X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Another petition has cropped up, this one in response to DC hiring Orson Scott Card to write the new Adventures of Superman anthology. See their write up below:

OUTRAGE: DC Comics has just hired anti-gay writer Orson Scott Card for their new digital Adventures of Superman.

He’s written publicly that he believes marriage equality would lead to the end of civilization. He’s also on the board of a notorious anti-equality organization.

We need to let DC Comics know they can’t support Orson Scott Card or his work to keep LGBT people as second-class citizens. They know they’re accountable to their fans, so if enough of us speak out now, they’ll hear us loud and clear. Sign and share!

This is the kind of thing that, unless you just want to offer the facts of the matter only, you’re going to end up sounding political/religious/soap boxy. I want to make clear that I have no intention of turning my blog into a soap box for personal beliefs outside of my thoughts on writing, television, movies, comics, etc.

With that being said, I’ve offered my opinion of the other petitions, so here is all I have to say on the subject of this petition:

I’ve never liked Orson Scott Card. I read Ender’s Game several years ago because everyone raved on how great a book it was, always getting on those top-10 lists… but I absolutely hated it to the point I couldn’t finish the last fourth of the book. There was a creepy vibe and weird subtext to it that literally kept me from finishing the book. I didn’t know about Card’s beliefs on homosexuality until last week when this controversy first came to my attention (and on hindsight this shouldn’t have surprised me about him). I don’t know if anyone is planning to boycott/petition the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game which is set for release Nov 2013, but I’ve not heard anything of the kind during the production of the movie. It seems to me that if you want to complain about one, you should complain about the other.

Secondly, he’s a writer, and the mark of a good writer is to be able to give characters their own personalities, even if that personality requires beliefs which do not mesh with your own. The mark of a good fan-fic writer (and lets face it, once the subject has moved away from its original creator the only difference between pro-fiction and fan-fiction is money) is the ability to write a character, um, in character, despite any beliefs which may differ from your own. Just because he is anti-LGBT doesn’t mean this will affect his work, especially when he has the DC overlords leaning over him and you know they are going to be putting their noses into things regardless. The possibility does exist that he could slip in something… but why not wait and see before jumping to the conclusion that he will. I’m reminded of Superior Spider-Man and the huge uproar about how it was supporting what was tantamount to rape… only none of what everyone thought was going to happened actually happened.

In a CBR article a comment is made by comedian Michl Hartney, “There’s a difference between having conservative political beliefs and being an active force of bigotry and hatred. Card is the latter.” This is true. But shouldn’t anti-gay activists have the right to complain if an active pro-gay activist writer (who in their mind is a force of immorality) is put on a book? Yes, because that’s called Freedom of Speech. Disagree with the man all you want but he’s as entitled to be anti as you are entitled to be pro. So while I don’t begrudge this petition as it is itself a Freedom of Speech, the only way you’d actually affect any change would be to just not buy the comic. DC won’t continue to publish something that doesn’t make any money. Bullying them into firing Card is the worst kind of ‘force of change’ and in its own way a kind of bigotry and hatred, especially when he hasn’t actually done anything yet in regards to his job at DC. Punishing him for what he ‘might’ do is the Magneto approach to solving a problem.

Lastly, I’m more than a tad bit annoyed and just a little sickened that a petition against a single writer who may or may not put his personal beliefs regarding homosexuality in a comic could get over 8k signatures so quickly… while a petition to stop a Marvel title that pits high-school students against each other in a death match, these kids literally murdering each other and dying for no other reason than Arcade’s personal entertainment… hasn’t even broken 200 yet.

I think in the end it’s all summed up by a quote here from me via my X-Men: The (fan fic) Series, Episode 1X01: “Sentinel”, by Northstar:

“It took me a long time to learn this, but people seem to forget that equality, means equal, not one pressing unreasonably on the other, otherwise we become those who hated us.”