Fandom Year 1969
fanlore.org
The Awful Offal - Fanlore*
In which writer David Gerrold, a Harlan Ellison wannabe, takes aim at women, hippies, and Star Trek and Lord of the Ring fans who are ruining the purity of Science Fiction Fandom
The year is 1969…..and writer Gerrold Ellison David Gerrold pens a vitriolic attack on women, hippies and Star Trek and Lord of the Ring fans…
*The Fanlore link leads to a more detailed description and analysis of the essay. The essay contains mentions of sexual assault, rape, along with racist imagery.
[EDITED: What follows is lifted from the Fanlore article and from David Gerrold's Fanlore page].
"David Gerrold got his start in television with the sale of his script, ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’ (1967) to the Star Trek TV series. Since that time, he has written and co-written several other scripts for Star Trek. .......David Gerrold temporarily got over his disdain of Star Trek and its fans by personally selling many Tribbles at conventions until he stopped attending conventions in 2016:
I knew it was time for me to stop going to conventions when I showed up at one and there were thirty people selling Tribbles. You say to them, “You don’t have the right,” and they say, “Fuck you, you made enough money off Star Trek. Now it’s my turn.” This was the shift. In '72 or '73, you’d meet the fans, and they were grateful for the opportunity to meet people who worked on Star Trek. By '75 or '76, the attitude was “We own Star Trek now. The studio doesn’t care. We do.”
More excerpts from Fanlore article (which I did not write):
“The Awful Offal is a 4-page essay by David Gerrold.
Accompanying it is an illustration of Kirk and Spock created by Jerry Mayes. Another illo, a horribly racist cartoon by Maynes accompanies the essay on the last page. This illo does not appear to be directly related to the essay and is simply embedded random filler.
The essay was printed in the science fiction zine “Trumpet” #9 in 1969. A similar 1968 essay, one by Harlan Ellison, is The Words in Spock’s Mouth.
Gerrold’s essay starts with the provocative statement that “with the exception of Lord of the Rings, Star Trek is undoubtedly the worst thing that has ever happened to Science Fiction (note the capitals)…. [snipped] But lest, at some future con I be quoted out of context and get punched in the nose, or ostracized, or worse, I now reserve the right to elucidate upon the very definitely opening sentence of this essay.”
Gerrold makes much of the differences between “science fiction” and “Science Fiction,” and how uneducated, undisciplined fans of Lord of the Rings and Star Trek are ruining almost EVERYTHING.
He also employs the term “trekkees,” a very early use of this label. Replies to his essay in the next issue of “Trumpet” spell it “trekkies.” It is unclear if the spelling Gerrold used was a consistent typo by the editor, or Gerrold’s choice of words, and if it was the latter, was the double “ee” used because the term hadn’t been standardized, ignorance, or something else?
Some Topics Discussed
- Star Trek fandom, science fiction fandom, Lord of the Rings fandom
- Gerrold displays much misogyny, describing fans as stupid, panting little girls, bragging how he gets to “score” with aggressive females at cons, describes two female science fiction writers by their “Wow” looks, and much, much more!
- “Any girl who comes to a con not expecting to be deflowered - or at least ravished a little - is not only in need of a shrink, but is obviously a spoilsport and unamerican as well.”
- Lord of the Rings has had an “appalling effect” on Science Fiction, spawning terrible imitators, causing fans to dress in stupid clothes, and generally “looking backwards” rather than to the future and medieval knights and their ladies (Usually, all badly done.)“
- gatekeeping and control, protecting one’s turf
- fans and their ridiculousness, the stupidity of the masses
- fans’ inability or refusal to recognize and be grateful to the actual writers of television shows (rather than the actors) [1] who give them the shows they love; television writers get no respect for the creative, sensitive, hardworking geniuses they are
- the essay has an effusiveness of the phrases "shit” and “shit head”
- hippies and their wrong adoption of Robert Heinlein’s book “Stranger in a Strange Land”
- Star Trek is worse than Lord of the Rings because it pretends to be science fiction
- Gerrold invokes some name-dropping, at one point addressing Gene Roddenberry directly: “Believe me, Gene, I do [hold great warmth and affection for you] - you never re-wrote any of my stories - why should I hate you?”
- Star Trek can be good but it is not great; it is good enough, however, to not make it a waste of Gerrold’s time to write about it
- “The NBC vice-presidents are afraid of three things: Star Trek, science fiction, and people who are smarter than they are.”
- Violence sells on television: “For God’s sake man - I’d rather have my kids watch four hours of stag movies than one hour of Saturday morning programming.”
- “Instead of all those wonderful things television might be doing, we look forward to things like another season of nuns that fly - and boys who like to dress up as girls, etc. etc. (I can hardly wait…like, man, it’s the millenium [sic].) So, is it any wonder that a show like Star Trek which has the potential to be the greatest Science Fiction show on TV-no, make that the greatest show on TV-ends up being just another Voyage to the Bottom of the Barrel.”
- “Here is a show which could have examined every aspect of mans’ inhumanity to man, made moral statements about every element of life - and instead finds itself just one more pseudo-adventure series, where the adventures are being conceived by stale old men who think science fiction is just like western - only you use phasers instead of Colt /45s…[Star Trek] is a show which promised to be very very good - and then the networks broke that promise.”
- disses his own tribbles! “"These are the rabid little trekkees who got excited seeing a real tribble (damn it, it’s only a powder puff!)”
- “…the networks have debased and prostituted the art of the drama until it is little more than a crowd-drawer for the traveling medicine show-and once the crowd has been sufficiently teased and tantalized, the patent medicine and nostrums go on sale…. How the hell can a creative artist survive when he’s supposed to be a brassiere salesman first, and then an artist?!!”
- professional jealousy
- Gerrold considers Ronald Reagan and George Murphy to be “fine actors”
- “…The SHlT-HEADS!! What a perfect name for a group of fans!”
EDITED 1/10/2019 [TO ADD A COMMENT FROM DAVID GERROLD LEFT BELOW]
Fandom Year 69
Date: 2019-01-10 04:48 pm (local)
From: (Anonymous)
May I comment?
That was 1969. I had just come off a very bad experience with the third season producer of Star Trek. I had just come off a very bad experience with several fans. I was new to fandom, I was young and inexperienced. I was angry. I wrote some stuff. I regret it now and I apologize for it.
I have learned better - as anyone who has read any of my more recent work.
I don't think it's appropriate to blame me today for mistakes I made fifty years ago.
Thanks for reading this.
David Gerrold
_____________________________________________________________
EDITED 1/11/2019 [ANONYMOUS SUBMISSION]: To learn more about David Gerrold and his interactions with fandom I found:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_K/S_Fandom_by_David_Gerrold (1984)
https://fanlore.org/wiki/DraftTrek_Interview_with_David_Gerrold (1985)
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Somebody_asked_me_again_what_I_thought_about_K/S_fans (2013)
From 2015: David Gerrold on Star Trek and Social Justice http://www.jimchines.com/2015/02/star-trek-and-social-justice/
But I think this Fanlore section sums it up best: David Gerrold and Fandom: Sometimes Complicated
And if you want to read something amusing, I found this:
- Gerrold as a Gateway to K/S and Slash
Some fans credit Gerrold with their introduction to K/S, citing his comments in the revised edition of The World of Star Trek.
A fan writes:
I first read about K/S in a rude comment in a David Gerrold book (thank you, Mr. Gerrold!) and then in fan literature. It sounded a little weird, but okay. When I actually saw some, I was hooked immediately. Now it's the only Trek I buy.[13]
Another fan writes:
My involvement with K/S began in early '86. I'd been thinking/fantasizing about Kirk and Spock "like that" for ages... when I finally chanced upon Gerrold's famously funny remarks about the "K/S ladies'; - and practically jumped for joy! I wasn't alone!! The first zine I ever ordered was AS I DO THEE 2, and it was even more wonderful than I'd imagined K/S would be.[14]
And another says:
Fascinating how many of us owe knowledge of fandom of K/S to David Gerrold. Haybe we should get up a petition of thanks, or something. [15]
Edited 1/11/2019 [ADDITION FROM ME]
As much as I love to hear from new people, I don't have time to moderate or respond to comments,so I will have to turn them off. As time permits, I will include more links and thoughts as I find them
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