The Roald Dahl Museum has condemned the racism of the author in a new statement.
I haven’t read a ton of Dahl’s work as a adult but I have been going through the Lovecraft collection and the racism is sort of baked into the work. I’m not saying throw it out if anything the only thing positive I can say is Lovecraft work probably wouldn’t have worked so well if it wasn’t his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way. I do however agree mostly with your other point that the big problem is supporting currently alive creators since consumption does sort of benefit them allowing them to push their views in the real world.
Lovecraft work probably wouldn’t have worked so well if it wasn’t his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way
I never really thought about it that way, but you’ve got a solid point. The people fear the unknown, and the unknown acts in ways that provoke and reinforce that fear, turns it into cosmic horror. If you were to take away the Cosmic part, all that’s left is the fear of the unknown.
I’m not saying cosmic horror is inherently racist but how HP Lovecraft wrote it was absolutely inspired by his racism. Shadow over Innmouth could be seen as a very heavy handed metaphor for Interracial marriage. Also can’t remember the actual name of the short story but HP Lovecraft for some reason found the need to point out a Jewish merchant gave someone a cheap or free Necronomicon, it was really on the god damn nose.
I mean I love the concept of cosmic horror but we would have to be blind not to see how racism especially HP Lovecraft version of it was heavily flavored by his bias and racism.
Ah, yes I can see that for sure. I wondered if you were arguing that the whole genre was racist because it rests on the idea of “fear of the unknown” as some folks seem to be. Lovecraft himself was a shithead, but that’s kind of why I enjoy stuff like Lovecraft Country so much.
To build on a reply I left above; Lovecraft’s work isn’t currently (to my knowledge) funding the KKK for example. He’s not diddling kids, or raping actresses; he’s dead. Is his estate racist? Are the royalties from his published works being used to embolden TERFs? Do lovecraft-estate-licensed board games hold anti-abortion rallies?
That’s the difference. When people don’t want to separate the art from the artists is when they’re out here doing actual harm still.
