Is Ezra Pound invalidated as a poet because he openly embraced fascism? On the other hand, have we forgiven Oscar Wilde?
I’ve honestly never heard anyone retroactively decide Spacey was a bad actor. That’s a really odd way to characterize Netflix pulling the show.
A performance is produced both by how the performer presents it *and *by how the audience receives it, no? Watching a Spacey performance necessarily involves knowing who the person is who is presenting it, as it always did - but that reception is different now.
Bill Cosby’s performances aren’t as funny anymore, either.
Like, just to be clear, I would have a problem “canceling” Shakespeare, or Michaelangelo, or Da Vinci, or any similar ancient, once-in-a-century talent. Correct me if I’m overstating this, but to my understanding, the impact of Shakespeare’s work is so integral to modern literature and even the english language that it’s basically impossible to ignore. Even if it turned out he was literally a shapeshifting time traveler who was somehow Stalin and Hitler, I don’t know that we could reasonably cut him from the canon, because quality isn’t the only reason they’re canonized.
That said, two caveats.
Firstly, Spacey is no Shakespeare. He’s not even a Louis CK or Robin Williams, let alone a Kubrick. He’s just a solid actor, of which there are dozens or hundreds who don’t have a record of serial assault. I liked him, but I won’t be crying over his career.
Secondly, such outsized influences often can only be detected long after they’ve passed… and our hesitance to let serial rapists influence our culture means that people like Spacey probably won’t be well-remembered. Just a thought I had.
Also, this probably didn’t help.
This I can’t accept. Full appreciation of all the arts require a ‘suspension of belief’, as when you walk into an opera house you have leave a lot of rational baggage outside.
In fact it applies beyond the arts too; If you discovered that the man who made your favourite armchair beat his wife, would it be less comfortable?
I disagree with the idea of performing Roman-style damnatio memoriae on people’s artistic works that were unconnected with their offenses, whatever they may be. I kind of feel like they should be left available, and let public opinion handle the rest. If the works are significant enough, and public opinion is not so against the person, then they’ll endure. Otherwise, they’ll basically wither on the vine and quietly fade into obscurity.
I’m a little bit uneasy with the idea of deliberately doing things like say… yanking “The Cosby Show” from syndication, if only because it impacts the royalties of the rest of the cast, who are presumably innocent of any wrongdoings.
No, but I wouldn’t buy any more armchairs from him any more, nor would I recommend him to others.
That’s fair, but I think what he was getting at is whether or not you’d trash any you already own, or would you consider buying any used ones?
You must have missed the people that have tried to defend Roman Polanski over the last few decades.
It is but that odd framing of the issue doesn’t mean there isn’t one. There’s still a debate whether you’d refrain from appreciating the past work of an artist who has acted reprehensibly or even criminally in their personal life while they are still alive because that would serve the artist’s financial interest. And I don’t think this question goes away either for wanting to prevent the personally bad artist creating more art (and being paid for it). Which is particularly an issue for actors. Writers can write and painters paint in obscurity and have it appreciated after their deaths. Actors and musicians can’t to the same degree without being offered the format of major productions with other top artists and musicians.
I think there’s a dilemma there actually, and it’s not as simple as invalidating comparison to dead artists, poking holes in the way the OP presented the question, or making sure everyone is aware just how terrible the poster believes Spacey’s alleged actions were in case anyone doubts the poster’s virtue.
OTOH in the actual case I think House of Cards is overrated, and while it was also artistically pointless to continue it without the Spacey character, Spacey still isn’t so distinguished from his contemporaries to make it a big issue practically if his career is ruined by his alleged actions, IMO.
I’m thinking more not of the case of now dead artists but if everyone had known all the bad stuff about them then, let’s say hypothetically Miles Davis, who was an asshole by pretty much all accounts but that’s all AFAIK besides an illegal drug user, was actually viewed then as being as bad as Spacey is viewed now. Say that was decided ca. 1960 when he’d already done a lot, but had a lot more to do, that might not ever have been recorded. I think there’s a real trade off there without an obvious answer, if it’s a monumental enough artist. But I’m also assuming the victims of the artist get their day in court if appropriate, and the artist’s stature should never be any kind of legal shield.
If the reports are true, then he’s a bad actor because he wasn’t acting.
Most of the people being harmed by pulling Spacey’s show (or Cosby’s) are NOT named Spacey or Cosby; they’re the writers and costars and bit players who were getting royalties and now aren’t. Is that not collective punishment for individual misdeeds?
No.
They were paid for work done, with royalties (I presume) for any future showings,
There is no guarantee of these future showings.
DrFidelius, you’re all heart!
Would it be collective punishment if the shows had just bombed? I don’t reckon Battlefield Earth’s writers were happy about their royalties.
Of course, this is all entirely hypothetical unless we have an example of others losing money over this…
Probably not, and I don’t know. I don’t want to help rapists (and other terrible people); keeping a chair hurts no one. Not sure about the used chair; I’d have to consider if that was likely to benefit the maker.
It was my intention in the OP to avoid a discussion on the details of the Spacey case and stick to the outlined principle of retrospective downgrading of his work. However, Spacey has NOT been convicted of rape, (or anything else) he has been accused of groping a young man at a Nantucket bar in 2016, and has pleaded not guilty to the charge, that of indecent assault and battery.
But the show DIDN’T bomb. Whatever their individual talents, the actors and producers on House of Cards and the Cosby Show made successes, for which they would continue to receive royalties except for the little fact that one actor is now an untouchable (and while Cosby has been convicted, Spacey hasn’t).
To me, there is a very substantial difference between 1) your show isn’t generating royalties because nobody wants to see it, and 2) your show isn’t generating royalties because we the network are making sure that nobody can see it. While there is no guarantee of future royalties, shutting down rebroadcast is a guarantee that there won’t be future royalties. iiandyiii, for example, advocates not buying/showing the work of disgraced performers explicitly as a way of denying them money, with the spillover effect of denying money to people who had nothing to do with the crime.
He’s been accused of a lot more than just that.
I don’t see the logic in the first part. People’s property gets destroyed* all the time by accident or natural disaster. We don’t directly compare that to civilian property destroyed in deliberate military actions where the property destruction might be viewed as ‘collective punishment’. The issue with the military actions isn’t purely that property came to be destroyed, it’s whether the way in which it came to be destroyed affects the justification of the action.
The issue with alleged lost livelihoods of people other than Kevin Spacey on Kevin Spacey projects, due to boycotting Spacey over his alleged actions**, is whether that downside should figure into the decision to boycott (I personally don’t see how it would not figure in at all), or reverse the decision to boycott (but I’m sure it should reverse the decision either).
*and people get killed, but maybe property destruction is more comparable to loss of income.
** I’m not saying you can’t shun people for allegations not proved in court, but it’s still worth noting when they have not been. Often it’s clear somebody had a pattern of inappropriate behavior but there’s still dispute about one or a few of the most serious unproven allegations, like Bill Clinton and forcible rape. Obviously Clinton was a dog in general but there are many people willing to give him a pass on that as far as not totally trashing his legacy, which they would presumably not be willing to do if they believed the most serious, unproved, charge against him.