Comments

2
This one has been a fascinating one to watch! Suppose a hateful awful person produces an interesting product or bit of art. The arguments run: don't blame the art for the artist; all the way to: he's going to use the profits to advance his hate.

My sympathies run with the boycotters, but then i must admit that i've less interest in the product that many have.

What would you do if someone produced art that you couldn't help but love, but turned out to be the work of a total bastard? (probably a fairly large set of occurrences out there)
3
Wrong. Ender's Game is how he funds his hate-fueled mission. You just think it's irrelevant because you stand to lose a lot of money with this deal.
4
I can't take credit for "Orson Scott Victim Card." I saw it on Twitter and passed it along.
5
If they really want to fix this, they should donate a decent percent of any profits from the movie to a LGBT cause. That would be nifty and hilarious. It'd make Card have to donate more than he otherwise would to try to balance out the positive effect and eat into his profits or decrease his ability to do harm.
6
@2 Are you a seventh grader? It's 2013. This isn't about Wagner, Bukowski, Hemmingway, etc. This is basically the Charles Krafft situation on a multimillion dollar scale with the incoherent drivel of Krafft's racist Mudede post being played by Hamlet's Father.
7
@6 what's the year have to do with it? i was just suggesting a hypothetical question; which, i guess is posed in the wrong forum. i'll try not to make that mistake again, i apologize.
8
I find the reasoning a little suspect. Since they distributed Gods and Monsters and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are we supposed to give them a pass on any support they provide for NOM from here on out?

I also find the statement revealing about how terrible the movie is going to be. Ender's Game was anything but "ennobling and life-affirming". It's the story of (spoiler alert) a child tricked into committing xenocide. The book was good precisely because it was so disturbing. The movie is going to suuuck.
9
@2 FWIW, I generally agree. I watch the films of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Tom Cruise, etc. I don't much care about they've done in the past or how wacko they may be in their personal lives.

The OSC issue is more personal in that he is campaigning against a cause which I've spent the last year and a half of my life fighting for and that he was once an author I enjoyed reading.
10
Oh shit! We didn't know we were going to lose money by makingt his film!

Quick! Appease the GLBT community! Do everything we can so we don't lose money!

Err... we mean, we must continue to support the GLBT community as we have always done. *ahem*
11
@2 There are many total bastards out there. Being a dick isn't grounds for boycott. Admittedly, I've stopped supporting Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan due to the public nature of their abhorrent personal lives.

But, OSC is particularly egregious. He not only writes condemnations, he actively put money against gays.

So, where to hit him? His wallet.

Lionsgate could do like @5 suggests, and donate an equal amount of money and his percentage to pro-gay groups. That at least will take the money out of the equation and help to separate the author from the work.

But, until they do something positive like that, they're just paying lip service.
12
There's also the minor issue that so far the movies looks like it totally sucks. The effects appear passe (or at least unfinished), the production design looks totally derivative, and the toys and tie-ins look rather like Harry Potter in Space (which I assume is deliberate--are the salamanders more Gryffindor or Hufflepuff?).
BTW, for all the sturm und drang about this movie, it's not about that at all. There are more books in this franchise and Card has a back catalog of a lot more book series than this. If it fails, his ticket onto the Hollywood franchise gravy train becomes permanently cancelled (see the unfinished Golden Compass and Narnia series, both of which looked far better than this dreck an were better starting points for movies).
So here's a compromise if "boycott" is just too political for you: plan to go the second or third weekend. The sequel will already have been cancelled or greenlighted by then.
13
No, it's not completely irrelevant. I will concede that the movie doesn't contain anything overtly homophobic; the book didn't. Nevertheless, Card is credited as one of the screenwriters, and will profit directly from the proceeds of this movie... and future sequels if this one does well. Anyone on the board of an organization like NOM should be persona non grata in Hollywood.
14
ITT: gays are butthurt.
15
"As proud longtime supporters of the LGBT community"

...

"We felt we'd make some money this time around from someone who relishes seeing you people suffer"
16
@2: "Suppose a hateful awful person produces an interesting product or bit of art."

It's an interesting piece of work, aside from the genocidal libertarianism.

It's not, however, an important enough piece of art that I need to prop it up with paying for ticket(s).
17
@2 I feel the same way as you. I enjoy music, movies, literature, and performances created by total jerks, people I would avoid in real life. But, on the other hand, I understand the passion people feel about this, and they're fully within their rights to try to organize a boycot. I won't be seeing Ender's Game, but only because I very, very rarely go see movies and, as it is, this one doesn't rouse enough interest. I'd be curious to see if the ones likeliest to see the movie would also be among those most put off by Card's homophobia.
18
Dear Lionsgate,
If OSVC benefits financially from the success of this movie then you've completely missed the point.
Sincerely,
19
Lionsgate does damage control, OSC plays the victim, the boycott continues to promote its message. Everyone seems to be doing their job. Carry on, then.
20
Welcome to my world, LBGT boycotters. Despite my own horror at watching editorial staff of the Stranger support things like the Iraq war or proclaim the AIDs crisis 'over', I continue to read the rag and follow the SLOG. Why? because it's an entertaining and informative product despite these flaws.

Ender's Game remains a seminal work of hard SciFi despite the rantings and personal train wreak of its author, OSC. The squeals are complete shit, BTW, he wrote a one hit wonder, never to be repeated.

I will be going to see the movie, with my kids, and expect to be reasonably entertained. There is nothing hateful about LGBT people in the story in any way, if there is I'd love someone to point it out and be proven incorrect. It's a pretty straight forward story that predicted the Internet and the power of social media years before there was any evidence of such a trend.

Good luck with that boycott, I await more convincing arguments that I shouldn't watch it.
21
If Lionsgate truly supports LGBT causes, they would never have made/bought the movie in the first place. It's not like OSC's bigotry is a new thing or an unknown quantity. And it's not just "OSC's personal opinion," either, he's a political activist on the board of a hateful organization actively working to deny people their civil rights. That's a lot more than "his personal opinion". It seems clear to me that Lionsgate is more interested in making a shit-ton of money with a big movie than they are about being principled.

Boycotting is tough, because that ties the success of the boycott to the financial success of the movie. Movie does well, the story is "boycott fails". The movie is probably going to do ok at the box office because of Harrison Ford. If the movie tanks at the box office, I doubt the boycott will get credit, even if that credit was appropriate. It would get lumped in with a bunch of other factors, get lost in the shuffle.

My preference would be toward *protesting* instead, with a focus on educating the movie-going public about what an ass OSC is and will continue to be. Convince people to stop buying his books, for example. I'm not going to see the film, so I guess that's a personal boycott, but if you really want to hurt him, hurt his future financial prospects. Make him box-office poison. Keep the money out of his hands, because he's putting that money into NOM's.

Please wait...

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