Good Art vs Evil Artists - Essay Rejected; Discuss Here Instead

[ElectricBlue]

This part is true. Some people are very good at hiding who they are. But that doesn't preclude acting on information when we do know.

I have dozens of books by Neil Gaiman, I have stuff he's signed, I've watched/bought several of his shows and movies. I feel no guilt about that, because I didn't know what he was when I handed over my money. But now that I do know, I'm not going to keep putting money in his pocket.

Reading that gets to be more a disappointment than anything else, if all the facts emerge with, as Simon notes, credible evidence.

[Edit - content redacted]

 

[Areala-chan]

On a long enough timeline, even the most progressive individual in the world today will, to the people of the future, look the way the most progressive person of the 1700s looks to us here in the 21st century. There's a slope here which is quite slippery. I've done bad things in my life--nothing heinous or depraved, but I'm far from perfect. I suspect much the same of the other readers here.

This is a very, very difficult line to draw, and it will be personal in different ways for everyone else. I'll use a personal example here: I was never big into Harry Potter, but my wife and I saw every movie as it came out. She owns all the books. We have all the DVDs. She's been to the Harry Potter park down there in Florida. J.K. Rowling has received some of our money over the years. Does that suck? Sure.

But aside from Rowling, there are tens of thousands of other people who've been able to create their own livelihoods because she wrote those books. It wasn't her hand alone that got them into print--sure, she crafted the stories, but dozens of other people along the way got them edited, typeset, printed, shipped, distributed, and so forth. I work in a bookstore; I have directly profited off Rowling's creative output because part of what I get paid for is to put a book in someone's hand when they ask for it, and if they ask for Harry Potter, then I'm walking them to the Young Adult section, and a portion of that transaction ensures I remain employed and able to contribute to society.

The credits for the Harry Potter films do not start and end with J.K. Rowling; there were hundreds and hundreds of people involved in every aspect of their creation, from the costumes to set design to special effects to acting to location scouting to editing to scripting to the act of physically shipping out the film reels or hard drives containing the end result of all that work, not to mention the projectionists employed to screen them. And, yes, Rowling got a piece of every bit of that action. But so did thousands of other people who are not Rowling, and I'd be willing to bet no one working with her had any idea she was a garbage person until long after the fact.

If the artist in question is dead, that to me makes the distinction a lot easier. There's no denying H.P. Lovecraft held some pretty damn "WTF, dude?" views about the rest of humanity. He's also been dead since two years before the start of World War II: if I purchase a collection of his work, and I enjoy the stories within, he's not profiting in any way. John Lennon might have been an abusive asshole, but as was pointed out earlier, he's not around to fuck up my enjoyment of listening to the Beatles. He was murdered long before I could even recognize his music, and the Beatles were more than Lennon alone.

But then we come to somebody like Bill Cosby. I'm unbelievably pissed off because Bill Cosby forever ruined my enjoyment of listening to his stand-up comedy. "Bill Cosby: Himself" was a go-to video when I was a kid and needed a pick-me-up. I bought half a dozen of his comedy records, and listened to them so often that I can quote huge swaths of those skits verbatim. But I haven't listened to any of them in over ten years. Maybe after he's gone, I'll feel like I can enjoy his stand-up material again. Or maybe not. The damage has been done, and I don't see him being six feet underground doing much to repair that damage. The revelation of Cosby's character was far more personal to me because of my emotional, contemporaneous attachment to his material, something which I do not share with J.K. Rowling, John Lennon, or H.P. Lovecraft.

There is no right answer to this question. There is no solution to this question, aside from one that is personal to every individual. I doubt I'm any more qualified to come to a concrete conclusion on this than I would be on any other matter of philosophy. All I can do is what works for me, and try my best not to give more of my time, money, and attention to people who aren't deserving of it than is absolutely necessary.

 

[Yarglenurp]

On a long enough timeline, even the most progressive individual in the world today will, to the people of the future, look the way the most progressive person of the 1700s looks to us here in the 21st century. There's a slope here which is quite slippery. I've done bad things in my life--nothing heinous or depraved, but I'm far from perfect. I suspect much the same of the other readers here.

This is a very, very difficult line to draw, and it will be personal in different ways for everyone else. I'll use a personal example here: I was never big into Harry Potter, but my wife and I saw every movie as it came out. She owns all the books. We have all the DVDs. She's been to the Harry Potter park down there in Florida. J.K. Rowling has received some of our money over the years. Does that suck? Sure.

But aside from Rowling, there are tens of thousands of other people who've been able to create their own livelihoods because she wrote those books. It wasn't her hand alone that got them into print--sure, she crafted the stories, but dozens of other people along the way got them edited, typeset, printed, shipped, distributed, and so forth. I work in a bookstore; I have directly profited off Rowling's creative output because part of what I get paid for is to put a book in someone's hand when they ask for it, and if they ask for Harry Potter, then I'm walking them to the Young Adult section, and a portion of that transaction ensures I remain employed and able to contribute to society.

The credits for the Harry Potter films do not start and end with J.K. Rowling; there were hundreds and hundreds of people involved in every aspect of their creation, from the costumes to set design to special effects to acting to location scouting to editing to scripting to the act of physically shipping out the film reels or hard drives containing the end result of all that work, not to mention the projectionists employed to screen them. And, yes, Rowling got a piece of every bit of that action. But so did thousands of other people who are not Rowling, and I'd be willing to bet no one working with her had any idea she was a garbage person until long after the fact.

If the artist in question is dead, that to me makes the distinction a lot easier. There's no denying H.P. Lovecraft held some pretty damn "WTF, dude?" views about the rest of humanity. He's also been dead since two years before the start of World War II: if I purchase a collection of his work, and I enjoy the stories within, he's not profiting in any way. John Lennon might have been an abusive asshole, but as was pointed out earlier, he's not around to fuck up my enjoyment of listening to the Beatles. He was murdered long before I could even recognize his music, and the Beatles were more than Lennon alone.

But then we come to somebody like Bill Cosby. I'm unbelievably pissed off because Bill Cosby forever ruined my enjoyment of listening to his stand-up comedy. "Bill Cosby: Himself" was a go-to video when I was a kid and needed a pick-me-up. I bought half a dozen of his comedy records, and listened to them so often that I can quote huge swaths of those skits verbatim. But I haven't listened to any of them in over ten years. Maybe after he's gone, I'll feel like I can enjoy his stand-up material again. Or maybe not. The damage has been done, and I don't see him being six feet underground doing much to repair that damage. The revelation of Cosby's character was far more personal to me because of my emotional, contemporaneous attachment to his material, something which I do not share with J.K. Rowling, John Lennon, or H.P. Lovecraft.

There is no right answer to this question. There is no solution to this question, aside from one that is personal to every individual. I doubt I'm any more qualified to come to a concrete conclusion on this than I would be on any other matter of philosophy. All I can do is what works for me, and try my best not to give more of my time, money, and attention to people who aren't deserving of it than is absolutely necessary.

Yeah, but on a long enough timeline, I’ll be dead, so I won’t really care what future-folk think of me.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

It’s certainly possible to distinguish between the value of a piece of art and the character of the person who created it. In fact it is desirable. But it is also possible not to judge these people at all, lest you be judged a Karen.

I do my best to distinguish between the value of the art and the character of the artist, but if the former is tainted by the latter, that becomes difficult to impossible.

Gibson is evil?? Oh come on.

Gibson's an incredibly skilled filmmaker. He's also a sedevacantist Catholic who rejects the reforms of Vatican II, including the part exonerating the Jews for killing Jesus, hence the controversy over The Passion of the Christ.

There was also that time he left his ex-partner and the mother of his young son a thirty-minute voicemail threatening to burn her house down and telling her: “you look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n*****s, it will be your fault.”

I wonder why they broke up.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I hadn't heard of any of those allegations before.

Didn't mean to imply you ought to have. The first of them only came out a couple of months ago and they haven't been particularly widely reported.

I briefly scanned what you linked to and Googled allegations of wrongdoing. To be clear I haven't spent more than 5 minutes on the matter. You may have researched the matter at much greater length.

As far as I know, allegations have been made, but nothing's been proven or decided. I confess I don't know. In those situations, my attitude is to try to keep an open mind and to want to see evidence before I form my own judgment. The number of allegations makes a difference. If one person makes allegations that are denied by the other person, I don't know what to believe. If multiple people make similar allegations against a person, I'm much more likely to make a judgment. I don't know enough at this point to have any opinion, but you may feel you do.

I'm likewise cautious when there's only a single accusation and nothing else to support it (e.g. the one against George Takei a couple of years back, which I think was eventually retracted). But in this case there are five separate women accusing him of sexually predatory behaviour, some of which behaviour would probably be sexual assault if confirmed, some of which might not be illegal but at the very least would be extremely shitty.

Since the story broke he's made no public statements about it and has cancelled one engagement where people would likely have asked uncomfortable questions. In the past he's been willing to go to court to defend his interests (I've mentioned Gaiman v. MacFarlane here before) but he does not appear to have initiated any kind of legal proceedings for defamation in this case. At this point it seems fair to say he's had a chance to reply and has opted not to.

But I don't mean to derail this into a discussion about the specifics of this case, just bringing it up as an example.

 

[cadeauxxx]

You are putting your personal politics and moral beliefs to call out others. That's why it was rejected.
One day artists will be gone, much like Lovecraft and then 100 years later, you'll have a new generation coming around to moral high ground over liking his stuff due to views and opinions he had that are no longer relevant due to the fact he is dead.

The court of public opinion has had power over fact since the days of Oscar Wilde.

In the end the scapegoats don't matter. You can only improve your life on an individual level, and that's way more important than calling out people you've never met. Only a person themselves can make improvements and do something to become happy in life.

It’s certainly possible to distinguish between the value of a piece of art and the character of the person who created it. In fact it is desirable. But it is also possible not to judge these people at all, lest you be judged a Karen. Gibson is evil?? Oh come on.

100% agree, but then people won't be able to feel better about themselves using pseudo-morals to make judgements and remind everyone they are a Good Person™.

Back in the early 90s churches burned heavy metal and rap records, blaming them for making people evil. All the stuff we've had since 2015 with moral panics is very reminiscent of that.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

You are putting your personal politics and moral beliefs to call out others. That's why it was rejected.

There isn't single word about politics, let alone my personal politics, in the entire essay, or else that would have been the stated reason for the rejection instead of the line about criticizing other Lit users or real-life persons; and I don't call out the individual Lit user by name (or username) for obvious reasons. Evidently, anonymizing the person wasn't enough to satisfy the mods, but I'm still wondering whether the clause about identifiable real-life people also covers the famous scumbags I do name in the essay.

 

[cadeauxxx]

There isn't single word about politics, let alone my personal politics, in the entire essay, or else that would have been the stated reason for the rejection instead of the line about criticizing other Lit users or real-life persons; and I don't call out the individual Lit user by name (or username) for obvious reasons. Evidently, anonymizing the person wasn't enough to satisfy the mods, but I'm still wondering whether the clause about identifiable real-life people also covers the famous scumbags I do name in the essay.

Using your own writing as a platform to deem people scumbags, famous or not is likely why it was rejected.

 

[Yarglenurp]

You are putting your personal politics and moral beliefs to call out others. That's why it was rejected.
One day artists will be gone, much like Lovecraft and then 100 years later, you'll have a new generation coming around to moral high ground over liking his stuff due to views and opinions he had that are no longer relevant due to the fact he is dead.

The court of public opinion has had power over fact since the days of Oscar Wilde.

In the end the scapegoats don't matter. You can only improve your life on an individual level, and that's way more important than calling out people you've never met. Only a person themselves can make improvements and do something to become happy in life.




100% agree, but then people won't be able to feel better about themselves using pseudo-morals to make judgements and remind everyone they are a Good Person™.

Back in the early 90s churches burned heavy metal and rap records, blaming them for making people evil. All the stuff we've had since 2015 with moral panics is very reminiscent of that.

It’s totally part of working to improve yourself by saying, “ah, shit, this thing I liked was made by a total shit of a human and it’s ruined my enjoyment of that thing. Well, fuck it, I’m cutting that thing out of my life.”

It’s absolutely sensical and morally correct to hate a living or recently-deceased person’s work if we find out they’re evil because they are always going to use their popularity to continue doing bad shit or escaping the consequences of doing bad shit. These fuckers use their wealth and fame to hush their victims up, hire people to put up roadblocks to prosecutors, and find new innocent people to victimize.

There is no separation of the art and artist in those cases, because the art is just the vehicle through which the artist acquires more wealth and power. They then use that wealth and power to escape justice, and then ordinary people start thinking, “well, maybe he isn’t such a bad guy… if he was actually that bad, he’d be behind bars.”

Let’s be clear on what Roman Polanski did, eh? He drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. He likely did so to multiple other women. By the standards of his times, this was considered a bad act and he was destined for prison. Yet he used his massive wealth and advantageous legal position to escape imprisonment. He then kept influencing the world through his films, effectively showing everyone that it was ok to drug and rape girls so long as you’re a good director.

Let’s be clear about what HP Lovecraft did. He wrote some racist things. To my knowledge, he never acted on those racist things in any egregious ways, nor is that racism overly present in his writings beyond the standard fantasy tropes of his times. Also, the dude is dead and most of his fame came post-humorously, so elevating his work doesn’t benefit him at all. So, I’m pretty sure most of us can see the substantial difference between Lovecraft and Polanski.

Not all artists are the same, not all bad acts are the same, and not all support is the same. Writing some racist things in a mostly-private setting vs drugging and raping a 13-year old girl are not equivalent. Enjoying the work of a long-dead man who’s work does not focus on the negative aspects of his beliefs is not the same as enjoying the work of a living man who will inevitably use the money and good will to keep perpetuating injustice. These are two completely different things.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Using your own writing as a platform to deem people scumbags, famous or not is likely why it was rejected.

I'm not "deeming" them scumbags, the crimes of the individuals mentioned in the essay are public knowledge. Roman Polanski is a fugitive from justice convicted in absentia of raping an underage girl; R Kelly is a convicted and incarcerated felon who created a harem of underage girls, and was briefly married to an underage singer who performed a song he wrote called "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number"; Mel Gibson's antisemitic views and racist views are well known. Whether or not it's moral to enjoy their artwork is a matter of personal conviction, but the scumbaggery of these people is not a matter of me casting personal judgment on them, it's simply a fact.

 

[Voboy]

I separate art from artist all the time. I have no cognitive dissonance when doing so. I can hate what Weinstein did while still respecting what Reservoir Dogs represented in that industry.

People are complicated, and their behaviors are seldom a function of their personality. I know, from myself, that the stories I write don't reflect my own behavior, nor even my own kinks in some cases. I would wish people I meet and interact with to separate my stories from my personality. I don't see why I shouldn't hold others to a similar standard.

Good people often do bad things. The history of social psychology is PACKED with examples of that. I don't think it's such a hot take to say that bad people can do good things too. It's fine to enjoy those good things. The Nazis came up with the idea of Olympic torch relays; nobody seriously suggests we should do away with those. The torch relay was a damn good idea. The whole world overlooks where it came from and appreciates it for what it is. I do the same with, say, Kevin Spacey's movies.

I do believe it's important, in an educational or "awards" context, to mention and discuss the problematic nature of the artist... while enjoying the art, not while pretending it doesn't exist.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Good people often do bad things. The history of social psychology is PACKED with examples of that. I don't think it's such a hot take to say that bad people can do good things too. It's fine to enjoy those good things. The Nazis came up with the idea of Olympic torch relays; nobody seriously suggests we should do away with those. The torch relay was a damn good idea. The whole world overlooks where it came from and appreciates it for what it is. I do the same with, say, Kevin Spacey's movies.

I brought up in my (unpublished) essay, but a lot of people don't know that Kevin Spacey was actually acquitted on all charges in a UK criminal trial and won a civil lawsuit brought against him by Anthony Rapp. They were not settled out of court without a resolution, he won on the merits of each case, so he's been exonerated.

 

[lovecraft68]

I know I'm oversimplifying, but if someone in real life committed the crimes some of these 'artists" did. You would lose your job and be in jail, and good luck finding any life once you get out.

But not these people.

If you were to find out your neighbor was molesting or beating their child, abusing their spouse, doing other disgusting things, would you still invite them over to the cookout? Would you even want to speak to them?

I imagine the answer is no.

In fact three years ago the guy down the street was arrested for beating his wife, who then left him, and for the three months he stayed in the house before moving, not one person drove by him without giving him the look of death and the guy next door to him told him in no uncertain terms to watch where he steps because if he ends up on his property he may get shot.

That's a human reaction, I daresay the right one.

But oh, they made that movie, sang that song, drew that picture that is so important to me, so essential to my life, so powerful and amazing, that I will continue to consume it and say "Yeah, double standard, that rapist is scum and I better never see him around, but this guy well....I'll let it slide so I can watch that masterpiece again.

Regardless of the 'art' that genre/field is filled with content. Surely there are better people who's work you could support.

Back to this is a society that if someone backs a politician, or a proposed law, or says something offensive, that in the end, really isn't.

Good example. People boycotting Bud Lite because of someone they put on a can-and a limited addition, not all the time can, at that, but people wanting to ruin that entire company and putting people out of jobs over something you just don't like.

But those same people will still watch football. I say, yeah, but isn't there bud lite signs all over the stadiums? Aren't they like every third commercial you see?

Well...

And, um, didn't that guy whose jersey you're wearing just get arrested for domestic abuse?

Well...

Then why are you watching it?

Because I like it.

Hmm, so you'll try to destroy hard working people who work for that company, but if it gets in the way of what you enjoy, suddenly it's okay?

You get the point.

It's that simple. Anyone doing the "well, you see its not that simple" just wants to make excuses.

When there is a victim, or victims, who this person has caused pain and trauma to, and will live the rest of their lives hearing people like some in this thread saying "Oh, you ever see the Piano! So good! You see how many yards Watson threw for?"

Your support and fangirling perpetuate that person's pain, says their suffering is okay, makes light of it and throws salt in their wounds every day. But hey, you just can't live without that movie, can you?

Try thinking about that.

 

[Voboy]

Not all artists are the same, not all bad acts are the same, and not all support is the same. Writing some racist things in a mostly-private setting vs drugging and raping a 13-year old girl are not equivalent. Enjoying the work of a long-dead man who’s work does not focus on the negative aspects of his beliefs is not the same as enjoying the work of a living man who will inevitably use the money and good will to keep perpetuating injustice. These are two completely different things.

I'm genuinely curious: I'm not looking to pick a fight, but your post interested me for a few reasons. I've got a question about the paragraph I've quoted:

Do you think it'll be appropriate to appreciate Polanski's films once he's dead?

If you were to find out your neighbor was molesting or beating their child, abusing their spouse, doing other disgusting things, would you still invite them over to the cookout? Would you even want to speak to them?

I imagine the answer is no.

A cookout is not "art." Sharing a meal with someone is an act of friendliness; watching a film they've made is not.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'm genuinely curious: I'm not looking to pick a fight, but your post interested me for a few reasons. I've got a question about the paragraph I've quoted:

Do you think it'll be appropriate to appreciate Polanski's films once he's dead?



A cookout is not "art." Sharing a meal with someone is an act of friendliness; watching a film they've made is not.

Most of the time, watching a film involves some kind of transactional payment. Not all the time, sure, but it's reasonable to assume a copy is purchased or streamed. Money changes hands and those people profit.

 

[Voboy]

Most of the time, watching a film involves some kind of transactional payment. Not all the time, sure, but it's reasonable to assume a copy is purchased or streamed. Money changes hands and those people profit.

I understand that.

My question was for @Yarglenurp because his post seems to draw a moral distinction between supporting the work of dead people and supporting the work of living people. I'm seeking clarification about that viewpoint.

 

[lovecraft68]

I understand that.

My question was for @Yarglenurp because his post seems to draw a moral distinction between supporting the work of dead people and supporting the work of living people. I'm seeking clarification about that viewpoint.

I wasn't responding directly to you. More like some others.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Most of the time, watching a film involves some kind of transactional payment. Not all the time, sure, but it's reasonable to assume a copy is purchased or streamed. Money changes hands and those people profit.

When I found out that Disney had included the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau in the credits for their live-action Mulan, the same organization that runs the Uighur "re-education" camps, I decided to watch a swashbuckling version, if you know what I mean.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Let’s be clear about what HP Lovecraft did. He wrote some racist things. To my knowledge, he never acted on those racist things in any egregious ways, nor is that racism overly present in his writings beyond the standard fantasy tropes of his times.

Uh, no. Lovecraft was unusually racist even by the standards of his time and place. This showed up in his writing frequently across fiction, poetry and correspondence.

Spoilering for racism:


ON THE CREATION OF NIGGERS.

When, long ago, the Gods created Earth,
In Jove's fair image Man was shap'd at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next design'd;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill this gap, and join the rest to man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Fill'd it with vice, and call'd the thing a NIGGER.

- HPL, 1912.

"He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. The body must have looked even worse in life—but the world holds many ugly things." - HPL describing a black man in "Herbert West - Reanimator" (1921-22).

(Contrast this to what others like Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle had been writing about the Congo well before HPL wrote that story.)

“Whenever we found ourselves in the racially mixed crowds which characterize New York, Howard would become livid with rage. He seemed almost to lose his mind.” - Sonia Greene, HPL's ex-wife.

"Gawd knows what they are—Jew, Italian, separate or mixed, with possible touches of residual aboriginal Irish and exotic hints of the Far East—a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to eye, nose, and imagination—would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place [NYC]." - letter to Maurice W. Moe, May 18 1922.

"I'd like to see Hitler wipe Greater New York clean with poison gas -- giving masks to the few remaining people of Aryan ancestry ... the place needs fumigation & a fresh start. (If Harlem didn't get any masks, I'd shed no tears & the same goes for the dago slums." - letter to James F. Morton, June 12 1933.

"It would be too hideous if they knew that the one-time heiress of Riverside—the accursed gorgon or lamia whose hateful crinkly coil of serpent-hair must even now be brooding and twining vampirically around an artist's skeleton in a lime-packed grave beneath a charred foundation—was faintly, subtly, yet to the eyes of genius unmistakably the scion of Zimbabwe's most primal grovellers. No wonder she owned a link with that old witch-woman—for, though in deceitfully slight proportion, Marceline was a negress." - "Medusa's Coil", written 1930, published posthumously in 1939.

[In that story, Marcelline's "hair" is revealed to be a vampiric monster that comes off her head and roams around attacking people, but this is presented as being less horrific than a trace of black ancestry.]



There are plenty more examples like these. His views seem to have moderated somewhat later in his life, but for most of his career he was extremely racist and it fuelled his work. Lovecraft's horror of race-mixing is a central theme in stories like "The Horror at Red Hook" and "The Shadow over Innsmouth", not to mention "Arthur Jermyn" which takes the "African people = gorillas" theme even further than the example above.

 

[lovecraft68]

 

[OffNSFW]

People want nice, neat rules and want to minimize their own responsibility in navigating the ethics of this issue. But there is no one size fits all answer and so much of what is or isn't okay is a constant series of ad hoc judgment calls.

Can you will yourself into forgetting that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist in order to enjoy his standup comedy, including jokes about drugging people's drinks? Of course not, and I don't know why anyone would think that they should.

I think a better way of coming at it is, do people who do horrible things contribute to culture? Of course they do. Are there reasons to explore that work? Sure, and surely many. Does this mean we let them off the hook or dismiss their personal life in our evaluation of their work? Hell no. Does being great, or even a genius, in any way absolve or justify them? No. In fact, for many artists, it's the reason their greatness has a big fucking asterisk next to it.

I do think it's silly to make it a goal to be able to pat ourselves on the back for keeping our consumption pure or whatever. It's self-serving. But I also think it's irresponsible to argue in the other direction and not engage with the full context of the artist's work at all. They're two sides of the same coin.

As for materially benefiting awful people, I think the practical benefits of withholding money are somewhat overstated unless it's part of an organized boycott. It's more a matter of, are you personally comfortable with spending money on something created by someone you know is awful? People can answer that however they need to.

Having said that, there are specific cases where I differ with myself on that. J.K. Rowling, for example, has openly stated that she views the continued financial success of Harry Potter as vindication for her incitement of hatred against trans people. Boycott or no, I think she's made the equivalency between buying her work and funding her activities plain, and it honestly does bother me that some people cheerily go on consuming her output.

How many of all those great hard rock musicians that you like so much and buy and listen to music from are in real life horrible people who abuse women? I'll bet some at least, and maybe many. We don't know. What difference does it make if you know? The only way you can be pure is not to listen to anybody's music. Obviously, you're not going to do that.

I often contemplate the much-romanticized groupie culture of the '60s/'70s/'80s, and how there was almost certainly nobody checking driver's licenses at the door.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I doubt there’s an easy, complete and just answer.

At one end is knowingly supporting, eg Bill Cosby by purchasing his stuff (presuming somebody still sells it). On the other end, Johann Strauss was a complete anti-Semite, yet I am not going to deny myself The Blue Danube. That would be pointless.

People change, attitudes change. Unless it’s up close and immediate, I’ll judge the art, not the artist.

 

[Yarglenurp]

I'm genuinely curious: I'm not looking to pick a fight, but your post interested me for a few reasons. I've got a question about the paragraph I've quoted:

Do you think it'll be appropriate to appreciate Polanski's films once he's dead?



A cookout is not "art." Sharing a meal with someone is an act of friendliness; watching a film they've made is not.

Like most of these complex questions, you get a complex answer.

Well, that depends on how people use the guy’s legacy. To the extent that his estate would defend the dude’s crimes, I’d say that yeah, it’s still wrong to support it, since copyright is like death+80 years or something. Also, if people use the art to further the deceased’s more evil aspects, also definitely a “burn that shit” moment.

If it’s past the point where no one is really benefiting from the ownership of the work and the deceased is forgotten for everything else, might be ok. Then the question becomes whether movies like, “the pianist” is even going to stick around for that long. By that point, I’m guessing most people would say, “it’s just another holocaust movie from before I was born.”

There’s also the issue that most art steals from each other. So, if author A made a character that was really popular but the author also raped a bunch of kids, and then comic book artist B takes basically the same character with a name change and then popularizes it… I have no problem with the popularity of name-changes character being used.

 

[Voboy]

If it’s past the point where no one is really benefiting from the ownership of the work and the deceased is forgotten for everything else, might be ok.

So your objection is financial, and not moral?

If you find a Cosby record in the "grab pile" at the side of the road with all the rest of the unsold stuff from your neighbor's yard sale, it's fine to laugh at it because he doesn't benefit financially? But if you bought that same disc, you're not supposed to think it's funny?

 

[Yarglenurp]

So your objection is financial, and not moral?

I’m pretty sure you’re aware that money and power work in unison, because money uses power to preserve itself and power is fueled by money. To give a person money is to give a person power. I’m opposed to giving harmful things power, which means I’m opposed to giving them money.