Know This and Decide For Yourself

So what happened?

What happened was that two bloggers wrote a series of posts, first questioning what Marlise Boland’s status was – fan or journalist. The first blog stated that the 2d Anglophile Channel  interview was a relaxed one, but I was concerned that Ms. Boland was purporting to speak for fans. ( The links to the posts in chrono order are at the end)

The second and subsequent posts determined that since Marlise Boland was a journalist, her performance as an interviewer of Richard Armitage was legitimate, and in some cases, important to the future of the fandom.

As is always the case with comments on blog posts, some commenters stretch the focus of the original post, and in this case, some discussed the issue of whether she was a journalist or fan, and some also discussed what they didn’t like about her interviews.

Over 100 readers commented, mostly positively to the blog posts. Many expressed the same doubts about how she referred to fans in her interview. Many expressed their opinions that she engaged in unprofessional behavior.

Some readers here and on other platform expressed their opinion about how much they liked Marlise Boland’s interviews of Richard Armitage.

Some readers who favor Marlise Boland asserted that the reasons for the criticisms towards her work were petty, jealousy, catty because, I assume of her access to Armitage, and some claimed it was sexism

I’ll break up my chronology here just to say that in my opinion, women who use the “jealousy, catty, petty” arguments against other women are among the worst sort of sexists around.  In the wake of detailed, supported, individual criticisms of Boland’s style and shortcomings, the response that criticism is driven by the feminine faults of petty jealousy and cattiness relies on stereotypical female-bashing.

And by the way – few, if any supporters of Marlise Boland have offered any rebuttal to the legitimate criticisms made of her interview style – other than ” Richard  adores her.” ( By the way, a finding not based in fact. We don’t know whether he adores her.)

Marlise Boland’s self-appointed P.R. spokesperson reached out by email to one of the blogs and basically told her to stop criticizing Marlise Boland.

Marlise Boland issued a tweet and blog post that had in it, not so veiled complaints and insults about the blog posts.

The two bloggers responded to Marlise Boland’s post on their own blogs.

More comments came in, for the most part agreeing with the position stated in the posts.

Marlise Boland’s self-appointed press spokesperson came on this blog to excoriate the two bloggers, ranting that Richard Armitage wouldn’t like Marlise Boland to be criticized, ( this is just the sort of behavior Richard hates) and throwing around insults to the bloggers.

As was completely expected by anyone who has had experience with the self-appointed spokesperson, she claimed that the bloggers ( and presumably all the over 100 people who commented an agreed, and maybe the almost 4,000 people who read at least one of the blogs,) are bullies -we are bullies because we (a) criticized Marlies Boland and (b) responded to those who objected to the posts with facts, examples, ethical considerations, etc.)

We are bullies because we defended our positions.

Marlise Boland’s self-appointed P.R. person has gone to twitter to (a) get vocal support for Marlise Boland and (b) spread it around that the bloggers, and I guess anyone who agrees with their position) are bullies.

here’s a sample of the ad hominem attacks. There are more on twitter.

You and Servetus are a pieces of work. How do you think RA would react if he saw this kind of post?From reading his interviews – and messages on RA Online in the past – these latest attacks on Marlise are PRECISELY the kind of in-fighting he abhors. Marlise has a generous heart, a terrific sense of humor, and CARES not only about the artists she interviews, but also about each artist’s faniverse.

I know you both think and Servetus has even called me her publicist. I’m not, of course. I’m just one of thousands of RA fans who love the RA that Marlise is able to reveal. Truly, she shows us RA as we’ve never seen him before.

Don’t you have anything POSITIVE to write about?, especially *this* time of year?

Bless your hearts!

and

Submitted on 2014/12/21 at 12:23 am | In reply to Perry.

Why stop now, Perry? You’ve been passively aggressively criticizing her all along! You and Servetus are so delusional.
In my reference to these attacks, I didn’t refer to specific bloggers either. Didn’t want to give you and S.’s blogs the traffic.

“Belle”

The blog links are below. It pays to read the comments.

https://armitageagonistes.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/the-anglophile-i-chat-interview-part-2/

http://meandrichard.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/30053/

http://meandrichard.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/who-is-our-fandom-for/

https://armitageagonistes.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/marlise-boland-i-have-enough-energy-for-both/

http://meandrichard.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/marlise-boland-condescends-to-fans-of-richard-armitage-who-are-not-positive-enough-about-her/