Separating Art From Artist: Can it be done? Should it?

[NED funded]

I think Alex Hirsch is a creepy annoying sex pest, doesn't change my opinion of GF being freaking great.

Wait what?? Seriously?!!

Oh man its one of my fav shows too, kind of a bummer

OT: Sure, it should. But it depends, sometimes it adds to the experience or takes away from it. For example: kanye's song violent crimes was moving when I thought he had written it but it lost some charm when he revealed it was a ghostwriter.

[Mistame]

I watch a movie or listen to music because I enjoy it. The personal lives of the actors or artists is utterly irrelevant. To each their own, though. In the end, if they create or take part in something that turns out to be good, you're the one who's missing out. Taking part in some personal "boycott" for some supposed "greater good", however, is just virtue-signaling nonsense.

Can you still watch and enjoy Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Deadwood when Jeffrey Jones is a convicted pedophile?

Can you still watch the original Mad Max or Lethal Weapon films after Mel Gibson's battery charges and anti-Semitic/misogynist remarks?

Yes and yes. Your characterizations seem a bit dramatized. As far as I'm aware, Jones's victims were 14+. As far as Gibson's comments, while he said some anti-Semitic and sexist things, I don't remember him saying anything that's actually misogynistic.

EDIT1: While I haven't looked up into it - has Mel Gibson ever apologized for (and continued on a good track record) since all that anti-simetic crap? If he has, time can heal wounds if he's proven himself to be true and not the douchebag he once was. I mean, if we never gave second chances, we would've never had Robert-Downey Junior's Iron Man! ;P

I believe he did.

[Rennadrel]

I'm not talking about people such as Robert Downey Jr who had a drug problem and then overcame it. I'm talking about much more heinous things such as pedophilia and/or battery. These aren't simple "stupid mistakes" and aren't/shouldn't be forgotten.

Drug addiction has nothing to do with sociopolitical noise, not even the slightest. Jeffery Jones had his child porn charges dropped but he was still required to register as a sex offender, though he is likely very low risk compared to actual child molesters and pedophiles who have raped children. Michael Jackson was never proven, in a court of law, to be a pedophile. Even if he was, it wouldn't change my opinion of him as an artist because he set a standard for pop music that has never been surpassed.

[Grimbold21]

Regressive progressivism

Of course you should be able to enjoy a piece of work even if you find the author to be awful.

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I'm not talking about people such as Robert Downey Jr who had a drug problem and then overcame it. I'm talking about much more heinous things such as pedophilia and/or battery. These aren't simple "stupid mistakes" and aren't/shouldn't be forgotten.

Imagine there's a beautiful painting or piece of music. It has general, long standing acclaim. But the author is a sexual deviant.

How doea the later diminish the aesthetic quality of the first?
It doesn't.

[GreenJesus]

Of course you can. Fuck whatever they say outside of their role. Has no effect on my enjoyment of a movie. Apparently people don't care with music too because people still buy Chris Browns music even though hes a complete asshole that beat up Rihanna.

[Kaleredar]

Yes and yes. Your characterizations seem a bit dramatized. As far as I'm aware, Jones's victims were 14+.

uh... Illegal is illegal.


At any rate, if the film isn't paying them any dividends, then... watching it really doesn't matter. You don't have to put them on a pedestal as an actor.

I look at it somewhat differently when it's a performance where someone's basically playing themself or it's a comedian doing standup... because then you're asking us to ignore those things about them. Like with Bill Cosby. He can't pitch the image of being a wholesome, put-upon dad and have us "go along with it" if he was, in reality, drugging and raping women that whole time. I can't really get behind the whole "yeah I'm a piece of shit in real life, but laugh with me/love me/give me more work!"

[Benggaul]

Of course you can. Fuck whatever they say outside of their role. Has no effect on my enjoyment of a movie. Apparently people don't care with music too because people still buy Chris Browns music even though hes a complete asshole that beat up Rihanna.

Michael Jackson and R. Kelly were two of my examples, so yes I was referencing music as well.

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I look at it somewhat differently when it's a performance where someone's basically playing themself or it's a comedian doing standup... because then you're asking us to ignore those things about them. Like with Bill Cosby. He can't pitch the image of being a wholesome, put-upon dad and have us "go along with it" if he was, in reality, drugging and raping women that whole time. I can't really get behind the whole "yeah I'm a piece of shit in real life, but laugh with me/love me/give me more work!"

This was one of the things I was struggling with. I loved his albums not least because they were one of the things I shared with my father. We'd sit next to the turntable and listen to all of them on the weekends and laugh until tears were streaming down our faces. Now, there's no way in hell I can go back and listen to them, I don't think. Even though those came out long before it was known what he was doing, I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to them again, and certainly not with my father. It was a semi-tradition of ours around the holidays and that one's dead and buried now.

[Mistame]

uh... Illegal is illegal.

Oh, I agree. But words mean things.

[melodramocracy]

Are you really losing out by not consuming these things?

The better question: are you losing out by enjoying the creation of someone unsavory?

[Goldielocks]

It is done. All the time. Despite the news being out there, most people forget that the creator of something they like is a bad person (or bad company) and will support it if they like it. Majority of people mad about Blitzchung have now likely gotten over it considering the talk around it is gone. Blizzard is in the clear.

[Amarys]

It is done. All the time. Despite the news being out there, most people forget that the creator of something they like is a bad person (or bad company) and will support it if they like it. Majority of people mad about Blitzchung have now likely gotten over it considering the talk around it is gone. Blizzard is in the clear.

While I don't know the details and might be missing something, I don't think Blizzard did anything wrong to begin with. Don't people/companies have the right to just stay out of all political stuff and just do their thing? Blitzchung basically tried to hijack Blizzard platform to make a political statement which as I understand is against the rules and they just said nope, do it somewhere else, we don't wanna get involved. Well at least that's how I understood it.

As for the art.. I don't know, probably. Personally I don't get offended on other peoples behalf and don't really judge people so there is very little an artist can do to "taint" the art in my eyes anyway. Society as a whole doesn't with recent artists but eventually time and changes in culture will at the very least make people forget or not care about the "bad stuff" any more.

[Mihalik]

Relevant.

[Dezerte]

Sure.

But it's of course different from supporting the artist.

[deepr]

Richard Wagner is often associated with anti semitism, nazism and his music was admired by Hitler, but that doesn't change that Wagner was one of the greatest artists who ever lived and that his music is still performed and enjoyed today.
He expressed some shitty views and that possibly made him a shitty person, but he wasn't even alive in the 20th century so you can hardly blame him for the holocaust or something. A lot of his supposed influence on the nazi's is debatable, or so I've read.

[Kraenen]

Probably the length of time since they died is the most important factor. Michael Jackson was a bit awkward for a while for me but it's been enough time he's more or less now a historical entity in my mind.

[Stormspark]

I do all the time. I can still listen to Cosby's comedy regardless of who he turned out to really be, for example. It's still just as funny as it always was.

[Yadryonych]

To have art separated from artist, the revenue that art generates should be separated from artist as well

[Rennadrel]

Regressive progressivism

Of course you should be able to enjoy a piece of work even if you find the author to be awful.

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Imagine there's a beautiful painting or piece of music. It has general, long standing acclaim. But the author is a sexual deviant.

How doea the later diminish the aesthetic quality of the first?
It doesn't.

It's funny, H.P Lovecraft was a racist even by his day's standards. Meanwhile you have progressive fuckwits like Evil Hat Games trying to SJW-ize his franchise.

[Ivanstone]

Sometimes.

Braveheart is a pretty good movie that stars and was directed by a racist, religious fanatic (Mel Gibson). His racism and fanaticism doesn't appear to have harmed (or helped) this movie. However, his success would eventually allow him to make Passion of the Christ which was both helped and harmed by both racism and fanaticism. Its a pretty unique movie in some ways and only a famous person could've gotten it done but did we really need the same tired anti-semetic grievances thrown in?

Bill Cosby had his clean comedy routine and an all-American father schtick that's seriously undermined by his later sexual assaults. Cosby is especially problematic because his excuses seem very entitled to me. There's nothing like fame and success for fueling entitled behaviour. Having said that Cosby jokes still unreel until my head today. I listened to Tonsils almost 40 years ago and whenever I see ice cream the same line from Tonsils always pops up.

There's no shortage of fucked up behaviour from our celebs and its hard to say how much their fame enables them and if the behaviour is what allows them to be entertaining.

[Darkeon]

Of course.

I think it's pretty telling and quite predictable the sort of person that wouldn't be able to follow through with it. But, unfortunately, it's getting more common as time goes by.