I first heard of this debate toward the beginning of the semester; I figure it has enough to do with ethics and moral dilemmas to speak about here. That being said, I also just find it interesting (and I’ve been listening to a reading of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, so my mind as been on art recently). The issue at hand: can you separate art from the artist? Or, rather, does a person’s character give their work a different context? Should you let it? Should art just be judged for art, or should art always have a meaning?
The ethical implications are large. Different forms of art have, quite literally, changed history. This picture by John Gast captured an era of expansion in American history. Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle inspired new regulations for meat factories and food products. But art also has subtle consequences on a society. For example, the singer R. Kelly has many songs and a relatively wide audience. But he is also a man who married a fifteen-year-old and has countless other sexually-based crimes alleged against him. Should his music still be listened to? Is R. Kelly as a person separable from his content? Is it morally okay to keep listening to his work, knowing what he has done?
Some argue that continuing to listen to R. Kelly’s music sends a message that his crime is excusable, because listening to his music generates him revenue and in effect rewards him. They argue that his music should be boycotted. Otherwise, society would be implicitly supporting his questionable values and decisions. Others disagree; they see R. Kelly as separate from his work. They argue that music should not be made political. After all, they say, music is escapist, meant for enjoyment, not for a political stance.
Both sides have merit. But there are even more discussions to be had about separating art from the artist. Take, for example, the idea of the politics of fiction—it is a school of thought that says an author should not write to send any sort of “message,” and that it is harmful to assume so. For example, imagine a Muslim writer who writes a story about a young Muslim girl. The Muslim writer is then automatically seen as the “representative” of her culture, and the burden of educating others lays on her shoulders. The idea of politics in fiction is that fiction should just be for entertainment, and that authors should only write what they want to.
But opponents argue that sometimes it is beneficial to write these stories that depict a certain culture and act as an educative source. Or, they argue, it can sometimes enrich a story if it is drawn from an author’s life. Take Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It has themes of parental neglect, when the scientist abandons his creature. The politics of fiction would say to ignore any possible “personal” meaning in the text, and just treat the story as it is: a story. But Mary Shelley’s mother died in childbirth, and she herself had other parental issues. These themes could have made a purposeful appearance in the text. Either way, it is an interesting debate.
So is art capable of being separated from its artist? It depends. But art itself permeates society. It can influence opinion and the way we see the world; certainly, whether we should separate it from its creator is a unique idea to think about. Either way, society stands to both benefit and lose depending on how art is framed.
The starting paragraph is good at introducing the situation and provides the framing question. I immediately understand what i will be reading in the following paragraph. The hyperlinks are used really well to instruct the audience if they wanna to learn more about the what’s going on. The argument is fresh and interesting. Taken two sides to argue whether art can be separated from the artists, it makes it more conceivable.