GAINESVILLE – Cuban exile Ana Maria Martinez, who is suing Netflix over how she is portrayed in a movie released by the streaming service last summer, has a high bar to clear to win her case, a University of Florida Journalism and Communications professor said during a recent interview.
Martinez's difficulty in the case is that she's a public figure, which complicates her defamation claim, Frank D. LoMonte, professor and director at The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the university's College of Journalism and Communications, told the Florida Record.
"Once you're involved in a high-profile matter of public interest, you're regarded as a 'public figure' in the eyes of the law, which greatly increases the difficulty of proving a defamation claim," LoMonte told the Florida Record. "Martinez would have to prove not only that the film portrays her inaccurately, but that the producers knew they were making false statements about her and went full speed ahead anyway. That's quite a difficult burden for a libel plaintiff."
Martinez will have to show that false characterizations about her were "'material', meaning not just a little bit inaccurate but so wildly inaccurate that the false information would change people's opinion of her," LoMonte said.
"For instance, in a film like this, let's say the Martinez character is shown actively taking part in drug crimes committed by her husband, when in reality she was unaware of the criminal activity," LoMonte continued. "That would be a material falsehood. But just exaggerating the opulence of her lifestyle would probably not be enough to qualify as a 'material' misstatement of fact."
LoMonte previously was executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Washington.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, in a Jan. 3 news story, referred to the case over how Martinez was portrayed in the 2019 movie "The Wasp Network" as "a legal conflict that centers on a love affair."
"In the movie, Ana Maria Martinez is played by the bewitching Ana De Armas, dancing through nightclubs in backless dresses and marrying a handsome Cuban defector with a dark secret at a society wedding," the news story said.
Martinez filed her defamation suit Oct. 21 in U.S. District Court for Florida's Southern District against Netflix, Orange Studios and the film's writer and director Olivier Assayas. Netflix released the film to its worldwide streaming in June.
The romantic spy thriller about South Florida Cuban exiles during the 1990s portrays Martinez "in a false and defamatory manner," the lawsuit claims.
"The film's portrayal of Ms. Martinez cannot be justified as the mere use of artistic license or dramatization," the lawsuit continues. "In the film, which Defendants have marketed and promoted as being based on 'true events,' defendants depict Ms. Martinez, under her own name, as a sexually immoral individual, who lives a lavish lifestyle paid for by drug money and terrorist activities, and who had associated herself with criminal and/or terrorist enterprises."
The film does not disclose that Ms. Martinez suffered "a brutal and premeditated crime" committed against her by the Cuban government and "she was a devoted loving mother with two young children who developed a close relationship with the Cuban agent and experienced insurmountable trauma as a result of the premeditated crime," the lawsuit said.
"Furthermore, the film glamorizes Ms. Martinez's life as one of leisure and comforts when in reality she was a hard-working mother who oftentimes bankrolled the life of Cuba's agent when he was out of work," the lawsuit said.
Martinez and Netflix filed notice with the court just before the new year that they had agreed to a mediator, retired Judge John Thornton.
Opinions about modern news media may have an impact on the case, LoMonte said.
"There's definitely a sense that libel plaintiffs have been emboldened by the public's diminishing opinion of the media to bring cases that might not have been brought 20 years ago," he said. "If you can get a case against a media defendant in front of a jury, there's no telling how many millions a jury might award against a major film distribution company. That's one reason the legal system assigns such a high burden for a libel plaintiff to proceed with a case. The judge can summarily dismiss all but the strongest cases, as a safety valve to prevent the use of libel suits for harassment and intimidation."