Separating Art from the Artist

Fortunately, I’m still here to rewrite my stories—but if I weren’t, I wonder if I would be harshly judged for things that I would have, without question, changed.

I often get asked about whether we can separate the work from the artist. I think we have to when we can. Granted, there are times when we can’t. Kevin Spacey USED to be my favorite actor. Now, I can’t watch anything with him. And that infuriates me, because I feel like some of my favorite movies, and shows have been stolen from me, and I can never get them back.

And then there’s Michael Jackson. What the hell do we do about Michael Jackson? I can’t just throw away his music. I know people who refuse to believe the allegations, because they’d rather look away than lose his music. I don’t sink into denial, but rather, I try to remember that he was a sick man, and a tortured soul for most of his life.

I think it’s a little easier to divorce a person from their art after they’re dead—because there’s that assumption that, wherever they are, they’re reaping what they sowed. That there’s some sort of justice in the universe. Or they’re just dead, which removes them from the equation.

I do get frustrated, though, when we judge people from other time periods by our current standards.