Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts

Friday, April 5, 2019

Separating the Art from the Artist

Regarding AJ Finn (Dan Mallory) and his blatant lies, how important is an author’s personal ethics in your regard for his or her work? Knowing about Mallory’s public lies, would you still read his book?

by Paul D. Marks

Well, the point in this particular instance is moot since I read the book well before the controversy broke. So I can’t say 100% for sure if I would have read it had I known about all of Mallory’s shenanigans. I might still have wanted to read it, though maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to pay for it. Maybe get it from the library or some other source.

Mallory/AJ Finn’s book The Woman in the Window was a huge best seller and is being made into a movie. For those unfamiliar with Dan Mallory’s/Finn’s transgressions here’s just a sampling: He claimed his mother and brother had died, mom of cancer, brother of suicide. Both are alive and well. He claimed he had cancer and surgery for a brain tumor. Apparently he even sent e-mails under his brother’s name with updates on his condition. He claimed to be British and went around speaking in a British accent, using British phrases, like going to the loo. And there’s more.

That said, lots of artists (fine artists, painters, wall painters, wallpaper hangers, musicians, writers, actors, etc.) are schmucks of one kind or another. Wagner was a major anti-Semite, Hitler liked him and his music was played in concentration camps. Picasso is said to have been one nasty s.o.b. Celine was an anti-Semite. And many celebs today are not nice or even decent people, some of which I can attest to personally. I don’t listen to Wagner, unless I’m watching Apocalypse Now, but not because of his views. His music just isn’t my cup of tea, and I do like some classical music and especially baroque. But I still look at Picasso paintings. I still read Celine. – Check out this piece at the New York Times, “He’s a Creep, but Wow, What an Artist!”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/opinion/artists-assault-fans.html

Generally speaking, I’d say you have to separate the art from the artist, which is easier in some cases than in others. I suppose someone could do something so egregious that I wouldn’t listen to their music, read their books, go to their movies, etc. And I’m not saying there isn’t a little twinge sometimes when I see/hear/read these people and their work. But I think there’s way too much nitpicking people apart these days.

I wouldn’t want someone to not read my books because they don’t like the fact that I like the Beatles as much as I do and that’s about how silly it’s getting. We’ve all said and done things we shouldn’t have, things we regret, but that’s not the whole of our beings. And certainly not our writings, our art.

On a similar note, people are defriending others simply because they disagree with them. Around Christmas time I usually put up a satirical video by the Dropkick Murphys. I think it’s funny. I guess some people don’t because a Facebook friend defriended me for putting up that video. (Judge for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTx-sdR6Yzk ) She was offended by it. She raked me over the coals, both in the comments section and in private e-mails. She was also angry about another video that another friend posted in the comments. I didn’t even post that one and she tore into me for it. I apologized for offending her three times, but I wouldn’t remove the video that I’d put up. I did a piece about this for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which you can find here: https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2018/08/01/flame-wars-more-by-paul-d-marks/

None of us – none (not even Mother Teresa, I’m sure) – could stand up to the scrutiny of every minute of our lives. We all have things in our pasts, things that may even have seemed innocent at the time, but in retrospect maybe aren’t. An off-color joke, an unwanted advance, an angry outburst like Liam Neeson admitted to recently (https://www.nme.com/news/film/liam-neeson-removed-from-queens-university-belfast-prospectus-after-controversial-race-comments-2468159 ). Will you avoid his movies, past, present and future, forever? Is he persona non grata now?


I’m not excusing anything anyone’s done, I’m just saying we’ve all done things we regret, but that they aren’t the totality of our being.

I see things that annoy me or bother me or piss me off one way or another all the time, on Facebook, in the media, in real life. About people whose works I like. And mostly I just let it go, as I hope people will let go my transgressions because we are all only human.

Semi-Spoiler Alert re: The Woman in the Window:

And now to bring it full circle, back to Mallory and The Woman in the Window (also the name of a terrific film noir from 1944, which Mallory took his title from, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea, and directed by Fritz Lang – check it out). I liked the book okay, but thought the ending was a bit of a letdown.


What about you? How do you react to artists who are less than stellar in their private lives?

~.~.~
And now for the usual BSP:

The Anthonys. Well, from the BSP Department and since Anthony voting is still in progress, I hope you'll consider voting for Broken Windows in the Best Paperback Original Department.



The third story in my Ghosts of Bunker Hill series, Fade Out on Bunker Hill, appears in the March/April 2019 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. If you like the movie Sunset Boulevard, I think you'll enjoy this story. In bookstores and on newstands now:



Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com

Friday, November 2, 2018

The Great American Book Ban

PBS’s Great American Read recently announced Americans’ favorite book. It’s To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. We all know the basics of the story. Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. Atticus’s children, Scout and Jem, are taunted by other children for their “N-loving” father. It’s more complex than that, but that’s at least part of the story in a nutshell.
Around the same time that To Kill A Mockingbird was named America’s favorite book, “A 17-year-old Shorewood boy has been arrested for making threats on social media relating to the controversial ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ play, the Shorewood Police Department said Wednesday,” said the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ( https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/northshore/news/shorewood/2018/10/17/shorewood-play-cancelled-again/1668869002/ )
According to WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee, “The show had been canceled last week after groups threatened to protest over the use of the N-word in the play.”
According to the American Library Association, To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most “challenged” books. Here’s an excerpt from the ALA’s page:
To Kill a Mockingbird Challenged in Eden Valley, MN (1977) and temporarily banned due to words "damn" and "whore lady" used in the novel.
Challenged in the Vernon Verona Sherill, NY School District (1980)  as a "filthy, trashy novel."
Challenged at the Warren, IN Township schools (1981) because  the book does "psychological damage to the positive integration process" and "represents  institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature." After unsuccessfully trying to ban Lee's novel, three black parents resigned from the township human relations advisory  council.
Challenged in the Waukegan, IL School District (1984) because the novel uses the  word "n____."
Challenged in the Kansas City, MO junior high schools (1985). Challenged at  the Park Hill, MO Junior High School (1985) because the novel "contains profanity and  racial slurs." Retained on a supplemental eighth grade reading list in the Casa Grande, AZ  Elementary School District (1985), despite the protests by black parents and the National  Association for the Advancement of Colored People who charged the book was unfit for junior high use.
Challenged at the Santa Cruz, CA Schools (1995) because of its racial themes.  Removed from the Southwood High School Library in Caddo Parish, LA (1995) because the book's language and content were objectionable.
Challenged at the Moss Point, MS School District (1996) because the novel contains a racial epithet. Banned from the Lindale, TX advanced placement English reading list (1996) because the book "conflicted with the values of the community."
Challenged by a Glynn County, GA (2001) School Board member because of profanity. The novel was retained. Returned to the freshman reading list at Muskogee, OK High School (2001) despite complaints over the years from black students and parents about racial slurs in the text.
Challenged in the Normal, IL Community High School's sophomore literature class (2003) as being degrading to African Americans.
Challenged at the Stanford Middle School in Durham, NC (2004) because the 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel uses the word "n_____." 
Challenged at the Brentwood, TN Middle School (2006) because the book contains “profanity” and “contains adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, and incest.”  The complainants also contend that the book’s use of racial slurs promotes “racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy.” 
Retained in the English curriculum by the Cherry Hill, NJ Board of Education (2007).  A resident had objected to the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated by members of a racist white community in an Alabama town during the Depression.  The resident feared the book would upset black children reading it. 
Removed (2009) from the St. Edmund Campion Secondary School classrooms in Brampton Ontario, Canada because a parent objected to language used in the novel, including the word “n_____."
So, how is it that the #1 book on the Great American Reads list is also one of the most banned books in the country, and for a variety of reasons?

Isn’t the point of the book to work against racism? How can we do that if we hide the harsh reality from people, including children, though maybe extremely young children shouldn’t read it. Sometimes we have to talk about unpleasant things and use unpleasant words to make certain points. In both my Shamus Award-winning novel White Heat and its sequel, Broken Windows, that just came out a few weeks ago, I deal with very sensitive issues – racism and immigration respectively – in the context of mystery-thrillers. I use the N word. I debated a long time about that and was very concerned, but ultimately thought it was what the story required. I did, however, put a warning at the head of the stories to caution readers and ask them to consider the use of that word and other things in the context of the characters, the time and the situations. Today we’d call them “trigger warnings”.

And Mockingbird isn’t the only book on the Great American Read’s list to have faced bans and challenges.
I did a post a while back on SleuthSayers, the other blog I write for about free speech, along with Elaine Ash (Anonymous 9) and Jonathan Brown. If you want to check it out you can find it here: 
https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2018/05/are-sensitivity-police-coming-to-get-you.html . But the bottom line is I’m a free speech absolutist. I may not agree with what you say but I’ll fight for your right to say it. And I think as writers, and as readers and citizens, we should all be concerned about any constraints against freedom of speech. So, let the play go on, let people read the book. And the other books that have been banned.
What do you think?
***
And now for the usual BSP:

I’m honored and thrilled – more than I can say – that my story Windward appears in The Best American Mystery Stories of 2018, edited by Louise Penny and Otto Penzler, which just came out this week. I wrote a blog on that on SleuthSayers if you want to check it out: https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2018/10/the-impossible-dream.html .

I’m doubly thrilled to say that Windward won the Macavity Award at Bouchercon a few weeks ago. Wow! And thank you to everyone who voted for it.

And I’m even more thrilled by the great reviews that Broken Windows has been receiving. Here’s a small sampling:


Here’s a small sampling of excerpts from reviews for Broken Windows:

Betty Webb, Mystery Scene Magazine:

"Broken Windows is extraordinary."


Kristin Centorcelli, Criminal Element

"Although it’s set in 1994, it’s eerie how timely this story is. There’s an undeniable feeling of unease that threads through the narrative, which virtually oozes with the grit, glitz, and attitude of L.A. in the ‘90s. I’m an ecstatic new fan of Duke’s."

"Duke and company practically beg for their own TV show."

John Dwaine McKenna, Mysterious Book Report:

"This electrifying novel will jolt your sensibilities, stir your conscience and give every reader plenty of ammunition for the next mixed group where the I [immigration] -word is spoken!"



Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com