Ep 51 - Separating the Art from the Artist

Musicians: Take Note!

WELL LOOK WHO FORGOT TO SCHEDULE THIS ON A MONDAY.

So this is a topic that comes up quite a bit, especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement and our collective decrease in tolerance for inappropriate (and often criminal) behavior. What we are often left with is influential and impactful art made by questionable characters.

In some cases it's pretty black-and-white: the person who made the art did something so awful that we collectively oust them from the public conscience. Sometimes the person is dead, so we do not have to face the moral dilemma of giving any amount of financial support to a predator or otherwise immoral character. But we're still left with the confusing feeling that we are enjoying and appreciating art, a product of someone's thoughts and emotions, made by someone with twisted thoughts and emotions.

I think we all just need to be honest with ourselves. It's okay to admit and accept that a "great" piece of art was made by a less-than-great human being. We need not rewrite history or torture our ears by pretending that someone like Phil Spector did not help create influential music or shape the future of popular western production techniques. We will all draw the line in different places, whether it's our judgment of "just how bad" a certain action was or whether we can stomach art made by, say, a murderer.

With that said, I would like to offer one piece of encouragement and a bit of a challenge. While we can all think of artists who have done horrible things, we can also come up with a list of musicians, poets, directors, etc. who seem to just be genuinely great human beings. We can celebrate the art made by these fine folks, and there are so many of them that we won't have much time left for the unsavorable characters in our cultural zeitgeist. No, I'm not saying that it's realistic to completely ignore all influential art with any amount of questionable morality attached to it, but we can certainly minimize its impact.

I want justice in the world just as much as anyone else. But it does not always have to be negative. We can offer positive justice to the artists among us who make great art AND act like decent human beings, both on and off the stage.

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