Except you did say “don’t read her works”, you still phrased it as the other person’s choice… so, really, you and I are in agreement.
I look at it this way: a lot of great artists were complete and utter dicks. Look at John Lennon. I’m a huge fan of his work – both with the Beatles and his solo stuff. I think he was an absolute genius. He was also a complete douchebag.
Gary Oldman’s recent comments were absolutely disgusting, but I’ll still watch the Harry Potter movies. I loathe Ben Rothlisberger, but I’ll still root for my Steelers.
Hell, Martin Luther King cheated on his wife and was a major womanizer – does that invalidate everything he did?
I’m with Broomstick – I’d never have any medium to enjoy (music, sports, movies, books, TV, fine arts, etc) if I avoided artists who were unpleasant and/or immoral individuals.
Now, if you feel otherwise, that’s YOUR choice. But the idea that somehow you can’t separate the art from the artist – I think that’s absurd.
(And finally, there’s always the local library, if you want to read these books, but don’t want to give the author any money.)
The problem with this viewpoint is that it devolves into “George Washington owned slaves” territory really fast. I don’t begrudge anyone for trying to not contribute to an actively abhorrent person’s life, and I don’t blame someone for hating a work because they learned something bad about the individual. However, excluding any literature just because the author believed or did something terrible basically excludes any work written before 1900 or so.
You can’t always separate the creator and the work, but I don’t really support shouting “Danger Will Robinson!” at someone just because they’re about to listen to music by a convicted sex offender.
This gets especially dicey when you move past the world of books or extremely small local productions, where only a handful of people were involved in its creation. What about a movie? The producer? Lead writer? Only the director? The actors? Only the lead, or do bit parts count too? What if I know that the lead artist for the CG keys got convicted of pedophilia, does that cast a dark cloud on the entire production that I should avoid? I’m being a bit deliberately obtuse, certainly there’s a level of “star quality” and you could reasonably argue that you can make the decision on whether or not any “name” in a highly visible role is a bad person, but it still strikes me as very muddy.
I just don’t see a clear, easy way to moralize art. If you’re reasonably sure your contribution will directly, clearly reward bad behavior. I can understand not wanting to contribute, but outside of very specific indie cases where your money is going directly to the pocket of a repugnant person, I don’t think it matters much nor is it particularly compelling to warn other people to avoid the work because of its associations with that person.
It’s one of many things that one has to judge case-by-case. I’m glad I never listened to Lostprophets, and I have to stop myself from curiously listening to them now, because I’m afraid that I might like them.
The members of the band are apparently playing together again, but it will have to be under a new name. Could they bear to re-record their previous body of work with a new singer, because their previous lead singer, convicted severe pedophile Ian Watkins, still wrote the lyrics? I doubt it.
About people like Washington, remember that there were people, including some organized groups, that opposed slavery, and opposed the elite makeup of the Founders more generally.
It looks like they’re back together without Watkins. No offense, but I think this is a wee paranoid – are you seriously saying you wouldn’t even listen to them perform a song from their previous albums, because it was written with their old singer? Seriously?
No, I didn’t. Not in that first post.
You realise there’s a world of difference between “douchebag”, “cheat” or “racist” and “rapist”, right?
That’s not what I’m advocating. I’m talking about attacking the legacy, not censoring the work.
I’m OK with saying “You do know he’s a sex offendor, right” to them as they drop the needle.
Hell, it’s why I don’t listen to Led Zeppelin any more, either.
What’s wrong with muddy? I’m not advocating a bright-line rule for anyone.
Like I said, it’s about personal legacy, not so much curtailing financial reward.
The point is about not keeping silent about someone’s evil deeds just because they also make nice things for us to consume.
That whole post makes much more sense if you put the “not” that I forget back into it. “You did NOT say…”
A work of Art can be, morally speaking, superior to its creator.
Aaah, then yes.
Possibly, I guess - not that I’d characterise MZB’s stuff as all that morally superior. Groundbreaking for women’s SF&F, possibly, but that’s not the same thing.
Groundbreaking at the time for all SF&F when she started telling stories from the viewpoint of the women, something largely absent from the genre until the late 1960’s early 1970’s, although at times I think the feminist influence spilled over into whacky territory.
I was actually thinking about the feelings of the band members, but the point is the same either way: The lyrics and vocal melody would forever be the products of Watkins’s mind and psyche. That’s what people would experience while playing and hearing the songs. Would that not be extremely awkward?
And that’s the second part of the argument about caring for the creator’s morality: once someone decides whether or not the morals of the creator should influence how you approach the creation, THEN s/he has to decide, if so, where’s the threshold.
The question is an interesting one, though: should someone be advised of the objectionable author *before *reading or *after *reading?
Some people may react unfavorably to the preemtive approach out of a feeling that the “warner” is trying to adversely influence how they’ll perceive the work, rather than merely providing background information (after all, one can change his appreciation of a work *afterwards *upon obtaining new information – I can’t say I’ve ever felt “dirtied” by having enjoyed some art or performance and *later *finding out the creator was abominable.
Damnnnn…that’s bad. I had heard that she was fairly unhinged her last few years, but apparently she had been damage goods for quite awhile. Maybe always. Sad and incredibly fucked up. She must have been more discrete than Breen or perhaps it was the female molester dynamic that sheltered her from more serious charges coming out in her lifetime.
Doesn’t really alter my opinion vis-a-vis separating artists and their works ( or not ). But it certainly shines an unhappier light on MZB. I hope these new revelations ultimately help with closure for her kids.
That’s why I prefer no bright lines or hard rules. Although I think kiddie-fucking is always beyond the pale, personally.
And some people (e.g. me) would react unfavourably if they weren’t told until afterwards.
Like I said, I prefer to research authors before trying them, if I can. Part of that process is asking my friends what they think of an author, if they’ve read them before me (which is often the case). If one of them had that kind of info about an author, I’d expect them to tell me.
Art stands on its own.
I recall being in a journalism seminar or class of some kind in which everyone was asked to introduce himself or herself by naming an admired figure whom he or she would most like to interview.
I responded “no one.” If I admire someone whom I do not already know, it is because I admire something about his or her work. What makes that work admirable in my eyes exists in itself (I want to say “sui generis,” but I’m not sure that phrased is used in that way.)
If I admire a work, I am not interested in having information about the creator’s personal life, either positive or negative, because neither is relevant to the value that I derived from the work originally.
I’m really not seeing your problem, here. Grace Slick, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, and Papa John Creach, for christ’s sake, were all highly flawed individuals. Nevertheless, their music lives on, even though some of them are dead, and the rest would do the world a favor by dying. I judge them by the music they made, not the asshole they made of themselves in the ‘real world’.
From the CS thread on this subject: one opinion against “separating the art from the artist.”
Of course.
However, I was using the word “douchebag” to refer to evil people in general. John Lennon not only cheated, but he also beat his first wife, Cynthia, and was a deadbeat father to his son, Julian. I think men who beat women fall pretty low down on the scale, don’t you?
(WTF is wrong with Zeppelin?)
To you, maybe. Or maybe not. Look at Nirvana – Kurt Cobain was a huge fan of Leadbelly. One of their best performances was when they covered “In the Pines” during their appearance on Unplugged. Leadbelly, however, was a murderer and spent at least one stint in prison. But I’m not going to stop listening to Nirvana.
You’re not going to be able to experience much by way of art (classic literature, music, great art, etc), if that’s the way you feel.
FWIW, I read Mists of Avalon, and wasn’t all that impressed.