David Walliams dropped by publisher

[azuleja]

Over inappropriate behaviour towards women. Anyone surprised?

No it's not.
A shifting/organic change in societal attitude has seen organisations gradually take inappropriate behaviour, and what constitutes same, more seriously.

@Coffeeishot "These comments come from the same men who are shouting about protecting women and children from immigrants"

These men are "protecting" children and women because they see them as possessions, in the same way as they wouldn't want their car damaged because it devalues the possession and is a sign of disrespect to the rightful owner. Not because they view women and children as worthy of protecting because they are people and deserve humane treatment. I imagine most of horrible to or about women themselves.

I had the misfortune of meeting him eight years ago at an event for young children story writers. He came across as very disinterested in the children that he was there to present awards to, and only out for self promotion. Worse than that, I sensed something very dark and disturbing about him.
I'm just surprised it's taken this long to come out.

Sorry @Coffeeishot I am sure you know that - I read it back and realised it wasn't clear from what I put that you obviously also have a low view of these men. I know you aren't defending them!

Yes I appreciate it that i did get what you meant, they couldn't care less about women they are just theirs to own. Not 1 jot do they give about autonomy of women.

I've had it with YouTube too! And for some really dark stuff like nasty bullying of a YouTuber, people celebrating terrorist attacks etc.

I think that societal shift is part of why we see social media / media articles on these issues but I don’t think the societal shift alone is enough to drive them to take action until they see that their reputation and/or profits will
take a hit.

It’s been an open secret in publishing for several years of what David Walliams is like,
how offensive the content of his books are and it’s well known by HarperCollins that writers and publishing professionals alike have been furious about it.

Why haven’t the ones at the top acted on it before and put principles ahead of profit instead of sitting on this for years ?

IMO the reason is a limited amount of people knew about it, but now it’s all coming via social media and trad media and everyone will know - they have to take action to try and separate themselves from him.

Thanks, @Rosedreaming .

It does sound very much as if this isn't a case of Harper Collins just happening to be the publisher that landed a book from some sleaze whose private behaviour they weren't aware of (as can happen), but that Harper Collins and the Murdoch empire have had extensive knowledge of his behaviour, have enabled that behaviour by continuing not just to publish him but to book school visits, and have been the engineers of a mass cover-up across the Murdoch media.

I think because the Murdoch empire goes under so many different names, a lot of people may not realise just how much of the media we consume is actually Murdoch's. If we read something from Harper-Collins, then something in the Sun or the Times, then watch something on Fox, etc, etc, it can feel like these are independent sources. But they're not.

Similarly, scandal can to some extent be isolated within one title, as happened with the shuttering of the News of the World after the phone-hacking. But the people involved just move on within Murdoch-world. Well, the big ones; the little people get shat on as ever.

The whole front page is one hatchet job after another this morning all innuendo and nudging. One comment said it's coming from digital spy forum.

Who is the Mail Online publishing stories about today? Without suggesting they've done anything, of course.

Oh, I just looked - the knighted fellow.

So 3 David's.. the football one too??

It does sound very much as if this isn't a case of Harper Collins just happening to be the publisher that landed a book from some sleaze whose private behaviour they weren't aware of (as can happen), but that Harper Collins and the Murdoch empire have had extensive knowledge of his behaviour, have enabled that behaviour by continuing not just to publish him but to book school visits, and have been the engineers of a mass cover-up across the Murdoch media.

Agreed, and not just booking school visits but spending such huge amounts on other marketing that non-celeb authors could only dream of. Until recently they have done the utmost to push his books everywhere.

Re NOTW. Someone who worked there said Murdoch had a safe with stories that were not printed, evidence collected because it was more useful as leverage. I wonder where that evidence is now

I wonder what happened to Rebecca the pretty redhead woman who was part of the trial.

We all know what happened to Morgan.

How about Terry Pratchett or Cressida Cowell? I met her once at a signing and she happily talked books and inspiration with my daughter and did her a special sketch in her copy of the book she bought.

There's been a couple of articles about him over the last few days. There's an upcoming show over Christmas which features him so it's likely about that and to be expected. It's scheduled PR and hype connected to the promotion of this which isn't related to the Walliams stuff.

Though one of the articles has been about why a co-star isn't on it and has a long running feud with above mentioned star. Which is in itself is interesting.

@BritBratGrot do you use instagram? I advise you to follow a few childrens
book bloggers for recommendations.

There are “bookstagrammers” who have already come out with detailed lists of “alternatives to Walliams” in the past few days.

They’re really quite detailed, such as “if you liked worst aunty by Walliams you’ll like X book by X author”

Tbh it makes me wonder if it was actually consensual considering he is such a creep anyway. His poor sister if that is the case.

I've been thinking about this thread and the cancelling of Walliams for very good reasons.

But I'm uneasy about cancelling generally. It's a weapon that's mostly been used against women (Kate Clanchy, anyone, or the multiple attempts against J K Rowling?) and I think it's a dangerous weapon. It's a kind of soft censorship which is perilous - who controls who is cancelled?

And I guess it's the age old question about how much we separate the artist from the art ... He's a creep and a serial sexual harasser. We can choose not to buy his books for that reason; are they still "good" books? The Neil Gaiman case is an interesting parallel. How are his sales?

Not that any of that concern about the problematic aspects of cancellation justifies Walliams' behaviour. I'm just cautious about knee jerk responses, because over the last 10 years, we've seen cancellation for what the "Other side" would call good reason - we've seen cancellation as a weapon used against women.

"I believe Sachs had dementia at the time."
Shouldn't that have constituted some sort of misdemeanor, then? Disability abuse?

And sexual abuse (I'm sorry, lad humour) of the granddaughter? Because it was basically verbal revenge porn.

(Those are rhetorical questions, of course, not aimed at you.)

I wonder what happened to Rebecca the pretty redhead woman who was part of the trial.

Rebekah Brooks née Wade? After her trial she was reappointed CEO of News UK (as it was renamed from News International).

Worth a read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Brooks

You are right. I might ask to have my original post removed though, because I feel it was infringing on her privacy.

I hated that on Little Britain, the look in his eyes and the smirk, I also hated Ann who was always wetting herself, it was cruel and so unpleasant. I did laugh at Vicky Pollard though but that of course was not Walliams.

There are some very funny answers on this Reddit thread:

www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/yib4ju/what_are_some_bad_things_that_david_attenborough/

I met DA several times about 30 years ago. I worked for a big museum and he was a trustee. The trustees had two meetings a year followed by lunch, and a few of us staff would be chosen to have lunch with them.

I was young then and got absolutely no hint whatsoever that there was anything at all dodgy about him. He was friendly and chatty with all of us and asked us lots of questions about the work we did, as well as having some great stories.