Is It Ok to Enjoy the Movies From Problematic Directors?

With an increasing number of celebrated directors and authors being exposed as being either generally problematic or genuine human garbage, fans of their work are being confronted with a difficult dilemma: is it still ok to enjoy entertainment that was made by someone who did something wrong after they have been exposed? The interesting thing about this topic is that not only have literary fans already been debating this exact topic for ages, but it also actually has a name within academic circles: Death of the Author. The idea is that a work of art can exist entirely on its own merit, divorced from any influence that the reputation of its creator could have on its public perception. The problem for modern movie fans, however, is that literary academics haven’t been able to give a concrete answer to this question, even after years of debate.

And since there is no perfect answer to the question, we decided to have our own debate on the topic. Is it ok for us to continue to enjoy the work of Joss Whedon or anything Harry Potter since it has been such a large part of our fandoms for most of our lives or do we have a responsibility to remove ourselves from them so that we don’t financially support someone who has used their power & influence to demean & harm others? Does it matter that there are more people than JUST the creators that benefit from the continued success of these works of entertainment? Join us as we dive into what is bound to be one of our more controversial episodes on today’s edition of Dallas Geek!