Separating the artist from their creations.

Post Reply New Topic

When looking back and trying to define a decade, it is common for us to turn to what the popular culture was at the time. Music, art, fashion and literature often give us an indication of common views and beliefs held by the public.
Artists present us with products that attempt to entertain society, including films, videos, paintings, etc. Self- promotion is an important aspect of marketing, especially if you aim to work in the creative industry.

If you've ever been tasked to create a design portfolio, then you'll know that you are not only expected to promote your work, but also to attempt to communicate a sense of personality behind your creations. A company's brand image is important, and in a sense celebrities become something of a brand themselves. They sell a lifestyle and a personality, for many they are something to aspire to. It does not take long for creations to become synonymous with their creator.

This can leave the general public feeling conflicted whenever there is a scandal involving one of their favourite celebrities. Even a sense of betrayal can occur, as the more we learn about and relate to certain public figures we start to feel as though we personally know that celebrity. Bo Burnham makes fun of this concept with his song aptly named "We think we know you". He takes note of the fact that his personality off-stage contrasts greatly with how he acts on stage.

As much as we like to think that we know all about our favourite celebrities, they can still act in ways that surprise us. We often don't see them in everyday circumstances, and this can create a disconnect between the audience and the celebrity. I sometimes hear famous YouTubers talk about this, how they'll go to the shops and get recognised by fans who ask them "What are you doing here?" who expect them to say something glamorous, when really they are just there to get groceries.

Fans often have a tendency to put celebrities on a pedestal, and imagine that they live in a different World to them. We tend to be more lenient towards celebrities that commit crimes or otherwise morally questionable behaviour than with the general public.

However, sometimes a celebrity does something that the public cannot look past. Movements such as #Metoo and #Changethechannel surprised a great deal of audiences. Knowing that those involved in a product are racist, sexist, sexual abusers, rapists...harassers... (the list goes on, really) often takes away an element of entertainment when viewing them. It may make us ask, am I bad person for enjoying this? Sometimes content can take on a whole new meaning when viewed from a lens where the creator's biases or crimes are taken into account.

T.A.T.U. are a Russian duo, often known for their song "All the things she said". Not too long ago they received backlash for stating in an interview that they would not accept a gay son, but they would accept a lesbian because they could profit from that. Personally, as a result I find the song much less enjoyable with such knowledge.

But a celebrity's fall in fame is not always due to confirmed statements, rumours also have the ability to make or break a career. Micheal Jackson found himself surrounded by rumours that he was a paedophile during his adult life. Others argued that he was simply trying to experience a childhood he never had by hanging out with young boys. This is a possibility, as he did become famous at a young age and it is not exactly unheard of for childhood stars to wish that they had experienced a normal upbringing outside of the spotlight. In his case, the rumours did not impact his career much and he still retained a significant following.

Childhood stars, and celebrities that have fallen from fame but are attempting to get it back, don't generally have the best of reputations. Avril Lavigne attempted to make a comeback with the song "Hello Kitty" which was poorly received by a significant majority of fans. Madonna released "B***h I'm Madonna" and people suggested that she should retire. The list goes on, with one new celebrity that added himself recently. Butch Hartman.

During the days when Danny Phantom and Fairly Odd Parents were still on TV (oh wait, I suppose the latter still is, but only a beaten corpse of what it once was), little was known about Butch aside from the fact that he was involved in the making of both shows.

He seems to miss his previous fame, because he now has a YouTube channel with click-bait type titles and the slogan "Butch Hartman, inventor of your childhood" (yet at the same time he claims to be humble ). Including his previous cartoons in videos where they don't belong, Butch seems determined to once again become relevant to the general public.

However, he seems to have shot himself in the foot somewhat after making ignorant comments about depression and suicide. The original voice actress for Timmy Turner ended up committing suicide and was later replaced by Tara Strong. He rather insensitively joked to her face that Tara was the one to blame for the suicide, much to a confused and disapproving Tara Strong. In the interview, her face seems to convey "Wow, did you really just go there? I can't believe you right now. This is awkward".

So, if that wasn't bad enough, he also decided to claim that depression and suicide didn't exist when he was a child. Facepalms Yes they did Butch, depression has been a thing for a very long time. Whilst it's true that social media can have an impact on the mental health of young people, mental health issues have existed long before the internet did.
He then went on to blame a lack of Christian values. Now, I don't mind people being religious, but this is just ridiculous. It ignorantly fails to address the topic of suicide in an informed and mature manner.

What puzzled me further was when he went on to claim that his shows had a Christian message. You were involved in a show where a boy had talking fairies, Butch (aka witchcraft) and I strongly remember covering a part of the Bible that was quite clear on its stance on witchcraft during my time at a religious school. Are you just going to ignore that part then? Maybe I'm missing something, perhaps the interpretation he goes by allows the portrayal of magic outside of a Deity.

The only vaguely religious elements that come to mind are the Angelic choir each time they visit Fairyworld, and the fact that Cupid wears a diaper (when Christianity became widespread, portrayals of Cupid became vastly different. Painters and illustrators would sometimes draw him as a Devil/ demon, with dark wings instead of the Angelic ones he is typically portrayed with, and refer to him as a lustful sinner. They began to show Cupid in a diaper to illustrate him as a naive, foolish boy, sometimes as an adolescent, but most commonly a young child, that was a trickster not to be trusted. Artists of the time claimed that the diaper showed his true nature). There's also the fact that Wanda was originally going to be called Venus, but yet again that's more of an ancient Roman/ Greek mythology thing than Christianity. Modern interpretations of Cupid have a mixture of both pre-Christian era portrayals and elements of how he was shown after the popularity of Christianity increased.

For those wondering how I know all this, the answer is simple. There are times where I get truly rather bored, and suddenly find myself researching Greek and Roman mythology, thermochromic materials, and a type of seahorse that has the same striped pattern as a Zebra to name a few of my strange sudden interests that seem to come out of nowhere.

Now, I did say that I'd cover the death of the author in this thread, but it sure is plenty long enough already. So for those of you not exhausted from reading all this, here's a TV tropes page that explains it well: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... fTheAuthor

I separate art from the artist.

I realise that my original post is quite long, so here's a TL;DR version split into sections-

-TV Tropes page on The Death Of The Author: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... fTheAuthor

Last edited by Lost_dragon on 07 Aug 2018, 8:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes, it's difficult to "separate the artist from their creations."

How can I condone, say, a great Nazi artist? And, alas, there were some of those.

This is quite true. I remember studying various artists during my art GCSE, and one of them turned out to be a white supremacist. Excellent technical drawer, sadly not such a great guy...

I absolutely feel sympathy for Michael Jackson. That said, I do believe - probably because his father and the music industry had robbed him of a childhood - he came to have illegal feelings for children as an adult. After his death, it was revealed how the police had discovered kiddy porn at his Wonderland Ranch - I guess the police did their part to cover for him in life. That said, because he was such an outstanding musician, his career is being regarded in it's whole rather than just that one aspect.

The textbook case for this is Richard Wagner. Although not a Nazi he heavily influenced Nazi culture and thought, and not just with his music but also his personal writings (when talking Judaism Wagner's writing makes Hitler sound like a pacifistic diplomat). Further complicating the matter is that a large number of Wagner's actual art feature his own personal anti-Judaism themes, the most prominent being "Parsifal" but also appearing in acts II and IV of his most famous work "The Ring of the Nibelung". Can we really separate Wagner from his music if his music is a reflection of his own personal beliefs?

I believe there was a news story about it at the time, but I completely forgot about that part. Mainly because there was a lot more focus on his music and how he overdosed. When talking about paedophiles, there are two main categories; fixated/ rigid paedophiles and non-fixated. Those classed as fixated are only interested in children and often fail to have (or do not seek out) adult relationships. Paedophiles interested in young boys may not necessarily be interested in adult men, and the same goes for those into young girls in that they might not be into adult women. Non-fixated paedophiles tend to have relationships and interest in adults, but also express some interest in children. However, it is not unheard of for fixated paedophiles to enter into an adult relationship in order to deflect suspicion or as an attempt to have a normal life.

Technically, paedophilia only refers to an interest in prepubescent children, hebephilia is when someone takes interest in early adolescents, and ephebophilia for late adolescents. However, it is quite common for people to use paedophilia as a catch-all term. Bestiality often co-occurs with paedophilia, especially in fixated paedophiles. This is because the part of the brain responsible for making us find young children adorable also tends to make us think that animals such as puppies and kittens are cute, because we see their baby like features and our brain subconsciously goes "Aw, baby! I must protect it!"

Cats in particular use this to their advantage, they can mimic the sound of a baby crying almost perfectly (or should I say, purrfectly? ). So when that part of the brain is damaged, it can lead to attraction to non-human animals that have similar features to children. Inbreeding in dogs and cats sometimes happens in an attempt to give them flatter/ rounder features so they look more like chubby babies, but as a result certain breeds have a bunch of unfortunate health issues...

Recently, the DSM took out paedophilia (only to re-add it and put it under a different name, same symptoms/ diagnostic criteria though) and some morons on Tumblr thought that it would be a good idea to use this information to campaign for "pedosexual" to be recognised as a sexuality. Please stop. Whilst it's true that they changed the name, it's still in the manual. Yes, I am aware that homosexuality used to be in there as well, but there's a big difference between being a paedophile and being gay or bi. *Sigh* The amount of times this conversation gets brought up. *Shakes head* Ugh, people. Children can't give informed consent, two adults can. I realise that not all paedophiles act on their desires, and many seem to call themselves MAPs these days (Minor Attracted People) but that's not what the LGBT community stands for and I hope it never will. After all, due to PSA's from the 1950's such as "Boys Beware" and various sodomy laws equating the two, there's already a misconception that being gay automatically equals being a paedophile. So allowing terms such as "Pedosexual" into the acronym isn't going to help.

...I realise that I'm going off topic here though.

H.P. Lovecraft is another artist (a writer in this case) whose art should not be always equated to him personally, as he was a rabid racist his whole life. Unfortunately, there are people who can't get past that fact, and refuse to appreciate how much he had revolutionized horror fiction.

The Cosby show is a huge example. It has done so much for the black community. Thing is you have to look past the fact that the main star is human garbage. I will always love the special Bill Cosby Himself, and have to get past the human garbage fact. Every time one consumes entertainment they have to separate art from the artist. Listen to christian music and realize that you are listening to most likely homophobes. If you are able to separate all artists from their art it is much easier.