I'm going to put myself firmly in the camp of those who separate the art from the artist. More relevant to me than these actors (I have not seen any of the movies/series mentioned in this article)...
I'm going to put myself firmly in the camp of those who separate the art from the artist.
More relevant to me than these actors (I have not seen any of the movies/series mentioned in this article) is the case of Orson Scott Card, the openly homophobic science fiction author of 'Ender's Game' and other works. Supposedly, I should avoid his works because he has repeatedly spoken out against homosexuality in general and same-sex marriage in particular. However, I have bought his books, read them, and enjoyed them. Some of them rank among my favourite books. And, in the books and stories of his that I've read (I haven't kept up with all his recent works), I have not seen any evidence of anti-gay ideology.
While the writer may speak out against homosexuality in his private life, he does not write about it in his creative works.
I do not have any ethical qualms about buying his books, because I am paying him for his work, not for his personality. I don't ask my hairdresser about their criminal past. I don't inquire about the politics of my plumber. I don't check if my taxi driver has a history of sexual predation. I just pay them for the services they provide me. Similarly, I just pay authors and producers and directors and actors and singers for the entertainment they provide me without inquiring, or needing to inquire, into their backgrounds.
I believe in separating the art from the artist.
If the art itself contains a message I disagree with - if, for example, Orson Scott Card's books included an anti-homosexual message - I would most certainly reject that work and its message. But, as long as the art does not contain a message I disagree with, I see no reason to not pay for that art and consume it. Sometimes even if the art does contain a message I disagree with (such as Robert Heinlein's ultra-libertarian and sexist books), I might buy it because it is worthy in other ways.
I am on the other side of it. While I wouldn't tell anyone else how to consume, I myself consider every work of art to contain a piece of the essence of the artist. Most artists would agree with...
I am on the other side of it. While I wouldn't tell anyone else how to consume, I myself consider every work of art to contain a piece of the essence of the artist. Most artists would agree with me, I believe. Because of that, when an artist has done something particularly egregious (not mildly so, but full-on Kevin Spacey levels), I cannot enjoy their work anymore.
What I find curious is the trend for some of the people on "your side" (not you or anybody here) to insist that I partake of their work. It's odd, because people will refuse to listen to artists (or watch films with actors) they don't like all the time, but somehow it's wrong if I have a reason for it other than "I don't like them."
Why? What is it about knowing an actor's/writer's/director's past that causes you to stop enjoying a television show? Does this apply only to artists you see, or does it include the people you...
Because of that, when an artist has done something particularly egregious (not mildly so, but full-on Kevin Spacey levels), I cannot enjoy their work anymore.
Why? What is it about knowing an actor's/writer's/director's past that causes you to stop enjoying a television show?
Does this apply only to artists you see, or does it include the people you don't see? If you found out that a lighting operator on your favourite show had been convicted of child sexual abuse, would that colour your feeling about that show?
And what about the people whose past you don't know about? In the full cast and crew of a television series, which might employ over a hundred people, it's pretty much guaranteed that there'll be at least one bad person there: a spouse-beater, a child-abuser, an adulterer, a thief, a fraudster, a neo-nazi. Does this bother you at all?
The reasoning I have is actually in the same paragraph as the line you quoted: This, and the idea of supporting the artist (no matter how small that support may be) is why I can't enjoy it. As for...
Why? What is it about knowing an actor's/writer's/director's past that causes you to stop enjoying a television show?
The reasoning I have is actually in the same paragraph as the line you quoted:
I myself consider every work of art to contain a piece of the essence of the artist.
This, and the idea of supporting the artist (no matter how small that support may be) is why I can't enjoy it. As for crew (instead of cast or creators), they are not artists in this sense. I am sure the key grip considers his or her contribution immeasurable, but such people do not make a noticeable impact upon a project... that is to say, if replaced one would hardly know.
As for the people I don't know about, I don't know about them. If I don't know about them, then it honestly can't affect me. Again, though, I used Kevin Spacey for a reason: he, like Louis CK or Harvey Weinstein, has screwed up to such a degree that it has become news outside of their normal circles.
I realize that it's not a rational notion, but art is not rational, it is emotional. You like something or not for personal reasons, and not all of them can be attributed to lighting or pacing. Sometimes, a movie, TV show, or musical composition can be good without being good for you.
This is how I feel as well. I watched Horrible Bosses 1 and 2 the other day despite him being in them, but every scene he was in, I couldn't shake what I've learned about him during MeToo. The...
when an artist has done something particularly egregious (not mildly so, but full-on Kevin Spacey levels), I cannot enjoy their work anymore.
This is how I feel as well. I watched Horrible Bosses 1 and 2 the other day despite him being in them, but every scene he was in, I couldn't shake what I've learned about him during MeToo. The same goes for someone like Louis CK - while he hasn't done things that are even close to what Kevin Spacey has done, it's enough for me to not want to watch his material anymore, even though I actually think he's hilarious.
In contrast is someone like Tom Cruise who is infamous for being a Scientologist. While I certainly despise his religion and whatever the hell he's up to, it's not quite at that Kevin Spacey level yet - I can still enjoy his movies and whatnot, without constantly thinking about what he's done in his private life.
My point is that separating the art from the artist doesn't have to be a black and white concept where you absolutely must do one thing and never the other. Few things are like that.
I think this is a good way to look at it and you bring up a good point regarding various other industries (plumbers, hairdressers, etc.) The key difference is the fact that...
I think this is a good way to look at it and you bring up a good point regarding various other industries (plumbers, hairdressers, etc.)
The key difference is the fact that entertainers/celebrities lives are all made so public that it is easy for us to get caught up in all of it and look at these people much more critically and from a distance as opposed to someone you interact with personally (i.e. your plumber).
Unfortunately with the rise of the hyper connected world many of us are experiencing the dreaded "never meet your heroes" on a daily basis. Now I'm not saying that what these artists are doing is okay, I'm just in agreement that we are living in a time now where so much information is available it is proving more difficult to walk that line of separating the art from the artist.
I say all of that to say that I agree, while I do my best to avoid supporting unethical practices/people I will likely always enjoy the works of many great actors and musicians that have a less than stellar personal track record...
Funny - Orson Scott Card was immediately who came to my mind when I read the article. In general I agree with you - it’s pretty easy for me to separate the art from the artist. At the same time,...
Funny - Orson Scott Card was immediately who came to my mind when I read the article.
In general I agree with you - it’s pretty easy for me to separate the art from the artist. At the same time, I’d rather not contribute to an artist’s platform that I don’t agree with. So I try to consume the art without enriching the artist. So instead of buying Ender’s Game new, I might buy it used, get it from the library, or pirate it.
Maybe a futile gesture, but it makes me feel better.
This always confuses me. I have an incomplete argument that goes: if I can't afford your work, but can obtain a copy for free, and that work is digital format, when I obtain such work illegally,...
This always confuses me. I have an incomplete argument that goes: if I can't afford your work, but can obtain a copy for free, and that work is digital format, when I obtain such work illegally, you don't lose any income because I wouldn't be able to buy it anyways, and you can still sell theoretically infinite copies w/o any cost to reproduce or ship. From your perspective, what I did should have no negative effects. It is the same also with GPs comment. I don't want to pay you anything, so I pirate your work. You lost nothing b/c if I couldn't pirate it I wouldn't buy it anyways. It is essentially quite similar to me lending it from a library.
I don't know what to think about what happens when the actual potential customers discover the availability of pirated copies, though. Are there any stats about whether they tend to buy or piratr in that situation? Personally I always avoid pirating, b/c I prefer physical books and b/c pirated content is always full of typesetting errors. I haven't made my mind up with the ethics of it tho. Editors, publishers, translators, authors etc. need to be paid, but I hate when information is unavailable just b/c one can't afford it.
As an aside, I'm not sure if I agree that pirating is the same as lending from a library. Libraries do look at statistics of which books people read as an indicator of what books to purchase later...
As an aside, I'm not sure if I agree that pirating is the same as lending from a library. Libraries do look at statistics of which books people read as an indicator of what books to purchase later on; by reading an author it is more likely that the library with purchase more works by them (potentially also libraries around them, due to the way the catalogue statistics are shared between neighbourhood libraries, but perhaps that's just a thing that happens in my neck of the woods).
Though, I did explicitly pirate some music of an artist due to criminal things they did, so as to stop me from listening to them on Spotify resulting in me not financially supporting them anymore. I still listen to the music, but it carries a bad taste in my mouth.
I don’t really subscribe to a concept of absolute right/wrong, so I don’t lose any sleep over this. Who’s to say what is “more” wrong - enjoying art without paying for it or supporting a...
I don’t really subscribe to a concept of absolute right/wrong, so I don’t lose any sleep over this.
Who’s to say what is “more” wrong - enjoying art without paying for it or supporting a homophobe? I suspect you know it’s more nuanced than this, so if you follow the nuance, you may see why I reject the idea of an absolute good/bad.
I can't say I place myself firmly in one camp or the other. I have a nebulous set of criteria and kind of go on a case by case basis. I also pretty much always continue to enjoy things I enjoyed...
I can't say I place myself firmly in one camp or the other. I have a nebulous set of criteria and kind of go on a case by case basis. I also pretty much always continue to enjoy things I enjoyed before learning an artist was a bad person, with the exception of learning new things (e.g., if I didn't initially recognize something as racist and now I do, I like it less). However, upon learning someone is Bad, few things I consider before supporting subsequent work are:
When the infraction was made and was it in line with social and cultural norms of the time? (or "did they know that what they were doing was bad?")
How bad was the bad thing? There's a difference between saying sexist things and causing actual harm to women.
How often did the bad thing happen? Was it a one-off mistake (like George Takei's thing) or was it habitual (like Kevin Spacey's)?
How did they react when it came out? Did they apologize? Did they double down? I thought Louis CK's response was great . . . until his recent bit.
All of the criteria don't have to be met for me to continue to support a person, but all are certainly things I think about. I also know that I'm much quicker to judge people who's art I cared little for prior to bad things coming out.
Agreed. I think it's a completely different story, however, when someone abuses their position as an artist to pursue their bad pursuits. Take, for example, Weinstein--sure, he may have made some...
Agreed. I think it's a completely different story, however, when someone abuses their position as an artist to pursue their bad pursuits. Take, for example, Weinstein--sure, he may have made some good films, but using his position of power to take advantage of women is absolutely not ok and I don't feel like feeding into making him a more powerful man.
Which is it - their position as an artist or their position of power? Not all artists have positions of power from which to take advantage of people! I suggest you mean position of power, rather...
when someone abuses their position as an artist
using his position of power
Which is it - their position as an artist or their position of power? Not all artists have positions of power from which to take advantage of people! I suggest you mean position of power, rather than position as an artist.
So... what about people who abuse their position of power but who are not artists? Would you stop buying soft drinks from [insert your favourite soft-drink brand here] if you found out their CEO was sexually abusing female employees?
Right--their position of power granted by them being an artist--my bad. Though, you could say, as OP did, if someone wrote books with deeply ingrained homophobic messages, that would be an abuse...
Right--their position of power granted by them being an artist--my bad. Though, you could say, as OP did, if someone wrote books with deeply ingrained homophobic messages, that would be an abuse of their power as an artist.
As for the soft drink, I would honestly take a break from that brand until the accusations move forward. If it was, for example, Samsung, that would be a completely different story--I'm not boycotting my microwave, and I'm sure Samsung users wouldn't boycott their own phones.
It really just comes down to how big a lifestyle choice a product is. Soda, books, music, and journalism are very easy to take a break from. Others are not.
Of course convenience / financial concerns outweigh principles at a certian point! Unless you're staggeringly rich and buy literally everything from hipster coops and personally examine just how...
Of course convenience / financial concerns outweigh principles at a certian point! Unless you're staggeringly rich and buy literally everything from hipster coops and personally examine just how morally righteous they really are OR completely disconnect from society, it's impossible to avoid financially contributing to companies either doing awful things or with awful people in charge.
That isn't something to point out as a flaw of the person, but simply why you can't be an across-the-board ethical consumer.
If you think I'm tossing my computer, phone, home theater system, car, debit card, etc. because an exec had a severe ethical violation you must be joking. I'm not going to just not use something...
So, basically, your convenience outweighs your principles.
If you think I'm tossing my computer, phone, home theater system, car, debit card, etc. because an exec had a severe ethical violation you must be joking. I'm not going to just not use something that is several hundred dollars+ or is a major part of my life on ethical principles. Sure, if nothing changes, I may switch to a different brand, but again, if I'm spending thousands of dollars on a car, I don't plan on picking the one that will crap out on me after 60k miles. I'm picking the one that works best for me.
Exactly. We do it all the time. We compromise our principles because it's inconvenient to do otherwise. So people shouldn't get on their high horses and pretend to be moral because they stopped...
Exactly. We do it all the time. We compromise our principles because it's inconvenient to do otherwise.
So people shouldn't get on their high horses and pretend to be moral because they stopped watching a TV show, when that's as far as they're willing to go for their principles. We're all just a bunch of half-arsed moralists.
I wouldn't call it inconvenient. I'd call it damn-near impossible. I challenge you to find a middle class person that's willing to throw out all of the "luxury" items they have and switch to a new...
We compromise our principles because it's inconvenient to do otherwise.
I wouldn't call it inconvenient. I'd call it damn-near impossible.
I challenge you to find a middle class person that's willing to throw out all of the "luxury" items they have and switch to a new brand. There's an incredibly high economic burden there too--assume you're trying to switch from windows to macOS. Naturally, you won't be selling your previous laptop due to ethical concerns, so you'll be buying the "entry-level" MacBook for the low cost of $1300. Don't even get me started on software and compatibility.
Now, your car. Sure, you can Uber around until the dispute is resolved (oh wait, I already don't use Uber due to ethical concerns, so we'll be using Lyft), but what happens when they're driving the car you're avoiding?
Either way, you must get a new car. You donate your car to your local radio station (not sure if that's a thing away from where I live), and purchase a new one for... only $6000! It's got 110k miles on it, but it runs fine.
Alright, now let's buy a new phone. Since we were treating Apple as the "good" company in the past, let's buy an iPhone--the XR. You're in luck, it's only $749 + tax. Unfortunately, you have to pay off the rest of your old phone if you're on an installment plan.
Now the big one, the telecom companies. Say Spectrum's had a massive scandal where it's revealed that supervisors at their support centers were sexually harassing their employees. Here, I would love to ditch this company, but I'm not going to move across the city to where I can choose a different provider. That's not how the world works. The best I can possibly do is send a strongly worded letter. I need the internet for work.
What you're suggesting is quite dangerous--that we, as people, throw away all of our moral obligations. There are things you can do. The easiest way to affect a morally corrupt company is through their services. Every company nowadays offers a subscription service, and if enough people band together in standing up for what's right, we can make enough of a dent in their bottom line to force a change. If there's something up with MSFT, cancel your Office 365 plan! Switch to Notion or LibreOffice.
If you want to stand up against Google's tracking, switch to Firefox, install uBlock Origin, use ProtonMail, DDG, and another cloud/docs provider. If enough people do this, Google will hurt. It is a lifestyle change, not an easy one, but it's feasible for the average person to make this change.
I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars to attempt to change the way a company works, and let's face it: not enough people will to make a difference. I will, however, take a few days to transfer any and all services to a different provider. It takes ten minutes to switch from spotify getting my $100/yr to Amazon, Google, Apple, or someone else getting it. If a thousand people switch, that's 100K, and it only grows from there.
Yes, humans are inherently lazy, and there are some things that won't change without massive disruption. However, we can make a difference if we can encourage the people we know both online and irl to make change. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible.
Fuck no! If anything, I would lean the other way: we should act more on our moral obligations. But, as you rightly point out, that's hard and not many people are willing to put in the necessary...
What you're suggesting is quite dangerous--that we, as people, throw away all of our moral obligations.
Fuck no! If anything, I would lean the other way: we should act more on our moral obligations. But, as you rightly point out, that's hard and not many people are willing to put in the necessary effort (and I'm not exempting myself from this!).
My point is that people make a moral victory out of not watching a television show, when that is almost literally the least they could do. As you say, if we truly wanted to be moral consumers, there's a lot more that we could do - but we don't. So it's kind of hypocritical of people to trumpet their moral choice which consists of... choosing a different show to watch. Big deal.
However, we can make a difference if we can encourage the people we know both online and irl to make change.
"Physician, heal thyself." "Walk the talk." :)
If we ourselves are not willing to make these changes because it's too hard, what right do we have to tell other people they should change?
We're not talking about producers, directors, and actors who make movies/series that advocate sexual assault. That would be a totally different conversation! We're talking about producers,...
We're not talking about producers, directors, and actors who make movies/series that advocate sexual assault. That would be a totally different conversation!
We're talking about producers, directors, and actors who committed sexual assault in their private lives. How does that influence public opinion?
Probably for the same reason I wouldn't want someone who has sexually assaulted people holding political office even if their policy doesn't protect people who do sexual assault. If you accept...
Probably for the same reason I wouldn't want someone who has sexually assaulted people holding political office even if their policy doesn't protect people who do sexual assault.
If you accept that there's power in having a large audience and having a lot of money, then it's pretty natural to think about who gets that power.
This makes me think of something I read recently in a review of Russian Doll: If we accept the premise that "we can't enjoy the works of bad people" then how closely does someone have to be...
Exemplary
This makes me think of something I read recently in a review of Russian Doll:
A necessary caveat: One of Russian Doll’s executive producers — the fourth name listed in the closing credits, even — is Dave Becky, who used to be Louis C.K.’s manager and who has apologized for his role in the comedian’s cover-up of his sexual misconduct. Becky is still Poehler’s manager and one of Lyonne’s managers, and his company, 3 Arts Entertainment, is still a major force in TV comedy. This does not dampen my enthusiasm for Russian Doll or Lyonne’s performance in it, and I know Becky’s name appearing in the credits is almost certainly the result of some sort of contractual obligation. (That said, his name has been erased from the fifth and final season of Broad City.) But seeing his name did make my gut churn a bit at the end of every episode. You may feel differently!
If we accept the premise that "we can't enjoy the works of bad people" then how closely does someone have to be associated with a particular work before it becomes taboo? And, why do these social rules seem to only apply to entertainment products? Is there a meaningful difference between the executive producer of a Netflix show being involved in covering up a scandal and, say, a manager of a company that makes tax software having done the same? Maybe not, but you never really hear anyone say "one of the executive vice-presidents of TaxSoft is a terrible person, no one should use them anymore." We do hear people say things like "BuyCo is an evil corporation that's responsible for hundreds of deaths" but the response is usually cynical inaction—"yeah, corporations are evil, but it's not like I can do anything about it."
I suppose the difference between wanting to boycott a Netflix show vs a piece of tax software, and where the line is drawn when someone sketchy is associated with an entertainment product, comes down to the same answer: we view something differently when it's associated with an individual. In the Russian Doll quote above the reviewer isn't happy with the association the show has with Dave Becky but it's not really seen as "the Dave Becky show". Compare that to something like House of Cards which is (or was) "the Kevin Spacey show".
To take it back to the article at hand, the question "can we morally enjoy good works by bad people?" is usually framed as an issue of support: are we providing moral or financial support to bad people by consuming their work? Are we implicitly condoning their acts? This is a worthwhile discussion, but I don't think it factors into our decision. (After all, how many "evil corporations" are we supporting every day with unnecessary purchases?) Instead, I think the implicit question we're struggling with is, "does my association with this make me a bad person? or, will anyone else think that?"
That's not really an answer, but maybe it's a useful way to think of the question.
For me, when it comes to financial support, my answer is mostly "no." It's still in question, most commercial creative works are big collaborations with many, many people on board who all could...
For me, when it comes to financial support, my answer is mostly "no." It's still in question, most commercial creative works are big collaborations with many, many people on board who all could have done very bad things, but in the big obvious cases where an abuser's face is front and center on a movie poster, I think it's right to avoid that thing. "Separating the art from the artist" is all well and good, but it doesn't change the exchange that's happening there. I separate the plumbing from the plumber, but if I hear that my plumber is a pedophile, I'm sure as hell hiring someone else!
Liking is a lot more complex than that, in my view. Judgements I make based on this are highly contextual and a lot of it is just gut. Does the art rely on the personality of the person? Are there parts that are on the edge of what's acceptable from a person with a clean record that look very different from one who does not? Did you know about the things the person did at the time you found their work? Who are you, person who still likes the thing? There's a lot of things that go into it, and I'm willing to wrestle with that complexity because evaluating the morality of people is always fucking hard.
You don't need to keep your eyes and ears virgin to the work of bad people, it's not a question of purity, but if someone unapologetically talks up XXXtentacion, the values of that person and the amount I can trust them is called into question. That framing matters, too. Loudly proclaiming "X is a fuckin legend" and "fuck that guy, but Jocelyn Flores was a good song" are different things, as is going out and buying his music.
If we say that separating the art from the artist is not morally viable, IMO we're left with an indeterminate wait for the shoe to drop for every artist. Just because the hive mind hasn't found...
If we say that separating the art from the artist is not morally viable, IMO we're left with an indeterminate wait for the shoe to drop for every artist. Just because the hive mind hasn't found out about someone's sins doesn't mean that they aren't there.. People, all people, do both good and bad things to varying degrees throughout their lives. How is the quality and/or enjoyability of a work to be judged when the mores of the day are so nebulous?
Apparently some folks enjoy this approach, and more power to them. I can't live that way, however, and enjoy what I find to be enjoyable without worrying about politicizing my movie/music/book/other consumption.
I have to respond to your comment because while I do see your point, I think your example is terrible. He raped and murdered at least hundreds of children and ran child prostitution rings. You...
I have to respond to your comment because while I do see your point, I think your example is terrible. He raped and murdered at least hundreds of children and ran child prostitution rings. You can't balance that against raising money for charity. You can't call that a "very good deed". A "very good deed" might have been castrating himself after committing these terrible crimes.
If I like something that I didn't attach to the creator before I knew they were bad I will continue liking it since the thing and the creator are separate. Ender's game falls into this category...
If I like something that I didn't attach to the creator before I knew they were bad I will continue liking it since the thing and the creator are separate. Ender's game falls into this category for me.
For things were the creator is directly evident , like House of Cards or any Chris Brown song.. I will not be able to enjoy it any longer and won't enjoy future work.
My problem with the whole thing is the selective, targeted outrage against some powerful people by other powerful people. I'm not interested in doing someone's dirty work for them by succumbing to...
My problem with the whole thing is the selective, targeted outrage against some powerful people by other powerful people. I'm not interested in doing someone's dirty work for them by succumbing to an outrage meme against one party while the others go off scot-free. As far as I can tell, personally, sociopathy is the norm and not the exception in political and Hollywood circles. When it comes to human beings I don't know, and have no mutual acquaintances with, I feel basically forced to be agnostic. But if a local artist in my community were some sort of predator, I would not support them, and I would no longer be able to enjoy their work
I'm going to put myself firmly in the camp of those who separate the art from the artist.
More relevant to me than these actors (I have not seen any of the movies/series mentioned in this article) is the case of Orson Scott Card, the openly homophobic science fiction author of 'Ender's Game' and other works. Supposedly, I should avoid his works because he has repeatedly spoken out against homosexuality in general and same-sex marriage in particular. However, I have bought his books, read them, and enjoyed them. Some of them rank among my favourite books. And, in the books and stories of his that I've read (I haven't kept up with all his recent works), I have not seen any evidence of anti-gay ideology.
While the writer may speak out against homosexuality in his private life, he does not write about it in his creative works.
I do not have any ethical qualms about buying his books, because I am paying him for his work, not for his personality. I don't ask my hairdresser about their criminal past. I don't inquire about the politics of my plumber. I don't check if my taxi driver has a history of sexual predation. I just pay them for the services they provide me. Similarly, I just pay authors and producers and directors and actors and singers for the entertainment they provide me without inquiring, or needing to inquire, into their backgrounds.
I believe in separating the art from the artist.
If the art itself contains a message I disagree with - if, for example, Orson Scott Card's books included an anti-homosexual message - I would most certainly reject that work and its message. But, as long as the art does not contain a message I disagree with, I see no reason to not pay for that art and consume it. Sometimes even if the art does contain a message I disagree with (such as Robert Heinlein's ultra-libertarian and sexist books), I might buy it because it is worthy in other ways.
EDIT: Grammar.
I am on the other side of it. While I wouldn't tell anyone else how to consume, I myself consider every work of art to contain a piece of the essence of the artist. Most artists would agree with me, I believe. Because of that, when an artist has done something particularly egregious (not mildly so, but full-on Kevin Spacey levels), I cannot enjoy their work anymore.
What I find curious is the trend for some of the people on "your side" (not you or anybody here) to insist that I partake of their work. It's odd, because people will refuse to listen to artists (or watch films with actors) they don't like all the time, but somehow it's wrong if I have a reason for it other than "I don't like them."
Why? What is it about knowing an actor's/writer's/director's past that causes you to stop enjoying a television show?
Does this apply only to artists you see, or does it include the people you don't see? If you found out that a lighting operator on your favourite show had been convicted of child sexual abuse, would that colour your feeling about that show?
And what about the people whose past you don't know about? In the full cast and crew of a television series, which might employ over a hundred people, it's pretty much guaranteed that there'll be at least one bad person there: a spouse-beater, a child-abuser, an adulterer, a thief, a fraudster, a neo-nazi. Does this bother you at all?
The reasoning I have is actually in the same paragraph as the line you quoted:
This, and the idea of supporting the artist (no matter how small that support may be) is why I can't enjoy it. As for crew (instead of cast or creators), they are not artists in this sense. I am sure the key grip considers his or her contribution immeasurable, but such people do not make a noticeable impact upon a project... that is to say, if replaced one would hardly know.
As for the people I don't know about, I don't know about them. If I don't know about them, then it honestly can't affect me. Again, though, I used Kevin Spacey for a reason: he, like Louis CK or Harvey Weinstein, has screwed up to such a degree that it has become news outside of their normal circles.
I realize that it's not a rational notion, but art is not rational, it is emotional. You like something or not for personal reasons, and not all of them can be attributed to lighting or pacing. Sometimes, a movie, TV show, or musical composition can be good without being good for you.
This is how I feel as well. I watched Horrible Bosses 1 and 2 the other day despite him being in them, but every scene he was in, I couldn't shake what I've learned about him during MeToo. The same goes for someone like Louis CK - while he hasn't done things that are even close to what Kevin Spacey has done, it's enough for me to not want to watch his material anymore, even though I actually think he's hilarious.
In contrast is someone like Tom Cruise who is infamous for being a Scientologist. While I certainly despise his religion and whatever the hell he's up to, it's not quite at that Kevin Spacey level yet - I can still enjoy his movies and whatnot, without constantly thinking about what he's done in his private life.
My point is that separating the art from the artist doesn't have to be a black and white concept where you absolutely must do one thing and never the other. Few things are like that.
I think this is a good way to look at it and you bring up a good point regarding various other industries (plumbers, hairdressers, etc.)
The key difference is the fact that entertainers/celebrities lives are all made so public that it is easy for us to get caught up in all of it and look at these people much more critically and from a distance as opposed to someone you interact with personally (i.e. your plumber).
Unfortunately with the rise of the hyper connected world many of us are experiencing the dreaded "never meet your heroes" on a daily basis. Now I'm not saying that what these artists are doing is okay, I'm just in agreement that we are living in a time now where so much information is available it is proving more difficult to walk that line of separating the art from the artist.
I say all of that to say that I agree, while I do my best to avoid supporting unethical practices/people I will likely always enjoy the works of many great actors and musicians that have a less than stellar personal track record...
Funny - Orson Scott Card was immediately who came to my mind when I read the article.
In general I agree with you - it’s pretty easy for me to separate the art from the artist. At the same time, I’d rather not contribute to an artist’s platform that I don’t agree with. So I try to consume the art without enriching the artist. So instead of buying Ender’s Game new, I might buy it used, get it from the library, or pirate it.
Maybe a futile gesture, but it makes me feel better.
So you respond to one wrong with another wrong: "I don't like you, but I like your art, so I'll take your art for free." :P
This always confuses me. I have an incomplete argument that goes: if I can't afford your work, but can obtain a copy for free, and that work is digital format, when I obtain such work illegally, you don't lose any income because I wouldn't be able to buy it anyways, and you can still sell theoretically infinite copies w/o any cost to reproduce or ship. From your perspective, what I did should have no negative effects. It is the same also with GPs comment. I don't want to pay you anything, so I pirate your work. You lost nothing b/c if I couldn't pirate it I wouldn't buy it anyways. It is essentially quite similar to me lending it from a library.
I don't know what to think about what happens when the actual potential customers discover the availability of pirated copies, though. Are there any stats about whether they tend to buy or piratr in that situation? Personally I always avoid pirating, b/c I prefer physical books and b/c pirated content is always full of typesetting errors. I haven't made my mind up with the ethics of it tho. Editors, publishers, translators, authors etc. need to be paid, but I hate when information is unavailable just b/c one can't afford it.
As an aside, I'm not sure if I agree that pirating is the same as lending from a library. Libraries do look at statistics of which books people read as an indicator of what books to purchase later on; by reading an author it is more likely that the library with purchase more works by them (potentially also libraries around them, due to the way the catalogue statistics are shared between neighbourhood libraries, but perhaps that's just a thing that happens in my neck of the woods).
Though, I did explicitly pirate some music of an artist due to criminal things they did, so as to stop me from listening to them on Spotify resulting in me not financially supporting them anymore. I still listen to the music, but it carries a bad taste in my mouth.
I don’t really subscribe to a concept of absolute right/wrong, so I don’t lose any sleep over this.
Who’s to say what is “more” wrong - enjoying art without paying for it or supporting a homophobe? I suspect you know it’s more nuanced than this, so if you follow the nuance, you may see why I reject the idea of an absolute good/bad.
I can't say I place myself firmly in one camp or the other. I have a nebulous set of criteria and kind of go on a case by case basis. I also pretty much always continue to enjoy things I enjoyed before learning an artist was a bad person, with the exception of learning new things (e.g., if I didn't initially recognize something as racist and now I do, I like it less). However, upon learning someone is Bad, few things I consider before supporting subsequent work are:
All of the criteria don't have to be met for me to continue to support a person, but all are certainly things I think about. I also know that I'm much quicker to judge people who's art I cared little for prior to bad things coming out.
Edit: closed a bracket
Agreed. I think it's a completely different story, however, when someone abuses their position as an artist to pursue their bad pursuits. Take, for example, Weinstein--sure, he may have made some good films, but using his position of power to take advantage of women is absolutely not ok and I don't feel like feeding into making him a more powerful man.
Which is it - their position as an artist or their position of power? Not all artists have positions of power from which to take advantage of people! I suggest you mean position of power, rather than position as an artist.
So... what about people who abuse their position of power but who are not artists? Would you stop buying soft drinks from [insert your favourite soft-drink brand here] if you found out their CEO was sexually abusing female employees?
Right--their position of power granted by them being an artist--my bad. Though, you could say, as OP did, if someone wrote books with deeply ingrained homophobic messages, that would be an abuse of their power as an artist.
As for the soft drink, I would honestly take a break from that brand until the accusations move forward. If it was, for example, Samsung, that would be a completely different story--I'm not boycotting my microwave, and I'm sure Samsung users wouldn't boycott their own phones.
It really just comes down to how big a lifestyle choice a product is. Soda, books, music, and journalism are very easy to take a break from. Others are not.
I did say that! :P
So, basically, your convenience outweighs your principles.
Of course convenience / financial concerns outweigh principles at a certian point! Unless you're staggeringly rich and buy literally everything from hipster coops and personally examine just how morally righteous they really are OR completely disconnect from society, it's impossible to avoid financially contributing to companies either doing awful things or with awful people in charge.
That isn't something to point out as a flaw of the person, but simply why you can't be an across-the-board ethical consumer.
If you think I'm tossing my computer, phone, home theater system, car, debit card, etc. because an exec had a severe ethical violation you must be joking. I'm not going to just not use something that is several hundred dollars+ or is a major part of my life on ethical principles. Sure, if nothing changes, I may switch to a different brand, but again, if I'm spending thousands of dollars on a car, I don't plan on picking the one that will crap out on me after 60k miles. I'm picking the one that works best for me.
Exactly. We do it all the time. We compromise our principles because it's inconvenient to do otherwise.
So people shouldn't get on their high horses and pretend to be moral because they stopped watching a TV show, when that's as far as they're willing to go for their principles. We're all just a bunch of half-arsed moralists.
I wouldn't call it inconvenient. I'd call it damn-near impossible.
I challenge you to find a middle class person that's willing to throw out all of the "luxury" items they have and switch to a new brand. There's an incredibly high economic burden there too--assume you're trying to switch from windows to macOS. Naturally, you won't be selling your previous laptop due to ethical concerns, so you'll be buying the "entry-level" MacBook for the low cost of $1300. Don't even get me started on software and compatibility.
Now, your car. Sure, you can Uber around until the dispute is resolved (oh wait, I already don't use Uber due to ethical concerns, so we'll be using Lyft), but what happens when they're driving the car you're avoiding?
Either way, you must get a new car. You donate your car to your local radio station (not sure if that's a thing away from where I live), and purchase a new one for... only $6000! It's got 110k miles on it, but it runs fine.
Alright, now let's buy a new phone. Since we were treating Apple as the "good" company in the past, let's buy an iPhone--the XR. You're in luck, it's only $749 + tax. Unfortunately, you have to pay off the rest of your old phone if you're on an installment plan.
Now the big one, the telecom companies. Say Spectrum's had a massive scandal where it's revealed that supervisors at their support centers were sexually harassing their employees. Here, I would love to ditch this company, but I'm not going to move across the city to where I can choose a different provider. That's not how the world works. The best I can possibly do is send a strongly worded letter. I need the internet for work.
What you're suggesting is quite dangerous--that we, as people, throw away all of our moral obligations. There are things you can do. The easiest way to affect a morally corrupt company is through their services. Every company nowadays offers a subscription service, and if enough people band together in standing up for what's right, we can make enough of a dent in their bottom line to force a change. If there's something up with MSFT, cancel your Office 365 plan! Switch to Notion or LibreOffice.
If you want to stand up against Google's tracking, switch to Firefox, install uBlock Origin, use ProtonMail, DDG, and another cloud/docs provider. If enough people do this, Google will hurt. It is a lifestyle change, not an easy one, but it's feasible for the average person to make this change.
I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars to attempt to change the way a company works, and let's face it: not enough people will to make a difference. I will, however, take a few days to transfer any and all services to a different provider. It takes ten minutes to switch from spotify getting my $100/yr to Amazon, Google, Apple, or someone else getting it. If a thousand people switch, that's 100K, and it only grows from there.
Yes, humans are inherently lazy, and there are some things that won't change without massive disruption. However, we can make a difference if we can encourage the people we know both online and irl to make change. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible.
Fuck no! If anything, I would lean the other way: we should act more on our moral obligations. But, as you rightly point out, that's hard and not many people are willing to put in the necessary effort (and I'm not exempting myself from this!).
My point is that people make a moral victory out of not watching a television show, when that is almost literally the least they could do. As you say, if we truly wanted to be moral consumers, there's a lot more that we could do - but we don't. So it's kind of hypocritical of people to trumpet their moral choice which consists of... choosing a different show to watch. Big deal.
"Physician, heal thyself." "Walk the talk." :)
If we ourselves are not willing to make these changes because it's too hard, what right do we have to tell other people they should change?
We're not talking about producers, directors, and actors who make movies/series that advocate sexual assault. That would be a totally different conversation!
We're talking about producers, directors, and actors who committed sexual assault in their private lives. How does that influence public opinion?
Probably for the same reason I wouldn't want someone who has sexually assaulted people holding political office even if their policy doesn't protect people who do sexual assault.
If you accept that there's power in having a large audience and having a lot of money, then it's pretty natural to think about who gets that power.
This makes me think of something I read recently in a review of Russian Doll:
If we accept the premise that "we can't enjoy the works of bad people" then how closely does someone have to be associated with a particular work before it becomes taboo? And, why do these social rules seem to only apply to entertainment products? Is there a meaningful difference between the executive producer of a Netflix show being involved in covering up a scandal and, say, a manager of a company that makes tax software having done the same? Maybe not, but you never really hear anyone say "one of the executive vice-presidents of TaxSoft is a terrible person, no one should use them anymore." We do hear people say things like "BuyCo is an evil corporation that's responsible for hundreds of deaths" but the response is usually cynical inaction—"yeah, corporations are evil, but it's not like I can do anything about it."
I suppose the difference between wanting to boycott a Netflix show vs a piece of tax software, and where the line is drawn when someone sketchy is associated with an entertainment product, comes down to the same answer: we view something differently when it's associated with an individual. In the Russian Doll quote above the reviewer isn't happy with the association the show has with Dave Becky but it's not really seen as "the Dave Becky show". Compare that to something like House of Cards which is (or was) "the Kevin Spacey show".
To take it back to the article at hand, the question "can we morally enjoy good works by bad people?" is usually framed as an issue of support: are we providing moral or financial support to bad people by consuming their work? Are we implicitly condoning their acts? This is a worthwhile discussion, but I don't think it factors into our decision. (After all, how many "evil corporations" are we supporting every day with unnecessary purchases?) Instead, I think the implicit question we're struggling with is, "does my association with this make me a bad person? or, will anyone else think that?"
That's not really an answer, but maybe it's a useful way to think of the question.
For me, when it comes to financial support, my answer is mostly "no." It's still in question, most commercial creative works are big collaborations with many, many people on board who all could have done very bad things, but in the big obvious cases where an abuser's face is front and center on a movie poster, I think it's right to avoid that thing. "Separating the art from the artist" is all well and good, but it doesn't change the exchange that's happening there. I separate the plumbing from the plumber, but if I hear that my plumber is a pedophile, I'm sure as hell hiring someone else!
Liking is a lot more complex than that, in my view. Judgements I make based on this are highly contextual and a lot of it is just gut. Does the art rely on the personality of the person? Are there parts that are on the edge of what's acceptable from a person with a clean record that look very different from one who does not? Did you know about the things the person did at the time you found their work? Who are you, person who still likes the thing? There's a lot of things that go into it, and I'm willing to wrestle with that complexity because evaluating the morality of people is always fucking hard.
You don't need to keep your eyes and ears virgin to the work of bad people, it's not a question of purity, but if someone unapologetically talks up XXXtentacion, the values of that person and the amount I can trust them is called into question. That framing matters, too. Loudly proclaiming "X is a fuckin legend" and "fuck that guy, but Jocelyn Flores was a good song" are different things, as is going out and buying his music.
If we say that separating the art from the artist is not morally viable, IMO we're left with an indeterminate wait for the shoe to drop for every artist. Just because the hive mind hasn't found out about someone's sins doesn't mean that they aren't there.. People, all people, do both good and bad things to varying degrees throughout their lives. How is the quality and/or enjoyability of a work to be judged when the mores of the day are so nebulous?
Apparently some folks enjoy this approach, and more power to them. I can't live that way, however, and enjoy what I find to be enjoyable without worrying about politicizing my movie/music/book/other consumption.
I have to respond to your comment because while I do see your point, I think your example is terrible. He raped and murdered at least hundreds of children and ran child prostitution rings. You can't balance that against raising money for charity. You can't call that a "very good deed". A "very good deed" might have been castrating himself after committing these terrible crimes.
It feels cheap to say this, but perhaps the punishment must fit the crime.
If I like something that I didn't attach to the creator before I knew they were bad I will continue liking it since the thing and the creator are separate. Ender's game falls into this category for me.
For things were the creator is directly evident , like House of Cards or any Chris Brown song.. I will not be able to enjoy it any longer and won't enjoy future work.
My problem with the whole thing is the selective, targeted outrage against some powerful people by other powerful people. I'm not interested in doing someone's dirty work for them by succumbing to an outrage meme against one party while the others go off scot-free. As far as I can tell, personally, sociopathy is the norm and not the exception in political and Hollywood circles. When it comes to human beings I don't know, and have no mutual acquaintances with, I feel basically forced to be agnostic. But if a local artist in my community were some sort of predator, I would not support them, and I would no longer be able to enjoy their work