Around the Interwebs: An SFF Film Odyssey at Skiffy and Fanty + #WorldSFTour Fundraiser Updates
A couple things to let folks know about: 1) Remember when I said I would review or discuss every SF/F film released in 2010? Well, the first post just went up, be because it’s for a non-American film, it ended up on The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog: “A (World) SFF Film Odyssey: Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Anime’s Excesses.” Do go check it out when you get a chance. I’m also going to start working on a post about Monsters (2010), which I’m going to review here, even though it clearly has an international scope in terms of its secondary characters and setting. After that, I’ll probably watch one of the animated children’s flicks that came out that year. Maybe Megamind (2010). I’m also not sure where I’m going to compile all of this. Maybe I’ll just use the original post as a depository. What do you think? 2) The fundraiser to bring the World SF Tour and The Skiffy and Fanty Show to Worldcon has received $115 in donations so far. That’s a good start, but I still need a lot of support for this. If you’ve got $10 to spare and/or a willingness to share the heck out of this thing, I’d really appreciate it. Also: since we’re at $115, that means the first milestone was reached. I’m working on getting the topic for the Encyclopedia Confictura entry now; that will hopefully be up this week! And that’s that. What have you all been up to?
Moderating the Community and the Cost of Respect
In a recent blog post, Alastair Reynolds took on what he perceives to be the instantaneous vitriol that peppers (or, perhaps, consumes) the SF/F community on a regular basis. Hence the title: “Does it have to be this way?” It’s essentially an argument for moderation by way of a questioning of the current state of discussion in this community, and it’s an interesting question to ask. Does it have to be this way? No. That’s kind of the point. Most of these discussions don’t have to begin and end with vitriol, though I think some of them require a certain firmness and uncompromising language (some). In fact, it’s entirely reasonable to expect two people from different camps to have a reasonable discussion about a hot topic and come out having actually learned something (I do this on G+ all the time). I’ve certainly been guilty of jumping without much care to where I land, and it’s something that I’ve tried to rectify to avoid the trap of attack over substance (it’s an ongoing process). I’m certainly not successful on all counts, and it has taken some degree of effort to hone my pouncing instincts so I’m not pouncing when I should be doing something else. Even then, I try to pick my battles with some degree of care. I’m sympathetic, then, to Reynold’s question and implied argument: there is some need for, if not value in, moderating the community, especially in situations when the benefit of the doubt is actually necessary. This is something I’ve started to consider further in my own case, as even I have had a tendency to leap into things, believing I’m in the right, when I may be doing more harm than good. After all, it is possible I’ve misread situations, seeing what is obviously offensive to me, but missing what was the intention. That’s not to suggest that intention gets one out of doing something boneheaded, mind you, but I do think intention should be taken into account more often than it is within our community. If our community did more of that, perhaps we’d have more dialogue between various groups. For example, there’s the response to Paul Kemp’s original masculinity argument (which I sort of responded to here). I think there are serious issues with what he claimed, particularly in the assumptions he raised and reinforced in order to get to his point, but I also went into that discussion realizing Kemp’s intentions were not malignant. I understood the point he was trying to make, and so I tried to address that point without actually dealing with the individual (in part because I’ve talked with Kemp in the past and can’t see Kemp as deliberately “starting shit,” though his most recent post on this subject has thrown me for a loop). Even Alex MacFarlane’s post on non-binary SF (which I responded to here) contains arguments I think are stretching; but the intention behind that post was, overall, a good one. The responses to MacFarlane’s post, however, have been, at least where the “opposition” is concerned, hardly measured. In some cases, they have been downright mean and accusatory, as if their authors were personally offended by the content of MacFarlane’s argument. I’ll admit that it’s probably easy to find the patience for intention when it comes from someone with whom you’re likely to already agree, but every time I read MacFarlane’s post, I cannot fathom why some of the responses have been so vitriolic. Except now. Now, I’m starting to understand. Now, I recognize part of the trend in so many ragefests in our community (from any side). Sometimes moderation doesn’t work because the parties involved have sacrificed respect for the other in the service of whatever point they want to make. And in the face of that, it is impossible to take a moderate position (in the loosest sense — discussion over attack) when the thing to which you are responding has already committed offense without consideration of its impact. In Reynolds’ post, for example, one commenter basically implied that they should be able to identify a transgender person by their biologically defined sex and attending gender without push back by others. Reynolds rightly called this person out for the comment, and it is still there as of the writing of this post. These sorts of arguments are almost explicit in their rejection of empathy and respect for another individual. The opinion isn’t the concern; rather, it is the complete disinterest in the personal desires of the individual. In this argument, it doesn’t matter what a transgender person feels or prefers; what matters is what is “the majority opinion” or “whatever suits my personal opinion of the matter.” That’s problematic on its own. Yet, this same argument either implies or explicitly states that refusing the empathic or respectful position deserves absolute respect and compromise for itself. It’s an argument for consequence-free social action, which itself is a justification not for moderation, but the extreme. Yet, when this is pointed out to people who reject en mass the entirety of gender as a fluid social construct, they refuse, even on grounds of empathy, to give way, and become further entrenched. It is as if the very idea of a transgender person being offended by being ignored and rejected out of hand is an offense in and of itself. For me, much of this comes down to the cost. It is one thing to demand respect for a position which directly affects others in a negative sense. If, for example, I were to demand respect for my position that we should boot all libertarians from the SFWA because I think they’re fascist pig monkeys (note: I do not actually believe this), you would be right in giving me no ground whatsoever, especially if you are a libertarian. But what exactly is lost by calling someone by the gender they believe they are? I mean that question seriously: what is lost by compromising on this
Worldcon Fundraiser: Send the #WorldSFTour to London!
Folks on Twitter will have seen this already. Over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog, I’m hosting a fundraiser to help bring the World SF Tour to Worldcon in London. At last year’s Worldcon, we interviewed quite a bunch of folks and released those episodes throughout 2013. This year, we want to do the same thing, because London will contain a far more international audience, and I’d like to expand the reach of the tour as much as possible! The fundraiser just started today. You can support that fundraiser on this GoFundMe page. As of this moment, we’re nearly to the first milestone, which will mean a perk opens up. And there are lots of other nifty S&F-related perks to become available as the donations rack up. Other perks might be announced later. If you’re at all interested in World SF and want to see more content on S&F related to that theme, please support the fundraiser!
Link of the Week: @chuckwendig on Self-Publishing (or, Heh, Yeah)
The link…in which Chuck Wendig says things I’ve been saying for a long long time about self-publishing, but with a lot more funny terms and a billion more readers. As a sorta-reviewer, I’ve had to shut out almost all self-publishers and indie authors for precisely the reasons Wendig cites in his post. And it’s frustrating, because I know there are some lovely authors in that sea, but you can’t honestly expect me to give up my time and energy reading mountains of legitimately crap books just to find the gems. A while back, I got crapped on for suggesting this. Now, I’m sure all the poop goodness is hanging out in Mr. Wendig’s backyard. Oh, and I seriously mean there are good SPed books out there. I’ve read some of them. I’ve even bought some in recent memory. I just don’t buy most of the SPed books out there for the same reason I don’t subscribe to every blog I come across. Anywhoodles.
Why I Haven’t Babbled About the Hugo Awards…Yet
You’ll notice that I haven’t joined in on the discussion about the Hugos this year. Granted, there hasn’t been nearly the level of intense debate as there was last year, though some folks have waded into the categories discussion, which has been going on for a while. There’s a pretty good reason why I’ve been mostly silent: I don’t have anything new to say. If you recall, Justin Landon basically ruined the Internet last year when he posted about what he perceived as the problems with the Hugo Awards. I still tend to agree with most of his points, even many of those we both raised in these episodes on The Skiffy and Fanty Show. But I sort of also agree with Justin’s later post on why the Hugos don’t really need to change…mostly. As it stands, Justin argued, the awards function within a particular paradigm, and to try to insert another paradigm within that may be the wrong course of action. The Hugos aren’t perfect as is; both of us have acknowledged that in one fashion or another. I think there are some things that have to change about the award, but I’m also convinced that a lot of the things I want to change (category issues, etc.) may be resolved in time anyway. Just…in time. And in retrospect, I agree with Kevin Mudd’s assertion that the Hugos function so slowly because they are democratic (well, I agree that the process is slow because it contains procedures that appear democratic, not that the Hugos are themselves democratic)(I may be misremembering Mudd’s position because that was last year and it’s now 2014). But the thing is…I have nothing new to say about all of this. I’m not angry this year. I’m not irritated. I’m indifferent. Not to the Hugos as an idea, but rather to their operation or flaws. I love the Hugos as an idea. It’s an important award. I’d like to see it changed for the better in time, too. But I’m also not interested in having the debate…again. I don’t see the point in saying what we’ve already said again. If change is going to happen, it’ll happen because people on the inside will create those changes or the people outside of it who want changes band together and use their vote to alter what appears on the ballots. This is a debate that probably will continue for a while: what do we do to keep the Hugos relevant? Perhaps we can do what Landon suggested he might do — start new awards, leaving the Hugos alone to do “their thing.” Or maybe we just have to accept that we have to be more proactive, not in trying to massively change it all in one fell swoop, but in a more measured approach, vote by vote, discussion by discussion. But ultimately, I don’t feel like the debate matters that much this year. The repetition feels flat, wasted. It feels like it pales in comparison to the very real insurgency within our community, the fracturing of communities (as Jonathan McCalmont suggests here), and so on. Those are things we have to solve now so we can have a better “future” for later. And that’s why I’m not really talking about the Hugos like I was last year. Instead, I’ll talk about what I’m going to nominate, do my best to make it to Worldcon this year (more on that later), and generally enjoy what I can of this community. The End.
Top 10 Blog Posts for January 2014
And here they are: The Vigilante in American Mythology (Brief Thoughts) #monthofjoy Movie Review: Riddick (2013) (or, I’m Going to Mega Rant Now) Guest Post: The Polarization of Genre Fiction by David Chandler Movie Review Rant : Catching Fire (2013) Silly Reader Questions: Super Powers, Magic, Bathrooms, and Poetry Top 10 Most Ridiculous Moments in Science Fiction and Fantasy Film in the 90s Self-Published Books vs. Literary Awards: In Response to Linda Nagata Star Trek: a Worf TV Show? (Some Thoughts) Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me The Diversity Pledge: Crunching My Numbers for 2013 Interesting…