{"id":663,"date":"2022-10-24T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=663"},"modified":"2022-10-25T18:10:37","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T22:10:37","slug":"when-can-you-separate-the-art-from-the-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2022\/10\/24\/when-can-you-separate-the-art-from-the-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"When Can You Separate The Art From The Artist?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Cancel Culture” is the magic phrase which appears whenever I stop listening to an artist for doing something heinous. Personally, I think that’s more of a reflection on you than me. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 10th, news broke that musician Rex Orange County had appeared in court charged with six counts of sexual assault<\/a>. The news broke the hearts of many fans of his work who felt betrayed by someone they looked up to and put upon a pedestal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a celebrity or artist in the public eye does something bad, there’s inevitably a discussion from more dedicated fans of that artist of whether or not you can “separate the art from the artist”. What this essentially means is that some people would like to believe that they can listen to the music of someone who does things they don’t agree with without inherently supporting them as a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this discussion isn’t as cut and dry as some people would like to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People like to fret these days about the “cancel culture” boogeyman. I’ve seen numerous people complain about people being too sensitive regarding this subject because they should be able to separate the art from the artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This raises two issues for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first issue is the laughable notion that those who wish to see people stop listening to an artist are doing so because of a vain reason. Some Beatles fans find it appalling that John Lennon is looked upon in a less than stellar light for beating his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not being accused of beating his wife, mind you, but admitting to beating his wife on a track from one of the most acclaimed albums of all time. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s no exaggeration either, he even refers to the lyric “I used to be cruel to my woman, I’d beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved” as autobiographical <\/em><\/strong>in a Playboy interview from 1980.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lori Mattix, a notable “groupie” from the 1970s has been confirmed by biographers and numerous other sources to have dated Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page when she was thirteen,<\/a> and has also claimed that she slept with rockstars such as David Bowie and Mick Jagger when she was fourteen.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Bowie, lest we forget, went through a period in the 1970s where he advocated for fascism and called Adolf Hitler “one of the first rockstars”. <\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are these small things? Would you call them insignificant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other big issue I have with those who ride the “separate the art from the artist” train are those who claim that they can listen to the music because it’s not related to what they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Lennon autobiographical lyrics aside, I just cannot get behind this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Rex Orange County, for example. The article in The Sun which first exposed these accusations said that he is being charged with sexually assaulting a woman six times in two days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been a fan of his for years prior to these accusations. Going back to some of these songs now, it’s impossible to enjoy them in the same way. Best Friend <\/em>doesn’t sound like a cute exploration of rejection, it reads more like a manipulation as Rex croons that the subject of the song is going to “wanna be his best friend, baby”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about Michael Jackson? As I’ve grown up, I’ve tried to defend listening to Michael Jackson to people. I’ve cried out that accusers have changed their story or that children who knew Jackson have come to his defense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point though, I just can’t do that anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to Jackson sing his heart out about love and romance, I can’t help but be skeeved out from this man who very well might be a pedophile singing about how much he loves this person. It just doesn’t feel right anymore.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I going to judge you if you want to listen to these artists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just get annoyed when people jump on their high horse and proclaim that people who are upset hearing about these things are ‘triggered snowflakes.’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s immensely irritating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won’t judge you for listening to David Bowie because he’s an extremely popular and talented musician. I’m at the point with Bowie where I’ll occasionally go back and listen to his early 1970s work just because it has meant so much to me in the past and because it’s character work, it’s so far removed from the reality of who he was as a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t go seeking out new David Bowie albums anymore though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say people can listen to whatever music they want to listen to. I think it’s a stretch to say that people have a responsibility to only listen to “unproblematic” artists, but I do think people should be aware of who’s making the music they’re listening to because at the end of the day, it’s a reflection of who you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just don’t try to degrade me for deleting Rex Orange County from my playlist. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Cancel Culture” is the magic phrase which appears whenever I stop listening to an artist for doing something heinous. Personally, I think that’s more of a reflection on you than me. On October 10th, news broke that musician Rex Orange County had appeared in court charged with six counts of sexual assault. The news broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-featured-news-article","category-opinions","entry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Matthew Mahr","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/matthew-mahr\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}