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Commenting on the recent furore over DC's hiring of Orson Scott Card to write a certain super-powered hereo.

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[terrykun]

Heheh, oh Michael and Ted.

[chrisdv]

Boys will be boys.

*Raises hand for high five*

EDIT: OH MY GOD YOUR ICON IS LLOYD!!!! =D

[capnduckman]

It makes it so much weirder if you think it's Michael and Jamie.

[rainspirit]

Beautiful. Thanks, Superman!

A Confession (TL;DR version: Boycotting Card is Wise)

[fungo_squiggly]

I remember when Orson Scott Card was hired to write a comic set in the Dragon Age world. I was aware of the man's reputation, but with little consideration, I bought the comic anyway because, hey, Dragon Age! I love that game.

I never really thought much about it until much later, when I was reading the "War of the Dreaming" series by John C. Wright.

Now, John C. Wright had become one of my favorite authors after I read the "Orphans of Chaos" series. Not only that, but judging from a couple of message threads I had seen him in online, I had thought that John C. Wright was actually a pretty cool human being, as well. Mostly that's because I had seen him striking a really reasonable tone when debating some very nasty people who had taken umbrage over Wright's then-recent conversion to Christianity.

Well, the further I got into the "War of the Dreaming" series, the more I realized that the series was becoming little more than a thinly-veiled conservative screed. I was surprised enough by Wright's rather ham-handed insertion of his own politics into an urban fantasy series that I started looking for more information on the man online.

Turns out the man is not a fine human being, as I once thought he was. He's actually kind of an asshole. He's one of those hyper-partisan political extremists... a conservative one, obviously, though liberal examples exist too... the kind of person who's just plain ol' stewing in his own hatred and fear of "the other side." And, more to the point for the purposes of this thread, the man is a blatant homophobe. As in, the "hur hur if being gay is okay than why not murder" kind of homophobe.

So! In addition to many other things that he said on his blog, John C. Wright mocked the idea of people boycotting his writing because they objected to his beliefs (or as he put it, readers who put "ideological purity ahead of entertainment value").

And, that was when I decided that there was no way in hell that John C. Wright, or anyone like him, was ever going to get another goddamn cent from me. Because, snideness aside, Wright was pretty much completely missing the point of such a boycott. The simple fact is, there are many fine choices out there when it comes to entertainment. So why should I give my money to someone whose behavior I find reprehensible and vile? Why should I, even indirectly, support someone so hateful? Likewise, why put money into Orson Scott Card's pocket, and thereby help finance the stupid stuff he says?

Loooooong story short, I want my fucking money back. Too late now, of course... but I can at least be sure not to make the same mistake again.

(Incidently, the latest Dragon Age comics are pretty sweet. And they're written by David Gaider, who has really cool things to say about equitable treatment for everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality or whatnot.)

Re: A Confession (TL;DR version: Boycotting Card is Wise)

[shadowpsykie]

(Incidently, the latest Dragon Age comics are pretty sweet. And they're written by David Gaider, who has really cool things to say about equitable treatment for everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality or whatnot.)

i know this is totally not the point. and i understand where you are coming from...

but as the same sex partnering was one ofmy favorite aspects of Dragon Age.... how do i put this... do mages practice that dare not speak its name with Elves?

Re: A Confession (TL;DR version: Boycotting Card is Wise)

[rainspirit]

Kind of reminds me of the conflict people have over liking operas by Wagner.

Re: A Confession (TL;DR version: Boycotting Card is Wise)

[mrstatham]

See, this is entirely my problem with some people's perspective on Card and Superman; Yes, they're entirely right that Card would never be allowed to write Superman as foaming-mouthed bigot screaming obscenities at those of different orientations before torching them with heat vision. Card wouldn't be so stupid as to even try writing that approach, and his personal perspective on things like that are not likely to be present.

But it enables him. It enables him to further his completely obnoxious and downright disgusting perspective and organisations he's a part of that do exactly the same thing. And that's what the people calling the ones who want to boycott Card's story don't seem to realise. Either that or they're in denial about him being the bigot he is. I mean, I'm the sort of guy who (perhaps irrationally) got rid of all my Mark Millar and Gail Simone books once I started to disagree with where my perception of where their writing was going. Why on Earth would I fund a bigot?

[shadowpsykie]

thank you Superman.

and it's strange. I am of two minds about this...

on the one hand. OSC hates me and all i stand for... on the other hand... i have read Ender's Game/Shadow serieses (seri?) and they are among my FAVORITE stories ever written (I read the serieses before i knew about his beliefs).

like some one said on another post. it's a real disonnect for me. the guy can write some of the most sensitive heart felt, humanistic stories ever. The friendship between Ali and Ender was one of the most amazing things in that story. the empathy Ender exhibits and Bean's struggle to FIND that empathy and love is one of the best things about HIS story. I don't know how this man can write what he has about gay marriage and believe the things he believes.

i honestly don't know if i would have read his books if i had known (well i probably would have as they were required reading in two of my classes during my education) i don't know what i am going to do about the movie. It's a movie i have been waiting a life time to see... (i'd be super pissed if they don't get this right)

I don't know what i am going to do about the superman comic. HELL if i didn't know about his personal beliefs i would have said he was one of the BEST choices to write superman based on his characters' ability to empathize with others or struggle to empathize with others...

A part of me does not want to give this man money for anything, antoher part of me can't deny that I have loved almost everything he has written and wants to see what he can do with superman.... this whole issue has me completely torn...

[toby_wan_kenobi]

I really enjoyed Ender's Game in high school, and the movie looks like it's being handled well, so I'd love to see it...

...but it kills me that seeing it would result in OSC getting some of my money, because he's actively working to keep gays from having equal rights. He doesn't think they should be allowed to feel like full citizens in American society.

It's small consolation that the people who share his views are literally dying out, because seriously, f*** that guy and his hateful bull****. And I think it would be nice if DC got the message that hiring open homophobes was bad for business.

[elf]

He believes sex is for procreation. This comes across very strongly in his writing. He also believes you can remove the unethical aspects of murder by having it committed by a naive and noble person.

Yonmei's 5-part series Dissecting Orson Scott Card convinced me to stop spending money on him.

I stopped reading him entirely, and stopped recommending his books, after running across John Kessel's Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality. I hit the realization that these are not ethics I want to support, don't want to expose my children to while they're young. Kessel points out,

In every situation where Ender wields violence against someone, the focus of the narrative’s sympathy is always and invariably on Ender, not on the objects of Ender’s violence. It is Ender who is offering up the voluntary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is the emotional price he must pay for physically destroying someone else. All the force of such passages is on the price paid by the destroyer, not on the price paid by the destroyed.

I don't need a Superman who's full of angst and manpain for the horrible burden of his great powers, and who is morally free of any culpability for the damage he causes--and that's what I expect from Card.

[arilou_skiff]

I always read Ender's Game as a kind of satire of the military: How they take ordinary kids and turn them into killers, through lies, deceit, and large doses of "don't think to closely about what you're doing."

[batman]

I'd have to disagree with the idea that his stories are humanistic, if only because his downright bizarre views of women as shown in the stories. Taking Ender's Game alone, while there are male characters everywhere, there are really only two female characters that matter: Valentine and Petra. The gender balance is handwaved by the argument that girls (with the exception of a few) are just too compassionate and gentle, which made me wonder how many women Card has spoken to as a fellow human being.

Re: A Confession (TL;DR version: Boycotting Card is Wise)

[halloweenjack]

I think of it as the real-life equivalent of TVTropes' Moral Event Horizon, and part of deciding when someone's disappeared over it has a lot to do with how their work affects you. I didn't have a hard time writing off OSC simply because I didn't like Ender's Game that much. By contrast, I was willing to give Lance Armstrong the benefit of the doubt right up to the point that he confessed to Oprah, because of the immense good that Livestrong has done, and because of my doubts about the motives of the people who were accusing him of doping. Mel Gibson continues to get the support of people like Robert Downey, Jr. and, of all people, Jodie Foster, because of the things that he did for them when they really needed it (I'm not sure what that is in Foster's case, but he paid RDJ's insurance (which he needed to get film work when he was otherwise unemployable, due to his addictions) when he couldn't afford it.)

It's a tricky thing to calculate, and of course someone can cross back over the notional event horizon; even as I write, OSC could be drafting a statement saying that he's resigning from the board of the (so-called)National Organization for Marriage and that he's really sorry for some of the things that he said, he's struggling with the conflict between the tenets of his Mormon faith and some same-sex feelings and/or experiences that he's had in the past*, and completely understands if people don't want to buy his work on account of his past statements and actions. Boom, there you go.

*Pure speculation, based on some of the things that he's written in the past on quote-endquote natural experimentation.

[panthyr]

I really liked Ender's Game when I first read it. It spoke to the isolation I felt as a teen and into my early twenties - that isolation a lot of geeks feel, that they are innocents being tormented by cruel peers, while the adults who should be helping leave them to twist in the wind, or worse, actively abet the cruelty.
Then I read Xenocide, and started wondering why he was so preachy. I followed that with the Tales of Alvin Maker, which was the coolest thing I ever read until it started feeling like reading the Book of Mormon rewritten. And I couldn't even finish Children of the Mind, with its lengthy passages of Mormon theology disguised as exposition. (Understand, I have nothing more against Mormonism than any other monotheistic belief. But having it shoved in at the expense of the entertainment value of the story was off-putting.) Then I went back and read Ender's Game again and realized what he'd written was a 12-year-old's revenge fantasy mixed with an essay on the ends justifying the means, and honestly it kind of turns my stomach.

[md84]

Personally, I would buy it unless the author's abhorrent views are blatantly obvious in the work itself. I try my best to divorce the author from their work when I buy it. If I just bought stuff made by people who agree with me on everything, I wouldn't be able to buy anything.

Exceptions of course being if I truly despise the author's views enough to not want to put even a single cent in his/her pocket. Granted, people with opinions that strong tend to let their feelings bleed into their work, and that tends to make it worse anyway.

[lilacsigil]

This is what I would like to do in theory and yet some people have views so abhorrent that when I think about their work, I think about how they don't see me as fully human, and then I can't enjoy it.

[moetushie]

Thanks for explaining it, Supes!

I've never read, nor do I ever want to read, Ender's Game, and I have no problem doing everything I can to avoid OSC and his work. Yikes.

[md84]

It really sucks because OSC is actually a pretty talented author. It's too bad that genius and "asshole" aren't mutually exclusive.

[rainspirit]

I never read Ender's Game, but LucasArts's The Dig was written by him, and that was a pretty damn cool adventure game, and back when LucasArts was a pretty damn cool game company. (Seriously, there was a time when they did everything BUT Star Wars.)

It sucks that people are forced to make a choice between what they want to read and whose creativity they want to support. I'm sure it'll be much easier to enjoy Orson Scott Card's writing once he passes away in the far future. (Same way I can enjoy H.P. Lovecraft and some of the early Conan stories, while tolerating the blatant racism in them.)

[mrstatham]

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. The difference is that enjoying a Lovecraft story now is entirely different because a - Lovecraft's dead, b - his views are antiquated, certainly, but from a time when they would have been much more common, and c - by paying to buy a volume of Lovecraft's stories, you're not enabling his views or paying for him to further those views. Card doesn't really have that excuse because we live in a period where, by and large, we're a hell of a lot more progressive than in Lovecraft's day.

[magus_69]

I call bullshit on one thing: he would never use the phrase "booty call," but there's no way that he wouldn't know what it means.

[icon_uk]

Superman usually refers to it "The reason I gave Jimmy that signal watch"

[janegray]

Oh God, I HATE it when people confuse "customers voting with their wallet" with "censorship." PEOPLE WHO SELL A PRODUCT ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SALES!

Really, really, really hate it.

[shadur]

Conservatives love the phrase "voting with your wallet" because it gives them the perfect argument against all kinds of government interference with honest business -- you know, like EPA regulations, workplace safety, quality control, the FDA, etc -- saying that they're unneccessary interference because when companies behave too badly people will "vote with their wallets" and buy from their more ethical competitors.

Of course, the moment people do vote with their wallets and explicitly stop giving their money to blatantly unethical companies -- see also, Chik-Fil-A, Wal-Mart -- it's suddenly EVIL LIBRUL CENSORSHIP...

[zabilac]

I'll be honest, I have no idea who this Orson Scott Card is.

[arilou_skiff]

SF/Fantasy author. Mormon. Very anti-gay. Ender's Game is his most famous book, has a bunch of sequels and spin-offs. He also wrote the Alvin Maker series.

Has become progressively more nuts over the years.

[qalchemist]

The whole 'OSC is anti-gay' thing took me completely by surprise when I found it out.

Because -- and I say this as a perfectly straight man that doesn't really look for slash subtext -- I found Ender's Game to all but drip with homosexual subtext in places.

[ladymoondancer]

That last panel, OMG. XD

Thanks for the explanation, Supes!