Friction at DC

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by A beaker full of death, Mar 8, 2013.

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  1. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? :confused:

    I already said I find Scott Card's views sickening and that the most baffling thing in the world would be someone giving a fuck about someone else's sex life, which OSC clearly does. I read Ender's Game when in high school, but haven't read anything he's done since then and don't plan to.

    How am I giving him a complete pass just because I don't like petitioning for someone to be removed for their views (even if I disagree with them, which I do)?!?!
     
  2. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Hey, don't sell the fanbase short like that.;)
     
  3. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Sorry I didn't see that post, because yes, I absolutely would. I have no problem with anyone holding any kind of views from getting work so long as their prejudices don't actively interfere with someone else's livelihood (IE, a racist manager discriminating against an African-American employee). But I don't think someone's personal views, regardless of how much I may strongly disagree with them, should have anything to do with their employment one way or another.

    Indeed, because I absolutely see nothing wrong with employing someone who has those views. I DO see something very, very wrong with any racist, anti-Semetic, sexist, or homophobic views and I would tell OSC or a Neo-Nazi or anyone else that to their face. But I also see something wrong with thinking someone's work should be withheld because the worker had those views.
     
  4. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Employment isn't a right. If the company see his employment as a negative he can be terminated. See Sheen, Charlie.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I'm not sure I agree. We're talking about a piece of merchandise, a product meant to satisfy consumers. Don't consumers have the right to give feedback about what they want in the products they buy? This isn't a free-speech issue, because the government isn't involved. It's an issue of commerce, of buyers making their preferences known to a seller. If, say, consumers petitioned a restaurant not to serve tuna that wasn't dolphin-safe, or petitioned a toy company not to make their toys in a country that used child labor, would you say that was over the line?

    People have the freedom to express their views in public all they want. But if they want to sell a product -- which is what a work of professional fiction is -- then they're not guaranteed success, not in a capitalist system. Their work may get rejected by the publisher, or it may fail to get ordered in significant quantities by stores, or it may not sell many copies due to lack of promotion or bad reviews or any number of factors. In capitalism, you take your chances and failure is always an option.

    Ultimately, of course, a petition is just a request, an expression of an opinion. It's still going to be up to DC to decide whether to publish the story or not. Just because a petition exists, that doesn't mean they'll obey its request. But the petition is a way for people to express their opinions to the publisher. It's audience feedback, nothing more.
     
  6. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    And I keep saying again and again that I understand this. I'm not saying DC doesn't have the right to hire or fire anyone they choose. These are just my opinions on the reasons.

    If OSC was hired to write a Superman story, wrote a good Superman story, and then they didn't run the Superman story for issues entirely unrelated to what he turned in, I just don't think that's a very good reason (while a good reason would be; he wrote a shit Superman story). Not that they shouldn't have been able to do it. Just that I don't like it.

    *sigh*

    I feel like I'm repeating myself again and again. I think every person who signed that petition was perfectly, well-within their rights to do so and DC was well-within their rights to not publish the OSC story based on public opinion. All I've been discussing is how I feel about the petition's request, which I think is ridiculous. Not that it's illegal, not that they didn't have a write to do it, just how I feel on it.
     
  7. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    It being good is probably the least of DC's concerns at this point. Just as Sheen being the star of a top rated TV was the least concern of the producers of that show when thinking about keeping him. They have a lot more at stake than doing something you don't like.
     
  8. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    Because you're up at arms about them petitioning against his participation in the anthology even though that's exercising the same right to speech he has and even though what they're doing is far less harmful than actively promoting, financing, and otherwise supporting legislation that not only bans gay marriage, but actually banned consensual gay sex in some cases, as he used to support when it was still on the books, links homosexuality to rape and molestation, and calls for the violent overthrow of the government if they don't uphold his and his religion's views:

    You don't see why people would and should actively protest his involvement in pop culture works they care about? How about getting your priorities straight and putting things in perspective and not taking out your ire on the wrong targets?

    Plus, is this anthology being sold separately or all together in one book? Because it's difficult to boycott one author whose views you don't like without adversely affecting the other authors if they're all in the same book. I'm curious about how it's being sold. That might be a good reason for the petition as well, if that's the case.
     
  9. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    So lets review...DC's readership is tells them that they will not purchase their product until this guy is removed from the book. Retailers that listen to their patrons have decided that they will not carry said book by this author...

    Yet you are saying that DC should continue to employ this guy to put out a product that is now going to be created at a financial loss? How does that make any sense from a business perspective?
     
  10. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Again, I think his views are appalling and repugnant.

    Sure, of course people should protest his involvement in works they care about. But I'm sorry, there's just a difference in my mind between saying I'm not going to buy it and asking others not to buy it as well, and asking the people who made it to remove him entirely.

    I can take my ire out on multiple people for multiple reasons. Clearly, someone saying linking homosexuality to rape is worse than asking that person not be employed. But just because I dislike one doesn't mean I have to like the other. Nowhere in this thread have I come anywhere near supporting OSC's repellent views, and if this was an OSC's Thoughts on Homosexuality thread, that's what my posts would be focused on, but since this is about the petition and his work on the Superman comic, I'm making my feelings on that issue known. Staying on topic seems like having my priorities straight to me.
     
  11. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    And that the story has the chance of bringing negative publicity to the rest of the line and that DC in general supports the views that Card has.
     
  12. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Clearly not.

    But I think I've made what I actually think on this issue clear in multiple posts so there's no reason to repeat them.
     
  13. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

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    this is why god invented videorecording.
     
  14. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Which of course is a ridiculous view to have anyways. The idea that hiring someone means endorsing their personal views on an issue that has nothing to do with what they were hired to do is something no one would even discuss except in extreme cases like this. No one thinks that by hiring a McDonalds employee that the McDonalds corporation supports that employee's views on how to fix the economy. I think most people realize that DC's sole interest in the guy was writing a Superman story, not endorsing his views just because they wrote him a paycheck.

    And before anyone says, "But he's so high profile about it!!" that's also baffling to me. So it's okay to hire someone with repugnant views as long as they keep their mouth shut, but not if they actually go out in public and say it? How does that work? :confused:
     
  15. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    You are truly the most enlightened person in the thread, Nagisa.
     
  16. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    Or a bigoted author using his celebrity, money, and influence to support Prop 8 in California, a state he doesn't even live in but feels he should dictate whether some of its citizens should be able to marry or not.

    Or the same bigoted author using the advantages listed above to promote legislation outlawing gay sex when it was still legal to do so. Which would seem to me to be something that might interfere in their "livelihoods" if they had hiring difficulties due to criminal record for simply being who they are, wouldn't it?

    Or the same author possibly inspiring violence against homosexuals by comparing them to pedophiles and rapists, which of course doesn't affect their lives or livelihoods in any way.

    Or supporting businesses that actively discriminate against homosexual employees, which he has done.

    Keep those blinders on, chief.
     
  17. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I was hoping this thread was about something way more nerd related. :lol:
     
  18. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Perception is often more important than reality in the business world.

    Yeah, they didn't vet him very well.
     
  19. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    Yeah, I think it's about time I bowed out of this discussion. My views on the subject have been stated, anyone's free to read them, agree with them or disagree with them.

    The moment when it starts becoming personal is the moment I'm uninterested.
     
  20. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In America you have to let the NeoNazi Party have their NeoNazi Pride parades if they have all their permits paid up and signed off.

    (I wish I was joking.)

    Minorities should not be marginalized by the government or law.

    Individual vs. Individual?

    Civil discourse free for all short of libel and assault of course.

    This is a society of words.

    But...

    Multimillion Dollar Political Lobby Fund vs. Individual?

    Card is not an individual.

    He's Carl Rove or Herman Goering near the head of a great rampagin beast.

    (Or is it a dinky action group with 12 members?)

    Quite simply the gays (others?) have to sack up and counter this comittee with equal force... Or over whelming force which is what is happening here to the concept of same sex marriage.

    Most of the sodomy laws still being enforced, and they are still being enforced, are so ill-defined that straight people have been jailed for giving and receiving blow jobs, where it's likely that not even a marriage licence could stop those stormtrooping cock-police from saving the worlds penises from saliva, by kicking even the Presidents door down to extract Michelle off his weiner and drag her away in cuffs, if the cock-police felt compelled to follow the letter of the law always.

    Reductio Ad Absurdium.

    If all sodomy is illegal, then sodomy can't be consensensual, then all sodmoy is rape, then all gays are rapists.
     
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