Kevin Strange’s Thoughts On The World Fantasy Award And H.P. Lovecraft

JkuKRSometimes it’s hard to understand what my actual stance on something is because I just make really sarcastic jokes on facebook out of context about things that piss me off.

So here’s the “Strange” dope:

The Lovecraft writing community is trying to have its cake and eat it too concerning the World Fantasy convention retiring the H.P. Lovecraft award bust. It’s blatant hypocrisy to claim that retiring the award “because racism” is the right thing to do (or pretending that there’s any truth to the false narrative that the convention decided all on its own with no outside influence that it should go) while continuing to profit from anthologies, podcasts, audio adaptations, biographies, new edits of his literature, magazines, film festivals and conventions featuring H. P. Lovecraft, his fiction and his likeness as the MAIN THEME.

Either he’s (buzz word!) problematic for fiction or he’s not. The man is a KNOWN NAZI SYMPATHIZER. That either matters or it doesn’t. To me it doesn’t fucking matter at all because he’s long fucking dead and lived in a time when ALMOST EVERYONE ON THE PLANET was into Adolph Hitler. He was on the fucking cover of TIME MAGAZINE. He was at the peak of his global popularity in Lovecraft’s time!

Lovecraft fucking DIED IN 1937! He would have come out on the other side of WW2 like almost everyone else, completely reconsidering what Eugenics meant and restructuring his morals and beliefs based on the horrible actions of the Nazi party LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

Eliminating his likeness from the World Fantasy award SOLVES NOTHING. It’s a problem manufactured by people on the internet WHO MAKE A LIVING solving social problems they created!

All of the back patting and celebration from the Lovecraft writing community really makes me sick. You don’t get to have it both ways. Either you accept the man for who and what he was within the context of his lifetime, along with being one of the most influential horror writers of all time, or his Nazi sympathies and racism are too much of a problem for you. You shouldn’t be able to exploit him, make money off of his likeness AND agree with the politically correct morons trying to erase him from history.

Take a stand for your man and grow some balls.

 

5 thoughts on “Kevin Strange’s Thoughts On The World Fantasy Award And H.P. Lovecraft

  1. If the author was despicable as the dirt he resides in, then why continue to pay homage to him? All the authors who write Lovecraftian fiction are bright, intelligent individuals who could easily conjure their own mythos. I don’t fault them for having these beliefs, but why continue to exploit the creations of Lovecraft if they feel this way? This is the question I pose with as minimal confrontation as possible.

    • I can rest easy knowing that the only truly relevant force in Mythos fiction, S.T. Joshi, is as disgusted with these people’s blatant hypocrisy as I am.

  2. Pingback: 5 Reasons Kevin Strange Spoke Out | KevinTheStrange.com

  3. “This does not in and of itself make Lovecraftian fiction inherently bigoted. The best and most famous H.P. Lovecraft historian, S.T. Joshi, is a person of color. What IS sexist is excluding men from a Lovecraftian anthology. What IS racist is singling out people of color to write for an anthology based solely on their race. What she means by “Put your own spin on it” is, “Why don’t you make it black?” Which is blatantly offensive to anyone who celebrates egalitarianism, real diversity and true equality.” So people who arent normall represented well in cosmic horror community are given a platform, in contrast to the mostly white audience/writing pool? Its called encouraging people to join in, and give light to members of a fanbase who usually dont get spotlighted or are hesatant, not to mention give unique views.

    “Lovecraft fucking DIED IN 1937! He would have come out on the other side of WW2 like almost everyone else, completely reconsidering what Eugenics meant and restructuring his morals and beliefs based on the horrible actions of the Nazi party LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.” Are you sure? If they cant say so for sure, neith can you.

    “Are people of color purposefully left out of Lovecraftian horror? Of course not. Culturally, this type of fiction hasn’t historically appealed to people of color. Historically, the people who have most often chosen to write it have been American and Western European white dudes.” Ergo its bigoted to try to grow your reading base…wait…

    • No. What makes a view unique? An individual expressing it. Every human being is unique. Pushing a voice forward based not on merit, but based on a progressive stack quota does no service to the arts. In fact, it’s what is actively destroying the arts. You’re the problem. Please disappear.

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