It can sometimes be hard to separate the artist from their art. Are there any artists who were bad people but whose work you still enjoy?
Feel free to answer if you’re in the opposite scenario: an artist who you love personally but don’t enjoy their artwork.
Feel free to respond more than just music artists!
Tom Cruise. I don’t know what weird pathways cross in a brain to get that deep into Scientology without realizing what bullshit it is, but he is an amazing actor. He understands the craft, he is not shy about poking fun of himself, and by all accounts he is a consummate professional and treats the film crew well and has given gifts/thrown parties for them, etc.
But Scientology, yeesh…
I want to hate him so badly. But he is so good. I remember when he was cast as the vampire and I was pissed, having read the books it made no sense that Mr. Top Gun Fast Times at Ridgemont High as an undead vampire.
Saw the movie and had to eat my words, he had become a gaunt undead vampire. What the actual fuck. He was fantastic. Ever since that, I kind of trust he will be good in anything.
wait Tom Cruise wasnt even in Fast Times??
See how he just disappears into the role? We never even knew he was IN it!
Oh God you are right I am just conflating all those movies I avoided so successfully. I just mean until then he played characters so straight and gung ho and active and shiny. No way I could have cast him, whoever did saw something that nobody else did and they were right.
I still want to hate him. But do think he’s a gifted actor.
Perhaps you are thinking of Risky Business?
Same, I loved his character in Tropic Thunder, he can even do comedy.
HP Lovecraft - great writer, horrible racist
Similarly, Orson Scott Card - Ender’s game and its sequel are great, but he’s a raging homophobe.
HPL actually repented his stark conservatism and racism in his later years but yeah.
I didn’t realize this.
I’m convinced that Orson Scott Card suffered a traumatic head injury at some point. I don’t know how you could go from writing something as beautiful and intimate as Ender’s Game to shit like Hidden Empire, which is creepy right wing Christian disaster porn (from what I can remember of that trainwreck).
Yeah, I don’t know how the person who wrote “Speaker for the Dead” could be such a bigot. It doesn’t make sense to me.
This 100%.
My username comes from Enderverse.
Ender’s Shadow was an interesting book. Really made me appreciate Bean more than I did when I read Ender’s Game.
It’s pretty simple: the bugs weren’t gay.
I mean, by present standards, most people historically would have been pretty racist.
Indeed, though Lovecraft has the distinction of being pretty racist even for his time.
He was certainly above that. Hell his story “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” also known as “White Ape”. Is literally a book about the “one drop rule” to the point its actually funny because of how absurd it comes off as. Its so insanely racist, it fucking becomes funny based on the character’s reaction. Its not a great short story but basically he find out his great great great great grandmother was a “white ape” (which is not human per say but lets read between the lines since the white apes come from the congo region), his response to this news was pouring gasoline on himself and burning himself alive. Like yes its fiction but the fact he made a fucking short story where the focal point is discovering that you are mixed race and learning that is so mind breaking, death was the only logical option is god damn hilarious.
Billy Corgan.
The music of Smashing Pumpkins got me through some very dark times as a teenager, but finding out he hates me because I’m gay snapped that personal connection. I’m usually able to separate the art from the artist and still enjoy good stuff made by bad people, but I’m not able to enjoy them anymore. The connection was too personal and the betrayal was too great.
Smashing Pumpkins in the 90s were so good, but yeah fuck Billy Corgan.
JK Rowling 😔
Kanye had some real bangers early in his career. I still listen to them and have them in my playlist.
At a certain point, I acquired some CDs and just ripped the songs. If I’m in a Dropout mood, I’ve got the option to listen without him getting a cent. And I found the CDs secondhand too.
I really enjoyed Ender’s Game, but even while reading you can tell there’s some weird racist shit going on in Orson Card’s head.
Yeah he donates a lot of money to anti-lgbt (or “homophobia-adjacent”) “special interest groups”.
So that means a hard no for me paying for anything he gets royalties for.
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I searched it up a bit, and apparently Card is pretty vehemently homophobic. Which really sucks and is really strange. It sucks because i do enjoy his books, and they were honestly part of what got me into sci-fi. It’s really strange though since the moral of pretty much every single book of his is understanding, empathy, and compassion.
Joss Whedon
JK Rowling
I would say Kevin Spacey. The man can act: Usual suspects, Seven, first season of House Of Cards. Shame how he turned out.
Marilyn Manson - he had a slow slide from alcoholism to lecher creep to serial abuser. he spent 2009-2011 doing the worst shit to women that you can imagine.
Brand New - turns out that Jesse was a groomer of underage girls.
Arcade Fire - Win Butler is a sex pest.
Smashing Pumpkins - not at all in the same category as the others, but goddamn does Billy Corgan suck. he was always known as a first-class egotist, but he just kept being an asshole long after his prime had become a distant memory. then the weird shit started: crackpot conspiracy theories on Myspace, palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews. the latest album is an extended allegory on cancel culture. worse, it’s mostly unlistenable.
palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews
That saddens and actually kinda shocks me.
I would have expressed ZERO surprise to news of him going so far to the LEFT that he ended up miles beyond hippie dippie new agey and founded his own Heaven’s Gate cult (The central belief of the which was that followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven)…but this is…honestly weirding me out.
Wasn’t he going so far into eastern spirituality that he was recording himself reading the entirety of the Bhagavad Gita at one point or something?
I love Tom Cruise. The man is an amazing, committed actor. He doesn’t need flashy CGI or visual effects and he does insane stunts for our entertainment. Too bad he’s a fucking nutjob.
Except his movies use a lot of flashy CGI and visual effects. Sure, he does his own stunts, but there isn’t any less CGI in his movies than any other.
Johnny Craig, the former lead singer for the band Dance Gavin Dance. Dude has repeatedly fucked up and ripped off fans, but damn did he have a great singing voice.
And for the opposite, T-Pain and Post Malone. Both of them just seem like the coolest, and most chill people but their studio music is just not for me.
Yeah, Johnny Craig definitely has an history of messed up stuff. It makes me glad I prefer Kurt Travis’ vocals.
I saw Bassnectar perform 24 times. Then we found out he likes to fuck underage girls. That killed all respect I had for him immediately.
Oop. That’s one I didn’t know. That’s gonna recontextualize Beauty Vs Noise for me.
I am a huge fan of black metal so often I have to filter out the ones with white supremacists members. But one I can’t help myself going back to is Burzum. What he brought to the atmospherical BM scene is huge and I hate that I love his early records so much…
Yeah I love black metal but it has some problematic people. “The Somberlain” by Dissection is a great album but I genuinely can’t enjoy it because of the person behind it…
I know what you mean. Personnally I prefer Storm of the Light’s Bane, but I feel less bad about listening to Dissection cause the guy’s dead so not like he gets any money from me lol
Oh goddamnit, are dissection fuckwads too? I absolutely love their stuff and it took me a good while to stop listening to burzum after I found out he was a shitbag u. u
Basically, Jon Nödtveidt, the lead guitarist/singer, was convicted for the killing of a gay algerian man. Two years after his release from prison he killed himself in a satanic ritual.
Joss Whedon
why?
Apparently he’s a massive asshole and has pretty much abused people on every set he’s worked on.
