Ask Lemmy

Tom Cruise is an incredibly talented actor. He also is the face of a horrific cult that has probably murdered people

Shelly Miscavige hasn't been seen in public for almost two decades

I do my best to avoid art from controversal figures, but more importantly I avoid financially supporting them. Sometimes that's difficult, because they have been involved in so many things and that involvement isn't always obvious, but I try.

One of the recent, easier examples is J.K. Rowling, whose stance as a self-proclaimed "TERF" has caused me to avoid her Harry Potter franchise except for the books and movies I already own (although I have still not had interest in those lately as a consequence of her stance). This is an easy case to avoid because it's (usually) obvious what she benefits from and what she doesn't, there is no guesswork or Googling. If it says "Harry Potter" in the title it is probably financially benefitting her

Officially, yes, I separate them. In truth, there are some artists whose I'm less likely to enjoy once they did that thing they did.

Like, I don't really want to see Kevin Spacey movies anymore. But I'll still watch everything Mel Gibson does. I could make arguments for why that is (Gibson was drunk, moment of weakness, whatever), but it's really just about how I feel. I could make similar arguments for the ones I don't feel like watching anymore.

I do think we're all kind of dirt-meat struggling through a confusing nightmare, and art is one way we rise above it. The best art is often made by broken people. Broken people don't act right.

It depends… I wouldn’t say I cherry-pick, but if the art has a message that parallels the issues I have with the artist, it’s hard not to “separate” them. Like Kanye’s latest album… I can listen to College Dropout and Life of Pablo no problem, they don’t have any Nazi messaging. But his latest album is filled with very weird lyrics that just make me uncomfortable.

Another example would be someone like Dali, who was an avowed fascist. But his paintings don’t really have anything to do with that. And I quite enjoy them still.

My life too much of a mess to give a shit about things like this.

Promoting an artist's work is promoting the artist and their views.

The Harry Potter IP, for instance, is now the official flag of shitty transphobia, and hell will freeze over before I go waving it around or even stand under it.

It's not just a question of financial gain, it's a question of social impact and what we tacitly agree to tolerate.

Imagine, if you will, telling a rape survivor to just lie back and enjoy the masterful comic stylings of Bill Cosby, or at least to shut up while you watch it because they're ruining the funny, and YoU hAvE tO sEpArAtE tHe ArT fRoM tHe ArTisT.

What kind of message would that send? It would be telling them who you side with, it would be telling them that a rapist can purchase your undying loyalty and support just by being entertaining, and that as far as you're concerned, rape victims can just suck it.

It's not a good look.

Obviously, the worse and more immediately problematic the artist, the more pressing an issue this is.

The further back you go, the more unpleasantness you're likely to find, simply because social progress is a thing. But again in the case of JK Rowling, she's riding her popularity and influence in an attempt to drive trans kids to suicide right here, right now, which is just a leetle bit more pressing than the fact that some Victorian author was caught up in the casual racism of their day. Which is also not good, granted - but you triage these things.

Yes.

I quite enjoy the Tom Clancy books, and some of the film adaptations, but know he is right wing and it comes through in the books.

Similar to J K Rowling. Terrible person in general but the books were enjoyable when growing up.

The art is a separate thing from the artist so I can typically treat them separately in my mind. A bad person can still be correct. A person who has done wrong can still make something beautiful.

It's cases of when the making of the art itself is what's problematic that I have a much more difficult time with because now it isn't separate. Kubrick's treatment of Shelley Duvall for e.g., Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. The creation of the art itself caused harm, not some separate unrelated thing the artist said or did.

I'm not going to avoid A Bug's Life, or even The Usual Suspects just because Kevin Spacey is in them. The Cosby Show was super important in breaking down stereotypes and improving race relations and is a great show. I'll watch Woody Allen movies, probably, if I get around to it.

I'm not consistent about anything I do, including this.

I do acknowledge that some of the creators I appreciate are awful people. I don't know if I would have picked up the art in the first place if I'd known then.

I don't pay that much attention to the latest gossip or trending scandals. And when I hear that there is a scandal, I refuse to jump on the bandwagon unless I take the time to get a clear understanding of the situation and the context, which takes time I may not have. Sometimes torches and pitchforks are clearly justified, sometimes they aren't or it's impossible to know.

If something is a big enough issue that I hear about it, and it turns out that the artist is a confirmed shit head, I'll avoid giving them money. But generally speaking, it only taints their work if it reveals things you didn’t see there before. Sometimes that thing which can't be unseen is significant enough to ruin the experience.

Then again, I also have no problem with consuming media that has objectionable elements to it, as long as I know about it going in. I've read Lovecraft knowing he was a racist and more, and yeah, it definitely shows (sources of terror: madness, the cold indifference of a harsh universe, immigrants, the working class, and race mixing). But while I'm not a huge fan and don't actively promote his work, I'm glad I read what I did, and would advise anyone interested in Lovecraft to go ahead and read it, as long as they know what they are getting into.

So, while I can separate art and artist, I don't know how often I really need to. I can think for myself, I don't need to have my content sanitized, and I certainly don't need to purge my library based on nothing more than an association with someone who did something bad at some point.

Gene Roddenberry was often a shitty person, but that doesn't change the positive impact that Star Trek has had on myself and others. We could throw the whole franchise out, but it would be a terrible loss if we did.

Like anything in life, there's only so much that you can do, so I pick and choose my battles. The folks I don't support, I don't support. I don't really worry about the others.

People are assholes. If you don't want to monetarily support an asshole, you need to basically go off grid, stop interacting with any form of entertainment, or pretty much anything from any industry. It's just not feasible in today's society.

Harvey Weinstein made a lot of really great films happen that we would've probably never seen without him, while he also made a lot of nightmares come true for some women. I really hope he isn't making any money these days off of those movies.

Depends on the artist and depends on if they're still living and/or making money off of their work. HP Lovecraft? Dead, so I don't have any issues reading his work and still recognizing that he was a raging racist. Orson Scott Card? Still alive, so F him and his work. JK Rowling? F her and her work. Pirating their work would be a good way around it, but I don't know that I even care that much to make the effort.

Strict if the artist is alive. Much less so if they're dead. Much, much less so if they're dead, and so is everyone attached to them.

I try not to separate the art from its context, I feel I get a more shallow experience by doing so. But, how much context, how I seek it out, etc are all up in the air. So when talking about a piece I'll mention something of the context, the writer being living garbage is easy context to contrast/support against their work.

Ender's game being written by a bigot is interesting because of the contrast. H.P Lovecraft being a bigot is interesting because it is so obvious in the work.

Yes. Bad people can still be good at things, right? You can admire what they are good at, without endorsing their bad behavior. This is a sweeping generalization, I know, but broken people often can do remarkable things because they are trying to fill a hole most of us just don't have. So if you will only listen to/look at the works of people you consider virtuous, you will be so limited.

Anti flag has ruined their music for me and anything harry potter is repulsive after learning about who JK rowling is. So, yes I think I can't seperate the art from the artist

I am a big fan of black metal so avoiding closeted white supremacists behind some of those bands has become tedious. If I find out that they are neo-nazis without even looking for that info, then I usually stop listening to them, but I am not systematically researching on them. But yes there is one cherry picking I do and it is regarding Burzum because the guy had such a huge impact on the scene that it's like ignoring Led Zep work (which would not be far fetched of a comparison since it is known that Jimmy Page was kind of a pedo).

But there are some artists that I can't get over what they did and avoid their art all together. I was a big fan of Kevin Spacey ; Se7en is one of my favourite movies ever. Now I feel sick when I see his face. I was also a big fan of Daughters but I can't listen to their stuff anymore after learning what their singer did.

I have a hot take on this one. I actively try not to. I disagree with the concept itself.
When it comes to buying their art, why would I do that if I don't like the artist, why would I support them that way?
When it comes to seeing their art as their ideas/ideology/etc, if I don't like them I probably don't exactly because I disagree with their ideas, so again it doesn't make sense to me.

It depends... I wouldn't want to watch Bill Cosby do standup but if he was in a movie I wanted to watch, I'd still watch it. So I think it depends on how close the art is to the artist.

Yes and no. The Art can be beautiful and the artist very gifted, i can recognize that part. It can also be related to their story, mood, society, environnement or not.

However, if they are shit toward human being, i boycott them just as any brand.

Yes, especially as the same logic can apply to inventions, and then it just gets messy.

Depends if they are alive still. If they are dead, I can separate them. But if you're alive and still making bank and being a shit heal, why support them?

Fuck Joss Whedon and his misogynistic, narcissistic ego.

But I still will watch Firefly, and Avengers.

I will not, however, pay any attention any of his future work.

I actually like Hitler's paintings.

Yes. I'm very strict about it.

But as I said in another post recently, I'm also firmly against giving money to people or organizations which I know will use it to do further harm.

So I can enjoy Roman Polanski's Pirates! on my secondhand Goodwill copy, but I won't go see a movie of his in the cinema, for example.

Yes.

It's like, the obvious, common sense way to live, isn't it?

What, are you gonna demand full psych and financial background checks on every person who creates and posts something? Wouldn't that kind of overseeing, authoritative behaviour ring you a bell?

Besides, separating the art from the artist really is the only thing that makes sense when artists and their works live in kinda separate temporal timeframes. If John Foo was a nice person and created piece of art in 2022, but had a rough financial turn at life in 2023 and turned into a christofascist as a result... honestly, that's far less the fault of the art which is a kinda inanimate thing and more the fault of consumers who didn't support their work more.

Woody Allen and his awful shameless disgusting behavior can go suck a bag of d1cks. He is so blatantly obvious and so nonchalant about the whole thing that it gives me the creeps. Plus I think he is overrated but I am no film connoisseur.

If I dont want to support the artist financially, there is no separating the art from the artist.

I've learned it's a necessity. If the art itself is good, well done, promotes positive thinking, etc, it's easy to look past the personal failings of the creator. Like joss whedon. Or the Harry Potter author. Nobody's perfect, and if I get super puritan about stuff, I miss out on a lot of good content.

If the art itself is shitty, offensive, hateful, harmful... nope, I'm not gonna look past that.

Roman Polanski is tricky. Dude was a horrible human. I don't want to like his movies, but The Tenant is just so darned good.

People that claim to cut things out of their life completely once the creator does something they don’t agree with, or worse yet when they are only accused of doing something they don’t agree with, are simpletons. They simply do not understand how the world in general works if they think that mindset is scalable.

Almost nothing is black and white when it comes to people’s choices and actions. The world is full of grey area and if someone fails to acknowledge that then they are in for a very frustrating existence.

Yep. There is just too much good art made by shitty people.

If the artist is alive, absolutely not. And if they are dead, it really depends on context and how awful they were. An artist's beliefs leave their fingerprints all over their art. Also, if they are, say, a TERF, purchasing their art funds their bad behavior, making the consumer complicit in enabling them.

It depends. I think in this world it's impossible to purchase something without most of your money going into the bank account of a terrible human being. Buying a chocolate bar perpetuates child slavery. One could argue buying meat perpetuates climate change. I think it's a great example of cognitive dissonance if someone refuses to buy Harry Potter merchandise because JK Rowling is a terrible person, but then continues to buy Nestle products.

For me, I do my best to not buy anything at all. I live a minimalist lifestyle. If all of my purchases are going to cause some harm, I will purchase the minimum amount of items necessary.

It's tough when something that's been a huge part of your life turns out to be made by an unlikeable person. Two big ones for me off the top of my head are Megadeth and Orson Scott Card. Music and novels that were big parts of my formative years. While I still have fond memories of their works in my life, I don't go back and revisit them much from what I've learned about the people since then.

In an age where anyone can get their content out there, there are too many people doing equal quality creations without the baggage, so I'd rather just move on to new creators I can spread the word about than trying to defend someone who's already seen success and tarnished it for themselves. It's not enjoyable to have to defend someone questionable to anyone else, or to myself.