Recently, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across a video discussing how a woman couldn’t listen to her favorite artist anymore due to a recent controversy regarding him. One comment under the post just read, “Separate the art from the artist.” Upon reading this, at first, I agreed. It can be arduous to stop listening to a song you absolutely love because of a temporary bad reputation of an artist that everyone will forget about in a month. With everyone in society selectively choosing issues in the media to care about and make a big deal out of, while disregarding the rest simply because the issue doesn’t affect them, or because they don’t care, it’s very easy and very normalized to see an issue in the media and say, “Oh, that’s a shame,” and move on with your life.
However, after scrolling through more comments, my perspective started to shift. When you continue to support someone controversial by listening, following, or watching them, you are continuing to provide for them and enabling them to make a living off of their problematic actions. Not only that, but one could argue that it is unattainable to separate an artist from their work. Their work, whether it is news, music, TV shows, or movies, reflects their experiences, biases, and morals. The saying, “separate the art from the artist” is just a way for people to excuse sickening behavior and actions in order to keep pursuing their interests.
Some of the biggest controversial singers are still extremely popular to this day. Kanye West, Morgan Wallen, John Lennon, Zach Bryan, and many more are all heavily considered problematic and faced backlash for their actions. However, for most, the backlash was very short-lived, and the repercussions were minimal. Even after their disputes, all of these artists continue to have an average of 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. So, while they are still considered problematic to most people, fans continue to support and boost their careers, causing them to make a living off of contentious behavior.
Just a few months ago, a singer of the name d4vd was considered to be the lead suspect in the killing of a 15-year-old girl in Los Angeles, California. While this is still an ongoing investigation, d4vd continues to have 23.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify. By exculpating his behavior in order to continue to listen to music that you enjoy, you are ignoring the death of a 15-year-old girl. By “separating the art from the artist,” you are actively choosing to ignore an issue that is known to be problematic in order to selfishly continue your interests.
And while not every controversial artist is problematic for a reason quite to this extent, it is unjust to exempt or excuse some bad behavior from certain people but not from everyone. Excusing certain actions and problems in the media just because they don’t pertain to you or affect you directly is unacceptable. An issue is still problematic, even if it doesn’t affect you personally.