I soured a bit on Palmer years ago when she went on tour, asking for local musicians to volunteer their time to accompany her instead of paying them. I felt it was exploitative and if I’m paying money to go see a concert I don’t want to see a bunch of amateurs who haven’t had time to rehearse with main attraction. Chuck Berry used to do this and while this made his concerts needlessly bad at least he paid his musicians.
I’m not usually one to connect an artist’s personality to their art, but I can’t help drawing a parallel between Palmer and her song “Coin Operated Boy.” In COB, the narrator goes on about how she wants a boy whose switch she can flip and he’ll pretty much cater to her every whim and need. The narrator doesn’t reciprocate, mentions all the real boys she’s destroyed, and admits during the song that it’s written to make you feel smitten with her. The narrator is a manipulative piece of garbage who isn’t concerned with who she hurts just so long as she gets what she wants.
I think it has more to do with relative obscurity. When this story broke we had a bunch of posters wondering who Neil Gaiman was despite being one of the more famous and widely adapted writers of today. The Dresden Dolls have a loyal but very small following. Amanda Palmer alone is even more niche. Personally I never heard of her except with regards to her marriage. If you try to drum up outrage against her I bet you will mostly get replies of “Who?”
I’m very active in various Tori Amos communities (and thankfully I don’t see her name come up too often about this) and the consensus about Amanda seems to be… a perplexed sigh. No one wants to hold her to a higher standard than NG. No one wants to let her off the hook if she was complicit. It feels like we don’t know quiet enough and we don’t want to unfairly make a woman pay the price for a man’s crimes. Yet.
I’m inclined to agree with this. Many of my friends are devoted Gaiman fans.I had never even heard of Palmer until a few years ago, when my beloved showed me Coin Operated Boy on Youtube. I like the song. My beloved often sings it while playing it on her guita. I could not name another member of the Dresden Dolls or any of their songs.
If you’re saying that someone in this thread is telling on themself, then first, that’s a personal attack and hence is prohibited in this forum (and most of the rest of the forums on this board), and second, you need to report those posts.
The analog is that Marion Zimmer Bradley (well known author of “The Mists of Avalon” among other novels) was married to one Walter Breen, who was a well known writer/coin collector in his own right. He was fairly well known to be a child molester even back in the 60s - before they got hitched - but never convicted until the late 80s or early 90s.
As it happens, she was well aware of his activities the entire time, even before they got married. And not only did she not report his crimes, she very likely actively abetted them. One of the victims was their own daughter, whom Bradley also very likely molested herself. Her fans were very defensive of her until the weight of evidence of her involvement became too much to ignore, which was maybe 10-15 years ago now.
Amanda Palmer with high likelihood probably did not go that far, but even the best scenario does not speak very well of her.
ETA: Oh, and since John Scalzi has come up in this thread, he very publicly made a similar public break with Bradley back then, too, though she had died around the turn of the century. She was one of the big names in the industry, so it came as a bit of shock to a lot of people.
It’s possible Gaiman was manipulating Palmer as well. It seemed pretty clear in the article he held the financial power and wasn’t afraid to take advantage of it.
"In 2014, the cracks in Gaiman and Palmer’s marriage began to show to those around them. While they were at Bard, they decided to buy a house upstate. Palmer would have preferred to live in New York City, but Gaiman liked the woods. Eventually, he picked a sprawling estate set on 80 acres in Woodstock. It was Gaiman’s money, a friend who accompanied them on the house hunt says, “and he was going to have the say.”
Shortly after this is apparently when she became pregnant, leaving her even more dependent and vulnerable. Just because she is a minor celebrity doesn’t make her immune to being abused and manipulated by her more powerful husband.
A court document out today, February 3rd, talks about Gaiman’s sexual abuse (similar to in the Vulture article) and talks about Amanda Palmer’s role in all this.
Warning for explicit details of sexual abuse that might be hard to read.
I’m not a lawyer so it’s not clear to me what role that document is intended to serve. If it is a complaint in a civil suit (for money?), doesn’t that mean that these are as-yet-unproven charges? Or is it something else?
Indeed. I have friends – mostly women – who were big fans of MZB’s writing, and especially the strong women, and female-led societies, in her books. They were aghast when the abuse stories became known to the general public.
It sounds like he behaved himself when Palmer was around and became abusive when she was away. I can certainly understand why these women were afraid to speak up but I can also see that Palmer would not be aware of what was going on if they didn’t tell her.
From the article: “By the time she asked Pavlovich to babysit, Palmer was fed up with Gaiman’s behavior, but “she still had some faith in his decency,” a friend says. Still, she knew enough to warn Gaiman to stay away from their new babysitter. “I remember specifically her saying, ‘You could really hurt this person and break her; keep your hands off of her,’” the friend says. And Palmer still hoped, according to those close to her, that she and Gaiman would be able to negotiate a peaceful co-parenting arrangement. She found a school for their child and the two houses on Waiheke. “She was going to do her best to keep Neil as a presence for her son,” one friend says.”
I don’t see evidence that she said this with the intention to provoke Gaiman into assaulting the woman.
Yes, it’s a civil complaint, alleging common law and statutory torts (civil wrongs) committed by Gaiman and Palmer.
It starts the court action, in federal District Court in Wisconsin. The allegations it makes have not yet been proven in court. Gaiman and Palmer will both be able to file statements of defence.
If the matter goes to trial, the plaintiff will have to prove the allegations on a balance of probabilities to be successful. If she is successful, she will be entitled to monetary damages. The amount claimed is not set out in this document.
Not sure what that is about but stuff about her randomly shows up in my Facebook feed and lots of people there seem to enjoy attacking her for vague reasons that often appear sexist.
You can argue about the morality of asking people to volunteer for paid shows but it sounds like they know what they are agreeing to and as exploitation goes it’s…not really all that high up there.
When the person doing the asking is personally wealthy, it’s immoral. There, that’s my part of the argument. Well, that and the wholesale plagiarism of her pre-Dresden Dolls Giving Bride act.
And you’re not defending the pre-Gaiman sexual behaviour, I see. And I’m not just talking about sleeping with teen fans. Unwanted groping comes up frequently.
Do you have an accusation you want to make against me, here? Otherwise i don’t see the relevance of your thirdhand impression of why people on a completely different site are saying things.