It’s famously difficult to define art, however, most definitions would agree that a work of art requires an artist. Art is a creation, so it would follow it requires a creator.
(I swear this isn't going to turn into a religious article, just stay with me.)
With all art having the pivotal creator/s, we can have a tendency to assume, or at least hope, that the works we love are created by people we would also love. This isn’t always the case––sometimes great works of art are made by artists who aren't what we would normally consider agreeable. This can happen a lot with celebrities––we’re always happy to hear that actor we like is a nice person but hate to hear that the writer we enjoy so much is a complete ass.
As a film student, I have done a good bit of research on the early silent film days and when you do, unfortunately, you always come across D.W. Griffith. Griffith was a master, he innovated film to a point that it would surely not be where it is today without him. And he also was a horrible racist.
Griffith’s most famous film, "The Birth of a Nation," portrayed black men as rapists and glorified the KKK, but it was also a masterwork of film making. Griffith and "The Birth of a Nation" are pretty easy to evaluate: we learn from the film making, acknowledge the problem that is the man who made it, but what do we do when it isn't so black and white?
Griffith portrayed his bias in his art, but that normally isn’t what happens. I was recently reading "Six Characters in Search of an Author," a play by Luigi Pirandello, and I loved it. Pirandello was, however, a giant Mussolini supporter. He even donated all his gold, including his Nobel prize for literature, to the war effort. Should I enjoy "Six Characters in Search of an Author" less because of that? I don’t want to but it made me have to at least rethink my stance. If I like the work of a raging fascist, does that say something about me?
At the end of the day, no, I am not a fascist because I like the work of one. This can be hard to talk about because some people feel differently than me but I try and look at artwork with a detachment from the author.
Nothing bugs me more than if I’m talking about some old book I like and someone chimes in, “Yeah but you know [insert author here] was a racist.” No, I most likely didn’t, but I don't want that affecting how much I liked the book; I don’t think I should throw out something I enjoy because some old white guy from a hundred years ago was racist.
Art has a statement to make and that's the one that matters to me. If someone wrote an amazing book but also beat their spouse, I would argue it's completely reasonable to celebrate the book and at the same time damn the author.
Maybe it would be better if we never knew who made the art we consume. It would let us enjoy art without those pesky questuionable creators screwing it up for the rest of us.
