Author Eric Stone posted this on the DorothyL discussion list this morning:
Did anyone else who attended Men of Mystery in Irvine, California
on Saturday find the story Dean Koontz told in his speech about his
letter writing campaign to the president of a Japanese company, offensive? I
did. And I’m pretty hard to offend. At least one other author I know who
was there, who has lived in Japan, also found it offensive. We both were
aghast. While most of the people in the audience were laughing, we
weren’t.
I write thrillers that are set in Asia. I know the region well.
I lived and worked in Asia for 11 years and though I never lived in Japan, I
visited it for business and on holidays at least twice a year that entire
time. If I was ever to create a character that would say or write things
similar to what Mr. Koontz claimed to have written in his letters to the
Japanese corporate executive, it would be for the purpose of showing him as
a culturally-insensitive lout – the Ugly American personified as it
were.
Sheesh, I was enjoying the event up until then, and looking forward
to hearing Mr. Koontz speak.
I also found his letters to the Japanese CEO offensive.
So did quite a few other authors in attendance (I didn’t talk to any of the 550 "civilians" in the audience
about it).
Koontz talked about a dispute he
had with a studio owned by a Japanese company and regaled the audience with the
letters he wrote to the Japanese CEO, who he referred to as "Mr. Teriyaki." The
letters used WWII, the Japanese surrender, Bataan Death March, and Godzilla to ridicule the CEO and
browbeat him into taking Koontz’s name off a movie based on one of his books. To
say the jokes were in horrifically bad taste and that letters
themselves were cringe-inducing in their boorish insensitivity would be an
understatement.
What if the CEO was black? Would Koontz have addressed his letters to Mr. Fried Chicken and joked about the good old days of slavery and racial discrimination? Or if
the CEO was a Jew? Would he have called him Mr. Matzoball and reminded him of the
Holocaust? I was astonished that people were laughing when they should have
shunned him with silence. It’s a shame, because Koontz is an incredibly talented
writer who I’m sure could have delivered both an entertaining and interesting
speech.
UPDATE: My brother Tod was also shocked by Koontz’s speech.
Each letter was addressed to "Mr. Teriyaki." (Internment camps were not
mentioned in any of the letters, which I assume was a simple omission on Mr.
Koontz’s part and will be rectified in the future.)
Stunningly, the audience thrilled to the stories! The laughter cascaded about
the room! People dabbed tears! Do you have any stories about your hatred of the
Jews, Mr. Koontz? Any good ones about the Muslim world? How about a notation on
some more racial stereotypes you’ve used when negotiating your name off other
shitty movies?
Happily, author after author came walking to the back of the room in horror
(more horror than is typically engendered by one of Koontz’s books, no doubt)
and wonder about what they were hearing. Did he really just tell a 15 minute
story about the Japanese where he referred to the person in question as Mr.
Teriyaki? Was the audience really laughing? Or, as Rob Roberge said, "Is he
coming out in blackface next?"
UPDATE: I got a call today from Dean Koontz, who wasn’t pleased about the comments here. I apologized to him for using "Sambo" and "Kike" as comparisons for his use of "Mr. Teriyaki" to refer to the Asian exec. He found the use of those words pejorative and said they mischaracterized the tenor of his speech. I agreed. So I have changed them to "Mr. Fried Chicken" and "Mr. Matzoball." I believe his speech was offensive and in bad taste — and I reiterated that belief to him in our phone conversation.
Author Joe Konrath, who was also in attendance, weighs in on his blog:
There’s a lot of buzz circulating about Dean Koontz’s speech, and how
he offended many attendees. Personally, I didn’t find the remarks
offensive—Koontz was purposely trying to be humorously insulting, in
order to get a certain Japanese CEO to drop his name from a movie
title. His goal was to dishonor the guy. The problem was in the set-up
and the execution. Koontz just wasn’t very funny. George Carlin is a
lot more offensive, but gets away with it because he’s funny.
Had
Koontz spent more time showing he was the underdog, and established
that he wasn’t racist and did all of this to right an injustice (rather
than because he simply wanted his way, which is how he came off), I
think the story would have gone over a little better.
Or perhaps Mr. Koontz should simply retire this particular anecdote.
More UPDATES on the jump:
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