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defrogThe film version of Ender’s Game is now playing at a cinema near you – unless yr in Hong Kong like me, in which case it will be at a cinema near me later this week.
And as you may know, there is controversy – mainly because Orson Scott Card, the author of the classic SF novel the film is based on, has expressed fairly silly and noxious opinions about gays and lesbians (though not in the novel). Consequently, there’s been calls for a boycott of the film with the goal of preventing Card from making money from it.
Possibly by coincidence, the studio distributing Ender’s Game has put out a release saying that Card won’t be making any money from the box office take. Message: “Please don’t boycott our movie, since the guy yr pissed off at won’t be making any money from it anyway.”
John Scalzi has some wise thoughts about all this, which break down into a couple of key points:
1. Card has likely already made his money from the film whether you see it or not.
2. Whatever money he may or may not earn from the film, he’ll earn plenty from additional book sales tied in to the film (and we are talking about a book that already sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year). So if the object is to keep a homophobe from making money, boycotting the film won’t achieve that.
Which is as well, since I’m not a big believer in these types of boycotts – partly because they don’t work anyway, and partly because if you want art (in any form – paintings, books, films, whatever) created by people who have politically correct views that you agree with all the time, yr not going to be enjoying a whole lot of art.
On the other hand, I admittedly don’t have a stake in this game. I’ve never read any of Card’s books, mainly due to lack of interest, so it’s hard to get motivated to watch a film based on a book I wasn’t interested in reading in the first place.
Which isn’t to say I won’t go see it. I might. But it looks like one of those films I’d go see when nothing else is playing. So for me, boycotting this film is like boycotting The Hunger Games – it’s not something I'd really have to go out of my way to do.
Game on/game off,
This is dF
And as you may know, there is controversy – mainly because Orson Scott Card, the author of the classic SF novel the film is based on, has expressed fairly silly and noxious opinions about gays and lesbians (though not in the novel). Consequently, there’s been calls for a boycott of the film with the goal of preventing Card from making money from it.
Possibly by coincidence, the studio distributing Ender’s Game has put out a release saying that Card won’t be making any money from the box office take. Message: “Please don’t boycott our movie, since the guy yr pissed off at won’t be making any money from it anyway.”
John Scalzi has some wise thoughts about all this, which break down into a couple of key points:
1. Card has likely already made his money from the film whether you see it or not.
2. Whatever money he may or may not earn from the film, he’ll earn plenty from additional book sales tied in to the film (and we are talking about a book that already sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year). So if the object is to keep a homophobe from making money, boycotting the film won’t achieve that.
Which is as well, since I’m not a big believer in these types of boycotts – partly because they don’t work anyway, and partly because if you want art (in any form – paintings, books, films, whatever) created by people who have politically correct views that you agree with all the time, yr not going to be enjoying a whole lot of art.
On the other hand, I admittedly don’t have a stake in this game. I’ve never read any of Card’s books, mainly due to lack of interest, so it’s hard to get motivated to watch a film based on a book I wasn’t interested in reading in the first place.
Which isn’t to say I won’t go see it. I might. But it looks like one of those films I’d go see when nothing else is playing. So for me, boycotting this film is like boycotting The Hunger Games – it’s not something I'd really have to go out of my way to do.
Game on/game off,
This is dF
