Inside the Censorship Scandal That Rocked Sci-Fi and Fantasy's Biggest Awards
Inside the Censorship Scandal That Rocked Sci-Fi and Fantasy's Biggest Awards
Last week, the Hugo Awards melted down over unexplained disqualifications. Insiders tell Esquire what really happened—and what it could mean for the future of literary awards.
Since then, hundreds of people have asked McCarty to explain what exactly in the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) constitution or rules made these works ineligible, but his responses quickly deteriorated into insults, such as “Are you slow?” and, “Clearly you can't understand plain English in our constitution.” However, there isn’t a single rule in the WSFS constitution that could possibly explain why any of these writers were deemed ineligible.
On January 31, less than two weeks after McCarty revealed the voting statistics that kicked off the controversy, the California nonprofit that owns the Hugo Awards trademarks released a bombshell statement: McCarty resigned from the organization, alongside the chair of its board of directors, Kevin Standlee. Additionally, the nonprofit censured McCarty
But we probably won't know why they likes of Neil Gaiman were deemed ineligible.
I was hoping that a smoking gun would be revealed. Hell, make it the plot of a science fiction book if you need to. Why were the awards messed with?
The article mostly says it was some kind of error but I can't help it, censorship and china lives closer together in my brain...
It's difficult to not cite a host country conspiracy because of how many votes were literally bought to move the celebration to Chengdu. It certainly seems like an authoritarian wanted to exercise control over the narrative so they paid for a lavish convention and bribed the people running it. Since the judging is so open, the only way to fuck with it is to disqualify things before the selections narrow.
It's probably likely that the 3 people running the convention who were kicked out of the Hugo productions probably took bribes to not investigate anything despite so much suspicious behavior. The entire thing feels like a short sighted attempt to snub some sci fi authors who didn't agree with the treatment of Uyghers.
What's "inside" about this report? None of the people inside responded to interview requests and the only development (McCarthy resigned) is from a public source.
Honestly I think that the entire landscape of science fiction awards has gone pear shaped and become hopelessly politicized.
And, like the hyper polarization of human society at large, I don't see a solution.
You'll always have the Sad Puppies (Vox Dei followers in sheep's clothing) versus the folks who see themselves as doing good by amplifying under-represented voices.
At the end of the day maybe these larger awards need to go away and be replaced by partisan versions, which is kind of a sad fate to contemplate.