Separating the art from the artist.

Opinions I don't care about at all. I would rather never learn anything about creators' opinions in the first place. I don't care what their political stances are, I don't care if they're racist or sexist, I don't care if they think the moon landing was fake. Crimes are something that I may or may not be able to look past. It depends on the specific situation.

I think the idea of separating art from the artist and the "death of the author" is genuinely one of the most widely misunderstood theories of art critique, and especially so online. The whole idea of "separating art from the artist" is originally meant to be an alternative way of critique where instead of trying to think "what is the creator trying to say?" you are encouraged to ask "what does this piece make me think of?" and "what meaning do I personally derive from it". The Death of the Author is meant to place more focus onto how YOU the individual see a work of art rather than the original authorial intent, but the internet has kind of taken this a different way. The Death of the Author theory isn't meant to be "This person is a shit person but they make good art so I will ignore the bad things they do and still support them". I will respond to both the actual idea of the "Death of the Author" and the misconstrued version online to make my statement because there is some intersections in the discussion when talking about creators who do bad things or use their platform to cause harm via rhetorical or financial methods and how it can affect their works.


As an artist myself, I really don't like the idea in practice when implemented on its own, since while in theory it makes sense, it oftentimes erases the personal touches that artists oftentimes put into their works. All art whether consciously or subconsciously pulls from the experience of the creator and the reality they live in. An artist's historical context, worldviews, experiences, and culture will oftentimes bleed over into their work, so by ignoring the existence of the author you may not be able to get the full picture of a work of fiction. When an artist especially does something horrible, you can sometimes even see signs of their behaviors in their works. A great example would be Neil Gaiman who very recently has credible allegations and lawsuits against him for sexual assault and human trafficking and was successfully able to hide his actions for so long under the veneer of having milquetoast liberal feminist ideas and you can actively see this in some of his work such as a male writer in The Sandman boasting about how much of a feminist he is for writing good female characters. When JK Rowling came out as a TERF and sided a lot more openly with extreme right wing groups in the UK, a lot of people became more aware of elements of ableism, antisemitism, homophobia, and pro-slavery messaging in Harry Potter. An artist cannot fully divorce their own views or actions no matter how hard they try, so trying to see art in a vacuum can leave you blind to how these things intersect. Even if we're talking about people who may not have done bad things, separating the art from the artist can cause you to miss out on elements that you may not have otherwise. For example by ignoring Akira Toriyama completely, you are very likely to miss the social critique that was implemented into Freeza in the Dragon Ball series. Toriyama actively hated real estate investors and wrote during the Japanese bubble economy where these people got filthy rich by doing some scummy things, leading to Toriyama calling them "the worst kind of people". This led to him developing this hatred of real estate into the character of Freeza who does that on a larger scale. Just by reading the manga or watching the anime, people are likely going to miss that as they are probably much more likely to focus on Freeza's more heinous actions such as murder and genocide, rather than the fact that he is an evil planet broker. While obviously there is something to dissect with the other elements of his character, by ignoring Toriyama's inspiration for the character, you lose quite a bit of social commentary and historical context. Art is always a product of the person who made it, so by ignoring the source you just miss out on a lot more than you would think.

My personal philosophy is that you should kind of combine the two methods of analyses. Go with your gut first and foremost, say what you THINK the art represents and means before than comparing it to what may have actually been intended via interviews and research on the original creator. That way you kind of get the best of both worlds and end up with a more complete picture and analysis. However I generally would avoid supporting artists who have directly done major harm and still profit from their work. Creators like Nobuhiro Watsuki, Tatsuya Matsuki, Orson Scott Card, JKR, and Gaiman are a few examples from around the world of people who directly profit from their work still and have caused major harm to others, still cause harm to others, or actively use their platform to harm others that you are supporting monetarily and reputationally by consuming their works either in knowledge or in ignorance of their actions. It's not like HP Lovecraft for example, where he is long dead and his family doesn't cause harm to this day.

I don't separate creation from the creator, every creation has a piece of the creator, even if it's someone very terrible I still don't do that.

If the work is good, I'll watch it and support it. The person would be the one with the crimes attached to them, if I even knew or cared who they were.

@FanofAction so you are saying that fame is what causes them to do such things?

I agree to a certain point, because i do think it enhances such behaviour, such "god complex" attitude, but i dont think its the catalyst. Many, many other factors end up driving a person into doing such activities, and i feel like fame only makes them feel like they are "allowed to" or "nobody can catch me now", or whatever. So yes, fame does do that, but i think its not the thing to blame for, its more of a "fuel for the flames" sort of deal.

@pepi48 We're more or less on the same page here then. I was saying fame gives them access to things that the average person doesn't have. No regular person is going to host a Diddy party. I'm not saying one way or the other if any of them would do messed up stuff if they weren't famous. That depends on their mental conditions and how those are handled.

@FanofAction yeah, basically. I just felt like there was a bit more to say to your point, so i added to it, but yes, thats basically it. Thank you for the feedback.

I don't separate creation from the creator, every creation has a piece of the creator, even if it's someone very terrible I still don't do that.

I think the idea of separating art from the artist and the "death of the author" is genuinely one of the most widely misunderstood theories of art critique, and especially so online. The whole idea of "separating art from the artist" is originally meant to be an alternative way of critique where instead of trying to think "what is the creator trying to say?" you are encouraged to ask "what does this piece make me think of?" and "what meaning do I personally derive from it". The Death of the Author is meant to place more focus onto how YOU the individual see a work of art rather than the original authorial intent, but the internet has kind of taken this a different way. The Death of the Author theory isn't meant to be "This person is a shit person but they make good art so I will ignore the bad things they do and still support them". I will respond to both the actual idea of the "Death of the Author" and the misconstrued version online to make my statement because there is some intersections in the discussion when talking about creators who do bad things or use their platform to cause harm via rhetorical or financial methods and how it can affect their works.


As an artist myself, I really don't like the idea in practice when implemented on its own, since while in theory it makes sense, it oftentimes erases the personal touches that artists oftentimes put into their works. All art whether consciously or subconsciously pulls from the experience of the creator and the reality they live in. An artist's historical context, worldviews, experiences, and culture will oftentimes bleed over into their work, so by ignoring the existence of the author you may not be able to get the full picture of a work of fiction. When an artist especially does something horrible, you can sometimes even see signs of their behaviors in their works. A great example would be Neil Gaiman who very recently has credible allegations and lawsuits against him for sexual assault and human trafficking and was successfully able to hide his actions for so long under the veneer of having milquetoast liberal feminist ideas and you can actively see this in some of his work such as a male writer in The Sandman boasting about how much of a feminist he is for writing good female characters. When JK Rowling came out as a TERF and sided a lot more openly with extreme right wing groups in the UK, a lot of people became more aware of elements of ableism, antisemitism, homophobia, and pro-slavery messaging in Harry Potter. An artist cannot fully divorce their own views or actions no matter how hard they try, so trying to see art in a vacuum can leave you blind to how these things intersect. Even if we're talking about people who may not have done bad things, separating the art from the artist can cause you to miss out on elements that you may not have otherwise. For example by ignoring Akira Toriyama completely, you are very likely to miss the social critique that was implemented into Freeza in the Dragon Ball series. Toriyama actively hated real estate investors and wrote during the Japanese bubble economy where these people got filthy rich by doing some scummy things, leading to Toriyama calling them "the worst kind of people". This led to him developing this hatred of real estate into the character of Freeza who does that on a larger scale. Just by reading the manga or watching the anime, people are likely going to miss that as they are probably much more likely to focus on Freeza's more heinous actions such as murder and genocide, rather than the fact that he is an evil planet broker. While obviously there is something to dissect with the other elements of his character, by ignoring Toriyama's inspiration for the character, you lose quite a bit of social commentary and historical context. Art is always a product of the person who made it, so by ignoring the source you just miss out on a lot more than you would think.

My personal philosophy is that you should kind of combine the two methods of analyses. Go with your gut first and foremost, say what you THINK the art represents and means before than comparing it to what may have actually been intended via interviews and research on the original creator. That way you kind of get the best of both worlds and end up with a more complete picture and analysis. However I generally would avoid supporting artists who have directly done major harm and still profit from their work. Creators like Nobuhiro Watsuki, Tatsuya Matsuki, Orson Scott Card, JKR, and Gaiman are a few examples from around the world of people who directly profit from their work still and have caused major harm to others, still cause harm to others, or actively use their platform to harm others that you are supporting monetarily and reputationally by consuming their works either in knowledge or in ignorance of their actions. It's not like HP Lovecraft for example, where he is long dead and his family doesn't cause harm to this day.

@Zettaiken "The USSR was even worse than the Nazis"

It's amazing how the West brainwashes poor people...

Less civilized and more barbaric? Is the targeted genocide of the Jewish people and the "Ost" plan of the "noble" Germans more attractive to you? War crimes? Lol, I can cite several times more CONFIRMED Nazi crimes than you can :3

By the way, since you started the coup with the events of a hundred years ago, do you want to recall the state of Poland, for example, at the beginning of the war? For example, the partition of Poland between Stalin and Hitler? Hmm, or the number of Polish civilians killed by the Nazis? Schoolboy, learn history and trust liberals and propaganda less.

The fact that there is a close relationship between the writer and the written thing is undeniable, its obvious. The writer's life inherently influences his work. The real question lies in if the "negative actions" of the artist have repercussions on the work. And well... this a simple no. I've the conception that any writing is a temporary abandonment of the "status" of the one who writes it. The writer thinks, feels, dumps, distributes and above all chooses what he wants to communicate. In the simple act of materialize a feeling or thought lies the essence. I like to see it as if it were a gift addressed to someone. I will always try to be the kind of person who, when receiving a gift, appreciates it by looking at the effort and the awesomeness of it. Those who don't understand gifts need to look elsewhere for conversation. And thats where the fools invest their attention. And, huh... it happens all the time. Its funny how if you search for news on many “famous artists”, the most information you get is gossip crap or about their love life. So... the room of fanaticism is next to the room of superficiality. And this is obviously reflected with the fools who end up getting more lost in the author than in the work. I'm not saying that adoring a creator or that fanaticism is bad, it simply in some cases converges into nefarious things.
And in a way, although the author is the figure behind what we read, once we access the work, it belongs to us (avid readers will know that Barthes said something similar). Art is a repository with a sender, but judging the sender is simply the behavior of weak and shallow minds. I feel that much of the error of this dilemma lies in the fact that when we talk about a work, there's people get very locked into the diagram of author and audience. We should try to focus more on the beauty, that have the work itself, which acquires a kind of autonomy when its shared.
Likewise... I'm also enthusiast about the idea of “what the fuck do I care what the writer did?”. I could say its my vulgar epitome regarding this matter, heh.

@Juskov and what about the "supporting the author" deal? as in giving them financial gain from you consuming their creation, would you avoid it by indulging in piracy, or do you just participate in it so its not another obstacle in the way, and maybe you feel like what they gain from you is insignificant?

@pepi48 Hum, regarding "supporting the autor". That isnt a topic I intended to discuss. But well... sadly there isnt much of value I can say as a person who accesses most works through piracy. So simply not to be hypocritical, I will say that matter is out of my jurisdiction.

@Juskov thank you for the feedback.

Reminded me of this



....................

So you would enjoy a creation from a pedophilic mind? That's the definition of defending these people.

I don't really care but sometimes it influences how I interpret things if they say what their intent was.

This really just feels like a blanket bias in favor of anime, for rather personal reasons, e.g. not liking the art, not liking the language, running with a dismissive stereotype about the content, and "blaming" it for stigmatizing the medium. I mean, that last one is just the weirdest take, IMO -- I can understand blaming American society or the American marketing industry for this, or blaming the dominance of the live-action TV/movie industry, but I don't see how the animation industry is responsible for this. There were western animated series that were more adult-oriented but the demand just wasn't there and/or the turf was basically occupied by live-action stuff, as far as market expectations go. If anything, things have actually gotten *better* now; back in the day (e.g. the 90s) definitely didn't have things like RWBY or Castlevania. And even if you're not interested in stuff like MLP:FIM or Adventure Time or whatever, those sorts of franchises definitely have their adult audiences as well. Heck, I'd say that it's a combination of the hard work of western (primarily American, but certainly not limited to that) animators, and the side influence of anime growing a western fanbase for animation, that have made more mature (and not Simpsons-esque sitcom) western animation more market-viable.

Not saying you have to like it, but just pointing out how it's not the fault of western or American animation that there existed a stigma around animated media. (And if you're gonna blame westerners for making cartoons for kids, then note that the Japanese did the same anyway.)

It is worth noting that "finding out" in this context is seldom the result of personal research, and very often a trend in social media canceling some writer/artist/actor/musician/director etc. Just thought I'd mention it.

In connection with the subject of the thread, a wise man once said:

This argument is only brought up for pedophilia or general criminal behavior. Anytime it's political we go beyond and above to make sure that author is gone forever. From both sides too.

@Towlie-Towl

who would you name as an example of this happening to them?

@pepi48 Ken Akamatsu was running for ldp and people said all his series and ect were shit. Which is funny cause he's fighting to preserve and protect anime and manga from western influence and against bad tv/publisher rights that don't want anime preserved.

How about neither one nor the other? It's possible to just stay indifferent to that, as far as the appreciation of a work of art is concerned. You can let that kind of knowledge inform your reaction to it, but you don't have to.
Especially if you realize that the kind of reaction discussed here arises from a tendency to oversimplify the creator, ignoring the fact that every human psyche is unimaginably complex, that people not only change over the years but can be inconsistent from one day to the next, that everyone lives in a constant struggle between conflicting desires, experiences and habits, and that nobody, however virtuous until now, is exempt from the temptation of committing the worst crime tomorrow - and the other way around. The moment you start putting labels on people "a good guy", "a pedophile", "a hero", "a murderer" and leave it at that, case closed, you stop seeing them as real people.
Here's what one famous writer had to say when people asked for details of his life and his opinions, with a view to finding connections between that and his works:



It's tricky to draw conclusions from what you see embedded in a narrative. What happens if, after you see one character clearly expressing ideas that are clearly disgusting, to the point that you feel certain that the author has let his or her own opinions through, on the next page or scene you see another character putting forward the opposite ideas equally convincingly? All you can conclude is that the author is good at describing both stances. If you choose to say that this or that character speaks for the author, it's really you putting that of your own accord into the narrative. But the whole point is that in principle both a pedophile and a non-pedophile can write the same novel about pedophilia. If anyone argues that only a person with certain moral tendencies can write a certain story, that is easily disproved: I can sit down right now and write a story that would condemn me in that person's eyes. It won't be a good story quality-wise, but nobody's discussing literary merit here. And then I would go on to write another story with the opposite moral weight. They would probably conclude that I have dissociative identity disorder or something.
(This brings to mind the controversy around Django Unchained: some people deduced that Tarantino must have a deeply ingrained racist streak in him, or else he couldn't have created such memorable racist characters.)


No idea who that is, but you don't need to search very hard to find them. They live next door to the people who decided that Maradona wasn't the greatest football player ever after he stopped playing and started talking, or those who decided that Michael Jackson's songs can't have been that good because they found out he wasn't a nice guy. In the same neighborhood as people who stopped listening to Wagner after AH said he was his favorite composer.


I said it was an absurd scenario. It may have happened, or perhaps no. But that's the point of a reductio ad absurdum: you take a line of thought to its last consequences in a hypothetical situation to expose its flaws.

Don't skip the part where I said and leave it at that, case closed: I'm not talking about using words to conceptualize our perception of each other, because that is obviously a human activity; but about picking a single fact about somebody (usually the most negative fact known about them) and deciding that that is their defining trait, so that everything else is seen in that light. That's what leaves no room for complexity, no chance of redemption; even working retroactively, so that if I make the first racist slur of my life tomorrow people will find foreshadowings of it in things I wrote 20 years ago, because now I have the "racist" label. That arguably has happened with some of the examples mentioned in this thread.

You're doing it again. There's no grey matter on this subject. I don't understand how something so simple cannot be recognized. I don't want to see a perverted mind trying to be normal, these people are perverted shapeshifters - it's a malformed presentation to try to be accepted as normal. I told you where I stand. Pedophiles or people who harm children should be shot. It is the worst crime.

How about neither one nor the other? It's possible to just stay indifferent to that, as far as the appreciation of a work of art is concerned. You can let that kind of knowledge inform your reaction to it, but you don't have to.
Especially if you realize that the kind of reaction discussed here arises from a tendency to oversimplify the creator, ignoring the fact that every human psyche is unimaginably complex, that people not only change over the years but can be inconsistent from one day to the next, that everyone lives in a constant struggle between conflicting desires, experiences and habits, and that nobody, however virtuous until now, is exempt from the temptation of committing the worst crime tomorrow - and the other way around. The moment you start putting labels on people "a good guy", "a pedophile", "a hero", "a murderer" and leave it at that, case closed, you stop seeing them as real people.
Here's what one famous writer had to say when people asked for details of his life and his opinions, with a view to finding connections between that and his works:



It's tricky to draw conclusions from what you see embedded in a narrative. What happens if, after you see one character clearly expressing ideas that are clearly disgusting, to the point that you feel certain that the author has let his or her own opinions through, on the next page or scene you see another character putting forward the opposite ideas equally convincingly? All you can conclude is that the author is good at describing both stances. If you choose to say that this or that character speaks for the author, it's really you putting that of your own accord into the narrative. But the whole point is that in principle both a pedophile and a non-pedophile can write the same novel about pedophilia. If anyone argues that only a person with certain moral tendencies can write a certain story, that is easily disproved: I can sit down right now and write a story that would condemn me in that person's eyes. It won't be a good story quality-wise, but nobody's discussing literary merit here. And then I would go on to write another story with the opposite moral weight. They would probably conclude that I have dissociative identity disorder or something.
(This brings to mind the controversy around Django Unchained: some people deduced that Tarantino must have a deeply ingrained racist streak in him, or else he couldn't have created such memorable racist characters.)


No idea who that is, but you don't need to search very hard to find them. They live next door to the people who decided that Maradona wasn't the greatest football player ever after he stopped playing and started talking, or those who decided that Michael Jackson's songs can't have been that good because they found out he wasn't a nice guy. In the same neighborhood as people who stopped listening to Wagner after AH said he was his favorite composer.


I said it was an absurd scenario. It may have happened, or perhaps no. But that's the point of a reductio ad absurdum: you take a line of thought to its last consequences in a hypothetical situation to expose its flaws.

@Swyzen
That's the different partitions I meant there, not to mention that I've mentioned stuff before WWII [Russo-Poland war, 123 years of paritions, Żółkiewski campaign from 1609]. Just because Germany has done more war crimes, doesn't mean Russian has done none, I can cite them too, III Reich war crimes too if you'd like, but there's no point if you're already having a pink image on a one side. Oh not to mention that they were more brutal and barbaric with tortures. Wehrmacht at least had courage to shoot down their ransomed civilians and soldiers while looking at their eyes, instead of Red Army who's only shooting in the back of the head and even tried to accuse Nazis for Katyń. Also never said that Germany was noble, don't put your vision into my words, they were bad, Russia is just bad and barbaric.

If you want to speak about history and stuff than better begin with early middle-ages, early piast's dominium with Druzhynniks equipment, service villages [I actually don't know how to translate it into English], army structure and whom would serve in that army. Why should I speak about stuff you're feeling more comfortable, if I can just go into my own specialty instead. I ain't knowing about you pal but for now I don't need to learn history, I've studied it and soon will have a job strictly connected with history, can you tell the same about yourself or are you just simply a hobbyst?

I think the idea of separating art from the artist and the "death of the author" is genuinely one of the most widely misunderstood theories of art critique, and especially so online. The whole idea of "separating art from the artist" is originally meant to be an alternative way of critique where instead of trying to think "what is the creator trying to say?" you are encouraged to ask "what does this piece make me think of?" and "what meaning do I personally derive from it". The Death of the Author is meant to place more focus onto how YOU the individual see a work of art rather than the original authorial intent, but the internet has kind of taken this a different way. The Death of the Author theory isn't meant to be "This person is a shit person but they make good art so I will ignore the bad things they do and still support them". I will respond to both the actual idea of the "Death of the Author" and the misconstrued version online to make my statement because there is some intersections in the discussion when talking about creators who do bad things or use their platform to cause harm via rhetorical or financial methods and how it can affect their works.


As an artist myself, I really don't like the idea in practice when implemented on its own, since while in theory it makes sense, it oftentimes erases the personal touches that artists oftentimes put into their works. All art whether consciously or subconsciously pulls from the experience of the creator and the reality they live in. An artist's historical context, worldviews, experiences, and culture will oftentimes bleed over into their work, so by ignoring the existence of the author you may not be able to get the full picture of a work of fiction. When an artist especially does something horrible, you can sometimes even see signs of their behaviors in their works. A great example would be Neil Gaiman who very recently has credible allegations and lawsuits against him for sexual assault and human trafficking and was successfully able to hide his actions for so long under the veneer of having milquetoast liberal feminist ideas and you can actively see this in some of his work such as a male writer in The Sandman boasting about how much of a feminist he is for writing good female characters. When JK Rowling came out as a TERF and sided a lot more openly with extreme right wing groups in the UK, a lot of people became more aware of elements of ableism, antisemitism, homophobia, and pro-slavery messaging in Harry Potter. An artist cannot fully divorce their own views or actions no matter how hard they try, so trying to see art in a vacuum can leave you blind to how these things intersect. Even if we're talking about people who may not have done bad things, separating the art from the artist can cause you to miss out on elements that you may not have otherwise. For example by ignoring Akira Toriyama completely, you are very likely to miss the social critique that was implemented into Freeza in the Dragon Ball series. Toriyama actively hated real estate investors and wrote during the Japanese bubble economy where these people got filthy rich by doing some scummy things, leading to Toriyama calling them "the worst kind of people". This led to him developing this hatred of real estate into the character of Freeza who does that on a larger scale. Just by reading the manga or watching the anime, people are likely going to miss that as they are probably much more likely to focus on Freeza's more heinous actions such as murder and genocide, rather than the fact that he is an evil planet broker. While obviously there is something to dissect with the other elements of his character, by ignoring Toriyama's inspiration for the character, you lose quite a bit of social commentary and historical context. Art is always a product of the person who made it, so by ignoring the source you just miss out on a lot more than you would think.

My personal philosophy is that you should kind of combine the two methods of analyses. Go with your gut first and foremost, say what you THINK the art represents and means before than comparing it to what may have actually been intended via interviews and research on the original creator. That way you kind of get the best of both worlds and end up with a more complete picture and analysis. However I generally would avoid supporting artists who have directly done major harm and still profit from their work. Creators like Nobuhiro Watsuki, Tatsuya Matsuki, Orson Scott Card, JKR, and Gaiman are a few examples from around the world of people who directly profit from their work still and have caused major harm to others, still cause harm to others, or actively use their platform to harm others that you are supporting monetarily and reputationally by consuming their works either in knowledge or in ignorance of their actions. It's not like HP Lovecraft for example, where he is long dead and his family doesn't cause harm to this day.

One can leave Tottenham but Tottenham will never be separated.

For the most part it doesn't come up for me.

Partly because I almost never go out of my way to find out anything about anyone involved in anime or manga.

That being said I'm not sure I've ever been put off watching or reading any entertainment which I was interested in as a result of knowing the author was a goblin of some description... I can safely say I don't need to bother consuming news media from certain sources, but because of where it was coming from I was never going to do so anyway, chicken and egg loop there.

I have had my impression changed by learning something afterwards... but say, does a yikes in the manga Usagi Drop make the anime Usagi Drop lesser?

Perhaps it would be more of a concern if we lived in a world where there was a less obscured route between consuming media and providing support to an artist who is bad... but we live in the Internet.

@rbp_pbr2

This has been something ive had in mind for so long. Usagi drop really gets so many good reviews, and even if not continued in the manga, people like to see the anime as the whole story. But i never know if i should even watch it, because i know what lies ahead in the real canon, how do i pretend it doesnt happen or just take the anime for what it is and not give the manga any attention? Should i just live with it? Because im not sure how i could ignore what happens, even if i pretend the anime is all i need to care for.

@pepi48

I would watch it, it wouldn't play on my mind, but you know, everyone's mileage will vary.

Canon is what you make of it I guess. Say I think Ghost in the Shell the movie and the SAC series are magnificent, absolute contenders for the greatest anime of all time, but I haven't even tried to finish Masamune's manga I find it too much of a visual slog, but Oshii completely transformed it and made it a completely different thing which SAC could work from. Maybe I would enrich my understanding by going and reading all the background material, but it stands on its own?

Then there are works which are intentionally telling different stories from the same source material, derivative rather than adaption? Or really strange ones like say, NGE the anime and Sadamoto's manga of it... they're distinct works, with their own things going on.

One can leave Tottenham but Tottenham will never be separated.

i think its complicated but as long as you address the complexity instead of waving it away as if it doesnt matter then there is no issue. i can like good media even if it is made by a bad person and not feel bad about it so long as im not excusing or hiding from the reality of their nature.


however, if they are actively profiting off of my consumption of their media and that helps them continue to carry out or get away with their crimes, then it is not okay because i will be enabling them. do not give them a dime if they have yet to even face consequences for what they have done.

Oh lol, didn't know this was such a hot topic.... Yes, it does affect whether or not I enjoy a piece of media when the creator(s) are terrible human beings. Although I will mention that these things can be highly nuanced, so I take it on a case-by-case basis.

If I knew about it beforehand, it would be easy for me to avoid watching the show. I do not wish to support people who I believe do morally wrong things.

However, if I found out while I was currently watching the show, I would finish it and rate it fairly. I am already invested in the story and have a drive to finish it, so that outweights any discomfort I may feel. Similarly, if I found out after already finishing the show, it would not likely change my opinion of it.