Digital Necromancy –
Digital Necromancy is the process of re-creating celebrities digitally, or otherwise bringing dead celebrities “back to life” in today’s entertainment. In SIX paragraphs (6-7 sentences per paragraph) explain if you feel that this ability to bring celebrities back to life (digitally) is a good or a bad thing. If you were a celebrity, would you put a clause in your will (as Carrie Fisher did that allows her to be in Star Wars or as Robin Williams did, disallowing any digital use of his image) to allow or protect against you being used in commercials or movies without your consent? What if you died in the 1960s and now your grand-nephew was putting you in beer commercials today? Is it OK, or is it wrong? Should only celebrities alive today (who realize that this technology is possible) be able to participate in this kind of after-death contract, as opposed to those who died over 30 years ago and would not have known to include a clause in their will prohibiting this type of usage of their image? You can bring up any other issues that you can think of on this issue in your writing.
Finally, try to find an example of a dead celebrity selling something today (apart from the ones exampled in the video). It can be just a photograph in an ad, or a moving image like a commercial or one in a movie (like President Kennedy reanimated in the film Forrest Gump). What do you think?
Watch the Time Magazine video “Digital Necromancy: Advertising with Reanimated Celebrities.”LinkLinks to an external site.
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