Thursday, March 28, 2024

Marlon Wayans Wins Appeals Court Ruling Rooted in N-Word Tweet

Actor Marlon Wayans attends The Weinstein Company and Netflix Golden Globe Party, presented with FIJI Water, Grey Goose Vodka, Lindt Chocolate, and Moroccanoil at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 8, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California.
Actor Marlon Wayans attends The Weinstein Company and Netflix Golden Globe Party, presented with FIJI Water, Grey Goose Vodka, Lindt Chocolate, and Moroccanoil at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 8, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California.

*A tweet from Marlon Wayans became the subject of a 50-page opinion published Thursday from a California appeals court dealing with, among many other things, the intersection between racial harassment and speech, and whether “nigga” is a racial slur when spoken by a black man.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, this all started back in 2013, after Wayans wrapped production on “Haunted House 2.” The film featured, in a very minor role, an actor named Pierre Daniel.

Daniel sued Wayans and others involved in the production, claiming he was subjected to repeated offensive language on the set about his African-American race. The plaintiff was also the subject of the following tweet posted by Wayans on Sept. 4, 2013:

Wayans scored an initial victory in the lawsuit in January 2015, with a judge concluding that Daniel’s various claims arose from protected activity — free speech — on a matter of public interest.

Daniel appealed the decision to the California Appeals Court, but lost again. Cited below is associate justice Jeffrey Johnson’s opinion on the N-word part of the case, via THR’s Eriq Gardner:

As part of his case, Daniel argued that it was beyond question that use of “nigger” is a racial slur.

“Nigger, however, is not the term at issue here,” responds Johnson. “Rather, the term at issue is nigga. As Daniel makes clear in his declaration opposing the motion, he was not called nigger by Wayans, but nigga. Nigga is not an unambiguous racial epithet in today’s world, especially when used intra-racially, as it was here … Moreover, the evidence introduced below suggests the contrary to Daniel’s claim—that is, a reasonable Black actor who voluntarily agreed to participate in a movie addressing racial stereotypes that was written, produced and starred Wayans — an artist known for his frequent use of both nigger and nigga in his work — would be on notice that potentially racially charged language would be used in the film, and, given the improvisational nature of the production, that such language might be used among the actors and production staff when the cameras were not rolling to help develop storylines and dialogue.”

Daniel argued that race-based harassment couldn’t possibly qualify as a protected right, but Johnson and one other California appeals court justice came to a different conclusion by determining that “the exercise of free speech here was central, not incidental, to his alleged injuries.”

To all the offensive and derogatory language Wayans allegedly aimed at Daniel over the fellow actor’s race and national origin, including insults made during breaks while no cameras were rolling, the majority opinion allows for wide latitude for the improvisational “creative process,” taking Wayans at his word when he says that joking around on set is part of his method.

In a dissent, appellate justice Justice Elwood Lui disagrees here, writing that the problem with such analysis is that Daniel “did not willingly participate in this creative process,” and talks about how racially charged humor was directed at the plaintiff. He emphasizes this latter point, distinguishing it from a famous entertainment law case involving the sexually charged writers’ room for the old NBC comedy Friends. There, a plaintiff’s harassment claim failed because the court noted the creative environment. Lui finds something to distinguish the two cases.

There’s a lot more in the decision. Besides failed discrimination claims, Daniel also attempted claims of violations of his publicity and privacy rights. Some of the claims fail because of a release that Daniel signed, but maybe more interesting is the majority’s discussion of transformative use in the context of what Wayans tweeted. We imagine this could come up in other contexts just as some of the subjects above.

“Here, although Wayans used two unaltered images — one of Daniel and one of the Cleveland Brown character — his use of those images was nonetheless transformative,” states the opinion. “Wayans’s use was transformative in the combination of the juxtaposed images with his commentary. That combination of images and arguably humorous commentary provided the Internet posting with an element of caricature, lampoon, or parody. It is this element that puts the Internet posting within the protection of the First Amendment. In other words, Wayans’s juxtaposition of Daniel’s image with the image of the Cleveland Brown character and his caption added ‘something new’ to Daniel’s image, altering it with a ‘new expression, meaning, or message.'”

Read the full opinion and dissent here.

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