Speaker A
So here's a question that I want you to just think about your instinctive answer to.
Explores whether and how we can separate art from the artist, considering profit, principle, and perception in personal boycotts.
Key Takeaways
- Separating art from the artist is complex and involves financial, moral, and emotional considerations.
- Boycotting art may not dismantle harmful industry structures unless paired with active support for change.
- Personal principles and perceptions strongly influence decisions about consuming art from problematic creators.
- Context matters: the nature of the artist's actions, historical period, and impact on collaborators are important factors.
- Supporting ethical creators and industry reform can be a more effective response than individual boycotts alone.
Summary
- The video questions if we can separate art from its artist and whether we should boycott art by problematic people.
- It discusses theoretical views like the death of the author but emphasizes real financial, social, and power ties between artist and work.
- Three main factors influence the decision to consume or boycott art: profit, principle, and perception.
- Profit considers whether the artist financially benefits from consumption, with examples ranging from convicted criminals to deceased artists.
- Principle involves personal moral codes that might reject art regardless of financial gain, considering long-term societal messages.
- Perception is the emotional response to art once the artist's problematic behavior is known, which can taint the experience.
- The video highlights moral grey areas by asking what the artist did and the context of their art relative to others involved.
- It discusses complexities like accusations vs. convictions, historical context, and the impact on collaborators in collective works.
- Modern examples such as Kesha and Harvey Weinstein illustrate how support can maintain harmful power structures in industries.
- Ultimately, the decision is personal, but viewers are encouraged to support efforts to improve industry conditions beyond boycotts.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Theoretical Perspectives
- 00:42Profit: Financial Ties to the Artist
- 01:25Principle: Moral Codes and Long-Term Impact
- 02:02Perception: Emotional Responses to Art
- 02:44Navigating Moral Grey Areas
- 03:34Context: Accusations, History, and Collaboration
- 04:09Modern Examples and Industry Power Dynamics
- 04:45Conclusion and Call to Action
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Can we separate art from its artist? And in doing so, should we boycott art by problematic people?
Speaker A
I think some people come to this problem from a very theoretical standpoint. They talk about things like the death of the author.
Speaker A
And I think although, yes, you can still believe in the idea that the art and the artist are separate in terms of the artist's intentions not necessarily being the entirety of the work of art itself.
Speaker A
I think that the financial, social, and power structure ties between an artist and a piece of work are very much real.
Speaker A
But I believe that that decision that you made was based on a combination of three things: profit, principle, and perception.
Speaker A
So first of all, profit. Literally, will that person profit from you consuming that art?
Speaker A
Let's take an example. There is a YouTuber who has been convicted of multiple rapes.
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If you watch their videos, which have ads enabled, and you buy their merch, you know that you are supporting them financially.
Speaker A
But if we think about a writer who was a domestic abuser, but died 50 years ago, if your decision is purely made because of profit, it won't matter if you consume their material because they have no way of gaining from it.
Speaker A
Something in between those two examples might be a singer who recently went on racist tirades across social media.
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You might not buy their album, but if it was purely about profit you might say that it was okay to pirate their music.
Speaker A
The second thing to have taken into consideration is principle, your principles. It might be within your own internal moral code, as a point of principle, to not consume this art, regardless or not of whether they will physically, literally, financially profit from it.
Speaker A
If you're acting purely on principle, then you wouldn't even pirate someone's music, even though you know that they won't directly, financially gain from it.
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One reason for acting on principle rather than straight profit is although someone might not gain in the short term, they might end up gaining in the long term.
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Accepting the work of someone who does things that you consider to be wrong potentially sends the message to people that those things are, at least in part, acceptable.
Speaker A
And a third example is perception. For a great many people in the world, I think this is probably the main reason why they come to that instinctual answer.
Speaker A
And it's basically just, how you personally perceive it, whether that's consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes things just feel wrong.
Speaker A
It means that emotionally, even art that you once loved can become tainted by the thing that you know about the artist.
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It means that even if someone like me reasons the idea of how the art and artist are or are not linked, you just feel the way you feel about it.
Speaker A
Or maybe the example that you're thinking of isn't morally black and white to you.
Speaker A
So, how can we sort through the things that are in a morally grey area?
Speaker A
For me, it hinges on two questions: One, what did they do? And two, what is the context of their art to the people around them?
Speaker A
First of all, what do they do? So, if someone has been convicted of murder, rape, molestation, I think we can all agree: shitty things to do.
Speaker A
But then we have to look at other scenarios. What about people who have only been accused, and haven't been proven to be guilty?
Speaker A
What about something that happened 20, 50 years ago? What about attitudes that people hold that they haven't necessarily acted on?
Speaker A
And what about the context of that behaviour or attitude? If someone lived a hundred years ago, should we hold them to account for their thoughts that were probably very commonplace at the time, but that we now see as wrong?
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And number two, what is the context of their art in relation to others? It's much easier to answer these questions in relation to solo artists, or people that we see as having the singular possession of a piece of work.
Speaker A
You may be able to divorce that homophobic author's views from the latest novel that you want to go out and buy and read, but that money is still going to benefit a homophobic author.
Speaker A
But what about a film with a problematic person in it? Your effort to boycott is also boycotting the livelihoods of the hundreds of people who also worked on that piece of art.
Speaker A
Now, you may say, "Well, maybe they didn't know about what that person had done." And for the case of films that came before they started working with them, yeah, that might be the case.
Speaker A
So, do you say you're going to consume the art from before the person did the thing, or before people knew that the person did the thing?
Speaker A
And what about people who are forced to work with these problematic people? A very modern example of this would be the example of Kesha.
Speaker A
Do you just not support any work that Kesha has done with a producer she was forced to work with?
Speaker A
Even more than that, and I think this is something that has become increasingly relevant, especially with recent news around people like Harvey Weinstein, is that your support maintains the social power of that person, and their ability to work within that industry.
Speaker A
In cases of things like sexual harassment, coercion, within creative industries, it is that very power and support which allows them to do the awful thing in the first place.
Speaker A
And two-fold, the power also helps them get away with it. Ultimately, the answer to these questions is going to be personal, but I do think it's important to think about whether these personal boycotts may simply be doing something for you,
Speaker A
the individual, to feel better about yourself, and not actually doing anything to dismantle the structures which are allowing these things to happen, in the first place.
Speaker A
So, if you are someone who feels strongly about boycotting a piece of artwork made by someone who's done something that you think is reprehensible, I would say, maybe go one step further as well, and try and support people who are attempting to make those
Speaker A
industries a better place for everyone involved. So, I hope you found that video thought-provoking, at least.
Speaker A
If you have any thoughts about this, which I'm sure you do, please leave them in the comments below.
Speaker A
I'm gonna leave a link in the description to my Patreon, so you can help support me make these videos, along with my social media links, so you can find me all over the internet.
Speaker A
And until I see you next time, bye!
Topics:art and artist separationboycott artproblematic artistsethical consumptionprofit principle perceptionmoral grey areasindustry power structuresHarvey WeinsteinKeshadeath of the author
