Remember a couple of weeks back, after the Oscar nominations were announced? Remember how Stephen King stepped in it with the Wokeness Brigade when he said he “would never consider diversity in matters of art”?
As a writer, I am allowed to nominate in just 3 categories: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay. For me, the diversity issue–as it applies to individual actors and directors, anyway–did not come up. That said…
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 14, 2020
…I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 14, 2020
Well, apparently he’s had some time to reflect on his egregious mistake, because he’s got a new opinion piece in the Washington Post:
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 27, 2020
King writes:
I stepped over one of those lines recently, by saying something on Twitter that I mistakenly thought was noncontroversial: “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” The subject was the Academy Awards. I also said, in essence, that those judging creative excellence should be blind to questions of race, gender or sexual orientation.
I did not say that was the case today, because nothing could be further from the truth. Nor did I say that films, novels, plays and music focusing on diversity and/or inequality cannot be works of creative genius. They can be, and often are. Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us,” about the wrongful convictions of the Central Park Five, is a splendid case in point.
…
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
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Wow. You're really buying your way out of that SJW oops yo umade last week. Must feed the mob it's daily sacrifice…
— Anthony Jon Mountjoy (@IVerboten) January 27, 2020
LMAO he had to do an entire op-ed to pretend that he didn't say he votes on artistic merit. pic.twitter.com/nXFG0HWSCX
— neontaster (@neontaster) January 27, 2020
No no no, I'm STILL one of the GOOD ones!
— I'm To Blame (@im2blame4) January 27, 2020
You'll never be woke enough for the mob ?
— E (@ebound) January 27, 2020
Never ever. Hope this latest cave was worth it, Stephen.
Siri, define "pound of flesh."
— neontaster (@neontaster) January 27, 2020
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