Separating the artist from the art

[MrDaveTheBass]

I mentioned Charles Manson in a previous post. I'd no idea that he co-wrote a Beach Boys song!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42051100

[cheddatom]

For me, if I can enjoy the art without contributing the the disgraced artist, IE pirate the gary glitter back catalogue, I don't see a problem with it. As someone said earlier, you don't want to be sponsoring one of these horrible bastards. If someone still enjoys listening to the lost prophets CD they bought years ago, I wouldn't judge them, but if they're streaming it off spotify or the like then they're guilty of at least ignorance.

I was talking about Kevin Spacey the other day - has he ever had a role that wasn't creepy? I can't think of one. The first film I saw him in was American Beauty, in which his character obsessed over a school girl. He played it pretty convincingly. It's a truly brilliant film, and I wouldn't blame anyone for watching it, but hopefully they can find a way to do so without giving their money to Spacey IE nick it off the internet.

[Stylon Pilson]

Personally I find it hard to separate the art from the artist. It's not a conscious thing; I don't announce "well, looks like I'm boycotting Kevin Spacey now." But I find that I have no urge to see or hear something that reminds me of them. Will this go so far as skipping Louis CK's scenes when I rewatch Parks and Recreation? Who knows. However I do know that Beck, of whom I was a huge fan in the late 90's, suddenly seemed a whole heap less appealing when I discovered he was a scientologist.

S.P.

[SpondonBassed]

On 11/13/2017 at 12:59, Graham said:

Please forgive what is probably going to turn into something a bit rambling

(TL;DR - Can you happily reconcile listening to good music by unpleasant people?)

With the recent revelations about Kevin Spacey and the bloke from Brand New who's been revealed to be a sexual predator, it's got me thinking again about the artist/art issue. Will I watch The Usual Suspects again? Will I listen to the new Brand New record again? Probably. Will I feel uneasy about doing so? Definitely. As a fan of black metal, I've had this issue for a while, a quick history for the un-initiated: back in the early-mid 90s there was some criminal behaviour from members of certain Norwegian black metal bands - the drummer from Emperor was convicted of a homophobic murder, the guy behind one man band Burzum was convicted of murdering the guitarist from Mayhem. Now, I do listen to both Emperor and Burzum, but I tend to feel a bit uneasy when I do, less so with Emperor as it's just one member rather than the entire band, who was later replaced. Similarly, when Phil Anselmo got drunk and let his racist side out on stage a couple of years ago, I stopped listening to Pantera and Down for a bit, but eventually decided that my enjoyment of the songs was greater than my disapproval of un-acceptable behaviour from their frontman. Currently all four members of Decapitated are in prison in America waiting on trial for gang-rape, I will really regret not listening to The Negation or Nihility again, but if they're convicted, I doubt I will. Even if not, the taint will be difficult to remove.

Whilst my examples above mostly come from the metal genre (that being the one I'm most familiar with), there are plenty of others out there - Jimmy Page "dated" a 14 year old; realistically, I understand he held her prisoner, but a lot of us love Zeplin. As mentioned above The Usual Suspects and American Beauty are great films, but star Kevin Spacey; I've watched two Roman Polanksi films recently, and he was a child rapist too.

What I'm getting at is, when you find out a musician/actor/producer etc of a piece of art or entertainment that you enjoy is an abuser, a criminal, an anti-semite, racist etc, do you stop consuming their output completely? Or do you decide that the art trumps the artist and carry on listening to it, but feel it's tainted, or do you just not care at all?

 

Put it another way...  How many people do you know who would admit to singing along with 'Do you wanna be in my gang my gang my gang, do you wanna...'?

[tauzero]

I still like Gary Glitter's music. Indeed, I still have "Glitter", and somewhere I had a signed concert programme.

Now that Morrissey has defended Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein, will the poor deluded fools that thought he was a talented musician change their minds about him?

[SpondonBassed]

They're even banning the substance known as glitter now;

Don't click me there!

[Bilbo]

I think it is astonishingly naive to think that the world is divided into good guys and bad guys and that this line matches the Arts. I am also saddened when people are accused of something,  not convicted but the mud nevertheless sticks. I am also a great believer in the concept of rehabilitation. Once a criminal always a criminal?  I don't buy it. As a 25 year Probation Officer, I have learned that it's all shades of grey.