"I had a crisis of conscience halfway through writing my biography of Gene Roddenberry, when I realised I just really did not like this guy..." Great guest post by @lanceparkin.bsky.social, on the relationship between an artist, their work, and their audience - ThreadSky

jonnelledge.bsky.social • 20 days ago

"I had a crisis of conscience halfway through writing my biography of Gene Roddenberry, when I realised I just really did not like this guy..." Great guest post by @lanceparkin.bsky.social, on the relationship between an artist, their work, and their audience

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darksatanicmills.bsky.social•20 days ago

He also wrote 'lyrics' to the them music so that Alexander Courage had to share the royalties with him.

e-quinn.bsky.social•20 days ago

I love your work, but wondered if you’ve ever considered linking to hive books instead of amazon? Hive also has an affiliate programme. It supports independent bookshops and is not, as far as I can tell, promoting a fascist regime. https://www.hive.co.uk/Help/Affiliate-Programme

jonnelledge.bsky.social•20 days ago

I do link to other places - but I am limited by who stocks what. It's got nothing to do with affiliate programmes, a thing I've never really got my head around, it's literally about where you can actually buy the book.

e-quinn.bsky.social•20 days ago

Understood!

northamptonian.bsky.social•20 days ago

That was really good. I can’t remember where I read recently that biographers often grow to hate the subject. It may have been a Times article. And it also reminds me of ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ where Eco talks about how essential the audience is to the artist.

whatsmellslikeblue.bsky.social•20 days ago

"The discussion of fans, fandom, fan culture, audiences generally, usually misses a key part: all of it, every single bit, of audience engagement happens after the creator – who statistically, best case scenario, was very probably a twat has completed their contribution."

Interesting thought...

krisholt1.bsky.social•20 days ago

Thanks for sharing Lance's perspective, John, I really like this piece.

sturdyalex.bsky.social•18 days ago

So interesting.

matthewkilburn.bsky.social•20 days ago

Revisiting ST:TNG season 1 a few years ago suggested a very difficult and worrying personality running the show.

philipredhair.bsky.social•20 days ago

TBF, some of the season 1's problems were generated by Roddenberry's lawyer rather than Roddenberry himself.

harrycovert.bsky.social•18 days ago

Very interesting stuff

kevinmarks.com•18 days ago

I think this is true of SF fandom as a whole - the Con culture was one of inclusive organising by women, and incubating a more inclusive publishing culture by generational change.
This also maps to the Whovian fandom and AO3 too.

jonnelledge.bsky.social•18 days ago

Who fandom, pre-2005, was incredibly male. When I mentioned this on twitter a friend suggested that women just avoided the spaces I was in *because* they were male, so I copied in all the female fans I knew from that era and that explained that, no, there really were about five of them.

kevinmarks.com•18 days ago

Oh interesting. My perception of it is based on the modern con reporting which is of course downstream of the sf con effect (which is more widely documented).

adamjschmidt.bsky.social•18 days ago

Well, Doctor Who had only been on what PBS in the US in reruns from the 70s and 80s before the revival? It was very much a monster or the week low budget sci-fi show that had an H.G. Wells Time Machine vibe.

jonnelledge.bsky.social•18 days ago

Yes but there are 193 other countries. Doctor Who was much bigger in Britain, for obvious reasons.

adamjschmidt.bsky.social•18 days ago

That's an excellent point.

anthropunk.bsky.social•18 days ago

GR was in the military and worked at the LAPD. ST is basically "military cops in space." They fly aroubd in a cruiser and fight intergalatic crime.

rigg.lgbt•20 days ago

That's a really good piece

stuarthedges.bsky.social•20 days ago

When I was a kid I'd always answer Roddenberry if asked who my hero was. That view has changed a lot as I've learned more about him... And yet it's still true he built something that has always at least tried to be progressive.

stuarthedges.bsky.social•20 days ago

That'll teach me to read the article before replying... The argument that that progressive nature came from the early fandom carries a lot of weight.

jonnelledge.bsky.social•20 days ago

https://jonn.substack.com/p/guest-post-lance-parkin-on-the-problematic

antimoof.bsky.social•20 days ago

there are some parallels there with what happened with Twitter: Twitter-the-company did not come up with many of its innovations, but it did take what Twitter-the-community wanted and iterated on that - while still having some profoundly dysfunctional people in charge

casmilus.bsky.social•20 days ago

I guess Ian Kershaw had the same problem with those books about Hitler.

casmilus.bsky.social•20 days ago

I mean I suppose you could just concentrate on his watercolours and separate the art from the artist and his politics, but the trouble is they were crap.

philipredhair.bsky.social•20 days ago

Not the first person to get that feeling about Roddenberry. Or to read a deeper meaning and message from Trek than Roddenberry intended.

philipredhair.bsky.social•20 days ago

Clippings from this fascinating article:

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/164916/

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