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a collection : gathering flowers ([info]anthologia) wrote in [info]fandom_wank,
@ 2011-05-05 16:34:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:books/authors, omg mock people mock, person: neil gaiman, political wank, twitter, wanking inside the house

Tax deductables! Pencil necks! Thieves! HIGH SPEED CAR CHASES!
Well, all right, maybe not high speed car chases. So, the background: last year, Neil Gaiman, author of such lovely things as Neverwhere and the Sandman series etc., was contacted to speak at a library in Minnesota for a hefty speaking fee, which was paid for by a fund which (a) stated any leftover money would be lost if not used, and (b) was also not available for books, salaries, or other useful things. Neil Gaiman did so, and subsequently donated the speaking fee to charities.

All's well that ends well, right? Well, except that Matt Dean, the House Majority Leader, decided it was time to let his long-simmering grudge be aired to the world: 'Dean said that Gaiman, "who I hate," was a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota."'

Neil is... well, he's not well pleased. Nor is his Twitter.

"Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a "hate" list. Like Nixon did. I'm on it. They also don't like capitalism. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"It's strange watching a grownup high school bully in power. But the bully vocabulary remains the same. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"And for those curious how and why I made it onto the hate list, what I wrote at the time on my blog. http://bit.ly/lMxsWQ"

"Any nice, sane Minnesota Republicans reading this, please vote for someone who isn't a bully with a hate list next time."

"You can listen to the Stillwater speech that all the Pencil-neck fuss is about at http://bit.ly/k3lA1B (You need to go down to point 2.)"

He also happened to link to Dean's blog, which proceeded to crash. Whoops.

So you'd think that Dean would realize his mistake and apologize, right? Well... sort of. Why?

His mommy made him do it.

The universe collectively facepalms.


(Bonus funny from the comments, courtesy from someone called Lucas: "Do weasel thieves steal just weasels? Or do they also steal ferrets, otters, and wolverines? In the case of the latter, how do they arrange for transportation?")


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]keleri
2011-05-06 03:52 am UTC (link)
Whoa whoa whoa, what did Neil Gaiman do that was bad? I think I missed this wank.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tunxeh
2011-05-06 03:56 am UTC (link)
Failed to avoid offending people who go out of their way to be offended by certain kinds of language, if I'm remembering it correctly. In this case, the language in question involved female dogs, used as a colorful way of expressing the fact that fans are not entitled to demand that authors write certain things.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sandglass
2011-05-06 04:10 am UTC (link)
I forgot about that one! "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch." I can't/don't want to find the people calling him out on it, but I'm going to go with: It's pretty obnoxious to compare people complaining about GRRM not finishing the series to prison rape.

Googling brought to you by me trying to avoid doing my final paper.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ustareth
2011-05-07 10:10 pm UTC (link)
How awful, to be called out on using misogynistic language to make a point which could have been made just as well without misogynistic language.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tunxeh
2011-05-07 10:44 pm UTC (link)
I believe the actual reason that word used in that particular context can be considered offensive has little to do with women, but instead involves male-male prison rape. And that by using rape terminology to talk about something that has nothing to do with rape he somehow (this is the part I don't follow very well) contributes to a culture that does not take rape seriously enough.

On the other hand, I think there is a place in the world for shocking language. I expect that Gaiman knew that it was shocking language when he wrote it that way, and intended it to be shocking, as a way of emphasizing his statement. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am greatly offended by the notion that civilized writers should censor themselves to avoid the possibility that their language would be shocking. Apologize! Right now! You just offended me.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sandglass
2011-05-06 04:04 am UTC (link)
He made a comment about American cemeteries having, "a few dead Indians" and took for-fucking-ever to apologize for it (happened April, apologized October). And claimed that being called racist is a terrible insult.

Aaaand now I'm mad at him again.

(I'm also still pretty pissed about everything sourrounding Amanda Palmer's crip drag, and he sided with her obnoxiously on it.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]visp
2011-05-06 04:18 am UTC (link)
He made a comment about American cemeteries having, "a few dead Indians"

Man, if we get into the full thing here, it'll take away the funny, but, I just feel that we need to remember one important thing. He's not American. How much do you know about the indigenous peoples of other countries? How about the oppression of the Ainu by the ruling classes in medieval Japan? The problems of the native Okinawans? The world does not revolve around the USA and it's not fair to expect foreigners to be sensitive to all the nuances of our culture.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]jat_sapphire
2011-05-06 04:25 am UTC (link)
Well, did he move to Wisconsin yesterday?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]visp
2011-05-06 06:36 am UTC (link)
Do you take full history classes on a country when you move there?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]ekaterinv, 2011-05-06 07:39 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2011-05-06 10:01 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]jat_sapphire, 2011-05-06 11:20 pm UTC

[info]sandglass
2011-05-06 04:31 am UTC (link)
It still took him like six months to apologize for it, and he got his fans to troll the person calling him out on it, and he pitched a fit about being called a racist. Yeah, the world doesn't revolve around America, but he still managed to fail a lot independent of the original gaff.

Also, I think the genocide of the Native Americans is a lot more publicized than the oppression of Japanese minority groups. Not that that makes a huge amount of difference, but it's not really the same situation. Also, I'm not an author published in Japan who has travelled there, whereas Gaiman is published in America and at least had visited America a lot before making that statement.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]visp
2011-05-06 06:39 am UTC (link)
Also, I think the genocide of the Native Americans is a lot more publicized than the oppression of Japanese minority groups.

*twitch* In America, probably. Everywhere else... America is not the center of the earth. Our history is not more important than any others.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]sandglass, 2011-05-06 06:43 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]visp, 2011-05-06 07:30 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]napalmnacey, 2011-05-06 08:00 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]moljn, 2011-05-06 10:16 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]emily_goddess, 2011-05-08 04:25 pm UTC

[info]visp
2011-05-06 06:44 am UTC (link)
I'm not saying he handled the situation very well, but as someone who's lived in a lot of other countries I have a huge pet peeve about Americans automatically assuming that everyone else should know all of America's cultural and historical background.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]sandglass, 2011-05-06 07:03 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]napalmnacey, 2011-05-06 08:01 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2011-05-06 09:55 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]ruslan, 2011-05-06 09:57 pm UTC

[info]sgaana
2011-05-06 04:41 am UTC (link)
I think it's a little more fair when it's someone who makes his living as a writer specifically by repurposing the stories of other cultures (in addition to his own), and who often tries to say that he does a great deal of research into the cultures that he is writing about.

He wrote a book called American Gods, after all.

We're not talking about Joe Random British Person here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]phosfate
2011-05-06 07:48 pm UTC (link)
I believe you mean Joseph Random-British Personne. Pronounced "Chumly."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]snacky, 2011-05-06 07:52 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-06 07:55 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sepiamagpie, 2011-05-06 07:56 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-06 07:58 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sepiamagpie, 2011-05-06 08:00 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-06 08:03 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sepiamagpie, 2011-05-06 08:04 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]snacky, 2011-05-06 08:06 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-06 08:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]snacky, 2011-05-06 09:09 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-06 09:11 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]snacky, 2011-05-07 04:54 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]jerel, 2011-05-08 05:04 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2011-05-06 09:23 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]emily_goddess, 2011-05-08 04:28 pm UTC

[info]tunxeh
2011-05-06 04:45 am UTC (link)
Is his statement not completely factual? It *sounds* offensive because it appears to be minimizes the fact that there were very much more than a few Native Americans who lived and died here long before the European settlers came. But I think that's a misreading.

The actual context is about a story set in a graveyard. You know, the places with the headstones and all. And I suspect that it is a true statement that most U.S. graveyards have only a few Native American bodies and before them, nothing. Because the Native American graveyards aren't in the same places and were taken over and bulldozed and turned into something else and now you mostly can't find them any more.

So, in fact, his story would not have worked to be set in the U.S., for exactly the reason he states. You can fault him for using the word "Indian", I suppose, but that word is still used officially for instance in the name of the Bureau of Screwing Native Americans Bureau of Indian Affairs, and you can fault him for writing something easily misinterpreted, but I don't think what he actually meant by what he said is in any way problematic.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sandglass
2011-05-06 05:08 am UTC (link)
His statement was (AFAIK) factual and true to his story, but hugely insensitive. It sounded too much like, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian", and it was very dismissive of genocide. Which he acknowledged in his apology.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]eleutheria
2011-05-06 05:33 am UTC (link)
It is fair if that's what they're making their living writing about. And if they're moving there.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]visp
2011-05-06 06:40 am UTC (link)
He didn't write about an American Graveyard. And American Gods really wasn't something that involved a lot of American historical background. It was all about mythologies.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]eldritch
2011-05-06 07:09 am UTC (link)
If he made the remark out of ignorance, okay. But let me refer you to this helpful little chart.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sandglass
2011-05-06 07:18 am UTC (link)
That chart is beautiful.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]visp
2011-05-06 07:32 am UTC (link)
A very good point.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ekaterinv
2011-05-06 06:48 pm UTC (link)
First, he lives in America. Second, he's English. The English did a whole lot of killing when they got to this continent, and they didn't consider themselves anything but English at the time. Further, he's educated and wealthy. He has every privilege possible, unless he has an illness of which I am unaware. What he said wasn't said out of ignorance, it was said to try to be funny. And it wasn't.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cmdr_zoom
2011-05-06 07:06 pm UTC (link)
It reminds me of JKR's offhand comment that of course the US would have "their own school." Right. One school should suffice for a country with six times the population and thousands of times the land area. Also, we can visit both the Grand Canyon and Disneyworld in the same day.

Fair comparison? I dunno. But it's what I think of.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]sandglass, 2011-05-06 10:14 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2011-05-06 10:26 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]darlas_mom, 2011-05-07 04:04 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2011-05-07 09:46 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]midnight_hawk, 2011-05-07 04:36 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]darksumomo, 2011-05-07 10:39 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]jujubee, 2011-05-09 03:35 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kumquat_of_doom, 2011-05-07 05:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]eilan, 2011-05-08 01:13 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]kumquat_of_doom, 2011-05-08 03:04 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]visp, 2011-05-07 10:34 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2011-05-09 04:05 pm UTC

[info]librarianmouse
2011-05-06 08:05 am UTC (link)
I'm not a huge fan of his tendency to send his fans over to dogpile people he's not happy with at the moment.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ekaterinv
2011-05-06 06:54 pm UTC (link)
Seriously. It's one thing when it's a politician, it's another when it's some random person who made an ass of themselves on the internet. I wish he'd stop trolling the wank.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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