France is getting it...

'I did not say or imply that it is ok to drug and rape someone. '

This thread is about RP. He did drug and rape a child. Your post then is not referring to RP but other people? Who are you thinking of, or is it theoretical?

'No one has even said anything like "we should let rapists carry on or it would be a disaster for the arts"'

One poster has been pretty hand-wringy on that score.

'There are people who think we should not show the works of people who were bad, that this implies they were ok'

I don't recall anyone saying that on the thread although it is a long thread so maybe I missed it. The hand-wringy poster has talked multiple times about destroying/ removing works of art by the likes of picasso, which felt like a straw man, as like I say, I haven't seen calls for that on the thread. More people saying it felt crass to give RP this award, which is quite a different thing.

I'll ignore the random insults not sure what that's about. This is just a conversation. You're not just talking to me you're talking to everyone on the thread and any of them can reply. Felt a bit personal when you say 'talking to you' not sure why you'd do that.

You know, FrogsFrogs, it is really difficult to talk to you because you don't seem to actually read or take in what has been written down. It's like you're an evangelical looking for proof texts.

I did not say or imply that it is ok to drug and rape someone. Saying it's not abnormal to be attracted to someone does nor equate to "it is ok to rape them." Saying liberal culture at a particular time failed to recognise that teenagers, though sexual, need to be protected from exploitation, and that view influenced many people, does not equate to saying it is ok to rape people. Those words are not there. And I am a little pissed off that you think it is ok to suggest that's what I am saying.

No one has even said anything like "we should let rapists carry on or it would be a disaster for the arts". That's seriously not the question.

There are people who think we should not show the works of people who were bad, that this implies they were ok. We live in a time where in some countries, people feel that any depiction or memorialisation of a person who is later seen as bad should be removed, they should be struck from public recognition.

No one has suggested its great to keep Polanski around to make films.

The idea that getting rid of abusive men would be a disaster for the arts

Is highly sexist
And ignores the loss of the work of all the female artists who have been unable to operate within the current structures due to old boys club, having their careers ruined, stopping because of abuse etc

Which is also highly sexist.

'I don't think it's abnormal as such to be sexually attracted to someone once they have entered puberty, but that's why it's really important to have firm boundaries around that and for adults to be especially responsible. Unfortunately that period in the 60s and 70s had some really poor messages going on in some parts of society as a result of the sexual revolution, and in that sense I don't think it's surprising that teen girls were admitted to many adult situations'

So much no here.
Drugging and raping people has always been wrong.
Ding and raping 14yo anally is not a grey area, now or ever.
The people who were trying to 'blur boundaries' were men eg Hugh Heffner and pals with sugar and spice, who saw an opportunity. They were always interested in girls though. It was nothing new.
Blaming the sexual Revolution, usually linked to feminism, on the drugging and rape of a child feels particularly off.

" If we found out that the man who invented the pneumatic tire was a rapist, I don't think many people would feel some sort of moral obligation to stop using those tires."

No one has suggested banning, destroying or removing art which has already been created, on this thread. One person has implied that's what everyone wants, but no one has said it

It's a very long post maybe I'll come back for the rest later but I suspect it's more of the same.

You either stop consuming it, or you don't. You don't encourage them to keep creating new work, thus exposing more of the women and girls they work with to predatory behavior, and on an industry level you stop publicly celebrating them with not a single nod to why there are people demonstrating against your doing so. If you look at their work through the lens of what you now know about them you might find you feel differently about it, or you might not (I could not watch Tess now, for example, and even at the time it was made Death and the Maiden had me in a rage).

What seems to be wanted here is some sort of "it's OK though, you can still love his films" collective answer. I don't think she's going to get that on a feminist forum.

To answer your initial question very simply, Upfield - yes, "talented men" need to start losing their careers, and in their prime rather than after they're already retired, in order for the predatory behavior to stop. As long as that doesn't happen the other predatory men have no reason to stop what they're doing, from their perspective, as they can clearly see that being publicly outed as a predator will have very little impact on their career. Which is partly because of bog standard misogyny and also partly because of the specific adulation given to "talented men" (and almost never to talented women).

I'm not really sure that answers the OPs question, since she's said she thinks he ought to have gone to prison. And presumably anyone else committing crimes should go to prison.

The question is how do you deal with their work.

I think this conversation is going in a weird direction - how we should treat and think of art created by people who were very bad in some way is a long standing question and people have a lot of different ideas about it. And many find any of the possible solutions dissatisfying. It's not an odd conversation and I think it often can be helpful to discuss things like this in order to put our thoughts in order or we may discover things we hadn't thought of.

There are a few points that strike me:

It seems clear that being a shit is not incompatible with being a great artist, not only technically, but in terms of feeling and insight. I think most people are comfortable with the first part of that statement but not so much the second. It seems wrong that someone can have the sensitivity or insight to create the greatest artworks and also be capable of considered evil. Maybe that is in itself an important insight to have though, and it seems to be one we want at times to wash out or cover up.

Usually this problem is much easier with regard to people who lived in the past, both because most people realise that social norms inform all of us in how we think of our actions, and also because it's clear the person is no longer doing bad things or benefitting from our appreciation of their work. Practically, too, if we stoped looking at, listening to, artists who did some really bad things, we might find we are having to dispense with huge amounts of work.

It's interesting that we seem to consider this mainly in connection to the arts. If we found out that the man who invented the pneumatic tire was a rapist, I don't think many people would feel some sort of moral obligation to stop using those tires. Yet it's a kind of creative endeavour, engineering, as is science at times, architecture. What's the difference?

Specifically in the case of RP, I think there are a lot of confounding factors. He is still alive, but it's not just a person with a body of work who committed crimes we find really morally repugnant. I suspect if he had gone to prison, it would seem simpler - it's the fact that he has really escaped justice that adds to the difficulty and also that he seems to have gained no perspective over time.

I don't think it's abnormal as such to be sexually attracted to someone once they have entered puberty, but that's why it's really important to have firm boundaries around that and for adults to be especially responsible. Unfortunately that period in the 60s and 70s had some really poor messages going on in some parts of society as a result of the sexual revolution, and in that sense I don't think it's surprising that teen girls were admitted to many adult situations. Quite a few people who were alive then (my mother being one of them) have since realised those were not good situations and that a lot of exploitation went on. Time has revealed this pretty clearly really.

RP though had a particular fetish for very young women, and still seems to see no problem with that way of thinking about human sexuality, that anyone who is old enough to have an interest in sex, feel desire, can enter the sexual marketplace, and sex itself is a purely hedonistic act, an act of the moment. It's a kind of amoral view of reality.

What this makes me think is that it comes back to that question, how can someone be so insightful in their art, and yet do something that seems like calculated evil. Lots of people who did bad thing sin the sexual revolution were essentially taken up in the way things were going, in their own immaturity. RP actually embraced the whole thing intellectually, even spiritually, you can see that Nietzschean view reflected in his films as well. It's bleak and inhuman, but there is a logic and also a kind of honesty that can be startling.

Anyway, I think Chinatown is maybe the greatest film I've ever seen, but I don't watch it any more, because I am too uncomfortable with RP being at large, and that I would be funding him. Maybe if he was in prison or having to live as a hermit because of social rejection, I's feel differently. That's what should happen. I would not want to see those films taken out of the canon though, or never shown again, or anything like that.

To answer your initial question very simply, Upfield - yes, "talented men" need to start losing their careers, and in their prime rather than after they're already retired, in order for the predatory behavior to stop. As long as that doesn't happen the other predatory men have no reason to stop what they're doing, from their perspective, as they can clearly see that being publicly outed as a predator will have very little impact on their career. Which is partly because of bog standard misogyny and also partly because of the specific adulation given to "talented men" (and almost never to talented women).

You may disagree with how I value the arts, Kittens, as you've said that you think that the world would be just fine without films, but I'd say you're either in the minority or you're being dishonest.

This is an attack made because you're feeling defensive and lashing out. You realise that, right? Nobody has said that the arts don't matter, nor did I say that it would be fine if there were no films at all. I said that I think the world would be fine without this particular man's films, or the films of anyone else with a similar history of predation. This would still leave a whole lot of films as, like I said, Polanski is less Generic Sleazy Creep and more Harvey Weinstein.

You're coming across very poorly here and going all "well I guess you just don't value art then!" isn't helping.

Yeah I'm not sure.

You talk about talented men losing their careers when another way to phrase it would be abusive criminals

You have mentioned more than once once the idea of destroying work already in existence while literally noone else has mentioned that. And brought picasso and Gauguin into it, and said well should their work be removed from galleries. These feel a bit straw-manny to me or at least a distraction.

simply for asking how to manage an abusive man's body of work.

I accused you of prioritising his work above child rape because you want a conversation about how it should be managed.

He has not served his sentence for his crime. He should be shunned by polite society and his work ignored, in my opinion.

I don't find your response of "bullshit" particularly persuasive.

Haha, stop gaslighting, I've been accused of horrible things on this thread simply for trying to have a conversation about the questions this raises for the arts, which I've risen above for the most part. I think it's valid to call bullshit on being accused of 'putting child rape to one side' personally, simply for asking how to manage an abusive man's body of work. I have in fact engaged with your point in response to kittens, stating that perhaps indeed it is necessary for talented men to lose their careers in order to create a better environment for women. You're really scraping the barrel here.

I have engaged and made a suggestion in response to your point that the arts will be lessened if the dodgy men are cut out, that you haven't mentioned at all. I think the result could be a massive enrichment of the arts.

The idea I'm not engaging with your points is just not true.

Also no one has accused you of talking 'bullshit' but you have said that to a couple of posters now. Why not relax and engage with the conversation rather than getting so defensive?

Frogs Yes, I initially thought he had fled the country whilst awaiting trial, but that it was well-known that he is guilty. I had no doubts that he was guilty, so don't know why you keep banging on about this or why that makes any difference to the question I'm asking about how to manage his creative work. You seem to want to suggest I can't possibly say anything of any value because I wasn't aware of the ins and outs of his case. I don't think it's relevant if I knew if he had already been tried or not to the other points I'm making, you seem just to want to jump up and down pointing your finger at me shouting 'haha, you got that wrong!' without having any engagement with the questions I'm asking. I also of course agree that abusive men in the industry and a general atmosphere of sexism makes things difficult for women to get ahead, obviously.

You did say what should be done with him and suggested it would be good for him to be tried in USA but sadly that won't happen.

At that point you didn't seem to really have the facts of the situation to hand so you can't be surprised when you are met with challenges.

You haven't responded to the point that removing abusive men from these areas might well have the effect of enriching the arts rather than the reverse.

I'd also argue that great works of art, in any medium, have a value in spite of who made them. They demonstrate the possibility of a medium, innovation and what can be achieved in a particular genre by human creativity and I wouldn't want to see them boycotted or destroyed for that reason. At the same time, despite the delightful accusations of being a child rape apologist on this thread, I don't wish for corrupt men to profit from their work. You may disagree with how I value the arts, Kittens, as you've said that you think that the world would be just fine without films, but I'd say you're either in the minority or you're being dishonest. For most people the arts enrich life to the point that they are held as being essential. The outrage at Isis destroying Palmyra is a good demonstration of this - and no, that's not to say there should be more focus on this than the loss of life, but it shows how much arts are valued. I stated very clearly I wanted to question what to do with the work of someone like Polanski rather than give any kind of defence of the man himself, but instead with engaging with this question I've had allsorts of repulsive accusations thrown at me. The question I'm asking is exactly the one that needs to be asked by the academies doling out these awards to people like Polanski, but they're not.

France does not have a Catholic Conservative govt.

Well, why do people need to enjoy anything? The work exists and people do enjoy it, that's a fact, so much so that this can lead to letting off reprehensible behaviour. That reality is the reason I'm asking if there's a way to enjoy the work without the artist making a profit. Easier to manage in the Glitter case as he's in jail.

way for the work to still be enjoyed

But why is that needed? Every time "the art" is prioritised abusive men take comfort and carry on abusing.

I

testing you're frankly talking bullshit and haven't engaged with anything I've said to suggest I'm putting child rape aside in any way at all. Interesting you mention Gary Glitter though, as one of his songs was recently featured in the Joker movie. There was some controversy over this, but it was reported that Glitter made no profit from the use of his song. Something like this is actually what I'm wondering, is there any way for the work to still be enjoyed and for the criminal to not profit?