Deja vu? Yes, isn't it just?
The hunters are hunted; the hunted (and once caught) now run after them, bringing with them a battalion that will not only shame but demand censure. It's this excommunication that troubles me, which as I've said has been visited before by persons more qualified i.e. news people, who have put forth better arguments – for and against – in the wake of the alleged incident when the public are less likely to be open to that debate. Now is not the time and all that, but later could be too late. Generally it is; for swift actions will have been taken under pressure.
How in the wrong you can be made to feel if you don't agree, with either the hoopla or the ostracism. Trial by media. Sentenced by the general public – for life or Hollywood's version of it which might mean there's a comeback after an appropriate stretch, but until then the named culprit is shunned, from their person to their work; all work. Justice will be served, and this is it.
Everything the culprit was associated with disassociates itself. If their work involved other people, they might now distance themselves from it or contribute to the rumours, or if it can't be distanced from the scenes in which the culprit starred might be re-shot so as not to risk offending the audience and the industry to which they belong. If it's work of the sort that's committed by the culprit's hand as in bought by fans (books, paintings etc.) then it might be banned, not by a court recognised order but by the general mood of the public, dictated by the most articulate and the strong, to which the rest are expected to follow, and generally they do, willingly, because to think differently (to disagree) would be suicide.
You must, by now, have an understanding of what I'm holding forth on without me, rather unreasonably, clearly laying it out, because I, again rather unreasonably, expect people to be thinking along the same lines as I do, (ah, see we all make that mistake), and so you might ask why the smoke and mirrors? why defend a monstrous person whose acts, like them, are heinous?
That's why the smoke and mirrors. Though the smoke is thin, of the wispy grey sort, and the mirrors don't deflect as they ought. Because that's where you're wrong, and I assumed you would make that error, this is not a defence of whomever, but of their work. Yes, the worst (and the best) way to punish a culprit if they're a public figure i.e. a luvvie, an artist, a writer, is to boycott their art: everything they've been in or about to be in; everything they've painted, sculptured, captured; everything they've ever written. It makes a very public statement (like their art), but isn't it fascism thinly disguised? Like that recorded by history: the confiscation of art, the burning and the banning of books. I, personally do not wish to see these types of punishments resurrected. But I'm too late in saying that, aren't I?
Does a masterpiece stop being a masterpiece the instant the artist is charged with or found to have committed a loathsome or criminal act? That's the question I repeatedly put to myself, as do others, when any news of this sort breaks, and my answer, in essence, never changes: No. Does it fill me with horror and so prevent me from being able to appreciate their talent? Yes, but no. The art, in my view, is not the person: that person we don't know, that person we don't get to see, who perhaps performs deeds we would be horrified rather than inspired by. The gift they access is separate and so I set them apart.
Picture credit: Textile design - Huntsman - 1919, C F A Voysey
