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Edit: I'm going to add a content warning up front. This thread is going to include mentions of crimes committed by people working in the film industry including sexual crimes and crimes of violence. Folks beware of that, thanks! Fair warning, I’m not a great poster, but I know lots of folks on here are. I would like to hear people’s thoughts on watching content with artistic input from controversial people. I think the arguments at their most basic level go between not wanting to provide monetary support to bad people versus the benefit of learning about these peoples’ expressions of art. I think there are several points to discuss in this. There’s the idea of “ethical consumption under capitalism” which kind of implies a “gently caress it” approach. There’s the idea of having more impact on smaller scale artists versus big corporate ones. Is it more important to express your beliefs with your wallet where they hurt most with small scale operations, to be morally consistent and not watch movies out out by corporations that are consistently evil, or to find some in-between? There’s the idea of finding ways to view the controversial art without paying anyone. How meaningful is this? I’d also like to list off some different controversial artists as additional jumping off points. Joe Bob Briggs: well known horror host and advocate for “trashy” horror not being censored or buried. Often has edgy rants during his shows has written for an alt-right magazine including an opinion that seemingly endorsed the “good people on both sides” interpretation of Charlottesville. Craig Zahler: director of some critically well-regarded films who is also openly conservative. His films often have a conservative or racist bent to them. Roman Polanski: Critically acclaimed director of several films that are counted in the canon of their genres. Committed statutory rape of a minor and has actively fled the American criminal system being able to try and sentence him for it. Victor Salva: director of some well-regarded horror films and convicted of sexual abuse of a minor and possession or child pornography. Eric Red: writer of The Hitcher and multiple other films involving vehicular murder. Two people were killed in a car crash when Red drove a vehicle into a restaurant. No criminal charges were filed and Red has since written and pushed other scripts involving vehicular manslaughter. Jeffrey Jones: critically well-regarded actor and convicted sex offender of soliciting a minor. Essentially black listed or retired from acting. Kevin Spacey: critically well-regarded actor with multiple accusations of sexual assault and assault of a minor. Currently black listed from acting, but continues to be in the public eye. Harvey Weinstein: producer of a major production company involved in multiple allegations of rape and sexual abuse. These figures’ controversies range from dissemination of right wing or far right opinions, to possible murder, to sexual abuse. Some of them are more prominent and famous, and some of them are associated with more or less well-regarded works and genres. I’d be curious to see what peoples’ thoughts are on viewing these associated films, where lines may be drawn, and where lines become blurry. I do not want this thread to devolve into personal attacks or insinuations about other posters. I want to have a firm rule for this thread that the opinion on whose work to view and whose not to should be treated as an opinion to discuss rather than a moral crusade against fellow posters. I also do not want this thread to discuss the credibility of different specific allegations, or the morality of what the actions were. If someone feels that the credibility of the allegation affects their opinion on viewing the art, that is fine, but I don’t want to see arguing about the actual accusations. If you don’t think the allegations against someone are credible, I’d prefer that you instead focus on your thoughts around the art of people whom you do find to have credible allegations against them. Also, some of the above allegations involve “having right wing beliefs in the American mainstream.” This is a very leftist forum and I’m personally very leftist, but I do think it’s okay to have a little more discussion on what folks feel about the morality of viewing art that portrays a viewpoint they may find politically immoral or is made by someone with that viewpoint. Please be civil and respectful, everyone! fr0id fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Feb 3, 2021 |
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Jan 29, 2021 23:58
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Huh surprised you forgot John Landis.
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Jan 30, 2021 00:00
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I did just forget him. I don’t want this to just be a list of controversial people, though, so I’ll ask what your thoughts on his films are.
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Jan 30, 2021 00:05
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shmorky: webtoon maker and probably weird crazy girl abuser I like their cartoons, I miss all the yelling. I think this is my favorite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyQhDlzbPbQ this one's also pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNhycX0XCJ0 I'm not super huge on cats but the weebl one has a good song and the lyrics are funny
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Jan 30, 2021 02:04
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fr0id posted:There’s the idea of “ethical consumption under capitalism” which kind of implies a “gently caress it” approach. To the particular consumption in this thread, my general position is: I won't pay explicitly for entertainment from people I find reprehensible, but my line for consumption (whether for free, or bundled, or purchased before knowing) is blurrier and mostly falls on "can I watch this without being mentally distracted by the person" and "is this product that espouses a view I dislike informative or interesting in some way?"
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Jan 30, 2021 02:39
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Harvey Weinstein is a very difficult figure to get away from because a LOT of films have his name in the credits from the 90s onwards. He was even the one responsible for discovering Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. Like I said it's going to be difficult to get away from him unless you never want to watch films like Pulp Fiction again.
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Jan 30, 2021 02:56
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Peaceful Anarchy posted:No it doesn't, it implies exactly what you're asking in this thread. That all consumption under capitalism is unethical to some degree, but it is not all the same and you need to consider the relative harms vs need vs convenience of the choices you make while accepting that perfection is unachievable. The whole point is that saying "I must be completely perfectly ethical" is impossible, but saying "gently caress it" is still an unethical and destructive choice despite that because many middle grounds exist. It also means being mindful that other people may choose (or be forced into) different middle grounds and while you can be judgemental about their choices if you wish, you should at least be aware that yours are not clean either and have at least some sense of perspective about what you do and what you criticize. That's a good point, thank you! Is there a line you would draw for "I find this person distracting" but want to watch anyway?
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Jan 30, 2021 05:01
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I don't think there's a simple one size fits all answer. For example, it's a lot easier for me to watch a film that Harvey Weinstein was involved in because he wasn't the creative force, just simply the monetary force behind the film. Jeffrey Jones is another example - what he did was heinous, but I am able to watch films that he stars in and not really get distracted by his presence. I think part of it is that he isn't really a personality - nobody is watching a film for Jeffrey Jones. On the other hand, watching a film with Kevin Spacey is a lot harder. I will never revisit House of Cards because he's such a focal point of the show. His acting is what people tuned into watch, and so it's harder to separate the man from the movie. Maybe I can watch something like Se7en, where he stars, but he's not the primary role in the movie. It's also tough because films are made by a lot of people, and so should we lose other people's great performances because of Spacey? I refuse to watch Roman Polanski films until he dies. And part of that is because it's a rebellion against a system that empowered him even though everybody knew what he was doing. Really, this conversation is torn between two realities. On the first side - the fact is we want to be careful who we give our money to. Giving someone money is giving them power, and the way that we view films also elevates the people who make these films. There's an ideal of separating the art from the artist, but that's never really been true. Polanski doesn't release his movies anonymously. You don't have to dig through archives to find out what films he worked on. His name is right there. It's a loving selling point. We give these people our money and our attention, and we elevate them. There's also the downstream impacts of these decisions. Who else doesn't get a shot to make a film because we still give time to Roman Polanski? Who else doesn't get their films released because Roman Polanski get his films released? If everybody agreed to stop watching films made by Polanski - nobody would release his films anymore. On the second side - these films exist. And they do exist outside of the artist. After all, I know next to nothing about Akira Kurosawa as a person. Which means, his films are a blank slate. And when I watch a movie, I'm not looking at what the director is saying. I'm looking at what the film says to me. What it makes me think. At some point, Polanski will be dead. He will be mostly forgotten. And his films will continue to exist. And people will watch them. At that point, what material harm is being done? For me, I've come to accept that watching/not watching a film doesn't make as much of a difference in the current culture war that we face against misogny, sexual assault, and rape culture. I'm not going to solve sexual harassment by not watching Roman Polanski films. My energies are better focused on what I can do to make things better. Being more mindful of how I treat women - do I treat them as fairly as I like to believe I do? Do I hold views that are actually toxic? Things like that. My energies are better focused on calling out people who do this and get away with it. Honestly, if Polanski went to jail tomorrow, I would become a lot more comfortable watching his films because at least then he would have owned up to his behavior. But I won't begrudge someone who won't watch a film for whatever reason. It may be distracting or distressing to them. Or they may just not want to do that. It's a loving film choice. I don't think there will ever be consistent rules, and there doesn't need to be. There are going to be films that people are going to be uncomfortable watching because of certain facts around them. I think part of why we have this conversation is that for too long, we have pushed these issues aside. We've normalized harassment and abusive behaviors. We say "boys will be boys." And at least for me, this has been a useful framework in rethinking how I approach the world. And maybe some day, it won't matter because when somebody does this, we don't excuse it. But until that day, we're going to have to deal with the mess we're in. And if something as small as not watching a movie helps change it, then it's a good thing.
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Jan 30, 2021 05:17
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A little bit of polanski movie viewing guilt can be leveraged out, he made all his good movies before doing the child rape.
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Jan 30, 2021 05:42
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Cemetry Gator posted:I don't think there's a simple one size fits all answer. This is a really great post! How do you feel about filmmakers or artists who may have politically conservative or alt-right (how much daylight exists between those in America may be kind of difficult to pose)?
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Jan 30, 2021 06:01
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Great thread! I've been thinking about this myself a bit after hearing about the allegations against Cas Anvar, who plays Alex on the Expanse TV series. I had really enjoyed his character and Anvars portrayal, so the news came as a huge bummer. Reading the TV IV thread, there's lots of discussion about them killing the character off, unceremoniously replacing the character with another one or finding a way to write him out of the show completely. What's interesting to me is the retroactive animosity there towards the character itself, even in previous seasons, as for many it seems to have soured the entire role and performance. Generally speaking, I separate the character from the actor, so in my mind I wouldn't be upset at a nice offscreen send off (for the character), because I wouldn't take it as being a cop out on behalf of the actor or justifying the actions of a sexual predator. I know he's been fired from the show and had his name dragged through the mud, and I think that's justice served. Kevin Spacey is a interesting one too. His House of Cards performance was amazing and memorable, and I got alot of enjoyment out of it. I would still recommend the show, and his performances, in retrospect, because again I separate the character and performance from the actors personal life. They were lucky in that instance because he was effectively playing a villian, so they were able to parlay that into the final season without him. But, honestly, with both the above examples, I think the main reason I can feel ok about this is that both these actors have been duly tried and found guilty, and that they were shitcanned, and had their careers ruined for these actions. I am extremely happy that the entertainment world as a whole has learnt to say this is not ok, and hold people accountable for their actions and are actively preventing it from happening in the future. If we still lived in the world of Harvey Weinstein open secrets of abuse, I don't know if I'd exactly feel the same way... (and I'm not naive, I'm sure there's plenty of Weinstein's still out there, but the idea of it being an accepted part of the industry is going away.) Isometric Bacon fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 11:07
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Not paying is a nice diffusion of responsibility. I would never buy Chinatown but if it is free on my TV, well, why not watch it? If you really think about it, that ends up being a cop-out too but that's at a level where I've got poo poo to worry about. It's a wiggly line and where you set it is really your own call. A harder discussion is one about art and what that means. Polanski and Jerrod from Subway(tm) loved to gently caress kids. I'm OK with Chinatown being on TV because it is art. Again, other than a small set of grumblers no one is shocked by that. But wouldn't it be loving weird if Subway started airing their Jerrod ads again? But then it gets tricky again with people like Weinstein. He's a producer, so let's be clear, he's more on the money side than the art side. He's a Jerrod. But he also enabled some really amazing art. Seeing that Weinstein Company logo used to mean you were about to see a good movie. No good answers. At the end of the day, I figure that history is full of lost art because of changes in taste/regime/whatever. That's usually viewed as a bad thing. For the Taliban, aren't art. They are blasphemy. Separating art from blasphemy easy for me to do but how is that the right view? This isn't Jesus-in-a-jar-of-piss because we understand the statement of desecration. So that can be art and blasphemy. But this is something different. If you can't create art that depicts humans (much less idols) than those statues weren't art at all. They were just offensive garbage. You know? Anyway, we've lost better art for dumber reasons. So I guess I side with the grumblers. No one from the silent film era would have predicted that "Metropolis" is like, the one silent movie most people can name drop. Who knows which of our movies people will remember in 100 years? That's total arrogance. Which, cool I guess. But it's total arrogance that also defends really bad people. Let the bad poo poo go into the dustbin of history.
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Jan 30, 2021 11:32
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fr0id posted:This is a really great post! How do you feel about filmmakers or artists who may have politically conservative or alt-right (how much daylight exists between those in America may be kind of difficult to pose)? That's a harder question, just because conservative can be such a broad term in American politics. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger defined himself as conservative, but he's been a staunch opponent of Donald Trump's, and his recent statements on the coronavirus are things that make me less concerned. I think there are a lot of people out there who describe themselves as conservative who really haven't bought into the alt right push. I'm less concerned about the George Will's of the world. Of course nowadays, conservative media has definitely gone full alt right. Which is changing the discourse for the worst. I don't want the argument to be between me, a self-identified liberal, and a literal Nazi. I want people to have a choice, and you can't when the other side looks at Marjorie Taylor Green and hems and haws but actually never holds her accountable. For alt right, it's really easy. gently caress that noise if it's coming from the people involved in making the film. I'll still watch movies with James Woods in them because he's an actor, and I'm not going to lose Casino because of one bad egg. And with actors, you're not worried about them pushing the story into uncomfortable places. But writers and directors? I won't engage with J.K. Rowling's work because of her transphobia. I ain't got time for that. Which means I've never seen or read anything Harry Potter and I never will. I don't think I'm missing much. But yeah, you're more likely to encounter messages that are scary or uncomfortable. A personal example for me is Morrissey. I used to love his music and what he had to say. But then he started tacking really far to the right, making islamophobic statements and saying some icky things about sexual assault. I just can't bear to listen to his music anymore. He had always been a provocateur and saying things that were edgy, but usually you could either excuse it as not really that important or something said in a really inelegant way. But recently, his statements are just the gasps of an old pop star who has faded from the limelight and refuses to engage with the world around him. I can't listen to his music without wondering what he's actually saying. Is National Front Disco really against that, as I had initially thought. But now he's embracing England for the English. Suddenly, I'm not so sure. So for me, I tend to look at actors for the most part as working people. Sometimes they are shaping the production, but I'm a little less concerned with their views. It's like finding out the electrician thinks Trump won the 2020 election. Like yeah, it's not cool, but I'm not going to avoid a movie the electrician worked on. But for writers and directors, they're more likely to have the ability to set the film's agenda. So that alt right stuff gets scary. However, if someone descended into madness, I'm more concerned about what happened after the fact. Sometimes you just get tragic cases where people change for the worse. See David Mamet.
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Jan 30, 2021 15:12
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I think that there are two assumptions that sort of guide people's thinkings in these conversations. And I think both are things we should reconsider. One is that the incorrect assumption that there is a limited bandwidth for genius and an unlimited bandwidth for patronage. I think a lot people get caught up in this internal conflict of what would it mean to lose the art of these controversial people. Do we want to live in a world without Chinatown or Animal House or Harry Potter or those two good Louis C.K. Specials and that one episode of Louie with David Lynch in it. I think a mindset shift to have is to mourn the art that was lost. All these flawed and often terrible people were taking up space. There are other people who didn't make it, artists whose work was never given a chance. Another is that I think as film nerds, a lot of us go through the explorer phase of being film viewers. A lot of us dig into grungy depths of what horror has to offer for us. And I think we internalize it as a virtue to be open to watch anything, but that's a flawed mindset. I for example know a dude who basically just gave up on watching stuff primarily creatively driven by white people. Do I think it would be hard for me to not see Little Women or Portrait of a Lady on Fire or First Cow. But it also meant that he took deeper dive and turned to some corners that I don't always. I think that it is a personal question of how you engage with abusive or hateful artists. However, I think we need to move beyond the idea that losing some of this art would be as big a tragedy as we might think or that it's that big a deal to cut it out of your life. I think the ending of Bojack Horseman gives an instructional ending. Big spoilers, the show finally accepts that Bojack has hurt multiple young women, ruining their lives, and has no right to be a star. He goes to prison for a bit, but faces no longterm consequences. He starts paling around with a Charlie Sheen/Alec Baldwin/Mel Gibson pastiche. The ending makes it clear that he probably won't actually change. He has his last scene with his friend Diane. Diane's life objectively wouldn't be where it is now without Bojack. She's happy now and a successful author with a great fiancee. We as the audience know that she is never going to every see Bojack after this moment. This is the end for them. He is a monster and she knows that. So, she simply says "Thank you." You can tell that she could scold him, hate him, but she makes peace with the fact that regardless of how horrible Bojack was, she comes to terms with the fact that he did matter and did have an impact on her, but after that, she has to move on.
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Jan 30, 2021 17:08
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This has always struck me as an interesting, but also a relatively straightforward, ethical question where everyone more or less has the same answer. At some point the benefits of enjoying the art outweighs the moral cost of somewhat contributing to a bad person/companys profits. If they're dead it's pretty much a non-issue, I don't think viewing a Picasso painting or reading a Hamsun novel gives any meaningful support to misogyny or nazism. There's a subset of this discussion where a small group of people don't want to engage with art or content produced by people with different values or voting records at all. That I don't think is an ethical standpoint as much as weirdly cultish and feels somewhat identical to the idea of "christian" bookstores etc.
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Jan 30, 2021 17:09
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I feel like I understand specific targeted boycotts. If someone does something and then something that makes them money comes out deliberately avoiding it to screw the person directly out of money. If JK rowling put out a book now, I think it would make sense for people to snub her and not buy it. Past that, I feel like the more generalized lists people make feel like part of the thing people do where they want to imagine what media they consume is very important and watching a movie or not watching a movie is important activism and has a big impact. Like I just don't think kevin spacey knows or cares if I do or don't watch a bugs life. Weinstein is a horrifically bad man but I just don't feel like he will be impacted enough to matter if I do or don't watch Inglourious Basterds. armie hammer might be literally an actual cannibal but watching or not watching 'sorry to bother you' seems like it just won't do anything to him or matter in any way at all to him. If the person is starring in something and it makes you not want to watch it that makes sense, if bill cosby got a role in a romantic comedy saying 'eh, that doesn't sound like something I want to watch at this point", or if something really directly is funneling money to someone specifically I get boycotting it. But just general "watching/not watching movies as activism" always seems dumb and self important and part of a general thing people do where they want the media they consume to be somehow very important. There feels like specific cases it does matter, or cases where it's direct enough support it's worth caring, but at some point it feels like eating some crackers and worrying if the guy who made the crackers at the factory is morally a good man. It's just crackers, not a vote for the morality or behavior of everyone that worked on it.
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Jan 30, 2021 17:51
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Heywood Allen
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Jan 30, 2021 20:01
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Good timing, as I just re-watched The Tenant a couple nights ago. It's an absolute masterpiece and I love it. But I won't lie and say that Polanski's shittiness didn't cross my mind a few times, especially since we're staring at the guy for the whole movie. But I admit it's pretty easy for me to push it out of my mind and enjoy the film. What that says about me, I don't know. Also, there's a HUGE chasm between "openly conservative" and "molests little kids". I know this is generally a left-leaning forum, but it's funny to me that those two things are mentioned in the same breath.
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Jan 30, 2021 20:24
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Spatulater bro! posted:Also, there's a HUGE chasm between "openly conservative" and "molests little kids". I know this is generally a left-leaning forum, but it's funny to me that those two things are mentioned in the same breath. I think it depends if the goal of avoiding media is some plan to punish the creator by avoiding his work or if the goal is to avoid work that might function in some way as propaganda for a position. Like if I found out Orson Scott Card ate a baby it wouldn't really in the end ultimately change how I felt about reading his books, although I wouldn't want him to get any more money from them. But finding out his lovely opinions really did ruin the books, because now I know they are all just awful metaphors for things he thinks and they feel very sour to read now.
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Jan 30, 2021 21:39
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The Voice of Labor posted:A little bit of polanski movie viewing guilt can be leveraged out, he made all his good movies before doing the child rape. The 9th gate and Carnage are fun. Just borrow them from the library or  Edit: I've heard Polanski was always an rear end in a top hat to women, even before Sharon Tate and everything Blood Boils fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 05:59
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Um, Harvey Weinstein had a huge amount of creative input with the films he produced. So much so that his (derogatory) nickname in the industry was "Harvey Scissorhands" because he loved loving with movies against the director's wishes. EDIT: To actually contribute to the thread, this is one of the things I wrestle with especially since I work in the industry. I've never directly witnessed any shenanigans save for directors or producers being assholes on set, but it's definitely one of those things where it's in the back of your mind to question if there's poo poo going on. In terms of any of the listed filmmakers previously mentioned, I think the only one who I have a harder time dealing with is Roman Polanski and that's mainly because many of his films pre-child rape are absolutely fantastic pieces of cinematic work but you can't really watch them without thinking how much of a sex pest he is. VoodooXT fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 06:19
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Blood Boils posted:The 9th gate and Carnage are fun. Just borrow them from the library or Polanski is an rear end in a top hat in general in addition to being a child rapist, yeah. There's an anecdote in some memoir about how he invites people who make a lot less money than him to expensive restaurants and then leaves them with the bill. Edit: Here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Babylon_Confidential/tIQ4RW0KpS8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=polanski+restaurant+bill&pg=PT13&printsec=frontcover Take with a grain of salt, obviously... Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 20:18
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The Voice of Labor posted:A little bit of polanski movie viewing guilt can be leveraged out, he made all his good movies before doing the child rape. The pianist is an amazing movie that I watched before I knew about Polanski the person.
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Feb 1, 2021 15:51
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fr0id posted:Fair warning, I’m not a great poster, but I know lots of folks on here are. I would like to hear people’s thoughts on watching content with artistic input from controversial people. I think just saying "Controversial" is underselling it almost to the point of dishonesty when you're talking about Polanski, Spacey, etc. More accurate would be "lovely dudes" (can't help but noting they are all men) or perhaps more simply "Bad people who make good art."
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Feb 1, 2021 15:54
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Blood Boils posted:The 9th gate and Carnage are fun. Just borrow them from the library or he is a holocaust survivor. not excusing his behavior, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine a cause other than dude sucks. I could see having both your parents gassed and then having your wife murdered cause someone to just not give a gently caress.
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Feb 1, 2021 16:30
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twerking on the railroad posted:I think just saying "Controversial" is underselling it almost to the point of dishonesty when you're talking about Polanski, Spacey, etc. More accurate would be "lovely dudes" (can't help but noting they are all men) or perhaps more simply "Bad people who make good art." As mentioned above, I’ve included a variety of industry people whom I’ve heard people talk about not wanting to view their content, and it it ranges from political differences to abhorrent crimes. Controversial was more a way to note that not everyone agrees about how to treat these people or their art.
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Feb 1, 2021 16:32
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The Voice of Labor posted:he is a holocaust survivor. not excusing his behavior, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine a cause other than dude sucks. I could see having both your parents gassed and then having your wife murdered cause someone to just not give a gently caress. Yeah, Polanski is one of the few where you don't excuse anything he did but still say "yeah, this is where nurture and multiple bad days can make someone go crazy/create evil." My general rule is "don't actively give them money when I'm sure they did something terrible and they have not earned forgiveness." Polanski isn't getting money from me looking at Chinatown or Rosemary's Baby so I don't care. But I wouldn't go see another Louis CK standup (there's a possibility I would have sometime in some alternate future where he didn't respond by tripling down, and worked harder at actually making amends).
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Feb 1, 2021 17:01
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twerking on the railroad posted:More accurate would be "lovely dudes" (can't help but noting they are all men) There are some women, like roseanne barr or the weird lady that made forever twelve, or ellen.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:46
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For what it's worth, Polanski actively and often cheated on Sharon Tate and bragged about how many women he would gently caress. He nearly came to blows with John Cassavetes on the set of Rosemary's Baby because Cassavetes was so appalled at how he'd talk about his wife. He would talk about how he had no idea how any man could be satisfied with just one woman. Yes Polanski went through traumatic events, not diminishing the impact the Holocaust could have on his psyche, or the brutal murder of his wife (for which he was briefly detained and questioned as a suspect). But Polanski was always a genuine chauvinist and explaining away him raping a child because he'd been through some trauma is not really an accurate read of his character given what we know about him and his attitudes towards women and sex. For chrissakes the girl was 13 and he forcefully assaulted her. He was arrested the next day. He was found guilty and fled the country to avoid the consequences of his actions. Watch Chinatown if you want, but trying to say "well he made X move before it happened" or "well, remember he went through a lot of poo poo" ain't good excuses.
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Feb 1, 2021 21:21
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Polanski also said:quote:"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But ... loving, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to gently caress young girls. Juries want to gently caress young girls. Everyone wants to gently caress young girls!" He's an unsavory fella.
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Feb 1, 2021 21:35
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John Landis is the only one I champion over the quality of his films. It’s inexcusable how his recklessness and disregard for safety resulted in the deaths of three people, but it’s not the same as Polanski or Salva. It’s a difficult thing for sure as Landis is one of my favorite filmmakers. Michael Curtiz managed to rack up a higher body count during his career and had a history of recklessness on the set. Like having live arrows shot on The Adventures of Robin Hood (we’ll save Errol Flynn for another post). And probably one of the most controversial is D.W. Griffith, who’s known pretty much only for The Birth of a Nation. I won’t debate the serious flaws with that film, but I will say that Intolerance and Broken Blossoms are masterpieces, by a filmmaker obviously wiser after making a film that sparked so much hatred. Even his penultimate feature, Abraham Lincoln, is a pretty good early sound biopic (Walter Huston is terrific) that actually starts with a scene on a slave ship showing slavers throwing corpses off the side. It’s a bit ironic that for a filmmaker that seemed to spend the rest of his career on films that told stories about man’s inhumanity, none of that ultimately matters in 2021 because of that film. No wonder he died a broke alcoholic. Polanski is a bit overrated - didn’t care for Repulsion or Chinatown, but I love his take on Macbeth and The Pianist.
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Feb 1, 2021 21:36
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Spatulater bro! posted:Polanski also said: Yeah it's no surprise he fled to France of all places. And why Brett Ratner cast him in Rush Hour 3.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:17
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TrixRabbi posted:Yes Polanski went through traumatic events, not diminishing the impact the Holocaust could have on his psyche, or the brutal murder of his wife (for which he was briefly detained and questioned as a suspect). But Polanski was always a genuine chauvinist and explaining away him raping a child because he'd been through some trauma is not really an accurate read of his character given what we know about him and his attitudes towards women and sex. That's the weirdest part though, since he made a better movie about gaslighting a woman than Gaslighting and he made another excellent movie about an underage woman being sexually abused by an older man and it clearly presented as a really horrible negative. Could be a case of him working through his own dark places (before it was noted that those things happened) with his art.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:30
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This is really a tough one for me, and I end up applying my standards really inconsistently. Some are easy for me. Like, gently caress Polanski, dude assraped a child and then fled the country and continued to have a great career. gently caress that guy, it's easy for me to not watch his movies. Victor Salva was a little tougher, because I love horror and thought the first half of Jeepers Creepers was incredible. But, again, children. And John Landis, if only for his lovely glee when he got off completely after killing two kids and a guy. But mostly because he killed three people. But then, there's dudes like Paul WS Anderson, who i read recently is a real shithead when it comes to his stunt actors. That one is tough, because I love Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon, and his adoration for his wife was kind of adorable to me. But, I don't think I can watch his poo poo anymore. And Louis CK, I think is hilarious, but gently caress, man, I don't know. Same with, like Michael Jackson. Then again, I never really liked Kevin Spacey, so it's easy for me to skip his work. Craig Zahler- I loved Bone Tomahawk and Brawl, and, honestly, I didn't really pick up on all the troubling aspects a lot of other people did, I just enjoyed watching wild, insane movies. I dunno, man, it's just really hard to figure it all out. I work in TV/Film, and luckily, I've only really had this issue once, with a project coordinator who had a credible accusation against him assaulting/harassing a wardrober, so I've been forced to cut him out. That sucks, because I really liked him, and he gave me my first break. All this word vomit I guess to say that I find this to be really difficult.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:41
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Darko posted:That's the weirdest part though, since he made a better movie about gaslighting a woman than Gaslighting and he made another excellent movie about an underage woman being sexually abused by an older man and it clearly presented as a really horrible negative. Could be a case of him working through his own dark places (before it was noted that those things happened) with his art. Yeah I think a lot of people see this and think of it as "he made these fascinating films about abuse but he's a child rapist" when really it's "he made these fascinating films about abuse and he's a child rapist." It really forces you to recontextualize the work and try to understand it through the light. But on the other hand, I don't really have much interest in watching his work these days unless it was explicitly for an academic/critical project.
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Feb 2, 2021 00:43
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if you're trying to parse a sentence into it's logical structure, "but" and "and" mean the same thing. both are just conjunction, true iff both conjuncts are true. I get the distinction you're trying to drive home, it requires more than substituting that pair of words to make.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:15
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The Voice of Labor posted:if you're trying to parse a sentence into it's logical structure, "but" and "and" mean the same thing. both are just conjunction, true iff both conjuncts are true. I get the distinction you're trying to drive home, it requires more than substituting that pair of words to make.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:27
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This is something that I often think about. I think ultimately, the things that I think about when I'm deciding whether to watch or consume some sort of media are not just what they believe but also whether I think whatever it is that I'm looking at is informed by the parts of their identity that I don't like. Zahler's films are fairly well-made but after his cop movie and his Puppet Master movie it's really hard to deny that all of his movies are formed from this warped, kinda racist and very conservative view of the world and I just can't get with that. Woody Allen is another one where I feel like his actions are mirrored in his movies a lot and it's very hard to ignore how much are works from his awful, lovely brain. R Kelly is someone else like this; his music is so tied up in his identity as a sexual creature that his keeping women in a sex cult colors everything that he made. Someone like John Landis, who clearly hosed up and was a bad person but doesn't really reflect that in his movies, less so. to be perfectly honest, there are way more examples of this for music that I listen to than movies. I listen to a lot of pop music, and as much as I hate him as a person, Dr. Luke makes music that sounds incredibly good to my ears. I try to avoid streaming on platforms where I would be putting money in his pocket, but I don't think I could just completely cut Teenage Dream or Say So or Kim Petras out of my musical diet completely, especially because the music doesn't feel like a reflection of him as much as a reflection of the artist that it was made for. And I listen to a lot of rap music, which includes lots of artists who have been arrested and imprisoned for pretty much everything in the book, ranging from obvious bullshit that has way more to do with how terrible policing is, especially for black men in America (drug charges and gun charges especially), to legitimately gross and terrible things (Dr. Dre assaulting Dee Barnes). I try not to actively give money to the latter, although I can't lie and tell you that Gin and Juice is not still in my occasional rotation. And then there are the bigger ones. I don't listen to the poo poo that Kanye West has been putting out for the last 4 years aside from maybe one listen out of curiosity, but he was probably in my top 5 most listened to artists between 2010-2015, and it's really hard to cut albums out of your life that are so important to you, especially when they were made in a time before he turned completely into a trash monster. In the same way, I still listen to Michael Jackson because he was one of my dad's favorite artists and I grew up with his music all around, and it all slaps. Both of these men also have obvious mental issues, Kanye from his occasionally untreated Bipolar and Michael Jackson for having to deal with an abusive upbringing and a completely hosed up childhood. Jackson is also easier to reason out because he's dead and cannot personal profit. Every case is different, and it's different on an individual level. Media is often so tied up with our identity and sense of self that it's hard to remove these things that were formative. It's much easier to ignore current works because we have no connection to them.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:33
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Martman posted:I mean... "good" and "bad" are both just adjectives but that doesn't mean they mean the same thing. they also serve different functions in language, and and but don't. try it, leave out a but or an and and use a comma and see if it changes the meaning of your sentence.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:37
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The Voice of Labor posted:if you're trying to parse a sentence into it's logical structure, "but" and "and" mean the same thing. both are just conjunction, true iff both conjuncts are true. I get the distinction you're trying to drive home, it requires more than substituting that pair of words to make. its 
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Feb 2, 2021 02:43
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