So Your Favorite Celebrity Is Problematic...

What’s a fan to do when they find out their favorite celebrities are flawed in one way or another? The social media dogpile calls for us to burn these idols down and stop consuming the entertainment they’ve created. It’s understandable to feel scorned by your favorite artist when they turned out to be less than savory, or straight up disgusting.

Let’s get something clear. You don’t have to give someone’s brilliant work a pass when they turn out to be terrible (looking at you Joss Whedon), but you also don’t have to condemn an entire body of work you love because someone is a piece of shit. In times like these, it’s important to find your own cut off point. If you like the films of Woody Allen or Roman Polanski despite allegations – that’s your choice.

If you think Louis CK is a phenomenal writer, director, and comedian but you don’t want to watch his new comedy because of sexual assault allegations against him – that’s cool too.

Unfortunately, we’re very quick to vilify in our social media driven culture and sometimes we’re made to condemn art we love just because it’s part of the social paradigm.

For a more nuanced look at what to do when our “fave” is problematic, we turn to Steve Shives. In the above video he lays out how this process is much like grieving and that people need to explore their complicated feelings on celebrities shitty lives in their own way.

Process grief in your own way, choose your own cut-off point, and realize that human beings are complicated. Someone can be a brilliant artist and a shitty person. They’re not mutually exclusive.