Was just emailing with another PCFer about this and thought it could be interesting (and/or potentially politard trolling) to invite others' thoughts.
TL;DR below (most of it copied/pasted from my emails), but the cliff's is basically the question in the subject line. Do you watch a team or a movie that includes an athlete or artist whose actions or opinions you can't stand? Do you avoid those games or movies? It seems like every other day there is a celebrity of some kind in the news for doing something reprehensible or expressing an opinion deemed out of step with current culture.
The most extreme examples would be Roman Polanski having raped a 13 year old girl and Woody Allen having allegedly molested his wife's adopted daughter.
Then there are the sort of middle of the road examples of someone having taken some action that might be hurtful, but is entirely within their right (i.e., Curt Schilling's Facebook post mocking transgender rights or various NHL players' support of anti-gay Russian laws).
Finally, there are the most benign possible examples where someone is asked explicitly about an issue and responds honestly and their answer doesn't align with what we deem culturally enlightened at the moment. Most absurdly, recently some American Idol contestant was asked about her position on some anti-LGBT legislation and was ripped apart because she said she "didn't support the gay lifestyle" though she also didn't explicitly support the law in question.
There are obviously tons of specific examples - Mel Gibson ranting bigoted and misogynistic shit at a cop, Manny Pacquiao being elected to the Philippine House of Representatives, Mozilla's CEO donating to a Prop 8 advocacy group - of people crossing the line from holding an opinion to taking an action against another person or group of people and things become more complicated there.
My politics are pretty far left, so it's not as if I have any sympathy for the above-discussed positions. Nevertheless I would have no problem supporting a hockey team that includes players with different positions and I have no problem going to see a Mel Gibson movie and loving it. I haven't used Mozilla in years, but if their product was great, I'd have used it for sure even if they'd kept their CEO on.
The slightly tougher question is whether to support someone like Roman Polanski who almost certainly raped a 13 year old. No one denies he has directed some stone cold classics (Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, Chinatown, and more) and he continues to attract the best actors in the world to his projects. Are we somehow morally culpable for supporting a rapist by watching and enjoying his work?
What about Woody Allen? There, the facts are quite a bit less certain. Should we study all we can so that we can make a judgment about his guilt and then use our findings to determine whether we want to go see the new Woody Allen movie?
If that's your approach, it quickly gets absurd in my opinion. How far do we want to delve into people's opinions or actions when those opinions and actions have nothing to do with what we seek to enjoy about that person?
Marc Maron conducted an interview in which the subject of language policing came up. The interviewee said something about not being able to say the word "tranny" anymore. Marc said - and I'm paraphrasing - "You can say 'tranny' all you want. You just have to live with the fact that you'll end up only be hanging around people who are comfortable with you saying 'tranny'."
That seems pretty fair to me, so to this point I've been directed by my comfort level in the presence of the artist/athlete and his work. For instance, whenever I try to watch a Woody Allen movie in which he is the romantic interest of a young woman, I am quite distracted from the movie. I'm taken out of the plot and the humor and have a tough time enjoying it. So I avoid those. But I have no problem watching something like Blue Jasmine or Magic in the Moonlight in which Woody doesn't appear as an actor. So I watch those. Same with Roman Polanski, who benefits from never playing substantial parts in his own films.
It seems to me to be the liberal version of the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. It's not as if those people who were blacklisted were falsely accused - many of them were actually Communist Party sympathizers or members. But who gives a shit? They were great artists.
So do any liberals refuse to watch Apocalypto even though it was amazing just because it was directed by Mel Gibson? Or do any conservatives refuse to watch O, Brother Where Art Thou? because it stars George Clooney?
TL;DR below (most of it copied/pasted from my emails), but the cliff's is basically the question in the subject line. Do you watch a team or a movie that includes an athlete or artist whose actions or opinions you can't stand? Do you avoid those games or movies? It seems like every other day there is a celebrity of some kind in the news for doing something reprehensible or expressing an opinion deemed out of step with current culture.
The most extreme examples would be Roman Polanski having raped a 13 year old girl and Woody Allen having allegedly molested his wife's adopted daughter.
Then there are the sort of middle of the road examples of someone having taken some action that might be hurtful, but is entirely within their right (i.e., Curt Schilling's Facebook post mocking transgender rights or various NHL players' support of anti-gay Russian laws).
Finally, there are the most benign possible examples where someone is asked explicitly about an issue and responds honestly and their answer doesn't align with what we deem culturally enlightened at the moment. Most absurdly, recently some American Idol contestant was asked about her position on some anti-LGBT legislation and was ripped apart because she said she "didn't support the gay lifestyle" though she also didn't explicitly support the law in question.
There are obviously tons of specific examples - Mel Gibson ranting bigoted and misogynistic shit at a cop, Manny Pacquiao being elected to the Philippine House of Representatives, Mozilla's CEO donating to a Prop 8 advocacy group - of people crossing the line from holding an opinion to taking an action against another person or group of people and things become more complicated there.
My politics are pretty far left, so it's not as if I have any sympathy for the above-discussed positions. Nevertheless I would have no problem supporting a hockey team that includes players with different positions and I have no problem going to see a Mel Gibson movie and loving it. I haven't used Mozilla in years, but if their product was great, I'd have used it for sure even if they'd kept their CEO on.
The slightly tougher question is whether to support someone like Roman Polanski who almost certainly raped a 13 year old. No one denies he has directed some stone cold classics (Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, Chinatown, and more) and he continues to attract the best actors in the world to his projects. Are we somehow morally culpable for supporting a rapist by watching and enjoying his work?
What about Woody Allen? There, the facts are quite a bit less certain. Should we study all we can so that we can make a judgment about his guilt and then use our findings to determine whether we want to go see the new Woody Allen movie?
If that's your approach, it quickly gets absurd in my opinion. How far do we want to delve into people's opinions or actions when those opinions and actions have nothing to do with what we seek to enjoy about that person?
Marc Maron conducted an interview in which the subject of language policing came up. The interviewee said something about not being able to say the word "tranny" anymore. Marc said - and I'm paraphrasing - "You can say 'tranny' all you want. You just have to live with the fact that you'll end up only be hanging around people who are comfortable with you saying 'tranny'."
That seems pretty fair to me, so to this point I've been directed by my comfort level in the presence of the artist/athlete and his work. For instance, whenever I try to watch a Woody Allen movie in which he is the romantic interest of a young woman, I am quite distracted from the movie. I'm taken out of the plot and the humor and have a tough time enjoying it. So I avoid those. But I have no problem watching something like Blue Jasmine or Magic in the Moonlight in which Woody doesn't appear as an actor. So I watch those. Same with Roman Polanski, who benefits from never playing substantial parts in his own films.
It seems to me to be the liberal version of the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. It's not as if those people who were blacklisted were falsely accused - many of them were actually Communist Party sympathizers or members. But who gives a shit? They were great artists.
So do any liberals refuse to watch Apocalypto even though it was amazing just because it was directed by Mel Gibson? Or do any conservatives refuse to watch O, Brother Where Art Thou? because it stars George Clooney?
