Watching this reinforced the idea that we could start talking about others of his generation a lot more, too:
11 Likes
I think one lesson is that we should never idolize somebody so much that we will be crushed or worse, in denial, if we discover bad things about them.
14 Likes
Yeah, probably get a new dentist. But I wouldn’t replace the fillings he put in.
10 Likes
Well said.
Art is emotional, the brain doesn’t get to dictate what the heart needs or rejects.
5 Likes
That was the eye opening thing for me in general re history. There’s a large crowd of people who were like, “It was a side effect of the times! They weren’t racist they just didn’t know any better!” But, then you look throughout history, and even with the knowledge that media was massively suppressed and controlled by the rich, you find out there was a significant and consistent outcry against slavery and other forms of racism during that time.
It wasn’t as “supported by everyone” as was made out, not even remotely.
11 Likes
I did not know this thread existed, so thank you TWICE!
4 Likes
That’s why COVID-related brainvomit is triggering me massively: it is extremely toxic, has a direct detrimental influence on individuals as well as society, and I personally feel this. I can’t unfeel, I can’t really compartmentalise, I can’t abstract priperly, I simply *cannot deal with it properly.
I is like someone is actively trying to kill people I care about. Like my niece, for example. Immunocompromised, since she received a liver transplant when four months old. She turned five a couple of weeks ago, and finally received her first dose of BioNtech/Pfizer on Dez 23rd. The last two years have been a special hell, and this ain’t over.
SARSholes can go unfuck themselves.
13 Likes
Dolly is a well-documented awesome human, too.
We have to remember that people who create culture are just that… people, with the same flaws as everyone else, sometimes worse, because they’ve managed to carve out some power via their work. Keeping in that in mind, it’s easier to forgive some mistakes and easier to hold them to account for others.
22 Likes
“The wife of entertainer Bill Murray has filed for divorce after nearly 11 years…”
FYI Jennifer Butler was the mistress that got him divorced from his first wife Margaret Kelly. Jennifer Butler Murry passed away just over one year ago unexpectedly. There was no mention of Bill in her obituary.
4 Likes
The whole question reminds me of a scene from Inherit the Wind:
What do you understand of the sum of a man’s life? You see my husband as a saint, and so he must be right in everything he says and does. Then you see him as a devil, and everything he says and does must be wrong. Well, my husband’s neither a saint nor a devil. He’s just a human being and he makes mistakes.
I understand not wanting to support someone who believes and does things you strongly oppose, no objection to that from me. For that reason I do think “it’s easier once they’re dead” is one of the reasonable lines you could draw. I also very much understand wanting to avoid things associated with truly horrible people, whatever that means to you. Personally I never remember who most artists are, or what they did in their lives, so I’d have a hard time not separating art form artist in practice.
I think in the past our cultural standards of what it takes to be considered a “good enough” person changed slowly enough that few people lived to be condemned in their own lifetimes for things that were… if not acceptable, then at least customarily overlooked, at the time. Today standards move faster, and that’s a very good thing in many ways, but we really do need a way to not consign so many people to the outer darkness for not keeping up, or for having been alive in a different environment or era. There will be some fraction of people in every place and generation who are unusually good, but very few who won’t eventually be found to be despicable by changing standards. CS Lewis (who, I’d note, previous centuries of Christians would likely have condemned as a heretic) said something similar in That Hideous Strength:
If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family–anything you like–at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow-room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.
4 Likes
Is this the same asshole father that is against universal healthcare? Is this the asshole father who might disown his daughter if she came out as gay? I know, second argument is way off tangent, but fuck that guy.
4 Likes
Interesting thought overall. But to this quote:
It really shows his insulated life! For whom was there more elbow room, sir?!? Not women. Not people of color. He speaks of and for the ruling, oppressive class.
12 Likes
So I do think something interesting in the video that was pointed out was, “how do we separate the art and the artist?” as being a cop out… a dodge. The question is more a moral one, a personal one. One that strikes individually harder than not.
And thinking more on it, I came to a realization for myself. If I’m even asking the question, “So JK Rowling is a shitty person, can I separate her art from the artist and still enjoy it?” or “You know, Meat Loaf said anti-vaxy things and that endangered the weakest members of society, can I enjoy his work?” or anyone that I ask the question for… I think I kind of already know the answer and everything that follows for me is just going to be rationalization city where I attempt to convince myself that those qualms I’m feeling aren’t valid or aren’t enough.
2 Likes
One consideration is whether the artist isn’t just holding repulsive opinions, but are they actively promoting those opinions publicly. And doing so in ways that harm marginalized people?
So - really not hard at all for Dave Chappelle and JK Rowling.
They can fuck right off.
17 Likes
Good point. And of course he was! He was an upper class white Brit in the early 20th century! He managed to be a much better person than many others from similar circumstances, but there’s obviously a lot he got wrong, too.
In this particular instance the quote refers to a theme from the whole trilogy about divine judgment getting harsher over time even in situations where an act has no clear negative consequences for anyone within the world; in a sense, in Eden before the fall there was no sin because there can’t be sin without knowledge, but as the world develops that tolerance for ignorance goes away. You’re obviously right in general about huge swaths of people facing less oppression and thereby having more room to live and make free choices, but I do also think we’ve developed newer and better ways to weaponize information to cast individuals and groups out faster than ever before, with mixed consequences.
2 Likes
7 Likes
True. But I’d still argue, to the last part of your sentence, huge swaths of the population were already being effectively cast out or “cancelled” prior to the modern Information age, helped by the power structures in place. Remember the scarlet letter?
8 Likes
One of the framings I dislike about these discussions is the subtext that assholes are somehow entitled to your attention and support based upon their supposed entertainment abilities.
There’s no shortage of great entertainers who aren’t assholes. Who aren’t getting attention that goes to assholes.
That’s a shitty discourse.
11 Likes
Exactly. And not only not getting attention, but being driven out of the field by toxic behavior that’s deemed acceptable or “boys being boys” or whatever they decide to call it. We’ll never get to hear the great comedy some of the women might have written who decided to leave comedy after their gross encounters with Louis CK, as one example.
14 Likes
