As I’ve said before, I am quite capable of setting aside an author’s beliefs to read a quality or engaging story. (Yes, or. I am not always the discerning reader I appear to be. However, Card manages to hit both categories, to me.) While it causes small ethical dilemmas when it comes to how I get my hands on the book, none of that matters while I’m actually reading it … until it starts to bleed through.
Unlike the Ender’s Game film, Orson Scott Card is one of very few people who profit from his books. He makes a much larger profit per book purchase than per film ticket. His books are, to the best of my knowledge, his primary source of income – income that funds NOM and similar ideas.
(Welcome to an impromptu four-part series on my intense love/dislike relationship with Orson Scott Card, posting daily this week.)
Orson Scott Card is an extremely prolific writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy. One of his books is being made into a movie. He can’t seem to focus on one series at a time, and he can’t seem to decide when a series is over, returning to it years later with something completely different. He has created several distinct universes in which his characters reside, and he’s done it well enough that they stick in my head for decades after reading. Several of his books are on my favorites list. He’s also actively against most things I’m actively for, including basic human rights for all people.
There are people now getting concerned about Card’s involvement in the film adaptation of Ender’s Game. The studio doesn’t seem to be replying to the controversy. Many people are predicting Card won’t be involved in publicity, but others are saying his personal views are enough to taint the entire movie regardless. I’m not even going to pretend that his books aren’t themselves problematic from both feminist and queer points of view, because they are, but more on that later.
Warning: This post contains discussion of depression, suicide, and harmful attitudes to those subjects.
I appear to be in the minority of people when I say that I really, really don’t like the morning radio shows on any of the stations I regularly listen to. (Not counting NPR, though I have a hard time calling a 9 am show a real “morning show.”) And yet, because I am a person who prefers background noise (preferably music or whitenoise conversations, though I take what I can get), I find myself listening to these shows every morning on the way to class.
One recent morning (curse my unreliable memory!), the local rock station had a male caller whose longterm girlfriend had recently said that she needed her space for a while to think about their relationship. The show hosts immediately said that was it, the relationship was over, she never planned to come back after saying that. While that opinion isn’t completely baseless, I would like to throw out a caution against it.
This is the conclusion of this weekend series. I’ll be taking the next few weekends off before starting the next series (topic tbd). In the meantime, check back Wednesdays for continued unrelated posts!
The Gendered History is a personal history, the evolution and experience of my gender. As such, this series contains frank discussion of sexual maturation (specifically of the FAAB body & its genitals), gender dysphoria, expressions of dissatisfaction with body shape, disordered eating, direct physical self-harm, depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, and similar issues. Other topics mentioned include unsafe chest-binding practices, alcoholism, heterosexism, cissexism, and related.
A couple weeks ago, I visited a home for adults with mental illness and cognitive disorders for a tour, as a precursor to potentially volunteering there. One of the residents was talking with me when another came up and interrupted: “Are you a boy or a girl?”
