Problematic creators

I guess we have to do this

I finished this piece almost a month back, but then Trump took office and this subject felt a lot less urgent. I have things to say about America’s current…predicament, but the sudden allegations against BookTuber Daniel Greene a few days ago made me decide that there’s never a good time to talk about this, but it needs to be talked about anyhow.

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I’ve been putting this off for years now. I think for me the question of what to do next started with Sherman Alexie in 2018. Then Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2019 (which just broke my heart).

And I know in the scope of problematic creators, these are very small fish—much more famous people have also been found to be trash humans. I’ve not consumed their stuff and generally tried to avoid mentioning or thinking about the J.K. Rollings and Diddys of the world, just not giving them attention or free rent in my brain. And I’ve found it pretty easy to do so, since I was wasn’t particularly attached to their art.

But this Neil Gaiman situation going from ‘bad’ to ‘OMFGJCWTF 😱’ is just…..OW. It hits hard for me as a big fan of Gaiman’s work.

So I have to do this, I guess. Reckon with it all.

My initial reaction is to endlessly cycle between these two lines of thought:

1. Maybe a good way to handle this is to have like a surgeon general’s warning for art. “This piece was made by a trash human. Consume at your own risk.” To contextualize and inform consumers about what they are consuming, so they can make intelligent personal decisions about what they read / watch / listen to. Because we don’t want to veer into book-banning land, we don’t want to tell people what they can and can’t consume. And maybe there are good conversations to be had around ‘death of the author’ and consuming a work critically for strains of the creator’s trashiness seeping in (lookin’ at you, Orson Scott Card). And because human nature is not always nice or good, and delving into all parts of it could arguably be part of the purpose of art.

2. But then I think….why? Why are we giving the thoughts of trash humans huge platforms? Why do we continue to recommend and promote the work of people who stand for things we protest in the streets against? Is death of the author really just an excuse to enjoy whatever art we want to enjoy without doing the hard, heartbreaking work of this reckoning? And I’m not even talking about book banning here, or dictating what people can and can’t enjoy, just taking attention away from the trash humans and instead spotlighting non-trash humans who also create art? Because as we know from the Penguin Random House trial that for every blockbuster book published, there are dozens (hundreds?) of books published that are virtually unknown to readers at large. Almost every art form has its few attention-grabbing superstars. Which means there are so many artists making incredible art that are just waiting to be discovered. Sherman Alexie doesn’t need to be the only contemporary Native American writer we’ve heard of (might I recommend Rebecca Roanhorse and Chris La Tray to start?). I’m not claiming they are paragons of human perfection, but I don’t have to do a twisted mental rationalization to feel okay about consuming their art. Or donate to a non-trash human artist after consuming a trash human’s art to expunge my sin. Would the world be a better place if we actively championed the work of non-trash humans, work that is equally brilliant but doesn’t bring strains of trash winding through our culture, normalizing cruelty? Can we put the final nail in the coffin of the narrative that artists must be hurt people who hurt people as ‘the price’ of making great artwork?

   But people really should decide for themselves what to consume….

And round and round I go. For years.

But this Gaiman…. (alleged) monstrosity. It’s made me realize that part of the problem with reckoning with problematic artists isn’t about the art or the artist. It’s about identity and community.

There’s so much to unpeel here. There’s the art I consumed at formative, sometimes fragile times in my life, that spoke to me in such a profound way, or defined the moment so perfectly, that the art became a part of my identity. I can’t think about my first major breakup without thinking about Tori Amos’s Boys For Pele album. I can’t think about my time living in Muwekma-Tah-Ruk, the Native American co-op on campus, without the Indigo Girl’s Rites of Passage playing in the background of my memory.

I can’t think about Neil Gaiman without remembering a warm Palo Alto day. I had shown a visiting friend a short story I had written for class, where gods & goddesses roamed the earth. When we went to the comic book shop, he asked me very excitedly if I had read Neil Gaiman, because my piece reminded me of his Sandman series. When I said I had not, my friend bought me Brief Lives, which was in the middle of the Sandman series but he thought I would like it best. That was almost 30 years ago, and I still have that book.

When we learn that the artist who became the lynch pin of these moments of connection or deep recognition or understanding is a trash human, what happens to these memories? For me, this is a treasured moment of a treasured friendship. I’m not letting it go. But it is also now associated with a discomfort, a taint, of knowing that the human who facilitated that particular moment of connection is trash because he was cruel to other humans. Do I just accept that there will be some discomfort in this memory from now on? Do I push the discomfort aside, because the moment between friends was more important then the art that made that moment? Is that fair to the memory? Is that fair to the women Gaiman (allegedly) abused?

What about being a fan? There is deep community in fandom. If I meet you and you say that you are a Gaiman fan, up until last year it’s very likely a bond would have started to form right at that point, because the kind of person who likes Gaiman’s work (is?) (was?) My Kind of Person. Being a fan of an artist not only partially defines who I am, it defines a community I want to belong to. And now what? What happens to that community when the artist at the heart of it is a trash human? I think about the Harry Potter fans that attend(ed?) yearly conventions where they go (went?) to celebrate the art, themselves, and each other. If they feel like they can’t continue celebrating J.K. Rowlings’ work, are those friendships maintainable? Does being a Potterhead become a piece of their identity smashed to the floor, fallen and broken like J. K. Rowling’s reputation? I think this point also speaks to why it is harder to champion smaller, non-trash human creators. Because experiencing other artists’ works is often a solitary activity instead of a communal one. Or if the non-trash artist has a community, it feels ill-fitting at first simply because it’s new. More uncomfortableness on top of all the uncomfortableness that the trash human artist has already caused.

And then there are the communities that the trash human was part of that we are also part of—for example, Gaiman is a part of the writing community, the speculative fiction community, the comic book community, the children’s books community. There will be ripples throughout all of these communities. It’s likely we will be asked to pick a side, to defend our position, to weather the arguments and reactions, and ultimately to figure out how to hold opposing viewpoints in the same space. To come to some painful consensus about how each problematic artist and their work will be platformed or ignored by the community.

All these losses start to compile and fester, open questions that don’t feel like there’s a right answer. What are we even responsible for, as fans, when our beloved artists turn out to be monsters? And who are we responsible to?

I’ve not even touched upon how to navigate collaborations—will I be watching the second season of the Sandman series? Do I refuse to support the hundreds of people who worked on it because the initial concept came from the mind of one trash human?

Or how about forgiveness? When is that even allowed to enter the conversation? Is there any chance for redemption for trash humans? Or does the court of public opinion not allow a reduced sentence for good behavior? Is it even ours to judge, as fans, or do we wait to see if those who were wronged ever forgive?

I suppose the easy answer here is to stop getting so attached to a creation and its creator. But, like….no. I refuse that answer. I think letting art and by extension an artist into our hearts is just as much a fundamental part of the human experience as creating art and sharing it. So what do we do?

I was hoping I’d lay out my thoughts on this one and arrive at some sort of helpful conclusion, but it’s not happening. It’s possible I’ve made the waters muddier. But it feels important to acknowledge that dealing with problematic creators isn’t just about morals or the facts. It’s almost like the moment kids realize their parents are just people trying their best. Sometimes you can give them grace. Sometimes you realize their best was just not good enough. And sometimes you come to understand they were trash humans and didn’t even manage to try at all.

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Many thanks to others for helping me formulate my thoughts on this one, including my Abandoned Lair writing peeps, my Mentorship peeps, and these articles: How I Learned To Stop Mourning Problematic Authors; Enjoying Problematic Authors; Where Do I Draw The Line? / Reading Problematic Authors; Problematic Authors: Can We Separate the Art From The Artist?

Stay safe out there 💖,

Elnora