More Updates, More links!
Selah March has more delicious scuttlebutt on this thing. Ah me, my schadenfreude when it comes to this knows no bounds.
Jorie rounds up some interesting linkage on this issue.
LLB blogs about this and writes a column on AAR.
Jonquil describes some of the horrorshow on her Livejournal.
Selah March has a post on the RITA/Golden Heart awards ceremony.
Instead of a celebration of RWA and romance fiction over the past 25 years, the RITA/GH awards ceremony included the following:
* a video and audio rehash of every national and international tragedy that’s taken place since 1980, set to a back-drop of kicky tunes from each year represented.
Imagine, if you will, footage of the tanks rolling through Tiananmen Square with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” playing in the background. Apparently, only a last-minute edit managed to save the ceremony attendees from being forced to watch the shuttle Challenger explode in mid-air and…AND…the Twin Towers fall.
Think about that. All those NYC agents and editors in the audience. Think about it some more.
Yee-HAW. We’re celebratin’ NOW, baybeee…
** images of political leaders flashed on the screen, looking handsome and honorable.
Okay…wait. Let me rephrase. Images of REPUBLICAN political leaders—specifically Presidents Reagan, Bush I and II—flashed on the screen, looking handsome and honorable.
(…)
*** virtually no positive images of women. Lewinsky was there, as noted. Lorena Bobbitt made a showing. Donna what’s-her-name…the one that sunk Gary Hart’s political career? She was pictured. Princess Diana got the full treatment, and—GET THIS—they called her story a FAIRY TALE.
(…)
**** virtually no positive images of people of color. O.J. in his white bronco they got, ad nauseum. Bill Cosby flashed by once, so I’m told, and, as I said, Oprah got a brief mention.
Please, y’all. Please tell me this trainwreck didn’t actually happen.
Is anyone who was there willing to confirm whether this actually happened?
Update! On Monica Jackson’s blog, a couple of people confirmed that this did, indeed, take place.
That dull, thumping sound? The sound not unlike that of a ripe cantaloupe hitting the sidewalk? That’s my head hitting the desk.
My question is: why aren’t more people who attended blogging about this? Or did none of this strike them as incredibly asinine and/or inappropriate?
Or maybe I just need to expand my blog rounds more? Hmmm. If you have linkies, put ‘em in the comments! Eyewitness accounts too.
Saddam Hussein writes romance. Given the political theme coupled with the grim overtones of disasters, I can’t fathom why they left him out of the restrospective. It could even help with the slumping sales. “Read romance or die!” Good theme. Use it if you like.
You guys are wanting to have a serious discussion … I can tell.
::hanging head and departing::
Awww…FerfeLaBat. Don’t worry. Be happy. 🙂
Saddam Hussein writes romance.
Lord knows he was a fan of those rapist alpha heroes. That Saddam… However, his last work, Love’s Savage Mustard Gas, wasn’t as well-received as he’d hoped.
It was the cover, Candy. Ruins lotsa good books’ sales.
*shakes head at RWA officials’ antics*
When I joined the World of Blogs in May, I came across those antics almost on the first day via all those links, despite the fact that I don’t write Romance. It’s quite a negative popularity the RWA thus creates.
The good part is that I found out that Romance writers are an intelligent and fun bunch to hang out with in the World of Blogs. 🙂 I don’t think that without all the RWA fuss I’d have found Romance-related blogs so soon.
Man. It’s not even worth working up the juice to be mad at them.
Story Time:
When my son was a widdle baby, his favorite thing to do when we changed his diaper was to reach down and-you guessed it-play with that fascinating piece of flesh that gets wiped first. (Bear with me, this does have a point.)
Unfortunately, babies tend to grab things and yank. So if we weren’t careful in finding something else to distract him with, the poor tyke would reach down, grab himself, and pull.
Then he would look up at the person changing his diaper with tear-filled eyes, like, “Why are you DOING this to me?”
My husband and I call this, “The Cosmic Nut-Pull”, and it happens all the time (at least metaphorically) in organizations as well as in the workplace. The RWA is yanking on itself and then getting upset because everyone else is laughing at them, and it hurts. I don’t claim to know WHY they’re doing it, but I do feel happy understanding the dynamic that’s going on.
It’s just a cosmic nut-pullin’ trainwreck, and I’m so glad I’m not a part of it…
How many of the editors there lived through 9/11? Nora makes that point quite thoughtfully in her letter – which she says she will be taking out an ad in the RWR to publish.
One presenter I know left out things she was supposted to say – about who shot JR and who shot John Lennon.
Then the RWA president, I understand, left the stage in a convertible at the end of the show.
What happened to honoring the TWENTY-FIFTH year of the organization by celebrating its purpose? I’ve sat through previous awards ceremonies and teared up (over romantic movie clips) and laughed (over live skits) – but always, ALWAYS, it was appropriate to the organization.
Permission was granted to forward this.
To the board:
By now you’ve probably heard in great detail from many members about
what an outrage the awards ceremony was, so I’ll try a different
approach, speculating on what an outsider (say, the documentary
people from Bravo who were there) might conclude from that ceremony.
1. RWA is anti-woman, dwelling on women like Monica Lewinsky, Lorena
Bobbit, and Donna Rice while tossing off mentions Sally Ride, Ruth
Bader Ginsberg, and Oprah Winfrey.
2. RWA is racist showing only one person of color for any extended
time—O. J. Simpson—while ignoring anyone else who wasn’t white.
3. RWA is so far to the right politcally that it’s falling off the
map, spending an extended amount of time including voiceovers on the
Clinton/Lewinsky affair while making Reagan and the Bushes look like
gods.
4. RWA is insensitive, juxtaposing tragedy with upbeat music and
lighthearted segues into the nominations.
5. RWA doesn’t care about its members, its fiction, or its past,
sidelining all of that to showcase a general history lesson that did
nothing to illuminate or celebrate the organization or the people
within it.
At this point, I don’t care who was responsible for that truly
wretched script; I don’t care who was responsible for forcing it
through, even though Nora Roberts, one of the smartest people I know
when it comes to gauging audience reaction and public relations, was
ignored when she tried to stop the train wreck that ceremony became.
I just want to know that whoever was involved in this will never
again be allowed near any public statement, that there will be a
committee that reads the script ahead of time fthat has both taste
and veto power, and that the next time a very smart woman says, “You
cannot do this, it’s horrible,” SOMEBODY will listen.
And please, for the love of God, next year remember that it’s a party
not a political platform; that we’re there to feel good about
ourselves, not be ashamed that we’re women; to feel like we’re one
happy family, not the White Girls’ Club; that we want to leave
uplifted and confident and happy and laughing, that we want to
CELEBRATE on that night. Get somebody who understands happiness
and celebration and humor and light, somebody who loves women and
RWA, somebody who doesn’t have an ax to grind or a personal stake in
the script. Get an entertainer with brains. We have a LOT of them
in RWA; in fact, Eileen Dreyer comes immediately to mind. You know
Eileen, the one who looked at her script, saw more disasters and then
said, “And a lot of bad things happened that year but we’re not going
to talk about them” and got an ovation? Eileen would be good.
Saturday night was the worst Rita awards show in history; let’s make
sure it’s the worst one of all time by never going that low again.
Jenny Crusie
although come to think of it, I’m not sure “permission to forward” at the top means I’m allowed to since it came within an RWA group, maybe it was supposed to stay in an RWA group? Ah well. I hope it’s okay.
I’m sorry… I’m still imagining the RWA president doing a “Cosmic Nut-Pull”. Excuse me while I go change my pants…
These RWA stories just get better and better.
Can the president of an organization be impeached?
The following statement is from Alicia Rasley (forwarded):
This is what happened. I was there. 🙂 Please feel free to forward. When
she (Nora Roberts) objected to the script, several of us stepped forward and spent longhours trying to fix it. It still wasn’t good enough to meet her expectations. More fixing. Finally, hours from the ceremony, still refusal. Another MC stepped in, fortunately.
Everything proceeded pretty well.
People laughed. Tears from winners, and
the audience too—it’s wonderful watching someone achieve a great dream. The ceremony went too long, as always. There was plenty about the history of RWA and the history of the times. Maybe too much history of the times, and some
unfortunately tragic video pics, some political material in it that I (a
Clinton fan 🙂 didn’t like but probably those of other political stripes
thought fine. The sort of thing that strikes some as offensive and other
as not, but was mostly just in the videos. Funny fashions. Some music.
Lots of people left with RITAs or GHs and lots of editors clutched
plaques. Many thank yous.
In other words, this was a pretty normal awards ceremony. Some liked it,
some didn’t. No one read a letter expressing an opinion either way, because everyone is equally entitled to express an opinion… but does any one person deserve a big forum that no one else gets to express it?
You don’t have to like this ceremony. Those of us who helped out at the
end did our best to make it better, but some people had trouble with it.
I understand—I had problems too, problems we tried to fix but didn’t
have time. What I don’t understand is why this letter is such a huge
deal. She has an opinion. So do I. So do you. Is any one opinion so important it takes precedence over yours? Are you
going to change your mind about what you experienced because of what someone else thought?
Probably not. And no one got hurt, and no one is going to sue, and no
one cheated, and those who won won, and those who finalled still finalled, and explain to me why this is such a huge
deal?????
Alicia
I was there too. It was awful, although I wondered if I wasn’t just being Ms. Softy Liberal-Pants for thinking so. One of the worst moments was when they showed Clinton and Monica footage with EMF’s “Unbelievable” as the acccompanying music. And the woman in back of me clapped like a toy monkey every time Junior Bush came on screen. My seatmate and I were about ready to pop her.
Megan
As someone who lives in NJ and works in NYC, I would have been personally horrified and physically sick if at a conference about romance writing I was treated to visuals of the WTC coming down. To quote my husband when I gave him the mini-version of this story, “What is WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!”
Candy and I so need to go next year. We’ll sell “RWA: The Trainwreck Continues” t-shirts. Discount if you’re a Smart Bitch!
“I think I have ferreted out why the awards ceremony turned out the way they did. Are you ready for my theory?
It’s all in line with the redefining romance/getting people to take the romance genre seriously attempts.
“Look! We’re talking about serious issues! We’re not some fluffy genre that’s all about kittens and ponies and red throbbing hearts! (We won’t think about or even mention the other red throbbing bits.) Take us seriously! We know our current events, especially the grisly, doom-and-gloom bits.â€
Just a theory, though.”
I’d be stunned down to my cotton french-cut panties if they had an agenda one one-hundredth that thought out. I’d wager it was part of the whole “retrospective” idea, and more focused on the prestige of the awards ceremony (and the RITA/GH’s 25 years) than on the seriousness of Romance. As for the ultimate message of the “seriousness” of Romance, you’re probably right that some people took that away from the presentation. Frankly, I think such a presentation is the extension of traditional, nationalistic, and conservative “family values” that are totally unquestioned and unexamined. You know, like the psychology of the administration, who constantly warn us of the next potential terrorist attack, creating an environment in which political protest can easily be labeled unpatriotic. In other words, it’s an unarticulated call to refrain from rocking the boat with all that new-fangled erotic and otherwise untraditional Romance—instead, let’s keep on celebrating god, country, and family the old-fashioned way.
Robin, I agree that it was probably never an articulated goal, but that sounds very much like their unstated, perhaps even unconscious goal: romance is apple pie, not anal sex.
Well. Someone needs to turn this whole year of RWA antics into a book- the ridiculous cockups & finger pointing will sell tons.
Can la presidenta TTQ be impeached?
Can la presidenta TTQ be impeached?
Unfortunately, the only way that could have happened was if we had met quorum at the Annual General Meeting.
We didn’t. Not enough people attended/sent in proxies. If we had met quorum, I’m fully convinced that someone would have brought a vote of “no confidence” from the floor.
I think TTQ knew it too—she looked inordinately relieved when she announced the numbers and that we hadn’t made quorum.
More’s the pity.
Barb
Candy and I so need to go next year. We’ll sell “RWA: The Trainwreck Continues†t-shirts.
And don’t forget the other variant: “RWA: We
Cosmic Nut-Pullin’.”
And thanks to Kate for posting the letters from Jennifer Crusie and Alicia Rasley. Interesting perspectives. I think what Alicia isn’t getting is that Nora Roberts’ letter is a big deal because she’s expressing what a lot of other people are feeling but didn’t speak out loud.
And viewed in the larger context of what the RWA has done this year (the definition of romance questionnaire, the graphical standards), I wouldn’t blame people for feeling kind of gun-shy at this point.
Well, thank you Lord for restoring my faith in Jenny Crusie at least.
And Candy, is that an animated gif that I’m seeing? WAHHAHHAHH
Hey, just wait – I’m trying to find a Spiderman-dancing-on-the-RWA-logo for our permanent collection!
“I think what Alicia isn’t getting is that Nora Roberts’ letter is a big deal because she’s expressing what a lot of other people are feeling but didn’t speak out loud.”
One of the things that makes it a big deal to me is that I’ve never had the impression that Roberts has been active in weighing in on bigger issues in the industry, or in using her influence to stand behind certain causes (I still remember her comments on how Amazon advertises used books alongside new ones and cringe, thinking about how such a practice impacts smaller authors far more than it does her). So the fact that she stood up on this one and wrote such a letter makes what she did stand out to me, even if (in a cynical construction) she did it because she didn’t want to be personally associated with such a travesty. I mean, can you imagine what it was like before the edits??
“Robin, I agree that it was probably never an articulated goal, but that sounds very much like their unstated, perhaps even unconscious goal: romance is apple pie, not anal sex.”
Ah, exactly—you found the perfect sound byte that eluded me!
Always happy to come up with an anal sex reference – no pun intended!
I wasn’t there, but from what I’ve read here and elsewhere, the whole situation sounds ghastly at worst and inappropriate at best. My only explanation – not that I think these people deserve one – is that perhaps when TPTB directed the creative team to come up with a retrospective, that group immediately began listing the big events of each year that everyone would remember. Unfortunately, tragic events last longer in the memory than pleasant ones, so my guess is that they ended up with a string of disasters and felt very proud of themselves.
I have no idea, however, what they were thinking with the pairing of things such as Don’t Worry, Be Happy with Tiananman Square. That’s just pure incompetence.
And I have no way of explaning the bashing of Clinton and glorifying the Republican presidents except to say that it’s clear which side of the political seesaw these people sit.
Even with giving these people this sliver of a benefit of a doubt that their creative team just totally dropped the ball, I’m with Candy in asking WTF any of it had to do with Romance novels? Where was Fabio in all of this? Lord knows there has to be enough footage of him for quite a long montage.
What’s really sad, I think, is that attention has been so completely divereted away from the winners who so much deserve their moments in the spotlight. Instead all of the focus is on how, once again, RWA has managed to irritate it’s very own constituents.
And my regrets about not attending continue to move into complete non-existence…
I mean, can you imagine what it was like before the edits??
Well, if it was anyhting like the letters my late boss used to dictate when he was pissed, it was fun. I loved to type them though he always edited the stuff out.
OK, I haven’t read the comments here yet, but I will. First off. Yes, it’s all true.
This was my first RWA conference, and my first awards show…and I said more than once that if they were all like that I would never go again because I couldn’t stop crying! I’m not from NY, Hell, I’m Canadian . . and I found it upsetting!
I’ll hop over to Nora’s website and tell her to go for it! I love that she, and Jennifer Cruisie and anyone and everyone are willing to speak up and be heard. Hopefully the baord will pay attention.
As for blogging about it myself. I won’t. Not because I support what happeend, but because I want to forget it. I prefer to remember the GOOD things.
I don’t want to remember how utterly rediculous the cars were, what a fuss was made of the presenters (PAST winner) when it was really this years nominees that deserved the fuss.
I prefer to remember that I saw some of my fave authors nominated and that a friend actually won a Golden Heart Pendant!
“Romance is apple pie, not anal sex.”
Priceless.
SmartBitches, puuuhhh-LEEZE come to Atlanta next year!
Oh, and I enjoyed the openign skit abotu how RWA was formed! It looked great. In fact, if thay had just stiuck with RWA historyit ould’ve ben great!
In my opinion, the whole ceremony would’ve been made immensly better if they had just cut the videos’ and stuck with the awards.
> Finally, hours from the ceremony, still refusal.
I was there. After two days of editing, what remained was still deeply offensive. The Tienanmen Square moment is justly infamous; the showcase on the O.J. Simpson trial and the Monica Lewinsky affair were equally tasteless. And where, I ask, were the Iran-Contra scandal, the Enron affair, or Halliburton?
It was politically biased. It was tasteless. It was, as Jenny Crusie said, anti-female and anti-black. I spent the ceremony with my friends, and we ran out of gin in the hip flasks half an hour in. There wouldn’t be enough gin in the world.
I’m glad somebody tried to make the presentation less appalling, but what they finally put on stage was still disgraceful.
I was there, as well, and I can tell you – it was a trainwreck. I watched it with the same awed expression and half-giggly horror which I usually reserve for particularly appalling episodes of COPS. I think the reason most people aren’t blogging about it is because we’re all writing to the board – which is exactly where these comments should go first. Then, if there’s any excess venom, blog it. But the board needs to hear these things first.
And Candy, you can just crash next year’s conference. Just have someone who registered purchase a guest pass for the RITAs, then go to the hotel and hang. All the interesting stuff happens in the bar, anyway. That’s where I first heard about this mess.
Oh – and the letters posted here are absolutely legit, both Nora’s and Jenny’s. And God love ‘em both.
Lani
I’m an unpublished writer in my second year of RWA membership. I joined, as I expect most people in my position do, in hopes of learning useful craft tips and industry know-how and developing contacts to help me get published and stay that way. What I didn’t sign up for was to see the cultural battles I’m all too familiar with from the 2000 and ‘04 elections re-enacted in miniature. So I’m thoroughly disgusted with the three big kerfuffles of Summer ‘05.
Can someone who’s been around the organization longer than I have tell me what I as an ordinary member can do about it? Should I write the Board? All of them, or just my region’s rep? And when it comes time to vote for new officers, how will I know which ones want to change direction before this slow-motion trainwreck gets any worse?
Hey, Susan. Just grab a recent RWR, and your region rep will be listed. Write to them, and request that they forward it to the board. Then you’ve done your part, and it’s an important part.
And for everyone else, one thing I forgot to mention above – please don’t confuse this mess with the value of RWA. It’s a great organization filled with wonderful and brilliant people. Those people just didn’t happen to be involved in producing this year’s RITA ceremony.
L.
Thanks, Lani! Will do.
Wow, and an attendee actually offered me her ticket to the awards because she was leaving early. Unfortuately, so was I. Still I’m not sure it would have been a blessing to be there and sit through this mess.
Kudos to Nora and Jennifer Crusie for their public positions on the matter.
hmm, okay I was there. Honestly, it semed no better nor worse than the other two ceremonies I’ve attended. Re the political montages: I found myself more puzzled at their inclusion than anything else. To be fair, they also showcased the growth of RWA over the 25 yrs. I did find myself annoyed that the strides made by women were given as a one line beat with no accompanying footage. Also highlighted (I can’t remember if every presenter did this) was a line from the many works of Linda Howard over the years. (she was this yrs honoree).
The music was fabu and I have to admit to utter insensitiveness to be bopping along to many tunes whilst some scene of horror was played (such is my shallowness).
In my favour though, I couldn’t stomach it past the GH portion of the show (about an hour). I spent the rest of the evening saying farewell to dear friends and CPs… much better way to spend your final evening at conference.
Candy and Sarah, yes you can attend RWA without being a member because I did it last year. Essentially you pay the conf fee plus (what amounts to the membership dues) I think the total was approx $450.
And the letter from Cruisie posted by Kate… as I was reading (and she mentioned Eileen dreyer) I mentally added ‘or Jenny Cruisie’. Imagine my delight when I got to the end.
X
oh crap… why do I always spell her name wrong. Just shoot me. shoot me now.
Jenny, if you’re out there. My most humblest, grovelling, toadying apologies.
Now I’m even questioning if it WAS Linda Howard they were citing/honouring…
X
Going back to her own little world where everything revolves around moi.
Okay, I’m surfing the net contributing my sedition for next year, in light of this year’s disaster. Three words:
Pull. The. Plug.
It’s really that simple. Takes electricity to run a projector.
And may I say, “GO, NORA!”
I find it all hugely hilarious!! It’s made my day anyway!!
Lots of kudos to Nora, I may start reading her books again now!!
As for Tara Taylor Quinn (or whatever her name is), as we say in England, she dropped a f*cking bollock!
“I have no idea, however, what they were thinking with the pairing of things such as Don’t Worry, Be Happy with Tiananman Square. That’s just pure incompetence.”
I’m not in any way defending the ceremony, but I just wanted to say that the above didn’t happen—at least not at the same time. It was “dramatic” music for the clips montage, and the pop song for the presenter making her way to the podium. Although, during the Clinton/Lewinsky scenes they played that oh-so-catchy song: “A little bit of Monica in my life…”
Michelle—
They also paired pop songs as well. I remember the “don’t worry, be happy” above the Tiananmen Square montage (maybe not all of the video, but definitely on the end) as well as the complete montage of all of CLinton’s supposed mistresses to the “A little bit of Monica” song as well as the rehashing of the Lewinsky scandal to the “you’re so unbelievable” song. In fact, as I recall, most of the accompanying music to the videos was definitely pop. (Michael Jackson’s Beat It, etc.)
Maybe where we are getting confused is that some images were shown twice. Tiananmen and the Challenger thing were both in the show’s opening montage as brief clips, and then shown later as longer pieces accompanied by jazzy, upbeat pop songs.