Malazan Empire: Weinstein Celebrity Dead Pool - Malazan Empire

Jump to content

  • 65 Pages +
  • « First
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Weinstein Celebrity Dead Pool

#1281 User is offline   JPK 

  • Lemming of High House Mafia
  • Group: High House Mafia
  • Posts: 1,510
  • Joined: 18-January 11
  • Location:Oregon City, Oregon
  • Interests:Sacrificing myself for everyone else's greater good!

Posted 16 January 2025 - 07:51 PM

I'm a bit put off by VanderMeer's aggressiveness here. I honestly think that we're watching a lot of people grieve over reconciling who they thought their friend was over who he actually is. People can be very good at hiding their true selves from friends and loved ones.

I actually really appreciated Scalzi's response and how he's tried to lay out his personal/professional boundaries and how this has muddled that for him. Through something unrelated, I've dealt with having a similar situation at work when someone I considered a colleague and friend did something that made us all look behind the curtain to see who he really was and the strong front he was putting up to those around him. Seeing Scalzi's struggle here has made me feel seen and I don't think it's a bad thing to see the people around Gaiman struggling with coming to terms with of this. I think it's just human and may help people through this situation or through shit of their own.
0

#1282 User is offline   amphibian 

  • Ribbit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 8,020
  • Joined: 28-September 06
  • Location:Upstate NY
  • Interests:Hopping around

Posted 16 January 2025 - 08:17 PM

Vandermeer can get out of pocket sometimes. I think Scalzi's post is late in coming and uneven in what it says.

The parts that I object to are the specific enumerations of how Gaiman helped him personally and then focusing on the other "friends of Gaiman" going through the same thing much more than the people who Gaiman likely hurt directly.

Talking about the two things at the same time is not ideal without something that connects to the people who've been hurt - who are the epicenter of this much more than the fandom or friends.

Scalzi actually had some good points about how it's difficult to be someone who was a friend and now must change that because of the hurt that person did to others, but... did they have to be surrounded by the other things in that post?

Gaiman helped people and comforted many more. That part of him was real - and I just finished a book by Brust where Gaiman is specifically thanked in the post notes. It's just that the same guy doing that stuff also did these terrible things that are skeevy and dumb even in the best possible light, as Scalzi put it.

There's a lot of words being put out there about how people have to recalibrate friendships etc and I think most are going to be coupled with very little action - much like the Zimmer Bradley situation or the Alice Munroe situation etc. I'm particularly prizing those who are taking actions to support victims, to speak up about increased needs for rules at cons and tours etc. I think Vandermeer has done those things, so I don't look too harshly at his being out of pocket here.
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
0

#1283 User is offline   the broken 

  • Fist
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 268
  • Joined: 19-January 12

Posted Yesterday, 02:20 AM

It's all a bit 'finger pointing about the deckchairs of the Titanic', though, isn't it? The fact that this is being reported now in a publication rather than soon after it happened means that vulnerable rape victims were failed.

What people say or don't say on social media after the story breaks is not very important, I could easily see people who don't rush to social media to cover their ass being quietly shattered but not immediately going 'I have feelings! I must rush to vent them on Twitter!' or 'I will stay quiet because I don't want prejudice the trial or accidentally phrase something badly and salt the wound for rape victims'
0

#1284 User is offline   TheRetiredBridgeburner 

  • House Knight
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 1,577
  • Joined: 28-March 13
  • Location:Deepest Darkest Yorkshire

Posted Yesterday, 09:14 AM

View Postamphibian, on 16 January 2025 - 08:17 PM, said:

Talking about the two things at the same time is not ideal without something that connects to the people who've been hurt - who are the epicenter of this much more than the fandom or friends.


This was why I very quickly stopped reading social media about it - a whole lot of people talking about how their feelings as fans have been hurt, rather than any mention of his victims. I'm not saying those people don't care about the victims and don't abhor his actions, and yes it's fine to have feelings about what Gaiman's works may have meant to you, but it feels a little off for a big portion of the discourse to be only that.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: Yesterday, 09:14 AM

- Wyrd bið ful aræd -
0

#1285 User is offline   amphibian 

  • Ribbit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 8,020
  • Joined: 28-September 06
  • Location:Upstate NY
  • Interests:Hopping around

Posted Yesterday, 02:55 PM

 the broken, on 17 January 2025 - 02:20 AM, said:

It's all a bit 'finger pointing about the deckchairs of the Titanic', though, isn't it? The fact that this is being reported now in a publication rather than soon after it happened means that vulnerable rape victims were failed.

I do want to (gently) respond to this.

Good and ethical reporting of sexual assault takes a long time. There's a need to not re-traumatize the person or people telling the story by making them hurriedly relive, retell, and to some level, re-experience what happened. There's a need to fact check and verify and find substantial context beyond what is told on the page in order to fully understand what happened and to some degree, why it happened. There's a need for checking by legal counsel, editors, and the publisher's leadership team.

And often, there is a need for breaks in the process because covering sexual assault takes a toll on people's mental health. I know this particularly well because a friend was an Assistant District Attorney handling child abuse cases for 4 years. He did his best, yet the experience of that was arduous for everyone involved and there's a big list of reasons why most people rotate in and out of those kinds of assignments.

Doing all of these things right for the people harmed and for those handling the story, investigation, or the prosecution takes time. All too often, the police, attorneys and courts handling investigations/prosecution bungle this and hurt even more the people who've been hurt. There's a passel of bad reasons why some people forgot reporting sexual assault to the formal justice system and we as a society haven't done a great job of addressing those.

Getting a fast story out isn't worth the damage and hurt that usually causes.
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
0

#1286 User is offline   JPK 

  • Lemming of High House Mafia
  • Group: High House Mafia
  • Posts: 1,510
  • Joined: 18-January 11
  • Location:Oregon City, Oregon
  • Interests:Sacrificing myself for everyone else's greater good!

Posted Yesterday, 04:29 PM

 TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 17 January 2025 - 09:14 AM, said:

 amphibian, on 16 January 2025 - 08:17 PM, said:

Talking about the two things at the same time is not ideal without something that connects to the people who've been hurt - who are the epicenter of this much more than the fandom or friends.


This was why I very quickly stopped reading social media about it - a whole lot of people talking about how their feelings as fans have been hurt, rather than any mention of his victims. I'm not saying those people don't care about the victims and don't abhor his actions, and yes it's fine to have feelings about what Gaiman's works may have meant to you, but it feels a little off for a big portion of the discourse to be only that.


This is a really good point and one I really should have considered more.
0

Share this topic:


  • 65 Pages +
  • « First
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

5 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 5 guests, 0 anonymous users