Stephen King's Critics Exhausted By Their Emotional Labor
01/16/2020
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From The Guardian:

Stephen King faces backlash over comments on Oscars diversity
Ava DuVernay and Roxane Gay criticized author after he said he ‘would never consider diversity in matters of art’

Poppy Noor

Tue 14 Jan 2020

In yet another year of Oscar nominations that saw a paucity of recognition for women and artists of colour, the response has been almost exhausted – after all, hasn’t it all already been said?

All this emotional labor is exhausting!

Stephen King took a different stance. Early on Tuesday morning, he spoke about the three Oscars categories in which he is able to nominate: best picture, adapted screenplay and original screenplay. He said that diversity is not a consideration for him when he votes as a member of the Academy. “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong,” he said on Twitter.

He has since been criticized by leading Hollywood names and authors saying his argument centers on the idea that quality and diversity are mutually exclusive.

No, his argument centers on the idea that quality and diversity are different concepts.

The director Ava DuVernay called King’s comments “so backward and ignorant you want to go back to bed”.

Ava DuVernay
@ava
When you wake up, meditate, stretch, reach for your phone to check on the world and see a tweet from someone you admire that is so backward and ignorant you want to go back to bed.

The writer Roxane Gay tweeted that she was disappointed that King only believed in “quality from one demographic”.

Getting out of bed is indeed exhausting for Roxane Gay. From the New York Times in 2017:

Roxane Gay, an internationally known feminist writer and professor, released a memoir on Tuesday that focused, in part, on what it is like to move through the world as an overweight woman.

So it was both annoying and somewhat fitting, she said, that she had gotten attention this week not only for her work but also for a podcast that provoked a backlash for suggesting that it was difficult to arrange an interview with Ms. Gay last month because of her weight.

“Will she fit into the office lift?” asked a description of the podcast, which was broadcast on Sunday and hosted by Mia Freedman, creative director of an Australian website called Mamamia. “How many steps will she have to take to get to the interview?” …

In the edited version of the podcast that was online on Tuesday, Ms. Freedman can be heard introducing Ms. Gay before the interview:

“You see, Roxane Gay, well, I’m searching for the right word to use here. I don’t want to say fat, so — even though she uses the word fat about herself — so I’m going to use the official medical term, super morbidly obese. There’s obese, then there’s morbidly obese, and then there is super morbidly obese. I don’t think the scale goes beyond that, quite literally. But it’s not just that Roxane’s overweight; she’s 6-foot-3, or about two meters tall. Her size is incredibly imposing. And this is a logistical nightmare for her. There’s no other way to put it.”

[Comment at Unz.com]
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