IN CONVERSATION about bad people making good art
reader question: What do you think of consuming art (movies, books or whatever) of artists who are terrible human beings?
Last fall the Rolling Stone published a report accusing Jimmy Fallon of being an asshole who was creating a toxic work environment and I was like no no no, not Jimmy, please. I love watching his late-night show. I like his innocent way of entertaining. Cute jokes that may not change political climates but offer a wholesome respite from them. Thank You Notes are my favorite segment but I also like Hashtags and I’m obsessed with Jimmy’s spot-on impersonations of various American characters and voices. Like, when he does an impression of a millennial vocal fry I’m in heaven! He never disrespects his guests and runs the show with childlike playfulness.
But things are rarely as they seem, and a show is just a show I guess, and now we know Jimmy Fallon is actually not the jolly good care bear from the screen, but a dick like everybody else who can’t handle power and pressure. I still watch him, because he still makes me laugh. His act still comforts me even though I know it’s just an act. He makes me feel good and so I tune out the fact that he makes other people feel bad (so I can continue feeling good). The things we ignore for pleasure.
Louis CK’s #metoo moment was a similar experience. My reaction wasn’t oh no! I can’t believe he did that! when I learned that he abused his power to jerk off in front of unconsenting women. I could totally believe that. It didn’t surprise me. Not because he is a man in comedy, (although the asshole-ratio within that demographic seems to be alarmingly high). It didn’t surprise me because I know good people can do bad things and sometimes bad people make good art. One doesn’t rule out the other.
I was relieved when he was canceled. Not because I support cancel culture or because I believe in a radical either/or, good or bad. I was relieved because the choice to knowingly support a predator by continuing to consume his art was taken out of my hands. Because really, I’m not so sure. I’m principled but I’m also addicted to joy. I’m corruptible.
I’m a vegetarian at heart and I like the idea of taking the train instead of a plane. I am an aspirational activist and I want to boycott anything and anyone who harms people. But for better or worse I am easily led astray by sensation. I’m a pleasure seeker and dopamine addict and I struggle to say no to something that makes me feel good because it feels so damn good to feel good. I’m sorry, Ms Jackson. My intentions were good. I wish I could.
Bad people can make good art. Brilliance and evil both assume great intelligence and therefore often come hand in hand I guess. Although I doubt this is actually true. Maybe it’s just rhetoric to romanticize the trope of the egocentric artist, too brilliant for his own good (a trope generally reserved for male artists).
Bad people can make good art and sometimes good people do bad things. It’s often when a weak ego holds too much power that bad stuff happens, I think. But it’s often a weak ego that propels a person towards gaining power in the first place.
An artist being a terrible human being doesn’t make their art any less great. In fact, weak egos create some of the greatest art, and I yet have to meet a talented artist who isn’t deeply insecure.
Real-life assholeness should have real-life consequences though. I totally believe it’s the right thing to do to stop supporting bad people and not let them get away with assholeness. Especially since there are so many other brilliant minds to choose from. We don’t have to abstain from pleasure. We just have to replace it with a pleasure that isn’t guilty.
As for every comedian who jerks off in front of unconsenting women, there is another comedian who doesn’t. For every movie director who abuses his daughter, there is another one who doesn’t. And for every late-night show host who is a dick when the cameras are off, there is another one who isn’t, although, I am not sure that’s actually true and I really do love Thank You Notes.
What are your thoughts on this? Would love to hear them in the comments!
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Interesting. The whole 'cancel' thing is tricky and often disconcerting as elements of the canon one grew up with - songs, films, TV etc are suddenly pulled and no longer available.
Clearly no one would want to see programmes etc with Jimmy Savile or Gary Glitter. On the other hand Picasso is now universally acknowledged to have been a bit of a misogynist arsehole, but you can't cancel Picasso - any discussion of 20th century art without him would be meaningless. So maybe it's the guys in the middle where the debate centres - whose crimes are less heinous, but whose achievements are less stellar.
The Romans practiced this kind of thing - though only in the political sphere - bad emperors' or failed usurpers' names were chiseled off stone inscriptions. They called it damnatio memoriae, which at least sounds more poetic than 'cancel culture'. I've often thought that we should do something similar with serial killers - rather than celebrating them, as we seem to do, we should consign them to hellish oblivion instead - Prisoner 123.
After working in the music business for 60 years (yes, I'm now older than most dirt) I'm afraid I can't separate unpleasant artists from the art they make. For instance, I never play Van Morrison records because the man's a miserable, rude, dismissive nasty piece of work. (The world is divided into two groups -those who admire his music, and those who have met him.) Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, was equally unpleasant, and I can't play his music without thinking what a miserable man he was. Lesson for artists to learn: Don't be an arsehole to your fans, your colleagues, your peers and people who work in media; the word will spread...