By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — After my review of October Sky posted, I received an angry email from Homer Hickam, the main character on whose memoir October Sky is based. After signing over the rights to his story and characters to Universal Studios, he is suing them for the “creative liberties” they have taken.
Here is an excerpt from that email:
Please be aware that I have sued to remove my name and my family’s name from this awful show plus various other offenses such as breach of contract, misappropriation of name, fraud, etc. …
And he wishes to set the record straight:
Do you really believe that schools in West Virginia, even back in the 1950’s, were set up to encourage their students to work in the mines? Do you really believe we didn’t know how to pronounce nuclear? Do you really believe that our lives were owned by the company store?
None of that is remotely true.
Our schools were excellent. Teachers were given a bump in salary by
Coalwood’s coal company so the school system could hire the best. The company stocked our school library. 80% of the students in my class at the Coalwood school went to and graduated from college. Very few boys went into the mine. It was clear that our way of life was dying. The people of Coalwood encouraged us to study hard, get an education, and go into different fields. This show is absurd from beginning to end and is the sad result of Universal Studios not having a clue as to what the real story is in my memoir Rocket Boys.
When I contacted the Old Globe, they were aware of the matter, but declined to comment as there is ongoing litigation. It should be noted that the dispute is between Mr. Hickam and Universal Studios and not with the Old Globe.
While Mr. Hickam would like to halt the production by the Old Globe (which he rather strangely refers to as the “Odd Strobe”) it’s doubtful that they would tell a multitude of actors, musicians, designers, techies, carpenters, costumers, administrators …etc. that all of their hard work was for naught.
(Mr. Hickam goes into more detail on his blog. http://homerhickamblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/my-struggle.html)
This controversy raises a larger issue. How factual is an artist required to be? Historians agree that Shakespeare’s Macbeth bears little resemblance to the historical figure. And the Trapp family actually got to Switzerland by train. They didn’t hike through the Alps with a choir singing majestically in the background. Yet October Sky is the story of a living person whose portrayal has real implications. Taking too many liberties in the name of “artistic license” hurts both your subject and your credibility.
Hickam isn’t the only one to feel that he’s lost control of his own story. LuAnne Johnson –the teacher who inspired the movie Dangerous Minds– is not happy with Disney. She feels that their “LuAnne Johnson” did and said things that were out of her character and that her students were not as Disney portrayed them. (You can listen to her story by following this link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/43/faustian-bargains)
So the moral of the story seems to be: If you want your story told with integrity, don’t sign away your rights to tell it. If you just want the money, take it and run.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the United States.)
Dear Eric: Thank you for your comments on my comments. I’m not really angry so much as sad in that good people, such as yourself, see a show theoretically about a part of my life and it leads them to create two paragraphs (your first two) of offensive and culturally insensitive copy. Without a thought, you denigrate the people of Coalwood, assign them the basest of motivations, make fun of how they pronounce words, call their state unworthy even of being bombed, and generally treat them as ignorant people who not only are slaves to the company but want their kids to also be slaves. Can’t you see how that might be perceived if this was a Hispanic or black people in a working town? This is the primary reason I fight to get my name off this show. Yes, I signed a contract but it was for a movie based on a book. That has occurred. A live stage play is extra and is arguable within the contract whether they have the right to use my name. I did sign a contract and I was paid but they decided to broaden their interpretation far beyond what I think it says and I, reading it differently, have taken them to court. It’s that simple. We shall see who was right within the legal system. In the meantime, however, this show needs to be rewritten to reflect the true nature of the Appalachian people and not the stereotypes which have no more basis than those stereotypes that damage Jews, blacks, Hispanics, and other distinct minorities of which Appalachians are definitely one. Perhaps you should read Rocket Boys. It might open your eyes to something. You see, there were Jews in Coalwood, too, and one of them built my first rocket. He was and is my hero.
–Homer Hickam