So Scalzi wrote a post
here about a scheme that James Frey has going on. It’s what Scalzi calls a ‘book packaging scheme’ and sounds like it should be illegal but isn’t. You just have to an absolute asshole to do it. Reading the short summary of the contract left me a bit incredulous at his gall. It’s a seriously ridiculous contract!
I mean it includes things like –
“The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials.” and
“Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future.” (!) and
“The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright.” (!!)
I mean what the freaking hell? Who would sign that? If someone put a contract that read like that in front of me I would walk out. But apparently people are signing it. ... Why?! I don’t understand.
Anyway... the post is pretty much entirely gender neutral, I’m kind of impressed actually, except for this excerpt:
“sets up a writer to be dependent on others because she is ignorant of the particulars of her own business. You know how every year you hear about an actor or musician who has been screwed by his accountant or business manager?” I read this and it just really bothered me. I actually had to stop reading the entry and think about it because it was bothering me so much. What it is, is that in a post with no other gendered language like this, we have ‘she’ being ignorant of her own business and ‘his’ manager screwing him over. The woman is the one being ignorant and there’s this undercurrent that it’s her fault, or at least it’s more her fault than the man who was ‘screwed over’ by others with no implied fault on his part. I don’t think this was the intent of Scalzi or the post at all but it came off very problematic to me. I think most people would think I’m being too picky here and it’s silly, and I kind of feel that way myself, and yet still... it bothers me. It’s so subtle and that kind of makes it worse.
I watched the trailer for the new superhero series The Cape (which is up
here) and it looks interesting enough that I’ll probably check out the pilot. But at the same time my main reaction is ‘sigh’. TPTB of this show apparently thought about it and decided that what the superhero genre needed was – another white guy fighting crime. Because that’s certainly something we haven’t seen enough of. Summer Glau is in the show, a definite plus towards watching, but is apparently the Cape’s tech support girl. It seems like kind of a waste to have Summer Glau in a non-kicking ass role. You know what would make this all a lot more enjoyable for me? If Summer Glau was the hero or at least was his partner – she grew up in the circus, perhaps is a trapeze artist, maybe she throws knives – and then there could be another female character who was their tech support. From the video it appears that Summer’s character meets The Cape by getting into a fight with him so maybe she’ll be tech support who occasionally kicks ass? That would be nice. On the positive side the wife and son weren’t killed off to give superhero angst so that was nice and we have a Martin Klebba (Verne Troyer) kicking ass. One of the last lines of the trailer pretty much encapsulates my main issue with this show:
“I have to show my son that one man can still make a difference.” Yeeeahhh. Changing just one word there – man to person – would have made such a huge difference.
Hellcats 1x09 ‘Finish What We Started’This episode really hit my embarrassment squick, more than any other episode thus far.
( Read more... )Bones 6x06 ‘The Shallow in the Deep’There was a lot I liked and overall I found it very enjoyable.
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