“I wish I knew what to do with my life, what to do with my heart… I do nothing all day, boredom settles in, I look at the sky so I get to feel even smaller than I already feel and my mind keeps poisoning itself uselessly.” -Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journal Of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath’s writing has long been a source of comfort for me and it was disappointing to find a writer so skilful, that had plucked thoughts out of my mind and put them into words long before I was born, had been a raging antisemite and a racist. It’s deeply sad to find out that the creator of a book or an album you really like is a “problematic” person in real life-they may publicly endorse politicians or political ideals diametrically opposed to your own, they may be accused of having committed some heinous crime, they could be just plain mean to puppies. In the age of cancel culture and celebrity worship, when you are defined as an individual by the art you consume, an important question is: can you separate the art from the artist?
At first blush, it seems nonsensical (to me, at least). Separating the science from the scientist seems much easier. No course in quantum electrodynamics is taught without a mention of Richard Feynman, but of course, any flattering anecdotes about bongo-playing can easily be replaced with, “Hey, this guy gave some great lectures on the topic and introduced some cool diagrams and the propagator but he was kind of, no, very much a misogynist and he isn’t somebody you should idolize.” But this is only easy because science contains nothing to indicate the character of the creator, whereas an artist’s work is permeated with their spirit, inundated with their experiences, and prying the two apart is as anine as trying to reduce mayonnaise back to its constituent eggs and oil. I doubt it’s possible to watch Roman Polanski’s Tess, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles and have neither the sexual abuse case against him nor his self-confessed relationship with lead actress Nastassja Kinski (a minor at the time) come to mind.
Although Polanski was prosecuted way back in 1977, most other Hollywood big names that also had been abusing their notoriety were only held responsible with the rise of the #MeToo movement in 2018. The Weinstein effect, a term coined after American film producer Harvey Weinstein, is an effect where “allegations of sexual misconduct by famous or powerful men are disclosed.” Weinstein was much less of an issue as he’s more businessman, less artist, but it is true that the notion of ‘separating the art from the artist’ is usually brought up when allegations of a deplorable nature are levelled against artists and it mostly seems to be an excuse for people without any sociopolitical considerations to not change the way in which they consume the artist’s work. In India, while the #MeToo movement brought forward many people speaking out against powerful men, they were largely ignored. Allegations that were very much in the public eye led to repercussions for the perpetrators, but everyday women working in corporate India mostly had their claims dismissed, a trend echoed by the allegations against Netflix show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Twitter user @ivadixit said “That show was not just one star’s brilliance and charisma. The people whose labor made it what it was were treated horribly, and I’ve watched my friends break down from what they went through while working there.”
Josephine Livingston, in conversation with Jeet Heer in [this] post says “They wanted to undo the artist’s monopoly over the way we talk about their art. Not hand them a carte blanche to be monsters! It’s about power, not behavior.”
I’m in favour of drawing a hard line between the types of sins your favourite artists are committing. I don’t want to tell you where the line is because your line may not be the same as mine. The way I see it, there is a difference between watching an AIB video and enjoying it despite the fact that they fostered an environment that allowed predatory behaviour, and actively supporting and enabling the continued success of a convicted pedophile (or ephebophile, if you care about semantics).
Illustration by Dheeraj C L
Returning to Sylvia Plath, this is how I’ve decided to go forward with reading her work: it’s okay to consume the art and to meditate on it and be inspired by it as long as you acknowledge problematic behaviour on the creators part, and ensure your actions do not benefit the artist. Be critical, decide what in the material is problematic, and be aware of it. Maybe an artist’s work is less mayonnaise and more biryani with elaichi and it remains up to you to remove the elaichi before consuming it, to tell your friends, “Hey, there’s elaichi in this biriyani, and the person that made the biryani is not cool for that,”-remain mindful of how an artist’s shortcomings are reflected in their work-”and the elaichi has diffused its own flavour into the rest of the biryani but that’s okay as long as I know it’s there.”
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