Feeling guilty about watching Ender’s Game because Orson Scott Card is a bigot? Jesse Manley proposes an idea that might ease your guilt.
Originally posted at Burlesque Press.
Written by Jesse Manley.
On November 1st, the long awaited adaptation of Ender’s Game will hit theaters, and many science fiction fans cum theater-goers will be faced with a difficult question: “How do I separate Orson Scott Card’s magnum opus from his virulent bigotry?”
Card claims that Ender’s Game isn’t homophobic, telling Entertainment Weekly that, “Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.” In a press release, production company Lionsgate stated that, “The simple fact is that neither the underlying book nor the film itself reflect [Card’s] views in any way, shape or form.”
Unfortunately for Card and Lionsgate, that’s not how literary criticism works. It doesn’t take a PhD. in English to apply a queer theory reading to Ender’s Game, and subsequently come to some uneasy deductions. The enemies that threaten to destroy life as we know it are called “buggers.” Humanity’s lone hope is a white, male outsider who defies all convention to overcome the horde. I’ll let you decide which is easily read as a placeholder for “The Gay Agenda” and which is Card, himself.
To be fair, Card is hardly the only artist to run afoul of basic human decency. Charles McGrath’s op-ed from The New York Times points out some of the questionable-to-downright-deplorable ethics of juggernauts like Wagner, Pound, Degas, Eliot, Mailer, Caravaggio, Johnson, Byron, Rimbaud, Hemingway, and Dickens. All of these jerks are dead, so they don’t stand to directly benefit when we consume their media. This makes the pill considerably easier to swallow.
But what of the ones who are still alive? The Cards, the Chris Browns, the Mel Gibsons, et al? When we consume their media, we put money in their pocket, and we incentivize their publishers and production companies to consort with their ilk in the future. Do we have to skip their offerings if we want to keep a clear conscience? I hope not, because I’ve been waiting on an Ender’s Game movie since I was 14.
I propose a simple solution: do more good than harm. Want to buy a Chris Brown, Brad Paisley, or Robin Thicke album? Feel like digging further into Ender’s Shadow? Braveheart on Blu-Ray? I am pledging to offset any ethically questionable media I purchase by making a donation to a charity that supports victims that they damage. You cannot eat your cake and have it, too. It’s unavoidable that by paying for their wares, you support them and their politics. But much like polluting companies purchase carbon offsets to balance-out the emissions they produce, one can purchase an ethical offset for consumption of polluting media.
And in order to do MORE good than harm, I am going to make the donation twice the price of the cost of the media buy. That will make sure that it’s not just “an even swap,” and it will make sure that I’m really calculating the true cost of supporting that media. By essentially tripling the cost of consuming unethical media, I hope to force myself to make better decisions about what I consume by placing a representative monetary tax on the questionable content. If I keep having to pay $36 for movies written by bigots, I’ll be much more inclined to jump at the chance to see a movie made by a decent human being.
So, when I go see Ender’s Game on November 1st, I’m going to make a $25 donation to GLAAD. And when I do so, I’m going to make the donation in the name of the Orson Scott Card. And I’m forwarding the confirmation to Mr. Card’s email so he knows just how much his work inspired me to support the LGBTQ community. Just to be spiteful.
I hope you’ll make a similar pledge and join me in a spiteful protest on November 1st.
Photo/ Flickr — Chris Drumm
Originally posted at Burlesque Press.
Your “queer reading” of the novel is completely off base. You are equating the “buggers” (they are referred to as bugs) with homosexuals? And Ender is supposed to be Card himself? That’s completely stupid because the entire moral of the novel is that the war was unjust, that the bugs were not enemies at all, the entire conflict was a misunderstanding. The final message is that destroying the bugs was evil and that society’s inability to understand a culture that is completely different from theirs leads to horrible, deplorable genocide. You need to check your facts dude, because I’m guessing… Read more »
I actually did a write-up about two weeks ago about the queer side of Ender’s Game. I’m not feeling the connection between the use of the word “buggers”, it all has to do with gender constructions. You can read it here:
https://goodmenproject.com/arts/ender-gender-and-the-fight-for-humanity-js/
What’s the issue with Brad Paisley?
Mr. Paisley made a pretty tone deaf song about race relations.
http://rock.rapgenius.com/Brad-paisley-accidental-racist-lyrics
Apparently, so did LL Cool J. There’s a difference between boycotting genuine bigotry, and boycotting political disagreement … even over matters like race or gay marriage. You may find Paisley and LL Cool J “tone deaf”, but neither are bigoted.
Never heard that song before. Figured people around here would be more likely to complain about Paisley’s fairly full-throated defense of traditional masculinity in “I’m still a guy” (or something like that). Then again, you’d have to boycott most male country singers.
JB
“I’m Still A Guy” came to mind, but I wanted to make sure, and I didn’t think it earned Paisley a spot in the same light as Chris Brown.
Sorry, I think it’s far better to keep money out of the coffers of bigotry. Far easier just to pirate it, or buy a ticket to a different movie at the same time and go into the Enders showing. OSC has had to deal with major backlash directly because of the financial ramifications.
Buying a chick-fil-a meal is not offset by charitable donations.
Please don’t flatter yourself (LGBT community) Ender’s Game and many other things have nothing to do with you and your movement. The reader is free to imagine and determine what the “bugger” or formics mean to them. I feel the formics represent the dull and drone-like mentality of people in the US. Tuning into the talking heads of the world, urging us to follow causes without evaluating and questioning motives and adgendas.
I view it in terms of whether I would pick up on the political or ideological views of the author/artist when I read or view their work. If anything, Ender’s Game might be viewed as a ripoff of Macross/Robotech after the Invid track down the Robotech Masters and discover protoculture growing on Earth. Some of you may remember the cartoon, and some may have even played the pen and paper RPG released by Palladium Books in the early 90’s. In regards to giving something back, why does it have to be financial? Why not offer your support by helping out… Read more »
“Wagner, Pound, Degas, Eliot, Mailer, Caravaggio, Johnson, Byron, Rimbaud, Hemingway, and Dickens. All of these jerks are dead, so they don’t stand to directly benefit when we consume their media.”
To describe great artists as jerks, though in some respects they may have been, you run the risk of sounding like self- righteous jerk yourself.
Okay, do you have any idea in what way they were jerks? Just to take one of the worst examples, Wagner was a huge inspiration and influence in Nazi anti-semitism.
No, Jesse does not risk sounding like a self-righteous jerk by pointing out that some people who’ve done good things also did bad things, except to titanic contrarians who must find fault with even the most obviously true statements.
*throws up hands*
Cool use of your money, but I don’t agree with the theory that the Buggers/Formics are stand-ins for gay people. Mainly because the twist of the book is that their massacres on humans were accidental, because they didn’t realize that humans are individually sentient because the Formics have a hive mind. What’s more, their extermination at the hands of humans is treated as a horrible crime, and one that Ender spends the rest of his life trying to atone for. If Card had meant for the Buggers to be “evil gayliens”, then they would have been an irredeemable monster species… Read more »
This is exactly correct. Not defending OSC, but the fight and destruction of the “buggers” is the catalyst for Ender showing massive remorse and learning to appreciate all civilizations, especially in light of the follow up books. Card is a bigot, but the book is clearly an exploration of how bigotry can arise, and how we can discover that it is wrong.
OSC won’t receive a cent from the film, so dive in! http://m.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/10/enders-game-movie-profits-wont-go-orson-scott-card/71136/
Exactly! And you can buy a copy of the Ender’s Game novel at your local used bookstore, or pick one up online, and Card will never see a cent of your money. I struggled with the knowledge of Card’s bigotry when I learned of it, but his moral fiber doesn’t change the fact that he wrote a damn good book. Boycotting it altogether doesn’t change the fact that it has influenced other franchises I can understand boycotting everything attached to Card’s name on principle, but I am a little surprised that everyone’s latching onto LGBT issues rather than drone warfare,… Read more »