Terrible person = terrible at job

@biscuitandcake

Besides which I actually think you get a lot of JKR's values/beliefs in the books anyway. There is a lot about standing up for what you believe in, institutional capture etc.

There’s even a little bit about women’s privacy and vulnerability; Hermione is able to go into Harry and Ron’s dorm room, but when they try to go to hers, the staircase turns into a slide and magically sends them down while a siren wails. IIRC, the Hogwarts founders didn’t want boys in the girls’ dormitories, but they thought girls were more trustworthy than boys.

But I think there are a lot of people wanting to have their cake (claiming the goblins in HP are antisemitic and that makes JKR bad) and eat it (claiming that artists don't truly own the works they create so its fine for them to continue their HP fandom).

I know, right?!

Before I heard people talk about this, it never occurred to me that someone might look at the goblins in HP and think of Jews. I was born in 1986, so I was the first generation to grow up with the books. Jewish stereotypes in my generation were about complaining a lot, and interfering mothers who wanted all their sons and sons-in-law to be doctors or lawyers. Jews as swarthy money-grabbers with long noses wasn’t really a thing presented in ‘90s/‘00s culture, at least not in US (I’m American).

The mists of Avalon has rape/sexual violence/coercion/general weird sex stuff as part of the plot though. Which makes sense given the world its set in, and the fact its main concern is women with shifting relationships to power. But, I can understand why, on finding out more about her, some people might find it too icky. Some parts of the book are uncomfortable but OK so long as you aren't worrying that the author was secretly getting of on it.
It is still a very well written book. People have every right to enjoy it. But its also human nature to feel squeamish about it. I think its up to people how far they separate the author from the book in their own mind. Neither is wrong or irrational.

What annoys me is when JKR gets lumped in with people like Gaugin/MZB in debates over "separating the art from the artist". Someone having different political opinions (even if they are unpleasant or racist) is completely different to being a child rapist. Besides which I actually think you get a lot of JKR's values/beliefs in the books anyway. There is a lot about standing up for what you believe in, institutional capture etc. But I think there are a lot of people wanting to have their cake (claiming the goblins in HP are antisemitic and that makes JKR bad) and eat it (claiming that artists don't truly own the works they create so its fine for them to continue their HP fandom).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. 🙁 His wife had MS and was in a wheelchair; he stabbed her over thirty times, stabbed the pets, and stabbed himself 47 times.

If we're talking Arthurian legends then Thomas Malory was a rapist and serial violent criminal. Wrote Le Morte d'Arthur during one of his spells in prison.

I've loved The Mists of Avalon since my early 20s, best retelling of the Arthurian legends I've ever read, but I didn't know anything about MZB...just looked up her Wiki page and OMG!

You're kidding me? He wrote A Friend For Little Bear, which my littlest adores! Fuck.

Ever heard of a writer named Harry Horse? His real name was Richard Horne, and he wrote some very sweet picture books about a little rabbit. In 2007, he stabbed his disabled wife to death, killed their pets, and killed himself.

I still like the Little Rabbit books.

It's true that terrible people can be very good at what they do, but really it's the fully paid-up subscribers to identity politics who don't seem very keen on meritocracy. They make it all about ideological purity or authenticity or representation. (They change the criteria from situation to situation.)

As for these two, I've tried reading one Neil Gaiman novel and found it cringeworthy. Not my kind of thing. David Tennant is okayish. Not terrible but not first rate. He's good at playing OTT roles but a bit flat when he tries anything more grown-up or emotional. I've seen him on stage a few times and he is much better at comedy than drama.

I agree. I've never liked or really had any interest in David Tennant and I've quite enjoyed some of Gaiman's novels (but absolutely DESPISED the crappy guff that his Sandman comics are to the point where I felt irrationally insulted by how terrible they were) - but one of the best novels I have ever read is The Mists of Avalon and the author of that book was downright evil, there's no other way to describe her.

Yes, but I don't want surgeons to put their own creative spin on their work, or personalise it in any way (though I am sure it is a job that requires creativity, they should not be pushing the boundaries in the name of "art. Although some surgeries you do wonder...)

It's not just creatives and performers. Some of the best and most skilful surgeons I've known have been deeply unpleasant human beings, horrible to those working with them and/or possessing eyebrow-raising political or religious beliefs. I still have no doubt about their competence in the operating theatre or their ability to make treatment decisions based on best available evidence.

I don't think artists have to be good people to make art. But I do think, I don't know how to put this in a non-weird way, but something of the artists soul goes into the painting/book/music etc in great art. (Or to be less wooo, their value systems and experiences). For example, you can sort of tell that JRR Tolkein or Neville Shute to their core actually liked people and humanity. I do think that comes out in their books. And a lot of Paul Gaugin's paintings already have a really uncomfortable sickly feeling to them due to the light and colour. They might sit right on the border of "uncomfortable therefore art", but knowing what he was sort of tips them over the edge into actively unpleasant. And that's before you get to the paintings of naked 14 year old girls. Its hard to separate the art from the artist when the artwork is of the child the artist was sexually abusing at the time. That doesn't mean Gaugin should be cancelled. But it does mean that some people won't be able to enjoy his art or want to look at it.

The same with Gaiman - there is nothing wrong with continuing to read Sandman etc. But also, its fine to go of the books now more is known about the author.

There has to be middle ground between "cancel all who are not completely morally pure" and "the art is completely seperate from the artist. They are but a vessel". I know most of that is completely irrelevant to Gaiman or Tennant. But the phrase is used all the time and I don't think its truthful.

I was a big admirer of Tennant: Hamlet, Jessica Jones, Casanova, but there has been a definite drop in quality over the last few years - I’d been saying this before he started spouting his drivel.
When he appeared with other celebrities on Derren Brown’s show I thought he showed real intelligence and thoughtfulness compared to the knee jerk reactions of others … that seems a long time ago now.

I do separate the artist from the art - I listen to Wagner and the Jacksons; I read books by authors who have bad reputations and have opinions I disagree with; I am in awe of Picasso’s achievements despite knowing of his misogyny.

I’ve been having trouble recently though. Whenever there is a drama where a trans person plays their pretend sex I cannot take it seriously. I had to stop watching the recent series of Ripley, and I'm not sure I can be bothered with the new House of the Dragon - it’s funny that I can suspend my disbelief to watch dragons, but I cannot stretch it to accept a lumpy great big bloke is a woman.

I should add that of course I have no problem with trans people playing trans people, or non binary people playing their actual sex - I just can’t bring myself to join in their game of ‘let’s pretend’.

Very well put, WhereYouLeftIt. I've had the same experience with those comedians. If you're going to be an outrageous comedian, you have to make sure you're not punching down. But a fervent belief in gender ideology, coupled with the latent misogyny I think we all have, seems to result in a massive blind spot for so many.

@WhereYouLeftIt I've had that experience with Marilyn Manson and Till Lindemann. Can't listen to their music anymore. I also went right off Adam Savage when the allegations his sister made came out.

I like David Tennant as an actor, not so much as a person. Of NG's work I've only read Stardust and I <whispers it> thought the film was better.

I always feel like women are held to a higher standard than men, hence the sheer amount of vitriol directed at JK Rowling. Haven't seen anything like that directed at these men.

Thinking about this, I realised that although I have never said anyone is bad at their job just because I found them personally disappointing, I have stopped liking their work. I wonder if, for some people, not liking their work any more turns into being "labeled as being rubbish at their job".

To explain - two comedians I used to find funny were Frankie Boyle and Joe Lycett. After Boyle's jibes about Katie Price's son Harvey, listening to him just left me cold. Lycett's routine 'Samantha Peterson & The Private Investigator' did the same. Yes I know it's probably a complete fiction, but the idea of him finding fun in making a female office manager's working days a misery just flicked that switch in my head and now seeing him onscreen irritates me.

So, two comedians who can no longer make me laugh. Does that mean that they are "rubbish at their job"? No, other people still find them funny. But they are rubbish at their job of making me laugh now. I wonder if some people generalise that, so that 'being rubbish at their job for me' turns into 'being rubbish at their job full stop'.

I couldn't watch Jessica Jones because DT was terrifying. He was TOO good at his job...

I lived/loved/inhaled Sandman at the time and I'm really grateful to have had that experienced unsullied.
Luckily it's been many years since I read it and so whilst I enjoyed it then, I don't feel sad not going back there, and I never enjoyed his novels as much as the comics and gave up reading him around 8 years ago.

So I've been thinking about how it feels now to view all this through the lens of today, this minute.
It's not raw to me to let go of his work like it might be for someone who eat/pray/loves NG now. It's not a conflict in my heart. For a while now he's been awful, just awful on social media, so disrespectful to women that I just lost all respect for him.

Sandman was a great dark and wild party back in the day, it was also the work of a host of illustrators and the very talented Dave McKean.

But like all parties it ended. And now it seems that one of the guys at the party was preying on girls. When he would go to work with those other creatives in that team he was doing a job of crafting a commercial story with them. He's a good writer. He was attractive. He can use words to manipulate emotions and cause reactions.

The same skills to make those stories resonate was how he crafted his public persona.

The visual image of him violently assaulting young women until they scream or pass out is so vile that there's not really any coming back from that.

When I see his name across the spine of a book on my shelf now I can hear his voice, a voice that now turns from being soft and undulating and comforting to something hard and brutal and ugly. The spell is broken. Instead of being a wise wizard he's a gnashing Cenobite.

I don't need that kind of writer guy on my shelf and his work is a drop in the ocean given all the other writers out there yet to be discovered.

The King is dead, Long live the Queen.

I think it's because people feel an emotional connection to books, films, music, art etc that they enjoy, and by extension an emotional connection to the creators. No one ever says of an accountant accused of abuse, "well, I never thought much of his adding up anyway."

So I think part of denouncing their work is to show that you don't identify with them in any way, you have nothing in common with an abuser, no connection.

Also there's a bit of superiority. "While everyone else was taken in by him, I could tell from his books he was a wrong 'un and always thought they were all crap."

And I think an element of self-protection. One of my favourite books as a child was Earthfasts by William Mayne. I loved it, read it repeatedly. Then in my early twenties I read in the paper that Mayne had been convicted of historic child abuse offences. And it hurt, even though I knew I had no right to be hurt. Something that meant so much to me came from the imagination of an abuser. And I wished I could say I never liked it anyway. But I can't. It's a beautifully written, magical story that was just what I needed when I first found it, and it's hard to square that in my mind with the person that Mayne turned out to be. And if I could lie to myself and pretend it was never any good my conscience would feel better.

I agree OP.

I still love His Dark Materials trilogy despite disappointment in Philip Pullman's belief in trans ideology. A stance that is utterly at odds with the messages in his books too. But I can get lost in the books without thinking about him.

Someone like Alice Roberts is more difficult, because her actual job is to communicate science to ordinary people; her luxury beliefs are more dangerous in this capacity.

As a side issue, there was also a lot of chat about DT's weedy appearance. I know it was funny in the context of the t-shirt. But I have personal (playful, not traumatic) experience of the fact fit, muscley women are not automatically stronger than stringy skinny lightweight men. The difference in muscle fibres and lung capacity between the sexes really does count for a lot.

It's funny really. In my case , I'd already started to get fed up with David' Tennant's "chewing the scenery" style of acting long before I heard his views.
And I grew out of Gaiman's work years ago. I re read some of it and it just seemed juvenile to me as an adult. And yes, the misogyny was never far below the surface.

The test case for me would be Jamila Jameel. I still love her as Tahani in The Good Place despite thinking she's an absolute imbecile irl.

These days I just keep in mind that any male whose creative output I've enjoyed is probably a wrongun in private and we're just waiting for the full scale of his depravity to be revealed.

It's like in GC circles when I see all the fangirling of Graham Linehan and the like and I think, yeah just wait and see. Actually he's already out as an abrasive dickhead who says horrible things to women he doesn't like so no need to even wonder there.

Knowing what idiots the TRA crowd looks when they criticise JKR's writing unfairly because they disagree with her views (when they were prior fans), I try to be mindful of knee jerk criticism just because an author etc has said something I disagree with.

I have liked DTs acting but I'm not as familiar with NG's work (mainly through Good Omens and Pratchett).

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, but coming in a close second are His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (who has expressed some pro TWAW views). I find his blindness on this issue fascinating and ridiculous because if he had deliberately written a warning about the types of seemingly good/kind people who want to "protect" children from puberty then he couldn't have done it better.

However, having seen him make scathing comments about JKR and the popularity of the Potter books prior to all of this, I reckon if she had shown up on the TWAW side then he would have taken the GC side. He's sees himself as a better writer because his work is more literary and I think he's jealous of her success.

I can still enjoy the worlds and characters he has created whilst thinking he's pompous and wrong about JKR and trans stuff. I hope he has the courage and self awareness to realise how bad it all is and can see how his own work calls it out one of these days.

When it gets to people who have actually done wrong like John Lassiter (Pixar) I think it's easy to see the male centric culture in the output of the studio long before his behaviour was widely known. I think your female characters are always going to seem generic, token and paperthin if the work culture doesn't value the voice of women. Pixar as it was couldn't have made Turning Red.

I suppose that misogynists can have good observation skills, but their work is going to be limited by those views in some way.