A different take on the Polanski scandal.
Oct. 9th, 2009 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sechan19This will not be 1) a breakdown of what constitutes rape, 2) a rant about how much Roman Polanski deserves exactly what's happening to him and why that is, or 3) a send-up of the people in Hollywood who actually signed petitions in support of the jerk. If you want an extremely elegant iteration of these points, please check this out. I agree fully with Jay Smooth on pretty much everything he says about the Polanski case.
However, I'd like to talk about something that I've found interesting in this case. It has to do with the concept of the separation of artistic product from personal character and how people tend to feel about this practice.
The way (some) people in Hollywood flocked to Roman Polanski’s banner really fascinated me. It reminded me of the way Michael Jackson fans tend to make and broadcast the assumption that he was not a pedophile. Why is that? I pondered to myself. And here’s what I came up with.
Simply put: most people don’t like to support the artistic endeavors of someone whose character they dislike or whose actions they disagree with. By reverse assumption, most people don’t want a person whose artistic endeavors they support to have a character they dislike or have undertaken actions they disagree with. Such a conflict is thought to reflect badly on the person who does offer their support, because support of individual and support of artistic achievement are often erroneously conflated. Consequently, when this conflict occurs people tend to either a) cease their support of the individual or b) defend the character/actions of the individual even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
But is such an either/or scenario really necessary? Do we have to like the character or agree with the actions of those people whose contributions to culture we enjoy? Is it wrong to separate one from the other? Essentially, couldn’t I like the films of Roman Polanski (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I have no opinion about one way or the other) while still recognizing that he’s a despicable child rapist?
Or, to use a more me-appropriate analogy, couldn’t I love the music of Michael Jackson while still recognizing that he was a seriously disturbed individual to whom I would never have entrusted the welfare any child within my purview? Because that’s pretty much how I rolled when it came to Michael Jackson: loved the music, mistrusted the living hell out of the motherfucker.
But my larger point here is that there is a kind of accusative attitude that is automatically directed at people who support the work of someone whose character or actions do not agree with social ethics/morals/laws/etc. and that I think is highly inappropriate. It is perhaps this stigma, which results in the kind of messed up, super-confused, pseudo (and not-so pseudo) justifications of people like Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson. Although, let me be clear that the unjustified stigma does not somehow justify the resultant justifications. There may, however, be something to the notion that if people were allowed (in the abstract sense) to express admiration for an artwork without being subjected to the assumption that they also admire the producer of said artwork, they would then be less likely to raise a highly questionable defense of someone who is clearly indefensible in an attempt to to rid themselves of that negative association.
In the end, I think the questions posed here are tricky to say the least: both in debate and in personal application. But they’re worth mulling over, I think. It is the generally accepted tendency to see things as either black or white; an outlook that is, in my opinion, wholly out-of-synch with reality.
However, I'd like to talk about something that I've found interesting in this case. It has to do with the concept of the separation of artistic product from personal character and how people tend to feel about this practice.
The way (some) people in Hollywood flocked to Roman Polanski’s banner really fascinated me. It reminded me of the way Michael Jackson fans tend to make and broadcast the assumption that he was not a pedophile. Why is that? I pondered to myself. And here’s what I came up with.
Simply put: most people don’t like to support the artistic endeavors of someone whose character they dislike or whose actions they disagree with. By reverse assumption, most people don’t want a person whose artistic endeavors they support to have a character they dislike or have undertaken actions they disagree with. Such a conflict is thought to reflect badly on the person who does offer their support, because support of individual and support of artistic achievement are often erroneously conflated. Consequently, when this conflict occurs people tend to either a) cease their support of the individual or b) defend the character/actions of the individual even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
But is such an either/or scenario really necessary? Do we have to like the character or agree with the actions of those people whose contributions to culture we enjoy? Is it wrong to separate one from the other? Essentially, couldn’t I like the films of Roman Polanski (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I have no opinion about one way or the other) while still recognizing that he’s a despicable child rapist?
Or, to use a more me-appropriate analogy, couldn’t I love the music of Michael Jackson while still recognizing that he was a seriously disturbed individual to whom I would never have entrusted the welfare any child within my purview? Because that’s pretty much how I rolled when it came to Michael Jackson: loved the music, mistrusted the living hell out of the motherfucker.
But my larger point here is that there is a kind of accusative attitude that is automatically directed at people who support the work of someone whose character or actions do not agree with social ethics/morals/laws/etc. and that I think is highly inappropriate. It is perhaps this stigma, which results in the kind of messed up, super-confused, pseudo (and not-so pseudo) justifications of people like Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson. Although, let me be clear that the unjustified stigma does not somehow justify the resultant justifications. There may, however, be something to the notion that if people were allowed (in the abstract sense) to express admiration for an artwork without being subjected to the assumption that they also admire the producer of said artwork, they would then be less likely to raise a highly questionable defense of someone who is clearly indefensible in an attempt to to rid themselves of that negative association.
In the end, I think the questions posed here are tricky to say the least: both in debate and in personal application. But they’re worth mulling over, I think. It is the generally accepted tendency to see things as either black or white; an outlook that is, in my opinion, wholly out-of-synch with reality.
