Separating art from the artist is one of the great debates of my time. I’m sure we could also debate where it all started, but I recall it flooding into the mainstream and bringing “normies” into the conversation right around the time JK Rowling started tweeting regularly about additional Harry Potter lore. We can’t really talk about separating art from the artist without talking about Death of the Author.
So, what do these terms mean?
Death of the Author is a theory and accompanying essay that came about in the late 1960s by French literary critic Roland Barthes. It’s the idea that once an author publishes a work, the reader has more power over the intention and interpretation of a work than its creator. The author is no longer the creative influence, but the readers, the audience. The idea being you as the author don’t have direct control over what your audience believes to be true about your work, especially if your insistence of certain elements or truths aren’t present in the work itself (ie: presenting new canon information that pertains to your story via Twitter years after your story is finished). Death of the Author prevents creators of stories from doing this and being taken seriously, even if certain parts of the fandom choose to accept your addendums.
Separating art from the artist is an idea that came about in the early 20th century. It was a part of New Criticism, which was a period during which English literature was being analyzed with increasing scrutiny. It is the idea that art can be consumed, criticized, processed, and appreciated without being influenced, swayed, or distracted by that artist’s personal opinions, beliefs, or actions.
It should be easy to see how the two go hand in hand. Death of the Author is often a necessary component of separating art from the artist. But unfortunately, that has gotten more and more difficult over time.
Harry Potter was a series that had an enormous cultural impact. Merchandise, the fourth highest gross profit from a movie series ever, theme park rides, the ability to sort yourself into one of four categories based on your personality, millions of tattoos representing the love of the series, over 7.7 BILLION dollars made on book sales, there is no denying the mark it left on society as a whole. It stood the test of time and remained beloved right up until a few years ago.
In 2018, the first instance of JK Rowling expressing her beliefs online happened and she went beyond tweeting out some controversial lore regarding her aging series. We aren’t here to debate people’s beliefs, but the point is this was one of the first instances of wide-scale anger from fans towards a creator that extended to their work in such a monumental manner.
People got their Harry Potter tattoos covered up, they burned their books, they lashed out with vitriol and malice towards the author, and there were more and more instances of long form critiques towards Harry Potter that were very negative. The books we all thought were masterpieces for over 20 years turned out to be full of issues. Some that were present from the start, and others that were created based on the assumption that the author injected her personal beliefs in her story and pushed them through the cover of heavy symbolism.
This started a very popular trend of digging into creatives’ pasts, paying closer attention than ever to their personal beliefs and actions, digging into their work and discovering their hidden agendas, whether imagined or otherwise, and eventually led to the world we live in today.
With the domination of social media and the rise of “exposing” everything to the masses, soon everyone from movie stars to the local Starbucks to that painting you really like represented a set of beliefs.
Whether you consent or not, your love of a piece of art or consumption of a certain food justifies the belief of others that you support any number of political or ethical values. You don’t even have to be aware of these assigned beliefs for them to be placed on you.
We as people are being forced to pick a side. Pick the bad or good guys. Pick the food or drink that promises you are against the murder of innocent children or for it. And I think it is obvious why this type of thought process is incredibly dangerous and more than a little concerning.
Death of the Author and separating art from the artist gives us the power to disconnect these arbitrary sides of the fence and look at the value of the ART. To critique it, enjoy it, hate it, rip it apart, praise it, consume it. But, ironically enough, Death of the Author and separating art from the artist are dying.
As an artist, this terrifies me.
I rarely share my political beliefs online. I have seen what it costs to do so in this new world we live in. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay on the outside of the conversation. To critique and enjoy art for what it is, and to separate yourself from what that artist did or said.
You may remember my post about this very thing in November of 2022. I talked about what happens when we put artists on a pedestal, and how I didn’t think cancel culture was actually all that bad, because people have every right to stop listening to someone’s music or enjoying their work because of something they’ve done. Feeling like you can’t support someone anymore because they’ve done something that hurts you is valid.
But this situation has become a torrential hurricane of potentially devastating impact. It’s become less about choosing who you support and don’t, and more of a judgement of a person’s moral value based on what kind of music they listen to or what kind of coffee they buy.
People who still choose to enjoy Harry Potter are labeled transphobes unworthy of respect or love. People who choose to still enjoy an artist’s work even if they don’t agree with their political views shouldn’t be allowed to live according to some loud minority of people online.
And I know that a big part of this is people who feel safe behind a screen getting bolder and louder as the years go on, unable to grasp that the person on the other side of their phone or computer is also a human. But our continual loss of humanity is something that has ramped up exponentially since 2020, which was a concern that a lot of people had, myself included.
And as an artist, a creative, someone who loves art with all of her heart… critiquing it, consuming it, analyzing it, creating it, I can’t help but worry for the future of art. For the future of artists. And my personal bias leads me to believe that our desire to cast out all art that doesn’t coincide with our point of view is related to the fall of our humanity. Our inability to consume and process and critique different perspectives is starving us of our ability to understand one another. To feel for one another. To see one another as human.
So, what’s to be done about this?
I can’t answer that. But what I can tell you is what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep pushing forward. I’m going to dig a knife into my own heart and pour my blood, sweat, tears, and soul into everything I create. I’m going to show everyone my perspective and the perspectives I’ve gleaned from others and the stories I have in my mind. I’m going to move forward boldly to new beginnings, and I’m going to push myself until my fingers bleed and my mind explodes with the weight of it. My work will speak for itself, and I’ll get better and better at writing and at understanding the millions of different perspectives in our world. I’ll reach across the pages or across a screen and grip my readers and open their eyes to the beauty of art and of humanity. Because that’s the power of the human soul. That’s the power of art. And that’s the power of us.
Writing My World 