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Benoit is dead, nothing you do will benefit him in any way.
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Benoit's actions/views don't affect the art he helped create.
These are the two big issues for me.
If someone is shitty IRL, I do not want to fund them in any way. That's just that simple. I don't really care about what someone who died twenty years ago thought unless it leads into the second point.
If their shitty views or actions are intertwined into the art then I cannot separate it. If I enjoyed a book about a handsome, strong space-man, fighting off the evil race, and then the guy turns out to be a horrible racist, I'd be like "Oh, the aliens are probably black people caricatures and this is a book about race war" and its separation would just be ignoring the context in which it was created and that never feels right to me.
The "death of the author" only goes so far, sometimes there are unavoidable themes and imagery that have to be examined with their views in mind. You never really think about how Harry Potter has a bunch of rules in the school that allow girls to enter boys dormitories but not the other way round until you combine that with the fact that JK Rowling is a TERF. You never really piece together why she describes Rita Skeeter as a shapeshifter who has a heavy jaw and mannish hands until you take into account what the author believes.
I feel that's another caveat. It's okay to enjoy problematic stuff, especially if it has some nostalgia value for you, but I wouldn't go recommending it.
On some level of you stop enjoying media because of human suffering then you're going end up watching nothing.
Pirate when you can, and if you genuinely think it's that bad then it's fair to just not participate at all.
Nothing worse than the labor that goes into the device you watch it on in the first place.
I consume some media which would have given (a however minuscule amount) of money to someone who is bad.... if I paid for it. Which I didn't.
This post is brought to you by piracy.
Other examples: I listen to this liberal podcast called Chapo Trap House, and as liberals I do not wish to give them money. And so I listen to their "premium" episodes for free, thanks to Mother Mary.
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To your point about Chris Benoit. He had a terrible amount of CTE, to the extent his 40 year old brain was 80 years old. I think there was also a steroid in his body so roid rage probably contributed to it as well. I honestly don’t think he was actually Chris Benoit when he killed his wife and son which is why he committed suicide.
I don’t financially support anyone with fascist beliefs. For example, I love Black Metal but the scene is littered with Nazis. If I find out a band is full of Nazis I won’t stream their music.
On the other hand Louis Ck was my favorite stand up comic before he got me too’d. I haven’t really listened to his previous work since it happened but I’m not entirely opposed to listening to his old stuff. However, no way would I listen to anything new or go to a show considering he never paid damages to his victims and generally doesn’t seem to give a shit. South Park is another example. The creators lean conservative and the political messages are lazy in the show but they haven’t done anything that entirely turns me off from the show (at least the old seasons)
Fash beliefs = I avoid
Shitty beliefs/behavior = guilty pleasure or depends on how I feel.
I only stop if I can't consume that piece without thinking about how terrible that person is, so yeah I listen to music by many "bad people", but I respect other people's decisions to avoid those artists.
I cringe now watching Benoit. His matches are top notch, no doubt. But, his style was so intense that you absolutely know it fucked him up physically and mentally. I remember watching his match with Jericho at the 2001 Royal Rumble where he took an unprotected chairshot to the head on a dive, and it just made me cringe because you know the hit probably gave him a concussion.
He always had a strong relationship with Eddie Guerrero. Once Eddie died due to heart failure (likely due to the same physical and mental stress Eddie put himself through and the drug use), Benoit seemed to lose his sense of reality. If you've never seen the Dark Side of the Ring doc about Benoit, you should.
I mean that's hardly unusual. It's basically what every elite sportsperson or physical artist does (look up throat cancer and hearing damage rates for Opera Singers sometime, it's not great)
I think it's mostly fine. Some people though it's hard to look past their previous shit when consuming their work though. For example Louis CK is just very not funny to me now because of how much of his routine is devoted to how gross he is. Like it just constantly reminds me of the stories women shared that were extremely gross. I legit can't look past this in his bits. But I won't be mad at someone who does enjoy his comedy, whatever, so long as they understand he really is a creep not much I can really care about.
Something similar happened with Kevin Spacey, just don't wanna watch shit with him in it anymore. Was never even a big fan either so no loss there for me. But like some music artists got some bad politics and I can more easily look past that because I assume most people got bad politics already lol
Didn't Benoit's brain basically get turned to mush by too many hard bumps too the head and that's what precipitated his mental breakdown? What happened to him and his family was incredibly tragic; but I always saw Chris as a just a sick man who wasn't properly taken care of by the company and he and his family died due to that carelessness. Idk maybe I'm wrong but I felt like I could still enjoy his work (besides cringing everytime he takes a hard suplex or a chair shot to the head)
The autopsy said his brain looked like an Alzheimer's patient.
spoiler
Which was later retracted or is not actually entirely indicative of what it looked like exactly, but it's still a good line, so it remains.
Ultimately depends on whether or not the person is dead and there is no estate carrying on their ideology. Also on whether or not I can mentally disassociate the two.
I ironically started listening to Marty Robbins because hur hur New Vegas Big Iron and started unironically enjoying his Western music. Just a shame I learned he was a racist, sabre-rattling piece of dung who made a song smearing Civil Rights activists and anti-war protestors as dirty commies. That said, he's dead and his Western stuff is so far detached in tone/style from that one song so I can't mentally make the connection.
Now, I just need to mentally block out the realization that maybe a genre rooted in romanticizing/whitewashing an era steeped in genocide and settler-colonialism might be closer to the problem then I realize..
Generally I'm able to. I tend to isolate the work of art and view it as it is without thinking about the artist in question. For example I still love Michael Jackson's music to this day.
On the other hand, I cannot fucking stand Phil Anselmo for the life of me ever since seeing the "whites rule" video footage, to the point where I can't stomach Pantera anymore. Dimebag playing a Confederate flag guitar is definitely pretty sus in my book, and it especially creeps me the fuck out when certain YouTube guitar guys go out of their way to fetishize his gear.
I'd like to be proven wrong, but it's kind of like eating chocolate custard during Human Centipede. The damage is already done; the association is wired in there already, and it's not coming back out.
Edit: added video link. CW: Nazi bullshit.
I might not give them money but otherwise I will not be bothered
It's getting increasingly hard to separate the art from the artist. When Destiny first blew Jontron out as a Nazi, I had to think about if I should stop watching his content. I decided it was a good idea, because his reactionary politics bled into his humor (particularly in the form of unfunny anti-feminism jokes) But now that I look into it, problematic shit the artist believe will always bleed into the art, either consciously or subconsciously.
Regardless of the morality of the situation, you shouldn't be supporting people who stand opposed to you. That's just bad tactics.
Regardless of the morality of the situation, you shouldn’t be supporting people who stand opposed to you. That’s just bad tactics.
consuming the content of people who are bad people has literally fuck all to do with "tactics" it's an entirely personal choice that doesn't broadly affect the world in any way. the fact that we seem to think so is an extension of this idiotic western concept of "vote with your wallet." systems produce bad people, ending your support for Jontron isn't going to stop the system that creates neonazis so do whatever you personally feel is right, but don't act like it has any broader impact on the world besides your own.
true and I personally dislike Jontron and people like him so I consciously choose to not listen to them. I think there is a line though, I cannot stand works from known nonces like Luc Besson or Roman Polanski or Woody Allen anymore. people who consciously hurt others. but belief systems are different, I think supporting some dumb sap who voted for Trump is definitely a totally different scenario
We all put the moral bar just below what we ourselves do, that's natural. You're right in that the system is far more important than the individual. Stressing out over your own contributions to a nonce economic system is libshit, but we should still be cognicent of our place within said system. Such reasoning could just as easily be used as a justification.
Personal decision, you dont have to be internally consistent with it and don't hound people about it except in extremely egregious cases where the work in itself is infused and symbolises the problematic shit of the artist, please just leave people alone instead and dont do shit like draw conclusions about that person.
I don't abstain from a problematic creator's work with the intent of driving them out of business. That's pretty close to the lib notion of voting with your dollar. Not really a solution. But I do tend to stop watching or enjoying something if one of the people involved is terrible. I used to have a sentimental connection to a Kevin Spacey movie, but now I can watch any of his performances because I can't help but to see what he did.
However, I feel that's a personal choice. I don't try to shame people for enjoying something problematic as long as they don't try to defend the person or deny the problematic elements invented by a creator.
Like you can't help feeling connection to something you like, but if you say you don't care what Woody Allen did, I might think differently of you. The apathy is my problem.
And if you can, don't contribute to one of these creators while they're still alive.
Also, this is a problem that could partially be solved by dissolving intellectual property laws.
for Kevin Spacey, watching the roles where he is evil is almost like perverse voyeurism. House of Cards comes to mind, as well as the mo-cap he did for that Call of Duty game.
