On Monsters:

Wednesday is about books. And writing. Today, a new book “Monsters - A Fan’s Dilemma” on a topic for our times: Cancellation. And whether the work can stand.

The question used to be whether we could separate the art from the artist. Now it’s more around how we decide to do that. Is it best practice to listen to Michael Jackson’s music from when he was a member of the Jackson 5, rather than when he was building his own weird Disneyland bunker? Are we fine to enjoy that music and not think ever about his own exploitation as a child because it keeps us away from ever thinking about what he did with children?

And how about Roman Polanski? Or Woody Allen?

Surely, it’s tougher to completely write off Chinatown and Annie Hall – and the impact such films have had – than to commit to never watching The Cosby Show again?

These questions are addressed in Claire Dederer’s brand new book, Monsters – A Fan’s Dilemma. Dederer, a memoirist and former film critic, is perfectly placed to examine what it means for us Culture Vultures (ew, sorry, I hate that term and yet I chose to put it there) when forced, as #MeToo and social media’s self-serving cancellation policy would have it, to question the work of our heroes. Can we still listen to and observe the utter beauty and vulnerability of Miles Davis’ wafting horn solos when we know he was a wife-beater? Should we put Nabokov on the fire with his book – since he was obviously a pervert to create Humbert, it couldn’t have been just writing? It must have been projection. Right?

These are the concerns of the book. Dederer is funny and frank. She is wise in her ways. Not just holding on to her early loves as a cultural critic and declaring them unassailably brilliant, but re-examining them. We read her knee-deep in the early Woody Allen, and making a sly case for one or two of the 90s gems as well. We read her as she re-reads Nabokov. She was 13 when she first read Lolita. She saw the problem then. She sees it differently now.

That subtitle is so important in her book. The dilemma of the fans is such that perhaps, from time to time, its them – the crowd, that mass acting in anger, that are the actual monsters. It’s certainly the problem of privilege.  

We can’t have one set of rules. That’s my belief. I argued this somewhat when I wrote about Kanye West last year. Or at least I tried to. My lack of interest in him is definitely helped along by the fact that I don’t agree with his absurd positions, that I worry for his inability to get help (seemingly a decision) when he has the means. But it’s mostly around me being almost profoundly uninterested in his music. It doesn’t do it for me. That first album is something I can still listen to now and then. And I get it. I dig it. It takes me back to when I first heard it. So it does the job of the art. But the work the artist has been doing almost ever since is of little value to me. So that’s an easy decision. No moral dilemma.

But Woody Allen? That’s a different case.

When I finally read his memoir, I really loathed it. And as I was reading it, the disappointment just kept mounting. Not only because it was not good (and I had likely overhyped it in my mind going in) but also because I wondered if I was working against myself to adjust for the cultural climate? Was it The Correct Response to not likely Woody Allen in 2021? His films no longer play in cinemas, they struggle to get distributed, and depending on who you are they haven’t been good since 1979 or 1989 or 2013. I could never write off Woody: The Filmmaker – Match Point and Blue Jasmineare as great and important as any of the early, funny films and better than many of his clever movies that have received great notices. Interiors and Crimes & Misdemeanours are phenomenal in my mind. No need to revisit them. They sit there, ready for instant recall. But rating those films is not rating him as a human being. I don’t know him.

The Complete Prose of Woody Allen is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Funny, absurd, genius-level wit and wisdom. But now that I’ve read his horrible, bitter memoir, would I feel the same way about it? And do I need to? Surely the impact of it at the time is what matters. It informed my reading (and writing). It got me researching all manner of humourists, critics, philosophers, and novelists. Isn’t that the good thing in all this?

These are the questions that Monsters had me asking of myself.

Most often I was in line with Dederer. She could revel in Polanski’s films without supporting him as a person. Same with Woody. Same with the music of Miles Davis. She could listen without worrying about what he was like as a person – because she didn’t know him as a person – she was responding to the work. But she had a different opinion case by case. You were never tucked up in bed with the person because of the art. Ever.  No blanket rulings.

But it’s more complex than that. In this era where we understand that trauma brings trauma, that hurt people HURT people, we don’t want to wrestle with the fact that Roman Polanski’s mother died in Auschwitz, or that his pregnant wife (Sharon Tate) was gruesomely murdered by Charles Manson’s gang. Polanski’s crimes are not justified by that, of course. But they were most likely informed by that. And, yeah, you can see the dilemma of the writer trying to assess the fan’s dilemma.

It’s such a wonderful book, about such a baffling set of concerns. There’s some true privilege too – spending time debating that the person that made the art that you escape with, watching the film on your big TV, reading the novel during your getaway, might be a very bad person.

Compellingly, Dederer looks at women as monsters – highlighting Sylvia Plath and Joni Mitchell. She uses them (and herself) to build the case that women are thought of as monsters when they are bad mothers. Men may do all sorts of things – often close to unspeakable, beyond unspeakable even – to earn their monster title. All a woman in the arts needs to do is not be a good mother. Joni gave her child up for adoption and it was interpreted as her putting her career first (even after she wrote Little Green, even after she tearfully reunited with her adult child). It has added to a picture of her as an uncompromising artist. Why must women compromise? A man being called an uncompromising artist is probably a legend. A hero. A woman being called this is held up for ridicule, deemed selfish, neglectful. Sylvia Plath was a monster for leaving this world when she had children. Never mind what her husband was up to. Never mind that her husband was free to write, but Plath had to fit it in around the family.

Anyway, there’s loads more to think about. And to talk about. And it’s a topic for these times. No question.

It’s such a great book.

You should read it.