wisb-Guardian-Express

The other day, I posted about the SFWA Bulletin Petition thing.  I'm not going to rehash that debate here, though you're welcome to read it (there are links at the bottom of that post to other discussions).  However, I do think it a good idea to take a moment to talk about the rhetoric surrounding this ordeal, because much of the anger and confusion is, if not deliberate, then certainly the product of a particular discourse which naturally stifles debate or discussion.  The centerpiece of this rhetorical game is "censorship," which many have already discussed at some length elsewhere.  Here, I'm interested in how "censorship" is used in the service of the agenda at the heart of the petition and the debates that followed:

I. Censorship is a Distortion
First, I think it is worth reminding everyone that in discussions that begin with censorship, the charge itself is almost always not reflective of reality.  The original version of Truesdale's petition argues, for example, that the SFWA is "about to institute a policy of censorship based on political correctness in the organization’s
public publication," followed closely by the following:

The search for a new Bulletin editor followed the Summer 2013 resignation (under pressure) of the then (lady) editor (for the use of an “inappropriate” cover among other alleged crimes), and the brouhaha involving two long-time and well respected Bulletin columnists whose use of the words “lady editors,” “beautiful,” and a few other innocuous descriptive words led, for the first time in the history of the Bulletin, to its suspension (as of this writing no editor has been selected and the Bulletin remains in limbo).[1]

As has already been pointed out by many people (see the links in my original post), this charge not only misrepresents what censorship is, but also the events which led the SFWA to make the changes that it did.  It is either a deliberate distortion, or a delusional one, but a distortion nonetheless.  Much of this relies on fuzzy terminology, such as the idea of "political correctness," which in one light might mean "respectful" and in another might mean "stifling," though the latter is definitively not the intent nor the purpose of the acts that frequently fall under "PC" (a distortion in and of itself).  After all, to ask someone not to call black people "niggers" in a professional publication is hardly "politically correct" (i.e., stifling of one's speech), but really a request for common courtesy at the very least.  "Politically correct," in other words, is just a buzzword for "I want to be able to say whatever I want without getting called out for it."  In a civilized culture, that's hardly a reasonable position to take.

Back to the subject of censorship as a distortion:  Truesdale himself lists the offensive aspects of SFWA's editorial job description, none of which fit within the definition he provides by implication.  Censorship, in his argument, must by necessity have a political agenda.  Yet, when he pressed Steven Gould for an answer to this "agenda," the response demonstrated the exact opposite.  As Gould wrote, "We don’t have guidelines for “acceptable” articles, art, and ads other than content needs to serve the needs of the organization. Chief among those are our 5 core mission areas: to inform, support, promote, defend and advocate for professional writers."  Simple right?  Since the job of an editor is quite literally to fulfill the mission of whatever publication they edit, and that editor is answerable to whoever pays to publish the works, it's hardly censorship to request that an editor have to do any of these things, particularly given the context in which the SFWA has made its claims.  So the argument that an editor doing what an editor does in the service of a publication with a specific purpose is "censorship" is merely a distortion of editorial duties, and one grounded in a perspective which neither acknowledges that mutual respect must fall on the grounds of language (because language matters), but also within the terms of a given space.  In this case, the SFWA's space has a specific purpose, and the SFWA, it appears, has taken steps to make sure the Bulletin is relevant only to that purpose.  There's no active attempt to prevent members within the SFWA's borders from saying what they like, just as there is no requirement for the Bulletin to publish whatever gets sent to it, as is completely reasonable.  That's just reality.

Ultimately, censorship is rarely used in situations where it actually applies in these debates, in large part because censorship almost never occurs in these debates.  Real censorship looks like this:

• You're threatened with or put in prison because of what you say or write by the government or someone working for that government.
• You're threatened with or a victim of violence because of what you say or write by the same.
• You're preventing from accessing avenues of speech by the same.  For example:  if you run an online newspaper and the government shuts down your Internet or destroys your computers.
• Or any other situation in which the government directly interferes with your ability to freely exercise your speech (setting aside, of course, cases of libel, etc.).

Since this petition relies on casting not only its initial terminology (censorship), but also the events in question within a perspective which requires absolute adherence to the first and absolute rejection of the latter (on the terms of the author alone), there's little room for an actual debate here.  In fact, the distortion of censorship (applying it in a scenario where suddenly "editing" becomes "censorship") is a distraction.  In vociferously defending this notion of "free speech" in a context in which it definitely does not apply, those who hold this position betray not only their ignorance of the terms, but also a profound disinterest in debate about the actual issue.

As I noted to Paul Levinson in the comments section of my previous post, it's clear that "censorship" is merely a simple tool to get to a point without actually articulating the real issue.  In other words, it's a distraction.  By the definition of censorship I have already poked holes into in the previous section, it's patently absurd and false to use the term at all.  Yet, in doing so, those who tow the censorship line engage in an almost deliberate act of obfuscation:

By your definition, all publications which have any guidelines whatsoever are acts of censorship, which makes the definition meaningless, except that it reveals something which is at the heart of all of this:  this isn't about actual censorship, but rather about what certain individuals don't think should be removed from the discourse in a specific and focused institution. It's about the *what,* not the action itself. "Censorship" is just the smokescreen being used to make this sound bigger than it really is, because it's far more difficult to justify why the SFWA *must* print the kinds of things Truesdale would like to see published without it.

At best, censorship is just lazy argumentation here.  It's a way of saying "here's the answer" without providing the reasons.  It's the syllogism without sound premises.  In focusing one's discourse on support for a censorship accusation, you really succeed in keeping the rest of us focused on that, too.  And since it's utterly asinine as a claim, that means anything you might have said beneath it gets lost in the shuffle.

More importantly, arguing "censorship" stifles the ability to debate the issue at all.  Those who argue against this position are labeled accordingly as "thought police" or "censors" or "fascists," terms which have emotional and cultural meaning that varies from person to person.  There's almost no possibility of a reasoned debate when the terms of engagement have been so rigidly defined.  Either you disagree with censorship or you don't...and if you don't, you're bad.

"Censorship" is also serves as a painfully simple way to attack one side of a debate without providing an actual argument.

On that front...

III.  Censorship is a Fear Tactic
Why else bring up "censorship" in situations where it clearly does not apply except to scare other people into agreeing?  This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it is also a serious fallacy that has, unfortunately, been associated with the term in question precisely because "censorship" is used incorrectly at such a frequent rate.  But that's precisely the rhetoric at play here.  Truesdale's petition is utterly obsessed with this kind of rhetorical terror.  From the first paragraphs, he accuses the SFWA of censoring, but he also implies by way of a not-so-innocent question that Gould may see himself as an authoritarian thought police.[2]  He likewise claims that this is mostly about straight males, who are, he implies, the target of this oppression, and that because the SFWA believes itself diverse, it must necessarily represent straight male views on things like sexy magazine covers (I kid you not).

All of this is meant to scare us.  It is particularly meant to scare people who believe in 1) free speech, 2) freedom from discrimination, and 3) democratic government.  That the SFWA is 1) not the government, 2) not an institution whose goals seem to have anything to do with discrimination (except tangentially), and 3) not the government, it's alarmingly transparent how desperate Truesdale's petition is to terrify the SFWA and its members.  After all, he also says "This sounds far too much like a fascistic approach to freedom of speech couched in the usual language of 'for the good of the people.'"  I'll just point you back to the section on distortions.

And since all of this is part of the easy, lazy tactic of "censorship" accusations, it's no wonder it has been so soundly rejected by members of this community at large.

IV.  What is this all actually about?
In trying to dig my way through all of this, I was struck by how difficult it is to figure out exactly what Truesdale and the people supporting him want (aside from "the SFWA shouldn't do undefined X").  If censorship is not a legitimate claim, but rather a smokescreen for what are real issues (or issues which appear real), then it follows that there must be a point to all of this that is discernible.  There are attempts to articulate the position, mind you, but they are almost always couched in the rhetoric of censorship rather than self-contained.  Censorship is the main issue, not these other things; censorship is the charge, while everything else is tangential. This is precisely the problem with censorship claims, though.  It distorts and distracts us from what the accuser is actually upset about, as if in some kind of Lacanian schema wherein the subject verbally expresses discontent over X, but subconsciously is concerned with Y.  Getting from X to Y is understandably difficult.  In any case, here are the things I think are at the heart of this:

1) It's not about censorship, but about not being allowed to "say" what one wants to say.
Naturally, this is a slight distortion, as the SFWA is not obligated to give you a venue to say whatever you like.  Presumably, Truesdale and others aren't advocating an editorial policy where anything goes either, though the rhetoric seems to suggest otherwise.  The Bulletin is not a soapbox.  However, it seems to me that many of the voices on the "other side" of this debate are upset that their words have been deemed unacceptable within the Bulletin's pages.  This is obviously true, but the grounds on which that determination was made seems to have more to do with the Bulletin's purpose as a professional publication for professional writers than anything else.  Unless the SFWA allows itself to become the mouthpiece for the opposite side of the debate, rather than cutting all political discussions from its pages in order to meet the actual needs of its membership (writing advice / publication tips / etc.), this charge is difficult to imagine for me.  I see an organization deciding "this is not the place for this kind of discussion."  One could certainly disagree, but to do that, the whole censorship line has to be dropped so it isn't the focus.

2) It's not about censorship, but about the purpose of the SFWA as they see it
I think the main reason this point is not articulated has to do with an unwillingness on the part of the people involved in this discussion to articulate what they know will be ripped to shreds.  Even if you disagree that the covers and articles which caused the SFWA controversies last year are sexist, it's really hard to justify unprofessional behavior within the organization itself as necessary for a professional organization or its professional publications.  Then again, I could be wrong.

3) Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg were unfairly pilloried
I'm sure this is at the heart of it because some have literally said as much.  I've covered this in the previous post, though, so I won't do that here.

That's really all I can think of, to be honest.  Maybe I'm missing something and readers can fill me in.

V.  Censored by the Advisory Committee of Dukedom (or, Conclusions)
In the end, I think it's time that everyone move away from censorship charges as a rhetorical tactic.  It does nothing to further debate.  If anything, it hinders it by making it more difficult to get to the real issue.  And that's a serious problem when it comes to our ability to engage on much of anything.

But I also think it's high time more people took more, well, time to actually understand what women, people of color, and, hell, even men, are concerned about in our community.  It's that lack of understanding, or, rather, the seeming refusal to understand, that produces so much turmoil in our community.  Some might call it "checking your privilege," but I see it as more universal:  it's just common courtesy to take criticism, when articulated as criticism rather than hate, to heart.  You don't have to agree with all criticisms, of course, but it's a good idea to think about where to give ground.  And as I keep saying, if it costs you nothing to give some ground, why not give it?  We do it in every other context anyway, after all...

(Note:  I've listed links to other posts on this topic at the end.)

I won't have anything extensive to say on this "anti-political-correctness" petition thing.  That's mostly because Radish Reviews has pretty well covered it...

That said, there are a few things I'll address:

1) I'm utterly baffled by the difficulty certain members of this community have with understanding what the First Amendment means.  We went over this in depth in my senior year of high school (everyone had to take a semester of government), so it was never a confusion for me:  the First Amendment only applies to the government interfering with speech.  In any other instance in which speech is hindered, the crime isn't in preventing one's speech, but something else entirely.  Libel perhaps.  Or maybe someone tied you down and forced you to write something against your will (like in Misery).  All illegal because you're committing other forms of crime.  But it's not illegal for me to tell anyone they can't write for my blog.  It's my blog.  It's my space.  If you were to ask me why I was censoring you by not letting you write for my blog, my only response would be:  fuck off.

And the SFWA is a private organization with its own rules, and one of those rules says the President handles publications.  So if the President wants to change the Bulletin to a fishing journal, he or she can do that.  Granted, I think it would be utterly stupid to do something like that, but so be it.  That wouldn't be censorship either.  Even so, as C.C. Finlay has made clear all over the place, the changes coming to the Bulletin were requested by the majority of members, and one of those requests was basically "not publishing things that alienate segments of the community."  You know, because the Bulletin is supposed to serve the members at large, not some subset of people who don't particularly care if they offend other people with their words.  And if a good portion of people are offended by the content (legitimately offended, not "I'm offended because your offense means I can't be offensive anymore," which is total bullshit), then it makes sense to change things.

Imagine, if you will (because you are probably a fan of SF/F and are fully capable of using your imagination), a situation where the Bulletin published an article in which one of the authors said Mormons aren't real Christians (in seriousness, not as a reference to a work or something).  Can you imagine how many Mormons would be offended by this?  I know a few.  I'm sure some Mormon members of this organization would be offended, too.  And wouldn't it go without saying that maybe we shouldn't publish something in a journal about writing advice and market tips and professionalism that basically shits on other people, or at least makes others feel like they've been shit on (since individual perspectives vary)?

Seems logical to me.

It's about respect, which I've already talked about.

2) I'm likewise baffled that Robert Silverberg admitted to signing the offensive, early version of the petition, even while admitting that he didn't like what was in it.  How am I to take this man's judgment seriously?  I don't sign a loan contract if line 57 says "once a month, you will submit for experimental radiation tests to grow an alien tumor out of your rectum" and then say, "Well, but you're going to change that part, right?"  The petition isn't legally binding, obviously, but I still don't understand the defense.  Either you agree with it as it is, or you don't.  And if you don't...well, don't sign it.

I should also note that the original version of the petition is precisely the problem with this whole conversation:  here's the point <0>..............................................and here's them <X>.

They don't get it.  In case you missed that part.

3) The petition makes this strange claim that the Bulletin is becoming politicized (it's politically correct, oh noes), but I fail to see how removing things that have nothing to do with the theme of the Bulletin and intentionally making the content more inclusive is anything but apolitical.  The Bulletin isn't a place to voice your political opinions anyway, so why should it make any effort to become a sandbox for those opinions which piss off a huge portion of the electorate and the people who actually care about this field?  It doesn't cost anyone anything not to be a rude dick in a professional journal (and, yes, that's what this comes down to).  Why would you *need* to voice an opinion about gay marriage or whether you think some members are fascists when that's not the point of the Bulletin anyway?

This isn't about politics.  Well, OK, outside of the Bulletin, it's about politics on some level, though I'm inclined as a crazy liberal raised by a lesbian mother ninja to think that inclusiveness is apolitical in nature.  But the Bulletin isn't about politics.  That's not it's purpose.  That's not what SFWA's members want it to address.  So this is a non-issue.

4) I don't know Resnick and Malzberg.  I've said my share on last year's Bulletin fiasco already.  I will agree that some of the dialogue surrounding last year's events reaches too far.

However, I also understand the frustration.  For me, the issue with Resnick/Malzberg's column is no longer "there was sexism in there," which, in my mind, is fairly weak tea in comparison to, say Theodore Beale (Vox Day, who has since been removed from the SFWA), but rather the behavior demonstrated in that final column.  To receive a lot of criticism from a wide body of individuals and to simply discount it is one thing, but to then use a professional organization's professional publication to lob an attack on those people is callous at best, petty and horrendously unprofessional at worst.  This is not the kind of behavior one expects to find in the pages of a professional journal, nor is it the kind of thing I expect from two respected individuals in this field.

I think the sexism aspect is important, but what bothers me most, then and now, is the complete unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge that what we say and do has a real impact on other people, and that you should listen to those you've harmed so you can do better next time.  That, for me, is the root of all of the frustration.  It's not that there's soft sexism in the SFWA from time to time.  It's not that Resnick and Malzberg said some boneheaded things.  It's that they said them, were criticized for it, and showed not only that they didn't give a shit, but also that they had no respect for any differing opinions on the matter and would rather double down than give ground.  This is why these fights keep happening.  It's about, as I said the other day (see one of the links above), respect.  When it comes down to it, the respect a lot of people in this community are asking for costs us next to nothing to give.  It shouldn't be this hard to get or give it...

And on that note, I think I'll shut up now.

P.S.:  One last thing:  I realize this post is focused in one specific direction -- Resnick, Malzberg, Silverberg, etc.  On the subject of respect, etc., I think it is fair to say that there are lines that can be crossed on either side, and that some of those crossings on my side (or what I perceive to be my side) don't actually help further the discussion and can sometimes hinder what should otherwise be a simple movement towards respect.  I've thought a lot about this, but I've yet to put together a cogent argument about it.  Part of the reason I haven't has to do with my concern about tone arguments, which I can get to another time.

• "The Tiresome Fringe of SFWA:  the Gift That Keeps On Giving" by S.L. Huang (on why one should at least make an intelligent argument in favor of an opposite opinion)
• "an embarrassing stumble towards irrelevancy" from Crime and the Forces of Evil
• "(Mostly) Non-SF blogger endorses PC self-censorship of certain SFWA writers" by Larry from OF Blog of the Fallen (w/ a heavy side of snark)
• "You only hate boobs because you hate freedom" by Rachel Acks
• "Objectifying women is not a constitutional right" by Bennett North
• "The SFWA Shuffle:  Is It About Respect?" by Ferrett Steinmetz (on the rejection of seniority)
• Gary Farber on David Brin's "Adult" and "Terrorism" Comments
• "Oversight, Looking Under" by Andrew Barton (on how getting too close can sometimes bite you in the toosh)
• "Would You Like Some Tits With Your Guild" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• "POLITICAL CENSORSHIP:  A helpful guide to whether or not it's happening to you" by Sunny Moraine
• "Can We Please Not Rewrite History, Folks? (More on the SFWA Petition, and Links.)" by S.L. Huang
• "My Petition to an Organization I Don’t Actually Belong To" by Jim C. Hines
• Here's a comment from Ilona Gordon on institutional bias in the SFWA and why she won't join (on C.C. Finlay's FB page)
• Here's a timeline of last year's SFWA controversies by S.L. Huang
• "Editing and Censorship" by Elizabeth Barrette
• "19th Nervous Breakdown? 34th Kerfluffle? SFWA and the Petition" by Steve Davidson
• C.C. Finlay on the controversy and the difference between censorship and editing (FB)
• "Controversial e-mail inflames sexism debate in sci-fi community" by Aja Romano (The Daily Dot)
• "Ten Things About Petitions and Freedom of Speech" by John Scalzi

A couple things to let folks know about:

1) Remember when I said I would review or discuss every SF/F film released in 2010?  Well, the first post just went up, be because it's for a non-American film, it ended up on The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog:  "A (World) SFF Film Odyssey:  Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Anime's Excesses."  Do go check it out when you get a chance.

I'm also going to start working on a post about Monsters (2010), which I'm going to review here, even though it clearly has an international scope in terms of its secondary characters and setting.

After that, I'll probably watch one of the animated children's flicks that came out that year.  Maybe Megamind (2010).

I'm also not sure where I'm going to compile all of this.  Maybe I'll just use the original post as a depository.  What do you think?

2) The fundraiser to bring the World SF Tour and The Skiffy and Fanty Show to Worldcon has received $115 in donations so far.  That's a good start, but I still need a lot of support for this.  If you've got $10 to spare and/or a willingness to share the heck out of this thing, I'd really appreciate it.

Also:  since we're at $115, that means the first milestone was reached.  I'm working on getting the topic for the Encyclopedia Confictura entry now; that will hopefully be up this week!

And that's that.  What have you all been up to?

In a recent blog post, Alastair Reynolds took on what he perceives to be the instantaneous vitriol that peppers (or, perhaps, consumes) the SF/F community on a regular basis.  Hence the title:  "Does it have to be this way?"  It's essentially an argument for moderation by way of a questioning of the current state of discussion in this community, and it's an interesting question to ask.

Does it have to be this way?  No.  That's kind of the point.  Most of these discussions don't have to begin and end with vitriol, though I think some of them require a certain firmness and uncompromising language (some).  In fact, it's entirely reasonable to expect two people from different camps to have a reasonable discussion about a hot topic and come out having actually learned something (I do this on G+ all the time).  I've certainly been guilty of jumping without much care to where I land, and it's something that I've tried to rectify to avoid the trap of attack over substance (it's an ongoing process).  I'm certainly not successful on all counts, and it has taken some degree of effort to hone my pouncing instincts so I'm not pouncing when I should be doing something else.  Even then, I try to pick my battles with some degree of care.

I'm sympathetic, then, to Reynold's question and implied argument:  there is some need for, if not value in, moderating the community, especially in situations when the benefit of the doubt is actually necessary.  This is something I've started to consider further in my own case, as even I have had a tendency to leap into things, believing I'm in the right, when I may be doing more harm than good.  After all, it is possible I've misread situations, seeing what is obviously offensive to me, but missing what was the intention.  That's not to suggest that intention gets one out of doing something boneheaded, mind you, but I do think intention should be taken into account more often than it is within our community.  If our community did more of that, perhaps we'd have more dialogue between various groups.

For example, there's the response to Paul Kemp's original masculinity argument (which I sort of responded to here).  I think there are serious issues with what he claimed, particularly in the assumptions he raised and reinforced in order to get to his point, but I also went into that discussion realizing Kemp's intentions were not malignant.  I understood the point he was trying to make, and so I tried to address that point without actually dealing with the individual (in part because I've talked with Kemp in the past and can't see Kemp as deliberately "starting shit," though his most recent post on this subject has thrown me for a loop).  Even Alex MacFarlane's post on non-binary SF (which I responded to here) contains arguments I think are stretching; but the intention behind that post was, overall, a good one.  The responses to MacFarlane's post, however, have been, at least where the "opposition" is concerned, hardly measured.  In some cases, they have been downright mean and accusatory, as if their authors were personally offended by the content of MacFarlane's argument.  I'll admit that it's probably easy to find the patience for intention when it comes from someone with whom you're likely to already agree, but every time I read MacFarlane's post, I cannot fathom why some of the responses have been so vitriolic.

Except now.  Now, I'm starting to understand.  Now, I recognize part of the trend in so many ragefests in our community (from any side).  Sometimes moderation doesn't work because the parties involved have sacrificed respect for the other in the service of whatever point they want to make.  And in the face of that, it is impossible to take a moderate position (in the loosest sense -- discussion over attack) when the thing to which you are responding has already committed offense without consideration of its impact.  In Reynolds' post, for example, one commenter basically implied that they should be able to identify a transgender person by their biologically defined sex and attending gender without push back by others. Reynolds rightly called this person out for the comment, and it is still there as of the writing of this post.

These sorts of arguments are almost explicit in their rejection of empathy and respect for another individual.  The opinion isn't the concern; rather, it is the complete disinterest in the personal desires of the individual.  In this argument, it doesn't matter what a transgender person feels or prefers; what matters is what is "the majority opinion" or "whatever suits my personal opinion of the matter."  That's problematic on its own.  Yet, this same argument either implies or explicitly states that refusing the empathic or respectful position deserves absolute respect and compromise for itself.  It's an argument for consequence-free social action, which itself is a justification not for moderation, but the extreme.  Yet, when this is pointed out to people who reject en mass the entirety of gender as a fluid social construct, they refuse, even on grounds of empathy, to give way, and become further entrenched.  It is as if the very idea of a transgender person being offended by being ignored and rejected out of hand is an offense in and of itself.

For me, much of this comes down to the cost.  It is one thing to demand respect for a position which directly affects others in a negative sense.  If, for example, I were to demand respect for my position that we should boot all libertarians from the SFWA because I think they're fascist pig monkeys (note:  I do not actually believe this), you would be right in giving me no ground whatsoever, especially if you are a libertarian.  But what exactly is lost by calling someone by the gender they believe they are?  I mean that question seriously:  what is lost by compromising on this point?  It costs us nothing to say "well, you want me to use the female pronoun, so I shall do so."  It costs us nothing to acknowledge that individuals are different from ourselves and, in most cases, deserve respect on that front alone.

But it does cost us something to ignore our natural empathic responses and reduce people to our own personal representations.  It's a social cost, and one everyone has to pay when they screw up.  We all pay those costs, but the point of paying a cost for bad or harmful social action (generally speaking) is to learn from it.  Those who don't shouldn't be surprised if others feel disrespected by what they say.  And if they're not surprised, you have to wonder why they won't give even that little bit of ground when it costs them absolutely nothing.

Moderation, in other words, requires reasoned respect.

Folks on Twitter will have seen this already.  Over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog, I'm hosting a fundraiser to help bring the World SF Tour to Worldcon in London.  At last year's Worldcon, we interviewed quite a bunch of folks and released those episodes throughout 2013.  This year, we want to do the same thing, because London will contain a far more international audience, and I'd like to expand the reach of the tour as much as possible!

The fundraiser just started today.  You can support that fundraiser on this GoFundMe page.  As of this moment, we're nearly to the first milestone, which will mean a perk opens up.  And there are lots of other nifty S&F-related perks to become available as the donations rack up.  Other perks might be announced later.

If you're at all interested in World SF and want to see more content on S&F related to that theme, please support the fundraiser!

The link...in which Chuck Wendig says things I've been saying for a long long time about self-publishing, but with a lot more funny terms and a billion more readers.

As a sorta-reviewer, I've had to shut out almost all self-publishers and indie authors for precisely the reasons Wendig cites in his post.  And it's frustrating, because I know there are some lovely authors in that sea, but you can't honestly expect me to give up my time and energy reading mountains of legitimately crap books just to find the gems.  A while back, I got crapped on for suggesting this.  Now, I'm sure all the poop goodness is hanging out in Mr. Wendig's backyard.

Oh, and I seriously mean there are good SPed books out there.  I've read some of them.  I've even bought some in recent memory.  I just don't buy most of the SPed books out there for the same reason I don't subscribe to every blog I come across.

Anywhoodles.

You'll notice that I haven't joined in on the discussion about the Hugos this year.  Granted, there hasn't been nearly the level of intense debate as there was last year, though some folks have waded into the categories discussion, which has been going on for a while.  There's a pretty good reason why I've been mostly silent:  I don't have anything new to say.


If you recall, Justin Landon basically ruined the Internet last year when he posted about what he perceived as the problems with the Hugo Awards.  I still tend to agree with most of his points, even many of those we both raised in these episodes on The Skiffy and Fanty Show.  But I sort of also agree with Justin's later post on why the Hugos don't really need to change...mostly.  As it stands, Justin argued, the awards function within a particular paradigm, and to try to insert another paradigm within that may be the wrong course of action.  The Hugos aren't perfect as is; both of us have acknowledged that in one fashion or another.  I think there are some things that have to change about the award, but I'm also convinced that a lot of the things I want to change (category issues, etc.) may be resolved in time anyway.  Just...in time.  And in retrospect, I agree with Kevin Mudd's assertion that the Hugos function so slowly because they are democratic (well, I agree that the process is slow because it contains procedures that appear democratic, not that the Hugos are themselves democratic)(I may be misremembering Mudd's position because that was last year and it's now 2014).

But the thing is...I have nothing new to say about all of this.  I'm not angry this year.  I'm not irritated.  I'm indifferent.  Not to the Hugos as an idea, but rather to their operation or flaws.  I love the Hugos as an idea.  It's an important award.  I'd like to see it changed for the better in time, too.  But I'm also not interested in having the debate...again.  I don't see the point in saying what we've already said again.  If change is going to happen, it'll happen because people on the inside will create those changes or the people outside of it who want changes band together and use their vote to alter what appears on the ballots.

This is a debate that probably will continue for a while:  what do we do to keep the Hugos relevant?  Perhaps we can do what Landon suggested he might do -- start new awards, leaving the Hugos alone to do "their thing."  Or maybe we just have to accept that we have to be more proactive, not in trying to massively change it all in one fell swoop, but in a more measured approach, vote by vote, discussion by discussion.  But ultimately, I don't feel like the debate matters that much this year.  The repetition feels flat, wasted.  It feels like it pales in comparison to the very real insurgency within our community, the fracturing of communities (as Jonathan McCalmont suggests here), and so on.  Those are things we have to solve now so we can have a better "future" for later.

And that's why I'm not really talking about the Hugos like I was last year.  Instead, I'll talk about what I'm going to nominate, do my best to make it to Worldcon this year (more on that later), and generally enjoy what I can of this community.

The End.

And here they are:

1. The Vigilante in American Mythology (Brief Thoughts) #monthofjoy
2. Movie Review: Riddick (2013) (or, I'm Going to Mega Rant Now)
3. Guest Post: The Polarization of Genre Fiction by David Chandler
4. Movie Review Rant : Catching Fire (2013)
5. Silly Reader Questions: Super Powers, Magic, Bathrooms, and Poetry
6. Top 10 Most Ridiculous Moments in Science Fiction and Fantasy Film in the 90s
7. Self-Published Books vs. Literary Awards: In Response to Linda Nagata
8. Star Trek: a Worf TV Show? (Some Thoughts)
9. Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me
10. The Diversity Pledge: Crunching My Numbers for 2013

A while back, I changed my comments system to un-moderated w/o all the CAPTCHA and Google account requirements.  I did that as an experiment.  Overall, it's been a good one, as folks have been able to comment without much difficulty.  However, the spambots have become a little more persistent and "clever" in recent weeks, which means some spam comments are getting through the spam system.  This requires me to go into the comments area and manually mark them as spam (the email notifications only sometimes let me mark them as spam from there).

As such, I'm making a change to how I handle comments here.  As of now, all comments will be moderated.  CAPTCHA and other such requirements will remain off.

I can't imagine this will have any discernible impact here, as I tend to approve almost all messages anyway (unless you're super creepy or a jackass).  But this way, the spam will never get through.

Anywhoodles.

(Note:  comments will be monitored on this post due to the nature of the debate surrounding this topic.  I hope I won't have to remove anything, but I have a low tolerance for rude behavior right now.  If you can't make your point without being a jackass, even if that point agrees with my own, then take it elsewhere.)

You might have seen the response to Alex MacFarlane's Tor.com post, "Post-Binary Gender in SF:  Introduction."  If not, you can read about it Jim C. Hines and Justin Landon, who both have things to say of their own.  I'm not going to address content of the primary response to MacFarlane (well, not the whole of it, anyway) or offer a line-by-line critique a la Hines.  Rather, I want to talk about a specific issue within this debate:  message fiction.  I would also be remiss to neglect to mention my post entitled "Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me," which is amusingly relevant to the larger discussion being had in the community right now.


First, though I'm going to try to tease out the definition of message fiction in general by the end of this post, I should note that I'm not altogether clear on what certain individuals mean when they revile message fiction, except insofar as the politics are concerned.  Of the many references some in this debate have made to "the message", none of them properly defines the term and most engage with a strawman version of MacFarlan'es argument.  MacFarlane's column concerns the tendency to marginalize works which feature non-binary genders by exceptionalizing them.  Her primary example is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, which she says has been held up as the pinnacle of post-binary SF, while other equally important works have fallen away, such that we are constantly "re-discovering" them:

It seems to me that there’s a similar process for post-binary texts: they exist, but each reader must discover them anew amid a narrative that says they are unusual, they are rare, they sit outside the standard set of stories. This, at least, has been my experience. I want to dismantle the sediment—to not only talk about post-binary texts and bring them to attention of more readers, but to do away with the default narrative.

MacFarlane, in other words, is interested in this narrative, not quotas or checklists -- the narrative which says "these texts about non-binary genders are not normal precisely because they are unusual."  The problem with this narrative is in its ability to provide a rationale for ignorance, not on some political territory where these works must be ignored because they violate some central tenet of an "ism" -- though this is true to an extent -- but rather on the simple basis of cultural amnesia.  If we are not talking about works of a particular form, we are submitting to the possibility that those works will be forgotten, and along with them, the value they produce for the communities to which they might belong.  It is for this reason, I think, that she begins the post with the following:  "I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories" (emphasis mine).  The word "default" is not insignificant in the context of the entire post.[1]  The post isn't calling for fiction to deliberately include non-binary genders for the sake of doing so (i.e., for an agenda); rather, it calls for SF/F to remove the default assumptions about gender in order to open up wider possibilities for inclusion (who does the including isn't exactly relevant, since nobody has to do anything here).  I think this is a far too lofty goal, and deeply hyperbolic, but it seems like some have missed that careful nuance for one reason or another.  The idea that all SF/F must, by necessity, court the content of MacFarlane's argument isn't a notion supported by the argument itself. 

In all of this, the question for me becomes:  do the works MacFarlane wishes to discuss in this series deserve to be remembered?  Personally, I think they do for various reasons, though the most relevant here, I think, is the fact that these works, even in their most obscure forms, are an example of SF/F's remarkable imaginative, extrapolative, and critical potential.  And that potential is not isolated to "stuffy" works; rather, it is found in a whole sea of exceptional and memorable texts from before the codification of the genres to the present.  This is what SF/F does best!  Most of the time, it's a lot of fun (in my entirely subjective opinion).

All of this brings me back to the point about "message fiction."  The entirety of discussion about this topic concerns a term which has no defined criteria by which we can discern message fiction from just fiction.  The only criteria, as far as I can tell, is that message fiction isn't fun, but since "fun" is entirely subjective, it's impossible to apply that in any significant way.  Some who attack message fiction provide an explanation for one of message fiction's functions, which is to subvert the natural drive of a narrative by bogging down the whole with an agenda, but the best explanation on offer boils down to "here are some works which have messages."  Even upon a deeper search into certain individuals' posts revealed little useful material for understanding, at the very least, how they define the term.  There are numerous claims about liberals taking over Worldcon, making it impossible for conservative message stories (or books by conservatives, by extension) to appear on the ballots[3] and people avoiding SF because of messages.  At what point does fiction with political issues in them become "preachy" or "message-y"?  No idea.  The argument is never made; we're simply supposed to accept it as accurate on the basis of someone's word, which you'll notice is quite difficult when so much of the discussion centers around political affiliations (liberals this, liberals that).  The claims are weirdly paranoid, like the Illuminati itself has taken over SF and only these folks have figured it out.  If you replaced every iteration of "liberal" with "human-skin-wearing lizard people," it would surely bring its own kind of entertainment.  Perhaps this is what one means by "the message"?[4]  At best, the term has a nebulous casing, with possible good and bad examples of "message fiction," but no clear sense for how they connect or disconnect from one another.

In the end, I was left with a question:  what is message fiction and why is non-binary SF/F naturally lumped within its borders?  Strangely, the post that (sort of) helped me most had nothing to do with the original conversation behind all of this or any specific discussion in SF/F:  Mike Duran's 2011 post entitled "The Problem with 'Message-Driven' Fiction."[6]  Duran's post concerns Christian publishing and the divided camps within it:  those who subscribe to nuance and subtlety and those who believe Christian literature should be driven by a specific message.  What it comes down to is agenda or intent.  Duran argues that many Christian writers believe fiction's purpose is to send along a specifically Christian message (presumably it's a more fundamentalist message, but it's not strictly relevant to Duran, and neither is it for me in this instance).  In the process of supporting this argument, he wonders, as do I, when writing a theme, idea, concept, and so on becomes an actual problem (i.e., a message in the form of fiction rather than a fiction with a message):

When an author’s “message” subjugates the story, co-opts characters for the purpose of delivering that message, and uses the novel as a platform for that message, at that point something’s out of whack.

Duran provides a specific example to support his claim:  the Christian view of hope.  Granted, it's a softball choice, since "hope" is hardly the sort of thing to spark debates, but if you translate "hope" to any other value that is associated with Christianity (good or bad), you can get the idea.  In Duran's view, Christian fiction in its rigid, monolithic form focuses on the message at the expense of the narrative, such that the fiction itself is tangential to the message:  if you pull the story and world away, the message would remain intact.  But like others, he doesn't provide all of the necessary criteria to concretize the concept. As I've already said, it, at best, comes down to intent:  message fiction serves a purpose that is clearly defined by the creator and which is meant to foist individual values through a fictional medium to the public; in so doing, the narrative ceases to matter, except to conclude or complete the image of the message.  In the case of Christian fiction, this seems to serve two clear purposes:  1) to represent the narrow interests of a specific religious affiliation, and 2) to reinforce values for those who already agree with the message, which Duran notes may explain why many Christian authors don't see an issue with jamming messages into the work to fulfill the dictates of an agenda.

Though I think this post helped me grasp the mechanisms of message fiction, Duran's post still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.  For one, his post concerns Christian fiction, which has its own thematic milieu and agendas, many of which do not translate into other arenas; how might these same ideas apply to other formats?  Duran is, at least, careful not to say that all messages are inherently bad, just that focusing primarily on message is detrimental overall because it limits perspective (for the writer and the reader).  But, again, the criteria remain fuzzy.  And by this point, all I've got is intent and "not fun."  Neither of those are particularly useful.[7][8]

Regardless, I'd like to take a moment to talk about one of the key questions I raised in the title:  why does non-binary SF/F automatically fall into the domain of message fiction?  As far as I can tell, the rationale is political.  Because those who typically discuss non-traditional genders are overwhelmingly liberal, the desire to include such things in SF/F can only be read as "a message."  But since "message fiction" is neither concrete nor particularly useful for assessing anything, especially since one cannot escape messages and produce "pure fiction," the political demarcation seems absurdly partisan.  These things are liberal ideas; therefore, their inclusion is bad.  What seems apparent to me is the way "message fiction" is used within certain communities:  as a method for dismissing fiction on the basis of its content, but with the added bonus of making a political statement.  It's an attempt at the apolitical or non-political which is itself political.

There is also the more disturbing matter, which goes to the heart of MacFarlane's post:  for reasons I don't quite understand, inclusion in and of itself is not necessarily "message fiction," but calling for that inclusion is.  Some have essentially argued this point without a hint of irony; it seems suspect that the overwhelming response from one side of this debate (one which I won't attribute to a universal political subject) is along these lines.  It's fine if an author puts some transgender characters in a book all on their own, but to challenge the fact that such characters are almost never seen and to argue that this should be rectified is suddenly a problem.  Since MacFarlane's post is a challenge to the default (i.e., these are the two genders deserving of representation), it should go without saying that the intent is not to arbitrarily insert characters as challenges (i.e., to make a point on this issue), but rather to open the gates so inclusion is no longer seen as an issue.  It's about normalizing what isn't perceive as normal, even though it is.[9]  Part of the project demands giving attention to works which have already done this.  But the other part of that project means opening the discussion to the issue of gender at large to rectify what is the marginalization by the dominant cultural narrative of binaries.  The fact that male/female is perceived as the default is the real problem.  And if that isn't the message so many writers are sending the people who read their work when they refuse to represent non-binary genders or treat those genders poorly, then neither is the desire for inclusion.

On a final note, I'd also like to point to a recent post by S.L. Huang, who argues against the politicizing of existence:

People with non-binary genders aren’t an agenda. They exist. They’re reality. Same with people of nonwhite races and non-Western ethnicities and queer orientations. I don’t consider my existence to be part of some “liberal agenda”—in fact, my personal political ideology might be considered quite conservative in many respects, but my existence is neither conservative nor liberal.  And neither is anyone else’s. (emphasis theirs)

And on that note, I leave it to the Internet.


[1]:  It's possible this argument is nuanced further in the comments somewhere, but I am concerned primarily with the rhetoric of MacFarlane's original post.

[2]:  Very little of the arguments against MacFarlane seem to have anything to do with the content of her; the point seems to be to construct an annoying strawman (in both senses here) so one can easily topple it, but in doing so, they miss the actual argument.  The phrase "man screaming at the clouds" has been thrown around already.  In this case, I don't think the image is inaccurate.

[3]:  Global warming, racism, sexism, etc. has also been defined as definitely liberal concerns, which I find offensive not because I'm a conservative, but because this binary seems utterly facile.  Presumably, one can find conservatives who agree with some of the above these issues, or are such people merely RHINOs (I suppose CHINO would make more sense, but WTF is a CHINO anyway)?

[4]:  I'd also like to note that some have routinely claimed that message fiction is the direct result of lower sales in SF/F.  I can't find the statistical evidence for the conclusion, as anecdotes (readers say X, for example) seems to be the foundation of the claim.  It's a matter of causality vs. correlation.  There might be a correlation, assuming one can define message fiction in any stable sense, but proving a causal link requires considerably more rigor.

[5]:  One of commenters in this debate (who is also an author) has written a post trying to elucidate the "problem," but since this individual finds it appropriate to joke about the mass extermination of people based on political affiliation (har har har), I'm just going to ignore them from here on out.  And before anyone says "well, liberals do that to," you can take a giant Fuck Off pill.  I don't care if some liberals do the same thing.  One person's bad behavior is not a valid reason to do the same thing yourself.  Anyone who does this is a jackass.

[6]:  Duran has the benefit of having written a post specifically about the issue at hand, which means I don't have to piece together references from multiple blog posts and hundreds of comments.

[7]:  At this point, I hope it's clear that I'm not looking for subjective standards of review.  If there is such a thing as "message fiction," the criteria should be specific and clear enough that just about anyone can assess whether a work of fiction falls within the category.  Objectivity vs. subjectivity.

[8]:  I have to tell my students to ignore intent when it comes literary works, since it is often difficult to find out what people actually meant to do when they wrote something.  Even if the intent is clear, the work itself may not provide an accurate reflection of that intent.  Short of extremely obvious examples (Oliver Bolokitten's "A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord 18--," perhaps), it's just not a feasible criterion.

(Bolokitten was the pseudonym for Jerome B. Holgate; he wrote the story as a screed against abolitionists and then self-published it.  It's a hilarious work, to be honest, but only because we live in 2014.  I suspect it was horrendously offensive in its day...to some.)

[9]:  There's nothing inherently abnormal about the various genders, though I'll admit that I'm not an expert in the field.

What is it?
The SFF Film Odyssey (2010 edition) is the result of a twitter conversation I had last year, in which I remarked that it would be super cool if I could figure out a way to review every SF/F movie released since 2000 in one year.  Unfortunately, that's nearly 1,000 films, and I have three jobs...so clearly that's impossible.  Instead, throughout 2014, I will watch and review every science fiction and fantasy film released in 2010!  A more reasonable goal, and one that will give me a reason to go through the years of SF/F film one at a time!

What will it entail?
Reviews, discussions, and rants about SF/F movies from 2010.  I'm keeping away from a single format for these posts in order to add some variation, which will hopefully keep readers interested...and me.

A couple caveats:

1. Films that do not have English subtitles or dubs (where relevant) will be removed (I don't think this will matter, but just in case).
2. Films released straight to DVD do not apply, nor do films which appeared on television, but not in theaters.
3. Films which are sequels will be replaced by the first film in the series (there are only a handful in the list right now).  If I have time, I'll review an entire series.
4. I am sure to miss some films, as my list currently consists of what can be found here and here.  There are roughly 63 films there, but if you know of any others that should be considered, leave a comment here or send an email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com
5. Films which are not American in origin will be discussed on The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog, which is currently on a World SF Tour.

I'm late to the party.  The first major SF/F controversy party.  And while this post won't be about Kemp's argument specifically, it does come out of the discussions about his post -- most particularly the criticisms.[1]

Part of the problem I have with traditional gender roles is the way they assume what manhood (or womanhood) is based on behaviors which are definitively not gendered.  There's nothing explicitly masculine about aggression or nobility.  There's nothing explicitly feminine about child rearing, except insofar as it is currently required for women to be the carriers of unborn children.  Gender essentalism, however, assumes there are definitely gendered behaviors, such that chivalry is read as "male/masculine" and cowardice is read as "female/feminine."  If this association sounds negative, that's because the construction of male/female or masculine/feminine is frequently a negative.  These associations are also oriented around agency, where masculine behaviors are active and feminine behaviors are passive.  There are all manner of gendered constructions, and each is based on arbitrary, culturally-determined factors.

The impact of gender essentialism in this particular context is often unintended, but, by the nature of a culture's ability to transmit its behavioral modes, it is also pervasive.  We are all coded by our
gender without ever having a say in the matter.  My culture tells me I should behave in certain ways because that is what men do; it tells me there is a true form of manhood; and it tells me that I am deviant, even in an innocuous sense, if I do not conform to these standards.  It's that absence of agency which should make all of us pause.  In effect, I am, as Louis Althusser might argue, interpellated by/into my culture's gender paradigms as it codes my identify for me and I, as all children do, react by internalizing these values.[2]  As I grew older, it became clear how pervasive and abusive these standards and values were.  When I was told as a young man that I was not masculine (i.e., male enough) because I did not engage in feats of strength, it was implied that I must acquire that masculine behavior to properly assert my manhood.  If I wasn't into sports, I was naturally feminine.  If I shared my emotions, I was more woman than man.  In other words, my youth was a process of cultural assault, by which my behaviors had to be coded along gender lines, interpreted, and then rejected if they did not conform to the norm.  This is not exactly a unique experience, either, though my examples above are certainly reductive.

Women are told all manner of similar things, too, so I imagine I'm not wrong in asserting that the psychological impact of gender essentialism is rarely positive for any gender.  It reinforces gender roles as fixed, when in fact they are anything but, and it shames those who do not conform by implicitly stripping them of their gender and assigning a new one.  Thus, women who are aggressive are "manly."  A great genre example is Grace Jones' performance of Zula in Conan the Destroyer (1984).

Here, we're presented with a woman who is every bit as aggressive and noble (or not) as Conan (Schwarzenegger).  She wields spears and screams warcries as she cuts into enemies.  She doesn't shy from battle or give in to injury or the intimacy of others.[3]  But she is definitively a woman, and expresses that behavior in ways particular to herself, not to her gender.[4]  That she is the female opposite of Conan is not insignificant:  she isn't an enigma, but the embodiment of an anti-essentialist stance on gender (incomplete though that stance may be).  Women can be warriors without becoming "men."  Women can be brutal and limited in their emotional expression without sacrificing their gender association.

In other words, this idea that there are "gendered behaviors" in any pure or stable sense should seem absurd to all of us.  We can easily point to examples whereat someone behaves contrary to their assigned gender, and yet in doing so, they do not cease to be whatever gender they so choose.[5]  That's the point I think more of us need to grasp in the SF/F/H community.  If you want to write characters who behave like chivalrous knights, then do so.  But there's no reason to assume those characters must be male, or that their behaviors are masculine by nature.  We can do without thinking in those terms.  We'd certainly be better without it...


[1]:  Based on my interactions with Mr. Kemp, I think I am correct in saying that his post was ill-considered in certain respects.  I understand what he is trying to say, but his methods for making that point were unintentionally sexist.  Instead of saying "I like writing masculine stories because men," he might have said "I like writing stories that feature these virtues and behaviors."  He might even have said he is most comfortable writing men, which is hardly an offense in my opinion.  I, for example, am only semi-comfortable writing men, which might explain why many of my protagonists (in written, not published fiction) are women (or sometimes something other than straight white guys); whether my writing is good is a whole different question.  In any case, it's the fact that his post reinforces traditional gender roles and applies certain virtuous actions specifically to male behavior which poses the problem for most.

[2]:  This is a horrible reduction of Althusser's work.  I hope you'll forgive me.

[3]:  In all fairness, she is perhaps naturally distrustful of others because she is treated quite poorly by the people of her world.  I wish she had appeared in more Conan films, though.  Zula is such a fascinating character, and easily one of my favorites.

[4]:  I should note that Zula was actually a man in the comic books.  She may not be the best example to make my point, but I love her, so I'm sticking to it...

[5]:  I realize that there is some slipperiness in the terminology here.  I am absolutely not talking about biological sex in the main, but gender as an assignment of identity.  I just don't buy into the idea that there are behaviors that are gender coded outside of those particular to one's sex.  Obviously, these gender assignments are based on sex to some degree in our culture.

I'm a little late to the party, but Linda Nagata kindly rebutted my original post on the logistical issues of literary awards as a rationale for the rejection of self-published books from the consideration lists.  Here, I'd like to respond to some of her arguments.

The way I see it, there are two main purposes to a literary award: (1) to bring attention to specific books and authors, and by so doing (2) to shape the genre. Whether (1) & (2) come to pass or not, neither purpose is harmed or diminished by consideration of a self-published work.

This may be an issue of wording, but I don't consider these two components as the purposes of literary awards.  While the "shaping the genre" is certainly an effect of an award, to some extent, it is also a somewhat ambitious concept to apply to an extremely focused practice, particularly since "shaping," as I see it, is organic rather than artificial.  We shape the genre by our reading choices and what we talk about as a community, not by recognizing works as "good" by a set of disparate, cross-purpose standards -- as all awards invariably are.  Awards certainly cross over with the trend-setters and shaping works, but I find it hard to imagine the genre shaped purposefully by awards as opposed to by side effect.  This is particularly true of populist awards, which certainly suggest some potential for shaping, but which themselves are fickle, shifting, and disparate in form.  What the public likes one year will not match what they like the next, and in the long course of time, what they liked in 1987 may have been forgotten in 2007.  Curated awards suffer from a separate issue, which I'd simply call the limits of critical focus.  (This is a somewhat truncated explanation, so I hope the reader will forgive me here.)

The first of Nagata's points is, of course, related.  For me, awards are not there to bring attention to works, but rather to recognize works that fit within a certain paradigm based on that paradigm's criteria.  This is where the wording comes in, as I see something different between "recognizing" and "bring attention to."  The first denotes the idea that this work deserves attention because it meets certain criteria, while the second seems to have a more directed shaping effect -- i.e., here's a work you should talk about.  Recognition, however, is about achievement.  In curated awards, it's an acknowledgement that your work successfully fulfilled the award's criteria, and is thus noteworthy.  In populist awards, it's the public's acknowledgement of the same, but with less stringent and often impossibly variable standards.

I suspect Nagata and I don't actually disagree here, though.  Basically, I see the literary award as contingent upon its established criteria, however nebulous, and the process of applying that criteria necessarily specifies texts and author.  For example, the Nebulas only recognize science fiction and fantasy works from authors who are members of the SFWA; from there, the awards themselves only recognize what that small community determines is "the best," which itself isn't a hard set criteria we can accurately describe, since it is entirely subjective.  As such, narrowing by publication method is just another set of arbitrary criteria.

The other thing I should mention here concerns the idea that the awards we have in our community are naturally open to SPed works.  While it is true that most (or all) of the awards are open to SPed works based on its given criteria for selection, there are few examples of such works appearing on lists from authors who themselves have not at one point, especially recently, had their work published traditionally.  This distinction may seem trivial, but I think it is important to recognize how our community applies validity to a given work.  In many respects, our community still does not look highly upon authors who have been published primarily on their own; it is far more forgiving when that author has a traditional publishing career either before or after the publication of an SPed work.  That's something we'll see change in the future -- possibly when SFWA raises its pro payment rate for magazines to $0.25/word (ha) -- but probably not after some form of mass culling or shift within self-publishing.

On that last sentence, I'd like to expand something I'd said before on the nature of the SPed world.  Nagata doesn't address at length my contention about the quality of SPed works (not that she needed to, mind), but she does say the following:  "[That SPed works are more commonly bad in comparison to TPed works] is still a common assumption, so credibility is extremely important for a writer who chooses to publish her own work."  I concur that recognition via an award is certainly good for any author, particularly since, as Nagata discusses briefly in her post, awards can have a measurable impact on one's career.  However, Nagata's track record is one that is fairly unique in the SP world.  In comparison to the sea of SPers, most of them are not also traditionally published and award winners.  Nagata, as it turns out, has won awards in the past -- the Locus for best first novel[2] (The Bohr Maker) and the Nebula for best novella (Goddesses)(woot) -- and she has most certainly had a decent career as a traditionally published writer of short and long fiction, though of late she has been primarily of the other stripe.  I don't bring this up to discount her argument, nor to poke mean fingers at her career or anything (a considerably one, actually), but rather to point out that while she has made a value judgment on the matter of SPing, one which has led her to self-publish her work (good work, mind), she has also seen things from the other side.  She has taken a unique pathway, and one even more unique based on the shape of her career.

In other words, Nagata has a track record.  Previous fans of her work, and new fans, can look back at what she has published before in various places and say "well, look at that, she's got all this going for her."  As a reader, I can assess her career and her previous work and limit my concerns that I might waste my money on a really shitty book.  This isn't a promise, of course, but I see the purchase of entertainment products as a sort of low-level form of gambling.  This is something that, as I only briefly suggested in the last essay, I can also apply to an established traditional publisher like Tor.  Sure, I've read some Tor books I really didn't like.  But I've also read some incredible books from them, so a debut author with Tor is likely to get my attention simply on the basis of being with Tor.  That's not unlike why I would give Nagata attention (and why I said:  she SPed The Red:  First Light, but we interviewed her because she's Linda friggin Nagata).  It just makes it easier on me.  I don't have to think twice.  And I imagine a lot of readers who don't appreciate the SP world are like me, though probably less so than I imagine.  It's an experiential apprehension, if you will.

And that's the real problem for me:  quality and effective consumer evaluation.  There are certainly a lot of great things going on in the SPed world.  I've read some amazing SPed books, mostly by chance or word of mouth, but the field is so overwhelmed with people hoping they'll be the next super rich SPer that it becomes nearly impossible to survey the field in any meaningful sense.  I can't effectively make those consumer evaluations because assessing the quality of a given work becomes nearly impossible.  What is this author's track record?  I don't know, because this is their first book.  How do I know they got their book edited?  I don't.  How do I know the words inside are better than the cheap cover on the outside?  I don't.  How do I know they treated the writing process like a professional?  I don't.  The gambles pile gets larger and larger...

In any case, that's the last I'll say on that (for now).


[1]:  correction:  all works are considered; the voting/nominations are specific to SFWA members -- thanks to Linda Nagata.
[2]:  this originally said "best novel," which is incorrect; thanks to Linda Nagata for the correction.

As I write this sentence, Catching Fire (2013), the sequel to The Hunger Games (2012), is encroaching upon the $700mil box office mark.  It's a huge film, and there are a lot of things to love about it.

Before I get to my rant/review, here are a couple quick notes:

1. I hadn't read the book when I saw the movie, so the reactions below will jump back and forth between placing the film in relation to the book and treating the film on its own terms.
2. There are spoilers.
3. Nothing is in any sort of order here.  Like my post on Riddick (2013), I'll cover everything I feel like talking about as they come to me.
4. I've discussed some of these things in the Shoot the WISB episode on Catching Fire over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show.

The World and POV Shifts
In the first film, there were a handful of cuts away from the central action to the characters involved behind the scenes:  the gamekeepers, the president, Haymitch, the folks at home, etc.  These served to give us a sense of the world in which these games are a centerpiece.  The problem with The Hunger Games was its inability to rationalize the system of oppression that made the games possible.  There were certainly attempts, but in the end you either had to accept the status quo or give up any possibility of immersion.

Catching Fire does a decent job rectifying this problem.  For one, it centralizes President Snow as the actual and real villain.  In the first film, the Capitol and the other players in the game were all potential villains, but here, Snow is never anything but.  From his first interactions with Katniss to the cut scenes showing him planning her torture and eventual defeat, Snow is the adversary the film has always needed:  he's the face of all that is wrong with the Capitol.  For me, Snow provided the rationalization for the world that I needed.  His interest in oppression is partly about power, but it is also about his own myths about what revolution entails, such that preserving those myths and power structures becomes more important than considering the implications of one's actions.  Snow, as such, continues to exert his authority -- a largely dictatorial and malignant one -- to preserve the system and to make sure nobody has the means or the will to challenge it.  The Hunger Games are simply a means to an end:  they're a reminder of the past and a reminder of the power Snow/the Capitol wields.

A lot of the scenes that best express Snow's justifications for his brutality are in his interactions with his granddaughter, who appears to become entranced by the symbolic rebellion of Katniss.  Presumably, she doesn't understand what is happening in Panem, but the threat is there for Snow nonetheless:  if his own family can be turned against him, his ability to maintain order will be permanently compromised.  It's a nice touch, as it would be too easy just to make Snow a vile, disgusting bag of skin, as he appears to be in the books.  Here, there are little hints of humanity in play, and so he becomes even more horrifying as a villain the more we realize how human he really is.
Likewise, the POV shifts are generally a good thing.  They give us an impression of the world, its logic, etc.  They also show us things we otherwise don't get to see in the book, which helps the film avoid the problem of having no viable method to display Katniss' internal struggles.  The problem with these shifts, however, is in their unnecessary ability to trick us as viewers, which I'll get into in the next section.

WANTED:  Clues That Logically Lead to X
There are two main issues with the structure of the film.  The second of these I'll discuss in the section below on endings; the first I'll cover here.

One of the new central characters is gamekeeper Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  At the end of Catching Fire, it is revealed to us that he, Haymitch, and several of the tributes have been conspiring to extricate Katniss from the games so she can remain the symbol for the upcoming revolution.  But unlike the book, which leaves a great number of clues as to Plutarch's true allegiances, the film simply discards most of those clues for a shocking reveal.  This works in the book for one reason:  we're in Katniss' head the whole time.  But the book gives us plenty of clues.  It makes it clear that there's something fishy going on, even if Katniss hasn't quite figured it out yet.  The shock in the book, as such, is measured by revelation:  so that's what all those clues are about.

In the film, most of those clues are gone.  For all intents and purposes, we're supposed to believe Plutarch is just like everyone else in the Capitol, albeit perhaps more macabre than the average flashy Capitol-ite.  But almost every scene involving Plutarch doesn't give us the impression that he's actually one of the good guys, as he spends most of his time trying to convince President Snow that X method is the best way to destroy Katniss as person and revolutionary image.  His ideas are, in retrospect, not terribly good, but they are, in the moment, convincing in their brutality.  The shocking reveal, however, doesn't have the benefit of proper foreshadowing or retrospective revelation, despite a good chunk of the film taking place outside of Katniss' perspective.  And without that benefit, Plutarch's apparent heroism is incomprehensible as a consequence of the plot, and, thus, neutered.  Were we supposed to hate Plutarch in the end as Katniss does, or find something redeemable in him?

Thankfully, this issue doesn't affect the allied tributes.  There are enough moments where Finnick and Johanna hint that something else is going on, giving Katniss and the audience a moment to consider what that something might be.  If only the same had been true of Plutarch.

Jennifer Lawrence Rocks
To say that Lawrence delivers a superb performance in this film is really just an attempt to say something we already know.  She's an exceptional actress, and she brings a great deal of emotional diversity to her reprised role.  That's no small feat when you consider that she doesn't have the benefit of internal monologue, which means we never get a clear sense of what is going on in the character's head (something the book gives us in droves); she has to show us.
Though I obviously have opinions on the ending, I also think the final shot (a closeup of Lawrence's face) is one of the more sure examples of the toll this world has had on the character of Katniss.  You can see the different emotions rolling through her face; she begins as visibly saddened, weaving swiftly through the stages of grief, until finally her sadness morphs into contempt and anger.  Then the film cuts out.  If the ending itself were actually about Katniss' emotional shift, it could have ended on this scene without issue.  This is what we've been waiting for, after all:  Katniss is going to war.

But I'll get to a discussion of the ending later.  Here, I'm concerned with Lawrence.  And she's exceptional.  Frankly, Lawrence really carries this movie, which makes the nearly $700mil box office tag all the more exciting.  Perhaps we'll see more films with female action leads in the near future.  Big films with lots of attitude.

Women
If you've seen The Hunger Games, then you have a good sense of the main characters here.  Regardless, I think it is worth noting that, unlike other female protagonists or sidekicks in so many films of any genre, the female characters here are fascinating, even if they are only on screen for a short period of time.  Some of those characters are also quite complex, revealing their layers over time.
From the aggressive, "don't give two shits" Johanna to the deceptively mindless and emotionally removed Effie to the reluctant but capable hero in Katniss, this film gives us a lot to work with when it comes to its female characters.  There's also the rather motherly Mags, who doesn't actually get to say anything in this film; yet, her bravery and kindness in action define her in ways that I think are quite significant in relation to the other characters.  Her relationship with the rude and lecherous Finnick, for example, provides a human dimension to her fellow male tribute, such that we're able to put trust in someone we previously thought would seek to harm our original heroes.  Though I wish we could have received more from Mags, I still loved her as one of many quite different women in this film.

(And, yes, it passes the Bechdel test, too, as female characters frequently discuss things that don't have anything to do with a boy; when they do talk about boys, it is frequently not about romantic entanglements, but salvation and violence.)
All of this led me to remark the some nights ago that it would be awesome if someone would make an Expendables-style film with an almost exclusive female action star cast.  That film is coming.

The point is this:  whatever flaws the film may have, it is a film where women are prominent players in a good portion of the action.  This is not to suggest that it is a perfect portrayal, but success shouldn't be judged by the absurd standard of perfection anyway.

PTSD Lite
I didn't honestly expect the creators of this film to actually address what seemed quite obvious to me after the first film:  these kids are going to be fucked up.  But they did.  Personally, I think they might have done more with the PTSD subplot, as a few bad dreams really doesn't cover it, but it was clear after twenty minutes of film that this was never going to be about the ramifications of the Hunger Games in the personal lives of the victors.  I think that's unfortunate, as actually addressing this issue with some emotional depth would lend credibility to the world.

Still, for a film meant, oddly enough, for younger crowds, it is rather poignant to address the consequences of violent confrontation, especially since we live in a time of sort-of-not-really-over-war.  If it had done so with greater focus, such as was done in Iron Man 3 (differently, of course), it might have added depth to Katniss' character and provided a more cogent rational for her initial refusal to get involved in the ensuing rebellion.  This is something that the book handles well due to the strict focus on Katniss' POV.  One scene in particular involves Peeta's post-games "talent," which all victors are basically required to share with the Capitol.  In Peeta's case, he paints, but his paintings are all from his nightmares of the games, which Katniss initially finds horrifying; soon, however, she recognizes their value:  they are a cathartic release for Peeta.  His greater sensitivity to the pressures of violence are partly responsible for leading Katniss and Haymitch to the conclusion that they must save Peeta -- granted, they also want to save him because he possesses a particular charm that might be useful later (Katniss recognizes that revolution is coming and that she will be a part of it quite early in the novel) and because, well, he's just "good."  Such a scene could have given the characters a moment to discuss their troubles, and it would likely have helped solidify the friendship that begins to develop in this film.
Endings
This film lacks an ending.  It just...ends.  While I appreciated the idea of Katniss destroying the arena and even the idea that this final act of rebellion within the terms of the capital would lead inexorably to an actual revolution, I still could not help finding the cliffhanger "look, the revolution has come" ending ineffective.  For one, it comes out of nowhere.  Katniss wakes up in a hovercraft to find that Plutarch, Haymitch, and Finnick have been conspiring to start a rebellion using her as a figurehead; she flips out, wakes up in a room with Gale looking over her, and we're told "hey, the revolution has come, District 12 ain't there no more, and...yeah...good times."  That's where it ends.

For me, all middle films have to leave some questions unanswered, but not the questions most pertinent to the film in question.  The conclusion to The Empire Strikes Back is anything but complete in the larger scheme:  Han has been kidnapped; Luke has failed to defeat Darth Vader; the rebels have gotten their asses handed to them; and there's a lot left to be done.  Empire, however, is complete in terms of its self-contained plot:  all of those things I just mentioned were conclusions to events specific to this film.  But unlike Empire, Catching Fire never defines the terms of the next engagement, nor does it conclude all of its self-contained plot elements.  It drops us in a moment which is decontextualized and abstract.  Revolution has come, but we don't really know what that means, particularly if we're to accept the fact that District 12 has been wiped off the map in a matter of days (at most).  There is no explanation for the absence of many of the characters -- presumably, most of them are dead, but it's never an issue that gets discussed in any depth.  All we're told is:  the revolution has started.
It's that absence of a denouement which makes this a weaker film than the first.  Like Matrix Reloaded, we're thrust into an entirely different world, but not one which has a basis or development out of something else.  Part of the problem, I think, is the structure of the other parts of the film; if the end result is the beginning of a revolution, it seems to me that the film needs to more accurately foreshadow this moment so the shocking revelation for Katniss need not be so shocking for us.  Shock is cheap.  It works once, but after you've seen it a few times, it loses its value.   But being able to piece together the clues in a concrete fashion adds something to the game.  We don't have that here.  There are breadcrumbs, sure, but their meaning doesn't naturally end with "revolution."

Conclusions
Overall, I enjoyed the film.  I thought it was stronger than the first until the end, and I appreciated the clearer villains and attempts to rationalize the world, even if this whole system still doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  The biggest flaw for me, obviously, was the ending.  I particularly despise middle films that end on cliffhangers, which might explain why I initially despised the second Matrix film.  All films must end in some capacity, even if their unanswered questions will be continued elsewhere.  Still, if you haven't seen it, you should do so before it leaves theaters for good.  Doing so supports an otherwise solid franchise and the possibility of more strong female leads like Katniss Everdeen -- plus, it's a glowing endorsement of Jennifer Lawrence, who I adore.

So that's what I have to say on that.  For now...


Directing: 4/5
Cast:  4.5/5
Writing:  3/5
Visuals:  4/5
Adaptation: 3.5/5
Overall:  3.8/5 (76%)
Inflated Grade:  B (for solid acting, a stronger narrative thrust than the previous film, solid visuals, and suspense)
Value:  $9.00 (base on $10.50 max)