I have definitely mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradley when her books get recommended. So yes? But also I feel like dead artists is when you really can attempt to separate the art from the artists (in the case of MZB I’ve heard there’s weird/questionable passages in the books, so can you really?)

I don’t want to know about Sam Neill’s controveries.

Depends on the situation. I have an uncle who is, for his generation (boomer), fairly progressive-minded.

For years, he repeated that his favorite book was “The Education of Little Tree” which was published in 76, and to my understanding takes a pretty irreverent and sometimes satirical stance on much of society’s generally accepted social norms and formal institutions. It has an environmentalist tone and is critical of the prejudice that the indigenous protagonist faces.

The weird part is that the author, “Forrest Carter,” was actually Asa Earl Carter who was formerly a prominent Klan member and speech writer for George Wallace, one of the premiere racist ghoul politicians of the American South. Ever heard the speech that goes “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”? Yeah, that’s a George Wallace speech that was written by Carter. It’s been known that they’re the same guy since the early 90’s, but my uncle still wasn’t aware of it in the 2010’s.

My Uncle’s a pretty reasonable guy and he’s capable of critical thinking. I don’t know why Carter went on to write a book that was critical of prejudice after spending his early life being super fucking turbo-racist, but the guy’s long dead and while it certainly recontextualizes his anti-prejudice work, it’s not like you can’t still like his books. When I shared the info with my uncle about Carter’s identity, I expected him to take it much the way I did like “Well that’s pretty weird. Wonder what the hell happened to have made the same man write such different things in his life. Sucks he was a racist,” but instead it really seemed like he took it personally. He got really defensive about something that has literally been settled fact since the 90s, suggesting it was all lies even though I was showing him the Wikipedia page for Carter. I even heard him mutter something under his breath after the conversation which is waaay more petty than I’ve ever seen him act.

If I don’t think the person I’m talking to is capable of critical thought and nuance, I’ll keep things like that to myself, but my uncle and I have had tons of interesting conversations. In my head this was just another one of those. It’s not like I was accusing my uncle of being racist. After all, he had no idea. I thought I was just sharing a bizarre detail about an author he liked.

the only answer to this question can possibly be ‘sometimes’.

ya gotta be able to ‘read the room’ as to its acceptability and appropriateness… or stfu

I assume they already know and have made the decision to not let it bother them.

Since he came up in conversation yesterday, I’ll use him as an example: say someone comes up and says how Chris Brown is such a good singer.

If I have any opinion on his actual singing, the conversation can go well even if I think, say, Drake is a better singer. (I did explicitly choose two R&B singers with different controversies.)

But if I say “yeah but did you see the police pictures of what he did to Rihanna’s face?”, then I feel like we’re about to be in a fight. They’re a fan, they probably already know. I just don’t see that conversation going well.

You could say that you don’t like artists who abuse others without directly referring to the specific incident, but if they ask you about who you like, you really have to be careful who you put up on your pedestal, lest they call you out as a hypocrite.

So I let it go.

Now if an American is telling me he likes Chris Brown, he likes Drake, and he supports Elon Musk and Donald Trump, he’s pretty much told me his position on women (and minorities) and I know this is a person to keep at arm’s length. I’ll speak to them, I’ll be polite to them, but I’m not going to introduce them to my younger sister or her 13-year-old daughter (if I had a younger sister, and if she had a 13-year-old daughter). But if they just wanna talk music, sure, we can have that conversation. I’d rather speak with someone who thinks it’s not okay to beat women, who thinks it’s not okay for grown men to have inappropriate relations with young girls, but if we’re just a couple people online separated by a huge distance talking about music? That’s fine.

I keep it to myself.

I don’t always mention it if they are alive either. I try to pick my battles, and i’d rather focus on other boycotts such as those from BDS.

Idk why mine or anyone’s opinions on a celebrity matter. Our entire culture and all of our cultural products are connected to evil in some way. The NBA and the NFL support genocide. Chris Brown hits women. How many movies have Harvey Weinstein attached?

My personal favorite rapper Kanye West is an anti semite and Trump supporter.

I generally believe in BDSing, so we should try not to support these people, but life is difficult and the things we have available to bring is joy are all complicated. Life is complicated and nuanced. Some people don’t have the ability to reject all of media while they try to find some solace in a heartless world.

Try to reject the things you can. But keep in mind that not everyone can.

I shut my mouth. Living in the modern world, that might be the last stale nugget of joy they have left.

what is wrong with you that you care about any of this. seriously.

of all the things to get morally righteous about, being angry at folks for liking a celebrity is pretty wild.

Depends on why they like them. If it’s for their craft and that has nothing to do with the problematic past, eh… whatever. If it’s because of their opinions on something and they don’t live up to them e.g somebody likes a boxer for their anti-racism stance but that boxer was a racist, I’ll tell 'em.

I would legit want to hear how they handle that dissonance. If they’re emotionally intelligent people they’re probably honest with themselves about whatever that bad streak is and probably have something interesting to say about it.

If not, then whatever. Not my job to arbitrate people’s morals or tastes.

Girlfriend loves Taylor Swift, music news whatever. It makes her happy, it’s all I want for her, so yea, I just let her have that

Edit…oh deceased woops

I let it be, even if the person is still alive. Anyone can “allege” anything against anyone. Plus, if the friend is a devout follower of someone genuinely controversial, then there’s already a good chance I’m not that close to them and would be cutting them out of my life anyway.

If we’re talking MJ. Tell them.