Bad People Make Good Art

Yes, this is about Neil Gaiman

Earlier this week, a very lengthy and very disturbing article was published by Vulture regarding allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct reported to have been committed by writer Neil Gaiman. These allegations first came to light last year when a podcast was released featuring women who accused Gaiman of assault, harassment, and emotional manipulation. Gaiman denied the allegations at the time, and if I’m being honest, it was easy to look the other way as soon as people online started to point out that the podcast network hosting the show had previously been shown to have an anti-trans agenda. Gaiman, who has in the past been an outspoken defender of trans rights, was being targeted by the right, I told myself as I began a lengthy re-read of The Sandman, a comic book series written by Gaiman that had been hugely influential in my teenage years.

After the initial outburst of surprise and anger surged through the corners of the Internet where I lurk died down, it seemed Gaiman had found himself on the edge of cancelation. Would I stop reading his books? No. If I somehow found myself in an elevator with him and had the chance to take a selfie, would I consider the optics before I posted it online? Yes.

After this new article by Vulture, in which new stories were reported and the original stories expanded upon, it has become increasingly more challenging to reconcile the version of Gaiman I had in my head based on growing up with his writing with the version that seems to have been lurking in the shadows of his private life - committing monstrous acts of assault on significantly younger women in his orbit. Gaiman has denied the allegations and lawyered up (though, indeed, he has to see what it looks like when you hire the lawyer who defended Danny Masterson and Prince Andrew). Still, I cannot see Gaiman’s career rebounding after this article’s publication. Maybe he’ll continue to write, and maybe publishers will continue to release books by him - but Gaiman’s days writing national bestselling comics and books or having major studios bankroll adaptations of his work seems to be firmly over.

Regardless of what Gaiman’s personal finances look like going forward (and that is, seriously, the least important part of this story), I have felt a stone in my gut these last few days as I wrestled with my personal decisions regarding my relationship with Gaiman’s words. And this is a personal decision we all must make whenever an artist is exposed as a “bad person.” Be it Bill Cosby or Louie CK or Kevin Spacey or Neil Gaiman, or any number of the (almost always) men who have fucked up and found out - what happens to their fans? It’s easier, kind of, when an artist just has really shitty opinions. J.K. Rowling or Dave Chappelle say stupid stuff, and if you want to, you could just ignore those stupid things they say and focus on the art they made that you enjoy. But what about those men who committed actual crimes? Whose actions had irreparable harm on the lives of others? I honestly don’t know if I can read NEVERWHERE or STARDUST - two books that once meant so much to me again.

That’s the good thing about our world and time, though. There is other art - other books and comics and comedians and musicians and so on and so forth - that we can enjoy instead. We don’t have to read or watch or support artists who are shitty people if we don’t want to. Don’t want to read any more Neil Gaiman? There are thousands of books and comics that are either directly inspired by Gaiman’s work or (especially with Gaiman) were the inspirations for Gaiman’s work. You can cut out the middleman and still have years of art to enjoy!

But what happens when parting is too great a sorrow? I still own comics by Doug TenNapel, an artist whose public views on the LGBTQ community are reprehensible. I know I should purge his books from my collection, but they mean too much to me. If I’m being honest, I probably won’t be able to toss my Gaiman books from my collection too. Reading THE SANDMAN or CREATURE TECH as a teenager made me who I am today. It would be as easy to cut out my relationship with those books as I could exorcise those really embarrassing years when I watched SWINGERS and started dressing like Jon Favreau’s character and listening to Dean Martin.

I envy the people who can snap their fingers and just stop liking problematic artists. These are, I presume, the same type of people who can cut out family members from their lives who voted for Donald Trump. Many of these people are also the folks I’ve been seeing these last few days who have started to proclaim, “Well, maybe Neil Gaiman wasn’t that good of a writer to begin with?”

While I would love to be mercenary with my art and its relationship with politics, I can’t help but think it's a dangerous road to go down where you start to base your judgment of art on an artist’s politics. Judge an artist for what they say and do, but don’t live in a fantasy world where only good people make good art and only bad people make bad art. That’s just a lie - and a dangerous one, too.

Maybe Gaiman wasn’t your taste all along - plausible! - but let’s not get caught up in a world where people’s problematic pasts cause us to reevaluate the worth of their art. History is riddled with very talented artists who were very shitty people - and it is each of our prerogatives to decide whether or not we want to consume their art. But for us to think that somebody’s morals must be outstanding for their art to be good or for us to think that people who do shitty things aren’t able to make life-altering art is just misguided. It’s emotional censorship - a tricking of your brain into thinking that the world is binary when it never is. It’s like saying, “I didn’t really want ice cream anyway!” when your parents tell you that you can’t stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. It’s a coping mechanism, yes, but an unhealthy one.

For as long as humans exist, most of us will live lives flittering between the side of angels and demons. We’re going to hurt people and do and say horrendous things impulsively. We’re going to make bad decisions, and we’re going to have to live with those decisions for the rest of our lives. But humans are not inherently evil or inherently good. People are capable of change, and when given the resources, they can grow spiritually and emotionally. Good art will come from rapists and serial killers, and people who cheat on their taxes. That elementary school teacher who was so lovely to you in third grade? They probably have a drawer of absolutely garbage Law and Order fan fiction at home.

We can change our relationship with artists, but I will always be cautious about turning our back on our relationship with art. When artists put their work out in the world, it ceases to be theirs. Art, when unleashed, takes on a life of its own. It goes out into the world, meets new people, and changes lives - in both good ways and bad ways. It’s like having a child or making a fart.

I may never read another Neil Gaiman book in my life. Still, Gaiman’s heinous behavior will never change the fact that I read STARDUST as a fifteen-year-old boy and become a lifelong romantic dreaming of the possibility of the fantastical beyond every wall or hedge. Joss Whedon’s grossness will not take away the impact watching BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER had on me as a kid. Doug TenNapel’s love of dead naming trans people will never take away the rare connection to faith I felt after reading CREATURE TECH.

Shitty people do shitty things, but they also - sometimes - make incredible art. We’re just going to have to deal with it.