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Once again, the unsettling reality of admiring artists who may have a dark personal life has come to haunt us. Can we separate art from the artist? The latest accusations against best-selling British author Neil G♐aiman force us to confront this question yet again. As the ♑literary world grapples with the accusations, we're forced to confront the uncomfortable truth: our favourite artists can also be flawed, even monstrous, individuals.
Neil Gaiman, the famed English fantasy writer behind The Sandman, Good Omens, American Gods, and Coraline, was the subject of an explosive on Monday. The article details accusations of sexual misconduct based on interviews with eight women. Four of them had previously shared their experiences on a UK podcast last year. These accounts include two employees, one a for💞mer nanny in her mid-20s at the time of the first incident, and five fans—one of whom was just 18. One of the women, who had been babysitting Gaiman's five-year-old child, alleges that he sexually assaulted her in a bath.
Gaiman has denied the allegations, on Tuesday: "I'm 🌜far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever."
Meanwhile, Disney has paused production on its film adaptation of another Gaiman title, The Graveyard Book, while Netflix has cancelled Dead Boy Detectives. Howeve🌊r, it's not clear wheth𓄧er the cancellations are related to the accusations.
The allegations against the famed fantasy writer raise a fundamental question: What to do when a filmmaker or a theatre personality whose work I am fond of and who has been accused of sexual misconduct by using their positions of power—the fame of an artist—releases a 🀅new work, while victims continue to fight for justice? Should I boycott th♋e movie/play then?
In Outlook’s 11 August 2024 issue, Will You Read This Book, we discussed ⛦this matter in detail in the wake of revelations about Canadian Nobel Laureate Alice Munro. It came to light that Munro had, for many years, ignored the reality of her husband sexually abusing her minor daughter from her previous marriage, at certain points even blaming the nine-year-old for “seducing” the older man into “adultery.”
In To Separate Art From The Artist, Snigdhendu Bhattacharya writes for Outlook, “We cannot absolve Nobeꦯl Laureate Pablo Neruda of the crime of raping a powerless woman, but what’s wrong in saying, ‘Neruda, an unconvicted rapist, was a great writer’?” Bhattacharya argues that art should not give immunity to the artist from tಞheir crimes or falls. Similarly, when the artist has committed a moral or criminal offence, bring them down, but spare their work.
So how do we teach the works of writers and thinkers who have abused their power or committed terrible crimes? Professor Saikat Majumdar considers this in his Op-Ed, Monsters, Masters. He writes that the personal ethical violations of writers can make us reject them on a persona🦄l level. However, a crucial f🍎actor is how such violations affect our understanding of the principles they have come to signify.
In the story, Iron In The Soul, Outlook’s Executive Editor, Satish Padmanabhan, wri꧋tes about where we draw the line with 'flawed' artists.
To read more stories from the issue, Will You Read This Book, click here.
