This Week in WTF, November 22, 2013

Megan Fox back– A young man may be facing life in prison for the murder of his father. Unfortunately, that is not very WTF in and of itself. It’s the supposed reason that makes the head spin—his dad insulted him with regard to actress Megan Fox:

Father and son relationships can be really deep and complicated. The one that existed between Jason Beckman and his father Jay doesn’t seem like it was an exception. At age 17, the teen — who reportedly has Asperger’s Syndrome — approached his dad to ask what he thought of actress Megan Fox. Who knows, maybe he wanted to have one of those fabled father-son moments where both can finally bond, like men, over the objective attractiveness of a well-known starlet. But dad’s response — that Jason wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like Megan — left the teen cold. And spurred in him a desire to plot and ultimately commit the horrific murder of his father.

Now 21, Jason was convicted of first-degree murder last night and faces life in prison.

I’m not saying another word about this one.

– A French family involuntarily spent a week in Chicago because the family patriarch was too fat to fit on the airplane. British Airways reportedly refused to allow the 500-lb. man to board the plane, although they seem to have attempted to help him figure out other options. They also offered a full refund to the family. NBC News mentions in its report that that the man was in the U.S. to receive treatment at the Mayo Clinic for a “hormone disorder,” and that gained weight while here. That would perhaps explain how he got to the U.S. on an airplane, I suppose, but there’s an annoying bit of an element of “It’s not his fault he’s so goshdarn fat” to the story, too.

– Hey, is that an apple you’re eating? Well, ur doin it wrong.

Photo credit: By pinguino k from North Hollywood, USA (Megan Fox) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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All Your Nudes Are Belong to Us: Likeness Rights in the Age of Photoshop

3762597413_d820da2d19During an inadvertent foray onto TMZ’s website, I came across this bit of fun a few months ago:

DO NOT Photoshop Megan Fox’s naked face on another chick’s naked body … and then publish it online … because she will sue the crap out of you — at least that’s the threat she sent to one website this week.

Megan’s legal team fired off the cease and desist letter to a parody website called Celebrity Jihad — after the site published a shockingly good Photoshopped pic last week, depicting Megan’s face on a naked chick’s body.

I’d be curious to hear a fair use argument for the doctored photo, but copyright law does not seem to enter into the discussion here. It’s hard to know what legal arguments were raised, because all the coverage comes from mouth-breathing websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton. Anyway, the website that posted the pictures was not nearly terribly clever in its reply:

A rep for Celebrity Jihad tells TMZ … “While we appreciate Megan Fox’s concern for her image, we find it hard to believe that a woman who spent two Transformers movies bent over with her breasts pressed together could have her reputation damaged by a blatantly satirical website.”

See, Megan Fox slutted it up in two Michael Bay movies, so how could she complain about some hack website sticking her face on someone else’s naked body, amirite??? (That’s my interpretation of their argument, anyway.)

(If you want to see the picture, you’ll have to Google it yourself. I already feel bad enough for linking to TMZ, although I tagged it “nofollow.”) Continue reading

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