Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsri.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!tom
From: tom@utcsri.UUCP (Tom Nadas)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Harlan Ellison quits....
Message-ID: <1851@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 10:41:27 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1851
Posted: Sun Dec 22 10:41:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Dec-85 10:43:29 EST
References: <807@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Reply-To: tom@utcsri.UUCP (Tom Nadas)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 85
Summary: 



     All right.  Let's catalogue the commitments that Harlan 
Ellison is alleged to have walked off of.  He quit the Science 
Fiction Writers of America, a professional organization of which 
I'm an active member.  He walked off "The Starlost," a TV series 
he created.  He hasn't managed to fulfill his contracts to edit 
"The Last Dangerous Visions" or to produce the novel "Blood's a 
Rover."  He raised a huge stink about Gene Roddenberry re-writing 
his "City on the Edge of Forever" script for Star Trek (Ellison's 
original, by the way, can be found in the book "Six Science 
Fiction Plays," edited by Roger Elwood.  My opinion:  the 
Roddenberry version is smoother, faster-paced, better focussed, 
and more gut-wrenching in its conclusion.)   He walked off the 
"I, Robot" movie.  He demanded a recall of the first volume of 
the recent reissue of his works.  And, Harlan Ellison, apparently 
considered by some the last bastion of free speech, allegedly 
hunted down writer Charles Platt, and, to quote Platt, "came up 
behind me, grabbed me by the collar, and (in front of several 
witnesses) hit me on the jaw ...  I had provoked this by writing 
a column last year containing four sentences that criticized 
Ellison's worldcon tribute to Larry Shaw."

It was in my original posting, but let me amplify it:  HARLAN 
ELLISON IS A GREAT WRITER, ONE OF THE BEST AUTHORS WORKING IN THE 
ENGLISH LANGUAGE.  I do agree that Ellison might have been able 
to do a beautiful, moving story about Santa Claus, making a 
powerful statement about prejudice.  But CBS is the client.  If 
he can't do it to their specifications, then that's his problem.  
The commercial TV networks are in the business of making a buck.  
We may not like that (I don't.  That's why I, an American 
citizen, work in Canada, where airwaves are considered a public 
resource instead of part of the private sector).  

I didn't mean to imply that TZ was a children's show.  I was 
referring to the U.S. networks' voluntary enforcement of a family 
viewing hour, which (I may be wrong, here, and if so, I 
apologize) I believe is still adhered to.  A disclaimer in front 
of sensitive material is a good idea, I think, in any timeslot.

Television is a collaborative effort.  The series is not called 
"Harlan Ellison's THE TWILIGHT ZONE."  If Phil De Guerre is on 
Ellison's side, good.  I have always been a fan of De Guerre's 
and I applaud his gutsiness.  I did not have that information 
when I responded to the original posting.  

My analogy about Jackie Cooper was meant to show the following:  
Creative people are not always justified in pressing the deepest, 
darkest, emotional buttons just to get an easy reaction.  
Reviewers of Speilberg's films have frequently talked about how 
he jerks his audiences around.  To me, personally speaking, 
writing a story with such an abhorrent image as a bigotted Santa 
Claus just so you can say, no, he's not bigotted after all, is 
jerking the audience around.  Of course, Harlan might have had a 
deeper message in mind and he might have changed the world with 
this episode, but we don't know that.

I'm sorry if my postings on this topic have bothered some people 
(at least two, anyway).  I probably went overboard, as I 
sometimes do when I'm angry.   I just get tired of Ellison's 
attitude.  There _are_ writers who have managed to change 
television for the better:  Norman Lear, Paddy Chayefsky, and Rod 
Serling leap to mind.  But they did it by working within the 
confines of the medium, not throwing tauntrums and storming out 
the soundstage door.  

Anyway, unlike Harlan's Santa Claus, I wish you all a safe and 
happy holiday.  :-)     



>:o)      ...A smiling Rudolph...

[R]obert [J]..





-- 

					Tom Nadas

UUCP:   {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!tom
CSNET:  tom@toronto