Notebook.ai

Allusion vs. Plagiarism?

@Discombra forum 2 comments schedule
@Discombra

I'm helping a friend write a One Act that she plans to put in production sometime next year. We have alluded to multiple things throughout the play. But now we're unsure on a couple more obvious ones. Does anyone know (or have a feeling) that any of these would be plagiarism?

1

"Flicker. Enter STEPSISTERS.

PAUL: Ah, Heather and Heather,

Flicker. Enter STEPMOTHER.

PAUL: And Heather.

EVA glares at him

PAUL: Come on, they’re literally the Heathers."

2

"ANNOUNCER: Hear ye, hear ye.

PAUL: My name is Samuel Seabury–

EVA: Shh!"

3

"PAUL: (pushing her off, laughing.) What? We’ve been hearing death omens and the lighting’s been defective since we got here. What’s gonna happen?

EVA: Paul.

PAUL: They think me Mac–

EVA: –NOPE!

PAUL: Ambition is my folly. I’m a polymath, a pain in the ass-

EVA: You’re a massive pain."

Please advise. We kinda want to put them on youtube at some point, so we don't want to be struck down.

person_off
Deleted user

I'm pretty sure you're good, it's obvious that these are pop culture references and you're not just stealing lines from other works [though I basically live under a rock so I didn't get all of the references]. As long as you make it obvious that you're using quotes from other works and you aren't trying to take credit for lines that you didn't write you should be ok.