echoing what i've seen on the timeline tonight: if you buy into the idea that bad people can't make good art, or that art made by bad people MUST be bad by association, you doom yourself to being blindsided again and again and again
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It is why I refuse to accept when people act like VicMgNergNog wasn't good at acting. Doesn't mean I condone him or want him working in Voiceover anymore, but to say he wasn't a good performer is to equate good art to being a good person.
Most of what we are taught as classics are written by 19th and 20th century white people. They write quite well, but it is a fair guess that most of their politics were questionable.
This but also we need to personally have SOME exceptions to just criticize some artists completely, especially if you have experienced or knows someone who has been affected by said bad person. Its part of a coping and healing process for some
Being a Harry Potter fan remains interesting, in the Chinese sense.
One, because that story remains as good as it always was, and I will still defend those books from the hordes of people who never read or couldn't comprehend them.
Two, because this must be was Orson Scot Card fans felt like.
The beliefs that you cannot criticize someone that makes good art, and you must nitpick all art made by people that deserve criticism, is incredibly pervasive on social media.
Alternatively, you can just drop an artist after you find out they suck. The only way their legacy perpetuates is if people keep engaging with them. Once they fall into obscurity time will do the rest.
I'm saying that it isn't a person's fault for consuming media from an artist they know nothing about so long as they stop giving that artist their money and time when they find out the artist is a monster.
Like, stop being concerned with your own moral purity for consuming media, this isn't about *you.* It's about remembering that "This person is bad so their art must be bad" inherently also means "This art is good so the person who made it must be good." Which is *dangerous* to think.
not what I'm saying at all. I'm trying to say that people should drop an artist even if they make good media, I am not implying a good artist makes them a good person. now fuck off and leave me alone.
Is anyone saying anything to the contrary? You sure are committed to just outright refusing to consider you may have misread the situation, aren't you?
You know if you don't want talking to you, you can always be silent, yeah? If you said nothing, I'd say nothing. But that'd require... thinking.
Obviously not to say that you the reader needs to personally support art made by monsters; you shouldn't and I don't trust you if you do (see: Harry Potter).
But if you'd like to see where the logic goes you wanna do some homework on "Entartete Kunst" and it's effect on the people's sentiments.
The internet and modern media in general has us feeling like we know people we've never met when really all we know is what we've been shown, oftentimes only what they choose to present. It's only human, I think. It's an instinct we have to actively resist.
I swear the internet is so divorced from reality right now. The other day the Red Ranger actor was talking something bad, and suddenly people started dissing the CHARACTER of Red Ranger?? Like dude...
Yep, it is why I try and push very slightly against all the Harry Potter bashing I see. I get the reason why and sometimes it can be good, re-examining bad tropes and stereotypes and so on. However most of the time, it seems more centred around saying "JK is bad so her work must be bad"
That's been me on that- like, don't financially support her, I totally get that, and it's good to acknowledge the flaws.
But sometimes it seems like people are going 'The books were never actually any good', and I think they meant too much to too many people to believe that.
I’ll say this on the quality— there’s a lot of books that I enjoyed when I was younger, that I can’t enjoy anymore because of how I have grown as a person over the years. The Harry Potter books are among the list of these books, though not the only ones.
of them, and what things I can let slide has changed though.
(For a less controversial example— there’s a bodice ripper I loved in my late teens/early twenties. I thought the solution to the conflict was super romantic then. Now I look at it and just see toxic manipulation and a violation of
boundaries and a person’s autonomy. The book hasn’t changed, but my ability to romanticize the actions of the hero has, and I think the change is for the better.)
I’ll never deny anybody the right to just, not take joy in them anymore. I’ve seen plenty of comments from people saying they don’t think they can enjoy Gaiman’s works anymore.
I just object to the idea that ‘It was all hype, they were never good’ or anything like that.
I am on a similar but opposite wavelength in the sense that I also feel conflicted when people bash HP's quality but it's not because I think they're good —I don't, I loved the first books which I started reading as an 11 y.o. as they came out, grew increasingly disenchanted and ended up finishing
the last two "out of obligation" which I learned to never do again—. I feel conflicted when I hear people bash them because I also want to say "I actually don't think they're that good" but don't want to feed into that mindset that "They're bad because Rowling is an horrible person" (which she is).
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One, because that story remains as good as it always was, and I will still defend those books from the hordes of people who never read or couldn't comprehend them.
Two, because this must be was Orson Scot Card fans felt like.
Almost like you don't understand the conversation being had... at all?
You know if you don't want talking to you, you can always be silent, yeah? If you said nothing, I'd say nothing. But that'd require... thinking.
The point, which I apparently have to explain, is that conflating competence with morality can and does lead people to defend terrible people.
conflating the quality of the art with the artist's moral character is a relatively quick way to ease yourself into fascism.
They LOVE that shit.
Hell the idea of "good art = good moral character / bad art = bad moral characters" was key to the rise of fascism 100 years ago.
But if you'd like to see where the logic goes you wanna do some homework on "Entartete Kunst" and it's effect on the people's sentiments.
It means I can’t enjoy his comedy anymore, yes, which sucks because it gave me countless hours of joy before, and now it just makes me sad.
Objectively it was brilliant.
But sometimes it seems like people are going 'The books were never actually any good', and I think they meant too much to too many people to believe that.
The books haven’t changed, my understanding
(For a less controversial example— there’s a bodice ripper I loved in my late teens/early twenties. I thought the solution to the conflict was super romantic then. Now I look at it and just see toxic manipulation and a violation of
I just object to the idea that ‘It was all hype, they were never good’ or anything like that.