Wow, fandom, you really didn't know?

[inverarity]

It's kind of amazing to me that SF/F fandom is going through paroxysms of outrage and disgust and shock right now over the "revelations" about Marion Zimmer Bradley.

(tl;dr version if you've somehow missed it: MZB's ex-husband was a convicted child molester, whom she aided and abetted, and her own daughter says MZB molested her too. And apparently all of fandom back in the day knew that MZB's then-husband, Walter Breen, was a jolly fellow fan whom you just shouldn't leave alone with kids...)

The thing is, this has been public knowledge for years. I first read this many years ago. With the way fandom nowadays hunts down every stray tweet and tumblr that someone might have posted in an ill-advised moment, it's kind of odd that somehow this is only becoming a Big Deal now.

I read The Mists of Avalon in high school and remember it being an okay retelling of the Arthurian legend, but OMG so men-are-slavering-beasts-women-are-the-sacred-uterus-of-the-universe. I don't think I've ever read anything else by her.

So anyway, yeah, MZB was apparently an exceedingly creepy and horrible person, but like I said, until now I thought that was common knowledge.

And yeah, every single person back in the day who thought it would be too "mean" to exclude a known child molester from conventions because "Geek Unity!" deserves the beating they should have given Walter Breen.

Comments

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

I didn't know this. I haven't read much MZB. I'm not sure I care. I'm too tired to be outraged over everything any more.

guess I'm just not really part of "fandom". I just like the filk.

[k00kaburra.livejournal.com]

Huh.
I didn't know this about MZB, but I've also never gotten around to reading any of her books. She's been on my "to-read" list for years, but I just never got around to it because I'm occasionally quite anti-"sacred uterus" sentiments in my literature.

Guess I'll just shove her even further down in the mental pile.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The part I hadn't known before was that MZB herself was apparently a far worse child molester than was Breen. She repeatedly raped her own daughter between ages 3-12, and came close to killing her once when her daughter had the temerity to resist these attentions.

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Y'know.. it's always been on my radar to go back and read some of her works. Back in the 90's, I saw her name everywhere in the library, but never got around it it. Heard good things.

I was hesitant because, y'know, so many of the books were so old and I don't have much stomach for old writing anymore (Anne McCaffery, Piers Anthony come to mind: I loved them as a child. The last reread was... painful.) ... but now...

Now I think I'll pass.

[kith-koby.livejournal.com]

Didn't know, but I really don't see how that matters. I've only read Mists of Avalon, and I enjoyed it as an original retelling of the Arthurian mythos, but otherwise it wasn't particularly noteworthy. Even had I worshipped the book, I don't see why it follows that I'd have worshipped the author in turn.

I think that's the big problem of a lot fo fandom these days - the belief that the Author is some kind of figure we should worship because he wrote a good book (the following around John Green is a great example of this).

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

To be fair, there's a difference between believing an author should be worshiped and not wanting to read books written by child abusers. While I never had any desire to read a book by MZB anyway, I find the latter view quite reasonable.

On a (hopefully) more uplifting note, how've you been? (Feel free to tell me by email if you'd prefer.)

[kith-koby.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly, it's quite reasonable. But being shocked by it after the fact strikes me as a bit of an overreaction.

I'm excellent, thank you. Finished my Officer's Training, and am now the Education Officer of the Army Rabbinate, which is a fascinating and very gratifying job which I am very much enjoying. On the personal side, it appears that my courtship of my lady is very close to its final stage, so much that I am already looking at jewellry. And of course, in our age old hobby, I quite enjoyed the latest French Open. Nice games by the men, ending as expected, and a wonderfully tumultous tournament among the women, ending very happily (for me). How have you been? Feel free to answer by email as well.

[indigo-mouse.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. I got part way through Mists of Avalon (meaning I finished a chapter)and then tossed it aside. I had no idea about the grimy side of her character.

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

My understanding is similar to jordan's in that while her defense of her husband was well-known, her own abuse was not until now. And as terrible as aiding and abetting child abuse is, I think directly committing it is even worse. So I can understand the reaction to a certain extent.

Incidentally, if you want to feel really skeeved out, take a look at this article she published in 1965 (h/t ferretbrain).

My experiences with MZB

[max-sinister.livejournal.com]

When I discovered fantasy as a teen, I also found MZB in my library. So I checked them out, since the descriptions and the setting sounded interesting enough.

At that time, I found them rather "meh"... maybe it was because I was a teen boy, not a middle-aged woman. Wrong target group.

Later only I learned about MZB's pedo crimes, and that of her husband.

In retrospect, it seems especially perfidious that she was hiding behind a facade of writing role models for girls and whatnot while committing these crimes.

Unfortunately, not everyone wants to hear about this. Well, in the communities where I have a say (like in the True Tropes Wiki where I'm an admin, sorry for the advertising), I remove pedoshit and allow to say the truth about MZB.