“Enders Game” Boycotts

A few years ago, I wrote a video game called “Shadow Complex.” It was based on a tie-in novel by Orson Scott Card. You remember him: Mr. Anti-Gay. Now the novel had nothing to do with gays or any of Card’s more dubious beliefs.

Nevertheless, the fact that I was associated with Card at all prompted people to cry out for boycotts of not only the video game, but of all my work. X-Factor, Dark Tower, my novels: everything was to be avoided because I had dared to have anything to do with someone that had been designated a pariah, not because of his work, but because of his opinions and where he chose to spend his money.

How in God’s name boycotting X-Factor to protest Card made any sense at all…well, the answer lay within the skulls of those who were organizing it, I guess. Never made any sense to me.

And now, of course, the cries for boycott are sounding again as “Enders Game” opens today. That’s just what Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield need for their careers: people refusing to see a movie because they (rightfully) disagree with the writer’s opinions. Even though those opinions aren’t reflected in the film. Even though his deal is structured in such a way that he will make no money from the film no matter how much BO it generates.

Screw that. We’re seeing “Enders Game” this weekend. Personally I don’t care; I’ve never read the book. But Kathleen did and loves it, so we’re going. We’ll also likely be seeing “12 Years a Slave” and “Last Vegas” as well. And we have no idea of the political opinions of anyone involved. Not sure how it’s relevant.

PAD

113 comments on ““Enders Game” Boycotts

  1. Well said. I agree completely. I WILL be seeing Ender’s Game, probably twice. I will be buying the BluRay when it comes out. I DID read the book, and thought it was awesome. While I disagree with O.S.C. and his political and social opinions, he tells a pretty good story, and while reading Ender’s, I didn’t detect any of his opinions reflected in the writing.

  2. Loved the original short story, thought it lost more and more with each expansion. The trailers aren’t blowing me away. I may see it eventually but no rush.

  3. Not that I have read any of his books, I haven’t so I have no particular axe to grind, but didn’t OSC renounce all of his anti-gay rhetoric a while back?

    In truth and after reading up a little on him, he seems like a person whose opinion changes with the wind, so I wonder which is the correct view of him….?

    Strange fellow.

    1. He didn’t renounce it, so to speak. He hasn’t changed his opinions on its supposed wrongness. However he has stated, for what it’s worth, that as far as he’s concerned, gay marriage is a dead issue. That it’s eventual legality in the U.S. is pretty much inevitable.

      PAD

      1. And you conveniently forget to mention his CALL FOR REVOLUTION to stop marriage equality.

        Sorry, that’s treason and the man should be in jail for it.

        The man remains as reprehensible as Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown and no amount of sugar-coating his anti-gay rhetoric is going to make his works any less reprehensible.

        For crying out loud, Mel Gibson gets drunk and makes a lot of anti-Semitic comments and he hasn’t exactly been forgiven. Why is that, do you suppose? Because words spoken under inebriation are truthful or because his comments weren’t as acceptable to the world at large? I’m betting the latter.

      2. “The man remains as reprehensible as Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown and no amount of sugar-coating his anti-gay rhetoric is going to make his works any less reprehensible.”

        His works are reprehensible? That’s a new one. One would think that his works would not have been as popular as they have been or for as long as they have if the were in fact reprehensible.

        Do tell us exactly what is the reprehensible aspect of works that don’t represent the points of view you disagree with or a film that has none of the POV you disagree with in it?

        “For crying out loud, Mel Gibson gets drunk and makes a lot of anti-Semitic comments and he hasn’t exactly been forgiven. Why is that, do you suppose? Because words spoken under inebriation are truthful or because his comments weren’t as acceptable to the world at large? I’m betting the latter.”

        I won’t argue the point o whether or not he has been forgiven since that’s besides the point. Although, it would appear that he has been by many as he continues to get work. But there seems to be some confusion here in your stance on Mel Gibson and works that Mel appears in.

        I wouldn’t disagree with you that Mel Gibson is not someone I would want to hang out with, spend quality time with, or, the fact that I don’t really drink anymore aside, have as a drinking buddy. But, outside of films like The Passion where he controls story content and messaging in the story, I don’t see the point skipping a film that he is in just because he’s a dìçkhëád.

        Mad Max is still fun. Lethal Weapon 1-3 are still enjoyable. Braveheart still rocks. And, frankly, if Expendables 3 looks like it’s going to be more like 1 and less like 2, I’ll be seeing that despite Mel’s somewhat steroid-enhanced looking presence in the film. I could give a rat’s ášš about his anti-Semitic comments if the film he’s in doesn’t promote those views.

  4. The wife and I saw it last night and I’ve been a fan of the books since they came out. I don’t agree with Card and wouldn’t hang out and go to the movies with him, but I don’t let the personal opinions or behaviours of a person take away from something they’ve created that I enjoy.

    I would even go so far as to say that even if my movie going money went to Card I still wouldn’t be bothered, even though I don’t agree with his views. He did write and create something that I enjoyed so why shouldn’t he be compensated for it.

    I know some people cannot separate someone’s works from their personality just as some people cannot separate an actor from their role. So if an individual doesn’t want to see the movie because of it, that’s fine. But if its a bad thing that Card fights for others not to be able to do something that they want to do just because he doesn’t agree with it… how is it better to call for people not to do something they might want do, not because you don’t agree with the thing itself, but because you don’t agree with someone who had a hand in it?

    1. I believe that “calling for people not to do something they might want do” (in this case, seeing Ender’s Game) is very different from “”trying to legally prevent people from doing something they might want do.”

      I will not go to Chick-Fil-A (or McDonald’s, or Walmart*) because of their corporate behavior (even though, yes, not all the people who work for them agree with it), but I would certainly not want the government to pass a law disallowing anyone to go to it. The whole idea of a boycott is that it’s asking other people to freely make their concerns known.

      1. And I do not wish for rights-violating things to happen to Chick-Fil-A, Peter, and I am sorry that some people are trying to do that, but that doesn’t change whether boycotts are (or are not) right, good, and/or appropriate.

        I really like your stuff so I hope if we disagree on this you won’t dislike me. 🙁

      2. (And I like you as a person, too–Kungaloosh! If Seekers of the Weird and the Space Mountain graphic novel take off, I think you MUST be the one to write an Adventurers’ Club series. Oh God, to see Pamelia and Graves and Babylonia and the others all back again…)

      3. Every time a situation like this arises, I just have to ask: at what point does someone (or a large group) saying, “I don’t want to support [insert person/company here]” cross the line into being a “boycott?” Is it when a large group calls for others to withdraw that support, as well? And if someone makes that decision independent of the call to boycott, are they still joining in the boycott, or are they making a decision for themselves?

        Cases in point: Due to his established history of blatant plagiarism and his business practices, I’ve not purchased any comics with work by or that would benefit Rob Liefeld in some 15+ years. Likewise, I’ve not had a bite of Chick-Fil-A, even with someone else buying, for quite some time, either.

        I don’t think I’m “boycotting” in either instance…I’m just making a choice not to financially support views or actions that I find abhorrent.

        I’ve never read Ender’s Game. The trailers for the movie haven’t instilled me with a burning desire to see it. At some point, a decision has to be made whether or not I’m going to see it. If whether or not I want to support Card’s work becomes a factor, and I choose not to, am I “boycotting,” or am I just making a choice based on my personal preferences?

        –Daryl

      4. Nytwyng: “Every time a situation like this arises, I just have to ask: at what point does someone (or a large group) saying, “I don’t want to support [insert person/company here]” cross the line into being a “boycott?” Is it when a large group calls for others to withdraw that support, as well? And if someone makes that decision independent of the call to boycott, are they still joining in the boycott, or are they making a decision for themselves?”

        Nytwyng: “I’ve never read Ender’s Game. The trailers for the movie haven’t instilled me with a burning desire to see it. At some point, a decision has to be made whether or not I’m going to see it. If whether or not I want to support Card’s work becomes a factor, and I choose not to, am I “boycotting,” or am I just making a choice based on my personal preferences?”

        You know, I’m not sure how this is a confusing issue, yet every thread that deals with boycotts ends up with someone basically asking what the difference is between just not going from disinterest and an active boycott.

        You’ve never read the book, the trailers aren’t doing it for you, your friends aren’t creating the type of word of mouth buzz that might make you ignore the disinterest caused by bland trailers, etc., etc., etc.

        (I should point out, since people in the past have decided in these conversations that they’ll go off the rails with accusations of being accused of wanting to do or doing things that they never said they would do or want to do; the following bit uses the generic forms of the word “You” and not a use that specifically references you, your wants, and your intentions.)

        You’ve only got so much money and time and you choose to spend both on something that does spark your interest and does look like something you will want to see. That’s not a boycott.

        You sitting at home and deciding that you’re going to take a pass on a book, a television show, a movie, a convention, etc. because you feel that there’s nothing of interest in it for you is not a boycott. I mean, there’s 315 million people in the United States. The Walking Dead’s Season 4 premiere is the show’s highest rated episode ever with 16.1 million total viewers. That means that roughly 300 million people in this country took a pass on watching it for whatever reason when the season opener premiered last month. No one outside of the biggest of mouth breathers would take someone seriously that tried to claim that roughly 300 million people in this country boycotted The Walking Dead’s Season 4 premiere.

        We’ll take it a step further. You and others are independently sitting in your various homes and all of you independently deciding that you’re going to take a pass on a book, a television show, a movie, a convention, etc. because you feel that someone involved with it is someone you don’t want to support because of something like this- That’s not even really a boycott. Some might call it a “personal boycott” when describing their actions, but it’s not really an actual boycott.

        You don’t really get into boycott territory until it becomes an organized effort to convince others not to go and to publicize the effort and the movement. People deciding that they won’t go, working to get others not to go, working even to perhaps demonize others who decide that they will go, and doing everything they can to make not going an organized movement with some sort of supposed point/stand behind it and a stated end goal of some sort is a boycott.

        What’s being seen with OSC and Ender’s Game is a boycott. Just not going on your own for whatever reason isn’t a boycott.

      5. And, it seems you and I are (at least mostly) on the same page on the issue, Jerry.

        But, as I say…what if, in deciding whether or not I’ll see it, I’m on the fence, so Card’s own stances end up factoring in?

        To some, I’m “joining the boycott.” To me, I’m weighing what might interest me about the movie vs what might disinterest me, and the disinterests – including Card himself – tip the balance.

        I guess part of what I’m asking is, if there’s a “call to boycott” for reason X, and someone independently of that call includes reason X in their decision making process, are they boycotting?

        –Daryl

      6. “I guess part of what I’m asking is, if there’s a “call to boycott” for reason X, and someone independently of that call includes reason X in their decision making process, are they boycotting?”

        I think the only answer for that is that it depends.

        Was Reason X a primary reason for not going or was the decision 99% made and the person decided that it was just another good reason not to go? If you remove Reason X from the equation, would they have gone or not gone? If Reason X was in fact the tipping point on the Go/No Go scales, did they simply not go or did they engage in organized attempts to prevent others from going?

        I’m vocally pro-gay rights. I’m vocally pro-gay marriage. During the call to boycott Chick-Fil-A, I didn’t eat there. Of course, I don’t eat fast food these days anyhow and haven’t eaten at the place for a decade or more that I can recall. I had fun at the expense of some of the idiots like Palin who rushed into the restaurants for their photo ops and to get a little more free publicity for their ego strokes, but I never actively pushed for others to not eat there or demonized people simply for eating there. Did I boycott them or not? Only an idiot would say yes, but I know people who would say I did even knowing the full facts.

  5. PS, I cannot stand Tom Cruise, but that doesn’t stop me from watching/buying some of his films.

    Likewise OSC.

  6. Infant Son says I have to choose my movie dates carefully. Thor and The Desolation of Smaug are coming out soon and I didn’t like Ender’s Game all that much in the first place. So I might rent it sometime if it gets strong reviews.

    Side note: loved Shadow Complex. Didn’t know it was an OSC tie-in until well after I finished it, and it never encouraged me to check out Empire, which sounds pretty loopy, but I enjoyed the game in its own right.

  7. I’m not aware that Card is not profiting from this (news to me!), but he isn’t just someone spouting opinions–he is (well, is currently no longer) on the board of NOM, the group putting a lot of money and effort behind things like Proposition 8 in California. To me, that changes things a bit.

    I would not boycott you, or Marvel or what have you for the stuff you mentioned! *HUG* Nor would I boycott other work by Butterfield or Ford or the others. But I’m just not going to see this particular film.

    I did read Ender’s Game, and I liked and enjoyed some of Card’s other books in the past, but now it’s hard to even want to re-read them. It’s been really sad and frustrating for me.

  8. And I missed the “Notify me of follow-up comments by email” button in time, so, um, here’s a pointless little post so I can get those. Um, happy Halloween? 🙂

    1. Somewhat less pointless: Happy All Hallow’s Day (aka All Saints Day)! This day is the reason that there even is a Hallowe’en (sort of like how Lent and its first day, Ash Wednesday, is the whole reason that the far more famous and widely celebrated Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras exists).

      1. Yes, I know! Indeed, this year I have put up my first ofrenda, and to those (like me) who celebrate them, blessed All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. 🙂

  9. I wouldn’t get mad at the non-Card people who worked on a product… folks have families to feed, and many of them might have had no idea of Card’s character before signing on (after which point I’d expect them to honor their commitments to do the work). And you can argue that once Card’s been paid, the choice to be involved in the resulting product is more in a grey area. And I’d never boycott those people’s other works, that seems a bit daft. But I can’t watch the movie, because the awareness of the author and his character would hang over me the whole time, making me uncomfortable no matter how objectively well made the movie might be. (I’d have the same problem with a movie by Mel Gibson or anyone else known to be a serious jerk.) Also, by buying the ticket I’m contributing to the success of the movie, and I’m encouraging the studios to make more movies based on his work, which means I’m indirectly supporting him, which I’m not comfortable doing. I’ll wish him no ill — in fact, I wish him nothing but happiness and personal growth, preferably sooner rather than later — but I won’t support him.

    The whole thing’s annoying. I loved his earlier works — heck, Songmaster is as great a gay love story as one could ask for (which makes all the later homophobia just weird), the first few Alvin the Maker books were great, Speaker For The Dead was amazing. While his later work didn’t seem to to me to hold up to the earlier levels, I was a big fan, once. Now, I’m just saddened.

    Regardless… Going or not going, people’s choices are their own. If there’s anyone out there getting mad at others for whether or not they’re buying a movie ticket, they should let it go. There are more important things to get mad about in the world.

  10. I’ll wait for the DVD. Can’t decide if the film looks like an accurate adaptation or not. but as i recall the book, i think it would be hard to really convey properly in a film.

  11. On one hand, I agree with you that Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield (both actors whose work I really enjoy), and all the others involved in this film shouldn’t be penalized for OSC’s absurd actions. However, even though OSC has already gained the money that was supposed to go to him from EG, if this one is successful and there’s a sequel, he would get money from that one again, wouldn’t he? And even if he doesn’t, there’s a symbolic capital gain from having his name attached to a successful movie.

    It’s complicated, but I’m more inclined to avoid it right now. I’d probably have a different opinion if I was a fan of the book, which I’ve never read.

    1. Why do you assume that? I sure don’t. It’s entirely possible that ten years ago his deal covered three films.

      Do you realize how much you’re stretching this? When the notion that he’d benefit from this film is demolished, you turn to, “Well, if it’s successful, there might be a sequel and he might see money from that, so…” It’s ridiculous.

      PAD

  12. I’m a bit torn, I will admit.

    Card is a fellow human being. He has a right to make a living. His chosen profession is writing, and I freely admit that he has a great amount of talent in that area.

    Before I discovered his political & religious views, I was a fan of his books. I still own several.

    However, once I discovered his views I found I could no longer appreciate his works as I once did. Those novels I own sit in a pile in my spare room. I keep meaning to get rid of them. Just haven’t gotten around to it.

    Card was more than just a believer that same-sex marriage was wrong. He was an activist trying to stop it. And I dislike the notion that any of my money helped enable such activism.

    While I’m somewhat happy that Card apparently has no profit participation in Ender’s Game, there is still the fact that a major studio paid him for film rights (and likely paid quite well.)

    I’m reluctant to give my money to the studio, which may encourage them to spend more money on Card. Still, I know that’s rather thin justification.

    Have fun at the movie Peter. Let us know what you think. Before all this real-world stuff coloured things for me I really did quite enjoy the book.

    1. Then don’t let them color your view…because they really shouldn’t..Probably 90% of creators I enjoy have views opposed to mine…They probably support causes and candidates i don’t….But I almost never let it diminish my enjoyment of their work.
      .
      If you DO decide to get rid of books authored by Card, please donate them to a library or a literacy program or even a prison….It would be a shame just to throw them away.

      1. Wish I could, but it’s just not that easy for me. It’s all a moot point I suppose: it’s really hard for me to get out to the movies these days. If I couldn’t get out to The Wolverine (which I *really* wanted to see) I doubt I’ll get out for this. I’ll probably save my effort for Thor next week.

        Oh, and I was planning on selling the books to one of the local used book stores or something similar to your suggestions.

  13. I bought a brand new HRC shirt just to wear to Ender’s Game. On the financial side, I figure the money the HRC gets from the shirt will probably be more than any money that Orson Scott Card would give to the NOM from my movie ticket. And on the personal side, I believe in LGBT equality, I’m proud to be bi, and I think the movie looks good, so I’m not going to let either camp tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.

    1. Oh, and I also hadn’t heard that OSC’s not getting anything from this film until now either. But since I had already made up my mind to see it when i thought he was, I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference.

  14. For me it is not about his opinions which I disagree with but the fact that I really did not care for the book.

  15. Oh, wait, they’re visible, but only when I make another comment… is is my browser or something?

    1. I don’t think so. I’ve had some weird issues with site comments this week. If I click a new post on the right of the screen, I don’t go to it and I can’t find the two or three most recent ones unless I comment and then they all appear. If I click the thread header rather than a comment on the right of the homepage, I get everything.

      1. For me it seems to be that regardless of how I get into an article, I need to refresh the page to get all of the comments to load.

  16. While it is very true that Card doesn’t get any additional money per movie ticket sold, he was already paid for the film. If it does well, he will get paid for another film or series of films. So paying for a ticket does not give Card any additional money per ticket, but there is an eventual payout that people are trying to avoid.

    People actively discouraging others from seeing the movie are also trying to discourage others from seeing something and buying the books, as movies do also result in increased book sales. This will indeed provide Card with more money per unit sold.

    I agree with the people who are boycotting film, so I will not be seeing the film myself. I don’t agree with the effort put into telling other people what to do. To me it betrays the heart of their efforts. I understand that this has the potential to “hurt” the careers of all of the others involved, but they had to have been as aware of things when they signed their contracts as the rest of us were. I’m not any less inclined to see any other Harrison Ford movies because of his involvement in this one…although I suppose I would be if he said, “I’m doing this movie because I think Card is right.” But that’s not the case.

    For what it’s worth, I hope you enjoy the movie. The story itself is quite good – especially if they leave out elements from Ender’s Shadow. (To be fair, this was another turnoff for me.)

  17. I hope there’s a discussion about the movie itself. I think the trailer gave away one of the big surprises from the book (no, I ain’t saying what it is), but that’s hardly new for many movie trailers.

    And I loved the book and hate OSC’s views on gay marriage. Then again, I can usually separate the art from the artist. After all, if you see a painting you like, do you have to know/agree with the artist’s personal views in order to keep liking it?

    1. Well, it all depends. If you learned that the painting was by John Wayne Gacy, would you feel as comfortable in knowing that you like the painting? Or what about a painting that turned out to be by Hitler? Or a poem about butterflies and trees written by David Duke?

      It’s easy to go the route of the hypothetical–until you start actually attaching names.

      1. “Well, it all depends. If you learned that the painting was by John Wayne Gacy, would you feel as comfortable in knowing that you like the painting?

        Yes. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen landscape paintings done by convicted murderers that I thought were amazingly beautiful. If anything, it sometimes just makes me wonder how anything that beautiful and that ugly can so easily coexist in the some mind. But, no, I’m not going to be stupid enough to feel guilt over thinking that a beautiful painting is in fact beautiful just because the creator of the painting didn’t match the creation’s beauty.

        Or what about a painting that turned out to be by Hitler? Or a poem about butterflies and trees written by David Duke?”

        Not a problem. Same as above.

        I love Richard Wagner’s works. He was an anti-Semite and a generally ugly person.

        Jimmy Page had an infatuation with the English occultist Aleister Crowley and was a pedophile who kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, Lori Maddox, and kept her locked up most of the time so that word of this illegal relationship and statutory rape could not get out. She later claimed she fell in love with Page almost immediately, but that doesn’t change anything. Sorry, but I’m not going to feel bad about thinking that Led Zeppelin has a few great songs.

        O.J. Simpson was convicted for murder in a civil suit and has recently flipped the hëll out a few times. Still not going to turn off or feel bad for enjoying The Towering Inferno, the Naked Gun films, Capricorn One, and other films where he had prominent roles.

        Vince Neil killed a man in a DUI incident. He admitted that money and fame basically got him a slap on the wrist for it; 30 days in jail a $2.5 million fine. He’s been busted for DUI several times since then. Still like 1980’s Motley Crue and have no guilt over it whatsoever.

        Hëll, if you go with most musicians over the years, you can basically say that any support of their albums and concerts has been financially helpful to the illegal drug trade. Keith Richards has probably subsidized the existence of at least one major cartel by himself. Financially supporting musicians who are repeat offenders is little different than financially supporting the illegal drug trade and the blood that’s on its hands. Ready to turn the radio off and junk your music collection yet?

        We’ll stick with music for a minute longer. I think that Ted Nugent is a complete fûçkìņg idiot and he both donates time and money to causes I strongly disagree with. I’m not a fan of his lyrics and I don’t attend his concerts since he is well known for not just shutting up and singing when on a stage. However, I have no issue with buying an album with a song I like where he is just playing guitar or had a hand in writing the riffs he’s playing. The man plays a hëll of a mean guitar and I’m a fan of that. I also have no issue sitting down and watching him just talking about hunting since he often hunts with a bow and I pretty much exclusively hunt with a bow.

        “Birth of a Nation” is easily one of the most racist films to come out of its era. It’s nothing more than an anti-black, pro-KKK propaganda piece. I have no problem with giving D.W. Griffith credit as the man who revolutionized film-making to a large degree at that time and with that film. I also have no issue with enjoying One Million B.C. which Griffith was an uncredited producer on.

        There are few hardcore horror fans who are not fans of either H.P. Lovecraft’s actual works or works that have incorporated his creations into them. For that matter, there are a lot of casual fans who enjoy his work without knowing that they’re looking at Lovecraft or Lovecraft inspired works. The fact is that Howard Phillips Lovecraft was pretty dámņëd racist. he was not found of “foreigners” coming to this country, he spoke (or wrote in letters to friends) negatively on immigrants of the non-white variety, and he was not a believer in the races “interbreeding” with another.

        Lovecraft’s work can be read as pure horror. It can be enjoyed as pure horror and nothing more than that. However, some people have made very strong cases for many of his stories being in a way allegories for his racist beliefs. The ideas in some of them being that good Christian people abandoned their beliefs for some kooky foreign religion and interbred with the foreigners to become monstrosities is something that resonates with race purists.

        Am I going to stop enjoying, celebrating, and promoting the works of H.P. Lovecraft because this is a possible unconscious, or even questionably conscious, thing in his work? No. His works still read purely as horror if you’re not looking for that in them and the man was a master at the written word. Likewise, shunning anything that is connected to his mythology would mean shunning a hëll of a lot of stuff.

        The art and the artist are not the same thing and I don’t need to resort to hypotheticals to discuss it as I have just shown. And I could add another hundred or so examples to that list.

  18. This is a man who uses his prestige as a best-selling author to legitimize virulent hate groups like the “National Organization for Marriage”; to which he is a major donor and of which he is a former board member.

    His money helps this organization directly make the lives of LGBT people worse by promoting anti-gay politicians and policies.

    The success of his novels have allowed him to publish op-eds speaking for his extremist views, which have included the assertion that homosexual should continue to be ILLEGAL in those areas where sodomy laws have not been overturned. He doesn’t just believe – and actively take action as a donor and an essayist to fight for – that marriage equality should be stopped, but also that just being LGBT should be enough to get you arrested. He has also advocated for the overthrow of the government to prevent LGBT people from marrying.

    Here’s a direct quotes:

    “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”

    The impulse to boycott Card is not based on political affiliation, nor on an attempt to punish someone for speech, but on the knowledge that he actively promotes political and religious violence on the personhood and families of LGBT people.

    LGBT youth are something like three times more likely to kill themselves then straight youth. They make up about 10% of the total population and something like 40% of the population of homeless youth, and those numbers are likely significantly UNDERreported due to the closet. It would be ridiculous to claim that Card is responsible for this culture, but he is on the front lines of a movement that strives to prevent changing the culture that makes all of that horror possible. Boycotting Card isn’t an affront, doing what little I can do to keep money and prestige from him, it isn’t “PC,” it isn’t an attack on free speech, it’s a survival tactic.

    1. And if you had actually read what Peter wrote here, you would understand that boycotting this movie will solve none of that since Card is not seeing a dime of it.

      1. I mean, there are a couple issues here.

        First of all, the idea that he is not making money off the film remains an unconfirmed rumor. Until I hear it from someone more significant then an unnamed “source close to the film,” I am not going to feel comfortable accepting that as gospel, especially given his producer credit.

        Also, Card is making a truckload of money from the book’s sudden sales resurgence, which is due to anticipation of the movie.

        In addition, the better the movie does the more likely he is to make better deal for other books. I know PAD seemed pretty upset when this argument was used earlier, but if my goal is to prevent any of MY money from supporting Card’s bigotry, I believe this is a legitimate concern.

        And the idea that he doesn’t have points off the gross means he’s not making money off of the movie is really strange to me me. Sure, if his deal didn’t include back-end, he is not making MORE money from it, but he’s already been paid (if the reports are accurate) more then I’ll make in thirty years at my current rate of pay. The company has made an investment in him and I wouldn’t mind a bit if it started to become clear that making major investments in bigots doesn’t pay off.

        And finally, from a non-action standpoint, the peeks into his brain that he’s offered us in his essays has simply made it clear that the worlds that come out of his head are not someplace I want to visit. Maybe if I was unaware of his actions I would have see the ENDER’S GAME trailers and other media and thought to myself, “hey, that is something I’d like to see.” But that’s not what happens. Instead, I become sick to my stomach as I think of how Card has used his money and influence to devalue the lives of people like me.

    2. Steven Orenshaw: “This is a man who uses his prestige as a best-selling author to legitimize virulent hate groups like the “National Organization for Marriage”; to which he is a major donor and of which he is a former board member.”

      No, he does not legitimize anything with his presence. I hate that argument on any subject for the simple fact that it’s utterly ridiculous.

      No one but a complete idiot would feel that a group that they felt was illegitimate in their view was suddenly legitimized in their view by the addition of a science fiction writer or celebrity. You could maybe make the claim that a group can use celebrity to get themselves more attention, but even that’s questionable when you look at some celebrities and the results.

      Besides, he didn’t sway anyone of any intelligence that didn’t already want to sway in that direction. I like the book. I’m pro-gay marriage. Do you think I gave a šhìŧ about my views and his not matching up?

      I’m on Peter’s blog because I enjoy his work. I agree with some of his politics. I disagree with some of his politics. Same with a number of other posters here. Do you really believe that we change our minds on the legitimacy of a cause or group by Peter lending his presence to them or that we change our minds based on Peter joining a group or cause?

      There are celebrities out there who are vocally pro or anti just about every issue you van find. Do you know how most people react to them? They agree with the ones who promote the belief that they themselves already held or they call the celebrity and idiot for having the opposing POV.

      Jerry Doyle played one of my two favorite characters from one of my favorite television shows of all time. Janine Turner played one of my three favorite characters from Northern Exposure. NE is to this day still easily one of my favorite television shows. Do you think that their political activism, support of groups, or opinions broadcast on the AM dial legitimized anything I or others thought was illegitimate or made me or anyone else who wasn’t leaning towards being a rapid, Tea Party conservative suddenly shift gears and change stands on things just because the two of them came out as rabid, Tea Party loving conservatives?

      People base their legitimacy of a group on the shared or opposing beliefs of the group. Ten people in a town form a group to deal with an issue that only impacts the locals. We see it all the time. No celebs, no big names. They grow or die, succeed or fail on the issues, the ideas, and whether most people are already disposed to the cause or against it.

  19. I think this is so freaking stupid. Anyone who knows either Jenn or me knows that we both have gay friends and we both strongly support equal rights for gays in this country.

    I Like Ender’s Game. Jenn loves Ender’s Game. Ender’s Game has a story that has nothing to do with Card’s POV on gays.

    And people are worried that he’s going to get money off of thee deal? The book is a 28 year old best seller. It’s been in print and selling copies for years now. It’s been made into audio-books that have sold even more copies and audio dramas that sold even more copies. Between all of that and the many books to follow, Card has already made a mint here. It’s not like he’s depending on this film to keep himself out of the welfare lines.

    And even if the deal hadn’t been set up the way it has and even more money went to OSC… So what? Buy a ticket and watch a film that has nothing to do with his views on gays. Feel bad about the money possibly going to him in any way? Send twice your ticket price to a group that works against homophobic laws and other homophobic idiocy. Problem solved.

    1. Anyone who knows either Jenn or me knows that we both have gay friends and we both strongly support equal rights for gays in this country.

      What’s the relevance of this to your argument?

      1. We don’t support Card’s position or his activism. We don’t support the ideas that Card espouses with regards to homosexuals or the rights of homosexuals in this country. We are both very much on the opposite side of the spectrum from Card’s positions and actions. We have no issue with Ender’s Game, book, audio drama, or movie, since it is not about Card’s activism.

        This is a work of fiction, a work of art, that is separate from the artist. Ender’s Game is not about his activism, his ideas and comments on homosexuality, or the organizations he supports. This isn’t like Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin babbling on about how great and misunderstood things like Joseph McCarthy and WWII Japanese-American internment camps were and then writing a book about it.

        You can be 100% opposed to his views and his activism and still find enjoyment in his art. It’s not a difficult thing to do.

      2. It is NOT separate from the artist. Not at all. It’s not separate until the money made by purchasing the art/the right to consume the art no longer directly financially supports the activism of the artist. By buying Card’s books, by buying a ticket to this movie you are directly supporting his activism, and that is just how it is.

        You can throw up the “art is separate from the artist” bull once the man is dead and his activism is complete.

      3. Note: The following is all about emotion, not anything solidly philosophical per se…

        “You can be 100% opposed to his views and his activism and still find enjoyment in his art. It’s not a difficult thing to do.”

        It may not be for you, but it is for me. Alas, this applies to some musicians and writers I have formerly loved. A few years back, I found that one of my favorite religious musicians had mistreated and been abusive to the people under them, and … I just couldn’t listen to their music anymore without feeling like it was a sham.

        Peter mentioned having had some very nasty conflicts with John Byrne, but being able to enjoy Byrne’s stuff; if I had had that happen, I can’t imagine that not affecting me. Heck, I’ve never met the man in person, but the stuff Byrne has said and done over the last batch of years has made it very hard for me to want to read his later work; it’s as if his older work has been sort of “grandfathered in” (again, remember that I’m talking about emotion, not logic), so it gets a sort of free pass, but the later stuff, especially as he appeared to become a less kind person in his public statements, doesn’t.

        And none of this–again, in this case, and talking about my emotions, not any kind of formal philosophical conclusion–has anything at all to do with trying to influence things, or to “make a statement,” or anything like that. It’s more an array of unhappy feelings. Heck, it’s almost like the Sims game–when one’s character would have certain interactions with other characters, as positive or negative things happened, there would be little floating pluses or minuses over their heads to show how their relationship with each other was going, and if there were sufficient positive or negative ones, it would make permanent changes. When I hear of a celebrity doing something really nasty (or really good), completely unrelated to their acing or singing or whatever, it does affect how I think of them, and how inclined I am to see their work. “Oh, this TV show has THAT guy in it, ew.” “Oh, that’s the singer who did THAT thing, yuck.” And when someone behaves like a really good person, I find myself to a degree not liking their work more, but kind of… *wanting* to like it more. I feel a little bad that I don’t. (Again, this comes up in comics, too. I have pretty consistently disliked, in some cases hated, Brian Michael Bendis’ mainstream Marvel work for years; yet, the more I hear about him as a person, the better a guy he sounds like, so I find myself with two sets of conflicting emotions.)

        When it comes to writers/performers (as opposed to, say, eating at Chick-Fil-A), it feels like just… not wanting to hang around with that person. Again, all of this is about feelings, rather than any kind of philosophical/ethical decision-making process (which, of course, the Card situation brings in). Is anyone else in this situation?

      4. David, you’ve described my reaction pretty precisely. And it works for me the other way, too. I’m not a fan of the Beastie Boys’ music, but everything I’ve read about them as people makes me really like them, so I’ve *tried*. And sometimes the trying succeeds: I’ve come to really love Amanda Palmer as a person, based on her writing, her actions, her integrity as an artist, and so even though her music isn’t quite my style I’ve bought a fair amount of it to support *her*, and liked it more as a result. The same happens with books and comics. And I’ve continued buying comic book series even after I stopped reading them, simply because I liked the creators and wanted the book to succeed for their sakes.

        In each case, to get me to buy or not buy based on the person, it’s multiple pings that continually add or detract from the “score” until I come to associate so much pleasure or displeasure with the creator that I like or dislike the experience of their work because I have that extra bump of what I get from them directly. Amanda Palmer’s work comes with a huge affection bump that makes me love her work. Card comes with a huge repulsion drop that keeps me from enjoying his, even the earlier better works that I once did enjoy.

        Your reaction to art is never purely based on the art’s intrinsic qualities, or even primarily based on that. It’s at least as much based upon what you bring to the experience of that art. Knowledge of the medium. Of its time period. Of the artist’s influences. Of how much you like that style, medium, tone, color. Or how much you like the artist and his other works. That’s why the experience of art is subjective. So, disliking art based on personal associations is hardly unusual. It’s just more obvious here than is common.

  20. My advice to those who cannot imagine going to a film based on a book by someone who they do not like or respect…do not, under any circumstances, delve deeply, or even at all, into the lives of any filmmaker, writer, actor, director, etc. Some of them, people whos names you would recognize, led lives that included thoughts and actions that make Card look like beloved character actor (insert name of your favorite character actor here). And you would be forced to avoid all that great stuff they did…or stand revealed as someone who is just spouting platitudes, with no actual principles behind them.

    I mean, Klaus Kinski raped his own daughter. I’m going to avoid FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE? Um, no.

  21. By the way, I did find some better sources about the whole “mayors and such making what sound like veiled threats about trying to keep Chick-Fil-A out of their cities and being told to knock it off by the ACLU story”; I would not have gone with the (literally) John-Birch-Society crazypants source used as an example, but despite that, it is indeed true. (And I definitely agree that neither Chick-Fil-A nor Card should be censored in that way–but in the same way, I still believe a freely-chosen boycott of one or both are quite good and right.)

  22. seems a little odd to be boycotting the film, which will not make card money, while allowing the book to sail up the bestseller lists again, which does. Maybe they realize that banning books looks bad (though the reasons for that would apply just as much to any other art form, I should think).

    Or it offers a better chance to clim victory–if Enders Game isn’t #1 at the box office they can claim to be the reason.

  23. Interesting that the movie calls the aliens Formics instead of Bûggërš, avoiding the anti-gay stuff that we keep getting told isn’t in the books. But it’s not so much the anti-gay stuff that makes the book creepy, more the frequent scenes about naked little boys, the child abuse, the incest subtext between Ender’s brother and sister, etc.

  24. It’s just sad that gay people have to defend their position that they don’t want to see a movie produced and written by someone who is very anti gay. I think if Peter David owned a chik fila store he would be on his blog telling people that the views of the corporate owners have nothing to do with eating chicken. The bottom line is that some gay people do not want to give card a single cent of their money. I don’t think it’s silly to assume that card won’t see some profit in this in some shape or form with future book, DVD, and sequels.

    I also wouldn’t see a movie written by a guy who stated that Jews are evil and that Judaism must be abolished. I just don’t understand why people don’t understand why some gay people want to boycott this film.

    1. I don’t own a Chick Fil-A store, but I already did say that the views of the corporate owners had nothing to do with eating chicken. Said that months ago. Fan response? People told me they had lost respect for me and would cease reading my books immediately. It’s always fun to be boycotted for stating an opinion.

      PAD

      1. ‘Be like me or I’ll make you suffer.’ It’s sad that people who love to condemn bullying don’t mind doing it themselves when it suits them.

      2. Don,

        And here we see the ever-expanding (mis)application of the term “bullying.” So now, choosing not to patronize a person or business is “bullying.”

        –Daryl

      3. Actually, Peter, I didn’t know about your response to Chick-Fil-A, but perhaps this is an appropriate context to clarify some things (with light rather than heat), since we may all be arguing past each other:

        When, if ever, do you think a boycott (either as an individual or as a group) is morally right and/or a good thing to do, and why? (Presumably, the “why” would clarify both the Card and Chick-Fil-A matters.) It sounds to me–and I may be wrong–that you don’t believe boycotts are ever morally acceptable.

        (And of course I don’t mean government censorship–just the choice of people to boycott something of their own free will.)

      4. Boycotts make sense to me when, say, governments get together and say, “This government is doing adherent things to its citizenry. We must boycott it (or take similar financial steps against it) in order to force it to change what it’s doing.”

        PAD

      5. So in your view, then–and please correct me if I am wrong–private individuals (individually or in groups) should never, ever boycott anything? And/or do you believe it’s genuinely morally wrong for them to do so?

      6. Not sure how many times I have to say this: I believe it’s wrong to boycott someone’s work for beliefs or actions that are unrelated to the work. I believe that declaring, “I don’t want this person to get my money” is oftentimes simple petulance. And oftentimes misplaced or absurd. Boycott “Ender’s Game” and the only people you hurt, really, is your local movie theater owner. Boycott the novels and you hurt the bookstores, although granted, you prevent him from getting the sixty cents in royalties off the copy you bought. Sixty whole cents. Well done you.

        Boycotts launched by private individuals rarely, if ever, have the slightest impact on their target. All it does is hurt other people and doesn’t do a thing to change the minds of the people they’re attacking other than convince them that the people they despise are vindictive.

        PAD

      7. “Not sure how many times I have to say this: I believe it’s wrong to boycott someone’s work for beliefs or actions that are unrelated to the work.”

        Thank you! While I believe we still disagree, I appreciate the clarification–and I do indeed have more to think about with all of this. I do hope this won’t make you dislike your fans who don’t agree with that, as I’m still a fan of your work…

        David (who still misses the Adventurers’ Club–Kungaloosh!)

      8. (I’m still clarifying my own thoughts on this. Would love to see other people join in on their notions about boycotting in general, the reasons why or why not, and so on. I definitely think there’s a distinction between doing it for symbolic or social value (regardless of whether it makes anyone change anything) and doing it specifically to make someone do something, though they are often conjoined/intertwined.)

      9. (From doing some research, and I know it’s only Wikipedia, near as I can tell, “boycott” has very often (including in the events which gave us the word “boycott” in the first place) often been an activity freely taken by individuals, rather than governments imposing formal sanctions.)

      10. That is the thing that I am utterly unable to understand about this anti-boycott stance. What is “petulant” about not wanting one cent, let alone sixty cents, of my dollar go to an organization dedicated to doing (political and sociological) violence to me? That doesn’t seem “petulant” to me so much as it seems *wise.*

        And my local theater owners and bookstore owners are doing okay by me, I think. They’ve got my money from seeing CARRIE this weekend, they’ve already sold me my first THOR ticket and I’ll probably be seeing that twice. I also buy a book, say, every other week. I can’t swear that I bought a book the week that Card’s last novel came out, but chances are, I did.

        As for DON, your argument makes a *very* obvious logical misstep. Calling a bully a bully – and treating them like it – is not bullying. Calling a bigot a bigot – and treating them like it – is not bigotry. Responding to mistreatment with defense mechanisms is *not* the same thing as initiating the mistreatment.

  25. I didn’t know that, about BO not translating into more money for Card. That does actually change my willingness to see the movie.

    I don’t think the boycott idea, in this case, is as wibbly-wobbly as you make it sound. Card tithes to the Mormon church. The Mormon church funds campaigns like Prop 8. Therefore if my moviegoing dollars were going to Card, I know some portion of them will be conveyed to a cause I don’t support. It’s the same reason I was all set to join Curves, but at the last minute had to find a different gym because I found out Curves donates to pro-life campaigns.

    Thanks for sharing your industry knowledge! Neither the DH or I have sentimental attachment to Ender’s Game, but we are deeply in love with the Alamo Drafthouse and tend to see every movie that’s at all palatable. Now I don’t have to feel bad about going to see Ender’s Game.

  26. Even if Frankie’s being tongue in cheek there, Ender’s Game is not an important literary work. It’s a typical example of the SF novel aimed solidly at the kind of social outcast kid who wants to read about someone who gets ruthlessly picked on and abused and turns out to be the most importantest and bestest boy ever — the same kind of wish fulfilment crap that so much SF and fantasy does. Its originality lies mainly in the weird sexual and political stuff that those kids are oblivious to. If most people first read Ender’s Game at 30 instead of 12, it’d have a very different reputation.

  27. The only work by Card that I’ve read was his GOD AWFUL Dragon Age comic book series he did for IDW a few years ago and the trailers for Ender’s Game didn’t impress me one dámņ bit. Card’s homophobia and that it was reported (or rumored) that he was going to donate his profits from the movie to anti-gay groups was the final reason why I chose not to see the movie.

    The ONLY reason I bought Shadow Complex was because of Peter David not Orson Scott Card who had I no idea who he was at the time I bought the game.

  28. And I should mention that the views of people who are boycotting this do seem to be across the board–some are because of Card’s views, some because of his actions (board of directors of NOM, etc.), some because of concern that money from it will go to him and therefore to support anti-gay causes, etc. I don’t think all of these are quite the same thing. Some are doing it with the intent of being practical (they don’t want X amount of money going to the anti-gay groups who fund legislation), some with the intent of being symbolic or making a statement, some with the intent of letting people know about the issues at hand re: gay rights. And of course many will have a combination of views, and some will have perhaps unclear reasoning behind their own motives or what they expect/desire as a result of this. So I think it would be good for all of us on whatever side to clarify our thoughts about this–including me! 🙂

  29. We will not be seeing it. OSC may not stand to make more money off of this particular film but if it is successful then he stands to make a lot more money off the sequels.

    There’s lots of ways for me to spend my money. Giving some of it to people that I find abhorrent is not one of them.

  30. Well, the first weekend box office should tick off a few people. Whether or not it continues to do so will depend on whether or not the film has legs. But at this point, the boycott is a failure. The film debuts at #1 with a respectable showing and decent reviews. From this point forward, the only thing that damages or not it is likely only word of mouth from the people who saw it this weekend to friends and coworkers.

    1. Ender’s Game – $28 million ($28 million total)
    2. Jáçkášš Presents: Bad Grandpa – $20.5 million ($62.1 million total)
    3. Last Vegas – $16.5 million ($16.5 million total)
    4. Free Birds – $16 million ($16 million total)
    5. Gravity – $13.1 million ($219.2 million total)
    6. Captain Phillips – $8.5 million ($82.6 million total)
    7. 12 Years a Slave – $4.6 million ($8.8 million total)
    8. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 – $4.2 million ($106.2 million total)
    9. Carrie – $3.4 million ($32 million total)
    10. The Counselor – $3.3 million ($13.4 million total)

    1. We’ll never really know the boycott’s effect; the movie was always going to do well, and I hope no one boycotting the movie was expecting otherwise. Mel Gibson’s movies continue to do well, and he’s well known as a raging bigot; this was a scifi epic, with Harrison Ford, where the original writer only offends people who care about gay issues. Most viewers probably never even heard there was a boycott going on (I know a few who fell into that category).

      But it cost 110 million to produce, and only made $28M in opening weekend, so those who want to argue that they made a dent can. Either way, I hope that people paying their 10-12 bucks did so based on their own likes and dislikes, not on pro-or-con groupthink or on expected BO results. If they did, they can be happy based on their own actions; no one else matters worth a darn.

    2. That is actually a rather poor showing for a movie that cost this much.

      I am NOT saying that the boycott has been successful in bombing the film. I think it probably had very little effect on the overall take. But it IS a bomb.

  31. Well I used to think of boycotts in black and white terms, but reading everyone’s respectful and intelligent posts has really opened my eyes.

    I think the issue of boycotts boils down to this (for me):

    1)” dammit, I’m a writer not a politician”. Should writers who simply want to tell a story have to live in fear that a statement they made (possibly taken out of context) will result in a group of people boycotting their work. Especially if the works of art have nothing to do with the subject material that angered people. For me the answer will differ from case to case. But with Orson Scott Card he sat on the board of directors of an organization that was very anti gay and wrote articles and stories defending his anti gay stance. Therefore I can see the reason that people would boycott him and his work.

    2) America – People are angry and scared right now. Conservatives are afraid that their way of life is being eaten away by a more liberal way of life. Gun owners fear that the second amendment will be deleted from the constitution. Racists are angry that minorities are “taking over America”. People who are pro choice as seeing a more aggressive push from pro lifers. People are afraid of getting shot, Gays are confused and angry as they drive from state to state not knowing when their marriage is recognized or not.

    Gay people have seen what happens in California as marriage went back and forth. We have to be assertive and sometimes aggressive in defending what we have and pushing for more. I had no idea of Orson Scott Card’s beliefs before the boycott and was glad I was educated before I went out to buy his novel so that he could use that money to hurt my people.

    I think boycotts are necessary and are a symptom of a country that is very fractured and fearful and that if the country can come together and find some balance, then we wont hear as much about boycotts.

  32. The film’s marketing did not exactly make this a hard film to skip. There’s nothing unique or exciting in any of the trailers or promotional materials. If I did not know that it had been a book for decades, I would have assumed that some executive had thrown together a “Hunger Games In Space” project for a quick buck. Honestly, if we weren’t talking about the controversy, would we be talking about this film at all?

    1. “Honestly, if we weren’t talking about the controversy, would we be talking about this film at all?”

      You mean on Peter’s blog? Who knows? We could be. He’s certainly started threads devoted to both genre and non-genre television shows, films, books, and plays that he has enjoyed.

      Do you mean genre fans in general? Would genre fans be talking about a space opera on the big screen with Ben Kingsley in a prominent role and Harrison f’n Ford in a major role? Uhm… YEAH.

      1. I was actually referring to the general public taking notice of this film, the people who saw the space-diving scenes in the trailer and said, “That’s fine, but “Star Trek Into Darkness” did this five months ago.” At present, mainstream audiences are positively inundated with SF movies, television, and literature, and there’s nothing about this movie that makes people stand up and take notice, unless you’re already a fan of Card’s works. There is an entire generation whom “Ender’s Game” holds a special place in their hearts, but the public still needs to be sold on it. People will forgive anything if the art is good (Roald Dahl is on record as an Anti Semite, Polanski is a pedophile, etc.), but the fact that absolutely no one is talking about the story itself tells me that they have failed to market the movie effectively.

  33. Steven Orenshaw: “It is NOT separate from the artist. Not at all. It’s not separate until the money made by purchasing the art/the right to consume the art no longer directly financially supports the activism of the artist. By buying Card’s books, by buying a ticket to this movie you are directly supporting his activism, and that is just how it is.

    “You can throw up the “art is separate from the artist” bull once the man is dead and his activism is complete.”

    Of course. You’re right. If somebody says or does things you strongly disagree with, we should all agree that they should be punished. Why, even if they make something, some work of art, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with those thoughts, those words, or those acts, they should be punished by having people shun that work as well.

    Oh, and anyone who dares to have anything at all to do with them, even if they don’t share their views and even if they’re only having anything to do with aspects of their art that don’t share the views of the artist, should be punished as well. Peter did the video game related work. Let’s all punish him. Book and comic book companies have associated with Card. Let’s be sure to punish them. A studio and an entire film crew dared to do a film based on a story that Card once wrote. Let’s be sure to punish them.

    Let’s all remember, the art is the artist. If we disagree with something that someone thinks, says, or does, we should punish them and anybody who dares associate with them. We should always work to punish people and work to ensure that they have no success with anything, related to what we disagree with or not, because we strongly disagree with thoughts they have, things they say, and/or stands they’ve taken.

    Congratulations. At best you’re little more than a happy member of the Thought Police. At worst, you’re little better than Card.

    1. That’s… awfully personally-attacky, and frankly I believe it’s a straw-man argument. I didn’t read his statements as claiming the stuff you seem to be attributing to him.

      1. By the way, that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with what he *is* saying. I’ve wrestled with that–that paying money for things means that one is “supporting” X if that money makes it to the hands of someone doing X–but carried to its logical conclusion, no one should ever pay taxes because some of them will go to do something bad, no one should buy any product because somewhere down the line, the money will make it to the hands of someone doing something bad, and ultimately the only moral way to live is to either subsistence-farm one’s own food and grow all other products and make them oneself, or join the Amish perhaps, or perhaps just starve to death.

        I don’t agree with the principle I think I see there, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t valid reasons to boycott… still sorting out my thoughts on this.

      2. “That’s… awfully personally-attacky, and frankly I believe it’s a straw-man argument. I didn’t read his statements as claiming the stuff you seem to be attributing to him.”

        Sorry, but that’s what a boycott of this kind is. It’s little more than a bunch of people lining up and happily volunteering to be the Thought Police.

        I’ll switch boycotts for a minute. Glenn Beck was boycotted when he was on Fox News. Now, I wasn’t a supporter of that, and I hate Glenn Beck. I think he’s an idiot and Beck says a lot of stupid things, sometimes hateful of often not true to greater or lesser degrees, fairly regularly. His TV shows, books, internet presence, and radio program are all devoted to promoting the things that he says.

        Now, I think that the response to words should be words. If someone puts forward an argument that you disagree with, you should attempt to put forward a more convincing counterargument. If someone tries to push an idea into the mainstream that you disagree with, you meet that with a persuasive argument as to why that isn’t a good idea.

        But I could at least see the idea behind a focused boycott with regards to Beck and his shows even as I disagreed with it. His programs were nothing more than platforms to propel his ideas and to, whenever and wherever he could get away with it, make šhìŧ up. I just wasn’t in favor of boycotting when words and ideas could be used.

        But boycotts like this, and the garbage coming out of many people’s mouths about it, are idiotic to the extreme. This isn’t disagreeing with an idea or a stand and fighting that idea or that stand. This isn’t even, as we saw with the Beck boycott, targeting the platforms used to spread those ideas or to push them into the public square.

        This is little more than a thuggish, mob mentality attempt to strangle free speech and instill fear. This is a group of people trying to send the message that, because of Card’s politics, anything with his name on it, reflective of those politics or not, will be targeted by them, and anyone who associates with Card in the manner that Peter did or that the studio has will be likewise targeted. You can call my opinion on it whatever you want, but this is boiling down to nothing more than thuggish, mob mentality attempts to stifle free speech and instill fear.

        And the funniest part about it is that Card and his politics both are and have been losing.

        Each and every year we see Card’s position becoming more and more the minority opinion in this country. We’ve seen huge leaps and bounds in the the last ten years with regards to the rights that homosexuals have finally been granted in this country and are recognized as rightly having, and we’re seeing signs that there will be even more leaps and bounds in the coming years.

        Card, his ideas, the groups he supports, and the causes he supports, both with words and with money, are losing. Even he grudgingly admits that. Let the dûmbášš rant and rave. Let him waste his money. And if he steps forward to express his ideas, meet them with ideas.

        And doing it that way, doing it by beating his ideas and words and making them look as petty and small as they really are, is the effective way to do it. It diminishes him and it diminished the ideas and stands he supports.

        But this? This is stupidity. This is mob mentality thuggishness with people promising to punish him for daring to speak words they disagree with and promising to punish anyone who associates with him in any way. This is little more than small minded people declaring that Card is viciously intolerant, so they’re going to show Card, and anyone who willing associates with him or his works, just how viciously intolerant they can be in return.

        And all it really does for many is turn Card into something of a martyr. He can now be the poster boy used in propaganda to show how the intolerant Left will attempt to victimize and punish anyone that dares think or speak in ways not approved by the Left. Now, the reality of the situation being that Card originally did the same thing will be left out of the propaganda, but it will certainly be presented in a manner to show Card and others who dared associate with him as the victims of intolerance, which they sort of are here, and used to sway people in ways that they might otherwise not have been swayed before.

        But me? I’ll happily meet Card’s words and ideas with words and ideas and help to make him look like the sad, sorry, socially retarded person that he is. But I have zero interest in punishing his works that don’t reflect those ideas, punishing him in every attempt to make a living that is not reflective of those ideas, or punishing others who do not share his views because they associated with him or works of his that do not reflect his views. I’ll leave that to the thuggish mobs and the cowards who fear ideas and words so much that they have to punish people for them rather than have the courage in their own ability to face and beat those words and ideas with better words and ideas.

      3. Re: Jerry Chandler (“Sorry, but that’s what a boycott of this kind is”) — I have to say, while I am still not convinced (I am still sorting out my thoughts… some of which I think I will be posting right after this), this is certainly well-said and does make me think…

      4. Sort out your thoughts and understand that if you came back in a week or a month and said that you just couldn’t go; I’m not lumping you or anyone else who simply chooses not to go in with the people that I described above.

        I have no problem with someone deciding that they can’t go. I might offer a token argument as to why it seems a shame to allow someone else the power to take enjoyment of something that you would otherwise enjoy away from you, but ultimately everyone does what they feel that they have to do. My only target for my ire above is the people that actively start, participate in, and champion boycotts of this nature.

        There are a number of people I disagree with when it comes to politics and social issues. It bothers me that our society seems to be becoming more and more one where we want to destroy anyone we disagree with and that works that are otherwise entertaining, possibly beautiful, and maybe even uplifting are essentially written off as cavalierly as a a movie villain writes off deaths as collateral damage.

        And it seems an even bigger and more pointless waste to me when the people being targeted are espousing ideas that are losing the so-called culture war anyhow. The side of this argument and this fight that Card backs is losing, and losing more and more badly with each and every passing year.

    2. Mr. Chandler, you seem to be having some issues about what the whole concept of the “Thought Police” is. The Thought Police, as implied by the name, exist to police, you know: thoughts. The entirety of their mandate, and the reason they are repellent, is that they take action against people who have not taken action, but rather have *thoughts* or opinions that are considered detrimental to the status quo. Policing people based on the actual actions they take isn’t what the Thought Police does, it’s what the POLICE do. And Card’s ACTIONS – not his thoughts, not his views, not his political affiliations, as have been explained multiple times in this post – are directly detrimental to the lives of LGBT people

      This is indisputable: he proudly supports NOM and NOM works tirelessly to make sure that LGTB people worldwide have as hard a time as is possible to go about the bushiness of living their lives as human people. Does he deserve “punishment” for providing support for the organization that not only lobbies against marriage equality and employment non-discrimination in the States but has also lobbied for laws criminalizing homosexuality in places like Russia and Uganda? I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want my sixty cents of royalties going to him, not if a hundredth of a penny of that is then going to that organization. I don’t consider that a punishment of him, but (as I’ve said) a mechanism to protect myself and people like me.

  34. (I also think I ought to add that I think the phrase “You can throw up the ‘art is separate from the artist’ bull” isn’t too nice either–obviously, those of us who believe that don’t think it’s bull.)

    (And this is why I stopped posting on CBR and most other discussion boards… [i]*blush*[/i])

  35. One of the things I’ve been pondering here is the matter of reasons to boycott–or, arguably, not necessarily “boycott” in the technical sense, just avoid–someone’s work (including material based on that work).

    Some people could argue that they are boycotting Card’s work (and stuff based on it) because they want to make a real change as a result–presumably, to discourage movie-makers and the like to not make movies based on his stuff.

    Some might, indeed, want to “punish” him, or at least have a sense of striking back. (In what is arguably a very small way–since Card would appear, just on the basis of the amount he’d have been paid for the movie rights, to be at least a multi-millionaire, and most of the people avoiding it are probably not.)

    The reasons I am pondering are somewhat different. There are two, perhaps linked.

    One of them is symbolic. Purely symbolic. “I don’t want my money to go to that man, and I want everyone to know it; I want to make a statement.” Sort of like a public shunning. Certainly, there is a very good tradition of “sending someone to Coventry,” i.e., refusing to associate with them. (This need not mean doing that to anyone who does associate with him; it could mean avoiding this particular film, but not avoiding other material by the studio or any of the other people involved.)

    The other is linked or similar, but, well, more personal. The desire to not have anything to do with that man or his works, whether anyone knows it or not. A sort of repulsion from seeing the movie, because of what the man has done, whether or not it affects his bottom line one iota or anyone else knows that one is doing it. I don’t believe we have a responsibility, if this is how we feel, to grit our teeth and force ourselves to try to enjoy or appreciate something connected with someone whom we find vile or perceive as an (self-declared, in this case) enemy; I definitely believe in (real, not “as cold as”) charity and mercy, in building bridges and such, but I don’t think this means one has to try to enjoy a movie (that could then go into making a statement the other way, of course). (Obviously, there could be circumstances which might make things different; if the author were behind a small indie film and it was really going to affect him in a real way, and if perhaps he was at the showing, then there could be enough of a personal connection one could make in taking steps toward building bridges by seeing the movie and talking with him afterward, or something. Um, moving on…)

    I suppose then, in those cases but especially the latter one, the question becomes whether or not that even counts as a boycott in a real sense–whether it’s more of a symbolic gesture, like a protest (which is where signing a statement or the like becomes more relevant), or just feeling sufficiently repelled to not want to see the thing.

    And I suspect that for many people, all of these in different degrees are wrapped up together; I’m trying to introspectively look at my own thoughts and motives (“What if seeing it didn’t affect anything at all? Would I want to see it then?” etc.) to sort it all out for myself.

  36. I know Card’s politics aren’t supposed to come into play in the movie, but the fact that in the first book the enemy aliens are called “Bûggërš” is just a little too perfect.

  37. It’s not like this is the first time the public has tried to hold an author accountable for his actions through ticket sales. If Phillip Pullman had kept his mouth shut, we would have gotten the sequels to “The Golden Compass”. Instead, he insisted in giving interviews which turned audiences, both religious and non, off from the series, and they went and saw something else that weekend.

    I don’t buy that the boycott is harming bookstores or theatres. People who are in the mood to see a movie are just going to see another one. People who buy books will put that disposable income toward another purchase. If I suspect that the guy at the burrito place where I buy my lunch isn’t washing his hands, I am completely within my rights to go to the sushi restaurant instead. I don’t need a bacteria count from a lab to justify my choice. People should not be shamed for exercising their right to spend their money as they choose, on either side of the debate. For my part, I have not seen or experienced any pressure to not see this movie, only people declaring that they, personally, will not see it.

    No, Card isn’t going to be hurt financially by this film doing poorly, but he did write other works. If having his name becoming attached to a project is shown to be a liability, there’s a good chance that future adaptations of his work wouldn’t be made.

    For me, it’s not about Card’s paycheque. It’s not even about punishing him for what he says. It’s about choosing not the bolster the reputation of an author whose comments and actions contribute to the real life suffering of youth in our society. I won’t be buying any of his books (Calibre is a great resource for those who want to give his e-books a fair chance but don’t want to support his idiocy, even at the library level), and I’m going to take that money and put it towards those authors whose careers and reputations deserve to flourish and grow.

    1. And this makes sense to me too.

      Of course, my reasoning on whether to see a movie, or to encourage other people to consider whether they want to see a movie, based on the real-world behavior of the author, should not be dependent on whether people will approve of my decision. Thus far, I have not been convinced that signing the Skip Ender’s Game petition was at all a bad thing to do, nor have I been convinced that all boycotts are (in and of themselves, intrinsically) bad.

    2. Except that the first Golden Compass movie was AWFUL. No matter what you think of the book, the series, and/or the author, that movie deserved to be guillotined.

  38. What about boycotting corporations? I have no moral problem at all with avoiding shopping at, say, Wal-Mart, and since I found out that the Koch Brothers own several product lines (including Georgia-Pacific), I will not buy their products. (It’s a shame, because I like some of them as products, but I refuse to put money in their pockets.)

    I’m still struggling to figure out why boycotting would be immoral. I’m just not seeing that.

    1. I don’t think it’s immoral. It might be foolish–you are depriving yourself of enjoyment and the Koch brothers will not feel even the vaguest sting of pain for all your suffering but maybe the satisfaction you derive from the effort makes it worthwhile to you. That’s your call.

      If you tried to get stores to remove the offending product so that people who don’t share your views have to live by them anyway, THAT would be sketchy.

  39. I’ve had some trouble deciding on this issue. Rationally, I see what PAD is saying. Lord knows people have given him crap for his views. But it’s easier for me to take his side against any boycott attempts since I happen to agree with most of what he says.

    I don’t go out of my way to learn the political views of everyone involved in a movie. I think that’s too high a burden for those seeking escapist entertainment. But at the same time, I can’t just pretend I don’t know what I know. The fact is, being disgusted with a major figure in a project is a major turn-off when it comes to deciding whether to consume their product.

    Rationally, it’s not fair to the product. It reduces the whole to a mere component (English majors and writers call that a synecdoche). I could be missing out on a piece of art that will enrich my life. But there is also an emotional component that must be taken into account… there is a reason why celebrities must strive so hard to preserve their “brand.” The audience doesn’t want to just engage art for art’s sake–they want to establish a relationship. They want to “like” the people involved with it.

    Incidentally, I recently purchased the first volume of Cerebus because I kept hearing how great it is. So now I am apparently an advocate for sexism.

  40. Jerry, how is it “punishment” if people decided to take their entertainment budget elsewhere after Pullman continually offended them? People don’t financially support people they don’t like. It’s not censorship; that’s business.

    According to IMDB, “The Golden Compass” had an opening weekend of $25 million US and was a franchise-murdering flop. “Ender’s Game” made $28 million opening weekend. Looks like history is going to repeat itself.

    1. “According to IMDB, “The Golden Compass” had an opening weekend of $25 million US and was a franchise-murdering flop. “Ender’s Game” made $28 million opening weekend. Looks like history is going to repeat itself.”

      The Golden Compass also had a budget of about $180 million. Ender’s game was only $110 million, and it’s already earned close to $42 million in six days. Not a mega hit, but not flop numbers so far.

      “Jerry, how is it “punishment” if people decided to take their entertainment budget elsewhere after Pullman continually offended them? People don’t financially support people they don’t like. It’s not censorship; that’s business.”

      You mean, how is an organised movement designed to make something a financial failure because someone dares think thoughts and voice ideas (extreme atheist point of view) that you disagree with punishment for thinking and speaking in ways you disagree with? Do you always ask for answers that are as obvious as the sunshine at high noon?

      And, thinking back on The Golden Compass, I remember something that now seems rather funny about that boycott and others like it with the Dixie Chicks, the HBO boycott push over comments made on Twitter by Bill Maher, and other boycotts that were the darling causes of the moment by conservative media personalities. You had a lot of people on the left and the left leaning center decrying those lowbrow righties and their attacks on free speech. Boycotts were unAmerican. Boycotts were wrong. Boycotts were designed to punish people for thinking and speaking, and actions like that should send a chill down the spine of all intelligent and right thinking Americans.

      And, hilariously, some of the same bloggers, pros, and commentators that were just aghast at those attacks on free speech in the past were some of the first to line up and declare that it’s our responsibility to show that we, we genre fans and fandom as a whole, know that our dollar means something and to vote against intolerance (i.e. thought and speech we disagree with even if the movie is not the thought or speech in question) with that dollar. We have a responsibility to be good little genre fans and to boycott Ender’s Game.

      In other words, let’s all be hypocrites one and all. Let’s all be the parody cartoon where a lone character discusses being the oppressed throughout the years and the generations before, but now they’ve come to the point where they have risen above that and can now, said proudly, be the oppressor.

      No thank you. I disagreed with organized boycotts based on speech that the boycotters disagreed with in the case of the Dixie Chicks, HBO, The Golden Compass, and others. Unlike some, I still stand on my principles that cowardice and the inability to face ideas and words with better ideas and words in the face of thoughts and speech one does not like does not excuse mob mentality to try and punish the speaker or thinker for speaking and thinking other than I would. And,you know what? I just don’t much care for being an intellectual coward and a hypocrite or for joining a cause that’s full of them.

      1. I agree with the sentiment, if not the tone.

        But since you say “boycotts based on speech”, I am assuming you are OK with boycotting a lunch counter that doesn’t serve Blacks? Even if the owner technically “reserves the right to refuse service”?

        In cases like Prop 8, where does Speech become Advocacy become Action? Can a line ever be drawn?

      2. “But since you say “boycotts based on speech”, I am assuming you are OK with boycotting a lunch counter that doesn’t serve Blacks? Even if the owner technically “reserves the right to refuse service”?”

        You’re describing an action, not merely words or thoughts. The owner of the business says that they don’t like blacks, doesn’t think that blacks are equals, and doesn’t think that blacks deserve equal treatment and then tries to run a business based on that.

        Not remotely the same as having a set of views or ideas, expressing them privately or publicly, and then presenting works that are not reflective of that. It’s certainly not the same as person A having expressed ideas that you dislike and having someone else entirely who actively states that they do not share those views present an adaptation of those works that also do not represent those views.

        “In cases like Prop 8, where does Speech become Advocacy become Action?”

        Speech basically is advocacy in many ways. You’re speaking on behalf of an idea. And in the case of things like Prop 8, you speak out on behalf of, you advocate for, the idea you support. The idea is to convince others to agree with your POV.

        Now, if a state passes something like Prop 8, the state is now acting to engage in discrimination. That’s not just the expression of an idea. When Colorado passed Amendment 2, many stars who regularly vacationed there stated that they would not vacation in a state, they would not spend money in a state, where discrimination was law of the land.

        No real problem with that. They were responding to legislation and actual actions by the state. What’s going on here with card is the equivalent of boycotting the state that passed no such legislation because a member of the state legislature said something stupid.

      3. What’s going on here with card is the equivalent of boycotting the state that passed no such legislation because a member of the state legislature said something stupid.

        So the fact that Prop 8 didn’t pass lets Card off the hook? That seems a bit too simple. If I say “David Oakes is a threat to society, even worse than the TSA, someone needs to kill him, now!”, the fact that no one takes me up on the offer doesn’t mean I haven’t crossed some line.

        And even if it did pass, Card would still be completely blameless, because California passed the law, not him.

        Ultimately, if Advocacy is just Speech, and all Speech is Free, even the people calling for a boycott are blameless. They are simply expressing their opinion. If other people agree, and choose not to spend their money, that’s their choice. Sure, it’s rude to shame people into not letting Asa Butterfield have a career. But it is just as rude to shame them into giving him one.

        Like I said, I think the line falls in Speech, not Action. Not that it is terribly clear cut there, either.

      4. “even the people calling for a boycott are blameless. They are simply expressing their opinion. If other people agree, and choose not to spend their money, that’s their choice. Sure, it’s rude to shame people into not letting Asa Butterfield have a career. But it is just as rude to shame them into giving him one.”

        No, they’re not blameless. Boycotts of this nature are designed to force the choices of the offended onto everyone else.

        The Dixie Chicks were boycotted. That group of people that decided they didn’t like them anymore were not merely content with just not buying their albums anymore. No… They sought to have them banned on radio stations and run out of town. It wasn’t enough for them to stop being fans, they decided that they would work to prevent anyone from being able to hear their songs on the radio or to easily buy future albums from the Dixie Chicks.

        The religious jáçkáššëš who threatened tried to boycott HBO over comments made on Twitter by Bill Maher declared that their boycott would only end once Maher was removed from the air. They weren’t content with simply not watching Maher, and many of them didn’t anyhow, they decided that their sense of being offended gave them the right to both punish Maher and to take away the decision to watch or not watch Maher from everyone else whether they agreed with the offended parties or not.

        Glen Beck is a total fûçkŧárd, but the attempts to boycott him were nothing more than the group of offended decide that they alone would make the decision for everyone to watch him or listen to him and take that choice away from everyone else. They knew that they couldn’t dent his ratings, so they destroyed the ad revenue going to the network he was on.

        The Golden Compass and Ender’s Game boycotts? People declared that they didn’t like the ideas and views expressed by the authors of the books that the films were based on. So they’ve decided that the authors and anyone associated with them need to be punished. They’re not content simply not buying the books or seeing the films themselves, they’re actively working to go after the films, get others to not watch them, and make sure people now that if you associate with the authors, you and your works will likewise be targeted. I’ve seen some information of some groups trying (whether successfully or not I don’t know)to get theaters not to show the film at all. And what they’re doing is attempting to take from others the ability to choose for themselves whether or not they will go ahead and enjoy these or future works.

        And, again, this is happening over a cause that the cast and crew of the film in question do not agree with Card on. And, double fun, it’s a cause that Card and his ilk are losing. They are losing their crusade in courts, in votes, and in the cultural landscape. Card and his buddies are becoming the ever smaller band of fools screaming into the wind just as the ones who fought against blacks being free, against blacks getting the vote, against women getting the vote, and against interracial relationships and interracial marriage became the ever smaller bands of fools back when their days passed them by.

        It’s pointless and unnecessary and the people involved in it are little better than the ones who work so hard to ban books because they don’t like the ideas or the words expressed in them. They want their choices to be everyone else’s whether everyone else wants their choice or not. At best, they’re hypocrites. At worst, they’re dìçkš.

      5. “At best, they’re hypocrites. At worst, they’re dìçkš.”

        I think avoiding personal attacks on people one is debating with (some here are indeed boycotting the movie) is a good principle.

  41. On top of this, one thing that keeps coming to mind for me is that neither Card nor Pullman nor Chick-Fil-A nor the Koch Brothers are exactly financially hurting. I don’t know Card’s nor Pullman’s net worth, but they would seem to be millionaires. It’s one thing to think that the unpleasant old man with the apple-cart, who perhaps lives day-to-day from selling apples, would be hurt by people avoiding him and his wares, and another to imagine finely-dressed men in suits or tuxedos holding out their shiny top hats for our few paltry pennies, and then playing the victim when we don’t want to give them our money. It’s even more when one imagines that the men in the tuxedos have been giving quite a lot of that money to people who want to specifically persecute people who are much smaller and weaker and poorer than they are.

    We’re not quite talking Archie Bunker running a shoe shop, and being boycotted; not even Archie Bunker actually being in the KKK and running a shoe shop, and being boycotted; we’re talking, especially when it comes to the Koch Brothers and Chick-Fil-A (and the owners of McDonald’s, and of Wal-Mart, and…), about someone more like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.

    1. So should we tailor how we treat people based on their income? Strange.

      Why stop at finely-dressed men in suits or tuxedos with shiny top hats? Heck, have them lighting $1000 cigars with $100 bills while they force workers to lie in the gutter so they can walk over them without getting their jackboots muddy?

      “Sure, I treated him badly but he’ll be ok, he has more money than I do.” is pretty much a guarantee that you will become a very very bad person…and one not able to legitimately make a stink if someone less fortunate than yourself treats you poorly. It’s the defense we hear all the time in the schools– “What I did was wrong but they either deserved it or it doesn’t matter because they have more than I do.” I sometimes sympathize with the former, though it’s a bad basis for morality, but envy is a particularly ugly vice, not to be encouraged.

      1. “So should we tailor how we treat people based on their income?”

        Sometimes, yes; if the mean old apple-seller will basically lose his whole livelihood, then perhaps more charity (not justice) would indeed be appropriate.

        “Why stop at finely-dressed men in suits or tuxedos with shiny top hats? Heck, have them lighting $1000 cigars with $100 bills while they force workers to lie in the gutter so they can walk over them without getting their jackboots muddy?”

        That’s more or less the Koch Brother in a nutshell, yes.

        ““Sure, I treated him badly but he’ll be ok, he has more money than I do.” is pretty much a guarantee that you will become a very very bad person…”

        This assumes that a boycott is, in fact, treating a person badly. I’m talking more about the reverse–if one would ordinarily boycott someone or something, making an exception for the poorer person.

        “and one not able to legitimately make a stink if someone less fortunate than yourself treats you poorly.”

        Well, that depends on whether the treatment is justified–in all cases, of course.

        “It’s the defense we hear all the time in the schools– “What I did was wrong but they either deserved it or it doesn’t matter because they have more than I do.” I sometimes sympathize with the former, though it’s a bad basis for morality”

        Actually, I think that justice (that one deserves it) is an intrinsic part of morality. The latter is not.

        “but envy is a particularly ugly vice, not to be encouraged.”

        Agreed! 🙂

      2. The impression I got from you was that you agreed that, for example, the attempts to (illegally and unethically) prevent Chik-fil-A from opening a business were indeed wrong but since they had lots of money, c’est le vie.

        But I do admire your taking my gentle admonishment in the spirit with which it was intended!

  42. Had a thought about this. If someone unfamiliar with the work did NOT participate in the boycott, is it possible that said someone may learn something from it? Also, by adding rancor to the situation, aren’t people on either side moving away from a solution, merely entrenching their positions apart?

Comments are closed.