In your opinion, is it necessary to dissociate the man from the artist?

[Julie4]

In the world, whether yesterday or today, there have been great artists, whether in cinema, painting, architecture, great business leaders etc. whatever the field in fact, who have committed horrible acts, such as paedophilia etc..

In your opinion, can we continue to listen to, read and admire the work created by an artist who has committed such horrible acts?

[DJB72]

Most people can't compartmentalise mentally to separate what somebody creates artistically from who they are personally.

So the question "Should the paintings of Adolf Hitler be destroyed because of what he did as Fuhrer?" is considered valid. Obviously it's not a great idea to celebrate the man responsible for six million murders, and his painting was considered crap, so maybe a bad example.

Gary Glitter was an incredibly popular musician in 70s British culture but was found to be a paedophilic monster. That doesn't mean his music suddenly became discordant, just that the guy abused the fame it gave him.

As humans we generally struggle to separate the art from the artist, so it's probably not a great idea to promote the music, painting, sculpture, etc of sociopaths and psychopaths as their followers will only twist it to celebrate the actions as well as the art.

They will never be eradicated from history, and it would be foolish to try. History will judge them. Hopefully.

[NathanDavis]

I always do that by default...

the artist, the athlete, the creator... I focus on the work and the art, the creation, and not the personal lives of people much

then yes, I heard or know, we find out about things and it starts to hit differently anyway...

[RavVid]

Hmmh. If we discovered evidence that Leonardo was a pedophile would we chuck all the fridge magnets of Mona Lisa. Maybe. The actual ML?

I think we can dissociate the art, the artist and the man.. Anybody who is good at something needs to be obsessive. That obsessiveness probably caries through into sex so I would judge it quite likely we could discover not so nice things.

[KostasKouvalis]

Of course. It's mainly in America if you fuck up suddenly that's all they remember you for.

There was a French director who recently got caught up in a MeToo scandal and one actress even committed suicide, and French people said it doesn't change the fact that he was a great director

[BCA6010]

I think that the less you know about someone involved in entertainment, the better, but if you know theyve been involved in something genuinely horrific, you shouldn't ignore it.

[exitseven]

most Hollywood people are liberals. Some like Robert Di Niro I cannot even look at anymore.

[RyanEC]

Yes absolutely.
There are artists I don’t consider ideal people but I can enjoy their work without that getting in the way.

[Anonymous]

I long ago learned to dissociate artist from the art because the vast majority of artist are pansy liberal sheep. But despite their lazy minded political views, some of them produce great art.

[Anonymous]

I feel that way about a lot of philosophers. A lot of them were drug addicts and drunks. But they had some keen insights.

[Jennz6]

Yes of course