It can sometimes be hard to separate the artist from their art. Are there any artists who were bad people but whose work you still enjoy?

Feel free to answer if you’re in the opposite scenario: an artist who you love personally but don’t enjoy their artwork.

Feel free to respond more than just music artists!

  • AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Tom Cruise. I don’t know what weird pathways cross in a brain to get that deep into Scientology without realizing what bullshit it is, but he is an amazing actor. He understands the craft, he is not shy about poking fun of himself, and by all accounts he is a consummate professional and treats the film crew well and has given gifts/thrown parties for them, etc.

    But Scientology, yeesh…

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      I want to hate him so badly. But he is so good. I remember when he was cast as the vampire and I was pissed, having read the books it made no sense that Mr. Top Gun Fast Times at Ridgemont High as an undead vampire.

      Saw the movie and had to eat my words, he had become a gaunt undead vampire. What the actual fuck. He was fantastic. Ever since that, I kind of trust he will be good in anything.

        • RBWells@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          11 months ago

          Oh God you are right I am just conflating all those movies I avoided so successfully. I just mean until then he played characters so straight and gung ho and active and shiny. No way I could have cast him, whoever did saw something that nobody else did and they were right.

          I still want to hate him. But do think he’s a gifted actor.

  • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    58
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    HP Lovecraft - great writer, horrible racist

    Similarly, Orson Scott Card - Ender’s game and its sequel are great, but he’s a raging homophobe.

    • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      HPL actually repented his stark conservatism and racism in his later years but yeah.

    • Badabinski@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      11 months ago

      I’m convinced that Orson Scott Card suffered a traumatic head injury at some point. I don’t know how you could go from writing something as beautiful and intimate as Ender’s Game to shit like Hidden Empire, which is creepy right wing Christian disaster porn (from what I can remember of that trainwreck).

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      11 months ago

      I mean, by present standards, most people historically would have been pretty racist.

      • ThunderingJerboa@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        11 months ago

        He was certainly above that. Hell his story “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” also known as “White Ape”. Is literally a book about the “one drop rule” to the point its actually funny because of how absurd it comes off as. Its so insanely racist, it fucking becomes funny based on the character’s reaction. Its not a great short story but basically he find out his great great great great grandmother was a “white ape” (which is not human per say but lets read between the lines since the white apes come from the congo region), his response to this news was pouring gasoline on himself and burning himself alive. Like yes its fiction but the fact he made a fucking short story where the focal point is discovering that you are mixed race and learning that is so mind breaking, death was the only logical option is god damn hilarious.

  • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    Billy Corgan.

    The music of Smashing Pumpkins got me through some very dark times as a teenager, but finding out he hates me because I’m gay snapped that personal connection. I’m usually able to separate the art from the artist and still enjoy good stuff made by bad people, but I’m not able to enjoy them anymore. The connection was too personal and the betrayal was too great.

    • Synthead@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Billy attempted to sell an Alesis SR-16 that was used in his band for $30k. It’s a $100 drum machine. He was selling it himself. No charity or anything; he just tried to hyper-inflate a very common drum machine that is still produced because he thought he added that value to it by owning it. That was pretty weird.

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        I mean, in the sense of music history it is worth more than any other random one you can find on the street. But maybe somewhere around $500 - $1000 if it was signed by the band.

  • dingus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    Kanye had some real bangers early in his career. I still listen to them and have them in my playlist.

    • BigPotato@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      At a certain point, I acquired some CDs and just ripped the songs. If I’m in a Dropout mood, I’ve got the option to listen without him getting a cent. And I found the CDs secondhand too.

  • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    I really enjoyed Ender’s Game, but even while reading you can tell there’s some weird racist shit going on in Orson Card’s head.

      • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        It’s been a while so I don’t remember anything concrete, but I remember characters being described with a strange amount of detail in racial or ethnic features, like height or nose shape. I don’t think he ever explicitly describes any race as superior to others, but some of the passages felt like it was going to devolve into some weird analysis of skull dimpling or something.

    • purplexed@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      I searched it up a bit, and apparently Card is pretty vehemently homophobic. Which really sucks and is really strange. It sucks because i do enjoy his books, and they were honestly part of what got me into sci-fi. It’s really strange though since the moral of pretty much every single book of his is understanding, empathy, and compassion.

    • sunbytes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Yeah he donates a lot of money to anti-lgbt (or “homophobia-adjacent”) “special interest groups”.

      So that means a hard no for me paying for anything he gets royalties for.

  • HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    11 months ago

    I would say Kevin Spacey. The man can act: Usual suspects, Seven, first season of House Of Cards. Shame how he turned out.

  • kylie_kraft@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Marilyn Manson - he had a slow slide from alcoholism to lecher creep to serial abuser. he spent 2009-2011 doing the worst shit to women that you can imagine.

    Brand New - turns out that Jesse was a groomer of underage girls.

    Arcade Fire - Win Butler is a sex pest.

    Smashing Pumpkins - not at all in the same category as the others, but goddamn does Billy Corgan suck. he was always known as a first-class egotist, but he just kept being an asshole long after his prime had become a distant memory. then the weird shit started: crackpot conspiracy theories on Myspace, palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews. the latest album is an extended allegory on cancel culture. worse, it’s mostly unlistenable.

    • Kiernian@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      11 months ago

      palling around with Alex Jones on Infowars, dropping alt-right buzzwords in interviews

      That saddens and actually kinda shocks me.

      I would have expressed ZERO surprise to news of him going so far to the LEFT that he ended up miles beyond hippie dippie new agey and founded his own Heaven’s Gate cult (The central belief of the which was that followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven)…but this is…honestly weirding me out.

      Wasn’t he going so far into eastern spirituality that he was recording himself reading the entirety of the Bhagavad Gita at one point or something?

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    11 months ago

    Johnny Craig, the former lead singer for the band Dance Gavin Dance. Dude has repeatedly fucked up and ripped off fans, but damn did he have a great singing voice.

    And for the opposite, T-Pain and Post Malone. Both of them just seem like the coolest, and most chill people but their studio music is just not for me.

  • jacktherippah@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    I love Tom Cruise. The man is an amazing, committed actor. He doesn’t need flashy CGI or visual effects and he does insane stunts for our entertainment. Too bad he’s a fucking nutjob.

    • Tattorack@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Except his movies use a lot of flashy CGI and visual effects. Sure, he does his own stunts, but there isn’t any less CGI in his movies than any other.

  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    11 months ago

    A lot?

    Tom Cruise is the easy answer for obvious, cultist, related reasons. And as much as I love Donnie Yen in basically everything he has ever done, he is a hardcore CCP shill at best and there is a LOT of really creepy and questionable shit in his casting and “writing” that makes me wonder when he fucks up so bad that even China cares.

    But, generally, the rule that a friend “coined” is: How bad are they compared to Mel Gibson? And while that is mostly a “funny” way to look at stuff, it is also useful to keep in mind regarding the different scale of assholes. And it also depends on what they are bad about.

    Also, I still like pro wrestling. That shit is a minefield.

    But to provide an answer that didn’t seem to come up yet:

    Nobuhiro Watsuki. Creator of Rurouni Kenshin and such a pedophile that even the Japanese government gave a shit (and… just spend five minutes on the fifth floor of any manga shop and you’ll understand how massively fucked of a scale that is. Or walk down the streets of Akihabara at night).

    But also? The Rurouni Kenshin anime is still one of the GOATs… for the Kyoto arc. Even if there is a lot of shit in the arcs surrounding it and the overall story of Kenshin that REALLY makes a lot of sense when you understand how evil the creator is… And the live action adaptations are a must watch for any fan of action movies because it is probably still the greatest blend of wire work, fight choreography, and “style” to ever exist (I hear the Yu Yu Hakusho live action taps into the same vein).

    One of those things where I will be a lot happier when that piece of shit is dead and unable to benefit from sales.