Just got done watching a documentary about Harry Nilsson. I remember his music from when I was a kid. I didn’t think much of it then and that never changed. Now, I also don’t think much of him as a person. It doesn’t surprise me that he was a great friend of John Lennon’s. They can stand shoulder to shoulder in the annals of douchebaggery. What did puzzle me, a bit, was all the raving by his contemporaries about Harry’s voice. He always sounded just so nasal and whiny to me that I don’t see how anybody can give a wet shit what his range was.
I love Nilsson. But I love Lennon, too.
I like snarky, funny people.
We all do. How are you on abusive, family-abandoning alcoholics?
I certainly don’t wanna live with one. Musicians are still human. And subject to all human failings.
Personal failings don’t affect art–there’s an argument to be made that damaged people are more likely than the well adjusted to produce great art and that the results of successful art production are likely to exacerbate said personal failings. My dad’s an abusive, distant, alcoholic asshole but he doesn’t produce any sort of art at all so in my books that makes him double useless.
No doubt such an argument can be made. Whether that argument is the least bit compelling is an altogether different question. Does Eric Gill’s work outweigh his personal loathesomeness?
Harry Nilsson - How to write a song - YouTube
Creative genius. Undoubtedly an asshole at times. Did not manage his drugs and alcohol well.
I’m a big fan of his work, not so much his life choices.
does it have to? it’s entirely possible to both appreciate his works AND abhor some of his behavior at the same time.
When normal people act like assholes, they’re held in check by the pushback from people around them; their friends will shun them, their spouse will leave them, their boss will fire them, the guy in the bar will punch them in the face, etc. So normal people learn to behave well enough to get by.
People who become rich and powerful go beyond this limit. They’re insulated from the consequences of being an asshole. They can surround themselves with people who will put up with their asshole behavior.
If they’re lucky, they’ll learn to hold themselves in check when they get to the point where other people won’t do it for them. But some people just revel in being as asshole.
Why watch a documentary about someone you despise? What’s the pay off? Confirmation? Righteous condemnation? Spread the word on the internet? Help me understand!
I wouldn’t bother to watch a documentary about someone I don’t care about.
What I said was that personal failings do not affect the art. How a viewer feels about the artist can and often does affect their relationship with that person’s art but it does not change the objective worth of the art itself. Art becomes its own thing independent of the one who created it and often lives on long after the creator, with all their personal failings, is gone–how would it change our objective view of the Venus de Milo if we discovered the artist was a total asshole? Answer, not one bit.
I didn’t despise him before I saw the documentary. Apparently I didn’t make that clear enough for you in my OP?
Can you still watch Bill Cosby’s shows or his stand-up act and laugh?
Dude, are you slow or what? Did you not notice that I VERY SPECIFICALLY stated that personal failings of an artist can and often do affect the relationship of a viewer to the art? Did you not comprehend what that means? Or are you being intentionally thick?
We’re done, you and me.
Imagine my dismay.
It isn’t hard to do.
OP has missed the point.
I’d modify that with an exception for any case where any of their works of art are directly associated with (or a result of) their bad actions.
kind of like Louis CK. none of his stand-up acts have anything to do with the things he made women watch him do, and shouldn’t discourage people who still find them (the stand up acts) to be funny. But when he made I Love You Daddy, that really strongly gave insight into his creepy proclivities and I don’t blame the outlets which cancelled their plans to show it.
No, I didn’t. If “Art becomes its own thing independent of the one who created it and often lives on long after the creator,” then Cosby’s comedy is independent of Cosby-as-rapist. Do you still laugh at his routines? His stage persona wasn’t who he really was as a person, after all.