mason
Boy, this show. Let me tell ya about this show, right here. I thought I’d seen some cheesy old Bullshit on the TV before, but let me say, this set a new nadir for the format for me.
That who network is pretty suspect, actually.
There was a Louise Penny mystery that involved a set of quintuplets born to a Franco-Ontarion family in the mid 30s but she didn’t give them the name Dionne and changed a lot of the details (for example, one of them was the victim). Obviously the real Dionnes were totally innocent. I couldn’t find the title and it was not, to be sure, one of her better efforts (although I generally love them).
Torey Hayden’s Ghost Girl changes all the names in this horrific true life story.
O.J. Simpson’s book
Same for Casino - the book used real names, but they were changed for the film.
These are all good examples. I found one myself — Andrew Tobias, originally writing as John Reid, The Best Little Boy in the World.
A recent example is the film Detroit. All of the police officers names were changed so the filmmakers wouldn’t get sued.
No need to concern yourself any more. Spike TV’s name is about to be changed to protect the innocent.
You’re telling me the show that had the true story of a man who while texting his girlfriend while driving down a busy street accidentally ran his girlfriend over who was also texting while walking down a crosswalk by complete coincidence was fake?!?!
The 1968 true crime book The North Avenue Irregulars doesn’t use the real names of the Irregulars or the two Treasury agents and states that the names are fictitious to “protect the informants”.
Ooh, good one
Anything on Dragnet.
According to this site, Serpico (Film) - TV Tropes in the 1973 film Serpico names were changed to protect not only the innocent but also the guilty, especially the police officers who had been taking bribes.
This NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/19/archives/-serpicofilm-dra-s-fire-from-cast-cooling-of-friendship-central.html?mcubz=3 may not be accessible to non-subscribers (paywall) but it goes further into the name change issue:
"Probably the most blatant mélange of fact and fiction in the movie concerns the names of the characters. Serpico remains Serpico, of course, and there are references to Mayor Lindsay, Whitman Knapp and David Burnham. But the book’s Sergeant Durk appears as Bob Blair. Mr. Roberts, Jay L. Kriegel, the Mayoral assistant, and a number of police officials all undergo name changes in the film.
*Martin Bregman, the film’s producer, thinks that the criticisms about the name changes are overblown. “There were some legalities involved but more importantly, it’s not necessary that the names be real. What difference does it make to people in Dayton? Most people in New York don’t even know who Jay Kriegel is.”
*
But the argument here hinges on more than just names, Are these people portrayed as they actually were? Are fictive details used to enhance stereotypes? Are characters merely symbols, or are they presented to an accepting public as men who did and said what the people in the movie do and say? In terms of the movie as an artistic work, this is insignificant. In terms of the way the public gains and processes information, it is, at least, confusing.
I’m more interested in the printed-word version of “this is nonfiction” + “the names have been changed” than occurrences in film. I don’t think film tends to be divided categorically into “fiction” versus “nonfiction” in quite the same rigorous fashion that books do, although since I didn’t study film I’m prepared to be told I’m dead wrong about that.
When I was a child I used to think, “What’s the deal with that? Protect the innocent from what?”
Then I later heard some of those old Dragnet shows. and, indeed, the “innocent” bystanders and witnesses that appear in them do often come across as either gullible or stupid, or just weird. so I guess they’re being protected from themselves.
I was just thinking this, since my first thought was “Law & Order”–but those are all “based on”, rather than actually true stories.
For the most part, when you get into entertainment (aside from documentaries, with a few exceptions), you find more “resembles” than “is”. When you introduce dramatizations, it opens up a world of possibilities for artistic choices, which (depending on what they are & who brings them in) provide multiple opportunities for minor changes to the story for the sake of entertainment.