Life imitating art

Life imitating art is the reverse of the normal process whereby art is made to resemble life. The concept derives from an Oscar Wilde aphorism, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life." Wilde follows Ovid who, in Book 3 of the Metamorphoses, depicts a scene where "Nature in her genius had imitated art."

Examples

*It has been reported that the prevalence of "" and other crime investigation TV shows have changed criminal behavior. For example, the use of bleach to destroy DNA evidence has increased, as a result.
*Astronomers who took a picture of the star V838 Monocerotis remarked that it seems to imitate Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night. [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/mar/05/spaceexploration.arts|title=Cosmic life imitates art|last=Adam|first=David|date=2004-03-05|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=2008-08-01]
*The release of the 2006 film "Night at the Museum", which depicted the American Museum of Natural History in New York City as having its attendance increase dramatically at the end of the film, resulted in the real American Museum of Natural History's attendance increasing after the film's release. Christmas season attendance increased by 20% over the previous year. [cite news|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16549060/|title=Movie boosts Natural History Museum visits|date=2007-01-09|publisher=The Associated Press|accessdate=2008-08-01]
*The 1898 novella "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan", about a supposedly indestructible ocean liner which sinks after colliding with an iceberg, has been noted to contain a remarkable number of parallels with the real-life sinking of "RMS Titanic", which occurred in 1912 - fourteen years after the story's publication.
*The 2003 PC game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon features a campaign in which U.S. forces attempt to stop the Russian Federation from invading the Republic of Georgia. Most of the fighting takes place in South Ossetia in 2008. During August, 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia when the latter tried to retake the separatist region of South Ossetia.
*In the 2005 video game , one mission features a North Korean anti-ship missile sinking an American vessel on July 4, 2007. On July 5, 2006, the North Koreans launched a series of missiles into the Sea of Japan.

References