The author is dead: on boycotting creations because of their creators

Posted by kaberett

Here is my premise: I exist.

Over the past few months, there has been ongoing discussion of Orson Scott Card, his vile views on queer people and equal marriage, and the upcoming release of the film adaptation of Ender's Game. Over and over again - as in the most recent such article I've stumbled upon, by John Scalzi - people say:

Personally speaking, I have a pretty high tolerance for artists and creators being obnoxious/offensive/flawed/assholes/otherwise seriously imperfect. This is partly because I believe art is a highly composed, refined, edited and intentional end result of a process that takes place in a mind which can be almost anything. The only thing creators fundamentally have in common is the ability to create, and to shape their creations to speak to others.

[...]

So, yeah, I can put up with a lot when it comes to creators. It’s not usually  the art’s fault the brain it came out of is directly connected to an asshole.

To be clear, in fact I think Scalzi is generally competent, and I've deliberately pulled out the most unpleasant part of the article: but it's representative of a broader idea, the idea that a creator's reprehensible views don't affect the art they create.

They do.

It is one thing for me to consume media that doesn't contain queer people, trans people, just because we've been forgotten and overlooked.

It is quite another to consume media from which we have been actively erased.

My boycott isn't about material created by an author who holds irrelevant views. It's about my unwillingness to give money to people who deliberately erase me as an active political position.

I. Exist.

Trans*, queer, disabled: pick one (1) only

Posted by kaberett

CONTENT WARNINGS: cissexism, misogyny, suicide



... or that's what This Is Cabaret seem to think, anyway.

At least according to a review in which they misgender me and assume that my participation in a song about LGBT+ youth suicide... means that it's a song about sexuality and disability.

Well, let me just tell you, it gets better.

Accessibility: not just for audiences

Posted by kaberett


"Is the venue accessible?" we ask: it's rare to be offered the information.

"Oh yes," they say. (Usually.)

So we arrive, and we find that the green room is down a steep, narrow flight of stairs. Or that it's impossible to get a wheelchair (even one as narrow as mine) through the door to the backstage loos - and the nearest disabled toilet is behind locked doors. Or the stage is up a flight of stairs and there's no way to fit a ramp into the venue.

Let me spell that out: accessibility of venues seems, for most people, to be entirely about the question of whether a wheelchair-using audience member can get into the room.

I am not the first crip to get up on stage and perform. I am certainly not the first disabled person to want to get up on stage and perform.  As Galatea pointed out not very many weeks ago, all of us have been here all the time.
You wouldn't know it from the reactions we get.

I started using a wheelchair earlier this year. In a few short months, I've got very, very good at recognising a number of facial expressions that never used to happen to me: there's oh-no-what-happened; there's sorry-mate-I-didn't-see-you; and - my favourite! - there's shit-a-wheelchair-how-do-we-Handle-This.

So. Here's a quick primer:

1. remember that access is not just about wheelchairs.
2. remember that access is not just for the audience.
3. if you're organising an event, ask the venue about accessibility, then include the information as part of your standard event information. Access info should be as easy to find as the date and location of the gig.
4. if you provide venues, and you get asked about accessibility, don't forget to include information relevant to performers.

... and never, ever skimp on gathering and distributing this information because you don't know of any attendees or performers with access needs. It's a really good way to guarantee that we (and our carers, for those of us that have 'em) won't show up: if we don't know or can't easily find out the information in advance, an event is not accessible, regardless of the number of ramps and grab handles the venue's installed.


And this? This is what I love about Lashings: about attending gigs, about performing in gigs, about the support network that's settled into place around me. In short, for me and my needs, Lashings is (relatively speaking - nobody's perfect) accessibility win -- and, if you don't mind, I'd like to summarise how.

• I am given enthusiastic support when I raise the topic of writing grumpy letters to venues that told us they were accessible but turned out not to be.
• We make sure that we have food available that's safe for everyone, when we snack during rehearsals.
• Whenever possible, we set up (and advertise!) quiet space available to both performers and audience.
• Where a show will involve audience participation, seating for people willing to participate and for those who would rather not is clearly marked.
• Access information is included as standard when advertising events, and we've recently started to include trigger warnings.
• Lashers don't blink twice when I ask them to carry my chair up or down stairs for me, or to get me some blood sugar Right Now.
• We dedicate significant chunks of rehearsal time to working out how to rework existing dances so that they actively take advantage of wheelchair dancing, instead of treating the chair as an inconvenience. I like to call this discipline... chaireography.

 ... and then, of course, there's Edinburgh. The Fringe: where up to 15 of us cram into a flat that - to be honest - was not designed for that many people, and try not to implode. This summer will be my first Fringe, and it will be made even more exciting by the fact that a relatively high proportion of those going along will be new Lashers - and I for one haven't yet quite worked out how I fit into the group, and which of my corners need if not sanding then at least some padding.

So what have we done about it?

An awful lot of introspection and an awful lot of soul-baring. We've prepared documents on our access needs - food preferences, mealtime requirements, sleeping arrangements, triggers (from the common to the obscure - one of mine is the phrase "SPOON OF GLORY"...), and anything else we think it would be helpful to know. More importantly than that, we acknowledge that we won't all be able to memorise All Of The Things: that these documents are guidelines and exist to smooth our passage, not as texts to be desperately memorised before the practical exam. We've pre-arranged multiple set-lists, so that if any one person is having a bad pain or fatigue or brain day, The Show Can Go On. (What this means for you is that in order to catch all the material, you need to come and see us at least twice. ;) We've thought about how to arrange our flyering so people who can't stand for protracted periods aren't disadvantaged; we've worked out how to get between venue and flat. We've made sure that we know in advance what the venue is like, so those of us with mobility needs can plan around the reality. For the audience? Last week I created a master-list of triggers for all our acts, and the triggers for the evening's show will be available online and as a poster on the door - and we hope to be able to give more detail in person for anyone with concerns.

Plus I'm being encouraged to write a myth-busting song about wheelchair users and mobility impairments: if there's a better way to make me feel that my disabilities are 100% not An Issue To Solve, I haven't thought of it yet.

Of course, improving the accessibility of Lashings for Lashers (and, for that matter, for you-our-lovely-audiences) is very much an ongoing project: we're not perfect, we do mess up, and we don't (and can't) anticipate all of everyone's needs. Had people thought through all the implications of having a wheelchair user on stage before I showed up? Well, no, they hadn't. But what I've found - and keep finding, over and over - is that people listen to me, and make adjustments as necessary.

Obviously, we'd like to do this for our audiences too: are there aspects of access that we should have thought about but haven't? Anything we can do form that perspective to make our shows more enjoyable for you? Please please please let us know - comments are great, but so are e-mails.

On which note, I'll leave you with the photograph I'd've included last time had I been just a tad bit more organised. 'til Edinburgh!

[A grinning person sits in a wheelchair, dressed all in black except for a red top hat, holding up a sign that reads "the Government says I'm not disabled."]

And all of us here have been here all the time: Historicism, non-normativity, and People Like Me

Posted by Galatea



This is prompted by an epic debate thread that, at the time of writing, seems to be just kicking off over at Shakesville (ETA: The discussion thread has now closed). In the midst of a rather interesting post about stereotyping of Scottish people in the upcoming Disney/Pixar film Brave (link contains spoilers!) several commenters have also begun a discussion about the representation of non-white people in medieval-themed fantasy writing. As the link isn't good for anyone who wants to stay spoiler-free for the film (*shakes fist in the direction of movie Powers That Be who have proclaimed that UK viewers shall not be allowed to see it until August*), I've excerpted a couple of comments below:

(discussion below the cut does NOT include spoilers for Brave: please do not post any in the comments!).

The Curious Case of the Multiplicity of Watsons

Posted by Sebastienne





The internets have been roused, and they are very angry.

What can have caused this, you might think - has the US senate passed SOPA, legislation which could destroy the World Wide Web as we know it?

No - the unthinkable has happened.

Some TV execs in the US have decided that what the world needs now is another take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos... and they've cast an Asian-American woman in the role of Watson.

So obviously, the comments under every news article are full of the vilest kinds of misogyny and racism. It's even been summed up in Impact font: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/a-note-to-cbs-on-casting-lucy-liu-as-watson-in-the

Ah, Doctor Watson. Sherlock Holmes' "one fixed point in a changing age". A solid and stoic counterpart, sometimes mistakenly represented as unintelligent, but always as devotedly faithful. As the narrator of most of Conan-Doyle's stories, he is the audience identification figure, the "everyman" who provides us with a window on Holmes' unique world.

Erasure and Identity

Posted by Jenni

This post began life as a discussion of the ‘I’m-more-oppressed-than-you’ game. There’s been a spate of posts on various sites recently discussing whether asexuals have a ‘claim’ to the queer community, and one argument is that we aren’t oppressed in the same way. Rather than argue this out, I’d much rather share with you my experiences of one particular kind of oppression, one I’m sure many of you are familiar with – erasure.