The #Metoo debate has left deep scars in Hollywood. So far, things have been relatively quiet in pop music when it comes to cases of abuse. However, that has changed in recent months and weeks. Two TV documentaries that were broadcast on American television are responsible for this.
The documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” is regarding serious allegations of sexual abuse of girls or very young women once morest R&B singer R. Kelly. The allegations once morest him are not new. Just as in the case of Michael Jackson.
In the documentary “Leaving Neverland” two young men accuse the King of Pop, who died in 2009, of having abused them as children. In the trial once morest the musician in 2005, the two had claimed the opposite. The British BBC and Norwegian radio then banned Michael Jackson from the radio. However, the Norwegians have since lifted the ban – on the grounds that art is autonomous and should be separated from the artist.
Is it really possible to separate the art from the artist – in the cases of Michael Jackson, R. Kelly & Co.? This question moves the “culture of debate” today.
Discuss it:
Tobias Ruether:the deputy features editor of the “FAZ” and author of the book “Helden” regarding David Bowie.
“You learn that at school that you should separate the work and the author. That means that art is autonomous and as such is subject to its own laws. In view of the allegations that are now being made, this separation seems very cold-blooded and intellectual , because then you have to see that these songs, that royalties have been paid for them, and these royalties have enabled a lifestyle that in turn made the alleged abuse possible.
That these songs basically established the fame behind which the abuse might be hidden. (…) But one thing really irritates me regarding these cases. R. Kelly and Michael Jackson are, rightly, two black artists who are now being publicly held accountable. And I wonder when we’re gonna start talking regarding the groupies of the ’60s and ’70s, the groupies of the white rock stars. In that sense, who is calling for a boycott of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones?”
Fabian Wolffmusic critic and cultural journalist who writes regarding literature, music and pop culture in “Die Zeit” and in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
“I would like to delete the word ‘may’ for now. There is no authority that can or would like to forbid listening to this music. It is up to the individual listener to decide whether they can or want to.
I think it’s more regarding the question of how we deal with this art in society. The first thing to do is to listen and take these allegations seriously. Out of respect and empathy for the victims.
Then, in the next step, to say that we can make a clear distinction between art and originator, between art and artist, I don’t think that’s intellectual, on the contrary, but rather simple and ignorant. That’s not how it all works. I think right now we need to talk regarding the contradictions and overlaps between art and artist.
That’s the only way we can really take both of them seriously and that’s the only way we can talk regarding the third level – regarding us as an audience. At the same time there is a very lively tradition, how do we deal with the tradition of “bad men” – of “bad men”. Tobias Rüther mentioned the groupie scene of the 60s and 70s.
There, too, there have been texts and arguments for a long time that have been bitterly – or I would like to say ironically – dismissed as hypermoralism. That’s exactly the perspective we need to return to now.”
