When the Author Is Dead But Still Dangerous: Liking a Work By an Artist Who’s Done Bad Things

When the movie version of Ender’s Game came out, I wasn’t sure what to do. If some authors’ politics are homophobic or racist or other things I believe are wrong, how should I react to their work to live up to my own ethical responsibilities?

Part of the reason it’s difficult for privileged people like me to figure out how to deal with Ender’s Game is that rejecting a film based on an author’s work has overspill into other people’s lives. Orson Scott Card doesn’t suffer financially if the film does; deciding not to see it might well affect the careers of other industry workers much more than his.

Okay, so figuring out how to take action in response to a narrative created by someone with politically opposite views, doing something that will effectively change the world for the better, is hard. But what about reconciling how you feel about the work in question with how you feel about its author?
For example, I believe in and despise Bill Cosby’s alleged history of sexual assaults, and I feel most of all for the survivors of his terrible actions. But I understand fans who take the same position and are also now confused about how they should feel about Cliff Huxtable.

Although Bill Cosby played Cliff Huxtable and shaped Cliff Huxtable, they aren’t the same person. And though one might not want to support Cliff if it means supporting Bill financially, The Cosby Show is only on in reruns. There’s not much financial impact to make. But because all art is, to some degree, self-expression, is liking Cliff Huxtable, now that he represents the antithesis of “America’s Dad,” too similar to liking Bill Cosby despite his accusers’ stories?

It’s not a question of “if” you enjoy the work of someone who has done something you find wrong. It’s a question of when. Whether you like a feminist icon like Joan Jett, a guy with insightful riffs on gender and race like Louis C.K., or just about anyone famous ever, you’re going to wind up finding something they’ve done morally inexcusable.

Because of this, it can be easy to dismiss wrongdoing, especially if it doesn’t hurt you or the group to which you belong: nobody’s perfect, so why can’t I just ignore things my idol said or did, even if they did cause pain to someone else?

If this is your decision, I respect your choice, but it’s not for me. First, it often seems to lead to erasing the pain of those the artist has hurt: “I have no right to condemn so-and-so” easily morphs into “these people are making a big deal out of nothing and trying to ruin my fun.”

Second, giving up treats everyone who transgresses the same. Personally, if someone says something anti-Semitic or sexist but apologizes in a way that indicates they’ve learned (say, Chris Evans’s “Wow, I was wrong, and here’s why” as opposed to Jeremy Renner’s “Sorry you were offended but I didn’t mean it anyway and have some sympathy because I’m so tired from having lots of people’s dream job“), I don’t think it’s the same as someone who financially supports causes denying others their civil rights or makes unwanted, forceful sexual contact.

Finally, and most importantly, I don’t think not being able to solve a problem means it’s okay to pretend it doesn’t exist. Sure, do what you need to do to maintain your own mental health — don’t take the world’s problems as your individual responsibility — but there’s a difference between drowning in the needs of others and acknowledging their hurt with respect and attention.

Note also that being a responsible consumer of art doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding artists with politics or morals different from your own; what I’m advocating here is not personal censorship. It’s finding the boundaries you need to read or watch people who do bad things without becoming a worse person yourself, either by learning to ignore the pain of others and by teaching yourself to smother your own moral discomfort.

But what about the death of the author, Sarah (you might ask)? Don’t you agree with Roland Barthes’ seminal essay arguing that the intentions and personal history of the creator of a piece of art shouldn’t matter to the interpretation of that art? If that’s the case, then nothing Bill Cosby does in real life should change our feelings toward Cliff Huxtable; no matter what Louis C. K.’s off-stage behaviour, we should still be free to enjoy his comedy.

Well, I think Barthes’s critical theory is necessary for creators, who must accept that their intentions are secondary to what their audience actually perceives. It’s also important to acknowledge the validity of multiple interpretations despite any extra-narrative authorial intervention. And I think it’s a legitimate school of literary criticism, not that I’m qualified to make judgments.

But in practice, for audiences, I don’t think it flies. Especially when art — representation — is inherently ambiguous, and we often rely on our trust or distrust of authors, whether based on the rest of the work or on what we know of them outside of their work, to figure out which way to understand what we see.

For example, when Bill Cosby makes a joke about romantic relationships, your understanding of his assumptions about sex and consent will determine whether that joke is funny or creepy. If you know from his behaviour that he doesn’t share the understanding of consent that you consider ethical, the joke falls flat.

Is it possible to find someone’s jokes funny despite the fact that they have done horrible things? Yes, of course it is. Is it possible to change how you feel about the humour of a joke or stop caring about a fictional character you loved by thinking really hard about it?

Maybe. Sometimes. For some people.

But more often, it isn’t. Feelings don’t always do what we want them to. The question isn’t whether or not it’s okay to feel a certain way about someone’s music or comedy or writing despite what they may have done; we don’t always have control over that. What’s important to figure out is how we should act on those feelings to maintain our ethical responsibilities.

I’m at peace with the idea that I can be uneasy about Joan Jett’s reaction to Jackie Fox’s allegations but still really like her cover of “Crimson and Clover.” It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring things she’s done or said; it doesn’t mean I’m allowed to dismiss them.

Instead, for me, liking “Cherry Bomb” or MCU Hawkeye or Narnia means letting myself admit that I like the works I like without allowing my feelings to become more important than those of the people their creators hurt or exclude. It means accepting the ways knowledge of an author changes my feelings about their work as valid and respecting those who reject their work.

It doesn’t mean forgiving an artist for the sake of their talent. It means holding them responsible for their actions while forgiving myself and my feelings for not being perfect.