I'm a writer, and writers sometimes do shitty things, so the issue of whether or not we can separate the art from the artist is one that's been on my radar for some time.
We, as a society, examine this question when a celebrity, or athlete, or politician, or artist, or writer, or filmmaker, or producer, or whoever in the public eye, is accused or convicted of a violent or abusive crime. Maybe in other situations, too, but I sit up and pay particular attention to those accused or convicted of violent or abusive crimes because I am a survivor of violent and abusive crimes. I daily undertake the impossible task of trying to know who all the perpetrators are. I need to know who is un-safe. I need to know whose art I will no longer be consuming, because fuck supporting abusers in any capacity.
I know people (usually men) disagree with me.
Claire Dederer, whose memoir Love and Trouble sits on my bedside table waiting for me to hurry up and finish Zoe Zolbrod's The Telling, wrote a must-read essay called "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" that appeared yesterday in The Paris Review blog. She discusses at length the challenges of watching Woody Allen movies as a woman in a pussy-grabbing-then-being-elected, #metoo 2017. Dederer brilliantly points out that the "we"--even her own, in the essay's title--is "an escape hatch. We is cheap. We is a way of simultaneously sloughing off personal responsibility and taking on the mantle of easy authority. It’s the voice of the middle-brow male critic, the one who truly believes he knows how everyone else should think. We is corrupt. We is make-believe. The real question is this: can I love the art but hate the artist? Can you?"
I cannot. I cannot and will not knowingly consume art by abusers. Here is the Dederer paragraph that completely encapsulates my feelings on this issue:
The thing is, I’m not saying I’m right or wrong. But I’m the audience. And I’m just acknowledging the realities of the situation: the film Manhattan is disrupted by our knowledge of Soon-Yi; but it’s also kinda gross in its own right; and it’s also got a lot of things about it that are pretty great. All these things can be true at once. Simply being told by men that Allen’s history shouldn’t matter doesn’t achieve the objective of making it not matter.
Bam. This stuff is complicated; just because men keep insisting it's not doesn't un-complicate it. It is true that Woody Allen is a pedophile. It is also true that he made art that resonated with a lot of people. Men saying, "It doesn't matter what he did in real life; it doesn't change the art," is disgusting, and it's a defensive response because they just can't handle that some of us object so vehemently to the art (because maybe someday we'll decide we hate you and your art, too? What will we someday learn about you, defenders of art by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby and Louis C.K. and and and?). It matters. Art does not matter more than "real life." In real life, Allen made art. In real life, Allen fucked an underage girl for whom he had previously served as a father figure. If you want it to be black and white, tough. Allen is an accomplished artist and a sexual predator; both are true and inextricably connected. Allen's prestige and power insulated him when the accusations came out. His power silenced his victims for years, and silences them still, in favor of "the voice of the middle-brow male critic, the one who truly believes he knows how everyone else should think."
Now what will we--you--do with that information? Will you explain it away so you don't actually have to think critically, contend with cognitive dissonance, or hold yet another abuser accountable? Or will you take some kind of stance against the culture of abuse? Will you decide how you will think and feel?
And what is your threshold for tolerating such heinousness? Because part of my decision not to consume the art of abusers has nothing to do with taking a stand and everything to do with self-protection. I can't watch football some days without thinking of that asshole Ray Rice. I like football, so this is hard. I can't read Amiri Baraka, no matter how deficient is my understanding of the experiences of people of color, because he beat his wife. I will skip all the Louis C.K. episodes of Parks and Rec (I'm rewatching. Please be good, really and truly good, Nick Offerman, because I love you but I will cut you right out without batting an eye).
It hurts me to see abusers walking around, making money, being adored, like they've never done anything wrong. It hurts in a way I can't fully explain yet.
If you can do this separating, good for you, I suppose. But if you're thinking of telling me or any other survivor why we should, please save your middle-brow male breath.