Creative Borrowing – Ally's Portfolio

RESPONSE

Do Lethem’s examples and his point here challenge your thinking about creative borrowing? Why or why not?

I don’t think Lethem’s examples he gives are there to challenge my thinking. I think he is bringing them up to try and get me to think. When he says “appropriation mimicry, quotation, allusion, and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act…” (61). I don’t think this is true. I think that our ideas are our own ideas. If someone were to have stolen them then that is not right. For the example of the Simpsons, I do think what they talked about was trying to bring a point out. How one creator saw someones idea and then shaped it into their own. I think that Creative borrowing shouldn’t happen. But if I say that then there goes the entire POP industry. If you didn’t know, all the pop songs we hear are so catchy, because they are all the same. Here’s why.

DISCUSSION

@charlotter

I see your point about pop songs, but I don’t think creative borrowing shouldn’t happen. I think its important to draw inspiration from other people and what they make. As an artist, creative borrowing is something I would consider an important skill. Even the great masters such as Vincent van Gogh, Shakespeare, and George Lucas creatively borrowed from other peoples’ work (references in my own post on this discussion forum). Maybe it’s poorly done with pop songs and how they all sound alike, but creative borrowing can still lead to new and creative ideas from other ideas. It’s a skill you hone by copying the techniques of those before you.

OTHER/REPLY

@charlotter

I see where you’re coming from. When I thought of Creative Borrowing I thought that they were taking their entire Idea, and claiming it as their own. But, you have just changed my mind. Like you said about the songs, Yes they all sound similar ( in their own respective ways) but they are all different.