As Women, Can We Separate the Art from the Man (And Should We?)
Can you separate the art from the man? An age-old question, but for women, a very relevant one. It may be relatively easy to avoid the art of say a Nazi or a pedophile, but can we avoid the art of misogyists? Can we boycott our way to more power? In some instances, the answer is yes, as I know many people who refuse to listen to R.Kelly or don’t watch Woody Allen films. But the products of our culture are so steeped in sexism that there is almost no way to completely avoid them. And the other nagging question…should we avoid them?
There have been lots of opinions about this for much longer than I’ve been alive. But what does an artist’s character mean in relation to their work? Does the kind of work matter? What do we do about art’s great misogynists because if you have ever taken a literature class, you are well aware that you can’t avoid them.
And now we are well aware that women in Hollywood had to make this calculated decision to either yield in some way to Harvey Weinstein or boycott all together — which would almost certainly ensure they would not have a career in Hollywood. While Weinstein didn’t necessarily make the art himself, he was the gatekeeper. The man with all the power. And some lowly woman wasn’t gonna stop him. But how about 20 women? Or 100? My point here is that, as women, we have those numbers because abuse, assault and misogyny have been a part of every woman’s life. Every. Woman. It is sometimes overt like Weinstein and sometimes more subtle as seen in some of the art created by these types of men.
On this topic, I’ve heard a lot of women on the side of…look at the art, not at the man. This is true for all the women who have worked with men like Roman Polanski. Oscar winner Kate Winslet, currently appearing in a Woody Allen film, stated it this way in the New York Times:
Did the allegations against Woody Allen give you pause?
Of course one thinks about it. But at the same time, I didn’t know Woody and I don’t know anything about that family. As the actor in the film, you just have to step away and say, I don’t know anything, really, and whether any of it is true or false. Having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person. Woody Allen is an incredible director. So is Roman Polanski. I had an extraordinary working experience with both of those men, and that’s the truth.
The question is whether women can avoid these types of men and still feasibly have a career. In Hollywood (and many other places) the answer is no. I don’t blame nascent actors for working with these assholes. Imagine being an actor and one of these men wants to put you in their movie — your dream realized? Would it be so easy to say no? Of course not, just like it’s not easy for me to avoid misogynist writers, because sometimes the writing is worth it. But if you are at say a Kate Winslet level, you have a lot more power and, in time, I am sure some very strong actresses will use that power to choose to work with men who haven’t been accused of assault or harassment. (Or crazy thought — try to work with women.) There must be a massive cognitive dissonance that women face when working with men like Allen and Roman Polanski. But they do it anyway, not because they don’t care about other women, but because they are one cog in a very well-established wheel.
That’s the problem with being a woman in our culture — you can’t get upset about every bit of sexism because it would make life unliveable. Believe me, I’ve lived in that space. I still live there most of the time.
If all we do is conflate the work with the man, women would have almost nothing to watch or read. As Sarah Polley stated so beautifully in her NYT op-ed piece, Hollywood doesn’t exactly attract the best among us. And an integral part of Hollywood (just like music and fashion) is about exploiting women.
I liken it a bit to being Jewish and enjoying the art of Nazis or Nazi sympathizers. Should Jews boycott T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound? It’s a cognitive dissonance that many Jews have faced when they read anti-semetic authors or drive German car brands that were integral parts of the Nazi regime. And while Nazis still have a hold on our society (clearly demonstrated by Charlottesville and the bigot-in-chief), we have some years between us and that time in history.
And it turns out that that is a big factor in how we view the art and the artists. We often forgive the things that happened long ago. It’s easier. It was a different time, we say. But for women, it’s never a long time ago, it’s all the time and it’s been that way since the very first cave man realized he was physically stronger than the cave woman and she became one of the few things he could control. Ad infinitum.
That’s why there is no real equivalent for women. There is no time in our history when women weren’t treated as lesser. So the question becomes, do we boycott art made by sleazebags or do we try work to reform the industry from the inside out? As with most things, the answer isn’t simple, which is especially true for misogyny. Because sexism lives in every aspect of our lives whether we realize it or not. And if you are a woman bothered by it, prepare to be bothered ALL THE TIME— from a strange man asking you to smile to your boss commenting on the looks of a fellow female employee.
In fact, it’s so hard to live in this world, many women internalize all that misogyny. It is an integral part of how we learn to see ourselves as lesser. Ask all the women who believe that “a woman shouldn’t be president.” There were enough of them to elect a serial misogynist who has always spoken nothing but horribly about women. There is no reason for a woman herself (who probably is an efficient and capable person in her life) to believe something so ridiculous and antiquated. But take a look around, the world has done a good job of convincing us that we are lesser, unimportant, unqualified.
I am so brightened by the fact that the election has made so many women say “What the fuck?!” It was hard explicit evidence that we don’t matter and if we try to matter (as Hillary Clinton tried) we will be shredded for it. Who does she think she is?
And seeing how women making accusations have been treated, can you imagine the fear you would feel if you were violated by one of these entitled powerful men? Can you believe that these women have all been walking around Hollywood for all these years with the same stories about Harvey Weinstein and all suffering in isolated silence? That’s shame. And it’s misplaced. We don’t even want to talk about it because we have all seen how somehow some way it will be made to be our fault. That part of our culture has not gone away. It was alive and well when Donald Trump threatened to sue women who accused him of harrasment or assualt. What would one woman coming out against Weinstein have accomplished? Probably some negative consquences for her and the full knowledge that men get away with this every single day — even if you report it to HR. I can tell you countless stories of women who have spoken up and have to live with the fact that there are zero consequences for these men. I’ve heard it said a lot more often how one woman’s accusations could ruin a man’s life. Really? Not according to the evidence I’ve seen. This moment in time and these revelations about Weinstein speak to a larger point in that in large numbers, we can’t be ignored. (I’m not trying to quote the Helen Reddy song, I swear.)
If the Nazi’s had killed only say 50,000 Jews, would the world have taken notice? Likely not. When the numbers get high enough, people are forced to pay attention. And that is what is happening now with the Weinstein situation. But that reveals the bigger injustice in that it takes a mass of women (in Bill Cosby’s case) to even get the story out of the shadows. And it took a man to reveal it. (Thank you Hannibal Buress.) What was most shocking was the silence. One or two women you can pay off or make to keep quiet, as we know Weinstein and many others have done. But the idea that even one woman’s story of abuse or assault is unworthy is still as pervasive as it always has been. If it wasn’t, we would surely have a different president.
Most people have a moment in their lives where they realize their idols are just people and people are fallible. But with so many men I respect in the entertainment industry being misogynist assholes, what am I to do? My concession has been to try to read, watch and consume the work of as many women artists as I can. But it’s nearly impossible to keep up that kind of committment in our world. What I do do, though, is ask others to recognize it. For instance, writing about TV invites lots of recommendations of various shows and series, but I have a fixed question when someone recommends a show…Are there any women in it? You’d be surprised how often the answer is “no” or “not really.” And that’s ok, I just want to know what I’m walking into pop culture-wise.
Because the problem is that I want to be mentally prepared for men to refer to “cars and women” or “bitches.” I can’t count the number of times I have been so excited about a show, but the treatment of women was so awful, I couldn’t even watch it. I generally call this the “Entourage Genre.” Women are accesories for men, window dressing, objects to be “gotten.”
I also try to give my love to the men in the industry who have done great things for women and women characters. Rod Lurie comes to mind — he wrote both a screenplay and a series in which women were in the top political positions in the land. That all happened in the early 2000's. And not enough of that kind of art was made to begin to change minds. More of that kind of programming (and less killing of women) for all these years perhaps would have helped us envision a woman president. And possibly not elect a misogyinst one.
What about the men?
The reason this is important is that women will get nowhere without some men on our side. In almost every single situation in America, men live at the top. A few women get through, but as of now, not enough to bring on a lot more. We need more men like Seth MacFarlane who wrote this amid the Weinstein allegations:
So what does this all amount to? Well, turns out I’m not the only woman fucking over it. And that righteous anger has boiled over and started to affect the men in power from Roger Ailes to Harvey Weinstein. I wish women were as angry as I was before the election — when it was proven to us loud and clear what America thinks of women. It’s not like we didn’t know, but such a blatant display of sexism on a national political scale was too much to handle. But hindsight and all that. So, we can now move forward — banishing the silence around these entitled abusive men as much as possible.
I think what we’ve learned from Cosby and Weinstein and the next thousand that come along, is that one woman won’t be believed, but 30 women or 50 women will have a better chance at being heard. Unfair? Yeah, duh. Welcome to being a woman. But I feel that at least one of the answers to rooting out these assholes is our numbers — you know the ones that dwarfed an inauguration with millions of women marching in pink hats. We have the numbers. And these types of men rarely harass only one woman. As we’ve seen, it’s a pattern of behavior. We will continue to call out these men. This is just the beginning. Get ready. And with our voices, we come closer to shaming these men out of the industry or at the very least having the next Harvey Weinstein think twice before he arranges that meeting with a 19-year-old wannabe actress in a hotel room.
In the end, separating the art from the man becomes irrelevant. Because while we go into misogynists’ work with eyes wide open — I’m not gonna not read Hemingway, I know what I’m getting into, but you know what I will make damn sure to do? I’ll fucking read George Eliot too! (You know, a woman who had to pretend to be a man.) That’s how I generally deal with the art and man question. I take up each one individually. But, I believe, much more importantly, is that what I have been bitching about all these years is starting to happen. Women are starting to get angry and they should be angry — that’s what led to the Weinstein watershed moment — because we have just had enough. And Hollywood is an industry in which, unlike some others, sexism is explicit (pun intended). An industry, somewhat like fashion, that doesn’t have to hide its sexism. An industry that could, out loud, in front of people tell women to lose weight or to critique their bodies like calves at a livestock auction. I’m glad that the really powerful women are speaking up, because my wish is that soon I won’t have to watch a film by another asshole man because I can watch one directed by a woman, which won’t be hard to do as there will be so many. That’s my answer. Imagine the work that women can produce without the “gatekeeping” or input of men? And it all gets made. Call it a feminist pop culture utopia. But I believe it is on us and it is about fucking time.
