Orson Scott Card, Anti-Gay Author, Responds To 'Ender's Game' Boycott Campaign

[Berkut]

Yet another example of how thinly held most people's actual "belief" in the importance of liberty and freedom actually is when it comes right down to it.

Anyone who can claim that attempting to censor art if anyone involved in the production believes and supports things they don't like is ok doesn't understand the concept of liberty at all.

A boycott isn't really censoring though.

Of course it is - it isn't active censorship by the government of course (which would clearly be illegal), but it is most certainly an attempt to silence those who have divergent viewpoints by punishing completely unrelated business activities based on those viewpoints. The goal is to make the point that associating with people who hold anti-gay rights views will have an economic cost that makes it not worth it.

This is no different, as garbon said, to someone saying they have the right to not watch a movie written by a Jew, or a black guy, or starring someone who is gay or whatever, and they would like others to do the same, so that movie makers will quit trying to make movies written by Jews.

It isn't illegal censorship of course, but it is certainly censorship.

The irony that some parts of the gay community are engaging in activity that is identical to that which they fought so hard against is almost funny, if it wasn't so depressing.

I dunno man - I tend to avoid watching supporting Michael Moore's stuff because I strongly disagree with his politics.  I don't think of that as censorship...

Huge difference though - you don't watch his stuff because the content of his stuff is all about his politics. So what he has to say is in and of itself part and parcel to what he is selling.


That isn't censorship at all, that is just being a consumer, and deciding what you like and do not like.


Note that of course someone could find Card so objectionable that they cannot possibly enjoy his movies, and hence don't want to go see them. But I kind of doubt that is the case here - most people would not even be aware that Card is anti-gay rights except that they've been told it was the case by the same people making the political statements demanding the boycott.


And even if that was the case, that would be a private, individual stance, and shouting about it would be completely unnecessary and irrelevant. Certainly not anything that would demand any media attention.

[Malthus]

I suppose one point Berkut is making is that the writer of a book on which a movie is based isn't the most significant major player in the making of the movie ...  A movie based on a book by Card isn't really "Card's work" in the same way as his books are, even if he writes the screenplay.

I disagree. It affects the sale of his books.

That isn't, in fact, a disagreement. Both  points can be (and are) true at the same time.

[ulmont]

As it now seem too late to get involved without retreading old pages, I will just note that it is hilarious to see people criticizing others for voting with their dollars, and further note that Card's personal social views are very much a part of Enders Game, and more a part of each of card's successive works.

[Malthus]

To give some context to that point - to most moviegoers, the new movie is being billed as "Harrison Ford's new movie". Hence, titles like "Gay rights activists to boycott Harrison Ford film".

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=816824&gt1=28101

Harrison Ford, unlike Card, is highly in favour of gay marriage.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/harrison-ford-gay-marriage-_n_3069845.html

In order to indirectly 'get at' the book sales of one guy who has hateful views on gay marriage, the boycott will directly impact another guy who is all in favour of it, who is in fact more closely linked with the film in the public eye.

[Berkut]

As it now seem too late to get involved without retreading old pages, I will just note that it is hilarious to see people criticizing others for voting with their dollars, and further note that Card's personal social views are very much a part of Enders Game, and more a part of each of card's successive works.

Indeed his views are in fact part of this books - but I've read a bunch of his books, and certainly have never seen anything in them that was in any way anti-gay, except insofar as I don't recall there being any gay characters of any kind. Which I suppose could be seen as anti-gay, if one were really, really trying hard to be offended.

If someone said he thinks his books (and likely his movies) suck because of the content of those books/movies (they think it glorifies violence or the military, or is overly religious, or whatever), then that would be a perfectly reasonable stance to take when deciding not to go see the movie, and in fact voting with their dollars. In fact, some of the later books would be much less interesting to me for exactly that reason. He does start getting a bit preachy.

But that is very different from saying that his movie should be boycotted regardless of the content, but strictly because of some onerous political views of the author.

[Malthus]

As it now seem too late to get involved without retreading old pages, I will just note that it is hilarious to see people criticizing others for voting with their dollars, and further note that Card's personal social views are very much a part of Enders Game, and more a part of each of card's successive works.

I would be astounded if the topic of gay marriage was so much as mentioned in the movie. As far as I recall, it played no part in the book.

Mind you, that would be an awesome detail for the movie makers to just casually drop a reference to - like, having one of the adult officers mention in passing that"his husband" back on Earth was really worried about the invasion, or something! 

[Sheilbh]

A phobia is an irrational fear.  Homosexualists use homophobe to describe anyone who is opposed to homosexuality, much like rag heads use Islamophobe to describe anyone who criticizes Islam or Muslims.  Both of those are bullshit.

This is semantic nonsense though. It's a bit like people moaning about anti-Semitism when Arabs are Semites too.

Nope.  AFAICT the usage is limited to politicized gays and their friends in the lamestream media.

Or the OED:

Fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality.

I can't think of another word for hatred of homosexuals (or Muslims). Perhaps the problem is that homosexualism and Islamism have rather different meanings so couldn't be used

[Berkut]

That would be freaking awesome, in fact.

That would be a great way for them to thumb their nose a bit at Card! Hell, I would even think it was cool if they had one of the main characters actually be gay. Well, that might be over-politicizing the movie a biit much.

[Malthus]

That would be freaking awesome, in fact.

That would be a great way for them to thumb their nose a bit at Card! Hell, I would even think it was cool if they had one of the main characters actually be gay. Well, that might be over-politicizing the movie a biit much.

That Mazer Rackham guy says at one point he had to live in a relativistic shuttle, leaving his whole family behind, just to teach the future warriors.

Make him mention the pain of leaving his husband.

[ulmont]

But that is very different from saying that his movie should be boycotted regardless of the content, but strictly because of some onerous political views of the author.

Only different in that, while "quality" of a work is tougher to judge while decrying a work as lacking "quality," it's completely clear what Card's views are.

I would be astounded if the topic of gay marriage was so much as mentioned in the movie. As far as I recall, it played no part in the book.

Not that I recall either.  What I do recall - in relation to Card's Mormon social viewpoints - is a lot of glorification of traditional social roles, including but not limited to kids as the point of the family and government interference in the same being illegitimate.  This is even worse in Ender's Shadow, where Bean is portrayed as wanting kids uber alles.

[The Minsky Moment]

I dunno man - I tend to avoid watching supporting Michael Moore's stuff because I strongly disagree with his politics.  I don't think of that as censorship...

That's a little different, the whole point of a Michael Moore movie is that it is a platform for his political views.
Not the same thing as say boycotting a movie just because Mel Gibson is in it and Mel Gibson is a jerk.

[grumbler]

What I think is the ironic element in this discussion is that, the closer the director sticks to Card's actual work, the worse the movie will be.  There really isn't an adult movie in the book.

So, I suspect that the actual movie will have as much to do with the book as Starship Troopers did its book, and Card will be whining about how they ignored his work, and he will be happy to see people boycott the movie no matter their reasons.

[jimmy olsen]

Mm, I'm of two minds of this sort of thing.

Firstly, if a work of art be it literature, film, theater etc is artistically relevant and worthy then I think it's irrelevant and stupid to criticize or oppose the work because of the politics of the artists. For example if John Steinbeck was a Nazi, I don't think that'd be a reason not to want kids reading Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden in High School. This idea that we should only consume art produced by our political fellow travelers is basically stupid and retarded, and is a dangerous trend. The social conservatives have basically always opposed all art that doesn't 100% synchronize with their world view (which is basically almost all art worth while.) But now liberals and "activists" have embraced this concept that anyone who isn't as enlightened as them on certain issues isn't worthy of any regard, period. Eventually the only art acceptable to them will be akin to the Goebbels approved art museums in the Third Reich, which contained bland and boring art. The Third Reich had a small museum for awhile to showcase art of the "undesirable type" and when the small run down museum containing it became the most popular museum in town they had to shut it down.

I completely agree, if we held artists to modern moral standards we'd have virtually no worth while art left. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

The artistic angle is one I'm much more concerned about. The business angle concerns me less. Boycotts against business are effective at changing behavior if the business owner is running a small shop. That's how many businesses in the South ultimately desegregated, society's laws made it so there was no reason they couldn't mistreat upward of 50% of their customers. But when acceptance of Jim Crow type laws began to collapse even without the SCOTUS decisions ending separate but equal in public accommodations businesses that held to that standard risked going out of business as competitors became more accommodating.

However, large multinational firms primarily stay in business based operational factors relating to management (do they maximize efficiency, do they avoid getting into debt that kills the company etc) and whether or not their product or service is competitively positioned to excel in the market place. If it is, then I've never seen any evidence any kind of grassroots boycott has any effect whatsoever. That sort of effort certainly hasn't hurt Chik-fil-A, which is relative small potatoes, and it never came close to hurting BP or Exxon (which really are immune from such boycotts anyway.) I've even heard of people trying to boycott Koch Industries, except most of their products are several layers removed from the customer so it's basically impossible to know specifically if you're using them or not, making the whole exercise stupid.

But art is different. Art can and has been quickly squelched by public condemnation and outcry, many great artists were squashed by the establishment because in the grand scheme of things artists don't have a lot of resources in society. I don't know that it's ideal that we make it even harder for artists by applying ideological purity tests to their political beliefs--especially when those beliefs don't intersect with their art at all. It's honestly as ironic as the school libraries that banned Fahrenheit 451.

[merithyn]

I hesitate to bring this up because I can only imagine the bashing I'm going to get for it. Nonetheless, in the order of full disclosure, here goes.

My Orson Scott Card Story:

I first read Ender's Game in college, at the suggestion of my then-boyfriend, now-exhusband, while I was pregnant with Carter and Jackson. I loved the book, and feverishly devoured the next two in the series. By the time that my third son, Jeremy, was born in 1995, I was a devout Card fan. It happened that Card was coming to Chicago for a book signing the weekend that my son was due. And, of course, Jeremy was on-time for the only time in his life. On top of that, he was a very sick baby, having been born with meningitis, and I was very sick having lost a lot of blood with his delivery. Both of us were still in the hospital when Card came. So, a friend of mine bought three brand new books of the series and asked Card to sign them. She explained the situation, and he happily signed them, one to each of the boys. I was ecstatic.

Flash forward four years, and I'm pregnant with my fifth child, my fourth - another son - having died in utero. During this time, Card has written a fourth book in the series, and I really wanted a complete set for all of the kids. So, I sent him a fan letter along with a brand new copy of the fourth book in the series asking him to sign it. He sent it back with a letter of his own with the book signed to Riley, telling me how important children are to him, and that he and his wife had recently lost one. I replied, mentioning my son who hadn't made it, telling him that I understood. A month later, I received another book, this one signed to me and Jerry.

The book was "Sarah", his book about the biblical, barren Sarah, who allowed her husband, Abraham, to lie with the maid in order to have a son. Shortly after, she found that God had given her a child, as well. Card said, in the letter that came with the book, that I would understand Sarah's sacrifice and desire for a child more than many others.

It was very sweet, and it solidified my adoration of the man. Not only was he an incredible writer, but he was genuinely a kind man. I still believe that he is a geniunely kind man... to those he accepts as his equals. Unfortunately, his treatment of homosexuals shows a much uglier and nastier side, and his calls to bring down a government that equates gays with straights is abhorent.

LINK - What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

When I learned that Card was spending a large part of his time and money trying to prevent gay-marriage, I stopped buying his books. I have no desire to see Ender's Game: The Movie. I can't imagine spending my money on an enterprise that can and will be directly used to thwart a cause that I feel very strongly for. Whether my money for a ticket will affect this particular movie, the success of it will definitely lead to more books being sold and more money to Card and his agenda. My not attending the movie may not do much of anything at all. But if enough people feel as I do, then it just might have an affect.

Does it stifle his Art? Nope. He's written his books, he's sold millions of copies, and his life continues. He's an established author with serious pull in the publishing world, and his Art continues with or without my support. He is welcome to write whatever makes his heart go pitter-patter, and it will get published, of that I have no doubt.

My money, however, will not support it.