WEBVTT - The Fan's Dilemma 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:04.480 The night before my birthday this year, I had a 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.080 late flight home from Los Angeles. I arrived back in 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:09.800 Brooklyn and go to bed without seeing anyone. I sleep 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.720 late into the morning that I come downstairs, not having 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:15.360 seen my family in several days, and there's my wife 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.919 and my two year old daughter, so excited to wish 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.599 me a happy birthday and give me my gift. So 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.320 sweet to be reunited, and they bring out this giant box. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.000 My wife has been talking about it for weeks. Would 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.400 the box arrive in time? She's been thinking about it 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.199 and worrying about it. It's the perfect gift. She's been 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.040 talking up how much I'm going to love it, and 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.120 how brilliant she is for coming up with the perfect present. 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:43.160 Very exciting build up. They give me this giant box 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.240 and I open it and it's a big, beautiful, fancy 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.360 framed photograph, something that looks like it should be in 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.080 a museum. It's of an old man in a black 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.320 suit with a giant black dog next to him. And 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.320 I look at it like, oh wow, this this is 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.679 really something, and my wife says, yeah, it's Billy Wilder. 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.200 I looked so hard for it. I found that at 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.800 this auction house, so incredible. I know he's your favorite. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.840 How cool is that? And I don't quite know what 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:20.760 to say because this is not a photograph of Billy Wilder. 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:23.560 So I just sort of. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.760 Say, oh my god, I've never quite seen him look 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.119 like this before. I didn't know he had a dog 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:35.440 like that, but then I had to, so I said, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:42.120 but I'm not sure it's actually not This isn't Billy Wilder. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.600 And my wife got so embarrassed. Really not a great scene. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.400 She bought it from this auction house that labeled it 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.680 as Helman Newton photographing Billy Wilder. Later that afternoon, she 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.400 texts me from her office after doing some research, and 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.800 not only is it not Billy Wilder, it is a 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.160 photograph of Jean Marie Le Penn, the founder of France's 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.799 far right party, whom many consider to be a fascist. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.960 So we now have a giant, beautiful, black and white 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.440 Helman Newton photograph of an anti semite in our home. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:23.359 Happy birthday. I tell this story, of course, because role 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:26.160 Doll is and always has been part of the fabric 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.160 of my life. He helped shape my worldview, just like 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.000 Billy Wilder did. But it's hard to escape the feeling. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.839 Now that there's been a bit of a mislabeling, it's 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.640 hard to see Doll as the sweet, creative hero I 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.239 want him to be, and instead I now sort of 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.440 see him as this darker figure. Can I square Doll's 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.240 much loved broken spine books scattered throughout our house with 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.920 the mezuza on our front door? Should I hide his 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.320 books like the Penn photo is hidden in the back 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.280 of our closet. I really don't know the answer, but 0:02:55.360 --> 0:03:01.880 I want to. I really want to. For my hard podcast, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.160 Imagine Entertainment and Parallax, I'm Aaron Tracy and this is 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:14.440 the Secret World of Roald Dahl episode eight. On our 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.600 last episode, Roxanne Gay suggested we speak to the author, 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.359 Claire Debtterer. Let's do that now. Claire has very different 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.320 feelings from Roxanne on the subject of separating the art 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:28.200 from the artist. Claire is a prolific writer whose work 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.600 has appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Nation Vogue, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.840 Marie Clare Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, you name it. 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.720 Her book Monsters a Fans Dilemma has become something like 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.120 a definitive text on this giant controversial issue that we're 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.280 all grappling with. It's brave, and it's honest, and it's 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.480 personal and it's really funny. In its rave review, The 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.240 New York Times wrote, this is a book that looks 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.320 boldly down the cliff at the roiling waters below, and 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.160 jumps right in, splashes around playfully, isn't afraid to get wet. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.200 I started off by a skinclaire to tell us a 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:02.480 little bit about monsters. 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:04.280 I came to write this book. 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.320 I started it many years ago, in twenty fifteen or so, 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.120 because I'd been thinking and writing a lot about Roman 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.600 Polanski and I started my career as a film critic, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.120 and Polanski's one of my top five filmmakers of all time. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:18.080 I love his work. 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.479 I was researching him for a previous book where I 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.440 was writing about predation of young girls in the nineteen seventies, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.719 and so Polanski came into that story, and I, you know, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.240 I really began to learn a lot about what had 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.800 happened in his not even just alleged rape of Samantha 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.840 Gaily or Samantha Geimer as she's sometimes known. I read depositions, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.760 I read a lot on the subject, and when I 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.280 finished reading, I found, to my surprise that I could 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.880 still watch the films, and this seemed hugely interesting to me, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.120 that there was something happening here that was complex and 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:58.080 sort of upsetting. And I began to think about this problem, 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.880 and in early moments of writing, I was just sort 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.680 of looking for someone to tell me what to do, 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.680 which now is a dynamic I'm very familiar with as 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.560 the author of this book. People just want me to 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.360 tell them what to do. The book is not That's 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.680 not really what it's trying to do. What it's trying 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.520 to do more is look at what was happening to 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.920 me in that moment when I was consuming the Polanski 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.800 films knowing what I know. It was talking about what's 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.760 occurring there, what happens to the audience member? Is the 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.920 art changed? Is there something immoral in that moment? Does 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.120 it matter? I was trying to be descriptive of the problem. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.960 This is what it's like to consume work knowing what 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.479 we know. You know, I do have some ideas of 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.520 what people could or might do, but the book is 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.360 more interested in how we live through this problem. 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.920 I'm curious, is there a difference in your mind between 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.240 consuming the work of artists who committed crimes against people 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.400 versus those who just said big into things. Doll was 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.840 a bit of a jerk to the people who are 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.000 closest to him, but he's not accused of any sort 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.360 of actual physical abuse like so many of these artist 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.839 monsters are. His crimes were what he said. Do you 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.320 think that there's a difference there. 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.320 I don't mean to be Yoda like or KG, but 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.159 I think that it's interesting that your question cites the 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.240 answer to the problem in the nuances or differences in 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.200 the behavior of the artist alone. And I guess what's 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.640 most interesting to me is the audience member. This is 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.279 really the nexus from which I look at this problem. 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.960 I guess the question is who are you? Who is 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.640 the person who's consuming the art? You know, the person 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:45.440 who's able to withstand their knowledge of someone's biographical shittiness. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.359 It's largely dependent on their own life experience, you know. 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.680 So you have the biography of the maker, but then 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.720 you also have the biography of the audience member. I 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.839 think that somebody's experience of Doll's anti Semitism, for instance, 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.560 might be coming to that work with their own experiences 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.360 of that. We can't just sort of make these kind 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.039 of universal or hard and fast rules about what could 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.480 or could not be consumed based just on the artist's behavior. 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.400 It really, to me comes back to the subjective, lived 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.000 experience of the audience member. 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.480 Certainly everyone could make the choice for themselves whether they 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.440 want to consume this work or not. But with Doll, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.200 I think there's that added wrinkle of what about kids, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.960 because it's not their choice right what I read to them. 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.200 As my kids grow up, I am of course terrified 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.040 that they're going to be subject to any sort of 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.000 anti Semitism or bigotry of any kind. But here I 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.200 am happily giving them Roll Doll's books. And I'm curious 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:40.320 if you have any thoughts about that. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.680 Yeah, I mean, I think this really has come to 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.160 the four. Also with Rolling, what do we do about JK? 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.600 Rowling? Do we give her books to our kids? 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.400 And it's different because she's alive and very much doubling 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:56.440 down right, She's saying what she's saying, And it's a 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.960 very interesting and complex dynamic there. With Doll, you have 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.400 someone who's dead where there's not this ongoing connection to 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:05.240 the horrible things. 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:05.720 He said. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.120 This question is interesting because it's almost like when I 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.000 think about this problem, I think about individual responses and 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.520 institutional responses. Will I watch a Polanski film? 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:17.000 Yes? 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.920 Would I program or curate a series of Polanski films 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.360 at my local art museum? More complex if my local 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.600 art museum were to do that on its own, would 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.480 I hope that they would acknowledge some of the complexities 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:30.440 of the biography? 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:31.080 Also? 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.360 Yes, in your role as a parent, in a sense, 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.679 you're an institution. There's pedagogy involved, There's the person is 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:44.040 can't escape the roof that they're under. So you have 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.600 different pressures on you as an institution than you do 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.080 as a single person who's making his own decisions about 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.680 whether or not to consume the art. So I guess 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.600 you just have to ask yourself what kind of institution 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:57.040 do you want to be and what is it that 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.240 you're saying to your kids. I mean, I don't know 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.200 how old your kids are, but I do think there's 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.840 a sense in which if you're going to consume this work, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:06.960 you can also talk to your kids about what's going on. 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.760 Maybe not when they're four, but maybe when they're ten. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.600 Kids can handle all kinds of complex discussions. Part of 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:18.120 the issue around This is this debate over levels of complexity. 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.679 How much should people know? How much should they have 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.520 to have to know? Is it somehow a disruption of 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.920 some kind of innocence to share information with people, which 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:30.199 is the institutional question? 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:31.840 Yeah, I think that. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.520 For me, the reason this question is so pressing is 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.679 the way in which there is no escape from that biography. 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.760 The biography is what's happening to us all the time. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.040 We can't not know. I'm fifty eight. When I was young, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.640 it was very difficult to find out biographical information about artists, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.280 certainly about pop artists or current pop culture figures. It 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.520 was really incumbent on the audience member. And now biography 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.000 happens to us as audience members for all of these 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.200 different cultural reasons. But the reason it's really happening is 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.720 because social media is built upon biography. Your biography, my biography. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.840 That's what it's made out of, his people's stories. So 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.080 we learn this biographical information whether we want to or not. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.400 Like to me, it seems like a real nicety to ask, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.800 do I need to go find this biographical information to 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.000 share with my students, because in most cases, the biographical 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.760 information is preceding the work almost always. Now you know, 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.200 this is a question for the ages, But the reason 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.600 that this moment is special or unique is because of 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.560 this way biography is out there running the show. 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.560 Something else I grapple with is when the artist chooses 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:48.160 to apologize with Doll he was absolutely unrepentant, but it's 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.800 so tracked. He called himself an anti Semite and had 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.160 he was totally fine with that. But a few years ago, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.320 right before, right around the same time that Netflix bought 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.280 The Doll State for an incredible amount of money to 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.720 turn those stories into films, the Doll State issued an 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.640 official apology for his anti semitism. So I guess I'm 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.560 trying to decide if that should make a bit of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:13.440 difference from me or not. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:15.720 That's interesting. I like how you just said that. 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.600 You know, you're trying to figure out how you feel 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.800 about it and how you feel about as a Jewish family, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:21.719 how you're going to. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:22.920 Relate to that apology. 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.920 And the Wagner Festival went through a similar thing where 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.080 there was some reckoning and I think one family member apologized. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.120 I'm not sure where they are with that. I haven't 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.319 doune research on it. In a few years. I think 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.360 that to me, we can't change what Dall said, we 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.319 can't change who Wagner was. But I think the a 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.960 state or the institutional drive to apologize is actually meaningful. 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.880 I think that apology, which is a little different from remorse, 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.840 but I think apology, within the context of the conversations 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.199 we're having is actually quite rare. It's not something people 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.360 do a lot of. There's a lot of lack of 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.800 repentance across the board around these issues, and I think 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.040 that every apology begets more apologies. 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.839 One hopes that it creates this idea that we. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:17.120 Can acknowledge that wrong was done, and that has both emotional, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.080 maybe even aesthetic, and certainly legal meaning. I sort of 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.600 treasure every apology because they are so rare and because 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.520 they remind us that it can be done. So one 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.680 of the things I'm thinking about a lot in the 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.679 book is I really grapple throughout the writing of the 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.000 book with should a person be written off or lost 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.000 for having done a rotten thing or said a rotten thing? 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.400 What is it to take responsibility for the crummy things 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.480 we've done. Part Way through the book, I'm dealing with 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.960 my own sobriety and becoming sober sort of creates this 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.200 necessity for an acknowledgment that you've done something wrong, because 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.920 if you hadn't done something wrong, you wouldn't quit drinking, right, 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.800 One's own monstrosity is kind of baked into the act 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:02.640 of becoming sober. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:04.679 What is your life after that? 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.000 What is it to be a person after that acknowledgment? 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.880 And that question I think aligns me with people who've 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.600 done something crummy, right, and what is it to be 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:15.240 human in. 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.760 The face of that? So people do get. 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.480 In my opinion, they do get to change or get better. 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.680 And it's a little different within a state. But I 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.640 think apology and remorse are such powerful tools, and if 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.560 we don't take them in some kind of good faith, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.280 we start to make them even more extinct than they 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:34.880 already are. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.640 Yeah, it's so hard to think of any especially in 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.679 today's climate. I'm just thinking about Kanye West, track, Kyle Hitler. 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.880 I mean, so many of these guys are just so unrepentant. 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.760 Yeah, And like, if Kanye were to make an apology now, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.520 would that be meaningful? Probably not, because it has been 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.480 so unrepentant. The performance of his own hatefulness has been 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.840 so ongoing and so relentless that apology would just be 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.520 another performance. But there are context in which it's meaningful, 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:02.800 I think. 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.800 Yeah, I read your piece in Paris Review about Woody 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:07.719 Allen this morning, and it seems like one of the 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:09.480 things that bothered you so much was when he said 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.199 the heart that's what the heart wants. That's his justification, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.680 which is the polar opposite of an apology. 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:16.720 Oh, I love that. I'd never thought of it that later. 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.000 Yeah, yeah, I did try to title the book the 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.080 Heart Wants what it wants, and my editor just laughed 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:22.760 me out of the room. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:24.440 I'm not calling it that. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.560 Something that I certainly think about a lot is whether 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.720 or not the artists personal beliefs or prejudices infects their work, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.080 And with someone that grow and Polanski, I'm not sure 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.240 I see it, which maybe is why it's easier to 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.640 watch those movies with Doll. It's complicated. Some people certainly 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.600 do make the case that there are figures in the 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.320 Witches that can be construed as antismitic tropes. I don't 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.360 know how I feel about that, but I don't really 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.040 see his anti semitism in his work, so that becomes 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:52.920 much easier for me. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.040 Yeah, I think that there's a kind of an interesting 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.240 lineup of the way these things work. I think you 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:02.880 have someone like What where the thing that people perceive 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.000 as objectionable is so inherent in the work when you 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.880 watch Manhattan and the way that young women are presented 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.400 and used in his films. So that's a place where 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.120 the biography and the work are really close together, and 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.480 that's disturbing in that way. And then you have, you know, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.920 something like Cosby, where there's such an incredible chasm between 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.520 doctor Huxtable and what he is said to have done 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.960 that that makes the work sort of upsetting in a 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.360 different way. And so I think that Doll is fascinating 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.920 because there is a sense that he is somehow uniquely 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:40.200 tapped into what makes a person ugly in their heart, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.200 and he's found a way to express that through these 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.160 different characters. Sometimes a minor character is in a book, 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.720 sometimes a more major character, and that is always fascinating. 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.400 When somebody has this darkness inside them, or has this 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:54.840 dark quality. 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.640 And then they express it through character. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.440 It does make it more confusing, because on some level, 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:04.800 the ridiculousness of being a person who's against others is 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.480 expressed in his work. There's a periodic funny element to 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.000 some of these characters. And yet did he see himself 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.520 as a comic figure because he had this hate that 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:16.840 he was living inside of. 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:18.000 I think probably not. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.720 I think there's something about authors who write work for 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.120 children that has really withstood the test of time, and 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.680 certainly that is work that I had a relationship when 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:32.760 I was young. You know that there is some part 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.800 of the landscape of My Psyche that belongs to Roldahl, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.680 just as there is the part of the landscape of 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.360 My Psyche belongs to Laura Ingles Wilder, and she has 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:43.359 her own problems. 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.080 And I would say that when that's. 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.200 Your experience and you learn these pieces of biographical information, 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.280 there is this sadness that comes with it. It's a very 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.120 specific sadness, and I think it's a sadness that cries 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.320 out to be discussed, that needs to be acknowledged and 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:06.600 talk about, needs to be taken apart and looked at. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.359 We need to ask why does this sadness exist? And 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:14.719 too often in this discussion, I feel like it's too absolute, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.919 and there's either somebody saying you should absolutely throw out 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.000 the books, or there's somebody saying these things are separate 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.520 and we don't care and you shouldn't care. But what's 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.159 most interesting to me is the fact that most of 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.320 us live in the middle. And I think that we 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.160 actually are helping each other. If we can say this 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.600 is a bummer and yet the work is meaningful, that 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.160 is reality. And I think when we talk about that, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.040 we're living in reality rather than in some fantasyland where 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.640 the work must be separated, or some other fantasyland where 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.640 the work doesn't have meaning or cultural valance, which. 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.040 It does thing. 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.840 I mean, I'm just always really interested in acknowledging that 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:03.600 our responses to this biographical information are emotional. And I 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:08.080 feel like so often when we're supposedly having these ethical 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.880 conversations around these issues and people are defending their point 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.359 of view, what's really happening is they're having a feeling. 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.919 This is art where audience members, we are deep in 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.480 our own subjectivity. The art is giving us an emotional response. 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.040 Sow's the biographical element. If we can acknowledge that's what's happening, 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:26.200 I think we can get a lot farther. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.520 That was the great Claire Denner, author of Monsters a 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.920 fans Saba after the break, we'll talk to someone who 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:39.679 sees the issue a little differently. Eric catall Mathis is 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.560 the chair of the philosophy department at Wellesley College. He 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.080 wrote a book called Drawing the Line What to do 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.080 with the work of immoral artists From museums to the movies. 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.880 It's all about what to do, think, and feel when 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.200 artists that we love do terrible things. I started off 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.240 by asking him the obvious question. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.480 So can we separate the art from the artists? Is 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.560 a question that really dominates the space. But I think 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.000 it's largely the wrong question. I'm not sure it really 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.879 matters whether we can separate the art from the artist 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.479 often because the question we should be asking is should 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.879 we separate the art from the artist? And when I 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.159 say should we separate the art from the artist, what 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.119 I mean is that we should be taking seriously what 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.359 we know about the moral life of the artist and 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.199 then asking the question every time, how should what we 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.080 know about the moral life of the artist factor into 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.320 my art consumption, or how I'm engaging with this art 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.200 in public, or how I'm thinking about introducing my kid 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.240 to this art, or broader policy decisions that we make 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.879 about the arts so I think it's essential that the 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.760 question about the relationship between the moral life of the 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.480 artist and their artwork remain a live question in all 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.880 of these different contexts, one that we need to think 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:58.240 about in those contexts and figure out how to answer. 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.440 But when we try to separate, when we say can 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.800 we separate the art from the artist? My worry about 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.360 that is it's often an attempt to say, like, well, 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.000 if we can, then we can sort of prise them 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:13.200 apart and not be faced with this question, how should 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.600 we engage with the moral life of artists? And that 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.439 concerns me right. I think that's the question that we 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.720 should always be thinking about. And sometimes the answer will 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.200 be that the moral life of the artist isn't particularly 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.280 relevant in this context. That's certainly a possibility, and that 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.240 will happen in all kinds of different situations, but will 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:32.800 have at least asked that question, that question will be 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:33.480 front and center. 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.560 That leads me to wonder, how much investigating are we 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.359 supposed to do. I've been reading Edgar alam Poe My 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:43.840 whole Life. I didn't know that he married his thirteen 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.359 year old cousin. How much responsibility do I have consuming 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:51.280 art to really look into the potential really awful, disgusting 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:52.480 behavior of the artist. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.240 Yeah, So, I mean, I don't think that we need 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:59.639 to become the cops and private investigators of the art world. 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.240 I think that the questions that the moral life of 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.679 the artist poses for everyday our consumers are going to 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.280 be dependent on the kind of information that's part of 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.320 the public discourse, part of the public domain, the things 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.360 that we can reasonably expect people to know. I think 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.080 that if we thought that there was some sort of 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.520 strong moral obligation to do investigative work about every artist 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.239