Pemptus on 20/6/2011 at 19:59
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Separating the art from the artist doesn't make the artist less useless, or, in this case, the art less shit.
One of the lead designers of Mass Effect 2 is an alleged zoophile. Does it make the game horrible?
edit: (spoiler: he's probably not)
june gloom on 20/6/2011 at 20:05
No. First- alleged. (For that matter, citation needed.) People like Doug TenNapel are confirmed bigots. But also, Mass Effect 2 is a good game. Earthworm Jim is not. Do you actually read posts or do you just troll?
Pemptus on 20/6/2011 at 20:15
Oh come on, do try to see what I'm getting at.
What if that horrible Earthworm Jim guy was the Mass Effect 2 lead designer? Would THAT reflect badly on the game itself? (I picked Mass Effect just because I know it's a game you really like)
Also, you seem to be the only person in the universe who doesn't like Earthworm Jim (well, the 3d one was shit, yes), but that's another thing. :P
I'm not trolling, nor trying to pick a fight. Also, needless to say, I don't even know or care who the lead designers of ME are, just trying to get your attention.
june gloom on 20/6/2011 at 20:36
I get what you're saying and I'm saying you're wrong. Please, do try to entrap me with real examples, because just making shit up gets ignored.
The problem with the concept of 'separating the art from the artist' is that it often ignores and perpetuates a problem. If someone on the ME2 dev team were a zoophile, well that'd probably make some of the stuff in the game either funnier or grosser or both ("Don't *AHEM* ingest") but at the end of the day ME2 was made by a bunch of guys whose names we don't really know or care about, and the alleged zoophile will probably eventually get caught and go to jail and/or therapy.
But Earthworm Jim was made by a major personality: Doug TenNapel. Same as Orson Scott Card was the driving force behind the Ender's Game novels and Roman Polanski was the guy you think of when you hear Rosemary's Baby. But I'll never read Orson's novels because he's a crazy bigot and I'll never watch Polanski's films because he's a child rapist who refused to answer for his actions. Why should I support these awful people? Because they made something pretty? John Wayne Gacy made a lot of decent clown paintings in prison. Guess what? HE WAS STILL JOHN WAYNE GACY.
Pemptus on 20/6/2011 at 21:23
I'm pretty sure many fine artists/developers/creators have more than a few skeletons in their closets, they just don't announce them to the world.
Polanski is an excellent director, and his films are some of the most affecting pieces of art I've ever seen. So I suppose he "made something pretty". Should I deprive myself of that because he hates gays, or strangles puppies, or, indeed, used to have sex with a minor? God no.
An authentic, if milder example: my professor has/had a rather privately kept collection of videos (nothing nosy students can't uncover, of course) of him crossdressing, being extremely gay and incoherent, and waving dildos around. A sexually confused pervert and a silly person overall? Maybe, opinions differ. He's a damn good teacher though, and he doesn't wave those dildos around in the classroom, so what the fuck should I care about his private life? My opinion is irrelevant.
John Wayne Gacy, really? Horrible example, even if it was supposed to be extreme.
june gloom on 20/6/2011 at 21:37
So you have no moral standards. Good for you. Have fun supporting a guy who brutally raped a young girl then ran away before he could be punished for his crime.
Pemptus on 20/6/2011 at 21:45
So you're basically reading what you want to read out of all I've posted, very intellectual of you. Waste of time, I see.
june gloom on 20/6/2011 at 22:07
What, do you expect me to suddenly agree with you because you posted a tl;dr about how we should just ignore the fact that an artist's actions and beliefs color their own work? Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Renzatic on 20/6/2011 at 22:33
Not necessarily. I don't believe Roman Polanski has ever done a film on statutory rape, and I'm almost definite Doug TenNapel doesn't have a single example extolling his stance on gay marriage in any of his games. Just because a person has some particular, as Pemptus called it, skeleton in the closet you don't agree with, doesn't mean you can blanket judge everything a person has ever done. A persons belief on one particular subject doesn't completely define who they are.
Love the sinner, hate the sin, and all that.
Aerothorn on 20/6/2011 at 22:58
Hold the phone. If I followed this right, dethtoll just said that anyone who consumes the creation of someone they consider a moral failure (or whatever term you want to use) has "no moral standards?" I know you're given to hyperbole, dethy, but that just isn't true. You may disagree with their seperation of author from work, but to say that somehow I am completely amoral because I chose to watch a Mel Gibson film is not only way out there but demonstrably false.
On a separate note, why do you do this? Why do you want to take any thread focused on a narrow and apolitical subject and have it become an inflamed debate about your views of the world? Because I find it very difficult to believe that this isn't intentional.
