M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?

[Umbran]

David Eddings wrote a Kiddy Porn Novel? When? Sorry but this shocks the hell out of me.

No. But in the 1970s he and his wife spent a year in jail for abusing their adopted children.

 

[RealAlHazred]

No. But he and his wife spent a year in jail for abusing their foster children.

Yeah, the funny thing is it reads like the kind of thing a villain in a David Eddings novel would do: keeping the hero locked in a cage in the basement as a child, etc.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, the funny thing is it reads like the kind of thing a villain in a David Eddings novel would do: keeping the hero locked in a cage in the basement as a child, etc.

I... don't find that funny. Sorry.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I... don't find that funny. Sorry.

I meant more, like, "funny/strange" than "funny/haha," but I take your point.

 

[Mallus]

I have no authoritative source on this, but it seems to me that Card is an example of a person changing their views over time, and having it bleed into their work, such that their early and later works have much different perspectives.

That sounds right. I like to think Orson Scott Card the author once knew things Orson Scott Card the man eventually forgot.

 

[Hussar]

David Eddings wrote a Kiddy Porn Novel? When? Sorry but this shocks the hell out of me.

Naw. Sorry. Endings just tortured his adopted children. Anthony wrote kiddy porn.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The feeding the kids breakfast routine is part of a long line of jokes casting his wife as an irrational anger machine.

He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids. And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.

 

[Jer]

He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids. And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.

Which is why when you don't know about his actual actions towards women it sounds like something any comic might say, but when you know about who he actually is and the stuff he actually did it takes on a completely different context. I can't listen to those routines anymore knowing the dark side of those bits. Especially the Spanish Fly routine.

 

[Mallus]

He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids. And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.

Phyllis Miller used to refer to her husband as 'Fang'.

 

[S'mon]

The base definition of ridicule is to subject the target to contempt. Ridicule makes the target look foolish or stupid. We often do that by way of comedy, but that's not the only form of ridicule available.
but
I am not, by the way, claiming it is a good movie - the fact that folks cannot generally tell if it is satire or not points to it being ineffective at whatever it is trying to do. Good movies are not ineffective.

I got the impression when I first saw it that Verhoeven was mocking the bulk of his audience - "Ha ha dumb people! You are too stupid to see it is YOU who are the monsters!" while appealing to a few eggheads like me. He did similar even less successfully in Showgirls - I liked all the allusions to Frazier's The Golden Bough but to the average critic it was a stupid t&a movie.