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"Ender's Game" movie faces a boycott
- steve19 13y agoI wonder if the people signing this would also boycott anything run or owned by Middle Eastern royalty where laws that Card promotes both exist and are enforced.
- iuguy 13y agoOf course not, it's much easier to feel self-righteous boycotting one of the greatest living science fiction authors than boycotting the oil that funds this sort of thing. Gay marriage is legal in the US, and rightly so. Neither Orson Scott Card nor middle-eastern oil will change that.
- srl 13y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, gay marriage is not legal in most of the US.
- anu_gupta 13y ago> one of the greatest living science fiction authors Oh please. Ender's Game is a classic. The rest of his work is worse, and the recent Shadow stuff is execrable.
- dllthomas 13y agoHaving produced one classic work is easily enough to lift one to the level of "one of the greatest living science fiction authors" - remember Sturgeon's Law.
- scotty79 13y agoHis work is surely uneven but he wrote some awesome things and that makes him great for me. I don't expect people I admire to consistently produce masterpieces. I'm greatful even if they managed to produced only one. I also liked his A Planet Called Treason
- iuguy 13y agoRather than argue about whether or not he's one of (not the top one) the best living sci-fi authors, how about you post some sci-fi authors that are better than or as good as him? The only criteria is: They must be primarily known for sci-fi They must be alive today That way everyone on HN can benefit. I'll start with: * William Gibson * Ursula K. LeGuin * Charlie Stross * Margaret Atwood Anyone else care to add to the list?
- ajdecon 13y ago* Lois Bujold * Connie Willis * Vernor Vinge * Kim Stanley Robinson * Neal Stephenson * Larry Niven * Hell, even John Scalzi If it weren't for the "alive" requirement, I'd include Iain M. Banks. :-( Regardless, I highly recommend anything Banks has written over anything of Card's. If we're willing to include fantasy... * Brandon Sanderson * Patrick Rothfuss * George R. R. Martin * Terry Pratchett * Mira Grant * Jim Butcher This just from a brief glance over my most-recent on Goodreads. There is lots and lots of good Sci-Fi and Fantasy out there, and I'd be willing to argue any of these authors over Card in terms of quality. (Though -- to be fair -- I was monumentally unimpressed with Card even before I knew his politics.) A few of the authors on my list have politics I disagree with as well, but they at least are much less obnoxious and hateful about it.
- e12e 13y ago* Samuel R. Delany * Bruce Sterling
- alinajaf 13y agoI envy you because you've yet to discover Greg Egan. You'll want Axiomatic, Permutation City and Diaspora, in that order.
- theorique 13y agoYou can't self-righteously BitTorrent oil, so I would say probably not. (On the other hand, American natural gas and Canadian tar sands may break us free from dependence on the Saudis and their deplorable political and social system.)
- arethuza 13y agoI just finished a rather excellent (if slightly depressing) book on the links between the US government and Saudi Arabia that suggests those links are rather deeper than you might suspect: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/dp/1400052688 http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/... [NB: From what I can tell the author, Bob Baer, is fairly credible - he is a former CIA field officer with a lot of experience in the Middle East.]
- e12e 13y agoHe's autobiography on his time in the CIA, "See No Evil" is also interesting (and depressing). edit: While we're on the subject of sci-fi and capitalism; I highly recommend Bruce Sterling's latest book, the Zenith Angle: http://www.amazon.com/The-Zenith-Angle-Bruce-Sterling/dp/0345468651/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373477221&sr=8-1&keywords=zenith+angle http://www.amazon.com/The-Zenith-Angle-Bruce-Sterling/dp/034...
- theorique 13y agoThanks, I will check it out!
- smoyer 13y agoCard is a Mormon and I have no problem with his belief that homosexual behaviors are wrong. Tolerance is different from belief though and if he doesn't practice tolerance, why should he expect people to tolerate his religion-based beliefs? One problem I see is that so many times, beliefs are also linked to hatred. There's really no place for hatred when two parties are trying to practice tolerance.
- Symmetry 13y agoThere's a big difference between saying "Gay marriage is bad and people who support it should feel bad" and "A government which allows gay marriage must be overthrown by any means necessary." The former I can ignore, the later not so much.
- jlgreco 13y agoI don't think so. Using another picked on minority, I don't consider a "casual" neo-nazi skinhead and a dedicated one to be on particularly different levels. They both disgust me fairly equally (if for no other reason, then because the former incubate and insulate the later.)
- ideonexus 13y agoYou've never gotten one of these emails? http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/saudigas.asp People boycott in America for political reasons all the time. I don't particularly care about this boycott, but I'm not going to ridicule them for exercising their right to free association. If they don't want their money going to a bigot, that's their prerogative. If a person wants to boycott Chick Filet because of their stance on gay marriage, Heinz Ketchup because John Kerry's wife owns it, or any other good or service where someone their money will go to political views they do not support, then that is their Constitutional right. It's also your right to ridicule them, but maybe you should try and come up with some concrete examples instead of just flinging random, unsupported assumptions about moral inconsistencies you think they exhibit.
- max_wall_2000 13y agoAh, the old "why aren't they doing this instead" argument against activism. There should be an internet law for that one.
- erikpukinskis 13y agoI'm someone who has spent a lot of my life trying, often failing, to "be good". More and more, it seems like an impossible goal: On the one side you can retreat to the woods and live off of roots and berries trying not to do any direct harm. But then, depending on your privilege, you leave on the table so many opportunities to steer the ship of society in a less harmful direction. Or, at the other end of the spectrum you can yield all reaponsibility for your direct actions, instead throwing yourself into the wheeling and dealing of systems of harm, trying to invest what privilege you have to gain leverage so that you can make a bigger difference, focusing only on some theoretical calculus of your global influence, measuring yourself by your imagined net global effect. Or, more likely, you pick something in between. In the end, we all make a personal decision about what we are willing to sacrifice. I often use oil, even though I know it's harmful, because I think my boycott of it would cost the world more than it would gain. I could be wrong, but that's my best guess based on my (flawed) understanding of my self and my world. And I may boycott Ender's Game and I do not think that's hypocritical. It's just an acknowledgement that there are limits to our power and we must choose our battles.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago'Not seeing a movie' is a pretty small battle. Did you act politically in favor/against the issue? Write a letter to your congressperson? Speak publicly on the subject? We must not imagine for a second that a personal boycott is a significant political/moral act to anyone but ourselves. I agree, you must do what you can, but the movie is a trivial point at best. Your posting on this forum is more significant than, probably, the entire boycott issue.
- seivan 13y agoI do.
- jlgreco 13y agoWhen I am aware of a connection, you are damn straight I make a point of avoiding giving them my money. There are a number of places that have been stricken from my vacation checklist for this reason.
- Shivetya 13y agoI cannot recall the last time I refused to see any movie because of the off screen views of anyone involved? To be honest, I am more inclined to watch movies when others start screaming boycott. However some groups are more prone to take offense than others because they have found it an effective means to quiet opposition to their point of view, regardless if they are right or wrong. I would prefer that instead of attempting to bully others into your point of view you just shut up. As in, be reasonable or go home
- sdoering 13y agoWell you see. If anyone screams boycott, I am inclined to investigate. And then my findings are used to decide, what I am going to do. And after investigating, I have to say, that I would not watch the movie. The same for me is, if someone staring/directing was a know member of say scientology. As someone promoting an organization, that clearly goes against every value I honor should not earn money from me, that would then help said organization. So I would not want my money to help someone that intolerant. If people I know would go there, I would ask them, if they knew, that with going, they support someone that intolerant, someone being that derogative to gays. But this would then be their decision to make.
- theorique 13y agoI'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I don't like OSC's personal views about gays. On the other hand, it's Ender's Game. As a movie!
- sneak 13y agoPirate it. Best of both worlds!
- sigzero 13y agoYes, do something illegal with it. That puts you on the HIGH MORAL ground. /s
- dllthomas 13y agoIllegality is not immorality. While in this case, I don't think piriting the movie is an effective means of civil disobedience, there are certainly many instances of people retaining (and possibly gaining) the high moral ground during illegal activity.
- sneak 13y agoCopyright infringement of this type is not illegal.
- ZirconCode 13y agoI really loved the book, and I would really love to see the movie adaption, especially since OSC waited so long to personally pick a director he though would portray it well. It's interesting because I remember in a later book in the series (Xenocide?), there were many off-planet colonies, and on those homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuals were seen as "weird". I don't recall any aggressive stance against gays in the entire series. Maybe I missed something? I think as long as the book series doesn't mirror the authors perspective, it shouldn't play that big of a role.
- adaml_623 13y ago"I remember in a later book in the series (Xenocide?), there were many off-planet colonies, and on those homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuals were seen as "weird"." I don't have a copy of Xenocide at the moment to check but are sure you're not thinking of 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman?
- e12e 13y agoSounds more like Haldeman to me as well (alas I don't have either book on hand at the moment).
- gradstudent 13y agoSo conflicted. I love Ender's Game yet I hate its bigoted author. :(
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- scotty79 13y agoYou now know how gay hatitng Neil Patrick Harris fans must feel.
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- sgift 13y agoThe existance (or none existance) of god is unprovable. I prefer to ignore the possible threat of something that could exist (or not). Otherwise I would never get anything done. p.s.: Not meant to fight, just an additional perspective.
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- EnderMB 13y agoIt seems like a terrible thing to do to the hundreds of potentially nice people that worked hard on this movie. People will boycott this because of peer pressure, and to follow the crowd. People don't boycott the countless movies based on Roald Dahl books, even though it's very common knowledge that he held strong anti-semitic views. Yes, I think his views are terrible, but that's not going to stop me enjoying his work. His literary output has nothing to do with his views. Enders Game is a fantastic book and I have high hopes for this movie; not just that it'll be a good port to the big screen, but that it'll help the careers of a number of young actors.
- sneak 13y agoNice people will know for next time not to work on projects that stand to enrich bigoted fuckheads. Alternately, these nice people could have Googled him before agreeing to work with the guy.
- Ziomislaw 13y agoyou are almost correct, I disagree with calling those ppl nice. it was their choice to support him, and as such it was their own decision to accept responsibility for it. being stupid enough to not realize it is same excuse as nazis "only following orders".
- skaevola 13y agoThis is totally ridiculous. Working on a movie which has absolutely nothing to do with the author's admittedly terrible views is equivalent to being a Nazi? And they're now morally culpable for everything he's ever said? Seriously?
- EnderMB 13y agoIt's Hollywood. Chances are their work has already enriched the lives of some bigoted fuckheads. Why single out a product based on another product by a noted homophobe when we won't do it to numerous others?
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- rorrr2 13y agoI haven't been to a movie theater in years. I think I will go this time just to tell the religious assholes "go fuck yourself". Sorry for the language.
- mkr-hn 13y agoHow will going to see the movie tell them that?
- Stranger2013 13y agoWhat do you do when you don't like someone's use of freedom of speech? Try recruiting a mob to bully them.
- gaius 13y agoThe Adria Richards strategy.
- icebraining 13y agoGive it a rest already. So much ado about such a small event.
- flatline 13y agoOne person's freedom to speak, another's freedom to censure them, both of which are covered under the first amendment. I don't understand the problem with this.
- AndrewDucker 13y agoThere's a lot of discussion of this going on. For instance, here's an ethical guide to consuming content created by awful people: http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/02/21/1619481/an-ethical-guide-to-consuming-content-created-by-awful-people-like-orson-scott-card/?mobile=nc http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/02/21/1619481/an-ethica...
- thret 13y agoI like the idea of moral offsetting; making a donation to an equal rights organisation to counter the money you spend on the movie.
- ckozlowski 13y agoWithout weighting in on OSC's views (as those are well covered elsewhere), I thought I'd point out something regarding the salaries and pay of those who worked on the movie, the support of which keeps coming up. For anyone working on the film, stagehand, technician, engineer, whathave you, those people are already paid. They collect a salary throughout the years they're working on the film. They don't go unpaid until the movie releases, and hope for the best. So for all of those men and women "in the trenches", they're a sunk cost, and won't feel the financial effects of how well the movie does or not. This is why some production houses end up posting losses on films. Even in those industries, the effects on those people are negligible. Movies are a journeyman industry, and quality work on a film is independent of viewer's end perceptions of it. By the time the movie is ready for release, those professionals have already moved on to other projects. In fact, those who will feel the effects most keenly are not those at the bottom, who are already paid, but those at the top who's income is coming from the sales now that the film is completed. For OSC, who is most assuredly receiving royalties, this could be in the form of a much reduced paycheck. For the backers of this project, it could be a much smaller profit margin than anticipated, or even a loss.
- cageface 13y agoA lot of film studios pay crew bonuses for films that succeed at the box office. So a boycott in this case might actually take money out of the pockets of the rank & file.
- mhd 13y agoSometimes I wish I could get over my inner 'realpolitik' and actually boycott some stuff that would deserve it, although that would spare few artists or even companies. For artists, one could go with the 'Wagnerian razor', i.e. does the artist make money by your individual contribution? Which would be the case if Card gets a box office share. Although even that is morally questionable, as you're part of the support and thus fund future projects, enriching the author that way. I sadly file all that under "things that would make me a better human", like regular exercise or visiting the dentist twice a year. Although this one wouldn't be hard, as never was a big fan of Ender's Game, being a bit too old for the Mary Sue factor and not liking the morals of the book. I still play Monkey Island every few years, though...
- polskibus 13y ago> Tolerance doesn’t mean forking over 10 bucks to see his movie Is it really his movie though? Arent authors always screwed by hollywood in such enterprises ?
- shrikant 13y agoUnknown-ish authors are -- like Winston Groom, when he agreed to have Forrest Gump made into a movie, and got screwed by "Hollywood accounting" because he'd accepted a percentage of the profits. Well known ones have enough negotiating power to demand a cut of the gross receipts and merchandising. -- Edit: A little more on the Winston Groom aside from Wikipedia: Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump included a share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received nothing. That being so, he has refused to sell the screenplay rights to the novel's sequel, stating that he "cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure".
- ukoto 13y agoJust like Chik-fil-A boycott? Oh wait they've seen record profits lately. Perhaps it's because the silent majority of people are sick of gay culture? Fortunately I live in Russia where we've recently and unanimously passed several bills defending traditional marriage.[1] I would much rather my child read an anti-gay author than a gay one, and Ender's Game is a classic that I will surely pass on after I have a real marriage. A real marriage is consummated, which is defined by intercourse, which is defined by penis in vagina, which same-sex couples cannot do. The point of marriage is to have kids and build a strong family. But homosexuals would rather change the definition of a word to win the argument (moving the goal posts). In America, marriage will die off since it will become a meaningless government contract. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russias-duma-waves-through-antigay-law--by-436-votes-to-0-8654582.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russias-duma-...
- ckozlowski 13y agoOffered reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/9078672/Vladimir-Putin-vows-to-reverse-Russian-population-decline.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/907...
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoThat rant is so tired, so inconsistent, so laced with hate-speech, its become wearisome to respond to its ilk. Let me just say, lots of older couples, infertile couples, 'normal' couples get married never intending to have children, even in your own religion, that that fundamental argument is silly. Why do you keep making it? You come off sounding desperate, defensive, selfish. You make sex sound mechanical, impersonal. I cannot imagine what kind of marriage you are describing, but it is not a marriage of joy and commitment.
- mercurial 13y agoNo need to feed the troll.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
- dsr_ 13y agoI liked Ender's Game when I first read it. Then I thought about it. Ignore anything else the author has done: in this particular story, he poses a conflict between survival and ethical behavior, and illustrates it repeatedly... by having characters choose survival over ethics. He makes them heroes for it. Well. That's a brave stance. Except... that every time a character is given that decision, it is also clear, whether or not the author intended it, that there was a third path that could have solved the survival problem ethically. Maybe multiple paths. It's not clear to me that Card actually thought about that, though, which reduces the story to what it actually is: a tale of organized child abuse, hero worship and genocide, with a "hero" who doesn't understand what he's doing but gets a magical redemption that he does nothing to deserve. (Although the last clause is probably intentional.)
- dmansen 13y agoI found this analysis interesting: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm. They make the point that the "survival" choice is always presented as the only option and that Ender's morality is never questioned due to his intentions (intentions that we only see from Ender, not any of the other characters, due to the perspective of the narrative).
- dllthomas 13y agoDid you ever read the sequels? Society only judges Ender favorably in the short term.
- jlgreco 13y agoAfter giving in and reading Ender's Game for the first time, I didn't like it. I thought that Card was using children as main characters as an excuse to avoid character development (just having your child character learn something is a way to fake it, the character remains one dimensional while learning something concrete about the world.) I told people this and they told me to read Ender's Shadow instead. Same complaint, the characters are shallow, no matter how vivid on the surface. So then I decided to pick up a Card book outside that series, and read The Memory of Earth. Stunningly bad. Seriously hack work. A few years later I looked it up, turns out all he did was plagiarize The Book of Mormon and add a nominally sci-fi theme. What the hell? Every time I complain about Card I am told that I just need to read more Card. No, not anymore.
- seivan 13y agoI called for a boycott the last time a post about Enders Game was up, the guy is a total ass without the decency to admit he's being an ass. Even I do that.
- sigzero 13y agoTo admit something, you have to believe in some way that it is true. He probably does not and so he doesn't own up to it.
- silentmars 13y agoI think it's more likely that he's a self-hating closet case than merely an ass, personally.
- whiddershins 13y agoI have talked to pop stars who say their handlers "don't let them" say anything political at all, for fear of exactly this sort of thing. It actually lowers the level of political discourse to punish people for expressing their views. And anyway, come on. Ender's game is one of the greatest science fiction books of all time. Lots of creative people hold and express unpopular views. Often those views change, over the course of their lives. What matters is whether their work moves you, inspires you, makes you think of new things. You should judge an author (painter, musician) on her work, not on what she says outside of her work.
- rtpg 13y ago>It actually lowers the level of political discourse to punish people for expressing their views. it's not punishing people for expressing their views, it's punishing people for their views. Allowing evolution deniers the stage to talk lowers the level of political discourse.
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- waylandsmithers 13y agoI'm not sure I entirely sign off on this complete lack of separation between art and artist. I understand that context is important, but does the artist really need to be a good person for his or her work to make you think, or feel an emotion, or be entertained? I don't think it's entirely fair to assume an inherent bias or hidden agenda in the work based solely off beliefs the creator is believed to hold. What if Card felt this way, but just kept those feelings to himself? I understand that people don't want to support or empower those like Card, so I'm personally conflicted now as to whether I will see this film. As an interesting personal side note, I went to high school in Massachusetts in the early 2000s, when the state was at the forefront of progress for same-sex marriage, and Ender's Game was required reader for every English class during the summer before sophomore year. I suspect it still is, and it's probably required at other schools. We spent weeks discussing the book, and it still comes up in conversation every now and then, since we all had to read it, and this is the first I've heard about Card's homophobic beliefs.