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The Problem with Problematic Creators
(www.animefeminist.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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While I agree that pirating stuff is A-okay under such circumstances, consuming certain stuff is - IMO - also sending a message to other people and that's something I personally care about. YMMV
I think a lot of it depends on what 'aspect' of their person features most strongly in their work.
To pick a specific example: Ronald Dahl was a virulent anti-semite. And yet he was also clearly someone with a significant degree of empathy for children, after he himself suffered abuse at boarding school. His works come from this angle, seeking to provide children with the catharsis of seeing retributive justice done to evil adults. He also shows class conscience in books like "Danny, the champion of the world".
I would argue that it is the ideas conveyed in a work that make it worthy, or unworthy, of consumption, rather than the author themselves.
As an aside, you may be interested in the works of the writer/philosopher Iris Murdoch, who does have something to say on this topic, around 'can bad people produce good art'.
For me this has nothing to do with "good art". I know perfectly well that horrible people can produce amazing artworks that shape the relevant artform for decades afterwards. Aesthetics, ability and morality are not co-related.
My point is this: Many people assume that consuming/appreciating the art of "problematic creators" is - on one hand - about the "goodness of their soul" and - on the other hand - about how creators benefit from the consumption of their art (that's what the article is focussing on after all). But there is another layer and that is the message the consumer sends to the people around them.
Surely, in the case of Roald Dahl, nobody would assume that people would read Roald Dahl's books because they approve of anti-semitism. If I see someone reading one of Dahl's book, I do not assume they do so because they are an anti-semite.
But it's an entirely different case in - let's say - the case of the infamous black metal band Burzum. In that case everyone with even superficial knowledge of the band will assume that you are a neo-nazi, because the leader of the band is a neo-nazi who killed another black metal artist. Certainly, that is an extreme example, but it illustrates what I mean.
Even if someone is capable of separating art from artist, that does not mean that other people will do the same and therefore our choices will reflect on us, whether we want it or not.