death of the author & separating art from the artist

02/07/2025

today i'd like to have a think about something i've been wrestling with for a very long time! namely, is it possible to totally separate a creator from their work? is it possible to divorce the influence of an individual and their life from the body of work they have put forward? and if so, can you, in good faith, enjoy a creation by a person you completely disprove of? and then what does "enjoy" truly mean under this context?

recently, i've been working on a page showcasing my favourite characters for this site. but i've run into a bit of an issue where i'm a romantic at heart so i feel disingenuous if i don't include Every Single Character I've Ever Loved. but some of these characters come from creators i do not condone whatsoever, and further some even come from works i don't even like anymore. yet, i still feel an affinity for these characters and what they meant to me at different times in my life so not including feels almost... wrong in a way. like i'm presenting an unfinished quilt. so you can see why the concept of separating art from the artist has been back on my mind.

when tackling this concept in the past i've generally aligned myself with thinking that it's fine to enjoy art in spite of your feelings towards its creator, so long as you aren't directly supporting them or heavily promoting the material. i'm very much so a proponent of the literary criticism "death of the author." for me, works take on an entirely new life the second they are put out in the world. it's an experience i've had both as the audience and as a writer myself. sometimes things don't turn out the way you intended them to and the work goes beyond your original scope. sometimes people read things in your work that you did not even think of. and that's a beautiful thing! that's one of the things that makes creation so special.

not that i don't think the creators intentions or comments are never important, but more so that the creator becomes a peer to their audience. their intentions are simply on equal footing to what the audience takes from it. and that isn't to say that every single take is necessarily valid, either. you can definitely be wrong in how you read something if your evidence and proof is lacking. but i don't think that necessarily matters in the end. overall the "ultimate meaning" is always going to be different for every person because they bring their own circumstances into the work as well. in that way, there will always be three equally important settings to keep in mind when you face a piece of work: the setting of the creator, the setting of the work itself, and your setting.

that's quite the tangent! but it's really important to my thought process here. while the creator is, of course, solely responsible for their work and what is presented in it, there will always be different ways to read it, different contexts to view it in, and different meanings to be taken from it. i think this is especially true when you consider shorter forms like music, where the creator has a much more limited space to interject their personal intention into the form. if you're listening to a love song that makes no mention whatsoever to the things you would dislike or disagree with the creator on, of course it will be easy to relate and even enjoy the artistic experience. you may even think all the lyrics apply perfectly to a romance you have experienced yourself. the work is an extension of the creator, but only to a certain point.

i would further argue that there are times where audiences understand characters better than the creator themselves. there was a whole discourse surrounding this on twitter a few months back where someone had stated that they hate when people say that authors don't understand their own character, that "they're the author, the character is ultimately their vision" and the character "wouldn't exist without their author." i chewed on this a bit at the time and ultimately concluded it's just genuinely incorrect. it might be true for Good authors but there's so many people who attempt to write characters inspired by people and cultures that they do not truly understand. saying that an author can never make a misstep as a result of that is to disregard the importance of criticism entirely and is just generally a very uncurious and unintellectual mentality to have. one of the characters i would include is a great example of this. i simply really believe i understand them better than the creator themselves and further, because of the creators intentions.

so if we decide (or at least i decide, maybe you're sitting there shaking your head and tutting at me, if so do send me an email,) that you can, at least to some great extent, separate art from an artist... what now? what do we do with this? we like this thing, or at least we like parts of this thing, or maybe we even used to like this thing, but we don't feel comfortable supporting its creator because of x reason. it's easy enough to agree to enjoy it by yourself quietly and illegally download the content and only buy merchandise secondhand but how far can that go for enjoyment value? can you partake in something like fandom or wearing clothing merchandise outside while holding up a big sign making sure everyone knows you don't approve of the creator? how fun is that, really?

and i honestly don't know!! yet it's the situation i find myself in here. do i add the characters to this page and put a little disclaimer like "but i hate the creator!!"? but then isn't the inclusion of the work at all an indirect promotion of it, something i'd like to avoid? it's my personal site and ideally i'd like it to represent all sides of me, including the things that were important to me in the past, but is that more important than maintaining values? it's a weird thing!

i also think that the time a work came out isn't insignificant to this discussion. obviously being old and from a different time isn't necessarily an excuse to have held abhorrent beliefs, but with enough space it's not like their estate is collecting paychecks, you know? my site is named after a shakespeare quote and i feel quite comfortable with that despite his many failings because he existed so absurdly long ago. on the flip side, a creator that still exists and still receives money for their work and even uses that money to fund disgusting ventures? i don't feel good about mentioning their content, even if my site is tiny and they are already famous. however important that work was to me at one point in my life, it could never be as important as supporting those who are harmed by the creator.

anyway, i guess there's my answer. it's probably quite obvious now what property all this is in reference to, but there are actually quite a few works i've been thinking about in relation to this. one i'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around right now is the novel good omens, as it was co-written by two people and to my current knowledge, only one of them is disgusting. but then there's that whole other matter: my current knowledge. a lot of the works i'm including? i don't know anything about their creators. maybe they're also people i wouldn't want to include or promote. how far is too far? what is an individual responsible for in a situation like this? agh!!!! i'm back where i started!!!!

swan upon leda - hozier