This Week in Daniel Handler ’92

You probably know him better as Lemony Snicket (author of the incredibly successful A Series of Unfortunate Events books), but Wesleyan alum Daniel Handler ’92 has been in the news quite a bit for the past week or two. The downside? It hasn’t always been in the most positive light.

So, let’s break it down.

The Fortunate

Here’s the good stuff: Handler just landed a deal with Netflix to produce an original series based on A Series of Unfortunate Events, because let’s be real here: the 2004 film based on the books totally sucked. Like, 100% flop.

Things were looking up for Handler until…

The Unfortunate

Get ready to cringe. Handler was a presenter at the National Book Awards this past week, and when he was presenting an award to African-American author Jacqueline Woodson, he made an incredibly racist joke about her having a “watermelon allergy.” Yeah, we facepalmed, too. Did this dude really go to Wesleyan?

Handler followed up the incident by donating $10,000 to the We Need Diverse Books campaign, but many people are just eye-rolling and labeling it as a PR stunt.

My remarks on Wednesday night at #NBAwards were monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist. -DH [1/4]

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 21, 2014

It would be heartbreaking for the #NBAwards conversation to focus on my behavior instead of great books. So can we do this? -DH [2/4]

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 21, 2014

Let’s donate to #WeNeedDiverseBooks to #CelebrateJackie. I’m in for $10,000, and matching your money for 24 hours up to $100,000. -DH [3/4[

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 21, 2014

Brown Girl Dreaming is an amazing novel and we need more voices like Jacqueline Woodson. -DH [4/4]

— Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) November 21, 2014

Additionally, The Toast published a piece addressing racism in general and discussing the Handler incident.