The inevitable self-destruction of your heroes
I'm grappling with enjoying art by problematic figures while embracing newfound freedom after redundancy.
There was a period a decade or so ago where I’d listen to Ryan Adams’ Gold double album on a weekly basis. It’s the perfect blend of Americana, singer-songwriter and rock’n’roll and when I discovered his music I greedily digested it all, constantly returning to this album.
Then, in 2019, the New York Times broke a story about a repeated pattern of (alleged) sexual abuse by Adams against a number of women, often following a pattern of him promising them various music/industry-related support in exchange for their favours (and silence). I had to stop listening to Gold.
I loved the Ender’s Game series of sci-fi books, before later discovering that author Orson Scott Card was a card-carrying (sorry) homophobe and apparently missed all the messages of acceptance, tolerance and peace that his own books contained. I won’t even bother listing J.K. Rowling here.
At this point, I’m probably obliged to inject some witty aside about separating the artist from the art, or indeed, to reference Mark Zuckerberg and his passionate cries in support of “freedom of speech” (eg. the freedom to call women “household objects”, or to suggest that a gay person must be “mentally ill”): surely I don’t want to live in a world where people like Ryan Adams, Orson Scott Card and even the venerable Joanne Rowling are unable to say what they think, abhorrent though it may be?
But I won’t. The free speech defence is often tied up in theoretical and academic language: the terminology of the hypothetical, or the slippery-slope fallacy. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but it does mean that you can find yourself climbing uncomfortable intellectual cliff-faces as you defend the right for horrible people on the internet to refer to a transgender person as “it”. I’m tired of wasting energy trying to tie myself in knots to defend someone who patently does not deserve my defence.
Which brings me to Neil Gaiman. He’s the literary nerd’s fantasy figure: every socially-awkward alt-rock millennial who’s ever played with a typewriter has dreamed of writing a Gaiman-esque novel. He worked with Terry Pratchett, his books get made into cult films, he was married to a rock star and probably has a tattoo of an obscure Norse god on his ribcage. The guy was an icon and I loved his work.
But, of course, it turns out Neil Gaiman is also a serial abuser, with dozens of women prepared to go on the record to confirm it. He’ll no doubt claim that everything was consensual and nothing was illegal, but yet again, I’m finding myself examining the work of a man whose creative output has excited and inspired me, and finding the man himself to ultimately be a small, joyless fart of ineptitude. I wish I was still surprised.
Let me be clear: I’m not asking for moral purity from cultural figures. I’m not the “woke police”. I love the Beatles and know every note of their music, but I’m not under the illusion that any one of John, Paul, George or Ringo were angels without skeletons in their closets. But I do want to be able to listen to an album without hearing the echoes of women who were forced into something they didn’t really want to to; to read a children’s story written by a man who didn’t proposition a powerless woman while his child slept in the bed between them. I’ve never experienced this with the work of any of the women whose creative output I’m in awe of.
Neil Gaiman won’t be the last, of course. And he’ll no doubt mount a rigorous, well-budgeted legal defence of these accusations, like innumerable powerful men before him who have still fallen like rotting trees in a forest of creaking decay. I wonder if he’ll reflect to himself as this story plays out: for someone who strove for originality and creativity, for unique storytelling and the path of individuality: really, he just turned out to be exactly the same as all the rest of them.
Mini-feels this week
New year, new me
I’ve been unemployed for six weeks now, and I’m coming to the end of the first month since mid-2008 where I won’t be getting a paycheque at the end of it. Redundancy has been… amazing, though.
Obviously there’s pressure to get a job—and I’ve done five interviews over different stages these past weeks—but in general, having this time to regroup, recharge and rest has been incredible.
I feel happier than I’ve felt in years, I’ve started an exercise regime for the first time in ten months or more, and I feel myself being a better parent and partner.
The challenge, of course, is how to continue all of this when I’m gainfully employed once more – hopefully news on this soon. But it’s nice to have the reminder than underneath all the meetings, documents, code and calendars, this is (still) who I am.