How do you disown a creator from their work and why?

[Rennadrel]

Imagine all the horrible things your favourite artists have done that you will never know!!!!

Spooky!

.....people are not saints, theres good and bad in everyone. You can still enjoy thriller even if Michael did a hehe on some boys.

Considering Michael Jackson was found not guilty in like 2009, I think any individual who still thinks he was a pedophile is stupid. The media were brutal on him too, even before that. When he started getting treatments for vitiligo, they were absolutely disgusting towards him. Claiming he was ashamed to be black and all this other bullshit.

He was an amazing artist and performer. Sure, he was eccentric, but I can't imagine being the most successful black pop star in America and having such a life altering medical condition. I have it, and it's embarrassing enough as a white guy to have it, I can't fathom how debilitating it was on his mental health, it's hard enough on mine.

[Volatilis]

Considering Michael Jackson was found not guilty in like 2009, I think any individual who still thinks he was a pedophile is stupid. The media were brutal on him too, even before that. When he started getting treatments for vitiligo, they were absolutely disgusting towards him. Claiming he was ashamed to be black and all this other bullshit.

He was an amazing artist and performer. Sure, he was eccentric, but I can't imagine being the most successful black pop star in America and having such a life altering medical condition. I have it, and it's embarrassing enough as a white guy to have it, I can't fathom how debilitating it was on his mental health, it's hard enough on mine.

We'll likely never know the truth because people have agenda's and the man died so he cant speak on his behalf.

But the profile was certainly there for him to abuse people. The child hood trauma from abusive father, his loss of childhood by being a superstar since he could dance and sing at a young age. And he did target younger boys as friends and move through them those are undeniable facts.

What isnt a fact is IF he did abuse them or not. His private ranch and massive fame certainly made it possible.

[Forogil]

I think you're missing the context of Tolkein's early works:

That statement makes it obvious that you are stuck in your own incorrect ideas, and not even bothering to read the things you are replying to.

And yes, of course, after WW2, Tolkein radically changed his view, which is where your quote is from.

Wrong, Tolkien wrote similar things more than a year before WWII:

I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

[eschatological]

Wrong, Tolkien wrote similar things more than a year before WWII:

You know what he was responding to, right? They were publishing The Hobbit in Germany, where Nazi Germany was already well entrenched in power, and the ramp up to war was pretty obvious, and they wanted to know if he was a Jew, or an Aryan.

He rightly rejected their racial science. If you read the paper I cited, it's considered by the author as his "come to Jesus" moment, so to speak, because from that point on he started revising and reworking all his work concerning the Dwarves of Middle Earth, as if he felt guilty for the negative associations he subconsciously placed on them in comparison to the Jews.

The whole last few pages of the paper are dedicated to how much he turned that around with Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. How Gimli insisted dwarves were part of the heroic endeavor of the Fellowship, and so on, and so forth. As they say, methinks he doth protested too much - he was clearly trying to make amends for his depiction of dwarves in the Silmarillion and The Hobbit.

[Forogil]

You know what he was responding to, right? They were publishing The Hobbit in Germany, where Nazi Germany was already well entrenched in power, and the ramp up to war was pretty obvious, and they wanted to know if he was a Jew, or an Aryan.

Is that how you apologize for being wrong about change of heart post-WWII?

It was written in 1938 less than a year after publishing the Hobbit in England, so it's unlikely that he had radically changed his views, and Nazi took power in Germany several years earlier, and it doesn't seem as if he was considering another war coming at that point.

As they say, methinks he doth protested too much - he was clearly trying to make amends for his depiction of dwarves in the Silmarillion and The Hobbit.

The Silmarillion wasn't published (and I don't recall that dwarves were prominent), and he was constantly revising it, so making amends for it doesn't make sense.

- - - Updated - - -

I think its safe to say like most thinks with Tolkien it's much more complex and multifaceted then you would expect from modern media.
But let's be fair here you're kinda minimising how important avarice is to the overall thrum of the dwarves' story. I mean Sauron's rings served to make them greedy instead of completely corrupting them like the men and they suffer from gold-lust.

True some dwarves were greedy, but not it is no unique for them.

A more detailed analysis can be seen in:
https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com...anti-semitism/
I realized something new in it - Tolkien's dwarves didn't have a Semitic language until post-WWII.

[Saltysquidoon]

If we’re talking about fantasy how about we confront how Orcs are just black people. Because when I see a violent, cruel race my mind immediately goes “yep those are some black people right there”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/globaln...ereotypes/amp/
Fucking smooth-brains I swear.

Yeah, I'm struggling to see how drow are analogous to any real-world race, these stories always feel to me like they were written by someone who hasn't even read like a basic primer on the topic.

The Drow come from the same perfect, amazing, better than humans in every way mould all post-Tolkien elves are poured from, the only difference from wood or high elves is they're slightly meaner.
I mean in the context of WoW this story is essentially saying Blizzard should be sensitive about how they portray night elves because they're purple and live in trees or the nightborne because they're purple and decedent.

Further, I'm not sure there is a problem showing a race that has an 'evil' society and culture? Pretty much every single society and culture on earth would seem 'evil' to 21st-century western anglophone.

Orcs are another issue altogether although they're racist against Asiatic steppe peoples, not African peoples. I mean Tolkien wasn't exactly subtle about his inspiration for them, if nothing else horde should be the giveaway.
I'm not even sure 'mordern' orcs are negative racial stereotypes anyway. I mean the Warhammer orcs are poor white people and the Warcraft orcs are just the Warhammer orcs but good and run through the coked-up eternal metal concert that is Samwise and Metzan's brains.

[DarkAmbient]

I don't give a fuck what they did. If their work is good I'll enjoy it on its own merits.

[Hollycakes]

If I like the work but despise the human being who made it, that's what piracy is for. Yarr.

lol so much this <3

The list is long of people who irl I probs dislike but enjoy their work. Enter torrents.

[Grimbold21]

I don't know. How much emotional and intellectual immaturity is it needed to accomplish such a thing?

[Pannonian]

That's a good question:

I really enjoy opera, especially german ones, and i'm a sucker for Wagner.

Problem is: Wagner was a pile of human garbage.

I still can enjoy his music, given that he doesn't profit from it. Buying Boltons book on the other hand...

[Forogil]

To actually answer the question asked to I think it depends on the kind of work.

Sometimes you consume media to understand things, and the creator's evil is part of it. I certainly see no other reason to read 'Mein Kampf' or 'Das Kapital'.
Sometimes you consume media for enjoyment or education and the creator's action don't matter; Michael Jackson wrote good songs that can be enjoyed regardless of his messed up life.

The problematic case for me is when the creator's actions are related to the story.

As an example having Charlie Chaplin playing with a kid in "The Kid" seems innocent - knowing that she was to become his second underage wife changes that. Or Léon by Luc Besson, good action IMO, but problematic if truly inspired by Luc Besson's second wife.
Or inspirational stories - when the author turns out to be a cheat.

[GreenJesus]

Imagine if we took a look at what almost every rock band did on tours... Pretty much every band would be cancelled and spotify would have to remove the rock category.