Scarlett Letters

I was going to make a "Five Things..." post this morning. But one of those five things was provoked by Trish Sullivan's post about sexism in SF and the Rod Rees debacle, which I still haven't been able to find anything about online; my Google-fu has failed me. But the Google brought up the Resnick/Malzberg genderfail, and it quickly overcame the other four things I was going to post about. So here's a post about the Resnick/Malzberg thing along with related ideas, and I'll post about the other stuff a little later.

I haven't weighed in on the whole Resnick/Malzberg SFWA genderfail mainly because so many others have been so much more eloquent about it than I think I can be (with thanks to jimhines for the awesome round-up). What I see as I read through the original Resnick/Malzberg dialogues and all the response they've provoked is a couple of men clearly out of touch with the social dialog on sexism and completely unaware that, generationally speaking, they're oblivious, outgunned, uninformed, and were completely unprepared for what hit them. No argument they've marshalled in their own defense addresses the complaints lodged against them because they don't understand the complaints or the history and perspective behind them. They don't get it.

And that obliviousness is something I've had to wrestle with myself a bit as I get older. Case in point: Several months ago, a writer of whom I'm enormously fond both personally and as an author posted a portrait of herself online. She's lost weight and has been working out like a queen bitch; she looks awesome. But I found myself channeling my mother when I said, "Great pic--look at those cheekbones--but smile!" and found myself scolded for telling a woman to smile. I was a little blindsided by the scolding. I had missed an entire social dialog that centered around the idea that it's not OK to tell a woman to smile because it communicates that we are worth nothing unless we are, first and foremost, decorative. The picture reflected the success of her efforts whether or not she smiled. I Got Skooled. And the people who schooled me were right to do so. And I understood why. The incident created an important awareness for me and provoked a lot of thought.

I understood why because the discussion has been taking place since my formative years and I've been a part of it. The fact that I've missed more recent discussion alarmed me enough to go and get myself more grounding. It's something of a generational discussion and the fact that I missed it freaked me out more than a little.

So there's a piece of me that understands the Resnick/Malzberg dismay and umbrage at the response to their dialogs. There's a cultural futureshock going on for these guys. Part of the trouble is that they've never been part of this particular social dialog--or at least they haven't been recently. Their injured dignity arises from this idea that they were (See how progressive we were? See how the ladies around us never objected to us?)--and even if they were, they're not now and haven't been for so long that their defenses, though apparently relevant to themselves, aren't relevant or effectively presented to those they're arguing with. Moreover, the arguments they've marshaled in their defense reflect a generational and social divide so profound that I'm not sure it will ever be effectively bridged; I'm not sure it can be. There's an element of "you young whippersnappers" about their response that undermines a lot of what they're trying to say (separate from the fact that what they're saying doesn't address the legitimate complaints lodged against them). They present a lot of their defense in the frame of, "Why, in my day..." as if their forward-thinking behavior 35 years ago makes them social paragons to be respected today.

Except it jest ain't so. Perspective that doesn't remain informed and evolve as the dialog develops is perspective that has ossified. And the fact that these gentlemen can't see that is another symptom of that ossification. Plus, the fact that they appear to have responded in a knee-jerk fashion rather than in a thoughtful way with a little reflection and research about why people objected to their perspective just made it worse.

Look: we all believe in ourselves and the righteousness of our positions. But without stretching those positions, testing them, we become stiff and movement becomes difficult. I think that one of the lessons to come out of the Resnick/Malzberg genderfail is that we must remain aware and elastic in our learning and our perspective. We must question our assumptions. We must learn from our mistakes, yea, even into our 70s and 80s. Otherwise we might end up telling the wrong person to smile. ;-)

First, congratulations to everyone on the ballot. In particular, my best wishes go out to davidlevine, kijjohnson and Joe Haldeman; I'll be rooting for you from the sidelines, where we associate members sit with popcorn.

I'm mostly pleased by the script choices, but have notes to make about two of them. That category will be a tough one to choose from and I suspect it won't be without controversy this year.

I'm disappointed that the Doctor Who two-parter "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" isn't in there. I know that everyone is falling over themselves about "Blink," but I'm more partial to the former. Still, "Blink" deserves a nod, and if Doctor Who is going to be represented, that's not a bad choice at all. But, well, I pout on behalf of my preferred favorite. Maybe we'll see it on the Hugo ballot; more room there.

Now to the head-scratcher: "World Enough and Time" - Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves (Star Trek: New Voyages). Isn't New Voyages a fan film endeavor? Isn't this akin to putting fanfic on the ballot, regardless of the fact that it was written by professionals? Did Zicree and Reeves get paid for this project? This strikes me as just ... weird. It seems like an endorsement by a professional organization that writing fanfic (a copyright violation) is okay. I'm sure the writing is first rate (I haven't seen the film in question so I'm taking it on faith), but I admit that I'm confused by this. The part of me that has faith in SFWA as an organization has to believe that there's information I don't have that qualifies this film for the ballot. But the part of me that has watched SFWA flounder the last couple of years has serious doubts about who was and wasn't paying attention when this choice was made. And I'm left here on the couch with my popcorn, unable to do much but watch things as they unfold. This should be interesting.

Edit: I did a little research on the SFWA Web site. It looks like this issue of the New Voyages is a little squishy, since the Nebula rules language says that dramatic scripts must be professionally produced but doesn't define what qualifies as professional production, though I would infer that the definition of professional is what the organization uses to qualify its membership. Interestingly, the qualifying rules don't discuss what qualifies a professional script as a membership qualification or if script-writing qualifies for membership. Maybe an update is in order.

The award rules also say "The SFWA® President shall appoint, and the NAR editor administer three Nebula juries, each consisting of at least three (3) and not more than seven (7) members. In the case of the Dramatic Script Nebula Jury, at least two members of that Jury shall have had at least one script professionally produced.... The Script Jury shall have the option of adding one work to the Script category. The Script Jury shall also be charged with ensuring, to the best of its ability, that the Nebula for best script is presented to the primary writer or writers of an actual script. Accordingly, the Jury shall be responsible for requesting a copy of the production script for each script on the Preliminary Ballot, and reviewing the attribution on those scripts, to ensure that the Award shall accurately reflect the true authorship of the Work. The Jury may disqualify productions where authorship is unclear or in doubt, or the accredited authorship consists of more than four individuals, with no primary author. Such disqualified productions will not appear on the Final Ballot." I wonder if the New Voyages entry was a special choice. Curiouser and curiouser.