Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

With the recent revelation that John K, the creator of Ren and Stimpy, is, well, to not beat around the bush, a pedophile, people, at least on Twitter from what i've seen, have been discussing whether or not it's morally ok to enjoy the work of a terrible person.

In other words, people are debating about whether or not we should separate art from the artist. The argument goes that when you indulge in the creation of some kind of a person who turns out to be a total shithead, you are supporting them and their habits.

Ren and Stimpy was a show many people have fond memories of, but the style of the show wasn't everyone's cup of tea. It was crude and immature, but that was the point. It pushed the boundaries of what was ok in a children's cartoon. Humour aside, many people including myself would praise it for it's fluid and over the top animation. In other words, many people consider it art.

Ren and Stimpy however, as I said, was also not everyone's cup of tea due to the content within. But despite all this, I have to ask the question. With the now public knowledge that John K is a pedophile, is it ok to still watch Ren and Stimpy? Can you watch it without thinking about all the damage he's done? Or can you see it for what it is and enjoy it by separating it from the man who created it, despite what he did?

Should we separate art from the artist?

As an artist myself, I would say absolutely. The value of artwork should never be tied to the moral values of it's creator. Ren and Stimpy was phenomenally animated, and gave inspiration to many, many modern animators. Is the work they produce now worthless because it was inspired by a show created by a terrible person? I would think not.

Let's hit a bit closer to home with something much more objectively good, via a theoretical situation. Again, I want to emphasise theoretical.

Batman: The Animated Series. It's considered one of, if not the greatest animated series of all time. It won tons of awards. It gave us Mark Hamill as the Joker. It gave us Harley Quinn. It shaped so many childhoods, and was a fantastic show for both kids and adults.

So my theoretical situation is: What if it was found out that Bruce Timm, the lead artist for the show and creator of Harley Quinn herself, was a terrible, horrible person? Like, he did some FUCKED up shit.

Could you still watch Batman: TAS with that knowledge? The knowledge that the man who did all this gorgeous artwork, did some horrid things in his life? Or do you do what I consider is the sensible thing, and separate the art from the artist?

I can separate a man or woman from their work or else I wouldn't enjoy half of what I like now. If people were to boycott the products of sex offenders or murderers, your options would be very limited. I can appreciate that the person had enough decency in their life to produce something nice and it may never outweigh the bad things, it at least gives them some saving grace.

How many people here currently like Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Would you think any less of it knowing Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller in the movie) killed two in a car crash by driving on the wrong side of the road?

You may hate the actor now, but hating the movie purely because of knowing this fact is fucking dumb.

That's not to say that you can't hate the work of someone who's done shitty things. Take Amy Schumer for example. I don't like her stuff and I don't like her. Why? Because her jokes are bad or stolen (there is no middle-ground here) and she is quick to cry the boogeyman for any criticism of her work. I pass on her content because there isn't the saving grace with her and searching up a "joke" she made an audience pay to hear makes me hate the sack of shit more.

I personally find it very easy to seperate the two on things such as televison shows or films as they tend to show the strain and effort of more than just the one person. Ren and Stimpy wasn't solely the product of John K., it was the fruit of the labors of the many people at Spumco. To spurn an entire television show simply because of what is essentially just the face of it is to deny the life given to it by the hearts and brains behind it as well.

But then you have products where the face really was the majority of the product. I couldn't watch Bill Cosby's standup – for instance, as I assume he wrote the jokes, he performed them, and was the one receiving most of the profits from it.

And then you have the few cases where the creator couldn't separate themself from the art and insisted on pushing an opinion. I stopped watching Brad Jones' stuff because they just became soapboxes for him to complain about internet drama and trolls. (I'm here for the low-quality knockoffs and terrible pornographic films. You are not the only one on the internet who has to deal with hecklers. Stop making strawman characters that take up half of the jokes. Get over it. You too, Phelous.)

tl;dr: It depends on whether or not the face of the product put in the majority of the work.

I think your question is wrong. Art is the reflection of artist's rich inner world, so art and artists tied together. Right question would be: "should we enjoy art if artist is a bad person?". And I say – yes, absolutely, why not? Teletubbies, for example, were created by junkies, but you can't deny it's quite fun show for kids. The Birth of a Nation described as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Lovecraft had clear problems with mental health. After all we use things created by low wage workers and almost nobody gives a gvdl.

I've posted my complicated thoughts on this before, so I'll just give the short version: You can't fully separate art from artist because the former is a reflection of the latter. However, it is only a partial reflection. So, it's okay to like something made by a shitty person. Time and again, we've seen deeply flawed people make worthwhile art. If you are really into something, you do owe a certain amount of gratitude to its creator. The limit to this comes when the artist is evil. At that point, do not consume. Part of the penalty for being evil is that your work should be disregarded. That's why I refuse to watch a Polanski film, but I will watch a John Lasseter film.

For me, there are several factors to consider.

• How front and center is the person in question?
  For lots of things, you might never know about the creator other than their name unless you dug around. With most animation, people involved get credited, but are otherwise visually absent from the subject itself. You don't have to deal with the person them self much, so it's easier to ignore them. With something like say, The Cosby Show, you'e not going to be able ignore the fact Bill Cosby is the center of attention. Same with singers or other subjects where the individual's self is impossible to remove from the subject.

• How many others were involved in thing?
  If an entire team worked on something and there is just one bad egg, it does feel a bit unfair to discredit all their work just because of that. However, if only a few people/ one person worked on it, it's harder to make that argument. If a personal web comic creator kills someone, you can't have the same argument as a movie/series that has dozens of people working on it.

• Do these issues seep into their works?
  I feel this one is the most important. If something could be interpreted as promoting something bad, and it turns out that the creator actually does/ did the thing in question it's often better to avoid. Todd in the Shadows mentioned this a bit in one of his reviews, which kind of deals with the whole topic in general (2:04-3:18 is the relevant part)

One example of something that deals with this point recently was the anime Recovery of an MMO Junkie/Net-juu no Susume. The director apparently holds anti-semetic, Nazi sympathetic views. Despite this, not only does the anime itself not have that would make you think this, the main relationship is a mixed ethnicity one.

Quick thing: I just noticed a typo in the title. If a mod could fix that for me that'd be greeeeeeeeeeat~

So there are some really good points in here, including one consistent one that I hadn't considered. How much attention is given to the artist. With music, the artist is indeed front and center, so I can definitely see how it'd be tough to separate the two, but not impossible. I still stand by my opinion that the value of art shouldn't be tied to the moral values of the artist.

I think this is a complicated issue with subjective viewpoints, especially since what art is is completely different from person to person.

As someone who used to browse his blog quite a bit, this is actually quite something. (You can actually probably find some comments I made on his blog)

I remember I used to use his "tutorials" (AKA: art basics, and smack talking on other shows) as a way to learn. I did learn, but his mentality and ego sorta messed me up.

I actually believed his opinions as facts for a while, and it turned me into a hardcore pessimist. It's probably why I used to be so rude to others on this site for quite awhile. I did undo this mentality, happily.

After I lost interest and learned art more myself, I forgot he even had a blog. While I thought he was an okay artist sans his opinions, the first thing that caused me to change was when he pretty much never finished his kickstarter cartoon.

This actually sorta shifted my opinions of him away, I realized he that he never had a proper work ethic. I almost felt like he scammed them all with animation as a form of bait.

Again after this, his name lost relevance to me, and I moved on. It wasn't until this that I realized he was in general a awful person.

Now, I genuine feel awful that I had any sort of respect for him. Either way, don't let one person ruin a whole work. Unless everyone involved with the work was terrible, or the work itself is terrible/shady.

The way I see it, ask yourself this:

Does enjoying/partaking in the art positively benefit the wrongdoing person in question, namely financially? If not, then there's no real shame in separating their actions done outside of the production to produce the art to enjoy said art.

If we're honestly going to abandon every form of media we enjoy because it's revealed the creator has some skeletons in the closet, then we might as well not enjoy media at all, because no one's innocent in that regard.

Datsik

If seperating an artist from their work was an impossibility, I really don't think I'd be able to enjoy any artist's works. All I'd see when viewing their creations would be their mistakes, and that wouldn't be fun.

Sad thing is the majority of the people who're saying R&S should be boycotted because of K's mistakes never really cared about the guy or his cartoon to begin with, and now this is out in the open, they've finally got something to confirm their apathy towards him.

I personally don't care what K did, considering that kind of stuff is commonplace in these working environments… But yes, you should separate the art from its artist, otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy anything, since every artist has a dark side.

It's all about what in particular people consider to be reprehensible or bad.

Look at something like 'Please Don't Bully Me, Nagatoro'. The creator, 774nanashi has drawn some pretty fucked up stuff, including but not limited to amputation, torture, humiliation, and fetishized violence. A lot of the people following the doujinshi are probably aware of that, and indeed some of them probably follow it to see if it will go that direction, especially if they're from other parts of his 'fanbase'.
But anyone coming in for a vanilla experience, or just because of the 'meme', is probably going to get a nasty shock seeing the original material, and the images associated with the creator's name.

I'd imagine this is an issue for a lot of 'legitimate' mangaka, many of whom started out doing porn images, where the personal ideas and experiences they want to explore in an all-ages power-of-friendship shoujo or shounen thing might be overshadowed by the nipple-penetration mind-rape tentacle porn they did a few years back. One person might be okay with it, one person may love that fact, one person may hate it, and one person might understand the lows people are willing to pander too in order to earn money to survive or get a career off the ground.

But really, that's only if you consider weird or pornographic art to be a bad thing. I certainly don't knock Bruce Timm for the pin-ups he's done.

But when it comes to actual CRIMES, it's kinda the same thing but way worse.
Probably the most basic one you can think of is Hitler's artwork. From a glance, it's decent watercolour art of city scenes of the rural countryside. Something you might see hanging on your grandma's wall.
But, once you find out that an antisemite who would rather see his beloved country crumble to ash than face consequences for his worst actions painted it around the time those destructive ideas were brewing in his head, the paintings can take on a slightly menacing feel, like the artwork of a serial killer.

Personally John K's work has never really appealed to me. It's always crude, violent and edgy for the sake of edginess. According to interviews, he's also a hot-headed jackass with an ego to match.
But before it was outed that he was a paedo, he was just an artist.
That's all I can really say on this subject.