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challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
I enjoyed this! I felt like there was a bit of a detour in the middle, but it challenged my thinking and I appreciated the reflections and questions posed
”You are a hypocrite, over and over… you are not responsible for solving this unreconciled contradiction.”
”You are a hypocrite, over and over… you are not responsible for solving this unreconciled contradiction.”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Rape
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
An interesting reflection and a great jumping off point for anyone interested in art and ethics and feminism. I was slightly disappointed with some of the conclusions which felt a little glib against the backdrop of the wrestling ideas and feelings but overall a worthwhile read.
Content Warnings
Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Abortion, Abandonment, Alcohol
reflective
slow-paced
My Review
(Trigger Warning: rape and physical violence)
Pros:
The author asks important questions.
Can we separate a monstrous person from their art?
Or does the monstrousness permanently “stain” the art?
Do our individual actions even make a dent in the problem of monstrous behavior?
How do we define monstrous behavior?
And how to cope when you still love the work of a monster or even the monster themselves.
Cons:
The author meandered, and at a times it was quite a slog to get to the point.
She went off on tangents that could easily have been the subject for a different book.
In looking for monsters, I feel she made a false equivalency regarding mothers who give their children up for adoption or people who commit suicide and Pablo Picasso putting out his cigarette on a woman’s face.
The book could have been half the length that it is.
I appreciate the questions that Claire Dederer asks. The book did make me think. (And even if the author herself seemed unable to reach a conclusion on the topic, I did.) But I was disappointed that she did not really share her personal thought process in regard to the fact that Roman Polanski raped a 13 year old girl and yet she still loves his work. I’m not criticizing her for continuing to love his work. But I would like to know how she separates the monster from the art. How did she make peace with this? That would be enlightening.
She touched on some interesting tangents that would be great topics for other books. The first is the liberal worldview that society is evolving toward an apex of better behavior. The second is that due to this viewpoint we tend to excuse the racism and the anti-semitism of the past as ignorance. But was it? Intriguing topics! However, it’s a large drift from the topic at hand.
Will I read more of the author’s work? No.
My Personal Conclusion
Ordinarily, I would not share my personal conclusion in a book review. However, the book is designed to make us hone in on our individual thoughts and feelings regarding these questions. So I would be remiss if I didn’t share the conclusions that were a result of reading this book.
First off, how to define a monster? While everyday events, like divorce, suicide, mothers giving up their babies for adoption or leaving their children with a responsible adult like their husbands - gasp - certainly can cause intense pain, these tragedies are the result of flawed human behavior. Not monstrous behavior. IMO, monstrous behavior purposefully seeks to cause harm to another person. Inflicting pain is the primary reason behind the behavior.
I agree with the author that our individual choices regarding watching a monster’s film, looking at a monster’s art, or reading monster’s book are unlikely to make any difference one way or another. So it’s up to us to decide how we feel, and what to do about it.
For me personally, the monster’s behavior stains the work - especially if the artist is still living. Current example: Neil Gaimen. I will not be buying his books. I will not support him financially, even though he will be unlikely to notice my absence. I feel like continuing to buy his work is a slap in the face to his victims.
Interestingly, I find that in some cases, I am less vehement about consuming the work if the artist dead and not around to continue his (and yes, they are usually males) reign of terror. I have no issue supporting the estate. I imagine the monster’s heirs had to put up with a lot of meanness.
All of that said, I would never presume to tell anyone else how to feel or what they should do in regard to this issue. This is an important issue that bears discussion, and I do thank the author for wading into the topic.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Excrement
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Rape
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Rape, Murder
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Separating the art from the artist is a difficult task for me. There are times that I am of the belief that the artist's views and interworkings are in their art. However, I also have instances of ignoring this belief for the enjoyment of something created by someone terrible. I feel uncomfortable with this hypocrisy; if I decide to not partake in the media of everyone who did something terrible; I could enjoy nothing, for everyone is terrible. The uneasy feeling comes back when I am watching something that has clear views of the author/artist embedded it in. What am I to do with this unease? A single person not reading or watching the media created by a person is not going to have any impact to the creator. It will impact the enjoyment of the consumer, their ethical quarrel is nothing to the creator. The only person you are proving something to is yourself. That doesn't mean I can't dislike or critique people on their actions and morals. I have to admit that there is no person who will fit within this strict path of ethics and morals in the age of the internet and social media being a part of most daily things. Trying to end people's careers for doing something many humans do is a black and white type of thinking that doesn't fit within the real world. This book brought up good questions to ask yourself, not only in the media that you digested, but your personal relationships as well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Rape
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse
Minor: Antisemitism
A lot of detail about the sexual assault of minors, many points about alcoholism and the issues with recovery, a section about people abandoning their children, a decent amount about the domestic abuse of women and children, and smaller parts about antisemitism
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
in the opening of the final chapter of this book, claire dederer recounts a debate she and some friends had about their favourite trees in the pacific northwest of america, with dederer’s decision coming down to nothing other than the beauty of a specific kind of tree. to me, that’s a perfect description for what this book is like - on the surface, it poses some big, self-reflective, very important questions, but only sees fit to view them on an aesthetic level, and dances around any answer that doesn’t fit directly into the author’s very feminist-oriented system of beliefs.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse
Minor: Death of parent
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
As a fan of many of Neil Gaiman’s works, I came across this book at the right time.
Dederer made many good points. I liked the visual of the stain, especially when she added the dynamic of parasocial relationships:
“This dynamic makes the stain more destructive—the more closely we are tied to the artist, the more we draw our identity from them and their art, the more collapsed the distance between us and them, the more likely we are to lose some piece of ourselves when the stain starts to spread.” (56)
With that said, her line of argument towards the end concerning consumption under capitalism felt like an easy way out of the conundrum. I agree that there is no truly ethical consumption under capitalism but that doesn’t mean consumer choice doesn’t matter at all. With our choices, we set signals, whether we show the demand for, let’s say, sustainable products, or a certain cultural phenomenon. I believe that if our goal is to make an artist irrelevant, we have to make their art irrelevant too. My go-to-example is Harry Potter. As long as people go to HP theme parks and buy HP merch and talk about the new HBO production, JKR will stay relevant, and with her, her bigotry.
(On that note, I’m glad Dederer mentions Rowling, but her “mask off” moment was in 2019, not 2021, and she has said much more hateful things than what Dederer quotes. Later though, when talking about Valerie Solanas, Dederer makes a fantastic point about radical feminism that applies to Rowling as well: “[Solanas] sacrifices a true vision of liberation on the altar of gender esentialism.”)
All in all, this book offered wisdom and food for thought, and it helped me navigate the ambiguous waters of loving a “monster’s” art a little better than before.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence
Minor: Transphobia