Do you separate between person and composer?
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As a bit of an art appréciateur, in all its mediums, I have a kind of multi-step process for dealing with problematic artists. The first, being related to the second, is the issue of time. How long ago was the artist alive? While I believe morality does not have a temporal dimension (we were telling people to be kind to one another thousands of years ago), the cultural mores of a time period can at least explain the context of what we would now consider difficult behavior.
The sieve of time sifts all art, which is related to my second point: is the art worth keeping such that I can live with the artist’s problems? Will people still care about this in 100 years? A thousand years? Who knows, but when I look at something like Harry Potter, and see the way people still talk about Mallory, or Shelly, or Baum, I think, sure, Harry Potter will outlive its author. Will people still care about The Cosby Show then? I’m not sure. Comedy often ages like meat.
Which brings me to my final point. How much of the author’s problems are present in the work? For Potter, I read only the good things Rowling wishes to see in the world, and find its basic morality strong and defendable. When Cosby gets pedantic on The Cosby Show, I can no longer hand wave away its respectability politics by thinking “at least he practiced what he preached.” There’s not enough antisemitism in Wagner for me to write off his work only for that reason (I have other reasons lol). This is the most subjective part of the process. Pharos were inherently immoral, but the pyramids still stand. I can appreciate the immense skill that went into making them, even if they were built under duress. The lesser works disappear in the sand, and no one cares.
I find it highly problematic to put Rowling and Cosby into one pot. One was in court for rape, the other one just has a controversial point of view and stands in for it. The one thing is legally relevant and handled by court, the other one is handled by the cancel mob. You might not like both. But the degree of “being problematic” is veeery different.
I think that point was kind of inherent to my argument, but I also think it’s a little sketchy to bring legality into the discussion, as if it’s not really a problem unless you can serve jail time for it. Abuse is doing something to another we wouldn’t want done to us. I know of plenty of laws in my country, now and in the past, that violate that bit of wisdom. Obviously, there’s a scale to abuse, and that should factor in to whether or not we keep a problematic person’s art around.
Her opinion (more a falsehood), her opening and funding an exclusionary women’s center, her donations to anti-trans causes, yes, it was abusive. It is not, however, present in Harry Potter, which was my point.
It’s definitely possible to construct a broad range here, from straight-up criminals judged in a court of law to people with just some problematic personality issues, statements or actions. Too broad a range, perhaps, but everything comes into play when meeting a work of art, and in our case a composition.
As Dr. Jacoby succinctly put it earlier, “if you have records by only nice people, you will have a boring record collection.”
There’s nothing I want to boycott or cancel in the history of mankind (it all says something about the time and place that should not be censored), but I’ve found that there are SOME instances where I get more uncomfortable than usual. Like listening to a Gary Glitter song, or seeing that scene in JURASSIC PARK with Cameron Thor as Dodgson in the beginning of the film. And, as I said, everything I felt about Dennis McCarthy changed when he did that Trump film. In cases like these, it becomes an exercise in distanciation, in order to maintain one’s love of a person or work.
This is the point I’m trying to make. You can defend Gary Glitter’s song because it is about Christmas. It is not about how much he loves teen girls, or more accurately to the Cosby example, how much absolutely can’t stand people who do. That’s fine and understandable, and what I do with Rowling. My next thought, however, is if Gary Glitter is worth keeping around at all. Is a pop tune ever worth the trouble? It’s not for me, but that’s an actual opinion.
Sometimes, sometimes not, I guess.
Gary Glitter is a relative parenthesis in the scheme of things, thank God. Yes, he was a big part of the glam rock scene in the 70s, but that was never for me in the first place. No big loss there. So his sole survival in my life is that track on the Christmas album I listen to every season, which – as you say – has nothing to do with teenage girls.
I suppose the bigger the name, or the closer to your own circle of precious affections, the greater the challenge. I might be annoyed that Dennis McCarthy scored a Trump propaganda film, but outside STAR TREK: GENERATIONS and possibly some episodes of MACGYVER, he plays no major part in my life. So no big loss there either. When I listen to GENERATIONS, I exercise that distanciation mechanism I mentioned, and enjoy it for what it is. As much as I can, anyway. The autonomy of the text, as the old Frankfurt School purported.
I find it highly problematic to put Rowling and Cosby into one pot. One was in court for rape, the other one just has a controversial point of view and stands in for it. The one thing is legally relevant and handled by court, the other one is handled by the cancel mob. You might not like both. But the degree of “being problematic” is veeery different.
AGREED
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