Comments on: Orson Scott Card and Superman

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:39:18 +0000

Some good points there. I’m seeing people drawing parallels with McCarthy in the 1950s, and it’s a very, very weak comparison.

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:58:50 +0000

“I also hope that someday he will recognize that some of the things he has said, some of the things he has advocated, are simply not in keeping with Jesusâ€™ commandment that we love one another.”

As long as people like Card choose not to recognize that love includes things like acceptance-as-is and not merely proselytic love (I love you, you’re perfect, now change), then no.

The problem with belief systems is that they grant the believer the (illusory) power of inerrancy. As long as they think they’re doing the Right Thing, and as long as the Right Thing doesn’t require any actual reality testing, everything is fine. Card sincerely believes he’s doing the Right Thing, which is why arguing with him about it accomplishes nothing.

As someone else pointed out, it’s not so much about teaching him to change his mind — which I suspect is all but impossible — so much as it is about our not feeling complicit, by not giving him that much more money and opportunities to do things we find morally abhorrent.

By: John P

John P — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:21:00 +0000

The McCarthyism of post-war America is a prime example of people being blacklisted because of their perceived/actual beliefs and for many of those in the entertainment industry it was the end of their careers as they were denied work.

Please don’t let’s get into a deep analysis of the Superman stories. I admit I haven’t read one since I was a kid, but it has never struck me as being anything more than a superficial bit of day dreaming where the sexual orientation of the characters is completely irrelevant to the villians’ nefarious plans. Instead of looking for deeper meanings, do something more productive with life like going to the toilet for a satisfying dump.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:57:20 +0000

Or given that many homophobes are in the closet, maybe there will be a strong homoerotic subtext coming from the author’s subconcious.

By: Amadan

Amadan — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:27:25 +0000

Obviously, blacklists have the potential for abuse, but I have yet to a see one of those slippery slope arguments actually manifest in real life, where some writer or musician or entertainer is deprived of a livelihood because of a backlash among fans for an unpopular opinion. To call Card “once-successful” is kind of a laugh, since he’s still a best-seller (he was invited to write Superman!) and Ender’s Game is about to be a big-budget Hollywood movie. I’d guess the net economic effect of all these people saying mean things about him on the Internet is approximately zero. I suspect whatever he’s being paid for writing Superman is chump change for him.

So yeah, if you are a vocal bigot, there are consequences, but it’s not as if anyone is not finding work because they’ve been named and shamed.

Gerrold says:

“I do not expect that Cardâ€™s political beliefs will be part of his Superman story.”

Well, I’ll bet there will be no positive (or any) portrayals of gay people in his Superman story. Now, in fairness, most writers probably wouldn’t mention gay people in a Superman story. But it’s becoming a little more common to see inclusiveness as a deliberate choice in popular media. What you don’t say can be as political as what you say. Of course Card isn’t going to have Superman give an anti-gay marriage speech, but you can be pretty sure he also won’t have any gay friends.