Hello everybody, and happy new year! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break, and I hope 2023 brings you everything that you wish for. For my first blog of the year, I’ll be talking about what you can do when a piece of art that you love has been created by someone who turns out to be problematic. In short: can you separate the art from the artist? Let’s find out. Enjoy.
Celebrities are an interesting bunch. They have fame, influence, and usually vast sums of money. And yet, in many ways, they’re still just like us; they’re just people. And unfortunately, some people are awful. Being a celebrity doesn’t change that; some celebrities are terrible people.
Which is fine up to a certain point. There’s nothing illegal about not being very nice. But some celebrities go way beyond this, accused of actually illegal (or, at the very least, immoral) acts.
The problem we tend to have as fans is that it is very rare for a celebrity to get caught doing something illegal just as they are breaking through in their field. I suppose those who do get caught perhaps receive a punishment that stops their career before it even starts.
More often than not, however, celebrities landing in trouble happens after they’ve already made a decent career for themselves. The question we then have to ask ourselves, as fans, is: is it still ok to enjoy their work?
I think the biggest example of this has to be Michael Jackson. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to anyone who Michael Jackson was from a music perspective. Quite simply put, he was the biggest star in the world. Basically, everyone knew him, and his music was listened to globally for decades.
If you rewind five or six years, you might remember a time (see what I did there?) when MJ songs were all over the radio and TV, despite him being dead for nearly a decade. Now? Not so much. You’ll be hard pushed to find much of MJ anywhere on the radio these days (in the UK, at least).
Kids in the future will never understand the weirdness of MJ being everywhere one day and then – seemingly overnight – disappearing from nearly all public spaces entirely.
The reason for this was, of course, the serious allegations against Jackson for sexual assault of boys at his Neverland Ranch. There had been a few allegations from others while Jackson was still alive, though these were either dismissed or settled out of court.
Then, in 2019, a documentary called Leaving Neverland came out and changed everything. Two new, now-adult, alleged victims recounted their experiences with Jackson, and it was the first time that a large section of the public really started to believe that Jackson could have been guilty of these crimes.
Of course, many people don’t believe the allegations, and we’ll likely never know 100% what really happened. My personal opinion is that on balance of probability, Jackson probably was guilty. And enough people shared my view on this, hence the boycott.
Sticking with music, another artist never far from controversy is Kanye West. He’s always been what you might politely call a “character”. A very arrogant/confident person with a huge ego. It is, however, worth stating that I’m a big fan of his music. Particularly his early work. I think his opening three school-themed albums (College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation) are not only all great albums, but they contribute to what may be one of the finest trilogies in hip hop history. In my opinion, Kanye has had an incredible impact on the music industry.
However, in recent years, his behaviour has graduated (you see what I did there??) from general annoying personality issues – with the ridiculous interruption of Taylor Swift’s award acceptance speech the nadir of this period – to genuinely worrying and hurtful comments.
Donald Trump may well go down as the worst president America has ever had. The full extent of the damage he caused is still not yet known. On top of that, he introduced policies that were particularly harmful to people of colour in the States. It was, therefore, disappointing, to say the least, when West publicly came out in support of Trump.
I get that everyone has their own political beliefs, and I believe that everyone is entitled to an opinion. But when you have a platform as large as West’s, to endorse someone as divisive as Trump is a dangerous and damaging move. Yet this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Shortly after this, West made comments where he said that slavery was a choice. The inference being that black people were slaves in America willingly. The insinuation was that black people were used as slaves for 300 years simply because they were content with this way of life. The stupidity of these comments – and I have to assume the stupidity of West himself – is almost unbelievable.
And still, it gets worse. A couple of months ago, West posted some antisemitic comments on social media. He then doubled down on these comments during an interview shortly after. These comments, of course, were very hurtful to the Jewish community. But more than that – because of West’s huge number of followers – it started a snowball effect, with social media platforms seeing a sharp rise in antisemitism in the days that followed West’s initial comments. A number of West’s sponsors severed ties with him as a result.
Lastly, moving over to the film industry, one of my favourite films of all time is The Usual Suspects. It not only has one of the greatest twist endings of all time, it is an adrenaline-pumping movie with fantastic, interesting performances across the board.
Unfortunately, this film doesn’t really get much airtime on TV (I have no idea about its availability on streaming). The reason for this is that both the star (Kevin Spacey) and the director (Bryan Singer) have been accused of sexual assault in recent years.
So what am I to do? Am I allowed to listen to Michael Jackson or Kanye West songs? Am I allowed to watch Kevin Spacey or Bryan Singer films? The simple answer is, of course, “yes.”. But can I really enjoy them, knowing what these artists have (allegedly) done? It’s a moral quandary, that’s for sure.
Probably the correct answer – and quite possibly, this is the most boring, sit-on-the-fence answer – is that it depends. It’s really up to each individual to determine whether they are still comfortable consuming content created by accused criminals.
In some ways, I feel that art should be judged on its own merits and not necessarily on who the artist is or was. But it’s easy for me to sit here and say that. That’s just not how human emotion works. The context matters to us.
If you saw a beautiful painting at a gallery, but then saw on the placard that the artist was Adolf Hitler, that would likely colour your view on the piece, regardless of how much you liked it initially. Or, if you saw a gorgeous diamond but then found out it was a conflict diamond, you would be horrified at the thought of the suffering inflicted to get that diamond. The diamond wouldn’t be any less pretty to look at, but the story behind it would taint it.
I personally don’t feel comfortable listening to Michael Jackson anymore, and I tend to keep Kanye to a minimum, too. For some reason, I don’t feel as bad about watching The Usual Suspects; perhaps because I believe that movie making is a very collaborative process, whereas music is more individualistic (obviously, music is collaborative, but it feels more individualistic, particularly with artists such as Jackson or West, who had/have so much creative control in the studio).
The only advice I can give to others who may be struggling with the above-mentioned issues is to do what makes you feel comfortable and don’t let public opinion sway you one way or another. That and keep your fingers crossed that your current favourite artist isn’t accused of a crime in a decade’s time.
Thanks as always for joining me. I hope 2023 brings much joy to you and your families. Until next time.
Rob Recommends
The Traitors – TV – 10/10
Is it a reality show? Is it a game show? It’s probably a bit of both. I’ll tell you what it most definitely is: bloody brilliant!
Rarely does a new show format come along that is as entertaining and gripping as this. I literally couldn’t get enough of this; I just wanted to keep watching episode after episode. I can’t wait for the second season.
All episodes are available on BBC iPlayer. I would urge each and every one of you to watch this. If you only pay attention to one thing I recommend, this is the one. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
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