Pixel Scroll 1/17/16 Kaiser Scroll, Hold The Pixel

(1) HONEST POSTERS. “If 2016’s Oscar-nominated movie posters told the truth” they’d be very funny. Courtesy of Shiznit.

MARTIAN COMP

(2) A TOP TEN WITH FANGS. Here’s Fantasy Faction’s ingenious list – “Top Ten Wolves In Fantasy”. How come I never do Top 10 Lists for File 770? People love them. Ah well, there isn’t enough time to do everything that’s a good idea.

  1. Maugrim (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S.Lewis)

Maugrim was the head of The Witch’s Police in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and relished the dirty work that had to be done. Seen by many as an agent of the Devil, he is the ugly face of evil in Narnia and makes no bones about it. He is instrumental in the coming of age of Peter who eventually slays him, earning the name Sir Peter Wolfsbane.

(3) BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Gustaff Behr tries to work out “How Much Does It Cost Being A Doctor Who Fan?”

Fred starts where all new fans start. He wants to go back and take a look at how Doctor Who came back in 2005 which means, including Series 9 which he will definitely get; Fred needs 9 seasons of complete box sets which costs on average $65.00. That’s $585.00 in total for Chris, David, Matt, John and Peter.

Being a Who fan costs at least $585.00 if you buy all nine New Who seasons of Doctor Who.

And after watching nine seasons of Doctor Who, barely sleeping, bathing or eating, Fred craves more. He needs to see how Doctor Who started all the way back in 1963. He also has to see the celery Doctor, the scarf Doctor, the pullover one and all the other past Doctors he’s heard so much about. He knows there are 156 classic stories of Doctor Who which range between $13.99 and $16.99 so we’ll budget for $15.49 as a rough average. That’s $2416.44 for the whole of the Classic Era of Doctor Who.

Being a Who fan costs at least $3001.44 if you want to have the entire television collection of Doctor Who from William Hartnell all the way up to Peter Capaldi.

And then he moves on to the merchandise….

(4) FUNICELLO OBIT. [CORRECTION — Turns out the source has taken an old story and given it a 2016 timestamp. But it might still be news to somebody….] Annette Funicello (1942-20162013) died January 11, 2013 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. She was 70. Funicello was a child star as a Mousketeer on the original Mickey Mouse Club, and as a teenager starred opposite Frankie Avalon in several beach movies. Her genre work included Babes In Toyland (1961), and quasi-genre movies like The Monkey’s Uncle, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

(5) GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON TRIBUTE. The Girl George & the Dragons Radio Show talked about George Clayton Johnson with his son, Paul Johnson, and others on January 17.

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 17, 1605 Don Quixote was published.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY SITH

  • Born January 17, 1931 — James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader (and an actor renowned for many other roles.)

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born January 17, 1962 – Jim Carrey, of Hugo-winner The Truman Show, The Mask, and other quasi-fantasy films.

(9) MEET KYLO. Joseph Pimentel reports in the Orange County Register that Kylo Ren will replace Darth Vader in the “meet-and-greet” section of Disneyland’s Star Wars area in Tomorrowland where people stand in line to get autographs and photos with Disney characters.

Guests will be able to mingle with Kylo Ren, a central character from the smash hit “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” in Tomorrowland, Disney announced Friday. The company declined to say when the light-saber-wielding dark warrior and Jedi slayer will debut.

Ren will join Chewbacca, and Boba Fett as characters from the “Star Wars” franchise available for visitors to meet and take photos with at the Star Wars Launch Bay. There’ll also First Order Stormtroopers roaming around.

The upper floor of the building, the Tomorrowland Expo Center formerly known as Innoventions, houses the Super Hero HQ where guests meet Spider-Man and Thor.

Ren will replace Darth Vader, the original “Star Wars” villain, in the meet-and-greet. The Sith Lord Vader will continue to be in the show “Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple.”

Meet-and-greets with various Disney characters have become one of Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s signature attractions, drawing long lines of visitors wanting autograph, pictures and hugs.

(10) KYLO ON SNL. Saturday Night Live sent Kylo Ren (guest star Adam Driver) undercover as Matt, a radar technician, in Star Wars Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base.

(11) ABOUT SPECTRAL PRESS. Simon Bestwick has written a lengthy, heavily-documented post about issues with Spectral Press, publishers of his book Black Mountain.

Readers may wish to pour themselves a large, stiff drink before continuing. This is going to be a long post.

I’ve thought long and hard before blogging on this topic, but there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation out there, and I believe it’s important that the facts be made available. There is also an issue of transparency to customers regarding Spectral Press in its past or present incarnations….

7) The Short Version  Spectral Press has published books, which sold. A share of the money from their sales is, contractually, their authors’. Their authors have not received it, and yet Spectral do not have it. Spectral Press has taken money from customers from books that have gone undelivered and, in some cases, unpublished. Many of these customers want their money back, and yet Spectral do not have it. I would just like to close by reminding anyone who feels Spectral’s critics are being unreasonable, that this situation has persisted for over a year; that the amount owed is a very large sum for a small press to owe, and that the individual in whose hands this situation has been placed has responded to polite and factual criticism with insults and blocking critics on social media, and whose own history should be cause for concern.

(12) ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH. Anne Wheaton tells her blog readers why she bid Twitter goodbye.

In real life, I stand up for myself. If someone says or does something to me or someone around me, I do something about it. As my online presence grew, there were people who don’t follow me showing up to say something horrible about me, my husband, or my children. Yes, they can be muted, blocked, or reported, and I was doing that all the time, every day. Sometimes I responded because like I said, in real life I stand up for myself so occasionally, I will do that online. But after a while, it’s like trying to smile and have a pleasant conversation with a kind person in a room full of people screaming hateful things in your face. You can ignore it but eventually, it just isn’t worth even talking at all and you just have to walk out of that room to protect yourself.

I chose to be on Twitter. I am not a celebrity. I am a middle-aged woman who’s a retired hairdresser who now runs a non-profit, is on the Board of Directors at Pasadena Humane Society, has a house FULL of rescue animals, and has two wonderful boys. I do not have a job I need to promote, nor am I looking for a job to take on. I have a full life with an amazing husband and family, wonderful friends, and a successful business I run. If something I choose to do on the side isn’t fun, I need to walk away from it because my free time is pretty scarce. Twitter used to be the fun thing I did on the side, and for the most part, it just isn’t fun anymore, so I need to walk away from it and that’s okay.

(13) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM. Neil Gaiman’s tweet endorsing Clarion set off a wave of complaints. Brad R. Torgersen was as surprised as Gaiman himself by the controversy, but did a better job of understanding the reaction.

I guess Gaiman upset people with this?

…Second, Gaiman is simply expressing what all of us have expressed — from time to time — about our favorite learning experiences. I have evangelized for the Kris Rusch and Dean Smith workshops, the Dave Wolverton workshops, the Writers of the Future workshop, the Superstars Writing Seminar, the “Life, The Universe & Everything” symposium, and so on, and so forth. All of them have been very valuable to me, and remain valuable long after attendance and participation….

It would be great if a Clarion-type experience were free. But running a workshop with that kind of scope and scale, is not cheap. And the truth is, there are people who will argue that it shouldn’t be cheap. That the high cost weeds out the dilettantes. So that only serious students, who are dedicated, will apply for acceptance. Clarion isn’t designed for wannabes. Clarion is for budding professional artists, who want to flower in an environment that will feed and nurture their professional artistry. Or at least that’s the ideal. And I definitely think Gaiman had the ideal in mind, when he wrote what he wrote.

Still, there is no royal road to publication and acclaim. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but I suspect Clarion’s success rate is probably on par with just about every other workshop going. Which means two-thirds of Clarion’s graduates, won’t make it. They won’t sell. Or at least, they won’t sell well. They will find that life has other work for them, and they will move on.

(13) ONE THUMB DOWN. Fran Wilde’s tweets, 10 of which are Storified here, illustrate the negative response.

(14) ANOTHER THUMB DOWN. Alex Bledsoe, in “Thoughts on Clarion, Privilege and Gaiman”, is one of many other writers sounding off about how they launched professional writing careers without the help of a workshop.

Now, I don’t for a moment believe that Gaiman literally meant need, as in you can’t consider yourself a real writer unless you have Clarion on your CV. But at the same time, I understand the outrage of those who see his statement as an unthinking beacon of privilege. Who the hell is Neil Gaiman, who will never again have to worry about paying bills, or child care, or taking time off from work, or any of the day-to-day struggles that most of his readers experience, to tell us what we need? It’s in the same ballpark as Gwyneth Paltrow’s famous statements about her being a “typical” mother.

Like a lot of writers, I never went to Clarion, or any professional writing workshop. I learned to write via journalism, both from studying it and working at it. I like to say it’s one reason my books are so short, but in another very important way, it taught me to approach writing as a job. A reporter is no special snowflake: if he or she can’t do the work, there’s always someone waiting to eagerly step up. So you get on with it, and do the best you can with what you have. That lesson has been incredibly useful as a fiction writer, too.

(15) GAYLACTIC SPECTRUM AWARDS. The winners and recommended short list for the 2014/2015 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards in the Best Novel category were announced at Chessiecon in November 2015.

(16) DAVIDSON ON THE FINE POINTS. Steve Davidson discusses “How To Recommend Without Slating” at Amazing Stories.

As it has evolved, an acceptable Eligibility Post is limited to the following elements:

  • A statement that a work is, under the rules in play, eligible for a particular category of award.
  • Information on where and when the story was made available (so that others can verify its eligibility)
  • A suggestion that those voting for the award in question might be interested in checking it out
  • An Eligibility Post may also include an opportunity for others to add other works that are eligible

An Eligibility Post does not contain:

  • reasons why someone ought to vote for the work
  • begging for votes in any manner
  • discussion of external politics that are somehow related to voting for the work
  • discussion of the “messages” that will be sent by voting for the work
  • plays for sympathy, or authorial love, mentions of career status

The Eligibility Post was soon joined by the “Recommended Reading” list…..

(17) POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE. In 2004, soon after meeting Howard Waldrop, Lou Antonelli succeeded in selling his first story.

I wrote Howard and told him meeting him had brought me good luck. He later dropped me this postcard. I recently found it in a drawer while cleaning up a messy storage shed, and thought I’d share it. If you have trouble reading Howard’s handwriting, this is what it says:

“Dear Lou,
“Congratulations on the sale to Gardner. (You were already getting rejection letters – it was only a matter of time, whether you came to Austin or not!) You’ve sentenced yourself to a life of bitterness and frustration, like me..
“Way to go!
“Yer pal,
“Howard”

Howard is a great writer, a nice guy, and it also seems, a clairvoyant.

(18) BOWIE MOVIE SCREENINGS. The Vista Theatre in LA sold out its Labyrinth 30th Anniversary midnight screening (for obvious reasons) and has scheduled another.

In January we’re going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of our favorite fantasy films- LABYRINTH, featuring everyone’s favorite goblin king Jareth and his Bowie-bulge! Feel free to join us in costume and dance, magic dance! Response to this event was larger than we expected- we were trending towards a sell out by show night, but with the tragic passing of David Bowie yesterday we sold out in 6 hours of the news breaking. We want all our friends and Bowie fans in our nerd circle to be able to grieve in the manner they chose and if celebrating his life with Labyrinth on the big screen is what they want than we’re here to help. We’ve added this SATURDAY NIGHT midnight screening for those that were unable to catch tickets for Friday night. We will have a costume contest both nights, and hope everyone enjoys the hell out of this film and Bowie’s incredible performance on the big screen

(19) ONE BUSY HOMBRE. Today’s mandatory Guillermo del Toro news is that he will develop to potentially direct Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark for CBS Films. The film is based on the trilogy by Alvin Schwartz.

He is such a big fan of the books that he owns ten of the original illustrations by Gammell.
In addition to potentially directing, del Toro will also produce the film alongside Sean Daniel, Jason Brown and Elizabeth Grave. Alvin Schwartz’s trilogy of short story collections have sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Even though, from the moment it was published in 1984, the Scary Stories series was one of the most banned from placement by the American Library Association, as the collections were considered to be too scary for children. The ensuing controversy only helped to fuel sales, and the trilogy has remained a cultural phenomenon ever since.

(20) RAINBOW BATMAN. DC Comics invites fans to “Brighten your batcave with Rainbow Batman figures”

Why should the criminals of Gotham get all the colorful costumes? Now you can have the Caped Crusader in pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

 

rainbowbatmanclip 2Where did these come from? According to Yahoo! Movies

A year ago, DC Collectibles opened up their vault to reveal prototypes of statues, action figures, and busts that were never produced and allowed fans to vote on which item from the collection should be produced and sold. A colorful line of Batmen figures based on “The Rainbow Batman” cover of Detective Comics #241 (1957) won the poll.

(21) JACK KIRBY DRAMATIZED. Now on stage in Seattle (through January 23), “’King Kirby’ play profiles the artist behind the superheroes, overshadowed by Stan Lee”.

“King Kirby” opens with the canonization of its subject at a high-level sale, where an auctioneer recounts the artist’s pictorial achievements and begins the bidding on each Kirby illustration at thousands of dollars.

From somewhere in the beyond, Kirby (who died in the 1990s, and is portrayed with vigor and conviction by Rick Espaillat) looks on disgustedly at the pretentious upscaling of his work.

In a pungent Brooklyn accent and with a defensive edginess, Kirby takes us back to his humble beginnings growing up in a rough neighborhood, where he had to use his fists to fend off attackers.

No wonder he invented heroic protectors and epic rescuers. Fascinated by mythology and quick with a sketchbook, Kirby starts out doing grunt work in a cartoon sweatshop, forms a partnership with a business-savvy pal, and comes into his own working under a series of amusingly irate moguls. In collaboration with head honcho and collaborator Stan Lee, he’s a big reason why Lee’s Marvel Comics still thrill the masses with spinoffs of characters created in the 1940s and ’50s.

Lee is portrayed as a marketing maestro and idea man, who not only stiffed his top artist out of franchise deals and royalties but also presented himself as the sole inventor of superheroes co-created and fleshed out by Kirby.

(22) STAN THE MAN. CBS Sunday Morning program featured “The Marvelous Life of Stan Lee” on January 17.

The comic starts out, as Stan started out, as Stanley Martin Leiber, born to Jewish immigrants in 1922. He grew up poor in a tiny Bronx apartment during the Depression.

When Stan was old enough, he started looking for jobs to help pay the bills, and in 1939 he landed at a publishing house which just happened to have a small division called Timely Comics.

“I’d fill the ink wells — in those days they used ink!” he said. “I’d run down and get them sandwiches at the drug store, and I’d proofread the pages, and sometimes in proofreading I’d say, ‘You know, this sentence doesn’t sound right. It ought to be written like this.’ ‘Well, go ahead and change it!’ They didn’t care!”

Characters like Destroyer, Father Time and Jack Frost soon had Stan’s fingerprints all over them.

He got so caught up in the battles of good vs. evil that after Pearl Harbor, it seemed only natural he join the Army.

“Oh hell, how could you not volunteer for the Army?” he said. “Hitler was over there doing all those horrible things.”

But instead of fighting, Lee found himself drawing. His best work: a poster telling soldiers how NOT to get VD.

“I drew a little soldier, very proudly,” he recalled. “And he’s saying, ‘VD? Not me!’ as he walks in. They must have printed a hundred trillion of those! I think I won the war single-handedly with that poster!”

 [Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Tom Galloway, Steve Lieber, Andrew Porter, and Kendall for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

236 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/17/16 Kaiser Scroll, Hold The Pixel

  1. Kurt Busiek on January 18, 2016 at 4:53 pm said:

    If they wanted a villain face character behind a mask for ease of casting, why not Captain Phasma?????

    Yeah, why not a less important character who got less screen time? How could they possibly not have thought of that, and instead gone with one of the major characters?

    Captain Phasma is a big bad; clearly not as big bad as Kylo Ren, but has cool armor and played a couple key scenes. She is certainly recognizable. And there are a lot of Gwen Christie fans out there, even if that’s not her under the armor at the parks.

    Then there is this: notice who is DEAD LAST in popularity:

    “According to information provided to RadioTimes.com by Amazon.co.uk, the online retailer’s bestselling Force Awakens action figure is Captain Phasma, the chrome-clad female stormtrooper played in the film by Gwendoline Christie.

    In terms of sales direct from Amazon in the UK, the 20-inch Phasma figure tops the charts, followed by a standard stormtrooper, rebel pilot Poe Dameron, John Boyega’s Finn and Sith Lord Kylo Ren.”

  2. @TechGrrl1972

    Well…let’s just say I wasn’t terribly impressed with Adam Driver after he took off his mask. I think his sense of Big Bad-edness would’ve been served a lot better had he kept it on. (Although I recognize he would’ve had to take the mask off sooner or later, especially for That Scene.) Looking back now at the scene jurer ur jnf svtugvat Erl naq tnfcrq, “Lbh arrq n grnpure,” well that was rather badly acted and embarrassing.

  3. Captain Phasma is a big bad; clearly not as big bad as Kylo Ren, but has cool armor and played a couple key scenes.

    Calling Phasma a “big bad” based on her screen time and plot significance in the first movie seems like a huge exaggeration to me. Gwendoline Christie was underused. I didn’t even realize it was her until I checked IMDb after the movie.

    I don’t think any argument can be made that Phasma is a better choice than Kylo Ren as a major character for a Disney Star Wars attraction. If kids were polled on which villain they’d rather meet at the parks, I think they’d overwhelmingly choose Kylo Ren. Phasma thus far is just a bit player.

  4. @rcade
    Which ignores my “why no woman” issue totally which is what brought Captain Phasma up in the first place. I’ll bet if you polled kids many wouldn’t care about the mask & would love a General Leia. Or heck Disney could creat a mask of Carrie Fisher. Problem solved. I know including women is just too hard unless they are princesses in dreamy dresses.

  5. The princesses at the Disney theme parks wear wigs and costumes to match their characters’ appearance and no masks are required. They don’t look exactly like their movie counterparts, but the kids are thrilled and act as if they’re the real characters.

    I don’t know why a Rey or a Leia (or a Han or a Luke or a Finn, for that matter) would be any different. The “no female characters” just seems like more of the lamesauce that the toymakers have been using.

  6. I’ll bet if you polled kids many wouldn’t care about the mask & would love a General Leia.

    That depends on whether kids who saw the new movie had seen the original trilogy, I think. My sons have little to no memory of seeing them, and in our post-movie discussions I don’t think I heard them mention Leia once. They wanted to talk mostly about Kylo Ren, Rey, Finn, Han Solo and the bad-guy hologram whose name I forget.

    I’m guessing here, but having a chance to meet a middle-aged woman who was a supporting character they’d describe primarily as “Kylo Ren’s mom” would not be preferable to meeting Kylo Ren.

    Now if you asked me in 1977 who I’d like to meet at DisneyWorld, Leia would’ve been one of the first ones I chose.

    P.s. Yrvn qvqa’g rira trg n tbbq svany fprar jvgu Una. Gur ynfg gvzr gubfr gjb fnj rnpu bgure fubhyq unir orra bcrengvp. Vafgrnq, vg jnf nyzbfg creshapgbel.

  7. rcade: I’m guessing here, but having a chance to meet a middle-aged woman who was a supporting character they’d describe primarily as “Kylo Ren’s mom” would not be preferable to meeting Kylo Ren.

    I’m guessing here, but peoples’ daughters would probably be absolutely thrilled to meet a Rey or a General Leia.

    Little girls rarely get to see people like themselves (i.e., female) in the main hero roles. I think you vastly underestimate how revolutionary it is when they encounter some.

  8. For all the talk of apologies here I don’t think any of us should pat ourselves on the back for how great we do them. It’s not an achievement unlocked kind of thing. It’s something one has to work on constantly. Giving heartfelt apologies in an appropriate place at an appropriate time, working hard to do it in such a way the person your apologizing to is likely to believe it’s sincere, it’s hard work.

    At least I find it hard work but I stopped just saying “I’m sorry” over a year ago. I realized many of the issues I was having with my husband, family, and friends was from hearing “I’m sorry” and them repeating the problematic behavior. I found the formula I use online. It maps up well with Jewish beliefs on forgiveness. I’m finding it helps me change my behavior. Sometimes I feel foolish or worry I’ll be mocked but it’s worth the chance to offer an apology if I think it’s called for.

  9. @TechGrrl1972 —

    Captain Phasma is a big bad; clearly not as big bad as Kylo Ren

    I would not be willing to bet on Ren being the greater bad over the whole narrative arc.

    “Events proceed in accordance to classical patterns” is all very well, and I think that was a good choice for The Force Awakens, but I have hopes the set of movies is going to depart from the classical patterns in interesting ways.

  10. @rcade
    Hey Rey is a woman. I believe in my original comment starting this discussion she was on my list. And your boys liked her!

    ETA: funny how following an entire conversation puts things in perspective

  11. I’m guessing here, but peoples’ daughters would probably be absolutely thrilled to meet a Rey or a General Leia.

    Rey’s a main character and a Force-wielding badass. Girls who loved the movie would of course love to meet her at DisneyWorld. But Leia? Really? I think that view is driven by nostalgia more than what she got to do in the new movie.

    (The reason I said “I’m guessing here” was because I was speaking for my kids and I wanted to concede that I might be wrong — they could tell me tomorrow they would be more interested in Leia than Kylo Ren. Throwing the phrase back at me when you’re just speaking for yourself is goofy.)

  12. funny how following an entire conversation puts things in perspective

    I’m not sure why you’re saying this to me, since I’ve never challenged the idea that Rey would be as cool to meet as Kylo Ren. Rey is great. The prominence of her role is one of the things I liked most about the movie.

  13. rcade: The reason I said “I’m guessing here” was because I was speaking for my kids and I wanted to concede that I might be wrong — they could tell me tomorrow they would be more interested in Leia than Kylo Ren. Throwing the phrase back at me when you’re just speaking for yourself is goofy.

    It’s not goofy at all. The reason I said “I’m guessing here” is because I don’t have any daughters, so I can’t claim to be an authority on how they would feel.

  14. It’s not goofy at all. The reason I said “I’m guessing here” is because I don’t have any daughters, so I can’t claim to be an authority on how they would feel.

    Ah. I understand your point better now. Sorry for the misreading. I of course didn’t recognize the possibility until right after the Edit timer ended.

    As we talk about this, I’m wondering if other current Star Wars material like the comics might be demonstrating the coolness of Leia to kids. I avoided all of that for a year because I was afraid of spoilers.

  15. @ k8

    What recent nonfiction have you read that informs your sf reading? I’m always looking for interesting things along these lines.

    The vast majority of my nonfiction reading is for my research blog, The Lesbian Historic Motif Project, which heavily informs both my sff reading and writing. The basic concept is to look at the historic and literary representations of topics relevant to lesbian characters (as very loosely defined) to get a better understanding of both the diversity of actual historic presence, and the patterns and tropes in how queer women have been represented in literature.

    The book I’m currently blogging is entitled Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama and is a detailed examination of how the illusion or reality of desire between women was used as a dramatic device on English stages in the 16-17th centuries.

    I must say, the research project gives me a bit of a different perspective than most when some hot new groundbreaking sff novel with a queer female character gets released. (I.e., the ground has usually been broken many times before.)

  16. As a kid, I would have been happy to mee anyone of the actors from Star Wars. Absolutely anyone, girl, alien, robot, boy, whatever.

  17. @rcade

    I’m not sure why you’re saying this to me, since I’ve never challenged the idea that Rey would be as cool to meet as Kylo Ren. Rey is great. The prominence of her role is one of the things I liked most about the movie.

    Because you seemed to have missed the start of the conversation which is why Captain Phasma had been brought up & where I’d initially mentioned Rey. This led to us retracing parts of the conversation bringing us back to where I started.

  18. @Hampus Eckerman
    Yes but we’ve had 3 guys for years now and are swapping one male out for another male.

    I didn’t think I was making a complicated statement which is why I partly poked a joke at myself for bringing it up. Here we have Star Wars and again all males & no females. Tasha the feminist is bringing it up because Tasha always does. Can’t she just give it a rest. (Yes that’s what I pictured going through filers minds). Apparently I was too subtle in stating what my problem was & the poking fun at myself was totally lost. I apologize for not communicating well on this topic.

  19. Statements along the lines of,

    “If [X] offends you/hurts your feelings, you probably don’t have what it takes to be a writer,”

    are pretty damn gatekeepy, in my opinion.

    Also they fall under the same basic heading as “No one can make you feel lesser without your consent” and other such “helpful” pieces of advice that lay all the responsibility on the hurt party for having felt hurt, rather than on the party who said the hurtful thing. (See also our unfortunate societal tendency to blame bullying victims for being vulnerable to bullying, rather than hold bullies accountable for their actions.)

    I think it’s perfectly reasonable to see Gaiman’s statement as carelessly hurtful, or unnuanced, or problematic, and to say so outside the privacy of your own head. I don’t think that makes someone too weak and sensitive to make it as a writer or whatever belittling thing. It just means they’re willing to say, “Hey, wait a minute, that’s problematic.” Which is kind of the opposite of weak, actually.

  20. Tasha the feminist is bringing it up because Tasha always does. Can’t she just give it a rest. (Yes that’s what I pictured going through filers minds).

    Tasha, this is heartbreakingly real and resonates with me deeply.

    Let’s both pledge to never give it a rest. It’s too damn important.

  21. Tasha Turner:

    My comment was mostly an answer to rcades “But Leia? Really?”. I thought his skepticism about girls wanting to meet Leia was weird. Why wouldn’t they be in awe of meeting someone from the cast of Star Wars, a General at that?

    I see I should have stated that more clearly.

  22. rcade: Ah. I understand your point better now. Sorry for the misreading.

    De nada. I figured you read it as snark, even though it was not intended as such.

    Teh Intenetz: Splendiferous Bastion of Finely-Tuned Nuance. 🙂

  23. @Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little
    Deal. Thanks.

    @Hampus Eckerman
    Oops. Thanks for clarifying. I should have taken a moment to think “This can’t be what Hampus means. It’s not like them” before commenting. Advice I give on my website for “how to seem smart on the Internet”.

  24. @Tasha Turner, thanks for not giving it a rest. We all, in our multitudes, have themes we revisit regularly. I like and appreciate yours.

    @Hampus Eckerman – I thought his skepticism about girls wanting to meet Leia was weird. Why wouldn’t they be in awe of meeting someone from the cast of Star Wars, a General at that?

    It was weird and that was a terrific thing to write in response.

  25. @Tasha Turner: You communicated fine. Also, there are lots of feminists here (male as well as female) and lots of people complaining about female characters being ignored/overlooked/etc. Methinks you’re (in) good company on this.

    Anyway, IMHO, replacing Vader with Ren makes sense (fvapr ur’f gur Inqre nanybt), but Boba Fett seems ripe to be replaced with someone. Rey? I was thinking Phasma’s such a minor character, but she has the cool outfit, which seems to be a requirement, and she’s only a little more minor than Fett (and we’ve only seen one movie). I’m starting to talk myself into Phasma instead of Rey, here.

    ‘Cuz let’s face it, Rey’s and Finn’s outfits are boring compared with Phasma (metallic stormtrooper!), Chewbacca (wall of fur!), Vader (original big bad, cloak, mask, life support stuff!), and Fett (cool bounty hunter with major armor!). So I’m starting to think, maybe Phasma. Not as a replacement for Ren, but as a replacement for Boba Fett.

    BTW I wasn’t really thrilled with Leia in this movie. I was glad she was there, but her role and dialog just didn’t do much for me. I kinda hope they do something amazing with her in one of the next two movies, and not a lightsaber duel.

    Whew, way more Star Wars rambling from me than I’d planned.

  26. JJ: Splendiferous Bastion of Finely-Tuned Nuance

    I’d like to use that as a scroll title sometime!

  27. @Kendall
    Thanks. LOL on SWs rambling. I now have to admit I haven’t seen the latest movie but Carrie Fisher looked good in the clips/trailers I saw. I fondly remember dressing up as Leia for Halloween after the original movie first came out. My big SFF moment.

    Replacing Boba Fett at Disney with Rey or Phasma works too. I’m sure kids would be thrilled with either one. A female character who isn’t a princess is a nice change when your spending day(s) at Disney. I love princesses and dreamed of getting married at Cinderella’s castle which didn’t happen for any of my 4 weddings (ex-husband once, current 3 times. it’s religiously complicated). I’m not anti-princess. I just like variety so kids know they have lots of options.

    Ever After is my favorite Cinderella movie as she keeps saving the prince.

  28. I don’t know why a Rey or a Leia (or a Han or a Luke or a Finn, for that matter) would be any different.

    Aren’t the princesses they do that with animated characters? They don’t have very specific facial features, so if they don’t look like Carrie Fisher it’s not a problem?

    Or maybe I’m misremembering.

  29. Hmm, when I was last there the characters played by live unmasked actors were based off of the animated characters. I saw Belle and Gaston if I recall. But that was a while back as well and in Disney Land not Disney World

    ETA: looking at Disney world character locator, it seems at one time there was an Anakin Skywalker greeter. So having Rey or Leia might be a possibility

  30. Guys*, you’re slipping on the spoilers. I’m pretty sure at least one point stated out in the clear here is supposed to be discovered via the film.

    *of all genders.

  31. @ shambles: I saw Mary Poppins as a character to meet. (Actually, that was kind of cool, because the Disney cast member was in Mary Poppins’ party dress from the animated sequence, but the little girl who was delighted to meet her was in a homemade reproduction of her proper grey suit, umbrella and all. Which is not something I would have expected a child to want to wear.

    ____________

    I like the idea of replacing Boba Fett. I never understood the love for him anyhow. He gets about 3 lines, and isn’t really doing anything much but covering one plot point and looking vaguely cool. I feel some doubt Captain Phasma can be less important than he was and still have a named role.

  32. Statements along the lines of,

    “If [X] offends you/hurts your feelings, you probably don’t have what it takes to be a writer,”

    are pretty damn gatekeepy, in my opinion.

    I’m willing to put the specifics back in rather than pretend we’re judging all statements ever made that take that generic form, since we weren’t.

    This particular bit of “gatekeeping” is illusion. Neil did not seriously mean that one cannot become a pro writer without going to Clarion — he became a pro writer without doing so himself, after all.

    So yes, I think that someone who feels barred from the profession because they’re grasping at illusions, well, they’re going to encounter worse along the way. What will they do when their work is rejected? When an editor tells them they’re no good? If they don’t have the gumption to overcome an illusory gate, what’ll happen when they come to real ones?

    I think gatekeeping to keep fans out of fandom is a bad thing. But if you want to be a professional writer, you actually do have something to prove, and it takes effort, it takes a certain amount of drive and confidence. If a minor piece of puffery is enough to make someone think they’re being denied entry, then I do think it’s quite possible that they don’t have what it takes. Because what it takes involves being able to overcome actual setbacks, not patently imaginary ones.

    And if someone thinks I’m somehow preventing them from breaking in as a writer by holding the opinion that writers so timid as to give up in the face of being told they need to attend Clarion when it’s clearly not true, then I’m even sorrier for them, because not only do I have no ability to prevent them from breaking in, my opinion is entirely passive. Even if I did have some ability to prevent people from pitching their work, having the aforementioned opinion doesn’t exercise it in any way.

    Professional writing — either trad or self-publishing — requires some measure of ego and self-confidence. And research and awareness. If it’s “gatekeeping” to say so, it’s not even a ghost of a gate. I’m not stopping anyone. Neil’s not stopping anyone. So who is, if people are giving up in the face of such wispy and insubstantial gatekeeping, if not the would-be authors themselves?

    If the idea is that there should be nothing whatsoever for a would-be writer to overcome, not even the nonexistent barrier of an exaggerated recommendation for Clarion, those would-be writers are in for a complete shock when they hit the world of commerce.

  33. I saw Mary Poppins as a character to meet.

    Ah, I think I remember seeing that too! So yeah, that’d be a non-animated example.

  34. @lenora rose
    That is a sweet story; thank for you sharing. I forget how magical those places can be for children of a certain age. All the more reason to consider diversity and representation carefully.
    ——
    Not a huge fan of Boba Fett either, though I really hope for a larger role for Phasma in the next movies. I would say more about similarities between Phasma and Boba Fett but .. spoilers.

  35. Jim,

    I am sorry you think I was personally attacking your friends – or attacking anyone at all. But right here is something you have been doing all along. You have been curating my experience. Your assume to know what I saw, and this is wrong.

    I don’t know if your friends made my feed. I don’t know who your friends are. But you have turned your loyalty to your friends into an excuse not to listen to me. I can’t help you have such an set in stone definition for the word “mob” but believe me when I say I don’t use it in the way you seem to think it must. There is no need to protect your friends. Like Mr Gaiman I am sure they will be fine on the very slim chance they see my words. And beside, rest assured I harbour them no I feeling for what I see just another tempest in a teacup as blows up so often on the internet.

    I am glad you are protective of your friends but please – don’t use them as an excuse not to listen to what others have to say. You don’t need to agree, but you should put enough effort into listening to at least discern the position of the person talking to you.

  36. @Tasha Turner: I loved “Ever After”!

    @Lenora Rose: If that was me, apologies; I thought I ROT-13’d the only mildly spoilery thing, sorry. (blush) I’ll be more careful – even if it wasn’t me. BTW I think you got it in one – Boba Fett looks vaguely cool. Plus: ROCKET PACK! 😉

  37. @Lenora, Shambles:

    Yes! Come and join me in the “Boba Fett is overrated” corner!

    @Tasha, Kendall:

    I could’ve sworn I had Ever After in the collection, but apparently it got jumbled up in my head with Ella Enchanted and Enchanted – which share a slot not far from The Princess Bride. Mayhap I need to rectify this oversight…

  38. @Rev Bob
    Ever After has gorgeous costumes, witty dialogue, and a prince in need of saving. But your shelves are pretty crowded so I don’t know if it’s a must have 😉

  39. @Kurt Busiek:

    Professional writing — either trad or self-publishing — requires some measure of ego and self-confidence. And research and awareness. If it’s “gatekeeping” to say so, it’s not even a ghost of a gate. I’m not stopping anyone. Neil’s not stopping anyone. So who is, if people are giving up in the face of such wispy and insubstantial gatekeeping, if not the would-be authors themselves?

    If the idea is that there should be nothing whatsoever for a would-be writer to overcome, not even the nonexistent barrier of an exaggerated recommendation for Clarion, those would-be writers are in for a complete shock when they hit the world of commerce.

    Sure. But who’s to say their way of overcoming some nonexistent barriers like this one isn’t to briefly clap back on Twitter and then get back about their business?

    This leaves aside that some of the criticism of Gaiman came from published novelists like Fran Wilde and Alex Bledsoe. (I think DJ Older too, but Twitter’s down, so I can’t confirm.)

  40. Personally I think Ever After is more of a must-have than Ella Enchanted (which is a sentimental favorite, still) and Enchanted. Easily, Ever After is my favorite version of Cinderella.

    Also, why is Disney only allowed a couple of slots for character greeters? Why do we have to replace them all with new ones? Why not have 10 different ones that are on different rotation schedules or something? If I was a kid and I went and didn’t get to see Vader, I think I’d be pretty pissed.

  41. k_choll, I saw Ella Enchanted and had a visceral run-away! reaction. The curse Ella was under was horrible, and although I knew that since it was a Disney movie nothing really bad would happen to her… I cringed throughout the movie. While my friends were laughing… <wry>

  42. @Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little:

    @ Tasha the feminist is bringing it up because Tasha always does. Can’t she just give it a rest. (Yes that’s what I pictured going through filers minds).

    Tasha, this is heartbreakingly real and resonates with me deeply.

    Let’s both pledge to never give it a rest. It’s too damn important.

    *signs the pledge*

    Tasha, reading your comments about the Disney issue and princesses, I’m reminded of one of my favorite joyful memories of visiting Disney (we are both Disney fans despite the problematic aspects). We were there the last time, and sort of muttering to ourselves at “beauty salon/Disney Princess makeover” that parents could buy for their daughters (nothing equivalent for their sons that we saw) because that seemed a bit much. But seeing the girls afterwards, and how happy they were was great. And then one day, we saw a mother and two daughters (we assumed!) at one of the restaurants, and both little girls were wearing their Princess Dress over their daily clothes (it was a bit chilly that day) which consisted of pants, sneakers, and t-shirts, and their hair was gloriously messy, and they were both digging in with great gusto to ice cream sundaes, so they had ice cream and chocolate sauce smeared over their faces, and just radiated so much joy and energy and LIFE that I was nearly in tears.

  43. *joining the Ever After LOVE*

    It is the BEST and canonical version as far as I’m concerned.

  44. Re: Ella Enchanted

    The movie is cute but lost a lot of the resonance from the original book. In particular, how the curse is broken in the book was a lot more moving. It is mostly interior so not filmable but I still didn’t care for the tonal change at the end from broad comedy to thriller. The book has nuance that the movie lacks.

  45. @Kurt: Professional writing — either trad or self-publishing — requires some measure of ego and self-confidence. And research and awareness. If it’s “gatekeeping” to say so, it’s not even a ghost of a gate. I’m not stopping anyone. Neil’s not stopping anyone. So who is, if people are giving up in the face of such wispy and insubstantial gatekeeping, if not the would-be authors themselves?

    You are not intending to stop anyone, nor is Neil. And, arguably, logically, rationally, neither of you have the authority/power to do so.

    However, you are thinking of this incident as one incident, ignoring the whole concept of microaggressions.

    This one *wispy* (hmmm) example of gatekeeping isn’t or shouldn’t be enough to stop anyone.

    But that you look at it this way simply exemplifies the concept of privilege: you don’t seem to have any idea what it is like to face example after example, thousands, hundreds of thousands over a lifetime arguably, or institutional and systematic gatekeeping, starting in childhood (arguably starting before birth if you want to talk about the generational impacts of racism, sexism, class oppression on people).

    You don’t have any idea what it is to have those voices in your head (the ones that Tasha talked about) that come from a lifetime of gatekeeping and restrictions.

    And you know, while I was doing all my morning chores, I was thinking/revisiting egregious examples in my own life, the ones I have to keep killing again and again (as Virginia Woolf talked about killing the “Angel in the House”), ones spanning fifty years.

    And then I decided, screw it, I have better things to do today than spend time on the internet trying to address yet another white male’s issues (I only thought of doing so because I was a bit surprised to see that tone/comment coming from you given your earlier posts).

    So I won’t.

    But don’t think it’s just one time, or one *wispy* example.

    It’s not.

    Oh, and keep in mind that people who have experienced that lifetime and have persevered and worked through to success in publishing or anything else are likely to then face another whole round of microaggressions along the lines “of it’s just because of affirmative action” not anything they actually accomplished! And that is fucked up too.

  46. There should be no problem with Disney having Rey as a greeter; they can just have her wearing the outfit we see her in her very first scene in. And I, also, have never understood the whole Boba Fett deal. He was barely in the movies, and yet everywhere in the toystores.

  47. Shambles said:

    Hmm, when I was last there the characters played by live unmasked actors were based off of the animated characters.

    The term is “face characters”, and yes, there are a few at both Disneyland and Disney World, mostly the princesses.

    The immediate cause of picking Kylo Ren would seem to be that the spot was previously occupied by Darth Vader, and he’s the closest thing to Darth Vader that The Force Awakens can provide.

    To the bigger question of why there isn’t a face character at that location, there are lots of possible tedious mundane explanations. Maybe that location doesn’t have some kind of necessary support infrastructure. Maybe the marketing department decided that’s not part of the plan for this franchise. Maybe the bean counters decided there can only be so many face characters, and the princesses are what really haul the crowds in. Maybe the thick layers of spoiler protection covering future parts of the story make it difficult to develop a face character.

    (Goes back and rechecks post to make sure I haven’t used any other terms or abbreviations that need explaining. Theme parks, especially the Disney ones, are an area of intense geekdom for me.)

  48. Cally said:

    And I, also, have never understood the whole Boba Fett deal. He was barely in the movies, and yet everywhere in the toystores.

    As a kid who had and treasured a Boba Fett action figure, I can tell you it was because the armor looked cool. For similar reasons I also had an Imperial Guard one (those guys in the red robes).

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