The family of Angolan rebel chief Jonas Savimbi is taking Activision to court, motivated by how the video game publisher portrayed the war leader in a skewed way in the game Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2.
Savimbi was the head of a guerrilla insurgency force that rallied against the Angolan government. Another important target for Savimbi was the party supporting the government called the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). After being in charge of the movement for a decade, he died in a confrontation with government forces in 2002.
Ronald Reagan spoke of Savimbi as a freedom fighter, but history is seldom black or white. The death toll of the Angolan civil war mounted to half a million people, while the number of displaced citizens topped a few million. How much of that rests on the shoulders of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), the rebel organization that Savimbi founded, is hard to tell.
The legal complaint belonging to three of Savimbi's children states that the game portrays their father as a "barbarian." The plaintiffs request a hefty sum of $1.09 million, the equivalent of €1 million from the French branch of Activision Blizzard.
The African leader appears early on in Black Ops II, during the first campaign mission. The player has to help the war chief carry an offensive attack against the state's army, during which Savimbi rallies his rebels and encourages them to "kill everybody."
The lawyer representing Savimbi's family thinks that Activision purposely depicted Unita's leader as a "big halfwit who wants to kill everybody," according to a report.
France is one of the countries with the harshest laws regarding defamation, as the European country puts great value on a person's right to public image. This means that using any person's likeness in a commercial purpose can lead to very stingy legal bills.
Alex Tutty, an entertainment and media legal expert at the law firm Sheridans, affirms that it is expected for people to take grievance and legal action after their relatives were poorly depicted in games or movies. This holds true especially if the said relatives are controversial global leaders.
"A claim for defamation of a dead person is notoriously difficult and can be impossible depending on the territory," Tutty says, according to The Guardian.
He clarifies that France allows relatives to take legal action if they consider that the depiction of the deceased family member is damaging to their own reputation.
Etienne Kowalski, a lawyer and representative of Activision Blizzard, pointed out that Savimbi was cast in a rather positive light.
"[Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 presents Savimbi] for who he was ... a character of Angolan history, a guerrilla chief who fought the MPLA," Kowalski explains.
Activision faced a similar lawsuit two years ago, regarding the way Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 depicted another famous leader.
Manuel Noriega, the locked down dictator of Panama had attempted to sue the gaming company over his own appearance in the same Call of Duty installment. A judge dismissed the case, citing the freedom of expression guaranteed by the first amendment.
Seeing how France's law on freedom of expression is not as extensive as the First Amendment, the result of the current lawsuit might put a dent in Activision's profits.
