I know I’m not here much any more. But I came by, attracted by an unrelated technical issue, and found the following comment from ‘sonofrojblake’ a few months ago that seemed worthy of a response, and that response grew big enough to be a post:
… time passes…
https://technopathology.substack.com/p/neil-gaiman-is-innocent-too-long
It seems there may have been a con perpetrated. But it seems it was perpetrated by, among others, the sister of former British Prime Minister Alexander “Boris” Johnson, a consistently anti-trans person who hangs around with Julie Bindel, and Tortoise Media, the people who recently took over the Observer.
While as I said it’s often (usually?) safe (as in the case(s) against Russell Brand) to accept allegations uncritically, especially if they pass a superficial “is this bullshit?” test (as the allegations against Brand definitely do), the case against Gaiman never really passed that test.
That said… once you’re cancelled, it’s usually too late. As with most media stories, the splash goes at the top of the front page in 72 point Futura, and the apology, retraction and admittance that it was 100% bullshit gets printed on page 94 in 6 point Times.
—————-
I’m put in mind of something Jimmy Carr said about Will Smith, when asked what he thought of him, post-slap. He said he thought Smith was the greatest actor of his generation… because for 30 years he convinced everyone he was a nice guy.
Was Gaiman’s “nice guy” act an act?
I don’t want to believe that, and I think the content at that website raises more than a reasonable doubt about a story I was never happy taking at face value anyway. I’d be interested in your thoughts, if you have any time to devote to this subject.
I rather think the case against him did indeed pass the bullshit test, and unfortunately that site is something of a masterclass in denials and deflections, “Why isn’t it criminal” and so on, mostly a version of the same old “What was she wearing” type thing.
The content of that site doesn’t change anything. We knew what Tortoise Media was like from go, and in fact it’s the major reason it took me a long time to come around. And if I were you I would be incredibly skeptical of that particular user, there’s some kind of axe to grind there.
But let’s assume he’s right, and the Scarlett claims are false. That does require ignoring how power dynamics work, but let it lie for now. What about the others? What about how he made them sign NDAs and sued over that? It’s too much. It’s not “he said, she said”; it’s “he said, she said, and also she said, and then she said, and then yet another she said…” and it beggars belief that that many women would be willing to lie about a powerful man, because we know what happens to virtually everyone who goes up against them, even with truth on their side, especially women, especially especially about sex crimes…
Was Gaiman’s “nice guy” act an act?
Here’s the bastard of it: I don’t think it was.
There’s an assumption that if someone does good things and has a good reputation, then also did bad things during that time, that the good part was lies, was just a cover story for the bad which was the truth. I don’t buy this; it’s not only the cynical way to look at it, but also the easy way. Cuts the world up into Good Guys and Bad Guys and if a Good Guy does Bad things, he was a Bad Guy in disguise all along.
But people aren’t like that. People are goddamn messy, and inconsistent, and inclined to be unreliable narrators to themselves, especially on the perennial topic of ‘Am I a good person?’. Both ways, in fact; some of the most decent people I know are plagued with feeling worthless or toxic.
So I believe Gaiman was telling the truth in public, that his advice and advocacy were sincere. And he still has to go. Not because they were lies, but because he’s utterly undermined them, likely all the while convincing himself he’s actually a decent person. Everyone has skeletons in the closet; how big and important they are varies enormously, but how we tell ourselves that THIS flaw or THAT one doesn’t matter or is tolerable or is made up for by the good stuff is pretty well the same, no matter if that skeleton was a mouse or an elephant.
Gaiman’s was an elephant, and that elephant is now standing in the room, and we can’t ignore it.
Regarding “… time passes…” however, it most certainly did.
personally i don’t believe it. i believe it more of the average right wing jeezis creep that was nice to his friends and family and community and victims, because they have a mental construct of virtue where if they’re cruel on purpose, it’s to the subhuman other, and if they’re cruel to someone they love, it wasn’t cruelty, and if it was that they obviously did something wrong enough that it breaks through the wall of hypocrisy, they genuinely hate themselves and wanna die.
gaiman was in the kind of social space where kindness and equality are held up as the highest values, and the social cachet that grants is obvious. he was practically viewed as a saint of nerd and alternative culture. the crimes as described are so very obviously at odds with the image i cannot imagine he had a mental out for it. he knew how bad it was, how good people thought he was, and wanted to keep the clout and commercial success that came with it.
he also came out of $cientology, which is a cult of celebrity that literally uses the lower tier as slave labor. his wife’s weird “i don’t pay for labor and here’s why that’s cool” shtick makes a lot of sense in that light, as does his sex crimes, because they emerge naturally in such environments of exploitation.
also, personal impression, the morality in his stories was often superficial as hell. just the most obvious take made in the most obvious way. when he even bothered to have a message. the cracks were showing in coraline if you look close enough.
if this has never come to light, i’d just think he was a shallow thinker who wowed the masses with style. in light of this, that shallowness makes a different kind of sense to me. it’s the work of a pretend human, who knew exactly what he was and is.
please do not interpret that in any way as a personal slight or that i took offense at your post and need convincing. at the end of the day the only one who knows his heart is him, we’re just speculating, and i could see it as possible i’m wrong. just felt the need to elucidate a counterpoint.
Sadly, it is possible. More than that we can’t know.
i hope i didn’t come on like a damn groundhog shadow. regerts. we miss you!
We do miss you Abbey!
I believe the allegations for the reasons you state. I somehow missed out on Gaiman, so I’ve no fannish feelings to put aside nor any prior animus towards him, but for me this is a pattern we have seen all too many times, it could be that it’s been wrongly applied, but if we have learnt anything about sexual assault is that the victims are too often disbelieved. As you say people are complicated, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that Gaiman was seen as a ‘nice guy’; to his friends he clearly was thoughtful and caring, but that doesn’t preclude bad behaviour to others.
I think your post title says it all. This sort of thing (rape, sexual exploitation, etc.) is what male culture encourages men to do, and it isn’t seen as making you a “bad guy,” more of a “real man.” I’ve always said that male socialization is socialization to be an asshole (you’re just not supposed to admit it), and the miracle is that so many turn out more or less decent, most of the time.
There are many examples of well known artists who also happen to have been horrible people.
Picasso was a huge creep.
Degas and his tiny dancer.
Van Gogh
Elvis and Prince both had child brides.
Grown-ass men exploiting teenage girls is depressingly commonplace.
I’ve never been a fan of Gaiman, and I could never quite explain why. Something about his writing of female characters is just off. I absolutely believe the victims.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to this.
For what it’s worth… I think I’ve come down on the same side of the fence as you.
This is true. Except… in pretty much every case (e.g. the aforementioned Russell Brand but there are so many other examples I could lise), cases where predators have been exposed, they aren’t like that. They are NOT “Good Guys” who just did that one (or ten) Bad Things. They’re arseholes, top-to-bottom, they’ve either (like Will Smith) convinced the world otherwise by acting, or they’ve (like Brand) hidden in plain sight and dared society to take issue with them. And when they’re exposed, while there are inevitably a minority who will defend them for whatever twisted reason, certainly in my experience the general response is usually a shrug and a “so, they’re a wrong ‘un, quelle surprise”. Certainly when Brand was exposed nobody seemed in the least surprised. The only surprise with Jimmy Savile was the sheer scale of it. I think difference with Gaiman is that it does (to me and it seems a lot of other people) come across as an actual surprise.
That, and the not-nothing fact that the charge to get him cancelled wasn’t being led by the usual SJW suspects (people for whom my starting condition would be to take them seriously), but instead by the sort of people I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.
Exception that proves the rule I suppose.
One more thing, though.
I was unreasonably annoyed at the media crowing that the timing coincidence(!) of all this coming out just as the second season of the Netflix adaptation of Sandman was coming out meant that Netflix were going to cancel it, and portraying that cancellation as something that was
(a) the deserved punishment enacted by Netflix because they simply had to
(b) such a disappointment to the legions of fans, who would inevitably be angry that this was happening.
But… season 2 finished the story. It came to a very, VERY final conclusion, and more to the point was always going to. This wasn’t some case where the studio had lowered the shutters and the writers scrambled to compress the plot and fit in a last episode that waved goodbye (like Babylon 5 had to at the end of season 4, leaving aside that the network went “JUST KIDDING!” and meant season 5 was short of material). Netflix Sandman built at a considered pace to the conclusion it came to at the end of Season 2, the exact same conclusion the comics came to. The media delight that it was ending, and the false connection with what had been revealed about Gaiman, was infuriating.
But I should probably care less about such things.
Welcome back for however long you’re back and thanks for giving this thought.