Of something? Can’t we make this man president of something? Like SFWA?
Let loose the puppies of war. Beautiful.
p.s. Greg Frost has talked with Connie Willis, who seems to be wisely and gracefully letting what happened speak for itself.
p.p.s. Moles exposes some of the seedier side of all this, heretofore hidden behind the Great Wall of SFWA Lounge password protection. (There’s some good stuff as well.)
And I’m nominating Rosenbaum for VP. (Seriously, that’s some beautiful shit.)
Gwenda did you read the email excerpt from John Scalzi posted over at Galleycat the other day? Here it is:
“You post about Harlan [Ellison] grabbing tits but not about the results of the Hugos (save for a single small link in the Boob-gate story)? Shame! Shame!” he chides me. “There are some great stories there,” he continues, “such as Tor editor David Hartwell (SF’s very own Susan Lucci) finally getting a Hugo after umpteen million nominations, Betty Ballantine’s grand diva (in a good way) entrance and appreciation, and Robert Charles Wilson’s awesomely deserving and yet surprising Hugo win for Spin, which beat out four really strong contenders, including, uh, my own book. Where’s the love, man?”
I think I understand now how something like this could happen – to a loud deafening silence from the audience and little condemnation from the powers at be. Scalzi refers to what Ellison did as “grabbing tits” which makes it sound like some schoolboy prank. (And is he kidding by calling this “boobgate”?)
I have to wonder what his reaction would have been if it was his wife/sister/daughter/mother up there instead of Connie Willis.
I’m so tired of reading all about how stuff happens or the shocked confusion of “we couldn’t believe it was happening.” It’s always sexual when a man grabs a woman’s breast (could it be any different?) and in this context it was certainly intentionally demeaning.
Nobody jokes around with someone in this manner.
Ellison should not be invited back; the award organizers should formally apologize to Ms. Willis and send a note to Ellison condemning his actions. They should publicize up one end and down the other how sorry they are and make it clear that this was wrong.
And as for John Scalzi, how disappointing. He needs to learn to grow up a bit too. (And I’m sorry but sexual assault on stage in front of an audience trumps the names of the winners everytime.)
I don’t think that anybody who’s read Scalzi’s comments about the incident on his own blog would believe that he was diminishing what happened when he wrote that to me–and I think his main point is exactly right: Ellison’s lifetime pattern of self-indulgent boorishness HAS, in fact, overtaken the public perception of this year’s WorldCon and this year’s Hugos.
It’s a corollary to what Alan and Gavin have said elsewhere: People like Ellison, and the people who continue to enable his behavior, are ruining fandom for the rest of us, and they’re undermining the credibility of the genre.
Ron, I hate to pull the “girl card” here (really I seriously do) but referring to this as “boobgate” and “grabbing tits” is not something that woman would say or write about this incident, period.
And maybe that’s something that is a larger problem in all of this. Sci Fi is a male dominated genre and that makes the treatment of this (even by the folks who don’t like it) as typical bad boy behavior all that more upsetting to female writers and fans.
It just shouldn’t be referred to in such a juvenile way – there should be no hint of humor at all. And while I’m sure John couldn’t have meant it that way, the fact that it didn’t occur to him as he wrote his email is annoying. (At least to this female.)