main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

JCC [Woody Allen, among others]Can you separate a person's art, work and/or career from their actions?

Discussion in 'Community' started by DarthTunick , Feb 3, 2014.

?

Can you separate a person's art, work and/or career from their actions?

  1. Yes

    33 vote(s)
    75.0%
  2. NO

    11 vote(s)
    25.0%
  1. Zapdos

    Zapdos Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2013
    i'm gonna do some reading, looking for subliminal messages and get back to you, wocky
     
  2. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Thank you, Zapdos. You are, as always, honorable.

    Unless you were just making mock, in which case the joke is especially funny given my tendency to take it seriously. In that scenario you would be amusing, which you even more always are.
     
  3. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    Yeah but clearly I've done that reading. I can tell you where Mustaine's stupid worldview comes into the songs ("Washington is Next", "Amerikhastan", "United Abominations"). I can tell you that Varg's racism cannot have influenced Burzum's music because he's dealing with a time when there was no contact with non-Europeans. A time that's uniquely Nordic.

    I can tell you what Thrice songs are Christian that don't appear Christian. I can tell you about Dustin Kensrue, the singer. I know my stuff enough make peace with what I can, or move on from what I can't.

    I'm not sure that' not evident throughout the thread.
     
  4. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    Zapdos - Jeg tror han liker deg...
     
  5. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2007
    I don't get at all the thoughts of people like KW. There's no reason to consume any art then. Unless you can absolutely go through the mind of every person who worked on a piece of art and clear them of any kind of wrongdoing ever in their entire lifetime, you can't do jack. Could you even align yourself with a religious affiliation like Catholicism, which is now embroiled in a very large and increasingly public paedophilia scandal?

    People are complex. To boil them down to one thing and one thing only, and to reduce a piece or art that's usually collaborative to art done by 'a paedophile' is petty. I believe pretty clearly that there's a deep separation between an author and their creation, mostly because the audience exists and plays almost as important a part as the artist.

    I don't want to stand up for paedophiles or anything, but they're also people. There's just a very sick part of them that makes them think what they do is right or pleasurable. As much as we'd like to simplify them down to 100% paedo 100% of the time, they're not.

    Mel Gibson's a pretty abhorrent anti-semite, but Apocalypto's a pretty good movie. Plenty of people with questionable views have done great things. I'm not going to saddle their good work with all of their views. There are merits to both Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation.

    It's separate. So yes.
     
  6. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Ender, what gives me pause is that your reasoning doesn't seem to be very deep. The only Mustaine songs you identify are those whose titles make it blatantly obvious. You implausibly rule out Varg's racism just because he's not singing about interactions with people of different races. That's not really what I've been going for. It's a good first step, but it's not complete. I would again recommend you look at some of the writings of Chinua Achebe or Edward Said to consider how people can embed their work with objectionable attitudes in ways that are not entirely conscious or intentional.
     
  7. Zapdos

    Zapdos Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2013
    jeg vet han gjør
     
    Ender Sai likes this.
  8. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Fortalte han deg om vannet i hans hjem verden?
     
  9. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    I thought I was done with Edward Said years ago.

    But I'm trying to tell you, you're simply wrong. In the same way none of you have been able to show evidence of anti-Semitism in Wagner's compositions.
     
  10. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Norwegian is really fun to read... I have no idea what the **** you're saying, but I love looking at the words.
     
  11. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    We're talking about whether "Wotan" for "Odin" is blasphemous or not.
     
  12. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    No need to translate... I was being serious. I'm kind of enjoying having no idea what you're talking about and simply looking at the words... I'm MST3K-ing you guys.
     
    Healer_Leona likes this.
  13. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    You can do that with Ender posts in English too! <3
     
    soitscometothis and Zapdos like this.
  14. Zapdos

    Zapdos Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2013
    *hjemverden. vi setter sammen ord på den måten her. og ja.
     
  15. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    You are telling me in a way that doesn't demonstrate you know what I'm talking about. For instance, please consider the characters of Mime and Beckmesser in Wagner's Die Meistersinger. There's quite a robust commentary on its anti-semitic nature. You might want to try harder.

    Ultimately, though, I'm not the one listening to your punk rock fellow, and I'm not interested in doing so. You'll have to give your own account. I should hope my point is clear by now, though.
     
  16. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    I laughed my ass off at "your punk ruck fellow" :p
     
  17. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    Jeg vet. Jeg ønsket å skille dem for å forvirre ham. Tror du han vil bli sint hvis jeg ignorere ham og snakke med deg på norsk?
     
    Zapdos likes this.
  18. Zapdos

    Zapdos Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 7, 2013
    bare sleng inn en og annen wocky så han ser navnet sitt og blir nervøs. men han må da være i stand til å bruke oversettelsesprogram han også
     
  19. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Is Google producing intelligible translations for you, Ender?
     
  20. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Wocky, did you Google this or are you familiar with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg?

    Firstly, Wagner scholars remain divided on the concept. Wagner's great grand-daughter feels he probably based it on a common cultural stereotype of Jews of the time. Charles Rosen argued that Beckmesser was not a Jewish character, but that the entire opera is "anti-semitism is woven into the ideological fabric of Die Meistersinger, and that the representation of Beckmesser incorporates unmistakable anti-semitic characteristics". Dieter Borchmeyer suggests that Beckmesser is representative of a kind of academic pedantry making him more akin to Malvolio than Shylock.

    Part of the critique of Beckmesser is rooted in the essay on Jewishness in Music I referenced on page 1 or 2 of this thread. Beckmesser, when reading Sach's poem in a garbled voice, is said to be highlighting the kind of Jewishness in music Wagner referred to in the essay. As Borchmeyer says; "If Beckmesser were a caricature of a Jew, he would need to speak in garbled sentences all the time and this is by no means the case. He speaks a German that is barely indistinguishable from the other Masters."

    I am not aware of a Mime in Die Meistersinger. In Der Ring des Nibelungen, Mime speaks in the exact same alliterative tones as everyone else and is otherwise indistinguishable from the other characters.

    As I mentioned Shylock, I'll touch on the most common Jewish stereotype of the day; greed. The whole point of Die Meistersinger is that Walter, a young Knight, wishes to become the master singer of the Guild so he can marry Eva, with whom he is smitten. Eva has also fallen for him, but her Father promised her hand in marriage to the winner of the guild's song contest on Midsummer's day. Beckmesser does not crave dowry as the hitherto favourite-to-win the contest (prior to Walter's arrival), skipping a common device to show a Jew in opera and theater of the day.

    Sorry, you were saying?

    EDIT:

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BU1vIVIvob0/TyxHhV75LoI/AAAAAAAADaQ/KNC88LbF1ZQ/s1600/Ace%2BVentura%2B****%2Byeah.gif
     
  21. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    Den raske brune foxed hoppet over den late hunden; Wocky.
     
  22. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    I speak enough Norwegian to get by without it.
     
  23. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    I guess I'm really confused by that last response, Ender. In answer to your question, I've seen Said reference the issue passingly in his other work, but have never read his definitive essay on Wagner. I've only been able to locate partial copies free online, so I'm sort of waiting around until I can get hard copy. In the meantime, I'm deciding how far I want to pursue the issue.

    Mostly, though, again, I'm confused by your last response. You have repeatedly claimed in this thread that there is no hint of anti-Semitism in Wagner's work. When confronted with the issue, you conceded that "scholars are divided." Which is not at all the same thing. I'm not trying to have some contest about who knows more or less about a particular person's work. Nor am I trying to make you feel a certain way about any particular work of art. I simply want to encourage people to wrestle with the difficult aspects of things they enjoy. Your repeated, loud proclamations that such things don't actually exist in some of the pieces you like would suggest to me that you haven't done so. Again, though, ultimately A) you have to decide for yourself and B) this is my standard, not yours, so you needn't even accept it.

    But that response was not some sort of homerun post demonstrating you've already grasped and utilized my methodology. That would've meant talking about the controversy around Wagner's anti-semitic moments in his work from the your very first post, instead of conceding that there is "divided scholarship" on the issue five pages in.
     
  24. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
  25. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013