Grant Morrison on leaving DC

[marhawkman]

Separating art from artist really does depend on the severity of the crime.

It also depends on if the crime was linked to the art to me. Which is kind rare.

[exile001]

https://grantmorrison.substack.com/p...nnotations?s=r

So... yet another evil Superman? Great. Glad it didn't happen.

[dietrich]

I had a similar change of heart going back to the earliest Woody Allen accusations. I was a huge fan but found it difficult to watch his movies without being troubled and that was just from the accusations and very unsettling marriage to his stepdaughter. After the recent docuseries I have do doubt of Allen's guilt and I could never enjoy a film of his again because, even if I wanted to divorce the art from the artist, it's all I'd think about.

Louis C.K. had become far-and-away my favorite comedian and his show my very favorite on TV. It was hard to lose him. It was harder to continue consuming his work.

Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson... there are just some things that are too horrible to get out of my head to divorce the work from the person that made it.

There are levels to this for me and I'm not sure where the dividing line lies. I'm not a moralist. I'm so not a moralist that I'm diametrically opposed to the idea that moral ambiguity in a comic book character (from Adam Strange to what we knew of Wally West at the end of HiC) ruins a character or makes it hard for me to appreciate them anymore; indeed it makes me more drawn to them.

Sex crimes, especially involving children or adults that are young enough that they just aren't fully formed yet as people, are hard for me. They're harder for me to divorce from the work. I feel similarly about Roman Polanski.

The Warren Ellis stuff is a little trickier for me. I don't know the story well and that's probably because I've avoided knowing it well and that's on me. I do know though that, like some of the above artists in various media, I wouldn't be able to read his work again without thinking about it literally the entire time.

And I used to be a hardline 'divorce the art from the artist' position because none of us is beyond some terrible character flaw that plays out in some truly terrible way. For me, it's become more a case of can I divorce the two well enough to appreciate something.

And I know that so many older/deader artists have done things as bad or worse than more modern ones and that I'm more able to go ahead and appreciate their work as distinct from the person that made it. Walt Disney is an example. Between his blatant racism and antisemitism, I find him an abhorrent person but I can somehow watch his work and forget that while doing it. I don't like the idea of being canceled because it doesn't leave a sinner/criminal anyplace to go in terms of growth or redemption or rehabilitation vs. punishment, a huge problem I have with the criminal justice system. But some people just have to be canceled, if only personally. And I struggle with believing Walt Disney, for example, should be canceled at least to me while Woody Allen is just off the table for me and forever.

Time shouldn't heal in those ways, especially when there was never an attempt at understanding and taking responsibility for a crime against humanity. Somehow it seems to do so anyway, at least for me, and I don't think it's right to hold a living artist to a different standard than a dead one. Michael Jackson's dead now but, as much as I love his music (and I really love it), when I hear it now all I think of is the children that suffered his repeated rape of them, whose lives have been shattered forever.

So no, I can't divorce the art from the artist anymore. That was a young headed, academic concept on my part.

A little off Topic but was browsing and part of your comment caught my attention.

Was Michael Jackson found ever guilty? I think due to the seriousness and the nature of what he was accused of it's important that we take care to specify that he was accused not 'CONFIRMED OR PROVEN TO BE GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW

That is a very very important detail.

This isn't like Woody or Jerry Lee Lewis situation where we know that those relationships happened because those marriages happened.

It's not like Cosby who was found guilty.

You can't label a man a sex offender when he wasn't proven to be.
You shouldn't present allegations like they are facts. [that 2nd to last paragraph yikes!It straight up slander]

I can't divorce the art from the artist.
Just like I can't assume that because a person is accused of a crime they are automatically guilt.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

It also depends on if the crime was linked to the art to me. Which is kind rare.

That's definitely true, yeah.

As is it being much easier to separate a writer or director from their work than an actor because of the visibility of that person.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

A little off Topic but was browsing and part of your comment caught my attention.

Was Michael Jackson found ever guilty? I think due to the seriousness and the nature of what he was accused of it's important that we take care to specify that he was accused not 'CONFIRMED OR PROVEN TO BE GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW

That is a very very important detail.

This isn't like Woody or Jerry Lee Lewis situation where we know that those relationships happened because those marriages happened.

It's not like Cosby who was found guilty.

You can't label a man a sex offender when he wasn't proven to be.
You shouldn't present allegations like they are facts. [that 2nd to last paragraph yikes!It straight up slander]

I can't divorce the art from the artist.
Just like I can't assume that because a person is accused of a crime they are automatically guilt.

While you're correct that Michael Jackson was never convicted in a criminal trial before his death, we now have plenty of evidence that has come to light that pretty definitively shows that Jackson used his wealth and fame to cover up multiple crimes.

So, while I agree with you that we should never automatically assume guilt whenever someone is accused of something horrible, (George Tekei being a good example) we can also reasonably know that the legal system is imperfect and has sent too many of the innocent to jail while letting several monsters run free simply because of their wealth and power.