The Black Guy is Ruining the Fantastic Four Reboot!
Oh, what? He isn’t? Are you sure? I mean. He’s black. That means, like, Sue has to be black, right? She doesn’t? Johnny or Sue could be adopted? Or they could be children of different mothers or fathers or maybe they’re interracial or something? But I thought if you’re half black and half white you just look almost white? That’s not true? Really? Well, the original Johnny was a white guy, so he has to stay white. What about Idris Elba? Oh, yeah, he was cool in Thor? The original character wasn’t a black guy? Oh, well, then that’s OK because he’s not a major character. Besides, this doesn’t have anything to do about race. I know I keep talking about it. But just because I talk about race doesn’t mean what we’re talking about is actually about race, even if the only reason we’re talking about it is because a black guy might be the Human Torch. It’s just not about race, OK? That pretty much sums up the stupidity you’ll find online about the rumor of Michael B. Jordan’s (of Chronicle fame) possible casting as the Human Torch in the reboot of The Fantastic Four. Cracked.com has a brilliant take-down here. Read the comments on the first link at your own risk (I’ll post some gems below). Let’s call this for what it is: soft racism. For example, here is this amazing quote from The Wrap (linked in the previous paragraph): This is a horrible idea. Johnny Storm is an iconic Marvel character, a blonde, blue-eyed, party boy daredevil. He’s not a second string character, he’s a principal team member of one of Marvel’s flagship series. As a long-time comic book collector, it would completely distract from any story to change Johnny’s ethnicity. (It was bad enough that Jessica Alba was such an awful, awful blonde). Johnny once dated a Skrull – an African American could play her, or She-Hulk is an ancillary FF character – her ethnicity could be changed with little distraction, even Ben Grimm would be less distracting as another commenter suggested, although that would raise the question of whether Ben would stay Jewish (there are far less Jews in Marvel Comics than African Americans). But Johnny Storm? Comic book fans take “canon” very seriously, and this idea just smells like disaster. Translation: Johnny Storm was white in the comics, and if you made him black, we’d all get distracted because he’s black; if you’re going to have black people in this, let them play aliens or green rage monsters who are secondary to the plot, but don’t you dare put a black guy as a main character, because I’ll just be so distracted by…black guys. Clearly, none of this has anything to do with race, am I right? If you’re distracted by black people, you’re not distracted because they’re black; you’re distracted because they…are…look at the beautiful sunset! There are a lot of people arguing variations of this type. The irony is that in throwing a hissy fit over this topic, these commenters have inadvertently punched themselves in the face. It’s not possible to wiggle out of a soft racism charge when your main argument is “black people are distracting when they are in my movies about white people.” Some, however, have taken a different strategy, such as this fellow over at IGN: The whole “defined by whiteness” arguement is stupid (by that same standard many black heroes should easily be recast as white as they’re not “defined by blackness”), the guy is wrong for the role plain and simple, it’s about race because that’s where he’s wrong for the role…if he was a 300 pound white guy that could nail Torch’s personality exactly, he’d still be wrong for the role. Rather than taking the time to proper cast the movie the guy is trying to go with an associate wrong for the role, it doesn’t matter how good he can act, Johnny Storm is white, and people are looking for proper adaptations for things of this sort…try creating or utilizing the existing black super heroes if it’s that important rather than lazily shoehorning bad choices for the sake of it. i.e., even though the Human Torch is not defined by his whiteness, he can’t be played by a black guy because he’s not black. If you can see the circles going around and around here, you deserve a pat on the back. The irony with statements like these is that they often not only refute themselves, but they also fall for the typical anti-racist-is-code-for-anti-white rhetoric that assumes that because you can’t do the same thing to other races, it is just as racist to do it to white people. Let’s set aside the fact that changing the Human Torch’s race isn’t really an insult to white people (after all, it’s not like we don’t have a shitload of white superheroes in film already *coughWolverineCaptainAmericaCyclopsProfXBatmanGreenLanternOnAndOnAndOncough*). What is alarming about arguments like this is the bizarre amnesia to which their proponents have succumbed. Not to beat a dead horse, but racism is alive and well in this country. This is why I find historical amnesia on this subject disturbing, since it allows people of any race to make arguments that are counterproductive and, in some cases, damaging. The two positions are not equal: casting a white guy as Luke Cage is not the same as casting a black guy as the Human Torch. There is no history of white people being denied entry based on their race (especially in American comics). Isolated cases may exist, but one cannot rationally argue that whites are discriminated against at the same level as blacks (today and in the past — see here) — it’s an absurd claim. None of this is new to the world of film adaptations, though. We saw something similar when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall. Not surprisingly, when the film came and went, it didn’t seem to have that much of an impact on,
Literary Explorations: Gender Normativity, Genre Fiction, and Other Such Nonsense
In a past episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show, we (Paul, Liz Bourke, and myself) discussed, however briefly, the paucity of women among published science fiction authors in the UK. Specifically, we were talking about their minority status in the present while acknowledging the existence of a long string of incredible female SF writers in UK SF history. Though I am not an expert on the UK SF scene, my impression as an American peeking in has confirmed the notion that there is a great deal of sexism within the broader fanbase, and a systemic gender-bias problem in the publishing sphere. The latter has been attributed to sexism (today); I am not convinced that this is necessarily true — at least, not in the sense of a deliberate action. The former is probably a reflection of who speaks as opposed to a true assessment of UK fandom as a whole, and it is certainly true that this perception is changing. Perception, of course, is not everything. I say all of this not because I want to talk specifically about the UK scene, but rather because the recent discussions surrounding the Clarke Award’s all-male finalist list offers one of many gateways into what I actually want to talk about here: the perception of SF as a boy’s world. I’m certainly not the first to take on this argument, or at least to funnel it to the public. In 2009, an anonymous writer blasted science fiction for having given in to the whims of the lady folk, adopting narrative stylings specifically geared towards everyone not-male.* The post elicited a sea of negative responses (expected, really) and once again opened the floodgates on discussions about the position of women in genre. In 2011, David Barnett asked where all the women had disappeared after Damien Walter’s post calling for the public to name the best SF novels resulted in a remarkably male-centric list (I still think we’re recovering from that one). Other related discussions have occurred since: Ann Grilo recently discussed the visibility of women in our community; others covered the news that women are still encouraged to use male pseudonyms because men don’t read books by women; ladybusiness analyzed the available data to determine the gender divide among reviewers and the books they discuss; and, throughout most of 2012, Jim C. Hines explored the way women are posed on SF/F covers. Most recently, John Scalzi and Strange Horizons have dived into the debate again — the former ran the gender divide numbers on his Big Idea feature; the latter did the same for several major publications with review sections. I’m understandably scratching at the surface here… The continued discussion about the position of women within our community, whether as characters, writers, or reviewers, has made me wonder why science fiction, in particular, has remained such a boy’s club. I spent a short while trying to Google an answer to the question, assuming bloggers, critics, and so on would have covered this topic as frequently as the “absence of women” topic — but I came up empty.** There are probably a number of obvious reasons: publishers have traditionally held a bias against female writers (intentional or otherwise — as a result of submission numbers or for some other reason I know not); SF’s readership is perceived as primarily male; or a host of nonsense reasons, from “women don’t like space stuff” to “SF is written for boys.” That last phrase, however, may have some unfortunate truth to it. Before you dig your claws in, let me explain. SF has been seen as a relatively boy-oriented genre since its arrival into pop culture. The Edisonaides, the Pulp Era adventures, and so on and so forth have traditionally been viewed as the domain of men. The reason for this, as far as I’m aware, has little to do with whether the themes of SF are “men-oriented themes,” but more to do with the traditional assumptions about gender. You’ll notice that I included “gender normativity” in the title of this post. Because science, war, technology, and other traditional thematic subjects in SF are still perceived as a “male thing,” SF has maintained an image as a genre “for boys,” even while great women writers (and male writers) have challenged this perception by either writing SF OR inserting female characters into a “male world.”*** Gender normativity, as I understand it, assumes that there are behaviors and positions that are inherently “male/masculine” or “female/feminine.” In literature, gender normativity tends to function by way of associating genres with gender: romance and certain non-fiction categories for the ladies; SF, business, and so on for the menfolk. SF’s association with careers and fields that are still dominated by men has helped keep it on the male side of the spectrum, even while women have rightly challenged the paradigm within fandom (or outside of it). Let’s face it, the last decade has seen a dramatic change in the dialogue surrounding this subject… Gender normativity, of course, is complete nonsense. There is no such thing as a “female behavior” or “male behavior.” Culture determines these boundaries, which is why children are frequently indoctrinated into assumptions about what are acceptable “gender practices” throughout their lives. Girls are supposed to wear pink, play house, maybe get into the liberal arts or social sciences, and pay attention to their looks or behave in submissive ways (see Jane Kilborne’s excellent video, Killing Us Softly). Men, however, are supposed to wear “boy clothes,” play with cars or soldiers or other “aggressive” objects (even firetrucks fall into this category), and otherwise behave in aggressive ways, from asserting oneself physically to associating intellect with domination.**** When people behave outside of these paradigms, our culture does not respond kindly (see this story about a little boy who wanted to wear a dress). And it’s all nonsense. A girl playing cops and robbers is no more behaving like a boy than a boy playing house is behaving like a girl. These positions are, in
To the Hugo Defenders: Check Your Financial Privilege at the Door
If you have been following the Hugo Awards discussion, then you’ll be familiar with the various forms of this argument: if you don’t show up and do the work, then you should stop complaining. In the Hugo discussion, it translates to the following: you don’t like how the awards work, but you don’t bother to show up to the meetings, so your opinion is really irrelevant; if you don’t like it, show up and change it…or STFU. To illustrate, I present you some actual examples: Firstly, the WSFS Business Meeting is entirely self-selected. It is not a representative body of any description : the people who participate are there entirely on their own recognizance, & the only opinions they can reasonably be expected to bring are their own. So, to expect them to “engage with wider debates,” when the people who consider themselves to be part of those “wider debates” don’t bother to come themselves, or to form committees & send delegates to represent their views (thus splitting among ten or twenty people what can be the problematic costs of attending a Worldcon), or to “engage” with the people who do attend in any other fashion than writing derisive comments about them on the Internet, seems a bit (to use your words) “self-serving”. And: Want to be a SMOF? Volunteer to work on conventions. Come to Business Meetings. Get involved. Be competent. Convince others to vote for things you want. In short, cooperate with other people and show that you’re not a crank. But even that relatively low bar is too much for some people. And (this one is actually ironic, since the WSFS system is not actually properly democratic): I had complaints and gripes about the system. People told me how hard it was. They said, “Don’t bother.” I did it anyway, by the book and within the rules. Sometimes I lost, sometimes I won, but the fact that Democracy is Hard Work wasn’t by itself sufficient to discourage me. If you really think this is important enough, then do it already! Otherwise, I’ll continue to consider it whinging. And: So let me pose a hypothetical. You own an apartment in a building, or a flat for the British. And your complex has a management committee that sorts out things like communal gardens, upkeep, roof maintenance and the like. Typically these things are voted on and people take part. Would you feel just as entitled to moan about how decisions were taken if you’d never been to a meeting, never attended and done nothing other than write letters complaining about how everybody else did it? Because I’m sorry, that’s what I am seeing a lot of, and I see it pretty much every year, either complaining about the Hugos, or moaning about how expensive Worldcons are to attend and how unfair it is to charge so much. That can’t be helped. But as you point out, there’s a lot more to Fandom than the Worldcon and the Hugos. But just because you are a Fan, it doesn’t mean that that is a two way street. These arguments are repeated over and over, defended ad naseum, and accepted by a select few as “the way things are, and the way things should be.” Jonathan McCalmont has called this a strategy of derailing and silencing. I’m not convinced of the latter, but it is certainly a variation of the former. At worst, it is a tactic used to devalue an entire subset of opinions by identifying them as “outside” a given arena of engagement, where only quality action occurs. If you are not an attendee of that arena, your opinion is inherently worthless (or at least worth less than anyone who takes the time to follow the “proper channels”). These arguments should sound familiar in another sense, too: they are often used against marginalized groups to de-legitimate civil disobedience. I don’t want to suggest that the folks speaking out about their frustration with the Hugos are a marginalized group; rather, I make this connection because I find it strange that a tactic of the immensely privileged has been re-purposed to marginalize “dissent,” even when that dissent arrives from other privileged individuals (most of us are white males, after all). The problem with this tactic is that it is completely impractical, and downright classist. In an ideal world, you could easily verbally slap someone for bitching about something in which they take no part. In that ideal world, we’d all have access to cheap and fast transportation. In that ideal world, we’d all have Star Trek transporters in our living rooms. But we do not live in that ideal world. In a very real sense, we live in a far less ideal world than we lived in as little as 6 years ago, before the recession took its toll. Many of us are making less than we ever did before, or aren’t making anything at all. Some of us are trying to get our degrees. Still others live in parts of the world where the cost of transportation is prohibitively expensive — hence why the World SF Travel Fund exists. I happen to be attending Worldcon this year. There are a number of reasons for this: I made more money in 2012 than I did in 2011. I will make close to the same amount in 2013, which means I won’t have to stress over paying for summer this year or next. Worldcon is in San Antonio, which is reasonably close to where I live, and thus less expensive to fly to from my current city of residence. If #1 and #2 weren’t true, I wouldn’t attend (and I’m not sure if I’d pay for a supporting membership). For me, Worldcon is prohibitively expensive in general. Maybe fortune will change that in the future. Currently, I am both a graduate student at a major public university and adjunct faculty as a state college. In terms of my finances, that means I
Hugo Awards Finalists (Plus Preliminary Commentary)
I’m too lazy to offer a proper introduction, so I’m just going to dive in (give me a break; I walked over five miles today). The only thing I will say is that most of these are preliminary, most-likely-haven’t-read-it thoughts. For the most part, I will have nothing to say about a work except why I didn’t pick it up during hte year. The sad truth is that most of the stuff I nominated this year (my first nominating year) didn’t make it. Here goes (Hugos): Best Novel 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit) Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit) Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor) Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW) Nothing I loved last year made it on the list. The only book I’m particularly excited about is Ahmeds, but that’s based on what others have said. I haven’t read anything on this list and probably won’t read at least two of them (nothing interests me about Scalzi’s nostalgic book and I just can’t bring myself to read Mira Grant’s novels, even though I probably should — I blame that on people frequently telling me to read something, which turns me into a rebel). But since I’ll get copies of all these books in my Hugo voting package (right?), I’ll probably read them anyway. Overall, I’m sort of “meh” about this particular category, though. It’s too…familiar. Best Novella After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications) The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications) On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press) San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit) “The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012) I’m pleasantly surprised to see Nancy Kress on the list. I quite like her work, though I must admit to having missed the work in this category. I’m already rooting for her and Aliette de Bodard, who is another one of those really good writers currently, well, writing. I’ll profess complete ignorance about Lake’s new story, though his recent work has greatly impressed me. Grant and Sanderson? The one thing going for Sanderson is that Tachyon published The Emperor’s Soul. I feel mostly the same about the Grant as I did in the previous category. Best Novelette “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications) “Fade To White” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012) “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris) “In Sea-Salt Tears” by Seanan McGuire (Self-published) “Rat-Catcher” by Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean) Aside from the excessive number of nominations for Seanan McGuire on this ballot (she is also Mira Grant), I quite like this list. I’ve not heard of Heuvelt, but Postcripts is a damned good publication. I’ve also quite liked some of Valente’s work and I am pleasantly surprised to see Pat Cadigan making an appearance. I should note that I don’t actually have anything against Seanan McGuire. I’ve not read most of her work. I’ll probably change my tune in a few months. As a rule, though, I am skeptical about any author who appears more than twice on a ballot. There is so much good work out there that I find it a little weird that one author could suck up so many votes in one nomination cycle. But what do I know? I’m a curmudgeon who likes to complain… Best Short Story “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld, June 2012) “Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012) “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC) Now this is interesting! I quite like Ken Liu’s work, and I did nominate de Bodard’s “Immersion” (happy). I’ve not read Johnson’s newest story, though I’m told by fellow literary curmudgeon Adam Callaway that it is one of her best. I am, however, disappointed that the votes were so divided among various stories that these three were the only ones to pop out of the crowd. It’s not right… Best Related Work The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge UP) Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis (Mad Norwegian Press) Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad Norwegian Press) I Have an Idea for a Book… The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box) Writing Excuses Season Seven by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson In order: 1) Cambridge Companion = wonderful! 2) Chicks Dig Comics (same folks who did that other one, I think) 3) Chicks Unravel Time (bored of Doctor Who appearing on everything; yeah, it’s really great, but it’s really not the greatest science fiction TV show EVER — it just happens to be the only good one on the air right now, one which I happen to like, of course) 4) I Have an Idea for a Book (never heard of it; sounds interesting) 5) Writing Excuses (yeah, it belongs here and I’m happy to see it get nominated in the proper category) What? No VanderMeer or what not? Pah! Of course, I would laugh my toosh off if this list were dominated by academic books. It will never happen, but my pretentious side is plotting and cackling… Best Graphic Story Grandville Bête Noire written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape) Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW) Saga, Volume One written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics) Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis
Tolkien and Martin Don’t Have Much to Answer For (Or, Hey, Bad Arguments About Fantasy)
Apparently A.J. Dalton doesn’t care for J.R.R. Tolkien or George R.R. Martin. Here’s the moment when I stopped reading: They have both come to dominate the genre in which I write, that’s what. All fantasy gets compared to them. They are the standard. They are the definition of fantasy. Anything too different to them doesn’t get recognised as fantasy, as it doesn’t contain enough of the required motifs and conventions. Anyone who can make that argument with any seriousness has no idea what they are talking about. Really? Anything that doesn’t look like Martin or Tolkien isn’t considered fantasy anymore? Really? So apparently N.K. Jemisin doesn’t write fantasy. Good to know. Diana Rowland doesn’t write fantasy. Good to know. In fact, all those authors who are shelved in the fantasy section who aren’t writing anything that directly mimics Martin or Tolkien are just magically shelved in the wrong place in some grand conspiracy to get people to mistakenly believe they are fantasy writers…Huh? All fantasy doesn’t get compared to Martin or Tolkien, fella. That’s absurd. A lot of fantasy does, but not all. They are also not the definition of fantasy. Only a moron thinks that Martin or Tolkien are all that fantasy has to offer (or that the fantasy market only demands derivative work). Meh. —————————————————- Alright, so it’s not true that I stopped reading there. I decided to read a little more of his argument just so I could say I did so. And that’s when I discovered this: A quick example. I published Empire of the Saviours, an epic fantasy, with Gollancz last year. The book starts modestly enough with a boy growing up in a village in a remote corner of the empire in question. Several influential online reviewers refused to read it, saying they’d heard it all before, no matter the book’s purported humour and contemporary social and religious considerations. Hadn’t I heard how Mr Feist’s Magician and Mr Paolini’s Eragon opened with the selfsame premise, and besides weren’t they just versions of Bilbo in his burrow at the start of The Hobbit? An Australian newspaper then reviewed the book with the statement that Tolkien had ‘a lot to answer for’. Sheesh. Now it’s all starting to make sense. Dalton isn’t upset that Tolkien and Martin are the standards. He’s upset because someone thought he sort of wrote like them, and then refused to read his work. Author is sad or something. Makes sense, right? Wait, no it doesn’t. Dalton just said that you can’t write fantasy without writing like Martin and Tolkien. That’s the only way to get recognition. Now he’s saying that if you write like Martin and Tolkien, nobody will love you. Signals crossed, I guess. I get it. Tolkien and Martin do define much of the genre. That’s bad for diversity, since much of what readers of fantasy want is stuff similar to what they’ve already read. But let’s not pretend that fantasy is ONLY stuff that looks like Tolkien and Martin. Let’s not pretend that nobody reads anything that is different, or that people don’t read things that are similar. That’s absurd. Derivative fantasy exists. It sells. Different fantasy exists too. It sells too. This isn’t rocket science…
Hugo Award: What I Nominated
First, I’d like to request that nobody shoot me for this list. I know I left some stuff out. I know I missed things. Some of that is my fault, but I also blame it on a ridiculous work schedule (teaching five classes is insane). So, you know, don’t shoot me — do leave a comment, if you are so inclined. And on that note, here’s the finalized list: Best Novel In the Lion’s Mouth by Michael Flynn Lost Everything by Brian Francis Slattery Arctic Rising by Tobias S. Buckell And Blue Skies From Pain by Stina Leicht Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias Best Novella Nothing (I just didn’t read enough stuff to justify nominating anything in this category) Best Novelette Nothing (same as above) Best Short Story “The Magic of Dark and Hollow Places” by Adam Callaway “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” by Aliette de Bodard “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard “The Bookmaking Habits of Selected Species” by Ken Liu “The Performance Artist” by Lettie Prell Best Related Work StarTalk Radio w/ Neil deGrasse Tyson LabLit.com Steampunk 3 edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (correction: Ann VanderMeer edited this on her own; my apologies for the mistake) Best Graphic Story Worm World Saga by Daniel Lieske Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form Cloud Atlas The Avengers Chronicle Cabin in the Woods Skyfall Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form “Blackwater” from Game of Thrones “The Ghost of Harrenhal” from Game of Thrones “Valar Morghulis” from Game of Thrones Best Editor, Short Form Andy Cox Sean Wallace Scott Andrews Best Editor, Long Form Liz Gorinsky Lee Harris Simon Spanton Best Professional Artist Stephan Martiniere Kekai Kotaki Daniel Dociu Min Yum Jonas Dero Best Fan Artist Pavel (artbypavel.com) Best Semi-Prozine Interzone Beneath Ceaseless Skies Shimmer Cross Genres Clarkesworld Best Fanzine The World SF Blog The Weird Fiction Review Best Fancast The Coode Street Podcast The Agony Column Best Fan Writer Liz Bourke Abigail Nussbaum N.K. Jemisin John H. Stevens Paul Weimer John W. Campbell Stina Leicht Myke Cole