Post

History will absolve me

I use them as examples of horrible people being good at their jobs for my daughter.

And I allowed other people to help her get pirated copies of the audiobooks and missing movies. In part because it was the only thing for a while she bonded with classmates over and I would not take that from her, but mostly because banning books is what the bad guys do. But no money going there.

This is the way.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Ga...

Looking at you, JK Rowling. 👀

yup. they can take a very very very very long hike.

And wait until their are dead to buy any more of their works.

Just because you love the art does *not* mean you must love the artist.

Awesome. Sometimes that is true. NEVER liked Ted Nugent. Does that factor in?

Sunshine on Leith

"Don't abuse people or promote hate." I've zero doubt a lot of my favourite artists are dicks, but so am I sometimes. The bar is not not being a dick, it's being evil. It's an incredibly incredibly low bar and if very few artists that you like can clear it, that's not a problem with artists.

Vincent Price spoke very highly of Hitler after a visit to Germany in the 30s. He changed his position in 1938 as the Nazis true nature became apparent, and ran afoul of Sen. McCarthy in the 50s for taking an anti Nazi stance before it was popular to do so.

Didn't realize me and every single other artist on this site did war crimes Or is your "passing muster" not being queer or some shit

One of the reasons why I started to listen to as much French music as I do is because that way bad news about its creators will most likely not reach me.

Literally nobody is saying you should avoid or boycott the works of flawed people. Literally nobody. You're inventing it. There is a massive, massive, massive difference between being a normal, flawed human being and being a hateful bigot.

Nobody expects flawless humans! That doesn’t mean we can’t make decisions about what art we enjoy after we find out what kind of person made it.

So you think most people have these kinds of repugnant views (racism, transphobia, etc) or have done these kinds of repugnant things (abuse)? I don’t.

Or maybe you’re a coward.

There's a difference between liking art, and giving money to people, and that difference changes at the point the artist dies. Liking a painting by Hitler today doesn't actively support the Third Reich. Buying a book by Rowling today does support TERFdom. But you can still like the art.

I actually do look up many artists, writers or musicians whose works I really, really like and I very often find they are cool, kind people. I don’t look up everyone, and I’ve been disappointed, but most people try to do good and aren’t awful. Don’t sell humanity short. Good people make good art.

That's the easy way out. I can listen to Wagner knowing he was a vile antisemite and this knowledge helps me understanding some of his works. Today I can try to avoid vile artists because I want to support the better ones. They will be there if we no longer accept vile behaviour as an accessoire.

thank you

“I might find more stuff if I looked up literally everyone” isn’t really much of an excuse for ignoring the bits you’re already aware of, sans research. And there is a difference between “flawed” (everyone) and “wholly repugnant” (very few people). This thread is about the latter.

But there are flaws and then there is depravity, hatred, and deliberate destruction. I can deal with an artist who was difficult because they had addiction issues. I can't deal with an artist knowingly funding a genocide.

well stated

for me i always put up with it because i always need to lower my standards because i am very choosy. and i am like "i dont wanna be the uber-critic". but once the person is revealed as nasty well the gloves come off. there is very little i genuinly like

The thing is, you can make your own decisions and you don't have to share them with everyone

We all have to figure out what crossing a line is for each of us. I am not having a problem giving up Boy George, but I have struggled with my love of Jerry Lee Lewis for years. He may have been a bad man, but singing along to his songs makes me happy & especially now, I need that occasionally.

Which is another way of using rhetoric to dance around the harms of giving money to people who are still engaged in the active process of stripping rights away from other human beings and fomenting hate against vulnerable minorities.

But what if said artist actively uses their money to harm people, especially minorities?

Baldwin's in it right? Hard pass from me for that reason.

I dont think he’s getting any residuals. But if anyone knows otherwise, I’m open to being wrong.

When it's a lot of different people, I am mixed up, I can still like things and not like certain people involved in it. I like other people involved in it.

Hey, wanting to think it over is a feature, not a bug. I can see it being more difficult to sort through.

I said I was sorry, jeez

Also, you can still enjoy something written ages ago, even as times have changed

Yep. Woody Allen, Miles Davis, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, etc. All did some terrific, creative work. Picasso, fer Chrissakes.

Wow, not a shot at getting a reservation for your signing at nycc. You popular...

I'll always think Pulp Fiction was the most influential film of the 90s, for better or worse, even though I know my opinion of Tarantino will almost certainly only go down.

Nope. A vastly mediocre fiddle player who was wildly OVERRATED his entire life. I heard incredibly superior fiddlers to that pile of derivative crap every year for many years at the NC Fiddler's Festival. FIFY. you're welcome!

I found Pournell's politics hard to swallow, but his works, especially with Niven were wonderful to read and re-read.

Journey was dead to me the moment I found out about Jonathan Cain's third wife.

I adored Sandman, I have all the comics. But now when I look at them, I think of what an evil man Gaiman turned out to be. If I were to try reading them, I'd be constantly struggling against that knowledge. I'm not an ideologue, I'm a human with empathy and a working memory.

Okay, so what does it mean?

Maybe my taste has changed, maybe I know more about the finer points or process of the art, maybe I believe that knowing bad things about the artist makes me question its authenticity (whatever the hell that means), or maybe I don't like anything that people I think are bad people do

It’s equally okay to still enjoy the art of a person that you discovered to be a morally disappointing person. Appreciating, enjoying or loving their work does not necessarily mean you support or condone actions in their personal lives. It simply means you appreciate something they created.

In the US they will get paid for the I initial purchase of the book, but not each time it checks out.

Books were mentioned, but libraries also have CDs and streaming music services. See what yours has.

OTOH, it's bloody funny watching people online tying themselves in knots trying to justify their earlier enthusiasms, so everyone should feel free to keep doing that if they really want to.

I know I'm going to miss some movies I'll never watch again... And some I'll never watch from now on.

Meanwhile, the people who think that the writing of Ayn Rand or Terry Goodkind had any literary merit whatsoever remain utterly unbothered by the abhorrent beliefs of the author, as they most likely agree with them.

Or you can even still like the art and the artist in that capacity and hate everything else about them

I like Chick-Fil-A’s food. It’s a good sandwich and while I find the vibe in their restaurants to be kind of creepy, service is generally fast and efficient. I do not like it enough to fund the things they spend their profits on.

I recently saw Guernica in person. Was Picasso a flawed bad person. Yes. But the absolute horror depicted was moving. We are complicated.

Sometimes art reflects life in all its stages, sometimes it reflects beauty in all its stages, and sometimes it combines both in art we despise but respect for the work of the artist.

Aye. Used to love The Proclaimers. Now? Nope.

I might end up having to only enjoy art by someone I personally know and am allowed to throughly search their home.

I think your post can be a beautiful example of his point. You are allowed to have amazing memories of the books and what sounds like an incredible trip. You can happily cherish the memories of both without ever having to go back to either🍸

Right, & why should you? Hell, I was a grown up when HP came out, & I remember other adults & I throwing around ideas of what Canada's wizard school might be like. It was fun. I'm not buying any of her stuff again ever, but I did like it once.

You seem to think that this is all down to “busybodies” and “monitoring”. But that is not how many people, including myself, experience this. For me, knowing these things makes it impossible to enjoy the art anymore. It keeps popping into my head while I’m reading/watching/listening.

There's also a point where I just don't care because so much time passed and the person either stayed out of trouble or is dead. Obviously not everyone reacts like me, but I just can't care if it's something from 30 years ago.

No, it's not. You might have a point if someone just have vile opinions, but people like Gaiman or Zimmer-Bradley hurt real people. At least I view the well being of children and women as more important than my enjoying the books of abusers or films by someone supporting rapists and trafficking.

You think that song is bad? Try their "Christian" output.

My friend’s abusive stalker ex would sing that to her and it never hit quite the same again

The friend who introduced me to HP also came out as trans, and I have a similar feeling about it.

All the best to you and your kid. And f*ck Rowling and the whole TERF monsters. To me the whole debate is as fake as that abt abortion. It's the easiest way to feel holier than you, to find a community as bigot as you without doing anything at all to really help women and children.

it's like finding out you've been eating the tortured corpses of animals, produced by the second-largest climate killer industry disgust arises, you set this old source of nourishment aside as toxic you re-commit to being a human who seeks to reduce suffering in the world and behave accordingly

I don't throw away such art. I reread things I love . The sad thing is - they lose their magic . I can never truly separate art from artist. I also think if we remembered those we admire are fallible it would be less problematic. We are so all or nothing; it hurts us more.

Ha!

I feel you! And I did not see that coming. The man that flounced around with begonias, bemoaning conservative governments. Did not see it coming.

Wait, what did Asimov do?

For 60 years of my life politics were no big deal, i dont know what those artists cared about, but right now, it doesnt matter because i can afford anything

I absolutely insist on my right to love art made by horrible people. I won't buy anything by Gaiman again until he's as dead as Lovecraft, but I will read my stories as I please. My kid, former potterhead, then 15, wrote an essay about this comparing Hamsun and Rowley, and she figured it out too.

people are complicated for some, their art is the expression of the good in them, and ought not be condemned because of the bad

I’m a classical musician as well as a writer, and believe me, this is something we wrestle with ALL the time.

agreed - Cosby Kids tv show is a prime example. Am sure glad that this was never the case with The Muppets, the Simpsons, Norm McDonald, Mitch Hedberg or Bill Hicks.

I think this is also dependant on the kind of art. A lot of the art we like can just be an aesthetic thing; I mean who is looking into the personal views of renaissance artists in order to know if they are problematic. Books seem different, because they can be said to contain more of an artists core

Got to the stage that fellow guests at conventions refused to be on panels with him. Someone I knew who was friends with him claimed that his expressed views were just him enjoying being a 'contrarian' but that excuse didn't fly.

I think like most around my age I was fond of those wizard books as a kid, but even if it weren't for the author's views I'd still find the books now to quite problematic. The one that hurts me is that there's several Spacey films I'd like to rewatch but can't bring myself to

He was also a garbage performer. I saw him twice. Both times: utter contempt for the audience, substandard and obscenely curtailed 'sets', and none of the gifts that mark even a mediocre performing artist. He was shit on toast.

This reminds me of what my Grandpa use to say; "Even Hitler loved dogs."🤔

The relationship I have with the art has changed. If you don't think that relationship has anything to do with art, then you don't understand art! A man cannot step in the same river twice.

Your wedding vow hasn't changed just because you've now discovered that your spouse has been fucking your brother all this time, and it's dishonest to pretend that it has 😌

We can change our opinion because we reevaluate and realize new flaws; or because an artist's actions IRL puts their work in new context. (Both true for JKR.) But flipping on art you loved just because the artist is now unsavory means that you think the artist is more important than the art.

“That bad people make good art is a cause for hope. To be human is to transgress, of that we can be sure, yet we all have the opportunity for redemption, to rise above the more lamentable parts of our nature…” - Nick Cave

The Sandman comics were formative to my teenage self. I feel anger mixed with grief that I'll never enjoy them again.

Woody Allen…

and politics

Picasso is another. Had a giant impact on 20th Century art but was cruel to the women in his life. An exhibition of his drawing and etching portraits of women showed how blatantly he detested them.