XX Factor: the blog

Celebrity Is as Celebrity Does?

DoubleX is starting a new partnership with The Washington Post Magazine. Each week our contributors will argue over a certain question, and we invite you to join in. This week: When a male celebrity perpetrates violence against a woman do his female fans have a responsibility to turn their backs on him? Can you love the performer and hate the person? Forgive and forget once his next project is released? Or is supporting an abusive celebrity's work akin to supporting his violent behavior?

Nina Rastogi: I think this is the flip side of “love the sinner, hate the sin”—it's completely possible to love the art and hate the artist. (That's different, of course, from loving the art and excusing the artist, a la Roman Polanski.) At the same time, it's impossible to avoid having our experiences as viewers or listeners or readers colored by what we know about an artist's personal life. If you can't hear a Chris Brown song without cringing or getting enraged, by all means, stop listening to him. But I don't think there's anything hypocritical about buying a ticket to his concert and then spending the next morning, say, volunteering at a domestic abuse center.

Claire Gordon: I struggled with a similar question as a major Woody Allen fan, given his marriage to Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. In a lot of Woody's oeuvre he casts hot young leading ladies 30 years his junior as onscreen loves, which always seemed to me sexually unsavory and shameless—especially when the man hit 70. I still bought a Woody box set and watched it last holiday season. It was awesome. If we boycotted every artist who behaves unethically, our lives would be pretty desolate. The fundamental problem is that we live in a culture that normalizes violence to women; punishing individual perpetrators with a pocketbook protest seems more like self-punishment than effective political action.

Amanda Marcotte: If we couldn't separate the art from the artist, most of us wouldn't enjoy much art outside of Jane Austen's. Enjoying someone's art is no more endorsing every bad thing they've done than is working with someone whose politics you hate. That said, I understand why some feminists wish to make an exception for rape and domestic violence. Rapists rape and wife-beaters beat because they get public support even in the face of their crimes. We want to do a small part for creating actual shame for men who abuse women. But it seems to me that conflating the art and the artist is counterproductive. We'd do better to say that Chris Brown (or Roman Polanski) may make fine art, but they need to be doing so from prison.

KJ Dell'Antonia: I'm intrigued by the double standard that exists between entertainment and politics, although I don't think it's unreasonable. Governors Sanford and Spitzer, you're out. Ditto John Edwards: Career over—we can't trust you, and you're clearly blackmail material. A liability. But although there may be fresh new implications for his face on the Wheaties box, Tiger can still hit a golf ball, Chris Brown will still take the stage. I'm not interested in either, but then, I wasn't interested before. The lesson seems to be: if you're a guy who finds the siren song of his nether regions to be more important than anything else (and I presume you know who you are), avoid politics.

Photograph of Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Tags: celebrity culture, Chris Brown, domestic abuse, roman polanski, Woody Allen

Amanda McGrath is an editor for The Washington Post Magazine

Comments

Women Too ?

By: h0tr0d | Sat, 01/02/2010 - 09:25

I recognize this blog normally observes radio silence on female on male domestic violence, but with the recent publicity surrounding Elin Woods and Mary K Blige, the silence becomes deafening. So, what about Mary K Blige ? Can you organize (or even write something) about what she has done ?...or should we just assume her husband deserved to be punched in the mouth for talking to a waitress ?

I agree with Lyger.

By: cookiemuffin | Fri, 01/01/2010 - 20:16

These artists have a tremendous influence on children and young adults. If they are allowed to keep singing their songs and making their movies, then what does that say to impressionable minds. It says to potential abusers that it's okay to abuse. It says to potential victims to just put up with it because no one else cares, that even if you do come forward and your lucky enough to be believed, your safety matters less to the masses then their entertainment does.
If you listen to (abuser X)'s music in front of your children, if you spend money on their music, then you are endorsing their behavior. Period. If you already own the music and listen to it on your own, then that's fine. But don't give them any more money and don't expose other people to their crap.
What is it about the psychology of women, we have been oppressed and repressed for so long that we accept that we can't change anything? That we can't make a difference? It is tiring to be the lonely activist especially when other WOMEN make excuses for the abusers.
We can make things right. We have the ability to. Just believe in yourself and pick up the phone.

There are alternatives

By: cookiemuffin | Fri, 01/01/2010 - 20:05

I agree with Lyger. We do not have to accept that we have to put up with people's behavior, because there are artists/musicians/actors/etc who DO work for good causes, who even promote activism through their music or art. No one artist is irreplaceable. Celebrities fade away or pass away and their fans may mourn but they move on and find new celebrities to enjoy. No matter what genre of music/movies/art a person enjoys, there is always some alternative in that same genre. Additionally, it can be empowering to make a conscious choice to make healthy decisions for ourselves. To know that we alone will not stop a certain celebrity, but we as a group can. If every person who thought DV was wrong stopped buying the music, then it would have a huge impact. Boycotts HAVE worked in many times throughout history.
Not all of us will agree on what is acceptable behavior or not. This is why it's important for each person as an individual to decide where the line is for them that cannot be crossed. I will not tolerate violence, whether DV, rape, etc. I also will not tolerate artists who may have clean records themselves but who promote DV or rape in their songs, etc. For me the message of the show or the song is very important. They don't all have to have "good" messages, but they have to be free from violence.
When film and television were in their Golden Age, neither were filled with violence. There has been a steady progression of more of this into our media. We do not have to excuse it. We can take action. We can write to the companies who own the television stations, or the music companies and complain. We can send letters saying that we are boycotting so-and-so's music. If enough people stand up, perhaps we can make a small dent in this huge problem.

Boycotts

By: Lyger | Fri, 01/01/2010 - 16:49

"If we boycotted every artist who behaves unethically, our lives would be pretty desolate."

Or, maybe, we'd start seeing artists who, in order to be successful, would keep their acts clean. A boycott means that someone's leaving money on the table. And the first rule of business is that whenever enough money is left on the table, someone will do what needs to be done to get it into their pockets.

But the other point that this statement brings up is our own unwillingness to do without in the face of behavior we claim to dislike and not wish to support. Its one thing to separate the sin from the sinner in the name of an understanding that a person's entire life shouldn't be defined by a select set of actions on their part. Its another thing to make that distinction because we don't want to forgo entertainment. To the degree that Sheen's celebrity buys him a second chance that nameless schlubs on the street don't get, it's that we're willing to sacrifice his wife to retain access to his services. The schlubs, having nothing to offer, got the big house, and wear a brand for the rest of their lives.

What's the Message?

By: XY_Handicapped | Thu, 12/31/2009 - 22:26

To push the argument to the absurd, should we reject the Declaration of Independence because those who wrote "all men are created equal" owned slaves? The art should be judged by its content, not necessarily how far the artists' personal lives fall from the ideals their work may espouse. On the other hand, in the majority of the cases cited here so far, clearly punishment is in order. The questions then are: is it being administered, and by whom should it be administered? The law and legal proceedings represent societies attempt at justice. Are the courts, as our proxies, administering justice? If so then do we have a right to go beyond that justice? If not then why not, and is the collective then right take extra measures (boycotts, etc)? I would answer maybe, better lawyers, and probably. However, to some extent I would also argue that the media attention generally acts as at least a temporary Scarlet A in many of these cases. However, it will probably always be the case that the wealth and the social networks of the people whose sins we are likely to see in the news, make most of their punishments (legal and social) seem somewhat unsatisfactory. Still, while we deplore the legal license that fame often seems to bring, it seems wrong to argue that fame should result in greater punishment. But without greater punishment, we may never be satisfied with the confluence of law, fame, and justice.

KJ's Tired Cliché

By: Fitzpatrick | Thu, 12/31/2009 - 12:32

Dell'Antonia should know better: the pursuit of affairs has almost nothing to do with the nether regions, especially for politicians. It's an ego trip, pure and simple, and that part of the brain that makes folks think it's a good idea has the same wiring as the part that makes them run for office.