Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Last week’s Medium Cool left me thinking.
Times change, social mores change, culture changes. And certainly some of the people who create films and TV shows and art are a disappointment on a personal level. Does that change how you feel about an author? An actor? A performer? Do you still feel the same way about Woody Allen movies, for instance, than you might have felt decades ago?
What about books like Huckleberry Finn, where there’s language that is no longer acceptable? I would argue that although I cringe, they capture a moment in time and I don’t find them offensive. What do you guys think about that?
Is Woody Allen dead to you? Can you no longer feel the same way about the Harry Potter books? What about all the actors who were outed as part of the Me, Too movement?
Or are you able to separate the work from the person?
Are you consistent in your response? Or does it depend on the particular case?
War for Ukraine Day 473: More Ukrainian POWs Have Returned Home!
Jerry
I finally watched Hereditary and I enjoyed it more so than Midsommar, which I had enjoyed very much, but it fucked me up for a few days afterwards.
I’m hoping that others are starting to watch Detectorists as well.
raven
Diane Keaton “Seems Like Old Times”
I’ve never gotten over her eyes.
raven
@Jerry: I want a shed!!!
Glidwrith
After reading several of our jackals opinions, it seems best that as long as the human stain is alive, they are dead to me. After that, it depends on how monstrous the person was. For example, I will never play any of Bill Cosby’s comedies, or Woody Allen’s. Anyone who raped women or children, murdered someone is a nope.
sukabi
never cared for Woody Allen movies, his shitty behavior hasn’t affected that… but did enjoy watching Mel Gibson movies, but his shitty behavior has definitely affected that…mostly won’t watch them now… I get that the actor and the part are 2 separate entities, but shitty actor behavior changes how I feel about their work…I don’t need to subsidize their life choices.
raven
I went to a Unitarian Church service in Phoenix years ago and they were debating whether to purge to hymnal of sexist lyrics. Some people thought it was important to retain them to show where we’d been and others wanted it gone.
Fraud Guy
Early sci-fi, with the 50’s assumption of women’s place in society firmly bolted to the plot…just can’t.
Mr. Prosser
@sukabi: I watched a lot of Gibson movies but not after his anti-Semitic tirades.
dww44
The historical stuff I can handle. The contemporary stuff not so much. I stopped reading her books written as Robert Galbraith. I was never big on Woody Allen in the first place but can no longer watch any of his movies. I guess there are many, though, who are smart enough not to Telegraph their political views, unlike s Tom Allen who uses his comedy to publicize his political views.
Math Guy
I am cautious about judging people in the past against modern standards. Are we so certain that our descendants will judge us according to our standards?
Some of the mathematics I study was discovered by people with whom I would disagree with politically, religiously, etc.; that detracts not one bit from the truth of the mathematics they published.
Jerry
One more: Platonic on Apple TV is hilarious, but you better like Seth Rogen
UncleEbeneezer
Johnny Depp, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Roger Waters, Sammy Hagar, Kanye.
Alison Rose
To me, the idea of “separate the art from the artist” is often a rather privileged take, and the person saying it is speaking from a perspective as someone who would not be the target of said artist’s prejudice or crimes or whatever the case may be. For example, all the cis people who still engage with Harry Potter content (and who refuse to grow the fuck up). Easy for them to separate Rowling from her transphobia because even if they disagree with her, it doesn’t harm them personally, so it doesn’t bother them all that much.
I grew up with Woody Allen films on repeat in my home because my mother, as a New York Jew, idolized him like so many others. I liked some of the movies, though others bothered me even when I was too young to fully understand why. When I started learning what a repugnant pig he was, any value his films may have held was vanquished, because art created by a monster is itself monstrous, as it is the monster’s attempt to force the audience into humanizing them. And I think that many people who, through circumstances of identity or through luck would never have been or were fortunate not to have been in similar straits as his victims, again have a hard time with true empathy and for some reason care more about rewatching the same movies over and over than they do about people who have been harmed.
Whenever the subject comes up, some people want to act like we’re talking about a celebrity not recycling their cans and bottles, rather than being a transphobe who uses their money and power to harm people, or an unrepentant rapist, or what have you. It’s a moment to ask yourself where your own values rest and how much they truly mean if they are so easily shunted aside in favor of a little entertainment.
Geoduck
@Fraud Guy: The giant ant movie Them! is amazingly liberal-minded for the era, with the scientist-heroine going down into the gassed ant-nest with the heroes to make sure the inhabitants are all dead. But yeah, most of the others of the crop are pretty cringy.
I might re-read my copies of Harry Potter some day, but certainly won’t give Rowling any more money for anything new.
Raven
@Jerry: And season 3 of Happy Valley is awesome.
Alison Rose
@Math Guy: In the majority of cases, they are not “in the past”.
Raven
@Geoduck: and who knew there were mountains in central Illinois!
NotMax
FYI.
Tony Awards telecast begins at 8 pm. Eastern time on CBS and also Paramount+.
Writers Guild has reached an agreement not to post pickets but also note there will be no pre-scripted banter.
Rob Roser
The reason that I try very hard NOT to learn anything about performers that I enjoy is that I find myself unable to ever enjoy their work again once I find out that they’re a scumbag. Yeah, it’s consistent…musicians, actors, directors, writers, athletes, you name it. Just can’t stand watching or hearing some people anymore.
narya
I don’t have a firm answer, tbh. Cosby is just a big no. Woody Allen, well, I’d soured on him anyway, as it seemed he kept making the same movie over and over–and I thought Manhattan was creepy when I first saw it a million years ago. His really old standup still has some funny bits (I will never not love the Berkowitzes and the moose), but I basically have no occasion to encounter his work these days, and I won’t seek it out, certainly not anything recent. Polanski is also a no. I never finished the Harry Potter books; I suppose I could borrow them from the library, but I don’t want to put a penny in her hateful pocket. Gibson is also a no. I find that Seinfeld is kind of a no for me, too–I just thought it was creepy he was dating someone that much younger–but that is a squishier line.
I think works like Huckleberry Finn are a different category–maybe similar to raven’s hymnal example–where it’s important to know that that moment existed in our history. It is case by case on whether we continue to read/utilize the work, and I would imagine that any teaching of Finn, for example, would need to spend a lot of time on context.
I think I’m distinguishing between specific people, whom I don’t want to support, and works that it’s important to know they exist, so we understand how we arrived where we are. There’s a lot of room for discussion in all of that. (Mike Schur, showrunner of The Good Place, Parks & Rec, etc., talks about this in his book, actually.)
Eric S.
I feel I’m inconsistent on this topic. Woody Allen and Mel Gibson are reprehensible. I never like Woody Allen movies so no change in my life. I enjoyed Gibson movies but I would watch them now (Mad Max probably an exception if I stumbled across it.)
I hate Eastwood and Willis politics but I’d watch many of their movies.
eldorado
you can’t seperate the art from the artist
E.
This becomes a bigger question with canonical works, or works that influenced others in the field, like Heidegger in philosophy or Celine or Pound or many others in literature. I struggle with it sometimes and have basically concluded I just have to be really alert to the background ideologies these works of art are coming from. By the way this essay by Jane Smiley changed my mind about Huckleberry Finn. It really rang true to me, to my surprise.
Gunga Dean
I love Wagner operas. The creator was despicable.
eldorado
i found that by seeking out artists that aren’t, in fact, dudes, that it eliminates a lot (not all) of these issues though
Jerzy Russian
Around 20 years or so ago, I listened to various oldies stations on the internet. Ray Stevens had a lot of funny songs that came up from time to time, and at least one of them I remembered from my youth in the 1980s. Around 2009 or so I made the mistake of looking him up on UTube. Christ, what an asshole! I haven’t listened to him since.
NotMax
It is possible in select cases to separate the artistic output from the person.
For example, Vanessa Redgrave. Or H. L. Mencken (reputedly a truly repugnant human IRL).
kindness
I try to separate an actor/writer/musician from their personal life and all the foibles in it. The foibles color my view of the person’s individual judgement/persona but less so their work. I still appreciate much of Woody Allen’s work even though he’s a cad. Curiously, I can’t seem to do the same thing with politicians. Guess then the professional is also the personal.
Fair Economist
My rule is that as long as these people are alive and will benefit from royalties, I’ll have nothing to do with their work. Once they’re gone, it depends. Sometimes once I know what they did or believed I see it in their art and don’t enjoy it anymore. Sometimes not, and it’s fine.
I agree with Math Guy that people from the past should get something of a pass, as long as they were no worse than typical – although sometimes the way that seeps in to their work makes me not enjoy it anyway. Tolkien was supposedly on the tolerant side but the fact that “swarthy” or dark-skinned people are always bad guys really gets under my skin.
Eric S.
@Alison Rose:
I think this is a good take and something as an upper class, cos gendered white man I need to consider more.
NickM
I was a big Woody Allen fan. The sexism in the movies has aged poorly; it is so much more obvious now than it was 40 years ago. And the awful person he is is present in the movies, although at the time many of us couldn’t see it.
Wyatt Salamanca
By and large, I’m able to separate the work from the individual but it feels as if every other month, I’m discovering a new disturbing revelation about an artist whose work I admire.
Recently, I came across a book review of American Naturalism and the Jews which discusses the anti-Semitism of Hamlin Garland, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather. I won’t boycott any of these authors, but it’s certainly a disappointment to discover that they all had this character flaw.
billcinsd
@Math Guy: Are we so certain that our descendants will judge us according to our standards?
I’ll be dead, why should I care what they will think. I think you should do what you think is right.
Chris Johnson
There’s so many of them and sometimes it’s complicated. Guys like Roger Waters are a huge letdown: he used to be good, but he got Corporal Clegged. I’m sure Putin will be proud of him, another drop of gin…
Sometimes it’s weirder. Example: Kevin Spacey as a villain. Whether it’s the guy in Glengarry Glen Ross, or the guy in Seven, I’m not sure you can GET a villain as flat-out disturbing as when you cast a man with a big streak of legit darkness. If his job in the movie is not to win you over, but to alarm you or to put across monstrosity, to what extent does it ruin it if you’re seeing some ‘real’ monstrosity, resculpted?
I’m given to understand Kanye is a lot like this, too. It’s always been about ‘holy shit, what is up with that guy?’.
Nobody’s talking about this one, but I’ve read a whole book on it. Peter Sellers. To understand Sellers, you have to go beyond Goon Show, and Clouseau, and Being There, and Doctor Strangelove… and look into his life and understand how Peter Sellers was a horrible, horrible person, just a monster personality-wise who harmed everyone around him. And yet, that’s the guy who did all of those things.
Fair Economist
@Gunga Dean:
Wagner’s *music* is incredible. His *writing* is atrocious. Stupid plot devices like magic potions, extremely sexist, urgh. I saw one Wagner opera and henceforth have resolved to continue enjoying him via overtures and highlights.
West of the Rockies
@sukabi:
I recently half-watched Conspiracy Theory with Gibson. Hated it. Got so tired of his manic drinky craziness, which seemed like a hint as to the a-hole he would soon turn out to be. I don’t mean to attack mental illness with this, just Gibson’s presentation.
Chris Johnson
@narya: Cosby and Louis CK! Some comedians kind of wear what a horrible person they are on their sleeves and use it to be unreasonably funny.
I think Louis CK has been just unreasonably funny, and yet you can also see exactly how he’s a terrible person.
I’m reminded of Eddie Murphy talking about being raked over the coals by Bill Cosby, doing that wicked imitation, ‘Youuuu can NOOOOOT…” and all those years later, the edgy pottymouth guy turned out okay and the prude turned out to be the rapist…
narya
@E.: Thank you for that link! I’ve also read another of Stowe’s works, Pink and White Tyranny, and it’s weirdly fascinating. It might be useful, were I teaching, to teach Stowe and Twain side by side, with that essay as well. Of course, I’m not teaching at all, but I still think about it.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
– Mark Twain
.
Heidi Mom
I had read the Cormoran Strike novels that J.K. Rowling had written as Robert Galbraith because I like detective novels and they were pretty good ones for the most part. I borrowed the most recently released one, Coal Black Heart, from the library, but gave up on it pretty quickly because it was bloated and dull. If I had still had a good opinion of Rowling, I probably would have plodded on just to see what she had to say.
Tony Jay
Like absolutely everything else, it very much depends.
First, are the artists alive? Secondly, would I actually be supporting their careers by watching them or buying their books/records? That would have a weight that would pull my decision one way or another. Frex, I don’t think I’m ever going to pay to watch anything Johnny Depp is in ever again, and I’m really, really unlikely to buy a Rowling book, but I’ll watch Once Upon A Time In Mexico and the Potter books, all of which I own, are a staple in my house. I’ll enjoy their works for free, but you ain’t getting a penny from me.
There are certain TV shows here in Britain that I’ve just cut dead. We used to love 8 Out of 10 Cats Do Countdown, but the next time I see that odious scumbag Rachel Riley it’ll be on the news when she lawyer-bullies the wrong person for libel and gets bankrupted. Same with David Baddiel, that fucker’s books are off the Christmas list, and when rewatching Doctor Who the episodes with Tracy-Ann Oberman are the ones where I just leave the Daleks and Cybermen to get on with it. Awful, venomous scumbags given unearned credibility by even worse people. There’s no end to the road upon which they can embark upon fucking off.
Fawlty Towers is perfection, and Monty Python groundbreaking, but most of the living Pythons have turned into bitter old farts who I can’t be rid of soon enough. Clint Eastwood is a sad old nutcase, but come on, those Spaghetti Westerns, they wouldn’t be what they were without the character he played. I’m not losing them just because age melted the brains of their stars.
It’s different with people like Woody Allen and Polanski, etc. I was never a fan of either (other than The Fearless Vampire Killers) so never seeing them or their films again, not a problem. Depardieu, Seagal, same thing. Really easy to cut them dead because I was never a fan anyway.
So, yeah. In a world where it’s virtually impossible to exist without giving some money to lots of different people of varying awfulness. I’m not willingly giving it if I can avoid it. By the same token, if I’ve already paid for it, and it’s good, it’s mine, not theirs, and I’m not cutting off my nose to performatively spite nobodies face.
Eric S.
@Jerzy Russian:
A couple time per week I take my 80yo father to shopping. We take his car with the radio tuned to a 50s rock (or “rock”) station. A lot of music I grew up hearing. It is astounding the level of casual racism and misogyny in those songs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris Johnson: I believe Marc Maron said that word got back to him that Cosby wouldn’t do his podcast, called WTF, because the title was dirty
ETA:
Isn’t that just Cleese?
Citizen Alan
This is actually an issue for me and my second novel. The female lead (supernatural action-heroine) grew up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and an important scene at the climax will directly reference the S2 finale. And it’s set in 2010 before most of the Whedon complaints came out. It worries me a bit.
zmulls
It’s interesting, I am turned off by most things, but can still watch a couple.
Not Bill Cosby, what a monster. I grew up with his recordings and they were so sunny and friendly, but knowing what he was doing simultaneously makes it impossible.
Most Woody Allen, I can’t watch, particularly HUSBANDS AND WIVES and MANHATTAN. Watching him lech over a 17-year-old, and have the film excuse his behavior in many ways, is unfathomable now. But other films where the craft is very high, and Woody Allen is either not in it much or is playing a less-creepy character, I can. I can still watch ANNIE HALL for the groundbreaking structure and for Diane Keaton’s iconic performance. And I can still watch HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, which are just stunning. Mostly no, though.
Omnes Omnibus
If we are going to dismiss literature because of awful views and/or behavior (by today’s standards), we would lose most English and French literature. Except perhaps Mary Shelley.
Chris Johnson
@West of the Rockies: When I think of Mel Gibson I think of him convincingly being a garbage wreck of a human in Lethal Weapon. Paired with a guy who is meant to be the ‘good’ one, so Gibson is there to be out of control and scary.
Maybe the trouble with these is when they stop understanding which guy is actually the villain. Like superhero movies where the star is actually a garbage person who kills thousands, carelessly, or is just a royal jerk (superman, spiderman, in some hands). And then there’s Guardians of the Galaxy, where Star Lord is in fact meant to be a jerk, and the movie knows it, and he’s played by a jerk…
arielibra
Different people have different lines with “being a fan of problematic things “. My first exposure to the concept came in the 90’s via an essay by a woman who could no longer buy/listen to Miles Davis’ music due to her own experience of domestic violence. For myself it depends how close the art is to the reality and how atrocious the reality is. I got rid of my copy of Mists of Avalon because no matter how good it is I knew I wouldn’t read it again. But the most gutting example for me is a favorite children’s book by an author credibly accused of child abuse (A Swarm in May, William Mayne). I can’t imagine how one could reread it knowing that.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Did someone say Eastwood?
;)
Jess
I’ve always despised Woody Allen. He always seemed like a misogynistic creep to me, so I felt vindicated when others finally got there. It took me awhile to see the narcissism, sadism and misogyny in Picasso’s work, but when I finally saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. I can still see his technical skill, but there’s no beauty behind it for me now.
There are a lot of things I found darkly romantic and fascinating when I was young that I now understand to be just dark, in an unhealthy, destructive and/or slightly fascist way. A big part of me still responds to them, so I can’t entirely quit them, but I also can’t love them the way I did. I suppose it’s the way many feel about Wagner.
I guess it comes down to this; if a culture producer pours love, insight and understanding into his or her work, I can admire that even if they were awful in other areas. Degas would be an example of this, or Ezra Pound, or even Louis C.K. But if they put their hate and/or cynicism into their work (Picasso, Woody Allen, Jeff Koons), then forget it.
frosty
Cosby. I wanted to think his behavior happened later in life, but no. He was drugging and raping women while I was howling with laughter with each new album, and while I watched every single episode of I Spy.
And yes, I’m inconsistent.
Tony Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And Eric Idle. Both appalling from different sides of the wide world of politically awful right wingers.
Jerzy Russian
@frosty: Also, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@NotMax:
Chris Johnson
@frosty: Cosby was obvious. “Spanish Fly”. Most of his stuff about men, women, children… I remember some of it that was innocuous, like tales of racing go-karts, but sooooo much Cosby was not actually a joke. He meant that shit, or was telling his actual life, but it was so extreme that people assumed it was a joke.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay:
I’ve actually come to similar place as you on this. There are people whose works I will no longer pay to see because I don’t what my money going to them. Beyond that, it a crap shoot. How awful is the person? Is the work objectionable absent the person? Is there something that can be learned despite the issues? Or is it like Gibson’s torture porn Jesus movie? Everyone is going to draw their lines in different places, and that’s okay.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
Oh, I did not know that that bad thing had been done to the world, and now I do.
Who benefits, man? Who benefits from me seeing that? I didn’t want to cry tonight.
Feels like the first time someone described The Human Centipede to me.
Wyatt Salamanca
Chris Johnson
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Spike Milligan! (who was a troubled dude, but genuinely nice and kind. The Peter Sellers book I read also revealed how Milligan was fundamentally a kind person)
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
Grew up with Cosby (and later Pryor) albums in the house. Dad pitched the Cosby discs. Easy call.
I was a Chappelle fan, can’t watch him now.
NotMax
Well, they managed to pull it off. Opening number of the Tonys just ended. Nearly 4 minute production without a single syllable uttered.
Tony Jay
@Chris Johnson:
Frankie Boyle, who had had his own problems with saying things that were genuinely way too low to call jokes, nailed Gibson with his observation that people laughed at him for his unconvincing and ahistorical portrayal of Scotsman William Wallace.
“They said he couldn’t play a Scotsman, well, look at him now, an alcoholic racist.”
Mr. Bemused Senior
Like Alison Rose, my mother was a fan of Woody Allen. I’m glad she didn’t live to see the reveal.
I can’t erase 200 MPH from my mind, but Cosby, ugh.
Viva BrisVegas
@Tony Jay:
From where I sit, the Labour antisemitism charges seemed quite mysterious because the actual nature of this antisemitism was never articulated.
Were Labour Party people roaming the streets handing out The Protocols of the Elders of Zion flyers? Were they marching down to Tesco with tiki torches shouting “Jews will not replace us”?
Or were they, as I’m guessing, suggesting that whacking Palestinian civilians every time some terrorists got stroppy was a bad thing.
By the way, Monty Python was a rehash of Q5 and Spike Milligan was the greatest comedic genius of the mid 20th Century.
Mike in Oly
For me it is situational. I give a pass to art created as a product of the times (Twain, etc.) as a snapshot of where we were. However, I had to stop watching old black and white movies because the older I got the more the over the top sexism started bothering me. I am not as forgiving for modern artists. I have stopped any consumption of JKR’s works for her egregious transphobic hate speech. I was once a huge fan of Orson Scott Card books but when he became violently homophobic when gay marriage was finally legalized I trashed all his books and have paid him no attention since. I was never a fan of Cosby or Allen so nothing lost there. I was a huge fan of Buffy TVS and Firefly but when Whedon was exposed I was done with anything he had ever touched. It is easier with music I think. Songs are just part of the fabric and I give little thought to the artists of it, especially if they are in bands. If a Pink Floyd song plays I wouldn’t give a thought to Roger Waters, but I’d turn off Kid Rock in a heartbeat. I recognize I am in a privileged position as a cis-male gay white man. I try to keep learning and being a good ally.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m inconsistent I guess. Cosby was the comedian of my childhood. Every kid could recite “Noah”. Seeing him live was a thrill, a great show. I loved “The Cosby Show”. I think I will listen again to those great old comedy routines when he dies. Not before.
Was a big Woody Allen in his heyday, perhaps peaking with “Annie Hall”. There are so many iconic scenes in “Annie Hall” that we still like to replay, like the one pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind a poster, or the one with insane Christopher Walken. And we love the juxtaposition of the lobsters with Annie Hall and the lobsters with new girlfriend.
Have watched some of his recent stuff and it was OK, some of it made you think. Of the recent batch, I think “Midnight in Paris” is his best and perhaps the best use of Owen Wilson I’ve ever seen. I think I agree with others, that I wouldn’t rewatch (or watch any new stuff) just because of a general feeling of meh.
Garrison Keillor I feel so sad about. I’m so sorry he stained his legacy. So much great stuff. I feel like I won’t shun it forever, but I’m not going out of my way to listen to any of it right now either.
KSinMA
I’ll confess that I love Huckleberry Finn, even if it’s difficult to impossible to teach nowadays. Here’s something in Mark Twain’s defense:
https://marktwainstudies.com/an-unlikely-patron-of-civil-rights-jurisprudence/
Gvg
It sort of depends.
First complication we all have is if we never liked them in the first place, we tend to “boycott”
But I think it matters if they are alive and producing now and also which kind of artist they are and does the problematic issue show?
Actors are not supposed to be playing themselves and if they aren’t also the director (woody) the film should not be judged on their personal views unless it shows….however if they are currently acting and bad behavior becomes known, but management is OK with it, then that reflects on all of them and becomes an issue. And I don’t like to give my money to bad people. So once something becomes known I start to not want to see that actor, but not necessarily hate past work. Unless they covered things up which can be an issue,
old stuff I tend to judge by the standards of the time except if the past seems too bad I don’t like it.
writers have more responsibility than actors IMO.
As for Rawlings…I enjoyed Harry Potter and didn’t notice any transphobia or any mention of trans people which wasn’t unusual I think, as they are a small minority. I did notice the goblins looking so unattractive but they weren’t villains. I did not find her later stuff to be interesting. in fact I thought she might not ever write anything worthwhile again. That was before I heard the anti trans bile. I don’t know why but I think she may have only had the one series in her,
I am going to ignore her and not give her any more money.
K-Mo
@E.: cool cite! Thanks
Gvg
@Gvg: ps if I missed earlier transphobia, I’d like it pointed out. I don’t know enough and I know that.
narya
@Mike in Oly: Orson Scott Card lost me early in the first book, when a character blithely says that females inherently have no ability or lesser ability to do X. I slogged through the rest of it, wondering if I’d see anything that redeemed that: I did not. I know folks who love the series, etc., but that turned me off completely.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have to agree. There can’t be a hard and fast Acceptable/Forbidden line, because who draws it? By what authority? To what end? How is that line challenged?
People with a moral sense will reject the scumbags and withhold their cash, while making their own decisions about how they enjoy the art they already possess, but that moral sense isn’t a universally agreed on constant, and expecting frictionless agreement is, ultimately, as destructive as any other form of authoritarianism.
Except where Coldplay are concerned, obviously. There’s got to be some kind of base level standard.
RSA
Hard, interesting questions! I think it depends on the particulars. I can imagine myself coming across the work without knowing who the artist was, and asking, “What do I think of this piece?” Maybe I think it’s great, maybe I think it’s trash. But let’s go further…
I discover something about the artist. That it’s a painting by one Donald J. Trump. Now, the intent of the artist isn’t dispositive about what things mean, but inevitably my interpretation is affected. In this horrible example, the depiction of women becomes important, and any distortions become meaningful.
All sorts of details become relevant, because art is a communicative process. Per Tolstoy,
We can’t help responding to what we know about the artist.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Is Huck Finn really so difficult? It doesn’t take much reading to figure out Jim is the most intelligent character in the book and all the white people are idiots.
JR
I make different choices for myself and my kids, apparently. The kids get Harry Potter and the works of Roald Dahl, even though Dahl’s contempt for regular people just leaps off the page. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that he was a virulent antisemite.
I don’t watch Woody Allen but I never particularly loved his work to begin with. As for music, I would still play Peter, Paul, and Mary for my kids. I still listen to Bowie and Zeppelin despite what they’ve been known to do. I still listen to hip hop and Jamaican dancehall, although much of that music — especially from the 1990s — is absolutely laden with misogyny and homophobia. Hell, I still listen to Pink Floyd even though Waters is a repulsive tankie. Some part of me worries that Pete Seeger may have leaned that way too.
I guess it’s complicated. Probably not. Simpler answer is that I’m a hypocrite on these things.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Lots to think about in your very thought-provoking comment!
MazeDancer
Woody Allen seduced, then married, basically, his stepdaughter. Dead to me.
As is Cosby. And TERF Rowling.
Cannot separate monsters from their work.
Shana
@NotMax: I’m rooting for Kimberly Akimbo, Sweeney Todd, Leopoldstadt and Into the Woods.
NotoriousJRT
I’m afraid Woody Allen was never “alive” to me, so pretty easy to steer clear of him now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay: For me as a North American, it’s Nickelback.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@UncleEbeneezer:
Wait, what did Sammy Hagar do?
The reaction of a bunch of Deppford wives absolutely disgusted me. Even if Herd wasn’t the best person in the world, Depp wasn’t much better. They acted like he was as pure as the freshly driven snow. He’s a drugged up has been imo
E.
@narya: I have only read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and wasn’t even aware she had written more! I have recently been reading more about Emerson’s abolitionist activities and Stowe gets mentioned a lot. I am going to read her again and look at her other writings. Thanks for bringing that up.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: There’s no time machine to fix that!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Let’s not do that!
Just to be clear, there was no intention with this post to encourage in any direction, the goal was thoughtful conversation on a subject I was fairly sure some of us think about.
Lyrebird
Tolkien actively spoke out against fascism.
I also cringe at the colorism and at CS Lewis’ Orientalism, but still love the books of theirs that I read. I never thought Rowling was a saint, but I am disappointed by her views.
Count me in with the other jackals who always got a creepy vibe from Allen, not gonna watch anything of his again, but didn’t enjoy what I did see anyhow. And I am also one to treat long-passed people differently. Knew a rabbi who loved the poetry of TS Eliot, in spite of the rank antisemitism.
@narya: @raven:
We used to make fun of our Unitarian relatives for turning all those old lyrics into something Monty-Python worthy. Poems shouldn’t be messed with, I think, unless there’s a strong reason to.
@Fair Economist: Anyhow, aside from my kneejerk defense of Tolkein, I totally agree with you, and I may well quote you
..if my students ask about my take. Already own the whole Harry Potter series.
Ivan X
This particular topic is near and dear to me, because I struggle with it frequently. I don’t have a hard and fast standard — it’s subjective. I try to compartmentalize as much as I can, though I think Alison Rose is right when she says that’s a privileged place to come from. But, I have privilege, and this might be a place where I choose to personally exercise it. Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson are out. Roman Polanski, well, I look the other way. People who are out and proud with odious political views? Unfortunate, but I’ll deal.
I really try not to know more than I have to about an artist, because it really can get to be a very slippery slope very quickly. There’s a reason a lot of artists speak through their art, and I don’t want to hear what they have to say outside of it. I also lIke a lot of art and entertainment (punk rock, exploitation cinema) that’s offensive by design, so maybe I’m not the best person to speak about this.
Maybe I’m excessively forgiving, but I really do feel like people are imperfect, most of us have moments we’d rather have back, and that as a class of people, artists have a higher proportion of interior trouble, and the creative process does not always lend itself to good behavior.
Sometimes “edgy” art is also, by definition, on the edge of what is really acceptable, and that’s what makes it work; and sometimes being so close to the edge puts it over, with a few years’ perspective.
So, I compartmentalize. I don’t forgive, I just block it out. Otherwise, I’d have to drop a lot of stuff I like, and surely much more if more were known about the past doings of some of the artists whose work has moved me.
As for changes in cultural awareness: the time and place for context exists. I remember some rape joke in Blazing Saddles when I saw it for the first time when I was like 12 or 14 or something, and even then I knew it wasn’t ok to play rape for laughs, but it’s part of the time and place in a movie that took a lot of chances with a lot of topics. (The 70’s in general had some super interesting attempts to explore race in film, though many are offensive.) My question would be: what’s the intent? Is it endorsing? Is it mean spirited? That’s more of a problem.
This feels especially relevant right now in light of Disney, who now owns the Fox library, “cleaning” (by removing) a scene in The French Connection, because its mean antihero bastard cop, Popeye Doyle, says “never trust a (n-word).” There’s no mention of this alteration from the original work on Criterion streaming, the purchased digital download from places like iTunes/Amazon, or the theatrical rerelease making the rounds of rep houses right now. This seems like a really, really slippery slope, and while I get that we don’t want to legitimize racial slurs, I think a work has to stand in its final form.
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose: All that said, I’ve definitely learned that some people are extremely performative about it and are almost obsessed with policing everyone’s taste to an unhealthy degree. They are super-annoying about it and I generally avoid being around them as much as I can.
RSA
:-)
I’m a fan of Coldplay through 2005, i.e. the first three albums. Still, one of my favorite memes during the pandemic ran along these lines:
UncleEbeneezer
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Hagar is a big, xenophobic, racist MAGA.
Tony Jay
@Viva BrisVegas:
Basically, yes.
In a nutshell, the decision was made to mainstream the most extreme form of Likudnik finger pointing because the PTB and the Right of the Labour Party could win a policy argument. The Labour Right controlled the disciplinary machinery of the Party, deliberately gummed it up, then complained that the leadership was in fact the ones gumming it up, the media repeated this as fact, a myth became News, and lives were destroyed by the thousand to ensure that the country wouldn’t have to suffer a mild increase in top level taxation or an end to privatise utilities.
Now the same Labour Right and the media is left with the legacy of the the choices they made and it’s proving very, very difficult for them to negotiate.
dc
@E.:
Thank you! Great essay. It was published in 1996 when Smiley could identify race as the “central dilema of the American experience” without “woke” and “CRT” being lobbed at her.
WaterGirl
@frosty: It’s complicated.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@UncleEbeneezer:
Oh geez, that’s really disappointing 😞
I always liked his era of VH
BellyCat
Woody Allen is dead to me. That’s not creatively painful given that he rarely resonated with me (short of sneezing into a pile of cocaine). RFinally realizing he’s a disgusting pedophile pervert gave me ample grounds to soundly reject him with the eruditie.
But, yes, where a creative actually sits is fair game for assessment/enjoyment of their work.
Fuck Woody Allen and his ilk.
Geoduck
@Jerzy Russian: Yeah, Ray Steven’s early stuff is great, but after 9/11 he caught a bad case of right-wing brainworms.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: I think maybe I won’t click that link.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nickelback, the only band in the world where the groupies ask to wear brown paper bags over their heads.
Omnes Omnibus
Morrissey is appalling. This song is still great.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Garrison Keillor. Whatever it is, I haven’t heard about it. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.
schrodingers_cat
It depends.
Never really got into Harry Potter I was not a tween when it was published. I have seen the first 3 movies and they are typical English boarding school stories with some magic thrown in. I have seen one Woody Allen movie and thought it was okay.
I read problematic British authors as a child (Kipling, Blyton etc.) Even the relatively enlightened ones like George Orwell had a very condescending tone about India.
I have read some of their books and knowing more of their history gives an insight that I lacked earlier.
smith
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Got to give Huck some credit, too. His big epiphany near the end, in which he decides he can’t turn Jim in even though he’s convinced he will go to hell as a result, is a huge thing for a kid of that era and in that context to do.
I think presenting Huckleberry Finn to kids requires a careful touch, but it’s not too much for at least older children to learn the extent to which racist assumptions permeated that time, and how that has changed (we hope).
In the context of this current discussion, I’m not sure this book really belongs. Mark Twain was irascible, but he was not a monster. Almost any book written at the time, if it paid any attention to race at all, would have made the same assumptions, and almost certainly would not have humanized Jim and his relationship with Huck the way this Twain’s did.
Ivan X
@Alison Rose: I’d say the problem is tougher when it means more to you than being “a little entertainment.” I understand what you’re saying, but that kind of dismissiveness undermines your ability to reach someone who is in conflict about the issue.
Tony Jay
@RSA:
Heh. I understand that they’re really lovely guys and a lot of people feel that being ‘the new U2’ shouldn’t be a unforgivable sin, but I would cut their throats in a second to silence that whiny din.
Okay, I wouldn’t. Fingers first, then we get serious. I’m not a monster!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
For me personally, if the artist did something really horrible (good evidence for it as well), I’ll try not to give them money while they’re alive. When they’re dead, then I might engage with their works. Of course, that’s difficult with people like Bill Cosby and Woody Allen, as opposed to authors writing in another character’s voice or a director etc for example, because it’s literally them on the screen in front of you.
A related issue I’ve often thought about, is when redemption is ever possible for famous people who have done something wrong. In my mind, it depends on the severity of the offense and whether it’s criminal or not. Should we take apologies seriously? Celebrities have a strong financial incentive to say the right things publicly to fix their careers.
Again, I guess it depends on what they actually do (walk the walk) to prove they’ve changed which can take time
Jess
@Tony Jay:
Because of the Amber Heard accusations? I thought it was pretty clear that if anyone was being abusive in that relationship, it was her. The many kind things Depp has done for others, and the many psycho things Heard has done to others (physically attacking her girlfriend in public, for example), supports this take, I believe
Edit: I got sucked into watching the trial without much caring about either of them, but being inclined to believe Heard. But what I saw convinced me that she is a vicious and manipulative sociopath.
RSA
Right, that kind of says enough, doesn’t it?
Chetan Murthy
Yeah, Allen’s dead to me. Ditto Cosby. I have some Van Morrison and Clapton in my music server; when they come up in the random rotation, I often skip past, b/c their music causes me to remember their bad acts during covid and elsewhen. But Allen …. ugh. I was a big, big fan. He was a geeky, nebbishy guy, and still got the girl. So kind of a hero. Then …. *ugh*. Never watched any of his work since 1992. Maybe after he’s dead, I’d be willing to watch his older works. We’ll see. What a creep. [ok, a worse word should be used, but creep still works]
Kent
Huckleberry Finn and Woody Allen do not belong in the same universe.
Mark Twain was a genius writer and generally decent human being. Huckleberry Finn was written in an accurate American vernacular that is something of a time capsule today. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Woody Allen is a creep and pedophile and many of his works do not stand up well today as a result.
Having three daughters pass through AP lit over the past several years I’ve had the chance to revisit some of the novels of my youth with fresh eyes (and their eyes). Ayn Rand is obvious garbage and was a garbage human. Catcher in the Rye I don’t think has aged all that well. From my 17 year old daughter’s eyes it is a boring book about an entitled whining white boy. It is frankly surprising how many mid-century novels about alienated white men are still being taught as modern stuff 80 years later.
NotMax
@Shana
Bonnie Milligan won for Kimberly Akimbo. And that gown was … sumthin’ else.
(For those who may not be familiar with the ample actress, as the saying goes, she has a balcony you could do Shakespeare from.)
;)
Tony Jay
@Jess:
Nope. I couldn’t give any more of a shit about Amber Heard than I could about Johnny Depp, but Depp came out of that exposed as a vile little shit and the way he and his bloviating mob of denialists have behaved afterwards has only cemented my conviction that he’s a delusional manbaby who happens to be a very good, very watchable actor.
I’ll leave him to rot on the roadside like all the other discarded rinds.
Chetan Murthy
An entire genre that has faded away for me (that I used to really like) is police procedurals. B/c even The Wire …. geez, such copaganda. I mean, it just doesn’t match the reality we all saw on (sometimes live) video in the summer of 2020. Cops completely off-the-leash, beating anybody they wanted, completely uncaring of the damage, the injured, just wilding out. And of course, the concurrent dawning on us all that cops don’t actually solve most crimes, don’t actually prevent crime very much at all.
Watching cop procedurals requires the same level of suspension of disbelief as watching SF, or fantasy. And at least with fantasy, you get elves, yanno?
Kent
How about authors and artists who have risen in your estimation after learning about their character?
Keanu Reeves, for example is kind of a pedestrian actor but I have come to learn he is a genuinely great human being and that has risen my estimation of him and his work greatly.
Dolly Parton and Audrey Hepburn are in the same category. Truly decent and great humans
Harry Belefonte, Viola Davis, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, etc. The list is long.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Can anybody explain to me why so many actors and film industry people have defended Roman Polanski? Dude’s a pedophile and rapist. I have a hard time forgiving Harrison Ford for that one
Jess
@smith: Agreed!
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I share your bewilderment *completely*. He’s been on my “na ga watch” list for so long, I forgot about him. I think the last film of his I watched was Frantic (when it came out), but I can’t think of anything else in any case.
rivers
This is such an interesting question. I recently discussed this with a friend because I was quoting from The Four Quartets, and reflected that my awareness of Eliot’s anti-Semitism doesn’t ruin the work but it makes me guilty about liking it. Contemporary works seem clearer – I won’t give money to J.K. Rowling for instance, but then again I only ever bought two of her books and didn’t like them much. Movies seem to be another issue entirely in the sense that I cannot stomach seeing Woody Allen on the screen (even though I once loved his movies). I wonder if I would feel the same way if he didn’t appear in his movies. So, to try and sort out my thoughts, I realize that my reaction to some works or creators is intellectual disapproval but to others is simply visceral disgust. It’s much easier when the latter is true because then no choice is really involved.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
I think I’ve basically said more or less the same thing as most other commentators, only with more unnecessary wordage (who, me?) and a lack of attention to spellcheck that is just shocking in this day and age. Sorry, Viva BrisVegas, I hope the gist of it was comprehensible.
And as usual with Medium’s great topics, it’s way too late here in Feral Lion Country, so I bed thee all a good goodnight.
wonkie
@WaterGirl: He was the target of a false accusation. His reaction was to say, in effect, “Fuck this, I ‘m too old for this shit” and he chose to end his career.
bcw
Huckleberry Finn is an anti-racism text, concealed in satire. Twain was way ahead of his time in portraying all people as human beings, with N* Jim being the most complex and developed character after Huck himself. His crude naming is part of the contrast with his portrayal. The most I could say is that perhaps they should not write out the N word as a book published now is a product of modern day publishers, and an explanation should be included in the introduction.
Chetan Murthy
So much of the SF I gorged on as a kid in the 70s/80s is hard-to-read today. It’s all so male-dominated, so devoid of any female viewpoints. I won’t even get into Marion Zimmer Bradley (uck, eew). But luckily there are authors from back then who are just *great stuff*. I mean, great stuff. James Tiptree, Joanna Russ, LeGuin, others.
NotMax
@Kent
A road paved by the likes of Josephine Baker and S. Z. Sakall.
Ivan X
@Chetan Murthy: I hear ya, but the first 13 seasons or so of the original L&O will always be my tonic. I can consider it as fantasy, too, if I want. A client of mine who is a defense attorney who used to work for the NYC DA’s office assured me it is.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I never figured that out either. It’s like defending Trump.
In these cases I think it usually says more about you than the person you are defending.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Part of it is people trying to separate the person from the work, and he is a really good director. Part of it is that Polanski had a fucked up life. How many people were victims of the Holocaust and had their wife killed by Manson’s cult? It made it easier to make excuses for him.
narya
Here’s another one about whom I have complicated feelings: Kurt Vonnegut. “God Bless You Mr. Rosewater” was my first Vonnegut, when I was about 12, and it changed my brain–I then proceeded to read everything else he’d written (Dad was also a Vonnegut fan), and continued to read whatever else was published. Even at that age, I stumbled when I read “Piano Player”: it has some really trenchant bits, but the misogyny is breathtaking at times. (I wasn’t able to put it into those words, but it made my brain itch.) And then there’s the short story where the “hero” rapes a woman “for her own good.” So much of his stuff is soooo good, but his complicated, and not entirely friendly, feelings about women really do seep out into the writing sometimes.
FelonyGovt
I was a BIG fan of Eric Clapton, and still remember the graffiti in NY subways “Clapton is God”. Now that I know what a racist scumbag he is, I can’t really listen to him anymore.
And U2- the Edge has been fighting for the right to despoil some pristine land in Malibu so he can build some obscene mansion. Of course, U2 has been dead to me ever since they dumped their shitty album into everyone’s iTunes.
Chetan Murthy
@Ivan X: Yeah, _Homicide: Life on the Street_ was like that for me. But even that show was tarnished irreparably by the realization that cops are just another gang of thugs. It’s just really hard to get into the mindset to enjoy the show again, with all that I know of the reality. And I *loved* that show. Fucking *loved* all the characters. Especially the first few seasons, geeez. Until around when John Seda and Michael Michelle joined. Sure, it was OK after that, but not the same as the early seasons. I was like *that* about the show. Sigh. Just can’t watch it anymore.
Lyrebird
I believe in the late 1980s I was assigned a version like this, definitely NOT with the N word, but sfaik also without an explanation.
Kirk
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I suspect it’s complicated. Part of it is the continued echo of sympathy for the loss of his wife. Part of it is that he made some extraordinarily good films, and in the cut-throat capitalistic industry that hollywood is it’s a major career and income boost to have been in such – or to potentially be in such going forward. There are undoubtedly other parts – the members of the industry are not a monolithic bloc after all.
narya
@Chetan Murthy: I was seriously grossed out, and saddened, about MZB. I had read a couple of versions of the Arthurian tales, and her telling of it from a completely different point of view was breathtaking. I didn’t learn of the gross stuff until later (and the one other book I read was very meh).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
Ever read any George R.R. Martin? I think it’s creepy how he handles Dani’s character, a minor in ASOAIF.
Plus there’s the infamous “Mood Horny” incident
Brachiator
No. One of the odd things I have seen in some Balloon Juice jackals is the need for artists they like to be good people. Human beings are complex. If you often read biographies of notable people, you tend to find that they are very flawed, sometimes even criminal.
Also, there is a variation of the “someone I would like to have a beer with” thing. Apart from the question of whether a notable person would want to be bothered by you, there is this. I recall reading about a famous baseball player who was deadly dull off the field, had no interests outside baseball and really did not want to be bothered by fans or even sports reporters. On the field, he was magnificent, a hall of famer. That was enough for him.
Also, too, I don’t always hold it against an artist who may be rude to fans. Having been around a few celebrities in Los Angeles and New York, I have seen a notable person be nice to a stream of fans, but then try to reclaim some privacy after a while only to be tested by a persistent fan who wants attention. This last straw fan may be the one who is the source of the anecdote that the celebrity is an asshole.
And of course you don’t necessarily know how a notable person is in private or with intimate friends.
Your fandom and money should not buy you access or even acknowledgement. The only thing an artist owes you is their best work.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
To my mind one of the best police dramas to come along is the French series Spiral (Engrenages). YMMV.
smith
@Chetan Murthy: I have to admit to enjoying reading police procedurals, mostly because of the puzzle-solving aspect, but I’ve also had to start regarding them as something akin to SF or fantasy. It’s a world I’d like to see, where adherence to the law is important, and there’s at least some justice at the end, but can’t be accepted as a true reflection of life. Also, I found I can’t read mysteries that involve police corruption –they hit too close to home.
patrick II
I don’t watch Woody or Gibson’s . movies or listen to anything Cosby. And there area few others I avoid. But every couple of years I rewatch ” Chinatown”.
narya
I thought Hill Street Blues was one of the best shows on TV–and I’d also say that the copaganda factor was more dialed down, with some more complex recurring characters. Though David Caruso as a GANG LEADER was/is truly amusing.
James E Powell
For many of the people mentioned in this thread, I wasn’t paying attention to them for reasons that have nothing to do with what kind of person they are. I only vaguely know who Garrison Kieller is for one example.
But I loved Cosby growing up. I loved Woody Allen movies. And Clapton is in the guitar pantheon. I can’t watch or listen to any of it anymore.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
I think it ultimately comes down to choosing what your line is as well as whether you want your money going to support a terrible person who will use their money and influence to hurt vulnerable people, such as JK Rowling and trans people
No one is going to be perfect, and I can tolerate stuff like cheating on a partner, even if I personally disapprove of that.
frosty
Heh. Try telling that to George Lucas!
K-Mo
@Kent: Great points!
BellyCat
Cosby was a dick, too. But unlike Woody Allen, he was actually entertaining.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, uh, sigh. I watched the first episode of GoT, and …. never got past that. I mean, so much of it was soft porn. I mean, I’m a cishet guy, got completely average proclivities, but when I wanna watch a drama, I’m not gonna be in the mood for soft porn. Ah, well.
I tried to read those books, and, well, it just wasn’t very interesting so I stopped. But the series? Sheeeeite, coulda been made by Bob Guccione or Hugh Hefner.
Sister Golden Bear
I’m not sure I’m consistent, but a couple rules of thumbs I use are:
I dunno, as a queer woman, and as a trans woman, there’s a point where I just have to shrug and say times were different back then — whenever “back then” was — and either live with the problematic things/people, or else focus on where those artists/people are today.
Also true in politics as well — it wasn’t that very long ago that many politicians and political junkies, including here, were willing to toss LGBTQ+ people under the bus, or at least would tell us to “wait our turn,” as a political expediency. I may not exactly forgive, but I’m willing to bury the hatchet and move on, since we LBGTQ+ still need all the allies we can get.
BellyCat
(Double post) FYWP
Sister Golden Bear
@Chetan Murthy:
More than soft porn, the first couple episodes were pretty rapey. That kind of killed my interested in watching further episodes.
NotMax
@frosty
Hunter Biden shot first!
:) //
Chetan Murthy
@BellyCat: Heh, see now, I would have said the opposite. I loved Allen, and while sure, I watched Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and the Cosby Show, he was never in the same pantheon as Allen, or Pryor or Eddie Murphy. Notwithstanding, he and Allen both blotted their copybooks. Just too creepy watching their work.
thruppence
OT, but I made it to Red Rocks Amphitheater for the Rodrigo y Gabriela concert. The thunderstorms I feared have passed, but we’re getting a few small raindrops now. We’ll see what happens
hells littlest angel
Today I finished reading Lord Of The Flies, and was disappointed at an utterly gratuitous use of the N word in the penultimate chapter. It just doesn’t need to be there, and is an ugly stain on a powerful story. It doesn’t ruin the book, but it certainly mars it, and I hope the copyright owner sees fit to remove it someday. That same word in Huckleberry Finn just belongs there, sadly enough. It’s a book about rotten people in a rotten world, humorous as it may be.
MomSense
I’ve seen Johnny Depp mentioned in this thread a few times and I’m curious why. In the Johnny Depp / Amber Heard situation he clearly has substance abuse issues but she was abusing him physically and emotionally.
Brachiator
I don’t have a problem with Huck Finn. I will never have a problem with Huck Finn. The novel was one of the first books that I checked out on my own. We read Tom Sawyer in school and I was curious as to whether this Mark Twain guy had something else to offer.
I think that the context of the language in the book is important and that people who object are wrong about it. However, I also understand other views here and find them reasonable.
The problem, of course, is that Western literature is filled not only with racist and sexist language, but with racist and sexist attitudes. Sometimes it can catch you up and spoil the work.
In college I had arguments with people who thought that Faulkner was nuanced with respect to race. I thought he was a failure who tried but failed to get beyond his own narrow views. But he is a great writer.
I knew a woman who had interesting gaps in her knowledge of popular mainstream literature. Her mother kept from her novels which she felt were antisemitic. One was the novel Ivanhoe, which has a character that some see as an evil Jewish seductress. And this woman’s mother was a librarian.
hells littlest angel
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, I’ve never bought the notion that the sadism and misogyny of GoT is some sort of political or social criticism, rather than just a straight-up celebration of sadism and misogyny. The fact that the most frequently seen photo of GRR Martin looks like it should accompany an especially creepy ad in a swingers’ magazine is all the proof I need.
Geoduck
Re: Cop shows. I’ve heard it stated that many cops consider Barney Miller to be the most realistic police show ever produced.
BellyCat
@narya: Jah, Stephen King too. Don’t recall the book title, but when the “girl” in the club had to be fucked by all the boys to save the world— all of whom were losing their virginity— threw up in my mouth and can’t go back. Fuck Stephen King, too.
Chetan Murthy
@narya: As a kid I read almost all the Darkover novels. In the last decade I reread a few, and ….. it felt like she was just writing for the barely-pubescent boy I was at age 13-14. I mean, it was all from the male POV. And then there’s the awful personal life. I mean … shudder.
E.
I really wish the fervent Huck Finn defenders here would take a look at the article I linked to earlier. It flipped me 180 degrees and I don’t think I can justly be called a naive reader of American literature. Also, it is worth considering what Black writers, educators, critics, and readers have to say about it, which usually tracks what Smiley says. Just give it a look.
oatler
@hells littlest angel:
Louis CK has a monologue on YT about trying to teach Hick Finn to his young daughters that really exposes the problem. Ironically, his World’s Saddest Handjob bit seems to have been pulled (“there should be a reflecting pool…’)
db11
Chetan Murthy
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Chappelle has this amazing bit he does about Cosby. It properly places Cosby as a fucking rapist, but still tries to explain how for an entire generation of comedians, he was Superman. I was really impressed by that.
And then he had to go become a homo/trans-phobe. Sigh.
Another Scott
I think I first found this here – Rachel at SocialJusticeLeagueNet – How to be a fan of problematic things.
Uncle Remus and Song of the South were things I enjoyed as a small kid. But they are so obviously racist and demeaning and othering that it’s really important to find other vehicles to impart the good messages (e.g. thinking cleverly and finding ways to escape when encountering a stronger foe).
One of the few books that I started and couldn’t finish was Hans Küng’s Does God Exist?. I just found it so unbearably tedious, and I read – and finished – a bunch of other tedious books in college. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@E.: FWIW I read the Smiley piece.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chetan Murthy: The only MZB book I read was the anthology of her Lythande short stories, which absolutely resonated with me because Lythande is (in effective) a closeted quasi-trans character, forced to move alone through the world. I only learned about her extremely problematic past years later, and was repelled by it. But I still re-read the Lythande book occasionally. As I said, I’m not always consistent with my own guidelines…
hells littlest angel
@Sister Golden Bear: Those are some excellent rules of thumb.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I started watching some classic Adam-12, produced by Jack Webb, and it’s quintessential copaganda. Very idealized. I will say one thing in it’s favor, it never vilified Internal Affairs for cheap drama or tried the whole “ends justify the means so fuck the Bill of Rights” like many police procedurals have done
This, from the charmingly named episode, Elegy for a Pig, is less laudable:
Kent McCord’s character is so fucking boring too, like human white bread. He’s an old (mid-century) person’s idea of what a good young person is like
On a side note: I’ve been looking to get Sheffield All Sport Dive Watch worn by Milner’s character throughout the show. Plenty of them online for pretty cheap. It appears Sheffield wasn’t anything special as a watch brand
NotMax
A second or two of a Tony acceptance speech bleeped on CBS, presumably from the context for use of a word beginning with f that rhymes with bag. Not in an offensive manner, from what I gathered from the rest of the speech.
Now wondering if it was also bleeped for Paramount+ watchers.
BellyCat
@Chetan Murthy: LOL. I was 12 when I first (and last) enjoyed Cosby. I was 21 when I first confronted(?) Allen.
If comedy requires a shrink ( to both create and enjoy), Allen nailed it. Oh, and a pre-pubescent girl.
The “creepy social outcast” is worthy of being outcast, intellectual or not.
Ken
The only authors I’ve stopped reading because of their behavior are the “Sad Puppies” and “Rabid Puppies” who tried to rig the Hugo Awards a few years ago. Not that I was reading all that many of them before the incidents.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
This post from Gamerghazi is a good read on the subject
persistentillusion
@thruppence: Should be OK. Mostly headed south and east.
NotMax
Gender non-conforming performer Alex Newell won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kirk:
@Omnes Omnibus:
I get that he’s had tragedy in his life. But I would say to his defenders that that does not excuse what he did, which there’s evidence for
Sister Golden Bear
@Brachiator:
Having context provided also makes a difference. A number of racist Bugs Bunny cartoons were pulled from circulation by the copyright holders. IIRC, they would make them available on a limited basis, as long as they were presented with appropriate context, e.g. general racism of the era, specific racism during WWII,* etc.
*IIRC, some of the most racist were cartoons made during WWII.
BellyCat
GoT is undoubtedly soft porn — but credibly accurate for the timeframe. Modern sensibilities (tickled but) offended? Rightly so.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I understand and agree more with you, but you asked a question. We answered it. If you want to argue it, find a person who excuses him.
Kirk
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I do not recall defending him for the evils he did. And that isn’t the question you asked.
zhena gogolia
I guess I have an unorthodox view of Woody Allen. I won’t share it here. I still watch his movies.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I wasn’t arguing with you. It was directed at his defenders generally. I appreciated your explanation of Polanski’s background
NotMax
Ooh, snap. From an introductory bit at the Tonys just moments ago:
“I am sure that the Grand Wizard – excuse me, governor – of the state of Florida….”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kirk:
I get that. That’s why I said “to his defenders”, which doesn’t include you obviously. Sorry if I was unclear and that caused confusion
Betsy
@Alison Rose: The very first time I ever saw part of a Wody Allan moceiyi was repulsed because of the “protagonist’s” creepy, manipulative, sex-seeking stance towards women, and because it was OBVIOUSLY autobiographical.
(How great can a filmmaker be when all his shit is about his own point of view?)
So I never needed to know more and of course I wasn’t surprised when the real-life creepy shit came out. He’s a gross person who makes gross movies.
And oh by the way, Diane Keaton acts exactly the same in every role (WA film or no).
Another Scott
@E.: Thanks very much for the pointer. That’s a great piece.
Cheers,
Scott.
Scamp Dog
@Chris Johnson: I heard the Spanish Fly sketch for the first time not long after the news of Cosby’s behavior came out. On a literal level (if you don’t know about the allegations), it’s a fun sketch about clueless guys looking for an advantage that doesn’t exist. With the allegations out there (and everything I’ve read since makes me confident that the accusations are legitimate), it’s downright awful. I’m not interested in hearing his stuff anymore.
Rowling’s a bit different. I still love the books (well, all but the last), and may re-read them someday. The last one was a slog to get through; I guess she had gotten too famous/profitable to get edited. Like other commenters, I don’t plan on buying anything so I can avoid sending money her way.
I’m a limited fan of HP Lovecraft. I won’t try to convince you that he’s not really racist, because he really is, in both the “actually is” and “extremely so” senses of really. The interesting thing about his work is the idea of cosmic horror, the idea that there’s a barely comprehensible, possibly malevolent universe that doesn’t care for humanity, which is quite a contrast to the usual science fiction and fantasy tropes that celebrate getting out there and conquering adversaries. It occurs to me that if you’re the sort of stone-cold racist that thinks “well of course, we white people get to abuse our lessers, that’s the whole privilege of being superior,” the idea that there could be beings superior to us out there is truly horrifying. Star Trek’s Prime Directive doesn’t have any adherents in the Cthulhu mythos. Some of his stories are all about the racism and sexism. They’re awful and I don’t see the point in re-reading them. The ones that are about the insignificance of humanity and the background of malevolent Elder Gods still fascinate me, though.
billcinsd
@wonkie: That is not really correct, at least going by Wikipedia. MPR investigated and found multiple accusations against Keillor. In addition, he said things that could be interpreted as anti-gay and anti-Jewish
Ivan X
@zhena gogolia: I’d be interested i hearing it, but respect your decision to share or it share.
citizen dave
@Geoduck: Shout out to Barney Miller! When I was in college in the early 80s it was in reruns and on every night–forget the time. But I’ve seen those episodes as many times as I’ve seen Gilligan’s Island (easy to do because not many eps); Seinfeld and Curb. Then when I dropped cable several years ago I discovered Barney Miller still runs every night on one of the over-the-air channels. I find the very drab green/brown colors of the show very interesting. How did that even get on the air that way?
Re: Van Morrison, yes, he’s a crank but he is one I can still listen to, at least on amazon music. His new one is all covers–easy listening. Back catalogue doesn’t bother me at all. Have never been a Clapton fan other than Cream; Roger Waters doesn’t bother me either. Not saying I agree with their wacko views, just that I can still listen to the tunes.
Ivan X
@BellyCat: I think GoT follows more in the tradition of exploitation fare, just with more plot and production value. It’s highbrow trash. Which, by the way, my favorite genre. Whether exploitation fare is ok, given that its whole purpose is to exploit baser instincts, is a separate (though related) conversation.
Ivan X
@Ivan X: share or *not* share.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Scamp Dog: you might enjoy N. K. Jemisin’s the City We Became.
[no spoilers] Let’s just say the Lovecraft Mythos features prominently in it.
ETA: she is a great author.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@BellyCat:
ASOAIF/GoT’s setting has dragons. Realism goes out the window and it’s not actually a historical setting
Ivan X
Oh, come on. I’m not gonna defend its more egregious excesses, but to say that a fantastical element completely invalidates the historical framing of a work set in a fictional but obvious time and place is silliness.
Tony G
My own opinion — the quality of a work of art can (often) be separated from the personal good or despicable nature of the artist. I think that it’s easier to make that separation with “abstract” art forms such as music than it is with art forms like literature and film. A cliched but, in my opinion, appropriate example is Miles Davis. By all accounts he was a pretty lousy human being — but he was a brilliant musician and I listen to his music very often.
McDick
@Math Guy: newton himself was a complete pig. The indispensable pig.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also, while I’m sure the rapes were rampant back during the Wars of The Roses (as they are right up into the present-day), I’d doubt that they were so …. sexy in their execution and all. I mean, I have this vague memory that somehow women were much more covered-up, back in the day? And while sure maybe the richest wore fine fabrics, didn’t most of the lower classes wear black (b/c easy to wash, doesn’t stain) ?
The porn in GoT seems like all porn: idealized sex from a violent male POV. Ahistorical, I gotta believe.
ETA: I’m assuming @BellyCat means the Wars of the Roses, when they reference a historical period.
BellyCat
@Ivan X: Men controlled power. Men exploited power. Women controlled sex. Women exploited sex. To the surprise of no one. Shocking, I know.
BellyCat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Factually, dragons used to exist. //
NotMax
Second gender non-conforming performer of the night with a win, J. Harrison Ghee, for Best Actor in a Musical.
eversor
I assume all artists are jerks and all art is tainted. I also realize that if we as a society are willing to tolerate Christianity than all other problems don’t matter so let it ride. We can fix the rest once we end Christianity.
prostratedragon
Ivan X @ 86 is close enough to my view that I won’t bulk up the thread unnecessarily, except to add that it does matter to me the type of work it is. The warm and cozy vibe of a light sitcom is hard to maintain when the lead player is a serial drugger-rapist (though the prudery and barely disguised smugness were already wearing on me there), but in recent stages of my life I can do without such things. If I had young kids, I would steer them away from his work, partly because, if there’s an element of apology in all art (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, e.g.), youngsters might not have learned the difference between an apology and a ruse.
citizen dave
@Tony G: Love Miles Davis music. Good biopic movie.
Similarly, after listening to the Scott Auckerman/Adam Scott U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head podcast, David Byrne (Mr. Burns in the podcast) appears to been a fairly complete dickhead to the other three band members. But the music–damn! Still sounds fresh and great to me.
BellyCat
@Chetan Murthy: War of Roses, sure… But, well beyond. England is but a wee island known today for centuries of poor choices in colonizations, EU membership today, and generally with regard to the entire literature of cuisine (no offense to TonyJay, et al). The accents are fetching though. I’d still move there in a heartbeat, if only for the fact that punk will never truly die. :-)
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: I think the case of Rowling is somewhat different than the case of, say, Roald Dahl, in that we know money that goes to Rowling is going to be used to fund an active hate movement that is harming people. That’s beyond finding the artist personally creepy.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If a living artist has done something especially reprehensible or criminal, I might not support their current work.
BellyCat
@eversor: Damn, dude. Radical Christianity or ALL Christianity? Genuinely curious.
Chetan Murthy
@BellyCat: NoOoOooOoOOoooo don’t feed the troll! NooooOOooooooooo (*grin*)
Ken
Dr. Seuss got in on that as well, creating a lot of propaganda art.
I also recall watching the Batman serial from the 1940s on (I think) AMC, and finding it very racist. Batman and Robin up against Japanese — except it was always one syllable when they said it — spies, with the leader played by J. Carrol Naish in the second-most-offensive yellowface I’ve ever seen. (First prize will always be for Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.)
HumboldtBlue
@Eric S.:
I’ll never forget breaking down the lyrics to A Little Less Conversation with two lady friends and just how fucking creepy that entire song is. Total date rape song.
Well, I was getting kinda tired of her endless chatterNothing I could say ever seemed to matterSo, I took a little drive just to clear my headI saw a flashing neon up aheadIt looked like a place to find some satisfactionWith a little less talk and a lot more action
I paid the man at the door and pushed my way to the barShouted for a drink over a screaming guitarA drunk on a stool tried to mess with my headBut I didn’t even listen to a word he saidI knew somewhere amid all this distractionWas a little less talk and a lot more action
A little less talk if you pleaseA lot more loving is what I needLet’s get on down to the main attractionWith a little less talk and a lot more action
Well, she was fighting them off at a corner tableShe had a long-neck bottle she was peeling the labelThe look on her face it was perfectly clearShe said somebody please get me out of hereThe look she shot me through the glass refractionSaid a little less talk and a lot more action
A little less talk if you pleaseA lot more loving is what I needLet’s get on down to the main attractionWith a little less talk and a lot more action
A little less talkA lot more action
Let’s get on down to the main attractionWith a little less talk and a lot more action
Get on down to the main attractionWith a little less talk…And a lot more action
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: World War II propaganda in general is a particularly interesting case in that the US government was making anti-racist broadsides to fight Nazism at the same time that they were making incredibly racist anti-Japanese propaganda. And you see genius creators of the time like Chuck Jones and Dr. Seuss fully buying into both halves of that.
Another Scott
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: We wore out Cosby’s Revenge album when we were kids. My autistic brother just loved it. I thought it was funny too.
But Eddie Murphy’s impression made me think back on it and realize – you know, it really was just stories with him making funny voices. It wasn’t especially inventive or groundbreaking or even all that funny. Without the laugh track, it wouldn’t have seemed all that funny at all – it would have seemed kinda sad, and kinda mean…
Being able to think back and realize that those things actually are problematic and bad is important. We have to be able to grow and learn and move forward and not lock our culture in amber and refuse to change. But we don’t have to revere those problematic old things to do so.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
frosty
@Geoduck: Not Car 54 Where Are You? BTW, I agree with Barney Miller.
BellyCat
@Chetan Murthy: Haha… I enjoy Eversore’s rants. They are legit (and divergent) enough to stimulate a degree of critical reflection.
His ‘Christianity Axe To Grind’ is of interest to me. Personally, I respect individual spiritualism, but abhor pretty much any organized religion, largely because I’m yet to be convinced that human beings have yet mastered beneficial hierarchical organizational structures.
Gin & Tonic
@BellyCat: Not worth engaging.
Citizen Alan
@frosty: Jesus, that means he was doing that shit while he was voicing Fat Albert and doing Picture Pages on Captain Kangaroo. I need a drink just thinking about that.
Matt McIrvin
@Scamp Dog:
Astounding editor John Campbell was famously resistant to printing stories where aliens could beat humans in a fair fight–the humans always had to be superior, always had to win. And he was also racist as hell. He seemed to project that racism onto this wider stage.
With Lovecraft, I do think he had the inverted version of that association as horror. Humans being the playthings of an indifferent universe was, for him, the same basic kind of horror as the story where someone gets hold of a device that lets them peek into the future, and discovers that future New York is full of Chinese people!!!
Jerzy Russian
@Chetan Murthy: I read that at least in Shakespeare‘a day, black fabrics were the most expensive owing to the amount of dye needed.
HumboldtBlue
Oh, the original MASH movie. It’s actually a terrible fucking film, utterly misogynistic and sexist through and through with a dash of racism played for yucks.
MaryRC
@Kent: And Drew Carey who is picking up the lunch tab for WGA members in a couple of LA restaurants for the duration of the strike, to the tune of thousands of dollars a week.
Chetan Murthy
@BellyCat: Well, when it comes to that, I think that all people who believe in The Great Sky Father (or Mother, or whatever) were dropped on their heads as infants. In the case of Evangelicals, multiple times for sure. But (1) it’s not the root of all bad in the world, and (2) geez eversor, give it a rest whydonchya.
*grin*
P.S. 20+ years ago, I mentioned that I was agnostic. A friend immediately quipped “so are you agnostic about the existence of pink flying elephants?” I *instantly* “did the math” and replied “Oh, I see your point, I’m actually atheist! How about that! I never realized!”
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
I understand that there are some Harry Potter computer games that are currently popular. I don’t game at all, so this is not an issue for me. If I had kids who wanted to read the novels, I would let them read books checked out from the library.
I know that some people are looking for offensive material in the novels, but I think that some of these claims are overblown.
BellyCat
@Gin & Tonic: Maybe. Maybe not. The word “troll” is sometimes thrown around here all too often against those expressing (maybe ridiculously) divergent views.
I sense a trigger and (maybe?) want to know more.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: The Harry Potter novels always had some issues with lazy stereotyping of various kinds; people were talking about that long before JKR made her public transphobic turn. But readers were basically willing to forgive a lot because the overarching narrative was one of a fight against bigotry and a kind of magical fascism. And they also got a lot of “enemy of my enemy” cred because religious fundamentalists made those absurd accusations of Satanism–they were famously banned all over by the worst people in America. Many LGBT kids saw Harry’s initial predicament as a metaphor for theirs. All that made Rowling’s heel turn all the more disappointing.
Ivan X
@HumboldtBlue:
Oh yeah. I remembered liking it but watched it a few years ago and was shocked at just how mean spirited and nasty it was towards women. Like well beyond your average grade sexism. I am surprised it isn’t commented on more, it’s so blatant and constant.
BellyCat
@Chetan Murthy: That is fucking hilarious!
My S.O. was, when we met, also a “recovering Catholic” (like me), and when I told her that I was TOTALLY in favor of good super-heroes and comic books, even if thousands of years old, I think the spell finally broke.
It’s great (and maybe necessary for some to “believe”), but perilous when many exclusively BELIEVE. ;-)
MC
This seems like a good thread to reveal that I very, deeply love the aesthetics of Victorian Britain. I know it was just a veneer for an absolute tidal wave of evil, so I keep that in mind.
HumboldtBlue
@Ivan X:
Yup, it’s ugly through and through.
I rewatched the first few episodes of the series last week as well, and the early episodes don’t hold up too well, but it does get much better as it goes along.
There is still a TON of casual sexism, whether it’s putting the hot nurse (Lt. Dish anyone?) up for auction to win a weekend pass to Tokyo or peeking at them in the shower or just going after Hot Lips.
@MC:
So do I and I am in the boat with you.
Citizen Alan
@Gvg:
Google “Rita Skeeter” and “transphobia.”
Doug R
@E.:
I think Huck Finn is a good introduction to that particular time and place. The ignorance of Huck rings very true, especially for the period and Huck does grow as a character by the end.
BellyCat
Same. Been digging an audiobook of the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes for a few months and, I must say, A. Conan Doyle was WAY ahead of his time.
Ohio Mom
@Geoduck: Barney Miller may have been realistic for its time, before the police became militarized.
Tony G
@citizen dave: I didn’t know about David Byrne’s personality, but I can imagine it. John Lennon, another brilliant musician, was also reportedly kind of a jerk. Charles Mingus — another musical genius — probably had untreated bipolar disorder. He infamously punched one of the horn players in his band, breaking a tooth. The list goes on. Personally I separate the person from the work of art unless the content of the work of art is objectionable. “Birth of a Nation” was supossedly brilliant from a technical perspective, but it exacerbated the violent racism that was already widespread in the U.S. at that time.
Mai Naem mobile
@NotMax: I’d known Clint Eastwood was a right winger forever but I always thought he was more of a libertarian/low taxes country club kind of republican. The empy chair piece at the RNC really turned me off him. And it’s a pity because he’s had a bunch of good movies. Never got Woody Allen so its not hard to avoid him. What he did was just ewwwww disgusting. Also was never into Bill Cosby(I must be one of the few who didn’t get into the Cosby show.) He just came across as a slightly better version of Thomas Sowell and it ends up he’s a big ole creep. Never liked Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis even before I knew their politics. I was surprised at what a total RW nutjob James Woods is but it won’t stop me from watching Mississippi Burning because Gene Hackman > James Woods.
M31
I read a version of Huck Finn that attempted to edit it into ‘the book Twain really wanted to write’ (a problematic aim) by deleting all the Tom Sawyer antics in the second half of the book.
I hadn’t read the original in long enough that I could compare, but it seemed to work?
The Smiley article is very good (her book MOO is among the best academic novels ever — maybe we could have ‘academic novel’ night here some time)
HumboldtBlue
@BellyCat:
If you’re not familiar, the Jeremy Brett Sherlock series is by far the best Sherlock ever recorded. I was turned onto the series in a past comment thread here a few years ago.
Geoduck
@HumboldtBlue: And the novel that MASH was based on was even worse.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Cosby was tremendously popular as a comedian and also influenced a generation of comics. I can understand that people think differently about him because of his crimes, but the idea that his early work must also be seen as suddenly bad or problematic does not seem to be a fair or honest reappraisal.
FelonyGovt
@frosty: There’s a holdup in the Bronx, Brooklyn’s broken out in fights…
jackson
@E.: Thank you for prompting me to read that article. Everybody! It is good and important.
Tony G
@citizen dave: I have zero creative talent myself, but my wife is a visual artist and through her I know a number of visual artists and musicians. Some (not all) of them are a little bit eccentric and I think that for some of them egotism is part of the package. After all, the artist has to believe that other people want to see/hear/experience (and maybe even pay for!) their artistic creations. None of the artists I’ve met carry that egotism to the point of being toxic to others, but I can imagine how some artists might ross that line.
BellyCat
@HumboldtBlue: Ooooh. Will check out. Gracias!
HumboldtBlue
@BellyCat:
It’s outstanding, you’re gonna love it.
Tehanu
@Brachiator:
2 or 3 thoughts:
1 – I notice a lot of commenters here saying things like, “I never liked XXX’s stuff anyway, and he/she is an awful person, so I’ll never read/watch/listen to their stuff.” Well, if you never liked it anyway, are you sure your conviction of their awfulness is what’s important to you?
2 – I remain unaware that proof was offered or that Woody Allen was actually convicted of pedophilia. I know he was accused, and I know that women are often not believed when they make such accusations. But the principle that we ought to believe women generally can’t be “we must believe every accusation,” and accusation is not proof. Yes, I think it’s creepy that he married his stepdaughter, but AFAIK they’re still married after what, 20 years?
3 – Caravaggio is my favorite painter, and he was a murderer. I would risk my own life to preserve his paintings if I had to.
Sparks
@Chetan Murthy: I recently read a comment on the old Naked City which called it copaganda, which showed the commenter didn’t watch with much subtlety, because I’ve seen much much worse (Adam-12, anyone?).
Chetan Murthy
@Tehanu: We all get to make our own decision, don’t we? Just as we do about OJ Simpson and whether he murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. In addition to the public evidence, I know someone who went to the same school concurrently with Ms. Previn, and she assured me (back in 1992) that these allegations were true and well-known at the time. Now sure, maybe that’s gossip. But it’s difficult for me to set aside the simple fact that “in loco parentis” is supposed to mean *something*, and for Allen, it was a piece of toilet paper.
Ruckus
I feel that this is a loaded question.
On one hand their work is, I’d expect, mostly separate from their lives, if a good person can play someone who is pure shit, can someone who is pure shit play a good person? Or is the art directly connected to the person? And on another hand do we want to pay a shitty person to see their art, even if the art is amazing?
OTOH, in our current world we can access a lot of info on people with public lives. How perfect do humans have to be to make movies or music or art?
Do you drive a car? Were all the humans that had a hand in making that car acceptable to the above standards? Do all politicians have to be perfect people?
Do you know any perfect people?
How perfect is good enough?
I’m not suggesting that we ignore the bad, I’m asking what is the limit. Because no human is perfect, although some are closer to one or the other end of the scale
I went to church and school with Leslie Van Houten, does that make me a bad person?
Steve
I have a two part test for art from horrible people:
1. If the horrible person is alive and stands to benefit from people viewing their art, I won’t watch/read it.
2. If the person’s particular horrible-ness is present in their art, then I won’t watch/read it, even if they are dead.
If neither 1 nor 2, then feel free to engage.
Turner Hedenkoff
@Chetan Murthy: It felt like they added Seda and Michelle to pretty up the cast as great but less conventionally appealing actors like Ned Beatty, Jon Polito & Melissa Leo left. The show also seemed less realistic after that.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: That paragraph you quote belongs with my earlier comment at #160. Sorry for the garbled presentation.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
@Tony G: Another reason is that — especially for musicians and actors — the odds of making it are extremely low, so having a large ego is necessary to think that you’re going to be the exception. Actors also routinely face rejection after auditions, so a large ego also helps them deal with that.
Groucho48
@Sister Golden Bear: To add to that, a bit. Pre-WW2 Charlie Chan movies were fairly straight-forward detective stories with a bit of humor. Then, either during WW2 or just after, they introduced a black chauffeur/handy man who was as cringy a stereotype of the superstitious, cowardly, ignorant black male as I’ve come across in movies. It makes them unwatchable. The series had done reasonably well even as the budget was cut, so there wasn’t really any reason for doing so.
P Thomas
I can separate the art from the person.
Splitting Image
I haven’t given away any of my Dilbert books or my Woody Allen movies, so I guess for me the answer is no.
That said, I think that the issue of “do you continue to enjoy this person’s works?” and “will you continue to support this person’s career?” are two different questions. I think that some people change so much over time that you will miss the point if you treat the person who made a work of art as the same person they became 30 or 40 years later. Early Dilbert strips remain a very funny take-down of the person Scott Adams later became. This is probably true of Fawlty Towers and John Cleese as well.
There are definitely people out there whose careers I won’t support knowing what I do about them, but that is a money question not an art question. J. K. Rowling got a buck from me when I bought the first Harry Potter movie in a remainder bin when Blockbuster shut down, but I won’t be giving her any more of my money. However, I can’t imagine myself dumping all of her books if I’d read them and enjoyed them in the past.
kalakal
With a lot of rock stars, actors, sport stars etc since the 60s onwards you have young, emotionally immature people who are suddenly rich beyond their wildest dreams, adored by millions and surrounded by sycophants. You have to have a big ego to begin with to become a star so t’s not surprising most of them turn into jerks or worse when that ego is boosted into the stratosphere. Fame, fortune, and drugs killed and fucked up many a star. Some were already horrible, but I think more of them had their brains melted.
If they were already fucked up by their childhood like say Michael Jackson it’s amazing some of them didn’t turn into vile people .
I try to separate the art from the artist, don’t always succeed. The vilest star I ever met was Ginger Baker, I still adore his music but loathed the man
Brachiator
@Groucho48:
Charlie Chan and another “Asian” detective, Mr Moto, were played by non-Asian actors. This in itself is offensive, and yet this convention was accepted by most people.
Not too long ago I ran across an interview with an Asian American writer who noted that a lot of Asian Americans who grew up watching the films ignored Charlie Chan, but enjoyed the actors who played his son, and their friends in the movies, because they were played by Asians and allowed to be cool teens and young adults. So, there was a non stereotyped layer of representation that they could relate to.
sab
@Brachiator: Ever read Yunte Huang on Charlie Chan? He was a Chinese immigant to US who loved Charlie Chan movies shown late at night on tv when he was feeling lost and lonely.
Brachiator
@E.:
I have read the Smiley piece and a ton of other pieces on Huck Finn. I don’t agree with many of them. Also note that while I acknowledge the tremendous importance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin not only with respect to literature, but also to American history, I think the novel is tedious.
Black writers, educators and critics are not monolithic.
SFBayAreaGal
@NotMax: So many great songs in Paint Your Wagon. Lee Marvin was great.
SFBayAreaGal
@MazeDancer: This!
glc
@zhena gogolia: Probably not that unorthodox really, but I agree this doesn’t seem like the place to develop that thought.
prostratedragon
@Citizen Alan: There were credible rumors in the early 70s. Apparently they were not isolated incidents.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
My only conflict about Woody Allen is with a few of his earliest films – Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Sleeper – which leave me wondering if he made them before he went bad, or was he always bad and it just didn’t show up yet in those early movies? From Annie Hall forward, I have no trouble letting go, but I still remember Sleeper and Take the Money and Run fondly, and wonder if I’m being hypocritical about it.
Also, I had similar feelings about Arnold Schwarzenegger, after he went on stage at an RNC convention (I think it was for W?) and mocked people who were worried that the economy was going sour. I swore then to never give a cent to watch any of his works while he still lived, but I revisited that decision in the wake of his powerful denunciations of Trumpism. So I suppose people can change, and our opinions about people can change.
Chris Johnson
@Ivan X: Beg pardon? Removing N-word from French Connection?
Gene Hackman would be pleased. It had been a battle between him and the director, who was determined to have Doyle be a real historically accurate cop and was WORKING WITH the literal man Hackman was playing, who was in the cast!
So the guy who would take the heat for being the real Popeye Doyle because he WAS literal Popeye Doyle, was on set and apparently not shy about speaking up about whether Hackman was doing it correctly. He’s Eddie Egan, and he plays Simonson, Doyle’s boss.
So, Friedkin and the man being portrayed by Hackman in the movie who was ALSO playing a role in the movie, would be pissed.
lowtechcyclist
@E.:
Thanks for recommending it! Now I’ve got to go back and re-read Huck Finn, which I haven’t read in many years, and read Uncle Tom for the first time.
The latter has, IME, been dismissed as a historical artifact, no need to actually read it unless it falls within your field of study.\
From Huck Finn, I remember that bringing Tom Sawyer back into the story was a disaster. Tom Sawyer itself works as a story about kids being kids, and Tom being a clever and inventive prankster. But in Huck Finn, he’s still that same character, hasn’t grown a bit, and everything (including Jim’s fate) is just a big game to him. That Clemens drops him into the story like that should have been enough to keep anyone from saying that this was the Great American Novel, one would think.
Chris Johnson
@Tony Jay: As far as Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard, I just figure he’s a far-gone drug addict like his hero Hunter S. Thompson.
Sometimes that involves selecting spectacularly toxic people to mate with, and trying to keep them. I find it completely plausible that Amber Heard is a monster and all the accusations against Depp are fake and it still doesn’t make him a good person, he’s a wreck who’s sometimes done good acting (and again, how is Jack Sparrow based on Keith Richards so different from Kevin Spacey playing the villain in Seven? They basically cast the character and turned on the camera)
It would be nice if Depp got clean or straightened out, but the idea that he remains a complete wreck is unsurprising to me. Some people just die of that, and Depp could be one of them, his best and/or most resonant work behind him.
Rachel Bakes
@E.: that article made a big splash at my workplace (The Mark Twain House in Hartford) when I first came out but having studied Huck Finn if felt like a false equivalency. Twain and Stowe were writing at different times. Stowe shone light on the horrors of slavery before abolition. Twain wrote HF in the 1870s-80s to illustrate how horrible racism was (and is). He knew the language was offensive and overused it as a sword to drive home that point.
Chris Johnson
@BellyCat: Also, for them as are still even in the thread:
The reason I don’t talk to eversor is that his behavior is exactly like a certain type of internet troll, as in ‘working russian saboteur dude trying to damage Americans through sowing dissent’, that being an actual job as we know through Mueller and more.
So the behavior involves finding a place where people are talking politics, and finding a wedge issue in hopes of getting half the commenters fighting with the other half of the commenters. The real goal is to plant more militarily useful ideas like ‘well this is normal because America is obviously about to have a massive civil war’, or ‘this is normal because there are obviously so many fanatical anti-Christians/fanatical Christians, that if someone puts in an authoritarian law it clearly represents a large chunk of authoritarian population’.
So the job being done is normalization, and it can either be taken on directly or in mirror image (like if you went to Red State with the purpose of trying to stir up really colorful responses, only in reverse)
And so, whenever I see eversor obviously hammering a particular topic that could be used to draw out either fanatical pro or con responses (or, upset either pro or con sides by LACK of reaction: for instance, is there political value in driving black Christian voters away from the Democratic party by making it seem a safe haven for frothing antireligion rhetoric?) I tend to think he is pursuing a job as a working troll, all the more when it’s a massive topic switch. This is of course not the only possible explanation but I think it’s documented that this happens.
That is just my speculation. Carry on :)
Jamey
@Math Guy: But Woody Allen’s past observations about relationships and women in general aren’t math. The universe will function just fine without them.
trucmat
@Chris Johnson:
Interesting. I have set only a few pie filters and he is one for the reasons you cite. The others just annoy me but don’t seem nefarious. Probably should remove the other filters in fact.
ken
Making self righteous statements about Woody Allen is the lowest form of perfomative white wokeness. Stop obsessing over what may or may not have happened by Hollywood figures with 9 digits in their bank accounts, who don’t care about you. Find something else to talk about, instead of things that people will secretly continue to do. People are going to continue to watch Woody Allen movies, watch the Cosby Show, and look at Picassos in their museums. Move on.
zhena gogolia
@Tehanu: You and I are on the same page.
zhena gogolia
@Tehanu: Except that she was never his stepdaughter. He never married Farrow.
AWOL
I avoid, as best as I can, works with Scientologists as actors. I think their destructiveness has been underrated. Cruise, Moss, Juliette Lewis, et al.—I just avoid.
The Mel Gibsons are obvious. He has many fellow travellers. Odious humans.
Nazi-adjacent? Celine, Ezra Pound, TS Elliot, et al., von Trier, can all rot.
Anyone who wants to ban a work like “Huckleberry Finn” is beyond ignorant. The dialogue reflects the times. It’s an anti-slavery apologia by a young man who made the mistake of joining the Confederate cause at the last moment and regretted it. (Later on, Twain was key in opposing King Leopold’s genocide in the Congo.) “Huckleberry Finn”’s main mistake is a) after Twain picks up writing it after many years, is a) Jim and Huck are heading in the wrong direction—back to the slavers’ lands; and b) the first half is joyful adult-themed atheism and mayhem—then fucking Tom Sawyer shows up and it becomes a third-rate kids book.
I’m sure there’s a billion other works to hate. We’re damaged creations, and sometimes the creative are the most damaged..
Jake Gibson
It is a fool’s errand to only consume or enjoy culture produced by “good” people. And to be consistent about it.
Chinatown is a dark and excellent film.
The fact that Roman Polansky is a scumbag does not effect that.
Faulkner was a pathological liar and adulterer as well as being an alcoholic.
But that does not make Light In August or Absalom, Absalom lesser works.
That being said, I cannot take Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise seriously as actors.
Aimai
@Alison Rose: Such a great comment! Cosigned!
Rachel Bakes
@NotMax: I was in the audience. I think that one was “now I’m a F— with a Tony!”
NotMax
@Rachel Bakes
Precisely what I presumed it was.
E.
@AWOL: It’s not about the dialogue, if you care to spend time looking into the issue and advance your own understanding of it. And no one is talking about banning anything, at least not here. I do not feel like I am “beyond ignorant “ on this subject but you are welcome to your opinions.
BellyCat
@HumboldtBlue: You’re right— IT’S GOOD!
BellyCat
@Chris Johnson: The pie filter is a relic from days before better use of the ban hammer and I find heavy use by a few here to be a form of intolerance unwarranted as it can narrow thoughtful discussion while requiring social compliance as a threat mechanism. (I much prefer to just skip a commenter and have never pied anyone not soon banned for obvious and repeated trolling)
I grok and agree with your logic. Only difference is that I’m not there yet. Could I be? Depends on whether potshots against Christianity continue ad infinitum from eversor or more precise rationale for his loathing of Christianity is offered. Organized religion of any type is powerful and power can be all too easily manipulated to create massive harm.
For now, I offer more rope to eversor. He can tie a ladder or noose with it. His choice.
UncleEbeneezer
If someone quietly continues to enjoy Johnny Depp movies, Dave Chapelle stand-up specials, JK Rowlings books etc., I really don’t care. Those artists aren’t going to get cancelled no matter how much I wish they would. If a person, otoh, publicly defends them, promotes them and/or makes excuses for their problematic behavior (or likes them because of it), that is very different.
I generally feel like policing peoples’ fiction/fantasy/musical taste and drawing judgmental conclusions about them as people, is a waste of time. It doesn’t accomplish anything. The judgement is usually not accurate and the whole thing feels way too MAGA for me. And way too often, I think the impulse is driven by unhealthy feelings of self-rightousness. That’s the way it’s always felt to me, when I’ve done it. It’s an easy way to feel morally superior and a great opportunity to be performative that gets rewarded in toxic social media environments. So it’s a habit I’ve decided to try and break. One of the reasons I love Swarm and Beef so much is that both series’ actually explored/critiqued this toxic behavior that has become extremely common in social media spaces based around artistic fandom.
We all have artists that have done problematic things whose art we still enjoy. All of us. Nobody is pure on this. NOBODY. All that’s left is where we draw that line and that really just comes down to how we feel personally. Nothing more. Do the best you can. At the end of the day, of all the things to judge a person on, their taste in art is so far down the list that it’s not even really worth worrying about, imo, except for egregious behavior like Mentioned above. If they actively cape for assholes, make excuses for problematic shit, and shout down those who take issue with it, that is a problem and I will judge them on that. Otherwise, I’m not gonna waste time worrying about what they read or listen to when nobody is around. 3/4’s of Led Zeppelin band-members were extremely problematic. Many of their albums were still fucking brilliant from numerous musical perspectives. I can believe and say both.
Groucho48
@Brachiator: I’m not saying the early Charlie Chan movies were perfect, but they were an order of magnitude better on bigotry than the later ones.
I read Huck Finn in my freshman year in high school, which would have been 1961-62, so my memory is dim. I remember I had trouble finishing it and liked both Tom Sawyer and Connecticut Yankee better. I think comparing it unfavorably to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in dealing with race is an unfair comparison. The whole point of UTC was about race and the evils of slavery. Whereas, HF was a coming of age story, one major component of which was realizing that black folks are just as human as white folks. And, a big part of the criticism was that it was just one example of a huge mass of literature focused on the experiences of a white male and that the literary establishment pretty much limited its rankings and plaudits to just those kinds of books. Which is true enough, but that’s not Twain’s or Huck Finn’s fault. I don’t think it’s the Great American Novel. I don’t think it’s possible to have a Great American Novel. I think the clear writing style and deemphasis on the overly sentimental writing of the day was a good thing and Twain was good at characterizations and such.
I also tried reading UTC when I was a teen and didn’t get very far. I wasn’t ready for the dialects and the sentimentality. But I tried again, maybe 10 years ago, when someone mentioned how good the characterizations were. It’s a very good book. Reminds me a bit of Tolstoy in the way it makes each character, major or minor, come alive as real people. Anyway, I recommend folks give it a look.
Rusty
@E.: Thank you for the link. That is an exceptional essay and now I am moved to re-read Uncle Tom’s Cabin with a new perspective. As for Twain, I do like his writing and in many ways the opposite of many of the ugly creators discussed here. He basically stood against racism and loudly opposed the war in the Philippines that brutalized the local populations. He is not perfect, but he got much more right than he got wrong. Even with that, after reading the essay I would also be strongly in favor of replacing Huckleberry Finn with Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
cliosfanboy
@Brachiator:
and the original actor who played Chan was greeted by mobs of Chinese fans when he visited China. Chan was always the smartest man in the movie, and any character who talked down to him was later revealed to be a fool.
The black characters though, whooboy. That’s a very different matter.
BruceFromOhio
This topic has reared its fun, furry head at LGM as well.
Read, watch and listen to whatever the fuck pleases you. Artists and creative’s are all human, and humans are flawed. This doesn’t give anyone a pass. If a reader seeks perfection from the author as part of the contract to read, the library is limited. You have to decide where your lines are drawn, and be ready to defend it if you’re being honest with yourself. And people change – content I read, watched and listened to in my twenties is mostly shit to me now, irrespective of how flawed the creators are or were. If discovery of this author or that singer or those filmmakers being shitty humans takes the joy out of the art for you, stop patronizing or participating. If it doesn’t, then carry on.
The only person you have to justify your decision to is you, just as you alone realize the consequences of your decision. (“Why did my family abandon me when I started wearing my MAGA hat??“)
E.
@Rusty: I have loved Twain my whole life, particularly the Mississippi writings. The first intro to Huck’s character is such brilliant writing to me, and as a humorist much of his work really endures.
But I no longer tell myself Huckleberry Finn deserves to be taught as an anti-racist novel. It is not. It deserves to taught alongside UTC and probably Frederick Douglass.
JustRuss
I knew two people who had interactions with Cosby, both incidents were taped, and he comes off as a bullying jackass in both. One of them was part of his act, and sort of cringe-funny, but the other was just Cosby being Cosby.
Re Python, Cleese is planning a stage adaptation of Life of Brian, and has refused to remove the transgender “jokes”. They weren’t very funny back in the day, and in today’s context they’re not funny at all (oh, a man wants to be a woman! Ha ha!) and they’re not crucial to the plot, just a very minor running gag that comes up 2 or 3 times. Christ what an asshole.
Subsole
@Kent:
Dead thread, but this take about CITR always interests me.
I get why people think Holden is whiny, and cynical, and alienated and just…exasperating. He is all of that.
But wasn’t the whole point of the book that he had lost his brother, and his parents were too busy drowning in their grief to help him? And his teacher was kind of maybe a groomer? The whole vibe I got was that Holden was a basically sweet boy who didn’t have anywhere for that sweetness to go, and it was beginning to sour into poison. And that was killing him. Turning him into a bitter husk at 18. The whole sad story is a lonely boy drowning because he has no trustworthy, functioning adults left in his life.
@HumboldtBlue: That’s one I absolutely loved when I was younger, but really, really find myself squirming when I try to watch now.
I will say, the repeated bit about the camp constantly showing blood n’ guts war films, as a recreational activity, to a bunch of people treating combat casualties, is one of the finer executions of satire I have seen in film. Alas, it is just about the only actual satire in the film. The rest is just “hey, what if frat-boy movie, but also war movie?”
Matt McIrvin
@JustRuss: The trans woman YouTuber Jessie Gender just posted a fascinating video about that Life of Brian scene, in which she and a surprising number of trans people in the comments revealed that they actually always saw the “Loretta” scene as broadly trans-positive until Cleese’s recent comments recontextualized it and Jessie at least realized that, no, this is pretty bad.
One point that came up is that Cleese’s character, Reg, who refuses to see Loretta as a woman, is never the voice of reason anywhere else in the movie; he’s a performatively radical hothead with unworkable revolutionary ideas. So many viewers, younger ones particularly, just associated his comments in this scene with that. The whole scene then just became a commentary on how left-wing radicals can be surprisingly reactionary on culture-war stuff sometimes.
Now, I never saw it as trans-positive, myself. I think I might have had a better handle on at least Cleese’s intentions than they did. Interestingly, Eric Idle, who played Loretta, is an ally and says he was always trying to play the character sympathetically.
Matt McIrvin
Huckleberry Finn is one of those books I’ve read over and over at various stages in my life, getting different things from it every time. The last time, which was when I was in college, I finally recognized that structurally the book is kind of messed-up, with the raft going in the wrong direction to support the plot, some clumsy hacks to try to get around that, and a really implausible ending. I think if I read it now I’d also be a lot more critical about the book’s status as an anti-racist work, but it did obviously have anti-racist intentions.
People talk about the criticism of it as if it were just about the book’s use of racial slurs, which is period-accurate and integral to the book’s point. But it’s not just that, I think one major thing is the way Jim regresses from a loving and responsible substitute father figure for Huck to a comic foil in the late chapters after Tom Sawyer shows up. When I was a young man with edgelord tendencies, I interpreted that as a brilliant and vicious satire of what a racist and classist society with misguided romantic obsessions can do to people through internalized self-repression, but in context it’s something that probably shouldn’t have been there.
Matt McIrvin
@Rusty: Never actually read Uncle Tom’s Cabin but I understand it’s a work that gets seen primarily through the lens of sentimental stage adaptations that were markedly different from the story as originally written.
Matt McIrvin
@Groucho48:
The whole idea of the quest for “The Great American Novel” was a product of an outdated cultural cringe–we hadn’t had our national Great Novel yet but by gum we were gonna get one. Is there one single Great French Novel or Great Russian Novel? I don’t think so, though there are a bunch of highlights people often name.
Matt McIrvin
@BellyCat: I pie lots of people, lots of people pie me, it’s fine. It’s in the spirit of “killfiles” on old Usenet which were seen as less restrictive than actual newsgroup moderation. I do think that if a forum relies on this kind of mechanism exclusively, it puts too much of the onus on the readers to manage discussion, but I don’t see it as more repressive than the banhammer.
xephyr
Depends on the degree and the context, but some are forever tainted – which of course is unfortunate when it’s someone whose work you loved. It’s particularly disappointing because the natural tendency is to assume that if a work resonates with you and moves you, then the author, musician, etc. must be on the same wavelength as you in other ways as well.
hw3
I had an experience like that with John Lydon — aka. “Johnny Rotten” of the Sex Pistols. The disappointment I felt when he was doubling down again and again on his support for TFG.
It felt like my teenage-punk-rage-at-the-system was suddenly as deflated as a re-Thug-lican senator on a secret island junket without his boner pills.
I echo the thoughts that humans are complex creatures and are products of time and place, and holding our creators to higher standards can result in a loss of the opportunity to really own the experience of the art for yourself.
Admittedly, the flavor of the experience of the art once the knowledge of the creator’s failings can be enough to sour the taste of the work for me.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: A part of the “great books” quest was driven by the University of Chicago and Encyclopaedia Britanica (which UC owned for a while).
HF is Volume 48 of the 2nd Edition.
UTC is not there.
The cultural blindness is shocking, but not surprising.
Heh.
Cheers,
Scott.
E.
@Another Scott: That thing was always a grift! Tiny print, cheap paper, two-column format. I would be surprised if anyone ever read a single volume. But the target audience wasn’t ever readers of literature.
JustRuss
@Matt McIrvin: Interesting, and yes, I do think Idle played it pretty well.
Miss Bianca
@E.: Super late to the thread but I read that article and yeah, it was really thought-provoking- especially regarding the comparison between Huck Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (which really *is* a brilliant fucking book and should be brought back into the canon, problematic dialect writing and all.) Thanks for sharing it!
Miss Bianca
@HumboldtBlue: I must be the only person in the world who doesn’t think the Jeremy Brett take on Sherlock Holmes is All That. I tried it because I love all things Holmes, but I found Brett rather dull and stagey, to be honest.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
How ya feel about Holmes encountering mechosaurs and steampunk dragons?
Really. Schlock to da max.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
In case this thread is still semi active. I didn’t write about Allen here. I admire some of his work and will continue to do so. I think he is a complex individual and do not have a “final” opinion about his life. I have always thought that he was a second rank talent as a filmmaker with an occasional excellent film.
Anyway, as you note, he and Farrow were never married. He has noted this himself. But I think he took advantage of the social relationship. Clearly, Farrow saw things differently, and I think there is something very … odd in Allen looking at his relationship from this overly legalistic aspect.
Ivan X
@UncleEbeneezer: Spectacular comment. Entirely agree.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Uh…whoa. “From the Asylum”? As in, “Dr Watson now resides in one and he’s dreaming this up while zonked on some sort of animal tranquilizer”?
Manyakitty
@Brachiator: Allen is a challenge for me. He has built a career out of finding comedy ickiness and discomfort. His behavior toward and subsequent relationship with Soon Yi are/were definitely outside the norms. I am inclined to believe the reports of his abusing Dylan.
But, as with the other abusers mentioned above, there is generally repeating pattern of behavior. Did he molest/abuse/rape other children or young women? Cosby did. Louis C. K. did. Trump did. Etc.
So. Not sure what point I’m trying to make, but the topic is fraught.
Finally, all that said, his movies lost most, if not all, of their glow. Rowling makes me sad. Marion Zimmer Bradley — no words for that horror. Let’s not even discuss Isaac “man with the hundred hands” Asimov, because his work (short stories, especially) formed an integral part of my world view.
Everything is so complicated.
Don’t even get me started on musicians. Yikes.
Noskilz
It would say it just depends. For historical works (let say rule of thumb definition: everyone involved in now dead) it doesn’t matter – they are things of the time they were made, and not infrequently that’s going to involve things that haven’t aged well. Some of the creators of the past were very odd, and sometimes awful people, but if they’re dead it isn’t as if they’re collecting royalties anymore. That’s a personal consumption thing though – if I’m making recommendations or taking films to a movie party, then that is a situation where potential baggage is a consideration.
As we get closer to the present, things get a little wigglier. The cut-off for me seems to be if the creator in question manages to be be so odious and destructive that they eclipse whatever they created. JK Rowling is the poster child for this – I never read the books, enjoyed the HP movies – but she is such an attention-seeking, hateful mess it has killed any interest I have in her work. A musical example would be Ted Nugent, where he’s just a sort of ridiculous maga rodeo clown – that he was ever a musician seems like an afterthought now. I’m very disappointed that Michale Graves seems to have fallen in with the Jan6th crowd,, but that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the Famous Monsters-American Psycho era of the Misfits, however it does mean I really couldn’t care less about anything he is doing now. And then there are people like Cosby where I don’t think I’ll be able to enjoy anything he’s done again as long as he is alive.
I suppose for the more recent stuff the deciding factor seems to be what is this person doing with whatever prominence their fame has afforded them – someone who is basically marginalized or seems to just be kind of a crank, it’s much easier to separate them from their work if that has anything to recommend it. Someone like Rowling is making it clear awfulness is now her main business and who regards whatever success she enjoys as an endorsement of her hatefulness is a hard no.
Maybe what I’m trying to express is this a weird mess of a person or is this someone who is actively making things worse? Someone who is just a crank: whatever, takes all kinds to make a world. Someone actively trying to make the world a shittier place, I’m probably going to have a hard time forgetting that for anything contemporary. Contemporaries don’t have the excuse of not knowing any better or being from a different time as an excuse.
Oddly, it’s the video game sector rather than books or movies where I find myself writing titles off as a matter of course. Ubisoft is such a dumpster fire it’s been dead to me for years and Activision-Blizzard is rapidly hitting the same level of distaste for me. I guess it is the combination of active harm to the staff and gaming public combined with grotesque profits for really awful people.