Can You Separate Art From the Artist?

So much like the rest of the world, I have seen the internet's shared rage at J.K. Rowling's stalwart campaign to be the most hated person this side of Trump. Now this isn't the first time Rowling's been in deep trouble with her problematic views, namely her virulent transphobia, but lately she's gone out of her way to make sure everyone knows in no uncertain terms that she is transphobic. This has caused Harry Potter fans a great deal of emotional conflict, since apparently this is the first time they've ever dealt with a creator of a piece of art that they enjoy being problematic, and they're now trying desperately to try and act like Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling are completely separate entities and having nothing to do with each other. But is that really the route they should be taking? Is separating art from the artist even possible? 

To examine the situation more closely, we should have a terse discussion on what death of the author is. Death of the author is when a creator's intentions are null and void in interpreting their work. This is often invoked so that way people aren't left thinking there's only one correct interpretation for a piece of work, such as a book or a movie, and thus discord is sown amongst fan bases. Now death of the author gets a relatively bad name these days, and that's largely cuz stupid people invoke the term so they can continue consuming media that was created by terrible people and evade any sort of guilt. That's not how death of the author works. If you're still consuming the media of an awful person because you just don't give a fuck about what they've done since it hadn't effected you personally, that is not death of the author. For example, you can't claim death of the author in any of the songs on Megadeth's Endgame because Dave Mustaine himself said that the songs are directly based on his political views (which if you know them, are pretty fucking obnoxious). You can still enjoy the musicianship, but you can't say that Mustaine's beliefs aren't present in his music. On the flipside, you can do this with Aerosmith since none of their songs involve impregnating a teenager and then convincing her to get an abortion (but still, fuck you Steven Tyler). 

But that leads into the next question: is death of the author a good idea from a moral standpoint? This is where things get tricky. Obviously if you find out the creator of your favourite book/movie/game series is a scumbag, you'll want to justify your fanship somehow, because their creation happens to be really good and/or might have shaped you in some way. Lovecraft fans can talk with you for hours about that. And trust me, there's a solid 50% chance your fave is problematic. You could just take the easy way out and be like "well as long as their beliefs aren't present in their work then I can still enjoy it", but that won't be as easy as you think. Because you see, a creator doesn't have to be overt in blending their personal philosophies with their work. Frank Miller's 300 almost romanticises ancient Sparta, which was a eugenic military dictatorship that reveled in slavery, and portrays the Persian kingdom, who in all actuality were very progressive and egalitarian for their time, as the arseholes. Now Miller doesn't openly announce that he's in favour of slavery, military dictatorships, and eugenics, but the fact that he portrayed a civilisation that exuded such qualities as heroic and likable is pretty damning that he likely doesn't find them too deplorable. So how does this relate to J.K. Rowling you might be asking? Well I never read any Harry Potter books, but I have plenty of friends who have, and many recent internet posts have been pointing out some of Rowling's other subtle prejudices, such as making the bankers long nosed goblins (I'm sure I don't have to tell you who that's supposed to symbolise), naming Dobby, an elf who only wears tattered clothing, after the word dhobi, which refers to the poorest in the Indian caste system, and naming the only prominent Asian character Cho Chang, like for real she might as well have named her fucking Pork Fried Rice or something. So Rowling, aside from being transphobic, also might have a racism/classism problem. 

But surely there is merit to death of the author, right? Well of course. If we were to account for the creator's intentions in every one of their creations then we'd never be able to enjoy anything. And like I said, even a terrible person is capable of making something good, and they're very good at concealing their true nature from the public eye. What matters then is how you act once their shamefulness is brought to light. Whilst the creator can inject their own politics into their creation as I've stated before, if they keep the two separate, then the onus shifts onto you if you wish to continue supporting them. And really whether or not it's worth it could depend on the level of the offence. For instance, if you're willing to consume the media of a known virulent anti-Semite whilst maintaining the idea that you don't agree with their views with full knowledge that they're still gonna profit from the consumption of their product, then you're still responsible for platforming them. And if they're still turning profits with their vile opinions out to the public, that tells them that they can say whatever bigoted bollocks they want and no one will care. With people like Ian Watkins and Gary Glitter, still listening to either of their music has a gray area to it; whilst both of them are detestable child predators, neither of them profit off of their music anymore, so you aren't platforming them. On the other hand, are you really still comfortable supporting the work of child molesters? Sure, their music might be good to you, but it's still a question worth thinking over. 

At the end of the day, separating art from the artist is reliant on whether the art still platforms the artist or not. And let me be clear here; I in no way intend to cast a shadow of guilt over anyone who supports the art of otherwise problematic creators. I'm a massive Ozzy Osbourne fan, I know what it's like to support a controversial figure. Enjoy what you like, take your favourite elements out and enjoy them on their own if you have to. But please don't take the route of attempting to divorce the content from the creator through means of embarrassing mental gymnastics. It just makes you look more ridiculous than anything else. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch a James Bond flick. Ian Fleming all the way. 

Is "Karen" Derogatory to Women?

For any woman reading this named Karen, I deeply apologise that you are once again being made reference to by proxy. However, I've been seeing this topic float around for a while now and I figured I might as well try to add my input that no one asked for. Apparently, the "Karen" meme is now a slur and is sexist and classist towards "outspoken" upper class women. We'll get to that in a bit, but the mere fact that it's being referred to as a "slur" kinda caught me off guard and now I feel like I have to talk about it. Now of course this proclamation is jetted out by TERFs so it's not hard to see why no one takes it seriously, so I wanna give a more in-depth look and see if the Karen meme really is offencive to women. 

Right off the bat, what exactly entails a "Karen", beyond just being named such? According to its common usage on the net, a "Karen" is described as normally a white middle-aged blonde woman with a short haircut and is somewhere in the middle class and often married with kids. That's as far as stereotypical appearances go, anyway. "Karens" are defined as entitled people, usually white, who treat service workers like shit and follow pseudoscience (see also: anti-vax mum, which I'll get to as well) or vote Republican. You've probably met someone like this before, I know I have, maybe "Karen" is just the perfect word, or name, to describe them, as if just has that ring to it. Although it is a caricature of a woman, "Karen" is sometimes used as a gender neutral insult, like being a Karen is a mentality in the same vein that "boomer" is. 

Now that you have a decent idea of what a Karen is, let's talk about whether or not it's sexist or classist. I'm gonna deal with the classism aspect first because I have no bloody idea how anyone beyond an uber-privileged white person could even come to that conclusion. Like, classist towards upper class women? Really? I'm not gonna pretend that classism against upper class women doesn't exist, such as no one believing a woman can be rich or financially well off without sleeping her way to wealth or some other easy-come-easy-go means, but this is far from any conceivable classism I can detect. Firstly, I can promise you I'm probably richer than like 75% of these Karens you've come across (I'm just throwing numbers around so don't think too hard on that). Second, if you're attempting to garner sympathy for the upper class, you're failing miserably. No one's gonna leak a solitary tear for some upper class toerags who happened to be distraught over simple name calling. That's pretty insulting to lower income people who actually do face classism on the regular don't you think? Oh of course not, you're the people engaging in said classism anyway, not that you care. 

Now onto the sexism aspect of this. I probably have one of the most unpopular opinions on the subject but here goes nothing: I actually do believe there's a scoop of sexism to be had within this meme. Like I mentioned earlier, Karen is a caricature of a woman, and it'd be remiss of me as a feminist to not call attention to how a caricature of a woman is being used as a common insult. The parallel between calling a man a Karen and telling a man he hits like a girl is noticeable if you really think about, cuz in either vein you're saying he's acting like a woman and that itself is a huge problem. As for the outspoken woman part, I don't think this is valid. Karen originally means someone who is rude to service workers, and feminism definitely does not encourage women being needlessly hostile in the name of empowerment. I will be 100% fair and say I'm aware of the male equivalents of Karen, such as Kyle and Chad, who are misogynistic caricatures of men, but I've seen way more variants of Karen and it's definitely the more invoked. I think what really makes the sexism of the Karen meme stand out to me is that personally, I've seen WAY more men act like Karens than women (even women named Karen to boot) so it almost feels like it projects men's behaviour onto women, something that's happened time and time again and still happens. This ties into my issue with the "anti-vax mum" stereotype, since Karens are also used to refer to anti-vaxers. The whole "vaccines cause autism" bollocks was started by a man, but anti-vax women are almost always shoved into the forefront and unwittingly furthers the stereotype that women are stupid and don't belong in science (thereby leading to them being gatekept from STEM fields fyi). 

With all that said, do I think Karen is a slur? The answer is no. It is the last thing from it. For one thing, if it was, then every woman named Karen is a raging bigot. Second, whilst I don't want to devalue how harmful it can get if it's used more prevalently, at present, it doesn't cause lasting damage. Sure, I'll probably roll my eyes/groan if I were to see it on my news feed, but it isn't as harsh as being called a "bitch" or a "cunt". And for that reason, I think we as feminists can pick our battles a bit more wisely. Our plate's overflowing as it is, we don't need to add anymore side dishes when this one can be saved for later. 

...And now I'm hungry. Bugger.