Sunday, June 07, 2015

Why Can't I Just Eat My Hamburgers in Peace? Or, Bad Dog! No Biscuit!


I have not discussed the latest iteration of the Bad Puppies here at Chez delagar, because really what is there to say?

Also it is being said at length and better elsewhere.

(I recommend File770 and Making Light if you are interested.  Also Scalzi has written several good posts on the subject.  Here's Jim Hines, too.)

On the other hand, K. Tempest Bradford has a regular post, over at i09, where she reviews and recommends short fiction each week; and a puppy-like comment was posted there recently, when she did a post on Queer Fiction:

The Filthy Grifter:

I don’t quite understand the push for diversity. Are we telling artists how to craft their art? Or, are we saying there aren’t enough diverse voices easily available for people to read, if they want?


This touched off a wrangle in the comment section:

Straw Hat:
Largely it’s a push for more variation in what artists are coming out, as well as telling current artists what people want.

I mean, let’s say I live in a town where 9/10 restaurants are all pizza. Is it telling people how to do their job if I say that I’d welcome more diversity beyond pizza?


The Filthy Grifter
Maybe. But if they start making hamburgers for you using pizza dough for the crust, you really don’t get to be critical.


Newbadguy:
And pizza dough hamburgers might actually be amazing. But nobody would ever know that in a town where hamburgers are banned.


This was where I literally, in my own house, in my writing corner (where I should have been writing, but I had been taking a break, and had just read one of Tempest's recommended stories, John Chu's "Influence Isolated, Make Peace," which I recommend you do as well, and had gone down to the comment section to say how much I liked it -- hah! Good luck!) -- ANYWAY, this was where I literally began laughing out loud.

Because, no fooling, this does seem to be the way the Puppies believe it works. Publishing LGBT fiction, or fiction by women, is exactly the same as banning fiction by straight white Conservative men.

Reviewing and recommending fiction written by anyone except straight white Conservative men is exactly the same as banning fiction written by straight white Conservative men.

Giving awards to fiction to anyone except straight white Conservative men is exactly the same as stealing those awards from straight white Conservative men.

Either we have their sort of science fiction -- the sort written by white straight males, about white straight males, in which white straight males are all that exist (except one or two beautiful women exist as prizes) -- or we have nothing but fiction about LGBT people of color in Singapore.  And France.  Eating cheese.

They like to claim they are the logical ones in this world, but holy hell, can you spell false dilemma, Batman?

Can we have SF/F about heterosexuals and SF/F about queer people?  Can we have SF/F about white people and SF/F about people of color?  Can we have SF/F about men and SF/F about women?

Can both straight people and queer people get married?

Is equality possible?

Is it possible to have a town (a country!) in which there are not just pizzas but hamburgers -- not to mention every other sort of restaurant?

What a utopian dreamer I am.


2 comments:

D Shannon said...

"Either we have their sort of science fiction -- the sort written by white straight males, about white straight males, in which white straight males are all that exist (except one or two beautiful women exist as prizes) -- or we have nothing but fiction about LGBT people of color in Singapore. And France. Eating cheese." -- delegar

I don't think that's their position. They would insist that radical vegans would keep people from writing about eating animal products. So they would probably go with something like "Eating green beans" instead.

delagar said...

I was going for "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," from back in the Bush Era, plus riffing off the running SFF-cheese jokes over at File770; but you may well be right!