Probably around 7 years ago, Jerry Saltz (famous NYC art critic with large social media following) posted something about Picasso on Instagram. A woman commented that she was unable to look at him the same way after watching Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. I liked her comment and replied below agreeing with her. Jerry Saltz systematically went through the large comment section and blocked every single person (myself included) that criticized or questioned Picasso’s art due to his known misogynistic behavior. Essentially silencing all dissent, mostly from his female audience. (He famously blocks people who disagree with him all the time) FWIW, I have an undergraduate degree in art history and a masters in art conservation, at the time I worked for a museum, I feel more than qualified to voice my take on Picasso. I agree that the stain doesn’t make up the whole, I don’t hate Picasso and I very much appreciate his contribution to art, but Jerry’s silencing of anyone who disagrees with his “genius” narrative really irks me, and that stain has destroyed any credibility he had (IMO) as a critic. I’m still working through how I feel about the various “monsters” I encounter, thanks for this thoughtful discourse!
I've thought about Picasso a lot. While I will never need to see another Woody Allen movie, I'm still okay with Picasso's place in the firmament of the art world. I haven't yet completely worked out why my line is different for different artists, though to my knowledge Picasso didn't ever abuse children or minors, and I think his art changed the world while Allen's may be forgotten. And I certainly wouldn't cancel anyone who disagrees with me! That's disappointing about Saltz.
I think often my personal lines tend to be "is this person still alive and actively causing harm to living people right now?" -- like Woody Allen, for example -- and if so, then that's generally where I can't "separate the art from the artist", vs. someone long dead (or, even, someone alive who has offered some kind of good faith apology/admission of bad behaviour) can be someone whose work I appreciate but with a mental footnote? If that makes sense?
That's a useful framing, I think. And sometimes it seems very clear, other times much more layered and complicated. I just finished watching The New Look tv show and Coco Chanel is crossed of my list of admirable artists forever and completely — it isn't exclusively men.
I'm not sure if this is where your dissonance comes from, but films and television shows (and often music) are really large projects that are also employment for others. Not that painters or poets work alone, but typically they are not also someone's employer as they create their art. This aspect makes me want to put a much sharper lens on creators who are also holding someone else's livelihood in their hands. On the other hand, any creator who has achieved a certain level of success can use the power or their celebrity to protect themselves or harm others.
First, love that I thought this was going to be a column about laundry and was so there for it. Second, I really love the idea of 'the stain.' Even outside of the realm of celebrity, it feels so applicable to the way we navigate learning the whole sum of a person. It's often as if you're having a conversation and there's a giant red wine stain down the other person's shirt and you're left wondering - do we talk about that giant red wine stain? Do I ignore it? Will they ignore it? Should I offer a Shout wipe? Why haven't they changed their shirt? Is this their only shirt? Is that wine stain from today or did they try to wash away a previous stain, fail, and yet choose to wear the shirt anyway? Looking forward to diving into this book!
Same, same. I just found a small spot of water damage on a wall behind some furniture (we are moving), and the other tabs I have open right now are all about stain removal from walls (and of course, the chronic discoloration in the tub 🤦♀️).
I loved Monsters so much; I was reading it before bed & every night, I would inevitably wake up my husband b/c I'd exclaimed out loud, or laughed, or just basically had a marvelous conversation with Claire. I teach a course called "our monsters, ourselves," and it's always delightful as students come to the "oh wow wait monsters are...not what we thought they were." LOVED this interview, too. Thanks.
I also don't think it's as simple as separating the art from the artist, especially when they are actively using the profit from their work to do harm (JK Rowling is a prime example.) I used to love the books of Orson Scott Card. I knew he was likely politically miles away from me, but that didn't bother me much and I enjoyed most of his books. Then, in the 90s, I met him at a bookstore event and he was just kind of a giant asshole. It messed up my relationship to his books somewhat, because I could see the assholery through how some of his characters behaved. Still, not enough to completely turn me off his works. Then he helped fund the overturn of same sex marriage in California and THAT was enough. I am not okay with an artist using my money to fund hate. Full stop.
The other dude I've internally cancelled is Joss Whedon. I was a huge fan of Buffy and Firefly and just about all of his work. He was an avowed feminist, and so when his male characters did horrible things to his female characters, it was to make a point. Right? Right??
Well, no. It turns out he's an incel fuckboi who used his then-wife and children to mask all the screwing around with young actresses he did during that period, he's deeply sexist and racist and has a terrible reputation in Hollywood. Apparently the Buffy set was not a happy place and he harassed and abused his cast. So now I can't watch the shows I loved because my lens has totally shifted. Mal slut-shaming Inara isn't funny anymore, it's creepy. Buffy suffering every possible emotional and physical pain is not heroic, it's sadistic. And creepy. Xander acting like a bitter incel isn't endearing and geeky, it's just deeply, deeply creepy.
In 100 years I might feel okay at appreciating JK Rowling or Orson Scott Card's work as an example of its time, as I do with Wagner, as long as the proceeds aren't benefitting something shitty. I can look at the sociohistoric context and make sense out of the good and the bad. But Whedon's work was rotten from the start, it was just masked by his cosplaying as a feminist.
I recently read "Into Every Generation A Slayer is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts" by Evan Ross Katz and I think it walks the line pretty well - both exploring the cultural impact of Buffy and what the show has meant to its fans while also grappling with how toxic the set was and what an asshole Whedon was. I also really love(d) Buffy and Firefly, and I'm so mad to have the stain on that art. I don't want to give my dollars to Whedon anymore, but like a favorite dress destroyed by a wine stain, I still think of the art with a fond nostalgia from before it was destroyed for me.
Yeah it's rough on Buffy fans. I practically memorized the show. And Angel. And I mean some of it is still good, it's just there's so much misogyny masquerading as feminism and it makes me so goddamned mad. I still like Buffy as an archetype, and I'm tickled by the news that Dolly Parton bankrolled a big chunk of it. She's talked of a remake ,so maybe we can get a version by a not-trash-human.
Broke my heart too, to have Buffy tainted - stained - with Whedon's awfulness. But all the more love for all the cast and team who gave us such cherished characters and stories and emotions.
The performances are all the more impressive when you understand the conditions in which they were delivered. The cast and crew should never have had to deal with all that bullsh*t.
I find the question is much easier for dead artists. I don't know who gets the royalties when I stream Miles Davis' music, but I know its not him (never read a biography of a jazz musician if you want to enjoy classic jazz without complication). Same for Picasso or Elvis or any number of other painters, rock stars, writers, etc. etc. The problem is that if you take this logic too seriously it becomes paralyzing. I don't think I have any particular problem with, say, George Gershwin, but presumably his royalties go to his grandchildren and who knows what they're doing with them. Anyway, I have no solutions, only confusion.
I can’t separate the art from the artist, or the politics from the politician. I used to be a big fan of Winston Churchill. My mother had been a guest at Chartwell, we had one of his drawings, I owned multiple books about him, saw all the movies. Then, a friend from India kindly explained to me that Churchill was not a hero in India, and the reasons why. I’ve never looked at him in the same way since.
I certainly understand your point of view on this, because I’ve been there too. My mind changed after I read a wonderful book called Churchill’s Empire, which showed him much more aware of his flaws than I would have imagined. In the end, I decided I liked him because he had an interesting personality and I didn’t actually have to live with him. Plus, he was absolutely right about the most important question of the 20th century
Yes, he was, and so was Roosevelt, but if you ask the Japanese community and the Jewish community how they were treated by him, they might have a few opinions to share.
I often talk about what “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” means. Yes, there are too many people who think if they use their wealth to buy organic that they don’t have to deal with the way they’ve exploited people to earn it etc. But I think it needs to be emphasized that the statement isn’t about not trying to make values based purchasing decisions. It’s about making those decisions meaningful by making them not just individual responses. So it’s not buying JK Rowling intellectual property (like the newer video games) because trans people mobilized to ask for this support. It’s doing BDS for Palestine.
Now do these things work? Yes and no. Is JK Rowling no longer raking in money or socially irrelevant, sadly no. Is Palestine free? Very devastatingly, no. But we are closer to both of those things than ever before because of these campaigns even if we’re not able to see it. The timescale and related commitments are often part of the problem for people. It often takes generations to make huge changes. And most of us don’t have that fortitude or patience. But it’s easier to have that patience together and essential when our lives depend on it.
It doesn’t matter in the same way if someone buys a Picasso. He can’t benefit. So to me it depends on why you want it. Is it to display for yourself or for others? What does it say about you? I think for many people it’s about demonstrating wealth and taste. And that’s the problem. It’s about using consumption without the stain to better one’s position.
I buy/read problematic books. I do it for myself. If I talk about it, I lead with the problems and why I wanted to read them. I have problematic favs. I know we all do. I don’t shy away from discussing those problems. But it’s important to me that I have decided that those problems are not the same as other art that I can’t bring myself to continue reading/buying. And, for what it’s worth, the current material and social impact of that art is how I make those decisions.
I read Monsters last summer and didn’t exactly enjoy it but have found elements of it really stuck with me. The image of Picssso putting out a cigarette on his partner’s face ended once and for all my ability to look at his work. As Claire writes, you can’t un-know. I write and edit children’s books about art and I’d rather pass on stories about artists who never put out a cigarette on a person. There are thousands of such people whose work is worthy of fame. Are some artists exceptionally talented, uniquely so across the generations? Yes. But the power to create legacies is made anew all the time.
Unfortunately the book also revealed the way that tastemakers such as film critics are scared of losing their status as tastemakers among a mostly male crowd. It’s given me major insight into the world of music criticism, where your taste is your livelihood. I think AHP has thought more about how gender affects this issue of taste-shaping and legacy-making than Claire Dederer has. Some of my most significant problems with the book were around children and motherhood. Why was Joni Mitchell’s giving up a child for adoption given a whole chapter in a book about whether we can still enjoy the sculptures of someone who murdered their wife? Is the “greatest crime a woman can commit” really giving up a child for adoption? The portrayals of beloved children juxtaposed with the crime of Roman Polanski either intentionally or unintentionally begged the question of whether we should ask ourselves, if this artist pushed our own child out of a window, or put out a cigarette on our own face, would we so readily keep enjoying their work? Or can I mentally block out the pain of that child, someone else’s child, so I can keep listening to this Michael Jackson song I like? No one has a perfect answer to this, it’s a question of your tolerances and personal life story. Overall this book seemed afraid to draw conclusions in case they were wrong, an interesting place for a critic to find themselves.
I just read Monsters so came back to read AHP's interview - glad I'm not the only one that felt like the parts about motherhood were out of place! Most of the book I found interesting, even the parts I didn't fully agree with, but when she started writing about how she "felt like a monster" when she had to work instead of spending time with her children, I was like... what?! How is that even on the same level as the abuses of power and acts of violence in the previous chapters? It felt like the parts about motherhood should have just been a whole separate book.
I haven’t read the book, so I’m only responding to the article, but I really take issue with the idea that “whether you consume the media or not is meaningless.”
We know that art informs life and how we understand and think about it—a fact we recognize or not depending on how it aligns with our agenda, often, it seems.
On the one hand, I’d say there’s broad consensus that, for example, representation matters, language informs our realities and understandings of ourselves, and—less politically—advertising influences behaviour. But then, on the other hand, people will swear that video games don’t impact behaviour and understanding of the world, that consuming porn doesn’t impact how we think about sex and how men think about women, etc. etc. The two things can’t reasonably coexist and yet they do.
And the claim here seems to be that the stain doesn’t impact the ethics of consuming the art. As if we are passive consumers who are unchanged by it.
I think about the MeToo-era revelations about Les Moonves and how, all of a sudden, all of the programming decisions of CBS over the previous couple decades made a lot of sense. Women are harpies. Violence against women as a humming undercurrent.
Or Woody Allen’s constant telegraphing of his predation against young/barely above the age of consent (or not even that) women and girls.
Those ideas infect the work and they infect your brain if you go in thinking that consuming art is ethically neutral.
And that’s to say nothing of the impact of people en masse refusing to consume media impacting the media that is produced and the people who are given access.
Also, Switched on Pop did a very thoughtful episode about what to do with the music of monsters a few years ago that I think wrestled with the question very well. Including by asking “whose monstrousness do we forgive?” and “Who is harmed by this forgiveness?” and “Who doesn’t get airtime because we’re forgiving monsters?” Never mind the question of “who are we to forgive?”
I agree with you 100%. Art and fashion are two of my hobbies. I buy mostly female designers and artists because I feel good about where my money, attention, and word of mouth advertising are going. There was a male artist in my town whose work I admired but I didn’t purchase because I collect female art. Two years after I contemplated the purchase, he was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. Why bother with the men? Then there’s the JKRs of the world who are just extremely disappointing. I’m not sure what to do with my Harry Potter books from childhood :(
Whew. As an artist myself and an art historian, this is a thing I struggle with on a bone-deep level. Looking forward to listening to this one; thank you! And that review of Nellie Bowles’s book? Let no one ever describe me as “fatally incurious,” for starters. Yikes.
Wonderful interview. This is a book that I now recommend to all my friends. As you mention at the beginning, there are no easy answers but instead there's an invitation to wrestle through the love of art and biographies and our role as the audience/consumer. Art is often about existing in tension and this book is a good reminder of that.
And, yes, so funny! To me, her voices feels like "an older sister's super cool gen-x friend that includes you in their shenanigans and also their philosophical conversations."
Great interview. This issue of being drawn to the work of artists who I would not have darken my doorway is one that I've wrestled with. I've decided that I would let the work, not the artist, speak for itself to the extent that I'm capable of that compartmentalization.
This line from the book/interview sums up my view perfectly.
"We are left with the art, which illuminates and magnifies our world. Which we love, whether we want to or not."
It sounds like I need to read this book. For me, that compartmentalization is simply not possible relative to the size of the “stain”, and perhaps more importantly, how much the artist capitalizes on their precise monstrousness. So the Harry Potter example, for instance, I will never support JKRs work because she built this world for outsiders and misfits and then went and told the Trans community, oh no, I didn’t mean you. (It was also ALWAYS racist, but that’s a different conversation.) Woody Allen’s supposed genius was built on a library of films that explore the fragility of the male ego and the proximity to youth and beauty for validation. No thank you, he will not get one more second of my time.
This is really in response to the Goodreads Podcast piece but --
I switched to Story Graph some time ago. I like the way it tracks/categorizes my books better, and it's not affiliated with Amazon. I didn't use Goodreads for reviews, although I had paid attention to what friends were reading sometimes. Knowing about the manipulation etc. that has happened on Goodreads, I really stopped entirely looking at reviews from anyone I didn't know.
Bought the book for my son's bd on the 11th. We talk about this ALL the time, often in the context of musicians. I will, of course, be borrowing the book as soon as he finishes.
This was a very interesting interview. I had read some reviews of this book that seemed less positive than your response, so I appreciated yours as a counterweight. I might check it out if time permits.
As a music critic, I obviously have to grapple with this fairly often. I wrote about it a little in my own newsletter the other week, as part of a review of a new album by a band whose leader and primary songwriter has spouted some troubling ideas in their lyrics (and in interviews):
Probably around 7 years ago, Jerry Saltz (famous NYC art critic with large social media following) posted something about Picasso on Instagram. A woman commented that she was unable to look at him the same way after watching Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. I liked her comment and replied below agreeing with her. Jerry Saltz systematically went through the large comment section and blocked every single person (myself included) that criticized or questioned Picasso’s art due to his known misogynistic behavior. Essentially silencing all dissent, mostly from his female audience. (He famously blocks people who disagree with him all the time) FWIW, I have an undergraduate degree in art history and a masters in art conservation, at the time I worked for a museum, I feel more than qualified to voice my take on Picasso. I agree that the stain doesn’t make up the whole, I don’t hate Picasso and I very much appreciate his contribution to art, but Jerry’s silencing of anyone who disagrees with his “genius” narrative really irks me, and that stain has destroyed any credibility he had (IMO) as a critic. I’m still working through how I feel about the various “monsters” I encounter, thanks for this thoughtful discourse!
I've thought about Picasso a lot. While I will never need to see another Woody Allen movie, I'm still okay with Picasso's place in the firmament of the art world. I haven't yet completely worked out why my line is different for different artists, though to my knowledge Picasso didn't ever abuse children or minors, and I think his art changed the world while Allen's may be forgotten. And I certainly wouldn't cancel anyone who disagrees with me! That's disappointing about Saltz.
I think often my personal lines tend to be "is this person still alive and actively causing harm to living people right now?" -- like Woody Allen, for example -- and if so, then that's generally where I can't "separate the art from the artist", vs. someone long dead (or, even, someone alive who has offered some kind of good faith apology/admission of bad behaviour) can be someone whose work I appreciate but with a mental footnote? If that makes sense?
That's a useful framing, I think. And sometimes it seems very clear, other times much more layered and complicated. I just finished watching The New Look tv show and Coco Chanel is crossed of my list of admirable artists forever and completely — it isn't exclusively men.
I'm not sure if this is where your dissonance comes from, but films and television shows (and often music) are really large projects that are also employment for others. Not that painters or poets work alone, but typically they are not also someone's employer as they create their art. This aspect makes me want to put a much sharper lens on creators who are also holding someone else's livelihood in their hands. On the other hand, any creator who has achieved a certain level of success can use the power or their celebrity to protect themselves or harm others.
That's a great point.
First, love that I thought this was going to be a column about laundry and was so there for it. Second, I really love the idea of 'the stain.' Even outside of the realm of celebrity, it feels so applicable to the way we navigate learning the whole sum of a person. It's often as if you're having a conversation and there's a giant red wine stain down the other person's shirt and you're left wondering - do we talk about that giant red wine stain? Do I ignore it? Will they ignore it? Should I offer a Shout wipe? Why haven't they changed their shirt? Is this their only shirt? Is that wine stain from today or did they try to wash away a previous stain, fail, and yet choose to wear the shirt anyway? Looking forward to diving into this book!
Same, same. I just found a small spot of water damage on a wall behind some furniture (we are moving), and the other tabs I have open right now are all about stain removal from walls (and of course, the chronic discoloration in the tub 🤦♀️).
Hahaha also looking for the laundry article.
I loved Monsters so much; I was reading it before bed & every night, I would inevitably wake up my husband b/c I'd exclaimed out loud, or laughed, or just basically had a marvelous conversation with Claire. I teach a course called "our monsters, ourselves," and it's always delightful as students come to the "oh wow wait monsters are...not what we thought they were." LOVED this interview, too. Thanks.
I also don't think it's as simple as separating the art from the artist, especially when they are actively using the profit from their work to do harm (JK Rowling is a prime example.) I used to love the books of Orson Scott Card. I knew he was likely politically miles away from me, but that didn't bother me much and I enjoyed most of his books. Then, in the 90s, I met him at a bookstore event and he was just kind of a giant asshole. It messed up my relationship to his books somewhat, because I could see the assholery through how some of his characters behaved. Still, not enough to completely turn me off his works. Then he helped fund the overturn of same sex marriage in California and THAT was enough. I am not okay with an artist using my money to fund hate. Full stop.
The other dude I've internally cancelled is Joss Whedon. I was a huge fan of Buffy and Firefly and just about all of his work. He was an avowed feminist, and so when his male characters did horrible things to his female characters, it was to make a point. Right? Right??
Well, no. It turns out he's an incel fuckboi who used his then-wife and children to mask all the screwing around with young actresses he did during that period, he's deeply sexist and racist and has a terrible reputation in Hollywood. Apparently the Buffy set was not a happy place and he harassed and abused his cast. So now I can't watch the shows I loved because my lens has totally shifted. Mal slut-shaming Inara isn't funny anymore, it's creepy. Buffy suffering every possible emotional and physical pain is not heroic, it's sadistic. And creepy. Xander acting like a bitter incel isn't endearing and geeky, it's just deeply, deeply creepy.
In 100 years I might feel okay at appreciating JK Rowling or Orson Scott Card's work as an example of its time, as I do with Wagner, as long as the proceeds aren't benefitting something shitty. I can look at the sociohistoric context and make sense out of the good and the bad. But Whedon's work was rotten from the start, it was just masked by his cosplaying as a feminist.
I recently read "Into Every Generation A Slayer is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts" by Evan Ross Katz and I think it walks the line pretty well - both exploring the cultural impact of Buffy and what the show has meant to its fans while also grappling with how toxic the set was and what an asshole Whedon was. I also really love(d) Buffy and Firefly, and I'm so mad to have the stain on that art. I don't want to give my dollars to Whedon anymore, but like a favorite dress destroyed by a wine stain, I still think of the art with a fond nostalgia from before it was destroyed for me.
Yeah it's rough on Buffy fans. I practically memorized the show. And Angel. And I mean some of it is still good, it's just there's so much misogyny masquerading as feminism and it makes me so goddamned mad. I still like Buffy as an archetype, and I'm tickled by the news that Dolly Parton bankrolled a big chunk of it. She's talked of a remake ,so maybe we can get a version by a not-trash-human.
Broke my heart too, to have Buffy tainted - stained - with Whedon's awfulness. But all the more love for all the cast and team who gave us such cherished characters and stories and emotions.
The performances are all the more impressive when you understand the conditions in which they were delivered. The cast and crew should never have had to deal with all that bullsh*t.
I find the question is much easier for dead artists. I don't know who gets the royalties when I stream Miles Davis' music, but I know its not him (never read a biography of a jazz musician if you want to enjoy classic jazz without complication). Same for Picasso or Elvis or any number of other painters, rock stars, writers, etc. etc. The problem is that if you take this logic too seriously it becomes paralyzing. I don't think I have any particular problem with, say, George Gershwin, but presumably his royalties go to his grandchildren and who knows what they're doing with them. Anyway, I have no solutions, only confusion.
I can’t separate the art from the artist, or the politics from the politician. I used to be a big fan of Winston Churchill. My mother had been a guest at Chartwell, we had one of his drawings, I owned multiple books about him, saw all the movies. Then, a friend from India kindly explained to me that Churchill was not a hero in India, and the reasons why. I’ve never looked at him in the same way since.
I certainly understand your point of view on this, because I’ve been there too. My mind changed after I read a wonderful book called Churchill’s Empire, which showed him much more aware of his flaws than I would have imagined. In the end, I decided I liked him because he had an interesting personality and I didn’t actually have to live with him. Plus, he was absolutely right about the most important question of the 20th century
Yes, he was, and so was Roosevelt, but if you ask the Japanese community and the Jewish community how they were treated by him, they might have a few opinions to share.
I often talk about what “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” means. Yes, there are too many people who think if they use their wealth to buy organic that they don’t have to deal with the way they’ve exploited people to earn it etc. But I think it needs to be emphasized that the statement isn’t about not trying to make values based purchasing decisions. It’s about making those decisions meaningful by making them not just individual responses. So it’s not buying JK Rowling intellectual property (like the newer video games) because trans people mobilized to ask for this support. It’s doing BDS for Palestine.
Now do these things work? Yes and no. Is JK Rowling no longer raking in money or socially irrelevant, sadly no. Is Palestine free? Very devastatingly, no. But we are closer to both of those things than ever before because of these campaigns even if we’re not able to see it. The timescale and related commitments are often part of the problem for people. It often takes generations to make huge changes. And most of us don’t have that fortitude or patience. But it’s easier to have that patience together and essential when our lives depend on it.
It doesn’t matter in the same way if someone buys a Picasso. He can’t benefit. So to me it depends on why you want it. Is it to display for yourself or for others? What does it say about you? I think for many people it’s about demonstrating wealth and taste. And that’s the problem. It’s about using consumption without the stain to better one’s position.
I buy/read problematic books. I do it for myself. If I talk about it, I lead with the problems and why I wanted to read them. I have problematic favs. I know we all do. I don’t shy away from discussing those problems. But it’s important to me that I have decided that those problems are not the same as other art that I can’t bring myself to continue reading/buying. And, for what it’s worth, the current material and social impact of that art is how I make those decisions.
I read Monsters last summer and didn’t exactly enjoy it but have found elements of it really stuck with me. The image of Picssso putting out a cigarette on his partner’s face ended once and for all my ability to look at his work. As Claire writes, you can’t un-know. I write and edit children’s books about art and I’d rather pass on stories about artists who never put out a cigarette on a person. There are thousands of such people whose work is worthy of fame. Are some artists exceptionally talented, uniquely so across the generations? Yes. But the power to create legacies is made anew all the time.
Unfortunately the book also revealed the way that tastemakers such as film critics are scared of losing their status as tastemakers among a mostly male crowd. It’s given me major insight into the world of music criticism, where your taste is your livelihood. I think AHP has thought more about how gender affects this issue of taste-shaping and legacy-making than Claire Dederer has. Some of my most significant problems with the book were around children and motherhood. Why was Joni Mitchell’s giving up a child for adoption given a whole chapter in a book about whether we can still enjoy the sculptures of someone who murdered their wife? Is the “greatest crime a woman can commit” really giving up a child for adoption? The portrayals of beloved children juxtaposed with the crime of Roman Polanski either intentionally or unintentionally begged the question of whether we should ask ourselves, if this artist pushed our own child out of a window, or put out a cigarette on our own face, would we so readily keep enjoying their work? Or can I mentally block out the pain of that child, someone else’s child, so I can keep listening to this Michael Jackson song I like? No one has a perfect answer to this, it’s a question of your tolerances and personal life story. Overall this book seemed afraid to draw conclusions in case they were wrong, an interesting place for a critic to find themselves.
I just read Monsters so came back to read AHP's interview - glad I'm not the only one that felt like the parts about motherhood were out of place! Most of the book I found interesting, even the parts I didn't fully agree with, but when she started writing about how she "felt like a monster" when she had to work instead of spending time with her children, I was like... what?! How is that even on the same level as the abuses of power and acts of violence in the previous chapters? It felt like the parts about motherhood should have just been a whole separate book.
I haven’t read the book, so I’m only responding to the article, but I really take issue with the idea that “whether you consume the media or not is meaningless.”
We know that art informs life and how we understand and think about it—a fact we recognize or not depending on how it aligns with our agenda, often, it seems.
On the one hand, I’d say there’s broad consensus that, for example, representation matters, language informs our realities and understandings of ourselves, and—less politically—advertising influences behaviour. But then, on the other hand, people will swear that video games don’t impact behaviour and understanding of the world, that consuming porn doesn’t impact how we think about sex and how men think about women, etc. etc. The two things can’t reasonably coexist and yet they do.
And the claim here seems to be that the stain doesn’t impact the ethics of consuming the art. As if we are passive consumers who are unchanged by it.
I think about the MeToo-era revelations about Les Moonves and how, all of a sudden, all of the programming decisions of CBS over the previous couple decades made a lot of sense. Women are harpies. Violence against women as a humming undercurrent.
Or Woody Allen’s constant telegraphing of his predation against young/barely above the age of consent (or not even that) women and girls.
Those ideas infect the work and they infect your brain if you go in thinking that consuming art is ethically neutral.
And that’s to say nothing of the impact of people en masse refusing to consume media impacting the media that is produced and the people who are given access.
Also, Switched on Pop did a very thoughtful episode about what to do with the music of monsters a few years ago that I think wrestled with the question very well. Including by asking “whose monstrousness do we forgive?” and “Who is harmed by this forgiveness?” and “Who doesn’t get airtime because we’re forgiving monsters?” Never mind the question of “who are we to forgive?”
I would really like to listen to this… any chance you remember more about the episode so I could search it?
I'm pretty sure it's this one: https://switchedonpop.com/episodes/39-when-good-music-happens-to-bad-people
I agree with you 100%. Art and fashion are two of my hobbies. I buy mostly female designers and artists because I feel good about where my money, attention, and word of mouth advertising are going. There was a male artist in my town whose work I admired but I didn’t purchase because I collect female art. Two years after I contemplated the purchase, he was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. Why bother with the men? Then there’s the JKRs of the world who are just extremely disappointing. I’m not sure what to do with my Harry Potter books from childhood :(
Yes!!
For thoughtful critique of this book, including the ways race is and isn't addressed, I highly recommend The Stacks Podcast discussion featuring Brittany Luse. https://thestackspodcast.com/2023/09/27/ep-286-monsters/
second this! Overall I really liked Monsters, but was so frustrated by the way she brushed over Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby.
Whew. As an artist myself and an art historian, this is a thing I struggle with on a bone-deep level. Looking forward to listening to this one; thank you! And that review of Nellie Bowles’s book? Let no one ever describe me as “fatally incurious,” for starters. Yikes.
Wonderful interview. This is a book that I now recommend to all my friends. As you mention at the beginning, there are no easy answers but instead there's an invitation to wrestle through the love of art and biographies and our role as the audience/consumer. Art is often about existing in tension and this book is a good reminder of that.
And, yes, so funny! To me, her voices feels like "an older sister's super cool gen-x friend that includes you in their shenanigans and also their philosophical conversations."
Great interview. This issue of being drawn to the work of artists who I would not have darken my doorway is one that I've wrestled with. I've decided that I would let the work, not the artist, speak for itself to the extent that I'm capable of that compartmentalization.
This line from the book/interview sums up my view perfectly.
"We are left with the art, which illuminates and magnifies our world. Which we love, whether we want to or not."
It sounds like I need to read this book. For me, that compartmentalization is simply not possible relative to the size of the “stain”, and perhaps more importantly, how much the artist capitalizes on their precise monstrousness. So the Harry Potter example, for instance, I will never support JKRs work because she built this world for outsiders and misfits and then went and told the Trans community, oh no, I didn’t mean you. (It was also ALWAYS racist, but that’s a different conversation.) Woody Allen’s supposed genius was built on a library of films that explore the fragility of the male ego and the proximity to youth and beauty for validation. No thank you, he will not get one more second of my time.
I completely respect your POV. And I question whether my POV is based on my desire not to deprive myself of what I like.
I've never been a Potter fan but I have watched the TV series of JKR's detective series and enjoyed it very much.
With Woody Allen I'm with you. I can't compartmentalize his behavior from his movies.
Same here.
When I look at Picasso’s work, I don’t see Picasso at all (and, really, forget about him) - but when I look at Gauguin’s work, all I see is his gaze.
This is really in response to the Goodreads Podcast piece but --
I switched to Story Graph some time ago. I like the way it tracks/categorizes my books better, and it's not affiliated with Amazon. I didn't use Goodreads for reviews, although I had paid attention to what friends were reading sometimes. Knowing about the manipulation etc. that has happened on Goodreads, I really stopped entirely looking at reviews from anyone I didn't know.
Bought the book for my son's bd on the 11th. We talk about this ALL the time, often in the context of musicians. I will, of course, be borrowing the book as soon as he finishes.
This was a very interesting interview. I had read some reviews of this book that seemed less positive than your response, so I appreciated yours as a counterweight. I might check it out if time permits.
As a music critic, I obviously have to grapple with this fairly often. I wrote about it a little in my own newsletter the other week, as part of a review of a new album by a band whose leader and primary songwriter has spouted some troubling ideas in their lyrics (and in interviews):
https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/getting-high-on-fire