Jonothan Lethem's "The Ecstasy of Influence"

In considering “The Ecstasy of Influence”, Jonathan Lethem argues that although stating someone else’s lines, words, or texts as your own is plagiarism, it is very common and essential. Authors of books, creators of movies, and song-writers use phrases that they have heard before all the time. Although it may seem like it was once original, it more likely than not came from another source. Lethem also shines light on the fact that many of the shows in which we love today would not be as entertaining if they did were not allowed to have some form of plagiarism in them. He bluntly states, “If nostalgic cartoonists had never borrowed from Fritz the Cat, there would be no Ren & Stimpy Show; without the Rankin/Bass and Charlie Brown Christmas specials, there would be no South Park; and without The Flintstones— more or less The Honeymooners in cartoon loincloths—The Simpsons would cease to exist.” Plagiarism is all around us and to criticize and scrutinize it is to be naïve of the fact that nothing is completely, absolutely original. All the examples of plagiarized material at the end of Lethem’s work should be evidence enough of this. Even if a piece of work does not contain a single line used by another author, the main idea and concept was most likely inspired from another source.