A few days ago I came across a video essay about queerness in Disney movies. I watched because as you may know, I have an interest in LGBTQ animation. But as the video went on, its points of analysis sounded familiar. tl;dr it was plagiarized.

James Somerton plagiarized the book Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out by Sean Griffin (2000) for his video essay Evil Queens: A Queer Look at Disney History. The script is nearly identical.

If you want to compare the book to the video yourself, you can read it here: The dissertation version from 1998, Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: Consuming Disney Queerly, is available to download for free from USC Libraries http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll17/id/346562

The ebook of Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out is available to download for $15.12 from Google Books. Many pages are also available to view for free. https://books.google.com/books?id=mOmgBwAAQBAJ&

Until yesterday, there was no mention of Tinker Belles in the video nor in the description on Youtube. I asked Somerton through DMs, a Youtube comment, and a public Twitter reply why he didn't credit it. He responded only to my Twitter reply that he would add it.

I'm not impressed with his explanation, as you can see. You don't have to be ~an academic~ to know what academic dishonesty is. He blocked me for these messages and proceeded to vaguetweet about me. I'll "read him to filth" as he wishes.

The thing is, there are citations within the Evil Queens video. They're all the same quotations used in Tinker Belles: Cassandra Amesley, Michael Bronski, etc. When your essay credits other people, whatever is not credited comes across as your own thoughts and opinions.

Many viewers believe the analysis in Somerton's video to be his own. At best, this is highly irresponsible, so I told him to take responsibility. At worst, he deliberately concealed any mention of Tinker Belles because otherwise people would know his video is unoriginal.

Somerton was “paid hundreds of dollars” through YouTube monetization for Evil Queens before it was demonetized, on top of monthly income from his patrons through Patreon. Not only did Somerton plagiarize, he made money off it.

Somerton claims not only Griffin’s ideas and words are his own, but at one point also quotes Jack Babuscio with no credit. Somerton criticizes Disney for profiting off people with AIDS through PR stunts, but hypocritically plagiarizes the work of someone who died because of AIDS.

Whether or not his other videos are plagiarized and whether the author/publisher seek legal action against him, I suggest not supporting him. He is a known plagiarist and does not take well to criticism. The rest of this thread will detail the plagiarism in Evil Queens.

The plagiarized segment begins with The Days of Uncle Walt in the video. Somerton occasionally changes word choices, removes portions, and inserts additional thoughts to Griffin’s text. Besides those small tweaks, the video plays like an audiobook of the original.

My side by side comparison is based on the 1998 dissertation, because it is free and therefore the most accessible to anyone who wants to cross-reference this doc with their own downloaded copy. Page numbers and text may differ in a digital or print version of the 2000 book.

There may also be slight typographical errors in my doc due to copy/pasting from an imperfect PDF as well as my own human error in transcribing the video, but I believe the resemblance is still blatant. Disney movies and TV shows released after Tinker Belles (Love Victor, Mulan)

were obviously not included in the book, so Somerton’s analysis of them could not be plagiarized from Griffin. Still, I hesitate to call his additional segments “original” since they could have been plagiarized from other sources. Please contact me if you recognize any.

He does not provide a Works Cited even for quotations within the video. This is similar to when Cathy Frye realized the podcast Crime Junkie didn't provide sources for any episode when they were caught plagiarizing her journalism. https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/crime-junkie-podcast-plagiarism-scandal.html

I suspect more of Somerton’s videos may be plagiarized, but I’m not familiar enough with their topics to draw connections to other people’s work. I just happen to be interested in LGBTQ animation and recognized all his analysis from Sean Griffin’s book.

First, even the titles are similar.

Somerton often changes Griffin’s use of the words “gay” and “homosexual” to “queer” or “LGBT” throughout the video, which does not always apply.

Some words have been cut off in my screencaps in order to fit, but I'm sure you can still see the resemblance.

Here Somerton uses the same quote from Jack Babuscio, the author of Camp and the Gay Sensibility who died in 1990, but does not cite him and thus claims the words are his own.

Two people may be able to come to these same conclusions independently, but the wording is the same. Somerton’s lesbian reading does not come from Griffin but I hesitate to call it “original” since it could be plagiarized from someone else. TW for transphobia and lesbophobia

TW for homophobia and child sex abuse

TW for homophobia and the F-slur

Here is one point where Somerton changing “gay” to “LGBT” doesn't hold up. Just because Disney had gay and lesbian employees doesn’t mean they had openly trans employees, for example.

Here Somerton sloppily combines Rather and Erb’s quotations into one, attributing them both to Rather. TW for AIDS

When Somerton intersperses the plagiarized segments with his person observances (like the appeal of Prince Philip and Robin Hood), it makes everything seem like his own analysis even more.

Part of the Lion King analysis seems to be the only time Somerton significantly rewrote the text of the original, but the ideas are still the same.

TW for nazis

The End! At this point, the video moves onto movies released after the Tinker Belles dissertation was submitted.

if he keeps denying it I'll report him to Patreon+Youtube. for now I just couldn't stand by while he lied to his followers. it's unethical and hypocritical to condemn Disney for profitting off work and support of LGBTQ people but to steal the work of a gay researcher for money.

he deflects with how he's "not an academic" and it's not for a college assignment but honestly I think it's much worse to plagiarize to make hundreds of dollars than to just get a good grade at school!

Somerton blocked me so he may not even see this thread. I gave him a chance by contacting him privately first but was ignored. I only commented on YouTube bc his Twitter got suspended and publicly replied on Twitter bc I was ignored.

I did not harass him nor do I approve of harassment. I can no longer directly communicate with him through Twitter. he must be held accountable, but that does not mean harassment (i.e. spam or death threats) from other people. thank you.