I’m mad at him and J. K. Rowling. I’m mad at Joss Whedon. And Louis CK. And probably lots of other people, too, that I’m not thinking of but this morning I’m especially mad at them.
There are so many reasons to be mad at them but I’m angrier at them than I am at say, Woody Allen, who always seemed like a lech to me. I was not surprised by Woody Allen so I don’t feel the same sense of betrayal.
Or Roger Waters, who got me through high school (listening to The Wall on repeat thinking that someone finally understood the mess of my brain). I’m not surprised that he’s turned out to be a terrible person because it seems in character; he never pretended that he might not be a terrible person.
Same with Johnny Lydon.
I can still listen to Pink Floyd (well, partly because of David Gilmour) or Public Image Ltd because it doesn’t feel like a great big liar and I was never a Woody fan so that’s no loss for me there.
But Gaiman? Whedon? And goddamn, Louis CK? They pretended to be better and even made a living on being better (more understanding) and explicitly on being feminists.
Ugh.
(A note about J.K. — I couldn’t get past her first book for years and years because 1) she’s not such a great writer; 2) the first book isn’t anything special especially if you’ve already read much better Chosen One kids fantasy books like The Dark is Rising or Tom’s Midnight Garden or even Narnia; 3) the fat phobia and ugly bad guys seemed like a poor parody of Dahl — who is himself a Johnny Lydon level annoyance. BUT so many of my clients talked about these books and how meaningful they were and told me which Harry Potter character most resonated with them and so I finally read them and realized oh of course! These books are about childhood relational trauma so no wonder they meant so much to people! Which brings me back to …)
Why I’m so angry is that not only are they terrible people who have done and continue to do real harm to people, but they ruined their art for us and their art mattered. They were lucky enough to be good (here again I side-eye J.K.) at what they wanted to do and they ruined it. They spat on it. They didn’t take any of that understanding and empathy that was in their books and bring it into their real lives (apparently).
I think — and of course I don’t know having never met them — but I think something is missing in them. I would write what I think but I can’t because I’m still a licensed therapist and licensed therapists have to be careful about public opinions around individuals and mental health but I have a guess about what that missing might look like diagnostically (except Louis, who I think is just a craven individual whose life got away from him and who likely gets the depths of their depravity in the way that the others I don’t think do). (But again, what do I know.)
I am angry on behalf of their fans and readers. I am angry that people who read their books or watched their shows and felt seen and understood now have to figure out what to do about these things that they love.
For me, some of them are easy. I’m still going to love Buffy, which was after all a universe created by a whole team (not the least of whom is Marti Noxon). I never read much Gaiman, but I’m annoyed I don’t get to catch up with his books now. And Harry Potter didn’t mean to me what it meant to some of my clients so again, not a big loss. Louis CK does feel more personal but Better Things is better and Pamela Adlon cut him right out when what he was doing came to light.
Mostly my convoluted reasoning isn’t something I can defend. I’ve never liked The Rolling Stones so there wasn’t ever any reason to interrogate their groupie stories but I still listen to David Bowie with nary a qualm. I look askance at actors in Woody’s movies but somehow keep forgetting that Kate Winslet was in one of Polanski’s last films.
It’s exhausting to care and so sometimes I don’t but also sometimes it’s not the exhausting it’s because it makes sense in my head. I have trouble watching Kevin Spacey but I also have trouble watching Gwyneth Paltrow (because of Goop, which one could argue is less heinous although I think it’s pretty heinous).
But what I really came here to write about (and keep losing) is that I’m angry on behalf of fans. I’m angry when people make something wonderful and then can’t behave themselves and so rob us of their work.
I’m angry on behalf of the people who felt cared for by their art and now have to — yet again — give up that care. (Because so many of the people who needed those stories are people who didn’t get enough stories or especially needed stories in the way other people maybe did not.)
I don’t judge people who still love Harry Potter or (like me) still love Buffy or who quote some of Louis CK’s old stuff and I know that Neil Gaiman’s work has been very meaningful for folks but now if we still like it, it’s with an asterisk. We have to negotiate it with ourselves. We have to say that it’s not Harry’s (or Hermione’s) fault that they were brought into being by a regrettable person.
Ugh.
Anyway. I’m mad about it today because I read the Vulture piece about Neil Gaiman, which I’m not even going to link to because it is one big trigger warning and I hope that the women he harmed somehow find peace.
Leave a Reply