What’s The Deal, Neil?

We cancel Cosby, we cancel Rowlings, we cancel Allen, we cancel Savile.

We do not cancel Curtiz or Hitchcock or Mozart.

Why?

There is a reason, and a valid one at that.  Michael Curtiz and Alfred Hitchcock and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart never set themselves up as moral exemplars, publicly proclaiming their righteous acts while hiding their unrighteous deeds.

Quite the contrary.

Their sleazy behavior is often shrugged off with “Well, what did you expect?” as we continue to enjoy their works.

We do not feel betrayed by them, we have not invested in admiring them not just for their artistic works but the causes they championed as well.

Gaiman, Rowling, Cosby, Savile, Allen et al presented a highly moral / ethical face to the world yet they conducted themselves privately in a wholly contrary manner.

We don’t object to scoundrels behaving like scoundrels; if we did Donald Trump would have landed in jail long before running for president.

We do object to those who say one thing yet do another – and this is why those cancelled richly deserve their cancellation.

They betrayed us not by merely demonstrating feet of excrement, but by undermining the very things they urged us to aspire to.

Like religious leaders who can’t imagine why people flee their congregations, they fail to grasp that their predatory actions and unsavory behavior destroys the trust others once placed in what they taught.

Gaiman et al make us look askance at all their works we once adored and legitimately admired, causing us to wonder if those works are somehow as tainted as their creators.

And if so tainted, then what about the ideas and ideals contained within?

There are many capable of separating the art from the artist, to continue to enjoy the work -- Casablanca in Curtiz’ case, to name one example -- while righteously denouncing the creator of the work for egregious bad behavior.

Some creators -- such as Mozart -- manage to link outrageous personal behavior with breathtaking beauty by taking unrestrained joy in both, never denying their baseness but never letting it sully their sublimity.

The line that cannot be crossed, the unpardonable atrocity, the literally unforgiveable sin found in the gospels is to blaspheme the holy. 

To set up an ideal, to fire people’s imagination, to urge them to cling to that ideal, to present oneself as a living embodiment -- however imperfect -- of that ideal is to create something holy, regardless of one’s formal beliefs or disbeliefs.

And to undermine that through bad behavior is to hew away the foundations of other people’s lives and identities.

Some things can’t be forgiven…

…nor should they.

© Buzz Dixon