Hey, controversy!

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Remember a few days ago, I posted a link to an article entitled "I Will Not Read Your F**king Script"? Well, as always happens whenever anyone says the word "fuck" (and I'm not sure why I've been bleeping it out of the article title... the author sure didn't. Guess it's just to preserve the virgin eyes of my flist), people got cranky. In particular, this response.

Now, I'd like to present the appearance of impartiality and let you draw your own conclusions, but... well, I already recced the original article, so I think we know how I feel about it. And I think this response completely misses the point. Josh Olson isn't talking about being pissed off that people ask him to read scripts. I would think this is obvious from the reference to the pile of scripts from good friends that he's agreed to read.

What he's talking about (and what, I think, all the commenters on my post understood, possibly because I cherry-picked the quotes *g*) is people he barely knows asking him to read scripts, and then being unreceptive to the constructive criticism.

I would guess that anyone who reads that article and thinks, "What an asshole," has never been on the receiving end of a truly awful piece of shit on which the author was expecting feedback, only to receive a blow off - or worse, an angry, indignant rant - in response to the time and effort they put into critiquing it. Those of us who have know that Olson's scenario is all too familiar, and exactly how many times do you take that risk, only to be ranted at again, before you give up on newbies altogether?

Laurell K. Hamilton, of all people, gets it and expands on it in her blog.

And if you're interested in a slightly different perspective, cleolinda has some links, as well as her own thoughts, on the "cuz I might get sued" aspect of not reading other people's work.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Well, that's just annoying. Though I've gotta say, I think Josh Olson got to the point where he was so fed-up that he did in fact put on the "asshole" hat. It's hard to deny you're being an asshole when you say "No, I will not read your f***king script!" The fact that he's absolutely right just makes him a justified asshole. :)

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Well, that is - as LKH points out in her post - a problem with the tone, not a problem with the message, which is the reason the first response called him an asshole.

But quite frankly, the language doesn't bother me. He's using it to make a point - I wouldn't call him an asshole for that. I sincerely doubt that when individuals come up to him, he's actually saying to them, "No, I will not read your f**king script!" But since he says in the article that no matter what he does, people will call him an asshole anyway, he might as well drop a few f-bombs to get his point across. :) He could've titled it, "Why I will politely decline to read your script," but it wouldn't be as funny.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It's kinda funny that people are wasting their time calling him an asshole. The whole point was the he said "f**k it they're gonna call me an asshole anyway, so I might as well be a preemptive asshole". I doubt the gasp!responses are bothering him. It's more just amusing to see how people react. They're the ones who clearly don't get it.

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I've noticed a distinct division in the responses - it seems like 99% of established writers agree with him wholeheartedly on the message (even if they think he was rude), whereas the people who are making the biggest stink about it are the newbies trying to break into screenwriting, who feel they are entitled to the mentorship of an established writer, and that anyone they shove their script at should be willing to read it - and completely don't even realize that they are the target of this rant.

Computer techs get this a lot, too - someone they know asking them to fix/take a look at a computer just as a favor.