Assassin’s Creed is very cathartic right now

[erastes]

I remember after watching The Da Vinci Code thinking that it made a better film than a book – now having seen Angels and Demons, I can’t say the same.  the script was LAUGHABLE. Surely someone as experienced as Howard must have seen that?  But then… why should he care? He’d have known it would make a fortune however crap it was.  Sadly though, there was no Hanks throwing himself out of a helicopter with no parachute. I was actually looking forward to that.

Also – Vampire Diaries. How dull is that?  I’m sure the Twiglet lovers are lapping it up, but sheesh, it’s like watching paint dry.  It’s probably just me, but I find the idea of a vampire who is old-enough looking to go and get a job but hangs around college instead for 50 years or so incredibly unsettling.

I’ve just had another piece of hate mail, from a reader – who says that she’ll not be buying my books any more.  I find it amazing that people can be so nasty.  I don’t think I’ve attacked anyone personally in this whole debate, in fact I’ve let people say what they like without engaging with them – they are as entitled to their own opinion as anyone else, but this Anita Buchan called me a racist, a liar, privileged and entitled.  I completely fail to see how being an (often prejudiced against) minority within a minority can be privileged OR entitled.  These two words have been bandied around a lot in the last few days and I really don’t know what they mean.  In what way am I acting as if I’m entitled?  I AM ENTITLED – if by that word it means “i feel i should be able to enter the Lambdas.”  I CAN enter the Lambdas, and if my publisher puts my book in, I will.  In what way am I privileged?  This – I don’t get.

I’ve often disagreed strongly with the ethics, opinions, religion, and views of many authors – however I consider myself intelligent enough to be able to separate the views of an author from what they write and take the writing only on merit. Shame that others can’t do the same.  i’d certainly not write to them and tell them that their views/religion/opinion disappoints me and I wouldn’t buy their books!! 

.

Comments

[beckyblack]

The privilege thing is actually bugging the hell out of me in this debate, when it's mostly women writers who have been the ones affected by the new rules. Women. As in the biggest opressed group on the planet. Okay, maybe most of the women in this case aren't like to be sold into marriage, or be the victim of an honour killing, or be forced to throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, but I'll bet they've still got plenty of experience of being repressed and ignored and a still sadly large number of them will have been the victims of violence that they find it hard to get anyone to protect them from.

Maybe that's why they're getting so ticked at what's at least the implication behind this - that they shouldn't be writing about these subjects. Not that they can't, not that anyone is saying they should be banned from doing so, only that they shouldn't, which is a slightly different thing to me.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's round 2 of "damn them uppity women for writing about Serious Issues, like Male Stuff." And they seem to have co-opted the women I think of as the Gender Studies Brigade -- the ones who always have a bit of jargon to use in correcting the "wrong" attitude.

Don't get me wrong.. I have seen m/m written by women who, I swear, have never been to bed with a man, much less have any insight into same-sex relationships. There's some awful rubbish out there. But, I'm sorry... the Lambda judges can't tell the difference between that and serious work?

[beckyblack]

Oh, darn, I forgot to use my appropriate icon on my comment.

Not that I want to get into any kind of one-upmanship about which group is more opressed than the other. But there seemed to be some comments that assume if you're straight you can have no experience of or understanding of prejudice and your life must be a bed of roses.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Or if you're white. I'll be the first to say that any woman of color has it much harder than most white women, but tell me that any woman raised in an oppressive religion doesn't know what 'second class citizen' feels like ...? I don't buy it. We've all got pain of one kind or another; it isn't an Olympic competition.

[beckyblack]

Basically, life sucks for everyone, to different degrees. Hell, even rich, upper class, straight white men are having a rough time right now - everyone hates them!