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rowling is a transphobe, but gaiman is like weinstein a sex pest. she played it carefully for decades before coming out, when she had built a large amount of fans and support, much like lewis CK, the cancelling dint end his career so to speak, he moved all online before it got worst.
also transphobia has massive support from right wingers.
If anyone is looking for some
goodfucking amazing books by an awesome and genuinely fun and good natured dude, check out Jason Pargin, he is awesome and not problematic and his books are all bangers, and he also enabled and actively supports the careers of many other super awesome and creative people. Also, listen to Bigfeets.If we’re recommending authors, my favorite is Jasper Fforde. He wrote this book called Shades of Grey (which unfortunately came out around the same time as that book) that’s about people who can only see one color (sorry, colour), and the hue that they can see determines their social standing. I have been waiting over a decade for the sequel and he just released it (Red Side Story) last year. My brain has been bad at letting me read books, so it sits on the shelf but I loved the first one.
I really hope there’s no problematicism around him (as that’s the subject of the thread), but reading his books it’s hard to imagine there could be.
I also love Jasper Fforde, and it is because he was guest of honour at a Jodi Taylor event that I also got into her books. She writes a series about time-travelling historians which I would recommend.
She also writes at a much faster pace than Fforde does these days, so that’s a plus. I was never half as annoyed waiting for GRR Martin to write A Dance With Dragons as I was waiting for Red Side Story!
not problematic
I love the guy but I’m sure you could find an instance of him being problematic. Like his pen name, David Wong, is questionable given he’s not asian.
He stopped using it for that very reason, and took accountability. People are allowed to self correct, if he understands the problem with what he did and course corrected without being called out for it what would throwing more stones accomplish?
Edit: Also, not a big enough deal to say you shouldn’t read his books.
I’m not throwing any stones, yo. I’m just pointing out you can’t exactly say he’s not problematic. I have a tolerance for problematicity so it’s of no bother to me.
The word problematic is kind of weasely used this way. The pen name had an in-universe rationale that made sense and was funny because of the incongruity. Merely alluding to the existence of ethnicity isn’t “problematic” in itself.
If he was still using the pseudonym and making excuses to keep using it, sure, but I’m of the opinion that once someone understands what they have done wrong and took the opportunity to learn from it and do better there is no more wrong doing. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but a pseudonym that someone came up with in their 20’s and had the wherewithal later to say, “That’s not ok, I need to stop doing that” and stopped doing that for the right reasons is pretty far from a reason to call them problematic, especially when it wasn’t a decision made under any form of duress and he has made no attempt at defending his choice to have used that pseudonym and stated it was not ok for him to have used that pseudonym.
Oh John dies at the end is in my top ten all time favorites possibly even #1 and I don’t even like horror.
That whole series is as good as it gets for me, hands down. John, Dave, and Amy are the mother fuckin’ GOATS.
Edit: The Zoey Ashe and The Suits series is every bit as good if you’re into sci-fi, and Black Box of Doom is a fantastic stand alone story set in the modern world. Neither are connected to the reality or events of [UNDISCLOSED]. He’s also currently working on the next book in the JDATE series which will release next year.
There’s just so much entertainment and incredible creativity out there. I genuinely don’t understand allegiances like this.
I love Sandman but tbh fuck that dude and I’ll go read one of other million alternative stories that often are just as good if not better.
The competition in creative industry is just insane and switching is basically free compared to any other industry. Like, good luck switching from John Deere if you’re a farmer but Harry Potter fans have zero barriers and still can’t do it. Spineless, weak people.
Maybe not the most popular idea here, but I think there are a lot less Rowling fans, and a lot more Harry Potter fans. After all she didn’t really write anything noteworthy after the Harry Potter books. And the HP themed stuff like Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts she did after the main series is let’s call it controversial, she’s a one hit wonder. Gaiman wrote a lot more and had a lot more different main characters in different settings, as far as I know, I didn’t read anything of his stuff.
I’ve read a bunch from both authors and think your point checks out. Gainan has much more variety. I’m not sure it matters though.
My guess, worthless as it is, is that Gaiman’s best works celebrated the marginalized. Loved them and taught you to love them. Respected them. His work taught people that his actions are terrible.
On the other hand, Stardust. Maybe my guess is totally wrong. Shrug
People got into Gaiman at an older age than they got into HP. So HP is more deeply ingrained
At 13, I read Ender’s Game and was absolutely obsessed. Read a ton of other OSC books at that age and it took me decades to rid myself of all the veiled mormon morality in his books.
As an adult, I never had one hesitation about disavowing him. I re-read the Ender saga a few years back to see how it held up (it didn’t hold a candle to my teen-self’s impression), but I had no problem not paying for new copies of anything that would pay OSC.
To the kinds of people who never moved beyond children’s books maybe
even as a kid i recognized HP as slop and it feels vindicating that society is finally catching up
Sort of off topic. I think learning new things about an author can make re-reading their works interesting.
Oh look, another barely concealed fetish!
I misread this as accusatory to the commenter lol
yeah people love to bang the “death of the author” drum and i think it’s because they’re just lazy and hate thinking about stuff. it’s a valid way of reading but it’s also the most low-effort and least insightful imo.
I’ve always felt that if you really subscribe to the ethos of death of the author then you should just consume all your media without learning anything about anyone who made it. And that is unbelievably dumb imo
Is it? I’ve read hundreds of novels that I couldn’t name the author even if I tried. I would go to the library, pick a book, read it, and go to the next one. A lot of people do the same thing with all of their entertainment.
didn’t i just see any new sandman season announced though?
I feel like we have to be able to separate artists’ bad behavior from our evaluation of the quality of their work.
Maybe there’s a time limit? Maybe they have to be dead so they can’t benefit from their work being sold.
Are there any non problematic artists/creators from 500 years ago who we nevertheless find their work product valuable to society today? What about science? Especially medicine with all the body snatching.
Neil Gaiman is almost certainly a sex pest based on all the women reporting. So I get not wanting to give him money. He hopefully gets it, too.
I like the suggestion of piracy as an approach…
I like the suggestion of piracy as an approach…
I hear Anna has an archive of said work…
I would say it’s only possible, at least to the degree of Rowling, when the artist is dead. Someone can be a shitty person and not a monster, this is my regard for most actors, authors, and artists. cheat on your wife, have a drug abuse disorder, they’re a pretentious asshole that’s hard to work with, or something like that and I can still appreciate their work, they’re not running some weird political agenda funded by their proceeds (Rowling), a cult (Jared Leto), or gross predatory sexual abuse and tape (Kevin Spacey, Diddy.) Anyone purposefully, knowingly, and actively doing harm to others is not something I’m willing to financially or artistically support. When they die and cannot benefit from the proceeds, the art can stand as an independent entity, but as long as it’s under their wing it will be problematic. Gwyneth Paltrow is a weird fucked up person, but I can still enjoy a performance from her, for example, but Cuba Gooding Jr. being involved with Diddy shit is a no go for me.
When it comes to J.K. Rowling, as far as I’m concerned, Death of The Author requires the actual death of the author, otherwise there is no negotiating that you are financially supporting her agenda outside of her art.
Edit: Another good example would be Orson Scott Card, as a human I despise him and his views, but he is simply outspoken about his views and never started a whole god damned foundation with the intent to try to codify his views into law, and I can still enjoy the works of his I enjoy with nothing more than “man, that guy is a bigoted asshole, how the hell did he manage to write such hard Sci-Fi?” If Rowling were simply outspoken about her views then that would be one thing, but she is actively trying to ruin people’s lives and cause social and political erasure of people she refuses to understand via the profits of her works.
Whether or not their work is good, do you really want to enable them to keep being rich pieces of shit by buying their works? The ultimate cutoff point is when their work becomes public domain, death only works if their heirs aren’t also horrible people. Though some artists do reform in their later years, e.g. HP Lovecraft.
I think the moral arguments aside, there is just the practical matter that having read what he did, I cannot stomach to consume content made by him. The association is naturally aversive, I don’t need a rational argument about how it’s immoral to support a rapist - I just don’t like it.
i’ll call it death of the author when they’re actually dead, until then it’s self-excused support.
hp was a big part of my pre transition life when i was in the closet. i hate jk so i dont buy new things but i still do reread my existing books. leaky, pottercast, and starkid were the first places i fit in.
but i dont actively seek out pro rowling hp fandom tho. fuck rowling.
I think a lot of us trans girls are in the same situation. I learned to read on HP books, and Hermoine was a deeply important character to me growing up 😅 It’s hard for me, but I have gradually moved away from the series as it increasingly becomes associated with Britain’s Top Transphobe.
Dunno if you know dimension 20 and their Misfits & Magic mini-series, but it was basically a satire of Harry Potter, really attacking some of the unquestioned tropes in that series.
Anyway, this is a beautiful clip of Erika Ishii, who is NB, at the start of the series, saying what they think of TERFs:
i LOVE d20 and erika! they’re amazing <3
evan kelmp
Yayyyyyy Erika my beloved 🥰
same! i also got into chris colfers land of stories which is infinitely better too (and he’s a better person too!)
Notice how a lot of folks aren’t aware of the disgusting things Gaiman did, specifically BECAUSE he went quiet. Rowling doesn’t want to go quiet because she’s a crusader: discriminating against trans people is a goal for her.
Yeah, Gaiman keeps a low profile because he wants people to forget what he did. Rowling is proud of being a hateful cunt and invests time and money in proliferating hate.
Also I actually have less of an issue with other people buying Gaiman’s work. I have no love for the man and won’t buy anything myself again, but if you buy something of his, the money goes to him, and stops there. Rowling directly funds bigotry; the money people spend on Harry Potter is in a direct pipeline to funding the suffering of innocent people.
At the very least, before everything happened with Gaiman, he was known for having positive philanthropic ventures. Even if you gave him money, a sizable portion went to him, another portion went on to better the world. I’d presume he still supports these trusts and charities too.
yes, she sees herself as a kind of martyr and victim of a witch-hunt, which does change how she responds to the cultural backlash she receives for her behavior.
Supporting Gaiman is supporting a rapist; it will negatively impact a couple people directly.
Supporting Rowling is much worse.
such incredible insight, Rowling as an anti-trans activist is engaged in a genocidal movement which has of course a much larger scale of both number of people harmed and the severity of that harm
I hate Rowlings and her stupid and dangerous ideas, but I don’t think it is genocide? Or is it some pro iseaeli stance that makes you say that?
I’m asking because I think it’s important to not use genocide for eveything bad because it just waters down the words meaning, and in the end when there is a “real” genocide people will compare it to lesser evils.
Not saying you’re wrong, but I would like to know the reason behind you saying it!
It’s just utilitarianism. Utilitarian generally seems to piss off a lot of lemmites though; I thought people would have a more negative reaction to it here.
(Btw I agree the number of people harmed is larger but I think it’s debatable whether or not the (per-person) severity of the harm is larger.)
utilitarianism: for when you need the worst possible take delivered in the most insufferable manner using the least amount of critical faculty to answer the questions nobody asked.
All that true and it works ™
Now we just need people to listen to our hot takes and we’re set.
funny thing is the last time i bothered thinking about utilitarianism was when i was reading about the zizians using it to justify murdering just whoever they pleased. i’m not convinced it works, it’s a school of philosophy for stupid pedants who want to feel smart and justified in whatever they already think.
well the zizians were obviously insane, nobody likes them. The rationalists disowned them, just like they disowned FTX.
As a moral philosophy, I am not certain about utilitarianism. But outside of morality, if you’re going to have preferences, you might as well do the math.
Does buying Gaiman’s work after he’s dead still benefit him or can I separate him from the art at that point? I don’t wanna support him, but I do wanna read his work someday
Just pirate the books and read them now if you want to read them but don’t want to give him money. Don’t feel like you need to pass a purity test when it comes to your reading list, even more so when it comes to books he only co wrote like Good Omens.
Just dont buy it… his work is great but why give any more money to him OR his estate when there are way simoler options.
I would say so, yes. The only issue then being, can you enjoy reading their work knowing what you know ?
Anecdotal, but I read the Mists of Avalon years ago and enjoyed it enough to want to read more. Then I found out about the author (and her husband) sexually abusing children, including her own daughter, and I absolutely cannot bring myself to read any more of her books.
Fuck abusers. I’m glad she’s dead and I don’t give two shits what she had to say about anything when she was alive.
i was unaware of any actual incidents with her until now. i read fall of atlantis as a kid and literally cried when it was over because i loved it so much. re-read it as an adult and the pedophile apologia is so blatant that i immediately stopped reading it and stopped mentioning her name at all.
I wonder if I am unusual in that I am able to read good books by bad people without feeling gross. (I’m not claiming that I would support a bad person, just that reading their books doesn’t generally cause me particular anguish.) Is this something that is unusual about me, or do people just assume that it should be difficult to read books like that, but most people aren’t bothered? Same with movies and music. Listening to Michael Jackson or David Bowie from my personal archives, I don’t feel any particular difficulty despite the allegations against them.
Sail the high seas.
Buying Gaiman’s work after he’s dead won’t benefit him, but it could have the second-order effect of giving the impression to people that people broadly don’t care about boycotting rapists. It’s a lesser sin than supporting him now.
Harry Potter is so ubiquitous that most people who consume it do so without really knowing much about the author beyond their name and then there’s a decent chunk that don’t care because it doesn’t affect them and they think it’s culture war stuff that doesn’t matter.
Making people care about things that don’t directly affect them is always the hardest task.
some googling later
Well, shit. Glad I buy secondhand books at every opportunity, otherwise I would have given money to a human sized pile of shit.
yeah learning about gaiman was hard, his work meant so much to me.
The work didn’t do anything wrong
it’s tainted by the knowledge that the creator is a disgusting monster who convinced me that he was just the coolest dude, so i can’t enjoy it anymore.
The Sound of Her Wings was an incredibly important story for me. It still is. But goddammit, Gaiman certainly tainted that memory.
I mean, I still love American Gods, Good omens and Neverwhere. I just stopped recommending them to people.
american gods, good omens, sandman.
The thing that really pisses me off re: Good Omens in particular is that it took Pratchett out with him. And we don’t get any more of the TV show because of it, either. Even though it’s only half-Gaiman, it got ruined anyway.
I still enjoy his writing, but I’m not sure how to engage now. I want to separate the artist from the art and let the legal system do its thing as a separate thing and I don’t know what ‘right’ looks like as a reader
Buying used copies and pirating his stuff so he never sees a penny, and talking about what a pile of shit he is. I do the same with David and Leigh Eddings. Who locked children in cages in their basement and beat them, among other things.
Holy shit, what the fuck? I think I read one edding’s book and didn’t think much of it, but what the fuck?! Where’s my interrobang button!?
I can’t separate artist and art. I feel guilty and angry. But I also don’t want to. Money to them is money to their deeds. Paying for anything Harry Potter is paying for anti-trans movements. Paying anything Gaiman goes to the “fix your image” firm he has hired. Then I start thinking that firm is probably out there with messaging convincing people to separate art from the artist.
Heres what you can do:
Encourage people to pirate his shit
Remind people what he did. In detail.
Start with me! I know he did… Some rapey shit? Pro ably wizard flavored?
Here’s the sanitized AP reporting: Woman’s lawsuits say sci-fi author Neil Gaiman repeatedly sexually assaulted her
Here’s the full account from the victim (ALL the trigger warnings): “There is no safe word” - Vulture
Wow that’s…
What strikes me is how boring the abuse was. Like, boiler plate horror. Maybe this does make me think less of him as an author, not just as a person.
Well I haven’t looked into the 8 other women. But at least one of the others was absolutely raped, and another was paid off in exchange for an NDA
Right but like ‘call me master’ DUDE
Fucking do better. Not even be less a piece of shit, but a more interesting piece of shit.
Like ‘i hired a PI to learn the song you had your first kiss to, then spent a week practicing, so just as the acid and molly kick in…’
Or, idk, a choir? Some chanting?
Absolutely agree with pirating. Even buying second hand will keep money from going to their pockets/estates.
tbh my feelings seem to be guiding things before anything like rational morality does - I feel cognitive dissonance about his art because of the association with him as a rapist, and that’s enough for me to ditch his art without having to justify it as a moral necessity that others must do as well.
Well ultimately you didn’t do anything wrong, he did. So proceed how you wish. If you read some of his work nothing changes and that’s the same if you choose not to.
They’re great books, but I just can’t enjoy them anymore. American Gods was my favorite of the three.
Am I going to get rid of his works that I own? No, probably not. I love them. Which is why it sucks so much to never recommend them again, but that’s the reality.
Shitty people can make good art. Death of the author.
Just never give them money.
Death of the author
People here keep using the term as basically a synonym of “separating art from artist” but I always thought death of the author was a different thing. Analyzing the meaning of a book while ignoring what the author says they meant.
My 2c tho, the Harry Potter novels legitimately suck. This has been my opinion of them since I was in 8th grade when the first one came out. At the time I described Sorcerer’s / Philosopher’s Stone as a failed attempt at ripping off Roald Dahl (British author who wrote mean-spirited children’s books that stereotyped characters with funny-sounding names based on their physical descriptions). I was frequently urged to and attempted to give the books a second chance, never got more than 20 pages back into any of them before I put them down in exasperation because to me they always felt very petty and derivative. I was not very surprised when JK started to peel off her mask to the public.
Older guy told me he read Dahl (Matilda?) to his grandkid & passed the lesson that you gotta be careful who you trust… are his works viewed negatively?
I don’t think universally. Similar to Rowling, his stuff is beloved and can certainly still be enjoyed but contains some totally wack bits. Even as a kid I picked up on how mean-spirited his writing was. But I think that’s also what makes it interesting to some people, it’s got this macabe Grimm’s quality to it.
Abolitionism is literally a running gag; the idea that someone might want it.
The stories aren’t good.
Why do you think they’re so popular then?
Because they became a cultural phenomenon and were lots of kids first novels. If youve never read anything else youre not going to see the massive flaws.
Well, you just replied to the question “why are they popular?” with “because they became popular”. Okay, so why did they become popular? Because despite the flaws they definitely have, they’re simply good stories with good world building that suck people in (not just kids btw, plenty of people got into them as adults).
Children have less reading comprehension, wizards and magic are cool to kids, and nostalgia appears to be my generation’s (millennials) lead poisoning.
Okay, so why specifically that series among the many other wizards and magic series? I think Rowling is a piece of shit as any sane person should, but let’s not warp reality. The books may not be your cup of tea and of course they’re not perfect, but they’re definitely good books, otherwise they wouldn’t have gained the popularity they did.
popular =/= good though.
in fact awful things get popular all the time.
Not everyone’s experience mirrors mine? 🤷
Looks like that 🤷
I get what you’re saying, but why not recommend them with the caveat that the other person should pirate them?
Because Harry Potter is a marketing juggernaut and recommending people get involved with the franchise keeps the franchise going.
I mean, if you recommend the HP books to somebody, presumably you expect them to enjoy those books - and then they’ll watch the movies, or wear the merchandise, or go to the theme park, or a hundred other marketing tie-ins that ultimately pay JKR royalties.
And then JKR uses that money to spread anti-trans propaganda.
I’m on board with separating the art from the author - there are a ton of shitty people out there, and some of them made good art, and that’s okay. But this is the most famous living author in the world, a woman whose art has given her a tremendous amount of fame and power, and who is actively using her fame and power for evil.
Don’t be part of that. Walk away. Read one of the dozen better young adult books about schoolkids in magical worlds that she was “inspired” by instead.
And my god, the irony that Neil Gaiman’s “Books of Magic” series was one of the sources JKR ripped off…
This is a good moral compromise in that it allows you to enjoy the art without the moral complications of commercially supporting a rapist, but I think some people might argue that it doesn’t go far enough and that we should essentially culturally boycott the art as well, that an artist’s reputation rests partially on how their art is perceived, and by continuing to enjoy that art and share it with others, you continue to support the artist in some sense.
Not sure I know how I feel about that argument, but I think it’s an intuition some folks have or an argument they make.
That’s fair. I think because in Gaiman’s case it’s still fresh for me, and really came out of nowhere, so I don’t like to talk about them much.
With JK, it’s so evident in her writing that she had some prejudice that it really didn’t surprise me much, so I internalized that quickly and moved on.
I don’t provide either with my money, and pirate them whenever I want something.
I think my cognitive dissonance was too strong, I got rid of my Gaiman. :-(
But I feel you - his works were important in my life before, I’ve just been downsizing and even though it wasn’t the best, I decided to get rid of mine (not because it’s “right” but just because I don’t like being reminded of him).
I love HP and they were a big part of my life, made me enjoy reading and helped me a lot with English (and British) vocabulary. I still enjoy the books and movies that I already own from time to time but I cannot see myself consuming anything new knowing that it will give money directly to Rowling’s pockets to fund his trans hating organizations
You see, the difference is… Supporting Gaiman makes you seem like a rape enabler… And anything related to rape is bad.
You want to discriminate against gay/trans/black/brown people? It might be distasteful, but it’s not universally considered bad. There’s lots of people out there willing to vote a Nazi into the white house and cheer him on as he breaks the law to deport anyone and everyone he wants to just because they’re “not from here” (or they think they’re “not from here”).
See, they’re
notthe same thing.Yeah but Agent Orange was convicted of sexual assault too, so that argument doesn’t hold.
Maybe, but he had already spun the fake news narrative to his deciples, so it was easy for them to hand wave all of the convictions away as fake news based on absolutely no evidence.
Given the relative intelligence of each set of followers, I’m not surprised that they could do the mental gymnastics to disregard such a verdict.
Meanwhile, I’m not even sure Gaiman has been convicted, but he’s being treated like he’s guilty by the public, so here we are.
I just haven’t bothered to keep up to date with his situation because, though I previously enjoyed things with his name attached, I’ve never been “a fan” so to speak, of the man himself. I neither liked, nor disliked him. Now I have reasons to dislike him. IDK. I’m just some guy.
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