“Nobody’s perfect,” with all due respect, is the most bullshit thing you could possibly say in this situation.
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When I watch a movie, it is for the entertainment. I don’t give a f*** about the politics of the author, producer, director, actors, camera operators, sound engineers, editors, et al, I am there for the entertainment.
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i’m interested in the current in this thread about the ineffectiveness of boycott. i’ve always sighed when i heard about a boycott. well, after years of being an “organizer” or whatever. that shit does not work. when a bunch of famous people talk about boycotting a famous thing, that’s PR. that’s a media war; whole different thing. regular ass boycotts don’t do shit. the reason is that it’s demand-based, and logically consumerist. your fringe base doesn’t mean shit in real dollars. unfortunately, that’s what happens when you try to play them at their own game.
I’m glad that the difference between “boycotting” (where an individual, sometimes as a part of a coordinated group, decides to forgo business with an entity) and “blacklisting” (a systemic, officially sanctioned atmosphere of censure) has been drawn, but the fact that it had to be pointed out demonstrates how much people misunderstand why boycotts are enacted and what they’re intended to do.
If you choose to go to the film, then that’s what you choose. Just don’t pretend that you’re on some grand crusade to protect the rights of artists to hold controversial views. Card is free to hold whatever views he likes, get published and sell the rights to his works so that they’re made into blockbuster films. I’m also free to not spend any money to encourage more of that.
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My issue is giving money to Orson Scott Card. I support gay rights, so I don’t think giving this man money is a good thing. So I’m left with two options.
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Boycott the movie entirely. Give him no money.
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Offset the amount of money I give him by doing good. Give him the $10 to see the flick, but give the HRC or other campaigns $20.
I think I’m going to do the latter. Afterall, I offset my carbon usage, why not offset assholes, too?
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Yeah, boycott does not equal blacklist. Boycotting (though often ineffective in terms of harming a company financially) IS a great way to say “hey, a lot of people have a serious problem with this thing” and has actually played an important role in many civil rights actions.
Also, I’m sorry Cory, you seem like a generally very nice person, but saying “no one is perfect” about someone who is actively, with their time and money, working to prevent other people from having full access to basic civil rights, is just bs. He didn’t do some silly little thing, a vice or a mistake, he spent time and money acting as a serious, dangerous force of evil in the world. Would you say the same thing about an outspoken KKK member? How about Alabama’s George Wallace? Seriously, no one is perfect?!
When any artist moves beyond personal foibles and mistakes to actively using their star power and money to work against other people’s rights, I’m gonna boycott your ass.
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So if he uses the gobs of money he could make from this movie to advance his hate filled agenda then it’s OK? The point of the boycott it to draw attention to Card’s anti-gay ACTS, not just his stance. If he had opinions on gay people that I disagreed with, that would just be a matter of distaste for his ideas. But he joined NOM, and is very outspoken about how much he hates gay people and promotes their direct oppression (see his comments about “actively enforcing” a law against “homosexual acts”). He has changed his tune a little since the public attention on his views, but that is driven by the “oh crap, I’m gonna lose big money if I don’t tone it down”, not by a change of heart. The argument that we shouldn’t learn about our favorite artists “human foibles” because we’ll end up with nothing is complete BS. There are plenty of artists whose work I love and would probably really dislike them if I knew them in real life. But they are not out spending their money spewing bigoted hate (that I know of. And if I find they are, guess what? I stop being a patron of their art). There is a difference here, so people need to ask themselves if they are justifying it because they really want to see the movie of a book they liked.
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EDIT: this was a reply to a comment that has since been deleted. Please don’t take this as being directed at Cory himself.
And you are a different kind of idiot - an absolutist without self-awareness. Anyone with an ounce of morality compromises their own moral convictions on a regular basis; if they stop to think, they know it full well.
I don’t like sweatshops - and yet I buy clothes without looking for that union label. I don’t like exploitative farm labour practices - and yet I buy groceries knowing that many of them were grown under oppressive conditions. I don’t like the way most consumer electronics are produced - and yet I post this from a computer.
From your posting on this forum, are we do assume you are just fine with the unsafe and oppressive working conditions of the Chinese factory workers who produced the equipment on which you typed up your reply?
I think its exceedingly silly to “only” boycott the works of an artist that exhibit bigotry. Many times–as in this one–the batshit doesn’t show up in the art–it shows up in, and is given broad platform, in other venues–interviews, blogs, editorials, etc.
The work is simply the engine by which those platforms are enabled and the content is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the work’s role in empowering, popularizing, legitimizing and funding the bigot.
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A boycott of a person and not a piece of work isn’t boycotting? You need to learn why it’s called ‘boycotting’.
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That is simply brilliant. Thanks for the idea!
Thank you. You’re hitting on an important distinction here that I think a lot of people miss. I’ve heard people say, “Sure, Card hates homosexuals, but it’s not like he’s doing anything to make their lives more difficult.” One need only look at his work with NOM to see that he has actively tried to make the lives of LGBT people more difficult. And he’s used his status and his money to do it.
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" Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down…."
Yeah big ups, really crying wolf here. Not.
He uses his money and notoriety to promote his agenda.
Please don’t waste one of your precious “fucks” on this. We can afford to lose weak “allies” like yourself.
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Is this a reply to my comment? It’s directly below, but with the new BBS system it’s unclear if you don’t hit the Reply button.
This is kind of a tricky moral quandry. If we boycott an otherwise good movie because it was made by someone we find detestable, then should we not also patronize movies of questionable quality if they’re made by people who are morally sound?
How many ‘Fucks’ do you use up by not going to see a film? I can see how that would be exhausting for you.
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His edit clarified: he was addressing a post that was deleted by a moderator.
(Unfortunately we do not yet show edits in real time, but we eventually want to)
I read Card’s blog once. I’ll never make the mistake of reading another thing he’s written ever again. Not going to see this film, either.
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No - I don’t believe you to be any kind of idiot at all.
I was replying to some jackass who was essentially calling Cory a vile hypocrite of the lowest order, for both holding a conviction, and acknowledging making a purchase that was in any way interpretable as a compromise of that conviction.
