This week, Ed Piskor became the latest comic creator to be accused of sexual misconduct, specifically in reportedly grooming an underage girl of 17 years old. This story is entirely too common across every field, and we want to reiterate that the most important thing – the only important thing, really – is that the victims of these crimes are protected, receive justice, and are made to feel as safe as possible.
For those of us who have read and enjoyed books by folks like Piskor, we now have a dilemma on our hands. How do we interface with the work of people who have been credibly called out for despicable behavior? It is one thing to seek out new work from these folks, but for many of us, some of our favorite art was created by folks who we learned later were not people we wanted to be patronizing.
Speaking personally, I’ve taken a pretty strong line in how I interact with media from folks like this. When I was younger, I loved a number of Woody Allen films, but I’ve now decided that I will not watch any Allen film until he dies; after he can no longer make any money off of my enjoyment of his work, I will allow myself to watch some old favorites. Similarly, one of my favorite albums of my college era was Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker. I own the CD already, so by listening to it, I am not giving Adams any more of my money. That album means something very different to me than what he intended it to be; it was the soundtrack of a tumultuous year, and I have memories attached to it that mean a lot to me. But I won’t give that dude another penny.
That’s how I deal with it; how do you? This is, perhaps, the most interested I’ve ever been in a Reader Poll at Multiversity, so please vote, and check back on Monday for a discussion about how we interact with art from bad people.
