The Roald Dahl Museum has condemned the racism of the author in a new statement.
I feel like the art is what needs judged here, not the artist. We put all this emphasis on Dahl thought this and Lovecraft said that, and people use that as reason to disregard the entire body of work the person produced. But we lose a lot of work that isn’t really affected by those views and actions because we can’t disconnect it from the person involved in the creation.
What throws a wrench in that is when the person is still alive, and still profiting from those works. Hence why most of your queer/trans friends haven’t bought anything Harry Potter related in a while. Marilyn Manson is my personal example of this. I was a huge fan of his work as a teenager and well into my 20s. When all the stuff about what he did to Evan Rachel Wood came out, I stopped listening to his albums for a long time. I intentionally avoid streaming his tracks because I don’t want to give money to someone I see as abusive toward others, but those albums are still worthy of attention for what they say beyond that subject. Still, it’s hard to hear his voice and not think about what he did.
On the other side of that coin, those managing the estates of these creators that are gone need to be aware of what’s wrong with their charge as much as what’s right. The museum in this piece is doing it right at the end of the day - making the best of a lifetime of antisemitism.
The problem is when you pay for their work and they use their money to exert undue influence for racist, homophonic, or transphobic causes.
I don’t recall the part where I have to spend my money on art that’s good. All this bullshit about “cancel culture” is basically people with gross ideas whining about the free market actually working.
I haven’t read a ton of Dahl’s work as a adult but I have been going through the Lovecraft collection and the racism is sort of baked into the work. I’m not saying throw it out if anything the only thing positive I can say is Lovecraft work probably wouldn’t have worked so well if it wasn’t his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way. I do however agree mostly with your other point that the big problem is supporting currently alive creators since consumption does sort of benefit them allowing them to push their views in the real world.
Lovecraft work probably wouldn’t have worked so well if it wasn’t his idiotic racist views since in a way a ton of his work is based on fearing the outsider and basically is racism in a super hyperbolic way
I never really thought about it that way, but you’ve got a solid point. The people fear the unknown, and the unknown acts in ways that provoke and reinforce that fear, turns it into cosmic horror. If you were to take away the Cosmic part, all that’s left is the fear of the unknown.
To build on a reply I left above; Lovecraft’s work isn’t currently (to my knowledge) funding the KKK for example. He’s not diddling kids, or raping actresses; he’s dead. Is his estate racist? Are the royalties from his published works being used to embolden TERFs? Do lovecraft-estate-licensed board games hold anti-abortion rallies?
That’s the difference. When people don’t want to separate the art from the artists is when they’re out here doing actual harm still.
I’m not saying cosmic horror is inherently racist but how HP Lovecraft wrote it was absolutely inspired by his racism. Shadow over Innmouth could be seen as a very heavy handed metaphor for Interracial marriage. Also can’t remember the actual name of the short story but HP Lovecraft for some reason found the need to point out a Jewish merchant gave someone a cheap or free Necronomicon, it was really on the god damn nose.
I mean I love the concept of cosmic horror but we would have to be blind not to see how racism especially HP Lovecraft version of it was heavily flavored by his bias and racism.
