My reaction when I feel backed into corner is to be an asshole. It’s essentially how I defend myself. It’s been that way since was in elementary school. I’m 36 now. Maybe it’s finally time to try and let some of that shit go.
—Mike Krahulik, explaining how he reacts to criticism on Twitter.
When I first heard that Penny Arcade creator and artist Mike Krahulik had stated at the recent PAX Prime during a Q & A panel led by president Robert Khoo that it was a “mistake” for them to pull the “Team Dickwolves” T-shirts from their store, I was shocked, but not surprised.
If you haven’t seen the remarks in context yet, press play on the video below, fast-forwarding to about 22:09 minutes in:
Khoo has just asked founders/creators Krahulik and co-founder/writer Jerry Holkins if there were any mistakes that they think that Khoo has made as their business manager. Here’s a transcript of Krahulik’s prompt, out-of-the gate reply:
Mike Krahulik: You know that I don’t hold grudges. I can be incredibly mad, and then fine the next minute as long as I get it out. And I feel like we got this out, so I’m not mad about it anymore. But I think that pulling the Dickwolves merchandise was a mistake.
[Loud applause, with some hoots and hollers] Robert Khoo: Clearly had I known the following steps that would follow after that move, I would have never brought it up to you. Of course I wouldn’t have because I did not know— I don’t want to say, “Alright, well… because of this, this happened, and people said this, I said this, you said that….” Clearly it would have been better to just be like to not say anything, and that’s sort of our policy on all these types of things now. Krahulik: Now, yeah. Khoo: Whereas it’s just better not to engage, and in fact pulling it was a way of engaging.
[Mike expresses agreement] Random Audience Member: Bring it back! Khoo: No, that’s a terrible idea.
In all the interviews I’ve seen of Robert Khoo, all the “Khoo & A” footage I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this incoherent when it comes to an explanation for a business decision; Khoo clarified later to Kotaku what he meant:
It wasn’t meant to be a comment supporting rape or sexual assault, but rather one about censorship and the shirt-pulling pouring gasoline on a sensitive discussion. I know we did a poor job of elaborating on that on stage, and as the guy moving the discussion along at the Q&A, I’m really sorry for that.
With that bit of clarification, if one was being generous, they could argue that Krahulik meant that continuing to keep the Dickwolf Debacle current in the public eye by removing the merchandise so publicly was an ignominious capper to a poorly handled reaction. However, what is and has been infuriating to so many people is that what they wanted to hear Krahulik—or anyone at Penny Arcade, really—say was that making the merchandise to begin with was the mistake, as was their somewhat condescending response to the critics of the original comic.
Having seen the entire interview, too, I found something else that’s rather fascinating. Starting from the Dickwolves Debacle and proceeding from there, it appears as if there may have been an evolution in the thought processes going on within Mike Krahulik.
Witness this exchange near the very beginning of the interview:
Khoo: I want to know about money. Money and success. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and know that for instance that Jerry loves to save a lot of money…
[Mike laughs] Khoo: And I know that Michael loves to spend it.
[More laughter, from audience and Mike] Krahulik: [nervous laughter] Okay… Khoo: Like I said, these are questions that only I could really ask you guys. Krahulik: Yeah, if someone else asked me that, I would tell them to fuck off.
In this context, it’s clear that Krahulik knows that some of his habits could be seen as socially inappropriate. Towards the end of the interview, he even addresses his habit of trolling people and the trouble that has come out as a result:
Krahulik: The only thing I guess I can see going forward that could cause conflict between us [as business partners] is probably the stuff that has done it before, which is me not being able to keep my mouth shut. I’m trying very hard to be better about that. And the most recent incident has most definitely taught me some lessons… Holkins: [Interrupting] About my mouth… Krahulik: [Overlapping] About my mouth… Holkins: How big it is— Krahulik: How it should be opened or closed, when and where it’s okay to say the things that I think. When I do things or say things that hurt not just me but 14 other people who rely on Penny Arcade for their livelihood because I say something dumb to make somebody mad, that I can see possibly happening again. I hope it doesn’t, but I know who I am.
At the same time, it doesn’t seem like Krahulik wants to take any further responsibility towards making any changes in himself for the positive, as seen in this response to a question about his status as a role model for young cartoonists:
Krahulik: Penny Arcade has gotten so big that we could never be what everybody wants us to be.
While I agree with the sentiment that we as an audience could never expect Penny Arcade or its creators to be perfectly representative or reflective of our own voices and views, at the same time, it’s disingenuous for them to refuse to acknowledge that the same behavior that helped them become a success is beginning to be a detriment.
When it comes to “fixing” this problem of theirs, it seems to me that in addition choosing not to engage hyperbolic critics via Twitter or any other social media when people have reactions to things he says or does, in addition to continuing to try and learn more about why people are enraged by things he says or does, in addition to the medications he’s taking for his anxiety and compulsions, Krahulik might be able to adjust or attune his instincts towards instant rage and/or inappropriate remarks through talk therapy. He might be able to better understand why he becomes instantly defensive, and how to better communicate his hurt emotions so that rather than fostering resentment, he is able to create a space of mutual understanding.
This is something that’s helped me out a lot; I hope it would be able to help him, too. If not for himself, then I think that he really needs to address this before his sons grow up to be the same kind of young men that he used to be by modeling his own behavior.
Alternately, they could do what was hinted at (in jest) near the beginning of the panel, helpfully re-created by myself:
So let me start by saying I like the Dickwolves strip. I think it’s a strong comic and I still think the joke is funny. Would we make that strip today? Knowing what we know now and seeing how it hurt people, no. We wouldn’t. But at the time, it seemed pretty benign. With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset. [emphasis mine]
and
Everything we did after that initial comic strip was a mistake and I regret all of it.
And like most people who go to Comic Con for the first time, Goldman posted a selection of her favorite photos of people in cosplay. But what strikes me about her selection of photos and captions is that Goldman emphasizes how much fun everyone in her photos is having or how great they look, not how “hot” or “sexy” or whatever.
(Also, this Princess Leia? So much gravitas!)
It’s a nice, refreshing change, and if her panel goes well tomorrow, I hope to see more of this kind of refreshing change when viewing cosplay galleries.
If you were to ask me where you could find a webcomic which tells the tale of Charles Babbage’s self-proclaimed war against street musicians, I wouldn’t have had any recommendations for you… until now.
The Organist part 1 (c) Sydney Padua // Click to enlarge
With its tongue lodged firmly within its cheek, I present to you this short story arc out of “2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage,” lovingly entitled “The Organist” by Canadian illustrator Sydney Padua.
Much thanks to Jane Irwin and her comic Clockwork Game for the hat tip.
But why is it—and this only seems to apply to comedy—that some people so deeply resent those that can write jokes, can invent new perceptions of the world that actually make people laugh? Resent them so much that they have to denigrate the entire profession, just so they can feel better about themselves? Do they really think they’re less of a person if they can’t make up a joke, or be funny in the moment? Why is it so crucial to them? Is it because all of us, at some point of darkness or confusion or existential despair, were amazed at how absurd a thing as a simple joke suddenly lit the way, or warmed the cold, or made the sheer, horrific insanity that sometimes comes with being alive suddenly, completely, miraculously manageable?
Those people—the public and, sadly, a lot of journalists—those people were my target, in all of my seemingly “unmeasured responses” to thievery. Because I can’t stop joke thieves. They’re always going to be there.
But what I can hopefully stop—or, at least, change for the better—is the public (and media’s) response to joke thieves, by hammering away at this same, exhausting refrain every time I see some thumb-sucking “think piece” by a writer who should fucking know better, cyber-quacking away about “cover songs” and “vaudeville” and a million other euphemisms and deflections away from the simple fact that an uncreative person took a creative person’s work, signed their name to it, and passed it off as their own for their personal glorification, monetary benefit and career advancement. There’s no wiggle room there. Even the thieves know that, better than the dullards who are rationalizing and defending them.
Even though it’s been a long time since I went to an anime convention, I remember how exciting and how much fun they are to attend. I also remember how much drama can surround an anime convention, especially when it comes to cosplayers and the people who like to take pictures of them. The topic of today’s podcast surrounds the dealer’s room at the recently concluded AnimeNEXT convention in Somerset, New Jersey, and one dealer in particular who decided that the next innovation in images on body pillows should be actual human cosplayers. Read along with us using the links below, and then listen to the podcast to untangle the legal issues involved.
Here’s the article which prompted it all, written by Linwood Knight. As a side note, one thing that I think Knight should have disclosed in this article is that he, too, used to be a staff member at AnimeNEXT. I also believe it was irresponsible of OH! Entertainment to use the AnimeNEXT logo to illustrate its article.
In short, this kind of incident could have been easily avoided by all 93 of the cosplayers if they’d just read the agreement carefully, questioned its provisions, and/or refused to sign. That’s why the “Contractual Obligations” episode of “Strip Search” has been the most important one, and the one that all creative fans need to watch.
Here’s hoping everyone involved has learned a valuable lesson.
Star Trek Continues – “Pilgrim of Eternity”
Directed by Vic Mignogna
Written by Steve Fratt and Jack Trevino
Story by Vic Mignogna and Jack Marshall
Starring Vic Mignogna, Todd Haberkorn, Larry Nemeck, Chris Doohan, Grant Imahara, and featuring Michael Forrest
Rating: This series is suitable for all-ages.
As a bit of a disclaimer, I was never really into the Star Trek franchise as a young geek. The Original Series was long gone before I was born, and since my parents aren’t into fiction that strays too far from reality, I didn’t watch “Star Trek: The Next Generation” with my parents, like many of my fellow geeks did with theirs. Therefore, when I heard that anime voice actor Vic Mignogna was involved with a project to continue the original serial, I didn’t think too much of the project at first.
At the same time, this is the same Vic Mignogna who produced his own fan-film for Fullmetal Alchemist titled “Fullmetal Fantasy” where he dreams that after receiving a replica State Alchemist pocket watch, he has transformed into main character Edward Elric and that everyday people around him have been transformed into characters from the series; this is definitely a form of meta-fan service as Mignogna is the English dub voice for Edward Elric. According to Mignogna, there were some legal issues regarding his showing it at anime conventions for a while; this ban seems to have been lifted since the short film has now shown up on Mignogna’s concert DVD.
I believe I saw “Fullmetal Fantasy” within the first year of its debut in either 2004 or 2005, and I remember being impressed with how professional it all looked, even to the point of one of the scenes taking place during a rainstorm, one of the most expensive effects to reproduce for filming. After doing some more research on the production staff of Star Trek Continues and learning that Steve Dengler, philanthro-geek extraordinaire was an executive producer, I knew I had to see at least one full episode.
The premise behind Star Trek Continues is that each season of The Original Series contained events which happened during one “year” of the Enterprise’s original five-year mission. Therefore, STC‘s adventures take place during the show’s (and the ship’s) fourth year of adventuring, which means that the crew of the Enterprise on STC is the exact same crew as was on the Original Series. This episode in particular calls back to Original Series episode “Who Mourns for Adonais” by not only bringing back the alien who claimed he was the Greek god Apollo but also Michael Forrest, the actor who originally portrayed the character as well.
In this episode, something has sucked all the power out of station batteries in a particular section of the galaxy and the Enterprise has been sent to investigate. They find a gigantic mass which starts rapidly sucking all the energy out of the Enterprise. Before the ship dies in the middle of space, the Enterprise is able to fire one photon torpedo at the mass, breaking it into pieces—but also causing a greatly aged Apollo and his sister Athena to appear on the bridge.
Apollo is able to eventually explain that his people were able to coalesce together again and had created the great mass in an attempt to recreate the kind of energy they needed to continue their existence, but the experiment backfired on them. Now Apollo is the only member of his race remaining and he requests that Captain Kirk (Mignogna) take him to a planet full of humanoids so that he can die in peace and not alone. Remembering how autocratic and how dangerous Apollo was during their first meeting and after the revelation that Apollo isn’t as powerless as he originally stated, it’s up to Kirk to decide Apollo’s fate.
I was immediately charmed by this episode due to my familiarity with not just Mignogna’s work but by seeing Grant Imahara (“Mythbusters”) as Lt. Sulu, Jamie Bamber (new “Battlestar Galactica”) as a redshirt, hearing the voice of Marina Sirtis as the voice of the computer (originally played by Majel Roddenberry), and knowing that Chris Doohan—the son of James Doohan—is playing Mr. Scott. As the episode played on, however, I found even more to delight me.
Re-casting Forrest as Apollo was a stroke of genius and added a sense of continuity to the new series. I was very much struck by the character and how much dignity Forrest brought to the role. There’s a scene where Apollo is being rejuvenated by entertaining a crowd of off-duty crew in a recreation room (the progenitor to Ten Forward, I assume) and beyond what was done in post-production, there’s an audible and visible change in his voice and posture from when you first see him as a frail, energy-depleted being.
Mignogna as Kirk was somewhat surprising to me as he was less bombastic than Shatner played him and definitely more reflective and passive as a commander. It’s almost as if the spirit of Jean-Luc Picard inhabited James T. Kirk’s body, and made him blonde. It’s definitely going to take me a few more episodes to see exactly how different Mignogna’s Kirk is to Shatner’s or even Chris Pine’s before I can definitively declare whether or not I like it. I will admit that the scene where ship’s counselor Dr. McKennah barges into Kirk’s quarters while he’s topless gave me a giggle, as did the denouement at the end where Kirk is quipping with Spock (Todd Haberkorn) and Bones (Larry Nemeck).
As far as the other roles go, Haberkorn seemed subdued as Spock, and both Doohan and Nemeck were wonderful in their roles as Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy, respectively. I think I’d want to see more episodes before I decide whether or not I like Imahara as Sulu, Kim Stinger as Lt. Uhura and Wyatt Lenhart as Ensign Chekov.
The faults that I have with this production are that the audio mix seemed too soft most of the time and I kept losing Bones’ more soft-spoken dialogue. I also have a problem with the aforementioned scene in the recreation room; why did it take so long for the emotionless Mr. Spock to notice that Apollo was enthralling his human audience? And why didn’t he react when Apollo was threatening Kirk? The resolution to the central issue also feels like it borrows too much from Christian mythology as well as perhaps Monsters, Inc. as well.
Finally, there’s one more possible problem with Star Trek Continues: There is already another webseries which details the continuing adventures of the crew of the Enterprise called Star Trek: Phase II which started production in 2003. While I haven’t seen a full episode of that series yet, it also features cameo appearances by Original Series cast members reprising their roles such as George Takei, Walter Koenig, and Grace Lee Whitney. STC even boosted their Uhura from Phase II, as Stinger is credited as playing Uhura on the Phase II episodes as well. It sounds like there’s an interesting story behind this, and as someone who enjoys fan-media, I wonder exactly what’s going on as the websites for each production don’t acknowledge the other’s existence.
Still, I wish the cast and crew of STC much luck and hope that future episodes prove to be as fun as this one.
“Star Trek Continues” premiered at this year’s Phoenix Comic Con and this episode as well as three connecting scenes can be seen both online at the website and on its YouTube channel as well.
One of my favorite blogs to dip into from time to time is Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Originated by writers Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell, the blog seeks to showcase what’s good, fun, informative, sexy, and surprisingly intelligent about the romance novel industry through their irreverent and occasionally deep book reviews.
Growing up, I loved romance novels. In my parents’ bedroom, half of a shelf was dedicated to Danielle Steel books. These were “forbidden” books so naturally as a teen, I devoured all of them. Once I graduated from college, reading romance novels became something my mom, my sister, and I could talk about—just as long as we didn’t talk too long about the sex scenes, that is.
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to get back into reading some romance and especially finding a new author to follow as I’d phased out of my Danielle Steele, Fern Michaels, Catherine Coulter, LaVyrle Spencer, Maeve Binchy, Jennifer Crusie phase of reading. And before you ask, even Nora Roberts’ romance novels had been wearing a bit thin. Thankfully, Candy and Sarah have a section on their website devoted to their “best” blog entries, which is how I learned about Loretta Chase. Armed with a new name, some Amazon.com credit, and a visit to the bookstore, I was ready to read.
Two books enter… who will win?
Since it was the top recommendation, I dived into Lord of Scoundrels first. What struck me at first was how important the prologue was to understanding the entire novel and most importantly, creating a wave of sympathy for male lead Sebastian Ballister, the Marquess of Dain, the Earl of Blackmoor—and also an emotionally-abused young boy who grew up to be a rake.
With the prologue establishing a strong motive for Lord Dain’s behavior, Chase fast-forwards a bit in time to switch to the other half of this romantic duo, Miss Jessica Trent. The daughter of a gentleman, her character is firmly established as being a bit eccentric for the Regency era in that she would prefer to become a shopkeeper (an antiques dealer, really) rather than accept any of the numerous marriage proposals she’s been tendered due to the women in her family having a reputation for being fertile. In fact, if there are any problems I have with this book is that Jessica seems too good to be true.
Take this early passage for example, which is a description of Jessica by her brother’s butler:
[Jessica Trent] had inherited her widowed grandmother’s alluring looks: the silken hair nearly blue-black in color, almond-shaped silver-grey eyes, alabaster complexion, and graceful figure—all of which…had proved immune to the ravages of time.
More important…Miss Jessica had inherited her late father’s brains, physical agility, and courage. She could ride, fence, and shoot with the best of them. Actually, when it came to pistols, she was the best of the whole family, and that was saying something. During two brief marriages, her grandmother had borne four sons by her first husband…and two by her second…and daughters and sons alike had bred males in abundance. Yet not a one of those fine fellows could outshoot Miss Jessica.
If a character is too perfect (that is, heading into Mary Sue-ville), I find it hard to like them. When I read a romance novel, I want to believe wholeheartedly that the romance will work out, that the heroine will be able to triumph over her adversaries. In short, I like underdogs in romance; with this setup I found myself gravitating more towards Dain than to Jessica. And in fact, I wonder if that’s what Chase wanted her readers to do: to see the male lead as the “damsel in distress” and the female lead as the perfect lover who will come along and “fix” all of his problems. With that interpretation, Scoundrels becomes a somewhat post-modern romance novel, endearing me to it even more.
When Dain has his big moment of epiphany, it comes naturally because of everything you’ve seen him endure before—especially the slow change of his character from anti-hero to hero due to The Power of Lurrrve™. That he undergoes this change without losing everything that still makes him appealing is also a testament to how well Chase has created him.
Contrariwise, I couldn’t find anything redeeming about either lead character in Your Scandalous Ways. The reason why I purchased it was because I’ve always had a soft spot for hookers with a heart of gold. Upon learning that the lead female was a cortigiana onesta in almost post-Napoleonic Venice in the same vein as Veronica Franco, I had the book in my hand and my credit card in the cashier’s faster than you could say, “Boo.” Unfortunately, I was disappointed to meet Mrs. Francesca Bonnard who was less “classy courtesan” and more “flighty ethical slut.” Not that I have anything against ethical sluts, but dammit, I was expecting a story about an intelligent courtesan!
Francesca’s adversarial lover is Mr. James Cordier, a world-weary spy for the British who has been charged with retrieving important documents from Mrs. Bonnard’s possession. He wants nothing more but to get the mission done and end his spying career in favor of an average life in England; of course, he falls head-over-heels for Francesca for reasons that are never really clearly defined. Despite a rather inventive way of beginning Francesca’s introductory chapter (“Penises. Everywhere.”) I couldn’t find anything interesting enough about her personality or background story to intrigue me. It was worse with James, because just like Jessica Trent, he seemed too perfect.
It’s not just the characters that bother me about Ways either. The central conflict is the cat-and-mouse game between James and Francesca, but the latter isn’t smart enough to realize that James has an ulterior motive in getting to know her until about halfway through the book. When it came time for the final confrontation between Francesca and James on one side and a murderous traitor and his/her lackey, the climax and resolution was brief and predictable that I almost felt as if I’d wished I hadn’t gone to the bother of trying to finish the book.
So, the winner of this battle is Lord of Scoundrels, and if there’s anything that this experience taught me, it’s to make sure I read chapter excerpts before I go trying to read another Loretta Chase book again.
In the same vein as Punks Not Dad, I present to you No Small Children, composed of three schoolteachers from Los Angeles, California named Lisa Parade (lead singer, lead guitar), Nicola B. (drums), and Joanie Pimentel (bass). I totally love their look and sound, and I wish that I had the confidence that they seem to exude from their pores and hair follicles.
By our organization’s current bylaws, the president of SFWA has unilateral control of, and therefore is ultimately responsible for, the organization’s publications. This includes the Bulletin. This means that when all is said and done, I personally am responsible for the Bulletin and what is published between its covers.
I have said this before but it bears repeating: This is on me, and I accept both the responsibility and criticism for it. I have some read criticism of the Bulletin’s editor Jean Rabe, so I want to be clear that Ms. Rabe, in her role as editor of Bulletin, had my full support. She took over the Bulletin at a problematic time in the publication’s history, got it back onto a regular schedule and otherwise righted what was a foundering ship. When previous concerns about sexism regarding the Bulletin were aired, specifically the cover of issue #200, Ms. Rabe listened, understood and was responsive to them and solicited work relevant to the concern, in the hope of furthering discussion. She has always acted in good faith for the organization, and I have valued and continue to value her dedication.
As publisher, I was aware that there would be two articles in Bulletin #202 about the cover of issue #200, one by Jim C. Hines and one by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg. I did not read Mr. Hines’ piece and glanced cursorily at the Resnick/Malzberg piece but did not give it a significant read; I do not as a matter of course closely read the Bulletin before it is published. It’s possible if I had more closely read the article I might have alerted Ms. Rabe to portions that might be an issue. She might then have had the opportunity to take those concerns back to Mr. Resnick and Mr. Malzberg, who I have no reason to believe would not have taken editorial direction.
This did not happen. I as publisher gave the go-ahead—and once again, the responsibility for the event, and the offense it caused, falls on me.
So once again I apologize to the members who we have offended through the last few issues of the Bulletin. It is my place to accept the responsibility, and so my place to offer the apology.
—Outgoing SFWA President John Scalzi shows loads of class, why he was elected back in 2010, and actually apologizes in his statement on the recent debacle.
And I hope that this is the last I’ll have to report about this kind of situation regarding the SFWA from now on.
Among the good things that have come out so far regarding the problem with the most recent SFWA Bulletin is this encounter between Ursula Vernon, creator of the Digger webcomic and the Dragonbreath series of books, and John Scalzi. I’ll let Vernon speak for herself here:
SFWA announced that they’re putting a task force on fixing the Bulletin RIGHT NOW and that’s a good thing. We are hopeful!
John Scalzi said, somewhat ruefully, on Twitter that this is what he gets for thinking that the last month of his tenure as SFWA president would be quiet.
I told him that he had tempted the Fannish Misogyny Fairy with such thoughts.
He said he wanted to see an illustration.
There are very few people for whom I will whip off a spontaneous illustration, and I have to be in the right mood (my buddy Mur is still waiting for her sugar cube golem!) but all the stars aligned, I found photo ref of Hoary Marmots (because A) these are very hoary attitudes and B) if you google them, there are some marvelous shots of hoary marmots sitting around in groups, looking like grumpy old men) and…well…
The Fannish Misogyny Fairy (c) Ursula Vernon / Click to enlarge!
[Editor’s Note: This article has been partially revised from its original form at the request of the SFWA to remove material which may have infringed on a copyright.]
Considering that I’m not a member of the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), anyone reading this article can take it with so much salt that they go into a self-induced hypertensive shock. But rather than add my name to the list of voices condemning writer-members Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg for their ill-written rebuttal to critiques of their anti-feminism in the organization’s most recent quarterly newsletter, I’m going to instead talk about how the entire mess could have been avoided in the first place. And to do that, I have to throw Bulletin writer/editor Jean Rabe under a bus.
Problem #1: It all began when issues #199 and #200 of the Bulletin came out in Fall 2012 and Winter 2013 wherein as part of their ongoing dialogues about the industry, Resnick and Malzberg spoke about a certain selection of other writers and editors. Since the Bulletin is a print-only publication that’s only available to SFWA members, I only have E. Catherine Tobler’s recollection of the dialogue to go by, for now:
How fantastic, I thought, because I, being a writer and an editor and female, had a keen interest in [learning about other female writers and editors]. I love reading anthologies such as Women of Wonder (and its sequel) and seeing how women impacted and contributed to this forward-looking and -thinking genre I love. I hoped they might include the women who inspired me and introduce me to many I hadn’t yet discovered.
That’s not what I found. I found a dialogue that seemed more focused on how these “lady editors” and “lady writers” looked in bathing suits, and that they were “beauty pageant beautiful” or a “knock out.” I am certain no condescension was intended with the use of “lady,” but as the dialogues went on, I felt the word carried a certain tone—perhaps that was a fiction of my own making. As I listened to these two men talk about lady editors and writers they had known, I grew uneasy. Something wasn’t right.
Almost synchronous with her [Catherine Tarrant’s] entrance was that of Beatrice Mahaffey as Raymond Palmer’s assistant editor when Palmer left Amazing to originate a series of his own magazines (beginning with Other Worlds) and I will leave it to you to introduce her; you knew her from the SF community of your early years and were, with so many, an admirer. She was competent, unpretentious, and beauty pageant gorgeous … as photographs make quite clear. Tell succeeding generations all about her, please.
Mike
Ah, Bea Mahaffey…
She was the only pro I knew in Cincinnati when we moved here from the Chicago area more than a third of a century ago. She was incredibly generous with her time and reminiscences, and I spent a lot of time with her, on the phone and in person, duting the first few months when I was learning my way around town.
Anyone who’s seen photos of Bea from the 1950s knows she was a knockout as a young woman.
and
[Mike Resnick:] Another story is from nonagenarian Margaret Keiffer, who lives just a couple of miles from us. She’s the widow of super-fan Don Ford, who ran the 1949 Worldcon, and founded both Midwestcon and First Fandom. Don also created CFG (the Cincinnati Fantasy Group), the venerable local club to which Carol and I belong. According to Margaret, during its first few years of existence CFG was populated exclusively by men. Then Bea joined. Then the members’ wives got a look at Bea in her swimsuit at the 1950 Midwestcon. Then the club’s makeup changed to the 50% men and 50% women that has existed ever since.
Where Jean Rabe Went Wrong, #1: Having just learned through incoming president Steven Gould that Rabe was appointed to be editor of the Bulletin by outgoing president John Scalzi then-president Russell Davis when previous issues were months late, I can understand that there’s a chance that Rabe may not have gotten a good chance to read and review that particular Resnick/Malzberg dialogue too carefully before it went to press. Which is minor fault number one. But the even bigger fault is not recognizing that publishing such an article without a balancing viewpoint was a disservice to the membership.
I believe that as the editor of a professional trade organization’s newsletter, it’s Rabe’s job to ensure that not only does the magazine come out on time, but that it addresses the membership as a whole, from the old veterans who can remember casual conversations with Robert Heinlein to the new writers who have just become eligible for membership by selling their third piece of prose, from the “old white guys” who pioneered the genre conventions to the new non-white, non-male members who are finding new ways to address those conventions.
Many of these new writers are women, and many of them are vocal about expressing their displeasure about misogyny in the fandom. Many of them are men who have been just as vocal in decrying sexism in the industry. Rabe should have known about both of these factors and should have had a response from the SFWA addressing those issues as an article from one of the women mentioned regarding her experiences in the industry or a current female writer/editor talking about how things have changed since Resnick and Malzberg’s time. If there wasn’t enough time to solicit either of those articles, then possibly this lack of representation could have been mentioned in a “Letter from the Editor” asking for an alternate commentary on those times. And those members would have been mollified or at least pleased to know that their voices were as important as Resnick and Malzberg’s, that their SFWA membership money wasn’t going to an organization that didn’t acknowledge views that were important to them.
The worst part of all is that this isn’t the first time the SFWA has had problems with some of its older members doing or saying things that are misogynistic and offensive in the 21st century, as the the reaction surrounding the Harlan Ellison boob grab from the 2006 Hugo Award ceremony shows. (A copy of Ellison’s “apology” can be found here; proof that Ellison didn’t really apologize can be read in this comment on an unrelated entry on Scalzi’s blog.) Having “survived” that issue, an editor with a little bit of foresight would have been aware that this could be an issue with its membership again, and any steps to curtail it would have been seen as a public relations coup.
Problem #2: On the cover of Issue #200 was a barbarian standing over a downed giant, sword liberally coated in blood. But it wasn’t just any old barbarian.
Rabe—who certainly would have been aware of Hines’ win in 2012 and what he wrote about which made him worthy of the nomination—should have thought twice about making the cover of the 200th issue an image of a woman in improbable armor. Or, if as Tobler sympathetically suggests the cover was meant to evoke a sense of nostalgia towards what fantasy covers used to look like, perhaps this should have been mentioned in that same “Letter from the Editor.” Again, any comment from Rabe would have been welcome and defused the tension surrounding the second half of the Resnick/Malzberg dialogues, but to my knowledge that didn’t happen.
Where Jean Rabe Went Right, #1: If there’s something that Rabe did correctly, it was to include an essay by Jim Hines called “Cover Art and the Radical Notion that Women Are People” in a subsequent issue, #202. But as you’ll read, by then it was “too little, too late.”
Problem #3: Issue #201 was the Spring 2013 issue, and it included an article by writer C.J. Henderson. According to writer Betsy Dornbusch, Henderson wrote about “staying power and reinventing oneself for career longevity.” And yet, he used an interesting example to illustrate his point:
The reason for Barbie’s unbelievable staying power, when every contemporary and wanna-be has fallen by the way-side is, she’s a nice girl. Let the Bratz girls dress like tramps and whores. Barbie never had any of that. Sure, there was a quick buck to be made going that route but it wasn’t for her. Barbie got her college degree, but she never acted as if it was something owed to her, or that Ken ever tried to deny her.
She has always been a role model for young girls, and has remained popular with millions of them throughout their entire lives, because she maintained her quiet dignity the way a woman should. [emphasis by Dornbusch]
Where Jean Rabe Went Wrong, #3: Dornbusch laid out very well exactly what’s wrong with Henderson’s premise and why it’s faulty to hold up Barbie as a positive role model of longevity, so I’m not going to repeat it. However, it’s an editor’s job to review every piece prior to publication to see if the writer is making claims that the organization can’t defend, especially the opinion pieces.
And if indeed a writer does make claims that aren’t easily defensible, it’s an editor’s job to note that while the publication stands by the writer’s right to his/her opinion, that it’s not the opinion of the organization as a whole. Again, such a statement—either behind the scenes in the private forums for SFWA members or a public notice on the website—would have gone a long way towards defusing the issue; as far as I researched, nothing to this effect was done by Rabe or the board of directors. If Locus editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi can admit to her editorial mistakes regarding an ill-written April Fools’ joke, why are Jean Rabe and the Bulletin above reproach regarding misogyny?
Problem #4: Recently published in Summer 2013, issue #202 contained a “rebuttal” by Resnick and Malzberg to the criticisms of their dialogue from issue #200; in the real world, Rabe probably would have been fired for letting the situation come to this point. As noted earlier, the issue contains a piece written by Hines which was probably prompted by the debate on the cover art from #200, but it was overbalanced by the somewhat incomprehensible back-and-forth between Resnick and Malzberg. Special thanks go to Natalie at Radish Reviews who had been able to obtain low-res images of the article so that both SFWA members and non-members could read and discuss the outrageous statements like this one from Barry Malzberg regarding the detractors:
What makes this statement outrageous is Malzberg’s partial assumption that because there are some people who wished that the article had not been published in the Bulletin, then the injured parties may have wanted to suppress his and Resnick’s words. Of course, he retreats from committing himself to that false agenda (“to my knowledge that is not at the time part of the complainers’ agenda”), but by throwing in the word “suppression” he deliberately and mistakenly calls into mind an image of a specter of Senator Joe McCarthy or something Orwellian.
There’s also this statement by Mike Resnick, referring to the cover of issue #200, which I’ll return to later:
Both Natalie and Jason Sanford do an excellent job in explaining exactly why the latest Resnick/Malzberg dialogue is offensive, so I’m not going to go into it here. At this stage, however, I think that once writers start throwing around claims that they’re being “censored” in an opinion piece and calling their critics “liberal fascists,” it’s time to review with those writers what censorship actually means from a legal standpoint and how to properly respond to critiques written on the Internet.
I point to attorney and blogger Ken White at Popehat who in 2009 had to create a special tag for articles on the site about “thin skinned weenies” who were claiming that their First Amendment rights were being violated. White’s first paragraph explaining the new tag is as follows:
Let’s be clear—the right to free speech is the right to express oneself without state retaliation. It is not a right to speak without social retaliation. Speech has consequences. Among those consequences are condemnation, vituperation, scorn, ridicule, and pariah status. Those consequences represent other people exercising their free speech rights. That’s a feature of the marketplace of ideas, not a bug.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [emphasis mine]
As no one from either of the gentlemen’s home states has introduced a bill into either the House or Senate asking that Mike Resnick and/or Barry Malzberg be prohibited for writing in the Bulletin about “lady writers” and “lady editors,” neither of them can credibly claim that they’re being censored. The fact that Rabe even gave them an opportunity to revisit the subject in issue #202 is proof that the editorial board of the Bulletin is encouraging their right to speak freely about their previous comments.
But instead of letting Resnick and Malzberg’s purple pens get away from them, Rabe should have done the following:
Ensure that they understood exactly what it was that they wrote which some people found offensive.
Explain the rationale of why it was offensive to them in a way that they would understand.
Read their ensuing article to make damn well sure that they weren’t sticking their feet in their mouths again.
Fact-check every claim made by Resnick and Malzberg to ensure that it wasn’t fallacious or damaging to the organization.
That way, Resnick could not have gotten away with his above statement regarding romance novel covers. And while it may probably have a grain of truth within it, that doesn’t mean that readers and fans aren’t as critical of romance novel covers and their sociological implications as Hines was in his essay and blog posts on science fiction and fantasy covers. In fact, a quick Google search brought up this article written in 1999, which can also incidentally be taken as proof that when it comes to decrying sexism in book covers, the romance readers were ahead of the curve. And let’s not forget this entire category of posts by the women behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. There’s even an entire doctoral dissertation on romance novel covers (link goes to a PDF), written by Dr. Jayashree Kamble in 2008.
If I could find those articles and/or have those references at my fingertips within the six hours it has taken me thus far to write this article, surely Rabe or one of her associate editors could have done the same amount of research—or more—and found better examples to show to Resnick and let him know that his rationale was faulty and how he could make his piece stronger.
Because that’s the other job of an editor: to point out where things don’t make any sense and most importantly, help make a writer’s work much stronger. And I think this is the most egregious error that Rabe committed: she left her writers out to hang themselves with their own words.
The task force also aims to “solicit further, detailed opinions from the membership as a whole about the Bulletin as part of an upcoming stage of the project.” I know that I’m not a SFWA member, but in sending a link to this article to vice president Rachel Swirsky and Scalzi as part of their work on this task force, I hope that what I’ve written can help them make the Bulletin a newsletter that the present and future membership can be proud of.
When he threw open the comments on a blog entry about the show to people who had questions about his first guest appearance, the following exchange took place:
Q: I think TBBT has really made geek chic in some respects, which I’m all for! Do you think the show’s had an impact making geeks more mainstream and funny?
Wheaton: I think it’s part of the general uncloseting of geeks, if that makes sense.
It’s no secret that I originally thought BBT was making fun of us, and I couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until late in the first season that I gave it a real chance and ended up seeing that it was laughing *with* us and not *at* us. I love that the show embraces its geekiness, refuses to dumb down its humor, and manages to find a balance between mainstream and nerd humor. That’s a lot harder than it seems, and is sort of like playing Comedy Operation. If you touch the sides, the audience’s red nose lights up and instead of laughing, there’s a loud buzzing noise. It isn’t pretty.
Based on those words alone, I put “The Big Bang Theory” on my list of shows that were kind to geeks and science; however, some opinion pieces I saw earlier this year had me questioning his words.
The first one I saw was from Kris Naudus, a writer with whom I worked when I was at Wizard Entertainment. She’s currently a content manager for gdgt, but in her free time, she maintains a blog at LiveJournal where she posts her musings on pop and geek culture. She’s not a fan of TBBT, but because so many of her friends and family enjoy it and keep recommending it to her, she thought she’d give it another chance.
I usually insist that I don’t like this show because it’s not really nerdy; it’s just making fun of nerds, and that offends me. But this episode didn’t offend me as a geek or nerd. It offended me as a woman, and as a decent human being. Sheldon’s behavior was disgusting and the fact that the episode plays it for laughs and lets him get off scot-free, means that in a way, they condone it. We’re supposed to accept it because “that’s just the way Sheldon is.” It’s absolutely awful that part of the show’s premise is “these guys can’t talk to women,” but then they’re all given girlfriends before they’ve actually learned that lesson. Or really, Sheldon hasn’t learned that lesson, because he doesn’t need to, because he has Amy and Amy doesn’t care because of the way she is. Which is a shame, because I like Miyam [sic] Bialik and how Amy isn’t a stereotypical girl character. Unfortunately, it also makes her an enabler.
Shortly after I watched the episode, I also came across a TEDx talk by Jorge Cham, the cartoonist behind Piled Higher and Deeper, aka PHD Comics, aka The Webcomic that Grad Students Get and Most Everyone Else Might Not Get.
His talk was about something he’s calling “The Science Gap,” that leap in perception between what academics, nerds, and geeks see regarding the world of science and what the rest of the “normal” or mainstream world sees. The relevant part of the talk starts at 4 minutes and 46 seconds into the talk; you can watch the whole thing below:
Let’s take a closer look at one of Cham’s comments again:
TBBT is a major TV network show that’s [also] supposed to be about scientists and researchers, and the show has a lot of fans—and I don’t want to offend them, especially on the Internet—but this show does… all the smart people in this show have [these] glasses, they dress really weird, they’re socially inept, and all the pretty [and] cool people, they’re blonde, they’re dumb, they’re outgoing, etcetera. And so, I don’t have anything personal against the show, but I do sort of worry about what these stereotypes, what impact they have on society in general.
Long-time readers know that I’m definitely the kind of person who will put her money where her mouth is, and rather than just take someone’s word for granted regarding claims that a piece of entertainment is misogynistic or unrepresentative of a particular sub-culture, I’m going to check it out for myself. So, I hopped on over to the CBS website where “Egg Salad” had been streaming and I watched the entire episode.
Because Naudus was so thorough in her review, a lot of the twists and turns of the story were spoiled for me and so I don’t feel as if I can be as completely objective as a person watching the episode during its first run or without the benefit of the fan-wiki and a review by a trusted source would be. During my viewing of the show, I paid close attention to the scenes where Sheldon was interacting with his assistant Alex, because for the last four years I’ve been an assistant to various people in many different industries and know first-hand what it’s like to work for someone who has a very strong sense of self like the Sheldon character does.
The scenes where Alex felt uncomfortable and insulted as her boss started describing her as being full of hormones and/or having her emotions controlled by them like a lesser human being was equally as uncomfortable to me because I could see how I would react in exactly that sort of situation, having seen it in the workplace. I’ve also done human resources work during my career and I know how unnerving it is to have someone show so much disrespect towards you and your position without realizing that they’re doing so, as in the scene where Sheldon told the African-American woman from human resources that she was “a slave” to her body chemistry. And knowing that the other three scientist characters were equally as guilty of inappropriate remarks and behavior in the workplace regarding their female co-workers didn’t make things better because it showed that even Leonard as the most “normal” of the four was a terrible co-worker and colleague.
With those three things in mind and having seen how similar Naudus’ conclusion about the episode (“Sheldon hasn’t learned [his] lesson, because he doesn’t need to, because he has Amy and Amy doesn’t care…”) was to my conclusion about Observe and Report (“Even at the end of the film, [Ronnie] is still posturing, still arrogant, still a dick, but this time he’s got everyone else around him affirming and agreeing that he should continue to be this way….”), I came to my first realization about “The Big Bang Theory”: Because of the nature of episodic sitcoms on the major non-cable networks in the U.S., it is in the best interests for the writers of TBBT to keep Sheldon and the other main characters as being portrayed as stereotypes of geeks rather than showing positive growth and change for as long as possible; ergo, this show is not very kind to geeks at all.
On the other side of the coin is Cham’s claim that this show isn’t kind to science through its portrayal of young, intellectual researchers in academia. One could be cynical and say that the only reason Cham is saying this is because he is the executive producer of a feature film based on his comics as well as an ongoing web documentary series which portrays realresearchers talking about realscience and he just wants the additional views on YouTube, but I don’t think that’s it.
I think that through Cham’s experience having done a series of lectures all across the U.S. and abroad starting in 2005 and the work he’s done since then on his feature film and web series, he’s personally seen and spoken to thousands of young intellectuals in academia who are more socially adjusted, more stylish, and have more interesting lives and compelling stories about those lives both inside and outside of their field of research than the four main characters on TBBT. From physics grad Ameliz who wants to be a professional actress to architecture grad Matt who built and lives in his thesis, from the research teams at CERN who are working with the Large Hadron Collider to the unnamed woman who went from being a cancer researcher to a cancer patient, Cham more than anyone understands who exactly the average young scientist is and why he or she are nothing like the characters on TBBT.
“But TBBT is fictional!” I hear you say. “It’s not meant to be realistic! You should just chill!” Believe me, I hear and understand that viewpoint, but I think that the continued portrayal of scientists as being socially inadequate and only unattractive compared to the average person has a chance to harm real scientists. For example, on the PhD Comics YouTube channel, Cham aired a multi-part look at how fandom interacts with the real world, and what neurobiologist grad student and host Crystal Dilworth has to say about her reaction to the stereotypes in TBBT is interesting:
Dilworth: It’s interesting, your take on TBBT because for me I look at that show as propagating some, in my mind, negative stereotypes about scientists.
Lincoln Geraghty, professor of popular media studies at the University of Portsmouth, England: Well, indeed.
Dilworth: Especially for me as a woman, believing that in order to be a woman in science, you have to be both ugly, socially unequipped, and narrowly focused. Which, I’m a woman in science pursuing a PhD and I don’t find…
Prof. Geraghty: What’s your field?
Dilworth: Molecular neuroscience.
Prof. Geraghty: Oh, blimey.
Dilworth: So, Amy Farah Fowler is supposed to be me, and I don’t feel like I’m being accurately represented.
My immediate response, which I posted in the YouTube comments to the video, are that I understand what Dilworth is saying because as a scientist who happens to be a woman, it could be hard for her to be taken as seriously as an Amy Farah Fowler-type would be because Dilworth—in my opinion—is more conventionally attractive than the character is. By perpetuating the stereotype that Fowler is what all or most female neurobiologists look like, it harms her personally.
But even more damaging is the notion that “scientists” are a completely and totally different type of person than the average person can hope to become. We all know that through hard work, exercise, the right diet, and maybe the right fitness applications on your cell phone, a person can go from very unfit to reasonably fit in as few as nine weeks. But what about increasing one’s knowledge? Shouldn’t we encourage more interest in the sciences by encouraging people of all kinds to be interested in it?
In this same episode of TBBT, Penny, the audience viewpoint character and Leonard’s girlfriend, got jealous when she learned that Alex had attempted to ask Leonard out on a date. Alex, who is reasonably attractive, also happens to be a doctoral candidate in physics (which is why she’s Sheldon’s assistant). After pondering whether or not she should take community college classes in science, Penny decided that it all seemed too “boring” for her, and chose to start wearing “geeky” glasses instead as a way to keep Leonard’s interest in her fresh. Thus, creating a “fake geek girl” for Leonard to have sex with that evening.
But wouldn’t it be cool and provide a more interesting character arc to have Penny learn what the sciences are like, for her to find a science or a skill that she does like and for which she has a real aptitude? Wouldn’t in encourage interest in the STEM fields to watch how someone’s interest in the sciences can be piqued? And couldn’t it be equally as engaging and as funny as trotting out old stereotypes about geeks?
Until someone give me a production budget, a writing staff, and some actors, unfortunately, we’re never going to know that answer for sure. However, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t wish and ask for more from our entertainment.
