This morning while taking a break from writing my essay on Barbara Loden (a brilliant filmmaker who only finished one film,
Wanda, mostly because she was unable to get funding for any other films, and because she died 8 years later of cancer), I just read this
article on Melville House about Junot Diaz winning the genius grant, linked to by Jessa at Bookslut. It's interesting. I mean, I did internally roll my eyes when he won the award. Mostly because I had just been thinking about this answer to his
interview in the Sunday NYT:
What was your plan for this new collection? I wanted
to capture this sort of cheater’s progress, where this guy eventually
discovers for the first time the beginning of an ethical imagination.
Which of course involves the ability to imagine women as human.
I get that he's talking about his character, a chauvinist, but the idea that an "ethical imagination" involves gradually realizing women are human really annoys me. Like that's some higher level of consciousness, as opposed to just basic humanity. (A writer-friend who emailed me about this, annoyed, asked what if any other identity-marker had been substituted for women. When chauvinism can be casually accepted when other bigotry is not, at least dropped in the NYT).
Anyway, so I rolled my eyes. I guess too because at least for writers the genius grants seem to be given to those already published on trade presses who seem to be doing pretty well financially, or at least better than 99% of writers. The only writers I can think of who I was really glad won it were Anne Carson and Suzan-Lori Parks. And I wonder what the breakdown is of women writers who have won the genius grant versus men. It seems like these major awards should go to writers who would need it to continue creating their amazing work. That's why I was beyond thrilled when Vanessa Veselka won the PEN award this year. Or Eileen Myles won the Guggenheim.
This idea of genius though. It's fucked up isn't it. How much does it have to do with the already accepted status quo.
