I think you really have to appreciate art separate from the artist. Many great figures in history were shits in real life. Paul Johnson's book Intellectuals is pretty much a gawker-style hit piece of Marx, Sartre, Tolstoy, Rousseau, Shelly, Brecht, Russell, and others - but it's not wrong. Hell, John Lennon was a dick to his pre-Yoko family.
Don't romanticize people and I think you can pretty comfortably enjoy both Netflix and the daily news. Ren & Stimpy is funny in its own right.
> In an interview with Howard Stern in the mid-’90s, the radio host asked him about a character in the comic book anthology the cartoonist was then promoting. Stern called Sody Pop “a hot chick with big cans and nice legs.” Kricfalusi responded with a smile: “She’s underage, too.”
You can try to separate the art from the artist, but I feel like you've gotta get real deep into death of the author before that quote becomes something you can ignore.
I get the folks who are upset because this kills a piece of their childhood. But imagine being one of those girls who grew up with stars in their eyes about animation, or some other art form. And then imagine having had this experience. It would be so hard for the entire art form not to feel tainted afterwards.
Yes, nowadays none of us can watch and enjoy The Cosby Show like, ever again, but maybe that's ok if it means a predator is no longer able to be a predator.
One of the women coming forward in the article talks about this and points to Roman Polanski as an example.
The trouble with separating the artist and the art means that people can ignore or enable the artist's bad behavior in order to get more art. I really think the Harvey Weinstein allegations gained a critical mass partially because professionally he hadn't been doing as well over the past few years.
It's hard to draw the line at enjoy, but don't romanticize. I think it's a bit easier to appreciate previous works or a dead artist. But, if you're going to dwell on the negative side of everything it'll be hard to appreciate anything.
Can we, though? Honest question. I'm inclined to think we as a species are not really capable of maintaining that kind of distinction, especially when significant imbalances in power are part of the equation.
Maybe but in some cases I find it extremely difficult to separate the art from the artists.
An example is the lostprophets. I use to like a couple of their songs but after finding out what the lead singer did I'll likely never listen to a lostprophets song again.
Continuing to appreciate a person's art after you came know that this person behaves really badly means normalizing, legitimizing and promoting such behavior. Which is harmful in every sense.
Don't romanticize people and I think you can pretty comfortably enjoy both Netflix and the daily news. Ren & Stimpy is funny in its own right.