Diatribe ahead. Just to warn you.
Apr. 13th, 2004 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkeyhttp://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ffile=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/25/MNGI85QTK11.DTL
Read this, and weep for the state of post-Columbine education.
I've been with the horror genre since I was 8 years old. It has been a striking interest of mine. In my life time, I have owned 300 horror films on VHS and DVD. My shelves are lined with texts both new and old about horror films - some deep critical commentaries, others little more than glossy histories with full-color pictures. In my Contemporary Cinema class, when we had to do a paper about a director who bucked studio trends? I wrote about George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead '68, Creepshow). I consider Edgar Allan Poe to be one of the finest authors of all time.
There is nothing disturbing about being a fan of the horror genre. There is nothing disturbing about wanting to contribute to the horror genre. It's a HUGE misconception that horror fans are loners and losers, goths who hang out and listen to Rammstein and want to become vampires and don't socialize properly and end up shooting presidents. It's bullshit paranoia that I've had to look at and deal with. People look at you funny when you say you're interested in horror films, like it's some kind of freaky kink that ought not to be allowed. It's no better or worse, really, than being a huge fan of musicals (which I am also).
Another thing you should know about me, is that I believe in writers. I believe wholeheartedly that there are men and women who walk amongst us who, for whatever reason - brain chemistry, genetic predestination, honest-to-gosh fate - are born to the craft of writing.
And it is a craft. It's called that for a reason. It's a hard meticulous process. Even if you are incredibly talented, most of the stuff you write as a nascent scribe is going to be absolute horsedung. But it's going to be horsedung with that magical word - potential. Yes, I hate the word as much as anybody, but the fact of the matter is that is impossible to get good writing correct on the 1st-75th tries. If you're very lucky, you might get the hang of something that people will want to read very quickly, but it's rare.
No writer should be punished for writing what they choose to write. I'm aghast at stories of people fired when their bosses discover they write NC-17 Harry Potter slash, but I find some reason in it. It's not a particularly strong reason, but it's a reason.
But I have this to say to Eileen Everett, Sue Rowley and Elisa Stephens: shame on you. Definite, huge fucking gobs of shame. You purport to be running an educational institution, and yet you react instead of respond to a story. You expelled this guy. You called the police on him. You fired his instructor, who, it should be noted, did everything an instructor with concerns should do regarding who to talk to, etc. Hell, her immediate boss had a far more lucid (and in my book, correct) response - he took notes on the story. He made suggestions for improvement.
Having read only descriptions of the short story (apparently it involves exreme sexual violence, incest, and pedophilia), I can tell you right now, it's not my cup of tea. If I actually got ahold of it, I might not get through the first page. But that's my personal piccadillo - and my levels of tolerance for such things are not and should not be an sort of universal measure.
This guy went to the nation's largest private art school. I think it's pretty safe to assume that he was there because he felt he had a drive towards creation of some kind. And what kind of totalitarian regime was being run that the administration felt not only the need to judge his creation, but to act upon it as well?
Here's a really quick fact - writing horror stories does not make you a killer. No more than writing Buffy fanfic makes you a vampire hunter.
Maybe the story was crap. Maybe the guy was horrendously untalented, and for the sake of humanities brain cells, should never allow his work in front of human eyes again. I still defend with every ounce of my being that man's right to write. If he turns out a hundred million more stories, each one more depraved than the next, then brav-fucking-o. A good number of artists will tell you that what they create is what they create, and the sheer difficulty (and yea, foolhardiness) of trying to steer their work in a way it will not go. If this man's will is to write grotesqueries, have at it, I say. Maybe he'll get better. Maybe he'll actually become something. Or maybe he'll be pumping gas somewhere with a trunkful of unedited, unshared scribbling. Long as he's not really murdering, maiming, and raping, I say goto.
I leave this rant with a the following bit by Aalya Ahmad (a member of the Horror in Film & Literature listserv, of which I am a member) from a letter addressed to the administrators of the school:
"Perhaps you do not understand that some of your most celebrated and distinguished writers have produced macabre and graphic fiction.
"H.P. Lovecraft wrote of monstrous, degenerate and incestuous ritual murders. Edgar Allan Poe wrote of brutal slayings, the mutilation of corpses and the "perverse" nature of murderers. Ray Bradbury wrote of the dismemberment of little girls in "The October Game". Robert Bloch wrote of the dismemberment of big girls in "Psycho", and of course the exceptionally graphic novel, Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho", upon which your student models his tale, has enjoyed widespread popularity and been made into a film."
Literature has always embraced the horror genre. It is not some oddball cousin, some bastard child. It is a part of literature, and a welcome one. It deals with things that no other genre can deal with, because it goes directly for the most primal parts of ourselves. If our writers are not allowed to write horror, if our readers are not given access to it, it is a true damning of society.
Read this, and weep for the state of post-Columbine education.
I've been with the horror genre since I was 8 years old. It has been a striking interest of mine. In my life time, I have owned 300 horror films on VHS and DVD. My shelves are lined with texts both new and old about horror films - some deep critical commentaries, others little more than glossy histories with full-color pictures. In my Contemporary Cinema class, when we had to do a paper about a director who bucked studio trends? I wrote about George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead '68, Creepshow). I consider Edgar Allan Poe to be one of the finest authors of all time.
There is nothing disturbing about being a fan of the horror genre. There is nothing disturbing about wanting to contribute to the horror genre. It's a HUGE misconception that horror fans are loners and losers, goths who hang out and listen to Rammstein and want to become vampires and don't socialize properly and end up shooting presidents. It's bullshit paranoia that I've had to look at and deal with. People look at you funny when you say you're interested in horror films, like it's some kind of freaky kink that ought not to be allowed. It's no better or worse, really, than being a huge fan of musicals (which I am also).
Another thing you should know about me, is that I believe in writers. I believe wholeheartedly that there are men and women who walk amongst us who, for whatever reason - brain chemistry, genetic predestination, honest-to-gosh fate - are born to the craft of writing.
And it is a craft. It's called that for a reason. It's a hard meticulous process. Even if you are incredibly talented, most of the stuff you write as a nascent scribe is going to be absolute horsedung. But it's going to be horsedung with that magical word - potential. Yes, I hate the word as much as anybody, but the fact of the matter is that is impossible to get good writing correct on the 1st-75th tries. If you're very lucky, you might get the hang of something that people will want to read very quickly, but it's rare.
No writer should be punished for writing what they choose to write. I'm aghast at stories of people fired when their bosses discover they write NC-17 Harry Potter slash, but I find some reason in it. It's not a particularly strong reason, but it's a reason.
But I have this to say to Eileen Everett, Sue Rowley and Elisa Stephens: shame on you. Definite, huge fucking gobs of shame. You purport to be running an educational institution, and yet you react instead of respond to a story. You expelled this guy. You called the police on him. You fired his instructor, who, it should be noted, did everything an instructor with concerns should do regarding who to talk to, etc. Hell, her immediate boss had a far more lucid (and in my book, correct) response - he took notes on the story. He made suggestions for improvement.
Having read only descriptions of the short story (apparently it involves exreme sexual violence, incest, and pedophilia), I can tell you right now, it's not my cup of tea. If I actually got ahold of it, I might not get through the first page. But that's my personal piccadillo - and my levels of tolerance for such things are not and should not be an sort of universal measure.
This guy went to the nation's largest private art school. I think it's pretty safe to assume that he was there because he felt he had a drive towards creation of some kind. And what kind of totalitarian regime was being run that the administration felt not only the need to judge his creation, but to act upon it as well?
Here's a really quick fact - writing horror stories does not make you a killer. No more than writing Buffy fanfic makes you a vampire hunter.
Maybe the story was crap. Maybe the guy was horrendously untalented, and for the sake of humanities brain cells, should never allow his work in front of human eyes again. I still defend with every ounce of my being that man's right to write. If he turns out a hundred million more stories, each one more depraved than the next, then brav-fucking-o. A good number of artists will tell you that what they create is what they create, and the sheer difficulty (and yea, foolhardiness) of trying to steer their work in a way it will not go. If this man's will is to write grotesqueries, have at it, I say. Maybe he'll get better. Maybe he'll actually become something. Or maybe he'll be pumping gas somewhere with a trunkful of unedited, unshared scribbling. Long as he's not really murdering, maiming, and raping, I say goto.
I leave this rant with a the following bit by Aalya Ahmad (a member of the Horror in Film & Literature listserv, of which I am a member) from a letter addressed to the administrators of the school:
"Perhaps you do not understand that some of your most celebrated and distinguished writers have produced macabre and graphic fiction.
"H.P. Lovecraft wrote of monstrous, degenerate and incestuous ritual murders. Edgar Allan Poe wrote of brutal slayings, the mutilation of corpses and the "perverse" nature of murderers. Ray Bradbury wrote of the dismemberment of little girls in "The October Game". Robert Bloch wrote of the dismemberment of big girls in "Psycho", and of course the exceptionally graphic novel, Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho", upon which your student models his tale, has enjoyed widespread popularity and been made into a film."
Literature has always embraced the horror genre. It is not some oddball cousin, some bastard child. It is a part of literature, and a welcome one. It deals with things that no other genre can deal with, because it goes directly for the most primal parts of ourselves. If our writers are not allowed to write horror, if our readers are not given access to it, it is a true damning of society.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 04:57 am (UTC)Oh, and word to you. Word.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:18 am (UTC)Agree 100%--and I hate the horror genre. But it's entirely not about that; this issue goes far beyond personal taste. I was completely apalled reading that article. Of course, almost more than the censorship repression/supression issue, the lack of a counselor jumped out at me. I suppose that makes sense, though...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 11:08 am (UTC)Besides, I really deeply doubt that this kid was in desperate need of counseling. If they had to react badly, that was the best way to do it, of course, but still. BAH.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:00 pm (UTC)*rants about how students need counseling, violent stories or not*
Of course, the main portion of the article is the part about suppression of artistic expression and whatnot.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:17 pm (UTC)However, much as writing is your soapbox-type issue, counseling and therapy are mine. Soooo....I picked up on that, and it seemed entirely ludicrous to me that it isn't OFFERED at all. Not that they didn't force said writer into counseling.. sorry if I misrepresented that. I don't believe this kid needed counseling based on an account of a writing sample. I simply am apalled it's unavailable.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 08:39 am (UTC)Kaufman said one of his students had recently been asked to leave the school when she submitted a paper alluding to suicide threats. Like Richman, the instructor approached his superiors for advice on possible counseling services, only to see the student swiftly expelled.
WTF? What possible reason could there be to expel a student for suicide threats?
An art school should be a place where students feel safe to express their inner thoughts. It sounds like this school only wants students for their money.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 11:09 am (UTC)Troubling, troubling times.