Due South Creator vs. MeToo

[dewline]

The fact that it's Due South fandom's moment of trauma and truth - a fandom I am part of - is a sidebar in this, I expect. But because he created that TV series that made such a splash in Canada before going on to bigger things...

As we're seeing with Harry Potter's creator for other reasons, the creations are often going to prove better than their creators.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/arts/paul-haggis-appeal-ruling.html

Comments

[sabotabby]

Isn’t that the show about the Mounties?

I feel like with what we know now, it’s the equivalent of watching a show where the heroes are SS.

[mordorbot]

Oh no. Must the bullies and abusers touch every bit of content that I love?

Given that the answer is yes, I'm willing to say that I can appreciate the good in content with an "The Author is Dead (to me)" philosophy. As long as the content itself isn't irreversibly tinged by the crime. So, Woody Allen and Louis CK are out, since I don't want to watch them opine about sex through the mouths of their characters. I will as a cultural critique, but not as a Saturday night movie night. But Harry Potter is sufficiently quiet on trans issues that I feel okay still engaging with it as a fan.

[shanejayell]

Well, ick.

Must every goddam hollywood guy have no personal ethics? I liked Due South....

[dewline]

Premise of this series centres on a Mountie who finds himself effectively exiled to consular liaison duty in Chicago for four years and the misadventures he and his new circle of local friends and acquaintances find themselves in. His "offence", the thing that earned him that exile, was successfully tracking down the man who killed his father...both of whom were fellow officers.

You could go really dark with that premise, but Haggis left after the first season, and things turned more and more screwball/superheroic/comedic from then on.

And yeah, that ugly history of the Mounted Police exists. So do my family ties to it via several relatives, dead and living. I like to believe the fictional Benton Fraser would put up a fight rather than obey such orders at all, let alone mindlessly.

[dewline]

Benton Fraser is still a better (fictional) human than either Paul Gross (by his own pre-emptive admission, despite the lack of crimes tied to him) or Paul Haggis.

And Haggis is from our London. He's a transplant to Hollywood, albeit a high-profile one.

If it turns out that these accusations are a Scientology frame-up in retaliation for his high-profile exit back in 2009 (which was prompted by their support for the infamous California Proposition 8), as alleged in some quarters...well, that's going to be interesting. Ugly and interesting, albeit in different ways.

Meantime, we wait to see how his legal battles play out.