Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:53 pm

Lovecraft was pretty goddamn racist even for his time, and God knows it makes its way into his work.

If I remember correctly, Lewis Carrol made up Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to seduce his friend's pre-teen daughter.

Oliver Twist features an evil character usually called "The Jew" with bushy eyebrows, a long nose, who's greedy, and who--to literally the very end--values his money over his friends and even his faith.

Jaws (my favorite movie) featured a girl actually almost being drowned to death in real life in the opening sequence.

Stanley Kubrick often tortured his actresses in ways that makes me think of the doctor from Human Centipede screaming "FEED THEM!".

Ted Nugent is...well...Ted Nugent, and some people seem to like his music, whatever that is.

We all probably still listen to Michael Jackson, despite everything that happened with him.

George Lucas though Jar Jar Binks was a good idea, but try to pretend you won't ever rewatch the OT.

So on and so forth. There have been so many works whose authors (used in the sense of 'person who made it') were either tainted or monstrous in themselves, but I try not to let that stop me. I guess there's a sliding scale of degrees: I'm probably never gonna watch House of Cards or anything with Cosby again, but that doesn't mean I can't read Call of Cthulhu. Maybe it helps that Lovecraft is dead, so I don't have to think of my money going to him. Maybe it has to do with a creator's distance from their work, too; I have to see Cosby in Fat Albert, but I don't have to see Lovecraft in Call of Cthulhu.

I don't know, at the end of the day. I try to separate a work of art from their creator whenever I view it (or in the case of older works, put it in context of their time [such as Oliver Twist or Lord of the Rings]), but since I'm not a robot, that's never completely possible.

So my answer is to equivocate and bloviate, as always.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby Aquila89 » Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:39 pm

Doodle Dee. Snickers wrote:If I remember correctly, Lewis Carrol made up Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to seduce his friend's pre-teen daughter.


Well, it's not as simple as that. Some people did accuse Carroll of being a pedophile, but that's debated. There's no evidence that he ever did anything inappropriate. He did photograph children in the nude (I mean, the kids were nude, not him), but that was not considered inappropriate in Victorian England; he made the pictures with a parent in attendance.

Doodle Dee. Snickers wrote:So on and so forth. There have been so many works whose authors (used in the sense of 'person who made it') were either tainted or monstrous in themselves, but I try not to let that stop me. I guess there's a sliding scale of degrees: I'm probably never gonna watch House of Cards or anything with Cosby again, but that doesn't mean I can't read Call of Cthulhu. Maybe it helps that Lovecraft is dead, so I don't have to think of my money going to him. Maybe it has to do with a creator's distance from their work, too; I have to see Cosby in Fat Albert, but I don't have to see Lovecraft in Call of Cthulhu.


Well, yeah, and also Cosby made family-friendly comedy, and Lovecraft wrote cosmic horror, stories about the insignificance of mankind in dark and uncaring universe. I mean, you don't expect the author of works like him to be warm and lovable, there isn't such a contrast between the art and the artist. And being a bigot isn't as bad as being a serial rapist; Lovecraft may have thought that anyone who isn't an upper-class WASP intellectual is subhuman, but (to my knowledge) he never actually harmed anyone.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby LaoWai » Mon Feb 19, 2018 10:11 pm

Sometimes I look at my old paintings and think, "Wow, that really looks pretty good. I'd maybe put that in my living room." I guess my answer is "Yeah."
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby SandTea » Thu Feb 22, 2018 7:31 am

Yes, I can enjoy art but in my heart there is an asterisk. Yeah, Gandhi was alright but... asterisk. Sure, mother Theresa did some stuff one could call objectively beneficial but... asterisk. ETC. One of my favorites is Salvador Dali but he is also sort of a dick head. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy looking at melting clocks though.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby IamNotCreepy » Thu Feb 22, 2018 4:36 pm

I think a big part of it is how closely the actual person/artist is associated with a work. I don't mean that in the general sense, like the way that you can see a Van Gogh and instantly recognize it as one of his works.

It's generally just worse with TV/Movie actors because you are seeing the actual artist. You are seeing them walk around, talk, interact, and I think it's just psychologically harder to distance the artist from the work in that case. Try to go watch the Cosby show and not cringe.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby Windy » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:20 am

Everything you enjoy is probably only made possible by the blood and suffering of millions.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby Crimson847 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:02 am

Windy wrote:Everything you enjoy is probably only made possible by the blood and suffering of millions.


Sure, but although there is complicity, at least the slaughterhouse is scrupulously concealed behind closed doors in the graceful distance of miles. By contrast, Cosby's misdeeds were plastered all over the national news, which makes things more difficult.
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Re: Can you enjoy art made by a terrible person?

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:26 pm

Personally, blood and suffering attenuates exponentially and becomes worth .1 as much every, like, 100 years. Gotta be something personal for me to care beyond that, which is pretty hard when we're talking 100 years.
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