The #MeToo movement has exposed a number of men in Hollywood as sexual predators. Starting with Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, #MeToo’s momentum kept going, with comments sections in scores of articles worrying about the next shoe to drop; many wondered whether one of their favorite actors or directors would be next. By and large, it has been a good, if painful, process, and the worries about “witch hunts” are unfounded. But #MeToo has forced many of us into an uncomfortable position. What do you do with all those movies you like, when they’re made by someone you know to be a monster?
Take the “The Usual Suspects,” directed by Bryan Singer (who had dubious relationships with younger men) and starring Kevin Spacey in an iconic role. What do we do with “The Usual Suspects,” knowing what we know now? There are two ways to understand this question, first as a moral question, and second as a practical one. In a moral mode, the question is: what would be the ethical thing to do with movies made by vicious people, knowing what we know now? The practical version asks: what should I do with these movies, in light of what I know now? Many prioritize the moral question (see the post on #MeToo at Daily Nous); once you answer it, an answer to the practical question follows naturally. But I think the practical question could just as well come first, and indeed, I think that it actually does occur to us before the moral question. An uncomfortable feeling follows from knowing that one has enjoyed the work of a vicious person. I’ll call this the “grossness” phenomenon: it makes us uneasy to enjoy the work of a monster. But why does the grossness phenomenon arise at all?
I say “enjoy” rather than merely “consume,” because the phenomenon only seems to follow from enjoyment. If I consider Brett Ratner to be a hack, then learning that he’s a serial harasser won’t make me feel gross about my past consumption of his work. Not so for “The Usual Suspects”; since I like that movie, I might regret my past enjoyment, and forswear future viewings. “Consumption” also implies payment, which is also irrelevant to grossness. I might pass on watching “The Usual Suspects,” even if I could do so for free, without any royalty checks going to Singer.
One explanation for grossness says that the feeling comes from the intuition that it’s morally wrong to enjoy the work of a vicious artist. Our moral intuitions come first, and they infect our enjoyment of movies. This isn’t obviously true, though. Imagine you were satisfied by an argument that viewing movies by monsters is morally neutral; if you stumble upon a “Usual Suspects” DVD on the street and watch it in the privacy of your home, there’s no harm and no foul. But for many of us, the supposed moral neutrality of viewing might not matter. We would still feel gross, even as we’re convinced that we aren’t wronging anyone.
We might also think that grossness comes from the nature of aesthetic experience. We feel gross about engaging with art by bad people because there’s something peculiar to enjoying art that infects our sentiments. This misses the mark, however, since #MeToo moments have come to decidedly non-artistic media. Credible accusations against influential philosophers like Thomas Pogge and John Searle prompt their own moral and practical questions about their works, just like those above. So whatever grossness consists in has nothing to do with aesthetic enjoyment as such. It has to be something more basic.
When we recognize a movie, song, book, or philosophical text as good, we implicitly credit that goodness to the creator. A movie’s success is a success creditable to the people who made it. In short, you can’t call something a masterpiece without calling its creator(s) masters. If “Chinatown” represents neo-noir perfection, then that reflects well on Roman Polanski. The connection between enjoyment and credit to the creator might have exceptions, but it explains the asymmetry in our reactions to learning that an artist we like is a fiend, and learning that an artist we hate is a fiend. The latter doesn’t change our attitudes to the works in question, but the former does.
This in turn tells us why the grossness phenomenon occurs in the first place. Our enjoyment of art by vicious artists bothers us because it fosters cognitive dissonance in us. On the one hand, by enjoying their art, we credit these artists for their success. You’ve got to hand it to Polanski for his achievements in “Chinatown,” and that means a certain kind of respect is due. But that respect clashes with the contempt we feel towards Polanski for his crimes. As a result, we hold two incompatible attitudes towards the same person — respect for their achievements, and contempt for their character — and their incompatibility comes to the fore when trying to watch their movies. The grossness phenomenon consists in this dissonance, the difficulty in reconciling the respect for brilliance with hatred for vice.
Naturally, we don’t like cognitive dissonance. Opposing attitudes pull us in opposing directions. We want to enjoy masterpieces, while avoiding having anything to do with horrible people. To resolve this dissonance, we could give up one of the conflicting attitudes that creates the dissonance in the first place; we could give up our respect or contempt. But this is easier said than done, since those attitudes find footing in beliefs that are just as difficult to shake. Some people do, of course, change their minds in these situations. They avoid contempt by convincing themselves that the artist’s transgressions weren’t that bad, or avoid respect by thinking that they never really liked those works anyway. These responses are often more like rationalizing, however, rather than rational changes in view.
Our attitudes can also evolve without simply going away. Contempt can be resolved with forgiveness, acknowledging guilt while giving up feelings of blame. A “House of Cards” fan could admit Spacey’s guilt, but forgive him and continue to enjoy his work. But while forgiveness is often an option, it is typically reserved for people with a special standing, like victims. The casual Spacey fan, with no personal ties to Spacey, isn’t at liberty to forgive him; it would come off less as an act of mercy, and more as a cynical way to enjoy “American Beauty” without guilt. On the other hand, respect and contempt can turn into grudging respect, a complex tincture of admiration and disdain, like what Clarice Starling feels towards Hannibal Lecter. But living with grudging respect is just as hard as navigating a course between respect and contempt.
One popular suggestion claims that there is no dissonance here, since one can separate the art from the artist. Maybe you can enjoy Louis CK’s comedy while condemning Louis CK, because enjoying his comedy only means crediting its merits to his creativity and sense of humor, or to one aspect of him, but not his character as a whole. A stronger version of the separation claim denies that appreciation involves any sort of credit-giving; enjoying a work commits you to nothing more than the merits of that piece, not the skill of its creator. However, the modified credit claim (that merits only reflect well on skills) collapses into the original credit claim, since skills reflect well on their possessors, and while the separation claim (that merits do not necessarily imply credit at all) might be logically possible, it seems psychologically unrealistic. It claims that, while we might say that a film is good, that does not commit us to thinking that someone did a good job.
In all likelihood, there is no resolution to this kind of dissonance. Our heroes let us down all the time, as admirers of Bill Clinton know well in the #MeToo moment. Every person responds to this conflict in their own way, but for those of us who can’t stomach the dissonance, the only way to avoid the grossness is to avoid the things that trigger it: no more Polanski, no more CK, etc.
While the grossness-as-dissonance view explains our struggle with the practical issue of dealing with monstrous virtuosos, it doesn’t obviously give us a way forward with the moral issue: what does justice demand of us? Can a good person continue to enjoy the works of vicious artists without risking a morally vicious kind of cognitive dissonance? There are no easy answers here, but by understanding why we struggle this way in the first place, we do have a good start.
This post is published in partnership with the Institute of Art and Ideas.
Nate Sheff
Nate Sheff (@nr_sheff) is an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, mainly teaching ethics. He earned his PhD in 2017 for a dissertation on social ontology and social epistemology.
Can the following be qualified as a solution to the cognitive dissonance aporia?
If it’s only a matter of consumerism and entertainment, the casual viewer or fan stirs away from the profitable works of the abuser.
If it’s a matter of appreciating art and resonating with one’s own hang on someone’s artistic endeavor, then accepting the humanity of the artist, acknowledging the filth of their actions and yet answering to the yearning of interacting with their art while owning to it.
In the case of movies, more than the name of an abuser asssociated with, it’s the combination of many people’s dedication. House of Cards storyline and shooting are amazing. The performances of other cast members is brilliant. For one rotten fish in the package, should we throw the whole bag? If Kevin Spacey was shouldering the whole work sure, I can understand the guilt that would follow or the dilemna over the position to take as to his art. But in movies, the work transcends just one performance. The Usual Suspects story was the mind f**k people remember. Whether they associate it with the iconic scene of the limping guy no longer limping is not an excuse to dismiss the brilliant work that was conducted in shooting and writing this movie.
I believe embracing such pieces of art as the compound effort gives a broader perspective on how to handle them, if some famous name attached to them turns out to be of vile actions.
If it’s one person’s sole art exhibit and this person is denounced for their vile actions, I think, at least in my case, it will be mainly about the relationship I have with their art: if their art provides me with authentic relief and have been of a blissful support to my mental endeavors, I don’t think shunning it away would be an option. As much as I believe that much like a dentist’s outcome work, the artist’s one should be independent of them (it’s out, it’s for us to interact with, it used to be part of the person but it’s no longer the case), I understand it will not be an easy and linear application to artists. Personally, I would choose to live through the sufferance of knowing and come to the terms with the drastic emotions such a person has sprung into me.
Why is living through the pain, owning it up and letting it be felt not an option? I choose to suffer and manage my pain because of the dissonance, I choose to own it and live through it. That’s all.
What do you think?
Dear Nate Shaff,
“Can a good person continue to enjoy the works of vicious artists without risking a morally vicious kind of cognitive dissonance?” Yes, of course.
Many tend to forget that imagination is a fundamental aspect of literature, art, and philosophy. I doubt that Gillian Flynn, author of “Gone Girl,” has killed her old boyfriend, or wants to. Stephen King is probably not wildly evil, or even all that mean. Or Han Kang, who wrote “The Vegetarian,” might not be a vegetarian, or like to be painted naked by her sister’s husband, or even have a sister.
It may be difficult for many to distinguish the writer from his or her work, but it is important to do so. When we too quickly equate a person’s work of fiction with the person, it shows a lack of imagination more than moral reasoning.
Similarly, a post claims: “When we recognize a movie, song, book, or philosophical text as good, we implicitly credit that goodness to the creator.” Again, I don’t think art should necessarily be read morally. Actually, I think this is a lack of artistic sensibility. I also think that morally good or bad people can produce morally bad or good art.
Readers or viewers, of course, have every right to become political consumers and stop reading books by writers whose actions may be reprehensible. Still, I can read Jean Genet or Ulrike Meinhof (the brain behind the Baader-Meinhof Gang that operated in Germany in the 1970s) and not feel the urge to steal or kill. Sometimes the best literature can confuse us, nauseate us, or show us our moral flaws as well as our ignorance. So a good person is not, in my opinion, one who is moralizing but someone trying to cope with, understand, and change a world full of complexities.
Today, perhaps due to social media—especially Twitter—it’s easy to contribute blindly. There is a strong herd mentality on social media. Also, even among philosophers there is a tendency to be blindly and politically correct, merely stating obvious clichés. No one needs to read Kant or Spinoza to know about the wrongness of abuse or violence. Still, I fear that philosophers and artists can become too afraid to present ideas, thoughts, and emotions that confront most of us, due to the cowboy morals of the social media. At worst, artists’ and philosophers’ thoughts become common-sense pleasantry.
For example, recently it was debated whether a non-transsexual actor could play one, as if acting no longer is possible. The assumption is that only homosexuals, blacks, or addicts can write, act, or say anything as long as they themselves belong to or identify with that group. Does this mean that Cate Blanchett can’t play Bob Dylan again, as she did in “I’m Mot There” (2007)? Not only is she not a man but can she even sing or play the guitar? This level of imagination doesn’t contradict the need to operate broader, only to see beyond all these identity markers that tend to control or label much thinking today.
I think the challenge is to become aware of our cognitive dissonance, acknowledge it, and become honest instead of just “strategic,” polite, etc. If I can’t draw a distinction between a work of art and the artist who made it, that is a serious problem. Saying this, I know it’s difficult, because we are constantly confronted with unacceptable things. Personally, I’ve stopped reading or referring to Heidegger after learning of his Nazi connections. Of course, I can see that he is a brilliant philosopher, but I feel like turning my back on him. However, I wouldn’t call this moral reasoning; it’s more of a childish behavior, a convenient excuse not to read this difficult philosopher and perhaps a strategic way to gain some moral status. And yet, by reading him, I might develop a philosophic sensitivity that could make me behave better, far better than I would by just ignoring his work. One could argue that by not reading him I make myself less open and vulnerable to divergent ideas. I don’t think throwing the term “monster” around helps or develops any kind of decent reflection.
I recall my old philosophy professor said that she always tore off the back cover of a book. She never read reviews of a book before reading it, and, if possible, she even took off the author’s name before reading the book. She also did that when handing out papers. Why did she do so? To engage with a piece of philosophy or work of art without any prejudices. Unfortunately, whether the author is a male, female, white, black, religious, homosexual, trans, etc. affects many readers’ interaction with the work. They think in fixed labels.
What does it matter who is speaking? Nothing, only what is being said. What matters is what a piece of work can do. What does it produces or what forms of life it makes possible? In politics it’s different. The hypocrisy around Bill Clinton only shows why Americans are suffering with Trump today.
I don’t think you gave the strong separation claim a fair shake. In fact, I dare say that our appreciation for most of traditional western philosophy is based on it. I mean, Aristotle was an apologist for slavery, Rousseau abandoned his children, Kant was a misogynistic fool and Frege was a disgusting racist (just to cite a few!).
In particular, I think that appreciation of a work does not commit me to any inference with respect to its author (be it about her/his worthiness, decency or goodness). Why should I? We don’t judge works according to the same standards that we judge persons. I don’t think this is “psychologically unrealistic” at all, unless one is in the business of idolatry and adulation.