Perhaps, some of them could help me understand the "controversy" about this year's Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy.
[Here are some helpful readings on the "Sad Puppies" imbroglio.]
The final slate has been announced here.
I respect the awards and their history--both for the good and despite the bad. But, I am not super plugged into the various politicking that goes on around the awards. Nor, am I one of the obsessives in science fiction fandom.
Politics is popular culture; popular culture is politics. Popular culture, broadly defined, is one of the primary spaces where a society's values and norms are reproduced, taught, internalized, and on occasion subverted and challenged.
As such, the "sad puppies" Hugo debacle and their cousin in "GamerGate", can be understood to reflect a type of Right-wing reactionary white male victimology that is unfortunately all too common in post civil rights era neoliberal America.
The election of Barack Obama and the United States' changing demographics (a change that I suggest is much exaggerated in its consequences for a "new" America as Whiteness always expands to include new members and to maintain its dominant position) has driven them to new levels of delusional aggrieved white victimologist madness.
Is the Hugo controversy simply an extension of a broader Right-wing reactionary politics?
And is the Hugo "Sad Puppies" and "GamerGate" mess any different from the American Right-wing's complaints about "multiculturalism", "feminism", and "diversity " during the 1970s and 1980s Culture War(s)?
Do enlighten me if you would.
