Kevin Spacey and I

Having a favourite artist of yours being accused of a crime harms your emotional life. Of course it depends on multiple factors; most of all on whether you actually like the artist or your like found root in the fact liking them is the trendy thing to do. If the latter is the truth, then if it becomes trendy to hate them, well, you follow the trend. And you feel good with yourself. «I liked him (A/N. let’s be honest it’s usually a «he»), but then he did that and I hate him now. Look how good I am. I’m going to make a list of bad people in a post/tweet adding his name so more alike-thinkers find it and follow me.» After all that was the reason they liked them to begin with. Make other fans of the trend follow them.

However, if you actually liked them because of their work? If you have felt emotions, if you had been inspired by them? If your work is inspired by them? Well, you’re screwed. They are this kind of hidden mentors who can do no wrong because you don’t actually know them. They help through their own work. Of course, this leads to inability to see an artist’s faults. There is always a down side.

But, these artists are like family.

Sometimes, their work is the only thing you have during a hard period of my life. When my Dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, Robert Downey Jr.’s movies were my anchor alongside my family, they were the light in a very dark time. And with them, Robert Downey, Jr.

Kevin Spacey to me, has been special that way.

The political correctness of canceling

“A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

 

«Can I separate the artist from the art?»

or

«He said what?»

Yes.

Things are so confusing. It’s not just «x artist did something bad, I feel uncomfortable to pay to see/listen to him/her»

It’s also «X artist said something insensitive or something I didn’t like and I want him/her cancelled».
Even if we begin with the first part, we reduce art to commercial. Everything is about money. Everything is a product. «I don’t want my money to go to a man who preys on women, men, boys or girls»… Then we move to «I don’t want art that objectifies women, that describes sexual assault»; «Lolita was the work of a pervert»… and on and on.

It’s not just one thing to discuss. It’s numerous things, with bigger or lesser importance that fall under the same category because social justice in social media cannot categorise things under levels of importance. Also, it begins to remind fascistic territories.