Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

OscarGuy wrote:Marco's behavior was always aggressive and he and I certainly did not see eye to eye. However, his repeated mistreatment of others led to a number of prominent members leaving over the years and refusing to come back. He may have had some good opinions about film, but he always attacked people personally, and dismissed them and their opinions due to some personal affectation/belief/idea. When confronted, he would double-down on the comment and insist that it was some American sensibility that insisted we call him out rather than a sense of moral obligation that was actually at the root of the matter. He had been warned on several occasions and after a long and personally very difficult decision, I chose to ban him.

There is nothing wrong with a dissenting opinion. However, his persistent mental/verbal abuse of other members was inappropriate and, after awhile, I had to do something. It wasn't one specific exchange, but a totality/pattern of problematic exchanges along with information shared with me privately by email from those who left the board rather than continuing to listen to someone who acted like he did.

Gone are the days where you can say whatever offensive thing comes into your mind. Marco was never going to change. He proved that over the last few years. A difficult decision had to be made, and I made it. He won't understand it and I'm sure others won't understand it either, but I do not regret the decision. Other than a handful of exceptional cases, the conversations here have continued at their same high standards, just without the aggressive, offensive, or exceedingly negative attitude Marco brought with him.

In this day and age, it is even more important that we curb mental/verbal abuse within our own communities. If we do not, we cannot expect others to curb abuse elsewhere, nor can we claim a position of moral superiority when we tolerate or even permit such behavior.

HarryGoldfarb wrote:Hey Reza...

I speak to Marco on a semi-regular basis.

We exchanged messages through WhatsApp yesterday and he informed me that he wasn't asked to leave but was banned instead. He asked me if I could post a message from him, maybe as a farewell on his part. Incisive as only he can be, out of respect I decided not to change a single word from the text he sent me. Here it is:

As Oscar Guy cleary won’t answer you, I must do it – through kind HarryGoldfarb. I haven’t been asked to leave (which of course I would have done). I have been banned from this board (my password blocked) by – you guessed it – Oscar Guy, after a short message telling me that I am persona non grata here. Not grata by him, definitely: those who are not used to people speaking their own mind are scared by them, and scared by truths which don’t conform to the reassuring mantras they hear and repeat. And honesty, let’s face it, is more disturbing than idiocy. That’s life, this is his board after all, and I don’t really care But I still come here from time to time, to read your (and others’) posts – great that you watch all those Italian movies Reza: some of those are not easy to find even here in Italy! A big ciao to all the friends on this board… Marco

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And that was it.

Indeed, it is a shame that we are deprived of an interesting voice, which always has something to say about the art that unites us as a group. I do not post here as frequently as I'd like: I think that my contributions end up being minor in a discussion starred by wonderful, different, but always educated people, people who know about cinema and who love cinema, people that I constantly learn from. And beyond the differences that may manifest in a community like this, we lose out when voices are silenced. We are scarce, if you have not noticed, and over time I think this situation will be exacerbated. But I must agree with Marco on something: this board is OscarGuy's board, and if what Marco says is true (I always like to leave the benefit of the doubt on the table) then there is nothing to do. But from experience I know that silencing voices, even if the intentions seems to be the most noble, fosters a climate of self-censorship that threatens the plurality of voices needed in free environments.

Perhaps Marco's personality ended up being way excessive and unbearable for some people here, and that's ok... maybe his forced and unwilling departure from the board is nothing more than the direct consequence of his constant expression of his very vocal personality. But that does not prevent that for others, including myself, his contributions will be deeply missed.