Seeing Ender’s Game, The Next Big Sci-Fi Franchise Movie, Is Giving Money To Anti-Gays

[Ian David]

Seeing Ender’s Game, The Next Big Sci-Fi Franchise Movie, Is Giving Money To Anti-Gays

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s Nebula- and Hugo Award-winning 1985 novel is getting a big-screen adaptation courtesy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine director (hasn’t he done enough?!) Gavin Hood. Hollywood’s lining up behind this as The Next Big Sci-Fi Movie Franchise, counting the geeky readers’ dollars from the Twilight series and The Hunger Games.

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Personally, meh. I read it in my favorite teacher’s social-studies class in seventh grade. I liked it well enough, it didn’t change my life. The xenophobia and naked kids were a turn-off and I didn’t quite buy the ending (now long-forgotten), so I didn’t read the sequels. And “hard” sci-fi wasn’t (still isn’t) my brand of soda—I preferred the superhero escapism of The Uncanny X-Men, Terry Brooks’s ersatz-Tolkien Shannara books and Piers Anthony’s tortured puns in the Xanth series. So, for me, the controversy is pretty one-sided.

Oh right, the controversy! You see, Orson Scott Card, “sci-ficon” and ma-jillionaire author of Ender’s Game, is an awful, gay-hating bigot! He’s on the board of the National Organization for Marriage (that bunch of funsters) and has published some pretty explicitly anti-gay screeds. I’ve gone round and round with some very close friends on the issues of separating an artist from his politics and whether the lasting contribution or widespread enjoyment of one’s works outweighs one’s personal beliefs or actions in the past. To me? Nope, and especially not if you’re alive today working against gay rights. As I said, I don’t really care about the books, so for me it’s easy: This man is our enemy. As a board member of that hate group, he’s actively campaigning against my rights.

“Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage.”
—Orson Scott Card

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[Bluenorthwest]

1. Here is some more from the Hate Card...

"Why should married people feel the slightest loyalty to a government or society that are conspiring to encourage reproductive and/or marital dysfunction in their children?
Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die."

Much of his hate writings were in the Desert Times of the LDS church, Mitt Romeny's church.
Ender's is going to fail, it is already too old and dated, and Card's open hate for many millions of Americans has only gone on display in the last 5 years or so, he was not so strident until he got rich.

[Glorfindel]

2. His were the only books I ever destroyed

Usually I donate my used books to a local charity so they can make a few cents from their sale (and maybe someone will get pleasure from reading them), but when I found out what a slimeball Orson Scott Card is, I ripped up the two or three of his books that I owned, put them in the garbage, and dumped coffee grounds on them. I didn't want anyone else to read them. By the way, isn't this treason? "I will act to destroy that government and bring it down..." Destroy? Not defeat at the polls?

[saras]

3. Biological imperatives have no place for marriage, let along monogamous marriage.

He's a fascist, is what it comes down to.

"Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition" - MINE, NOT YOURS.

"any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy" - HE'S A TRAITOR IN PRINCIPLE

"I will act to destroy that government" - HE'S A TRAITOR IN PRACTICE

[FBaggins]

4. I was going to say "don't worry"

That is "Don't worry about it being the next big hit" - because there's not way to make Ender's Game into a movie that is at all faithful to the original story. It's going to end up like the film adaption of Starship Troopers.

But then I looked at the casting. There's clearly going to fail on a faithful adaption (teenage Ender and Bean? Petra almost certainly a love interest?)... but theyre not doing this on the cheap. Ben Kingsley is a perfect Rackham and Harrison Ford could be a great Graff.

[Rowdyboy]

5. Wouldn't read his shit if it was given to me....thankfully, none of my friends are that dense....

[Bluenorthwest]

6. For what it's worth, it is not the 'next' anything, as it is just now shooting and will

release next summer, 2013. This means there is lots of time to make sure they feel the heat next year.
A 'franchise' does not exist until the profits from the first are high enough to cause a second film. If the first is weak, no franchise. At this point, they are wishing for a franchise, perhaps assuming, although assumption in that industry is a chump's game...the most stark example recently 'Atlas Shrugged' which they called 'Part 1'...huge franchise they thought. Ender's will not suck that much. It could still suck. Just not that much. I do not expect it to do huge money out of the gate.

[TheWraith]

13. There's no way they could ever make this a franchise.

Frankly, all of the subsequent books were so wildly different from Ender's Game (and increasingly worse as they went on) that it would be like trying to follow "The Lord of the Rings" with a romantic comedy about a man marrying an elf. I don't think for a second that it's plausible they could do more than a one-off movie.

[johnnypneumatic]

7. I wonder about homophobic undertones in the movie

The original script was written by Card, and he is a producer, it is possible the bad guys will be portrayed as gay stereotypes.

I haven't seen Hunger Games, but I read the evil city people who ran the games were stereotypes, effeminate men, etc. and the lead woman announcer I saw in the previews seemed to be a take on Lady GaGa. Anyone feel that way?

I'm also concerned about the possible $millions Card will make off this, and pump into his homophobic efforts. He is a board member of NOM, the homophobic hate group.

[Creideiki]

8. It's really hard to reconcile his anti-gay bigotry

with the primary thesis to Speaker for the Dead. The main theme is about inclusiveness, being non-judgmental toward beings who are different, and restoring the "enemy" that was destroyed in Ender's Game. It's like something broke in Card right about the time of the Boy Scout controversy. My personal hypothesis is that someone in the LDS hierarchy got to him and made him recant his non-asshole nature. Since then, he's been a raving lunatic.

[TheWraith]

14. I recall someone once pointing out that in Ender's Game...

...Card spent an AWFULLY large amount of time describing young boys naked, young boys naked in the shower, young boys naked fighting in the shower covered by soap, etcetera. Maybe age brought out issues of self-conflict for him.

[WhollyHeretic]

9. It hit me hard when I found out what a revolting jackass Card is

He was my favorite author when I was younger. It was just after 9-11 and he wrote this violent piece about bombing the Middle East. Then a few years later I started seeing his homophobic crap. It sickened me. It just was not the person I thought I saw behind all those books I loved. I will not pick up a book by him again. I did end up sending him an email in 2008. After Prop 8 passed he wrote a nasty whining article about how horribly he and the other bigots were being treated and I just had to respond to him. He really is a disgusting person.

My very first post on DU was in the Books: Fiction forum in a thread about Card. That was even before I knew about his homophobia but I said I wouldn't read his stuff any more after reading his violent rhetoric. I caught some shit from a couple of posters for saying that.

[closeupready]

10. I won't touch that film, but I will make sure

to highlight Card's homophobia any time the topic of this film comes up. People will probably get sick of me. I don't care. I'm sick of homophobia.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

12. I'm Damned Sick and Tired of It Myself...

That's why for some time now, if i know an author, actor, business, etc. is homophobic, I will not buy their products. Not letting them get rich off my oppression.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

11. Thanks For The Heads Up...

I make it a point not to buy ANYTHING by this bigot. He is disugsting and he is not going to make any money from me OR my husband.