On Monday, I sent G4 president Neal Tiles a link to my post and Feminist Fatale‘s post about Chris Gore’s conduct at the “Oh, You Sexy Geek” panel. On Tuesday, I was pleased to receive this response from him:
Hey Jennifer, saw your tweet regarding Chris Gore’s reprehensible comments at Comic Con…Im disappointed at hearing this to say the least…especially, given the positive intention of the panel this occurred at. While we will certainly look into this and address with Chris, please realize, he was not booked by G4 for this. Also, know that he is not an employee of the network, rather he is currently an expert hired by us to do a weekly segment on AOTS, and he is assigned other work from time to time like Comic-Con.He is, however, attached to G4 to the point that his appearances and comment may be seen as representing G4…accordingly…we will address.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention and please accept our regret that this occurred down at San Diego.
So that’s good.
I’ve been rightfully criticized for focusing too much on negative aspects of the panel. While I do feel the disappointing and downright offensive dominated the discussion, there were some comments by Jill Pantozzi, Jennifer Stiller, Clare Kramer, and Kiala that deserve attention, so I’ll link to some panel reports that had a different take from mine:
Ali Colluccio at iFanboy.com
In addition there have been some insightful posts about issues underlying the topic the panel was addressing:
“The Origins of the Slave Leia Costume” at Stellar Four
Suzanne Scott offers some suggestions for future iterations of the panel. I would have liked more media literacy on display, and I would have liked if Katrina Hill, the moderator, would have encouraged the panel to dig a little deeper when flip answers were given. For example, a laugh line like “Because we’re all a bunch bitches!” and an invocation of “Baby Got Back” as an answer to why women criticize each other shouldn’t have been allowed to stand as the only answers. Or when “They’re drawn that way” was given as a reason to dress up in sexy costumes. A woman who is an actress in Hollywood and affected perhaps more than anyone else present (save Adrianne Curry, who told of her frustration with the fashion industry’s demand for thinness but then blamed it on “gay men who are jealous of your boobs”) like Clare Grant should have been questioned when she says that she doesn’t read certain media, so the depiction of women doesn’t affect her.
All in all, I didn’t envy Katrina Hill her job. It seemed like it was a tricky panel to wrangle. I may have thought it was disappointing, but others got something from it, and that’s definitely a start to a good discussion.
You rule. Seriously. Shout out aside (much appreciated, and I agree with the tweaks for future panels you suggest above), good on you for being proactive and expressing your disappointment with Gore’s behavior to G4. The “why can’t you take a joke” defense doesn’t fly here, and he should be made aware that few (if any) found his remarks funny. I can take a joke. I bet you can too. But none of us (particularly not the panelists) should have had to take that, and I’m happy you didn’t.
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