Joss Whedon Allegations: The Undoing of the "Buffy" Creator

[Sacrosanct]

Ugh. Is it bad enough to warrant the googling, or fairly minor but disappointing?

I mean the homophobia and other problematic elements of the Elenium already disappointed me when I went back and read it again a couple years ago…

The nature of how he wrote the relationship between Sparhawk and Ehlana takes on an extra creepy vibe when I learned Eddings' history. It was bad enough with a 40ish year old guy going back and forth with a teenager girl of "I raised this little girl" to "this little tart keeps seducing me and I can't help but have sex with her. And it was really good." back to "I raised this little girl", rinse and repeat.

 

[Parmandur]

Ugh. Is it bad enough to warrant the googling, or fairly minor but disappointing?

I mean the homophobia and other problematic elements of the Elenium already disappointed me when I went back and read it again a couple years ago…

What Eddings and his wife did was pretty unspeakable and horrific.

 

[Umbran]

Look forward to making positive changes in the community in the future rather than condemning ourselves for the past.

One major way to make positive changes going forward is to make perfectly clear in the present that some things are not acceptable, and to make it clear that there are consequences.

I daresay most authors want to have a legacy - for their works to outlive them. Therefore, that legacy is one place we can choose to enact consequences.

 

[Bolares]

I find by the time I find out anything, I've already bought and supported that individual already...so what do you do?

If you find their actions problematic and those that supported them as problematic, you have already supported the problem and the actions.

On the otherhand, many of those we talk about are already dead. Who are you supporting then...the dead use no money that I know of. I suppose their heirs might...but how do we judge whether heirs are good or bad?

Instead of view ourselves as villains for supporting those who took actions we find unlikeable now, and thus we were those who supported those actions...perhaps it is better to see us as supporting the creations that they made that perhaps speak in a different manner or created situations differently than those who created them?

Look forward to making positive changes in the community in the future rather than condemning ourselves for the past.

You seem to be choosing the exact circunstances where what I said wouldn't apply... Sure, I wouldn't burn already bought books, but I choose to not buy stuff from them from then on... Dead people don't make money, if I can see that whoever owns the rights right now isn't being bad, sure, I have no problem buying (if the work itself is not problematic and not contextualized).

I never said I view myself, or anyone else, as a villain for supporting anyone, I just said what I do to support my own convictions. It has nothing to do with guilt or villany.

 

[Parmandur]

I haven't heard about this. What about Marion Zimmer Bradley?

Her children have come out about Bradley and year stepfather did to them. Systematic abuse is the dry and clinical way I'll put it, but the details are out there.

In regards to complicity of supporting an author...a reader who would like a feminist take on Arthurian legend is engaged with remote material cooperation with an author's bad actions, which isn't morally problematic as it is neither proximate nor formal, particularly if they are secret as these were. Personally, I'd feel icky now, but that's more a gut feeling than a moral analysis.

 

[Jer]

Okay...that sounds bad.

I think this is a prime example of separating the creator and the creation. I have many of her books already. I bought them already and have them in my library. I don't think it serves anyone to simply toss them out.

My problem is that with most of these creators I'm prevented from enjoying their works because I know the context of their lives now. Their works read a lot differently once you know about the baggage in their lives. For some authors it brings a new appreciation (finding out about Phil Dick's struggles with mental illness actually brought more to his work), for others it makes them impossible to read without noticing their baggage - sometimes to the point of not being able to enjoy their works at all (Whedon's Dollhouse and Firefly both come across very differently to me now, Bradley's books are in the same camp).

For dead authors like Bradley and Lovecraft I'm not worried about the ethics of monetarily supporting them because they're dead, but it sure does change the way I read their works knowing what they were like - often to the point of not being able to read some of their works at all.

 

[Mallus]

This sounds like a good time to remind people that Whedon has nothing to do with The Nevers (on HBO) anymore, and that it's a good show with a lot of people who are absolutely not Joss Whedon doing quality work,

 

[CleverNickName]

This sounds like a good time to remind people that Whedon has nothing to do with The Nevers (on HBO) anymore, and that it's a good show with a lot of people who are absolutely not Joss Whedon doing quality work,

That's mentioned in the article, too. Sounds like they went to great lengths to distance themselves from Joss.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

David Eddings was one of my favorite authors...

The Bradley stuff is bad enough that you might not want to google it. It involves allegations of child abuse.

I meant Eddings. Sadly, I am familiar with the Bradley stuff.

 

[trappedslider]

At what point do you admit that you honestly, don't care?

Lovecraft's writings may be in the public domain, but folks are still making money off of them despite his history. Then there's Henry Ford (who did have a change of heart), along with IBM.

What do you think of this painting?