as small as a world and as large as alone, but what's wrong with being willing to separate an...

9:03am November 9, 2013

Anonymous asked: but what's wrong with being willing to separate an author from their work? why is that so hard? especially ender's game, which, aside from one or two lines from some stupid boys in the book, holds next to none of card's horrible views. you shouldn't bar good literature just b/c the author is a terrible person.

raginggenderriver:

johndarnielle:

gailsimone:

Do what you want.

I will choose to do the same. OSC is not just a raging homophobe, he actively worked to enact legislation to oppress rights for lgbtq people. He said he would try to bring down the government if they disagreed.

Seriously, screw that guy. There are a thousand books I haven’t yet read that don’t have that guy attached.

this is exactly my position on this kinda thing by the way. I don’t need to separate an author from his work if the author’s a truly terrible human being. nobody’s perfect - I don’t ask anybody to be perfect; I just ask them not to be, you know, nazis, or virulent homophobes. But if they are, then I don’t care how good their work is purported to be. I don’t have to listen to Burzum; there’s no shortage of amazing black metal that isn’t written by racist murderers. the amount of tremendous black metal that meets the “not the work of an appalling horrible person” yardstick is sufficient to excuse me from having to listen to the stuff made by assholes. so when people go into the “I separate the art from the artist” thing, I’m like - why? if we live several lifetimes, we should all be so lucky, we won’t read all the great books or hear all the great music. we can allow artists to be human and make mistakes, even big huge everybody-has-their-personal-lows mistakes, while still saying “artists who are just worthless garbage as people, who actively and unapologetically campaign to make others’ lives worse, don’t deserve to have their work read.” we will not actually miss much; we can put our attention elsewhere. there’s just no shortage of amazing books to read, incredible music to hear. unless one wants to claim “no no, these terrible-people artists are actually the best artists,” in which case I think one might want to more closely examine one’s aesthetics.

So, I’m not trying to argue with this, but I do want to expand on it.

I feel it’s more complicated than “hey there’s other good stuff out there so you don’t have to consume media by people who are a-holes.” If you want to see things that way, then cool! That’s what you’ve decided what’s important to you; it’s totally cool if and individual wants to avoid anything that was produced by a person whose values are different from theirs.

But if someone has difficulty letting go of their love for Ender’s Game even though Card is actively working to harm queers, then that’s OK too.

Ender’s Game is a great fucking book. I read it long ago and then read the rest of the series because I couldn’t let go of the characters introduced there. My best friend and I spent hours talking about what these books meant to us. He’s gay, I’m queer and trans. When we found out about Card’s politics, we were devastated. It was like someone we thought we knew died, and it took time for us to mourn that loss.

Part of that mourning process for me was figuring out what my relationship to Card’s work would be. I definitely didn’t want to give him any more money. It was easy to decide never to buy his book (and at the time, it was easy to say we’d never go see a movie, because we didn’t think one would ever be made). But could I still like the book? Could I still reread it and appreciate it?

And I decided that yes, I can. Because when people create art, once they share it with others, that art no longer belongs to them. It doesn’t matter what Card had in his head when he wrote it. It doesn’t matter what messages he meant to share, what matters is how the reader interprets it. Ender’s Game belongs to the reader, not to Card. And I strongly believe that it is an amazing book and that people should read it, as long as they ensure that Card isn’t getting any money out of the deal.

So, if an individual has come to the conclusion that they can separate a creator from their work, then that person should feel free to buy the book used. Card will get no money that way. As a bonus, if you find the book without a cover for sale somewhere, that means that Card never got money for it (bookstores rip off the covers of books they don’t sell and intend to throw away. They get reimbursed for those books by the distributer and the author gets no money for those copies. The bookstores are supposed to trash those copies, but often they end up being taken home by employees, or donated, and eventually find their way to used book stores. In the booksellers world, I have been told it’s the ultimate insult to buy a book with no cover).

I personally feel that if someone does decide to consume Card’s work, they should make sure to do it without giving him any money, positive advertising, or do anything that will indicate to movie studios that we want them to buy the rights to more of his work. So if you read the book and talk about it with others, be sure to bring up Card’s politics. Don’t just boycott the movie, but tell people why you’re boycotting it. As a queer person, tell people that this man is actively trying to harm you personally through his politics, and using his money to do so. I believe that my friends and family would be doing me a disservice by giving him money.

And unlike Gail, I will say that people out there who are aware of Card’s politics, who are aware of what he does to hurt people, should not feel OK giving him money. If they do, I think they’re homophobic assholes. Though, I can see people making the argument that since Card has already been paid for the movie, and supposedly won’t get any more money for it (I haven’t seen confirmation of that, only rumor). In that case, I could see forgiving an individual for convincing themselves that seeing the movie is OK. Though I personally won’t see it even if it’s confirmed that he’s not getting any more money, because if it does well, then that could mean he’ll get paid for future movies.

TL;DR: it’s fucking complicated

PS to people who think that boycotting Card is somehow preventing us from focusing on “real” issues: Fuck you. If you really cared about helping anyone, you would not be trolling Gail on anon. If you really think there’s one correct path to fight homophobia, then you’d fucking be out there doing it right now. Not everybody can be volunteering at homeless shelters for queer kids, or lobbying for protection in the workplace, or whatever else you think is a worthy use of people’s time. We do what we can. And if that’s boycotting Card and making sure people understand how harmful giving money to him is, then that’s awesome.

Ender’s Game actually holds most of his horrible views.

Because homophobia is ONE of his horrible views.

There are MANY MORE. Most of which are represented there. And it scares me that most people can’t even see them because they think homophobia is “most of his horrible views”.

(I’m not adding to the main argument one way or the other, I just really really don’t like that being overlooked all the time by pretty much everyone. Ender’s Game is a horrible book saying horrible things about lots of different kinds of people, as well as spouting horrible philosophies about the world.)

Notes: