Hugo Awards thoughts
Aug. 24th, 2015 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12ETA: Putting the whole post behind a cut, for including discussion of abusive behaviour and links to posts that discuss the same.
So, the results are in, and Hugos voters overwhelmingly chose to vote against works that were only on the ballot due to slate nominations. I am relieved. Bloc voting tactics were the disruptive and damaging actions of a small minority who saw 'identity politics' and 'issue fiction' in works whose ideology did not align with their own, and perceived their own work as being ideologically neutral. Many of those involved with the slate nominations are thoroughly nasty individuals who have behaved in a downright abusive manner for years. (See, for example, this recent post by Natalie Luhrs cataloguing the harassing and abusive behaviour of one such individual.) By aligning themselves with the slates (or refusing to distance themselves when they realised that they had been aligned without their knowledge), those who did not condemn their fellow bloc-voters' abusive behaviour condoned it.
Natalie Luhrs has put together what the ballot would have looked like without the slates. I'm sad to see that so many worthy nominees missed out, particularly in the short fiction and Campbell categories.
A few words about the Fan Writer category. While I am of the opinion that Laura Mixon's report would have been a better fit for the Best Related Work category, I was pleased to see her on the ballot and felt she deserved to be there.* I base this mainly on the public comments and feelings of former Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew targets. They wanted Mixon to make the report, they are grateful to her for doing so, and they talk about having felt vulnerable, alone and unsure of who to trust in the SFF community before the report's existence. They talk about the report giving them much needed room to breathe after having felt silenced. For that reason alone, I think Mixon should have been on the ballot in some capacity, and I only regret that she was there in a year beset with controversy and in which the ballot was overrun by slate nominees.
Finally, I am thrilled that Helsinki has been chosen as the location of the 2017 Worldcon. As an Australian living in the UK, I've long wished that the Worldcon would be more truly international, and more accessible to fans living outside North America. I've wanted to attend for years, and a location in Europe makes my attendance at the con more likely. I only hope that this trend continues, and that we see a string of Worldcons in sites outside of North America in the next few years. I want a more inclusive and international SFF community (or, in reality, series of overlapping and interlinked SFF communities). This will take work, and I'm not naive enough to believe that a more diverse range of locations of later Worldcons is all that needs to be done, but it would be a step in the right direction.
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____________________________
*I also feel that if you were happy with Kameron Hurley's win last year for Fan Writer, it's hypocritical to view Mixon's presence on the ballot as illegitimate. Although Hurley had a larger body of fan-writing work, and while I can't know the motivations behind those who nominated and voted for her, I suspect she owed her presence on the ballot in the Fan Writer category to her essay 'We Have Always Fought', which resonated with a great number of voters, and for this reason could be said to have been nominated on the strength of a single work. Your mileage may vary on the validity of this comparison.
So, the results are in, and Hugos voters overwhelmingly chose to vote against works that were only on the ballot due to slate nominations. I am relieved. Bloc voting tactics were the disruptive and damaging actions of a small minority who saw 'identity politics' and 'issue fiction' in works whose ideology did not align with their own, and perceived their own work as being ideologically neutral. Many of those involved with the slate nominations are thoroughly nasty individuals who have behaved in a downright abusive manner for years. (See, for example, this recent post by Natalie Luhrs cataloguing the harassing and abusive behaviour of one such individual.) By aligning themselves with the slates (or refusing to distance themselves when they realised that they had been aligned without their knowledge), those who did not condemn their fellow bloc-voters' abusive behaviour condoned it.
Natalie Luhrs has put together what the ballot would have looked like without the slates. I'm sad to see that so many worthy nominees missed out, particularly in the short fiction and Campbell categories.
A few words about the Fan Writer category. While I am of the opinion that Laura Mixon's report would have been a better fit for the Best Related Work category, I was pleased to see her on the ballot and felt she deserved to be there.* I base this mainly on the public comments and feelings of former Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew targets. They wanted Mixon to make the report, they are grateful to her for doing so, and they talk about having felt vulnerable, alone and unsure of who to trust in the SFF community before the report's existence. They talk about the report giving them much needed room to breathe after having felt silenced. For that reason alone, I think Mixon should have been on the ballot in some capacity, and I only regret that she was there in a year beset with controversy and in which the ballot was overrun by slate nominees.
Finally, I am thrilled that Helsinki has been chosen as the location of the 2017 Worldcon. As an Australian living in the UK, I've long wished that the Worldcon would be more truly international, and more accessible to fans living outside North America. I've wanted to attend for years, and a location in Europe makes my attendance at the con more likely. I only hope that this trend continues, and that we see a string of Worldcons in sites outside of North America in the next few years. I want a more inclusive and international SFF community (or, in reality, series of overlapping and interlinked SFF communities). This will take work, and I'm not naive enough to believe that a more diverse range of locations of later Worldcons is all that needs to be done, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Comments are screened, and will only be posted publicly if you indicate that that's okay.
____________________________
*I also feel that if you were happy with Kameron Hurley's win last year for Fan Writer, it's hypocritical to view Mixon's presence on the ballot as illegitimate. Although Hurley had a larger body of fan-writing work, and while I can't know the motivations behind those who nominated and voted for her, I suspect she owed her presence on the ballot in the Fan Writer category to her essay 'We Have Always Fought', which resonated with a great number of voters, and for this reason could be said to have been nominated on the strength of a single work. Your mileage may vary on the validity of this comparison.
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Date: 2015-08-29 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-29 12:34 pm (UTC)I've never been - I've never been to any convention - but Helsinki is much more doable for me than anywhere in North America. As I said, I've been wanting to go for some time, and this seems as good an excuse as any. I am a diehard sci-fi (and fantasy) fan, so my issue has always been much more about my introversion and difficulties with crowds, but I'm a lot better at simply going away on my own to recharge these days, so I think I won't have any problems.