h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Agreed but they are being paid to churn that crap out for a certain audience.

Card is being employed to write fictional stories about a superhero...he have written under a pseudonym and no-one would have known.

Liddle/Littlejohn writing under a pseudonym would make no difference as the content would be the same crap.

I loved Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. It deeply saddened me to learn that he is such a bigot. And no, I will never purchase or read another thing he writes.

But no one is trying to prevent him from spouting his bigoted ideas. They're petitioning a private company to change their plans. They're not restricting his speech, they're exercising theirs.

As to the bigot on the train. She was disturbing the peace. The police would be correct in removing her from the train, ticketing her and possibly even arresting her. I have no problem with that. I don't like when police use "disturbing the peace" as a blanket charge but it fits in this case.

Baron Grim


By proxy they are trying to restrict his speech i.e. if you keep spouting this rubbish we will try and curtail your employment possibilities. They are also almost blackmailing the company to change their minds on hiring an individual. That's a bit more than freedom of speech isn't it?

He's not being thrown in jail. He's not being prevented from writing. Marvel is being warned that some of their customers will boycott if they have him write a Superman comic. Marvel will consider it and if they decide that those complaining will be outnumbered by those that don't give a , then they'll publish his Superman comic.

Surely it's no different to boycotting a company for, say, using legal loopholes to avoid paying more tax than they have to. Flexing your buying power, so to speak.

Deb

It is interesting how people defend, or not, their countries' level of freedom of speech

In the Anne Franks museum, in the Netherlands, when you get to the end of it there are a bunch of video clips which chuck different scenarios at you, including ones on freedom of speech/hate crime etc
These include wearing nazi uniforms etc


In the end you got posed with a question (e.g. ban the uniforms)


While I was there they were doing it so that you pressed yay or nay which country you were from - you got shown the figures from the group you were with, and then the statistics with the year.

UK were far more willing to accept things that other European countries (primarily ones that had been occupied by Germany in WW2, as well as Germany itself) were not,

The boycott was used as a major tool in the struggle for social justice and civil rights in many countries. It's a way for the powerless to exert power. (The name itself comes from an abusive landlord during the Irish land wars.)

Boycotts have been used effectively against companies which advertised on Rush Limbaugh's radio show and on "Dr" Laura's TV show. Also against another American radio show where a couple of "shock jocks" advocated violent abuse of transgender children (I've forgotten they're name). In many cases, even the threat of the boycott has lead to a moderation of hate-filled bigotry. These people are professional trolls, and a boycott is an effective and appropriate response. What they sell is advertising. If you have the power to make their product toxic, why not use it? After all, they're toxic.

And it's a perfect example of free speech balancing free speech, exactly as the theory says it should work.

TRiG.

Why do they call it 'free' speech when
anyone gives us their worth?


~jwf~

Because they're giving us "free" money.

Oh... BTW... correction. I kept mentioning Marvel comics. I meant DC.

I'm not a comic book guy.


http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/orson-scott-card-superman/?cid=co5815924

Worst. Faux Pas. EVER!!

Ah the old Marvel versus DC wars!

No one ever considers the other big comic consortium
Dell, publishers of fine entertainment for young adults
from 1929 to 1973. One character alone, Bugs Bunny, is
proof of their stature.

"At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful
American company in the medium. In 1953 Dell claimed
to be the world's largest comics publisher..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Comics


~jwf~

Sorry... I never cared for DC Comics nor Marvel.


My heart will always belong to EC Comics and William M. Gaines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYx-JCAc-ko

Specifically, I will always love Mad Magazine.

ah, Spy vs. Spy. Best strip ever.

I'm not so sure that the case of Homophobic Illustrator Man is quite the same as a conventional boycott, and I think it raises some difficult issues.

If a major comic book publisher brought out a new comic book starring Captain Homophobia and his sidekick, Bigot Boy, there would be a fairly straightforward case for boycotting not only the new comic but the whole publishing house. So far, so fair enough.

But what if the new comic strip this homophobic artist had been employed to create turned out not to be homophobic or objectionable in any way, perhaps beyond the standard hetro-normativity where gay people simply don't exist. People could, of course, boycott both the comic and the publishers' broader output.

However.... there can be cases where every individual action is morally permissible, but the net result is not. What would happen if Homophobic Illustrator Man became effectively unemployable, or at least unemployable by all the big players. This would have happened not for anything he's done in his work, but for his private beliefs which he's expressed publicly. If we allow this case, then consistency has to allow cases where customer boycotts are aimed at those whose private beliefs are on the progressive side of the argument. Let's say that a well-known comic book artist makes some public statement about the requirement for gun control.... would we be happy for her career to be ruined in a similar way?

Isn't all this just a little too similar to the Macarthyite anti-communist witch hunts? Probably not if done in isolation, but if people with certain views are rendered unemployable in certain sectors even when those views have no relevance whatever to their work.... well... that's worrying. And yes, people are still free to speak. You have your freedom of speech... go ahead, say what you think, and if you lose your livelihood, then, well... tough. You were still free to speak.

While boycotts and so on are fine as far as they go, I wonder if they are the right tactic. Is this really going to persuade anyone of anything? Or will it just fuel resentment and paranoia?

The flipside of the Superman thing is that recently 2000AD published a Judge Dredd strip centered around a gay fetish club in which Dredd himself was the fetish (impersonating a judge, or "jimping" being the crime, rather than the related activities) and in a teaser was 'leaked' which implied that Dredd might be gay.

People actually threatened to boycott and even burn the magazine, simply because of a deliberately provocative rumour.

>>..beyond the standard hetro-normativity
where gay people simply don't exist. <<

Yes! We must maintain some standards in this decadent whirled.

I am having flashes of Bugs Bunny wearing bright red lipstick
and a mop for a wig quite effectively disarming and seducing
a flustered Elmer Fudd.

How could such images have been allowed to sear into my mind!


~jwf~

Otto, the comparison to McCarthyism isn't a valid one here. The hysteria of the time that's typified by the McCarthy investigations and the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings of the late 40s and early 50s were essentially the government of the time abusing its powers (more so in HUAC than McCarthy) by suppressing freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Employers were pressurised into not hiring people who held anything but approved views, Hollywood being the most notable example because they were a soft target, and suspicion was rife because of the public hysteria whipped up by the media. Innocent people lost their livelihoods, some lost their life. All it took to be in that boat was to have said one small thing in the past, to have expressed an opinion, to have once (or still) held a political view which HUAC thought wrong.

That's not the same as a group of individuals making an informed decision about not wishing to add to the personal wealth of someone who not only holds opinions they find repugnant, but who is an activist for those opinions. That's not a blacklist, nor even an angry mob, although I daresay there'll be an element of that somewhere along the road. There usually is in cases such as this.

DC might put out statements that they "...steadfastly support freedom of expression, however the personal views of individuals associated with DC Comics are just that — personal views — and not those of the company itself.", but if I was to buy a DC comic with one of his stories I'm effectively endorsing his views, however DC might try to distance themselves from them because they're paying him from money that I paid to them by buying their product. I wouldn't buy one of his books because I don't want to add to his bank balance which he might then pass on to groups whose views I dislike (dislike, not just disagree with), or use to fund his own outlet, such as a website, to do the same thing, and I wouldn't buy a comic with a story he's written for the same reason.

"if I was to buy a DC comic with one of his stories I'm effectively endorsing his views"

To me this is about the same level of rhetoric as "if you watch violent films you are pro-violence". If the comic does not express those views one can hardly argue that buying it is endorsing them.

H. P. Lovecraft basically hated anyone who wasn't white, male, middle-class, and educated. I read his stories. I do not endorse his views. Dave Mustaine is a right-wing Christian nutter. I listen to his music. I do not endorse his views.

I think if there were any danger of the comic having only white characters and Superman claiming that white people are better than everyone else then DC wouldn't have gone near it.

I can see your point regarding the Lovecraft example, and it's all about where we each, as individuals, decide to draw our own line. I draw mine at Scott Card because he's an activist and I don't want to give him any of my money, either through publishers royalties or the money that DC pay him, because I want to do whatever I can to prevent my money going to those causes. I know it's not a perfect world and that by buying anything from any business I may be unwittingly doing something like that. If I find out that's the case I might take my business elsewhere. That's my right as a customer/consumer. If I carry on shopping there or buying those products I'm sending the message that it's okay for that company to do what they're doing because I continue patronising them.

The violent film comparison doesn't stand up because one side of the argument is based on content and the other is based on personal views.