The ethics of enjoying large collaborative works of art and entertainment

[Raphael]

This has been hanging around inside my head for, I think, a fairly long time now. I was waiting for an opportunity to bring it up, but none came. So I thought I'll just post it here a bit out of the blue.

These days, a lot of people, myself included, tend to think that we should rather avoid consuming art and entertainment that was produced by horrible people. And for the kind of works usually produced by individuals or small groups, that shouldn't be too difficult: avoid books written, comics drawn, or songs recorded by people who turned out to be horrible in one way or another.

But I'm not sure if you can apply the same rule as easily to the kind of works that are usually collaborations of really a lot of people, such as professionally produced movies or TV shows. Sure, it's easy enough when it comes to directors, producers, and star actors. But what about everyone else involved?

The problem is this: think of how long the end credits for movies and TV shows usually are. And now think of what a high share of human beings in general are, no to put too fine a point on it, complete scumbags. If you combine these two thoughts, it becomes basically a mathematical certainty that every major movie or TV show will have had at least some people involved in producing it who were or are complete scumbags. Yes, including your favorite movies and shows.

Perhaps it was one of the lighting technicians. Perhaps it was the actor who played Customer No. 3 in the shop scene. Or perhaps it was the guy who played bassoon in the orchestra that provided the soundtrack. But at any rate, it's basically guaranteed to have been someone involved in the production.

So where does this leave us? Do we avoid all movies and TV shows? Or do we draw a line somewhere, and if so, where? Personally, I'd say it depends on how prominent someone's involvement was. That is, I wouldn't want to watch a Woody Allen movie, but I probably wouldn't mind watching a movie where I'd know that he, or someone like him, worked on the set as part of the catering team. But note that I'm not saying that this is the "correct" stance on that matter. If you want to be stricter on this than me, more power to you.

It's just that if you're really strict on this, you probably can't watch any movies or TV shows at all.

[Travis B.]

Is seeking moral purity necessary? If one rejects everything that ever involved someone who had at some point done something morally questionable, one is left with relatively little afterwards.

[Man in Space]

Is seeking moral purity necessary?

A lot of people (particularly the younger crowd—boy does that make me feel old to say) seem to think so. Look at, say, JK Rowling and how mentioning that you like Harry Potter gets you publicly shamed as a transphobe by association. Neil Gaiman is now getting this sort of Orwellian treatment (EDIT to make myself clearer) That is to say, people are very vocally talking about how best to deal with already owning his books, so I’d say the “throw-them-down-the-memory-hole” crowd is still notable and sizable, and is 100% serious about it.

FWIW, my take is that everybody (including myself) is trash on some level or other—that is, there is no such thing as a “good person” walking the Earth today—so I fall in the “separate the art from the artist” crowd.

[Raholeun]

OP's question is probably the most decadent thing I have read in a very long time. Consider yourself blessed if these are the dilemmas you are facing in life.

[xxx]

In other words:
couldn't we make society function like a social network
and ban those who mismanage their image
on the basis of the most-followed activists or influencers...

have you gone mad...
there's a thing called the law and the courts that will exclude individuals who are socially harmful,
operating on the basis of the emotion, of witch-hunting, and 2.0 followership,
means exposing yourself to manipulation by those who possess or have the know-how to influence on a large scale...

and yes,
anyone can be considered a bastard, for one opinion,
by those who have one different opinion,
including artificial intelligences biased by their designers or users,
but nobody has just one opinion all the time, and only that one...

living in society means being able to have different opinions but respecting those who have different ones,
with the emphasis that one person's freedom ends where another's begins,
controlled by the majority expressed in votes...

and as for artistic value,
if you need to know the creator's opinions to appreciate it,
it doesn't have much,
and if not, there's no need to know any more...
even if I consider the guy who makes it to be a jerk...
(on the contrary, if I can appreciate it in spite of knowing that, it's really good)...

[WeepingElf]

Is seeking moral purity necessary?

A lot of people (particularly the younger crowd—boy does that make me feel old to say) seem to think so. Look at, say, JK Rowling and how mentioning that you like Harry Potter gets you publicly shamed as a transphobe by association. Neil Gaiman is now getting this sort of Orwellian treatment (EDIT to make myself clearer) That is to say, people are very vocally talking about how best to deal with already owning his books, so I’d say the “throw-them-down-the-memory-hole” crowd is still notable and sizable, and is 100% serious about it.

FWIW, my take is that everybody (including myself) is trash on some level or other—that is, there is no such thing as a “good person” walking the Earth today—so I fall in the “separate the art from the artist” crowd.

Nobody is a saint - we all sometimes behave in objectionable ways. Some people more, some people less. And of course, it depends on who in a film crew or whatever misbehaves. Certainly, it matters more if the director makes an objectionable statement than if a junior lighting technician does. There is a big difference between writing (or accepting) a screenplay that contains a racist story and wearing a MAGA button while working at the film set. The latter is just a personal opinion statement that doesn't really affect the work; the former is a valid reason to reject the whole film.

For instance, I still can enjoy The Wall (the Pink Floyd album) even though I think Roger Waters is a blockhead who has made controversial political statements (though only later; there is nothing of that in The Wall) and who had strained the band (with this very album) to the point that it broke up. One could say that he almost literally drove a great rock band against a wall. Yet, The Wall is a masterpiece.

[zompist]

I frequent a website (Metafilter) where this sort of thing is taken seriously: people don't want to support scumbags. But note:

1. It's a personal decision. Absolutely no one says "everyone must boycott Artist X."
2. It's only ever artists and directors; no one ever says they boycott all films that makeup artist X worked on.

[xxx]

the scumbags according to whom...
religious authority, the juge, the rumor, the social networks...

a personal decision made public on a social network and a boycott are not very different,
except for the influence of who makes the publication...

[zompist]

a personal decision made public on a social network and a boycott are not very different,
except for the influence of who makes the publication...

Sure, just as a blinking light bulb is not very different from the sun.

People make judgments-- you are full of them yourself but apparently like to pretend you are above all that.

[xxx]

Sure, just as a blinking light bulb is not very different from the sun.

For people in the night, it's not much different

People make judgments-- you are full of them yourself but apparently like to pretend you are above all that.

I easily express opinions,
I happily debate them,
it's a pleasure for me,

but I respect those of others just as much,
and perhaps yours will convince me to change mine, if I had any,
even if I wouldn't admit it, except later,
when I defend them,

when you build conlang,
ideas are only opportunities to code them,
to extract a rational aesthetic...

but I avoid crowd movements,
like everything that is irrational...

[Raphael]

Travis: I'm not sure you really got my point, because, well, your post seems to be mainly summing up what my main point is, while thinking that you disagree with me.

Man in Space: I disagree. There might be no "truly good" people in the world, but there are certainly people who are a lot less shitty than the shittiest people in the world.

Raholeun: Yeah, being serious about opposing rape and bigotry is decadent. I should consider myself fortunate? Well I certainly consider myself fortunate that I don't see being serious about opposing rape and bigotry as decadent. And for the record, the fact that I post about something somewhere on the Internet doesn't automatically mean that it's one of the main dilemmas in my life.

[Ketsuban]

For me the line is whether the person's politics are being expressed in their work to a significant degree. I find Markus "Notch" Persson distasteful, but he didn't put any of himself in Minecraft, which has its own issues with regard to emergent properties of its mechanics and the problematic nature of the genre convention of presenting a terra nullius for the player to explore and alter as they see fit. By contrast, it is impossible to read J. K. Rowling's writing as a media-literate adult and not see her fingerprints, whether in the dismissive and stereotype-driven approach to worldbuilding that resulted in names like Cho Chang, Castelobruxo and Mahoutokoro, the neoliberal rejection of the idea that the "bad" guy might have a point which the forces of "good" need to engage with in favour of a toothless win by technicality, or the use of a character's physical appearance to reflect their moral character (presaging her later descent into transphobic madness in the way she emphasises large, "mannish" hands on characters like Rita Skeeter and Dolores Umbridge).

I can enjoy jokes about Minecraft coming from space or being written by Hatsune Miku (or both). I can't erase Rowling from the stories she writes in the same way.

[xxx]

Do you think that the millions of young readers of HP have been xenophobized and transphobized...
(and that all publications naming foreigners or gendered physical aspects linked to a positive or negative character
have been influenced by JKR, or even by anticipation...)

I don't think there's any intention behind such trivial clues...

[linguistcat]

Do you think that the millions of young readers of HP have been xenophobized and transphobized...
(and that all publications naming foreigners or gendered physical aspects linked to a positive or negative character
have been influenced by JKR, or even by anticipation...)

I don't think there's any intention behind such trivial clues...

I mean, the woman herself has become a leading contributor, both through money and vocal support, of anti-trans legislation in Britain and, by extension due to cultural influences, countries like the US. So whether or not any of her fans have become bigots from reading her books, any money given to her at this point is likely to go toward things that make trans AND gender nonconforming (gnc) cis people's lives worse.

I honestly don't care if someone was a fan of the books or movies and still read or watch them out of nostalgia, especially if they have the books and dvds that they've owned a long time. But giving her money at this point at least shows that someone doesn't care what happens to trans/gnc people, and at worst actively supports these things along with JKR.

I can't speak to her effects on xenophobia. I'm not British and among my British friends the focus has been her efforts to make them stop existing.

[xxx]

I mean, the woman herself has become a leading contributor(...) through money

you have sources for this...

[Zju]

I don't get it - why would you not want to enjoy a work of art despite its author?

[alice]

If you look hard enough at any piece of art through the appropriate lens, you're guaranteed to find something that someone is going to object to somehow. You can then use this to prove your moral superiority over someone who enjoys or appreciates it and feel good about yourself. For example: does the painting in my avatar contribute to the objectification of women, and what would complaining about it achieve? Madness this way lies.

it is impossible to read J. K. Rowling's writing as a media-literate adult and not see her fingerprints[/url], whether in the dismissive and stereotype-driven approach to worldbuilding that resulted in names like Cho Chang, Castelobruxo and Mahoutokoro

It's a minor point, but how is this worse than (for example) calling a working-class girl in a novel set in Victorian London Molly, or a random not-very-important male character John Smith, or giving a river a name which just means "Long RIver"?

[Travis B.]

Furthermore, what threshold morality-wise do you set the point at which you throw all the works of a given creator into the proverbial fire? If you throw the works of J. K. Rowling on the fire, do you throw your DVD's of Toy Story on it too because John Lasseter has been a jerk towards women at times in the past? If yes, where do you set the point at which you don't toss a creator's work into the pyre? Who is pure enough for you?

[zompist]

Furthermore, what threshold morality-wise do you set the point at which you throw all the works of a given creator into the proverbial fire? If you throw the works of J. K. Rowling on the fire, do you throw your DVD's of Toy Story on it too because John Lasseter has been a jerk towards women at times in the past? If yes, where do you set the point at which you don't toss a creator's work into the pyre? Who is pure enough for you?

This position is equivalent to "if some people did things that should land them in jail, then who is pure enough not to be sent to jail?"

Or maybe, more simply, you just happen to approve of transphobia and think it's a minor problem. At least try to understand that for many of us, transphobia really is as bad as other forms of bigotry, and we are not under any obligation to financially support it.

[Travis B.]

Furthermore, what threshold morality-wise do you set the point at which you throw all the works of a given creator into the proverbial fire? If you throw the works of J. K. Rowling on the fire, do you throw your DVD's of Toy Story on it too because John Lasseter has been a jerk towards women at times in the past? If yes, where do you set the point at which you don't toss a creator's work into the pyre? Who is pure enough for you?

This position is equivalent to "if some people did things that should land them in jail, then who is pure enough not to be sent to jail?"

Or maybe, more simply, you just happen to approve of transphobia and think it's a minor problem. At least try to understand that for many of us, transphobia really is as bad as other forms of bigotry, and we are not under any obligation to financially support it.

I never said I approved of J.K. Rowling or what she stands for (I don't), I was simply saying that once you start deciding that certain creator's works out to be rejected/canceled/burnt/<your participle of choice>, you have to decide on a line where some creators' work are to be rejected/canceled/burnt/<your participle of choice> where others are not. Do we decide that because J.K. Rowling is an awful person we must be rid of her works, but because John Lasseter is just one of hundreds (I don't know the number for certain, but animated movies are made by hundreds of people) of people behind Toy Story then Toy Story is okay? Or do we decide that even one awful person tied to a work in a non-trivial fashion (John Lasseter directed Toy Story) means we have to reject it as a whole? And how awful is too awful? How much moral purity is needed before we don't cast a creator's works into the fire?