One thing a modern world needs to come to grips with is that a person can both be extremely talented and have negative qualities. Humans by their very nature have both good and bad traits, thoughts, and opinions. We can’t bury the fact that someone who contributed work that we enjoy had some awful views. But on the other hand, that doesn’t mean when you need to completely wipe his work from the face of the Earth. We have to find a way to show that someone is capable of creating great work and still not be a perfect or necessarily even good person.
There is absolutely no reason to play one of the many yellowface episodes of Bugs Bunny on saturday morning cartoons in the 2020s. And there is potentially a lot of value in curating a couple shorts that aren’t racist and packaging those up for kids to watch.
And that is the logic by which a book might be edited to remove/replace some of the rampant racism. The value is not all the many ways Huck Finn found to give himself n-word privileges. The value is in juxtaposing the idea of growing up with understanding that the world around you might not have.
But something like… any of the works of HP Lovecraft? The racism is front and center there. So much of the idea of being “other” has to do with “racial purity” and similar insanity. And the two can’t be decoupled. Which is why it has been so effective as a backdrop for the LGBTQIA+ community (often with perspective shifts). Ignoring the inherent racism of that is just, for lack of a funnier term, whitewashing.
One thing that has stuck with me through life was a high school english course. I forget exactly what we were reading, but it was very much “Huckleberry FInn” levels of rampant racism. And the copy of the book we had specifically had like a ten page foreward about the edits that were made and why they were made. And I’ll always remember Ms Sell in front of the class looking borderline manic as she explained the racism inherent to the work. And that very much helped with my own ability to critically look at a work. Because you can’t NOT consider the inherent bad parts of work and… you often end up with that toothy rictus of a grin as you are trying to acknowledge all the heinous shit and “move past it” without actually moving past it.
I feel like the art is what needs judged here, not the artist. We put all this emphasis on Dahl thought this and Lovecraft said that, and people use that as reason to disregard the entire body of work the person produced. But we lose a lot of work that isn’t really affected by those views and actions because we can’t disconnect it from the person involved in the creation.
What throws a wrench in that is when the person is still alive, and still profiting from those works. Hence why most of your queer/trans friends haven’t bought anything Harry Potter related in a while. Marilyn Manson is my personal example of this. I was a huge fan of his work as a teenager and well into my 20s. When all the stuff about what he did to Evan Rachel Wood came out, I stopped listening to his albums for a long time. I intentionally avoid streaming his tracks because I don’t want to give money to someone I see as abusive toward others, but those albums are still worthy of attention for what they say beyond that subject. Still, it’s hard to hear his voice and not think about what he did.
On the other side of that coin, those managing the estates of these creators that are gone need to be aware of what’s wrong with their charge as much as what’s right. The museum in this piece is doing it right at the end of the day - making the best of a lifetime of antisemitism.
I haven't read a ton of Dahl's work as a adult but I have been going through the Lovecraft collection and the racism is sort of baked into the work. I'm not saying throw it out if anything the only thing positive I can say is Lovecraft work probably wouldn't have worked so well if it wasn't his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way. I do however agree mostly with your other point that the big problem is supporting currently alive creators since consumption does sort of benefit them allowing them to push their views in the real world.
I'm not saying cosmic horror is inherently racist but how HP Lovecraft wrote it was absolutely inspired by his racism. Shadow over Innmouth could be seen as a very heavy handed metaphor for Interracial marriage. Also can't remember the actual name of the short story but HP Lovecraft for some reason found the need to point out a Jewish merchant gave someone a cheap or free Necronomicon, it was really on the god damn nose.
I mean I love the concept of cosmic horror but we would have to be blind not to see how racism especially HP Lovecraft version of it was heavily flavored by his bias and racism.
Ah, yes I can see that for sure. I wondered if you were arguing that the whole genre was racist because it rests on the idea of "fear of the unknown" as some folks seem to be. Lovecraft himself was a shithead, but that's kind of why I enjoy stuff like Lovecraft Country so much.
Lovecraft work probably wouldn’t have worked so well if it wasn’t his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way
I never really thought about it that way, but you’ve got a solid point. The people fear the unknown, and the unknown acts in ways that provoke and reinforce that fear, turns it into cosmic horror. If you were to take away the Cosmic part, all that’s left is the fear of the unknown.
To build on a reply I left above; Lovecraft’s work isn’t currently (to my knowledge) funding the KKK for example. He’s not diddling kids, or raping actresses; he’s dead. Is his estate racist? Are the royalties from his published works being used to embolden TERFs? Do lovecraft-estate-licensed board games hold anti-abortion rallies?
That’s the difference. When people don’t want to separate the art from the artists is when they’re out here doing actual harm still.
The problem is when you pay for their work and they use their money to exert undue influence for racist, homophonic, or transphobic causes.
I don’t recall the part where I have to spend my money on art that’s good. All this bullshit about “cancel culture” is basically people with gross ideas whining about the free market actually working.
I mostly agree with you, tho the issue I have deals more with the current batch of rapey Hollywood dudes and still being able to enjoy their incredible body of work.
I still can't bring myself to watch anything of Kevin Spacey's even tho some of his roles were astounding.
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