[Loved Trope] The one random episode that doesn't follow the main characters

[u/BagOfSmallerBags]

Heated Rivalry Episode 3 "Hunter": The show stops following Hollander and Rozanov's love story to follow another hockey player, Scott Hunter, and his romance with a smoothie store employee.

The Last of Us S1E3 "Long Long Time": Joel and Ellie need a car. So to explain why there's a car waiting around for them to use, they show us an incredibly heartbreaking love story lasting 20 years between two men Joel knows. They have a car.

Doctor Who S3E10 "Blink": With no explanation given, this episode begins with a character we've never met, one Sally Sparrow, poking around an abandoned building. Our lead character, The Doctor, is glimpsed seemingly randomly on TVs. What is going on? Did that statue just move!?

MythicQuest S1E5 "A Dark Quiet Death": Rather than continuing to follow our lead characters as they develop an MMORPG, we flash back many years to witness the history of a couple who start a videogame company, and how over the years the pressure to drive sales causes them to give up on their artistic integrity.

[u/decoy_octopod]

At this point so many of my favorite artists have been exposed as truly terrible people that I’m now actually interested in revisiting their work. A lot of these films and shows had a profound effect on me and I’m curious how I’ll interpret them and/or if I can enjoy them under this new context

[u/UwasaWaya → u/decoy_octopod]

Man, the emotional rollercoaster of thinking about two of my former favorites, Louis CK and Neil Gaiman, is rough. I haven't been able to revisit their stuff, aside from showing a friend an episode of Sandman.

[u/decoy_octopod → u/UwasaWaya]

Yep, those were two of several I was thinking of. I dunno, Gaiman’s books meant so much to me, it almost feels inhumane/psychopathic to just tell myself, “ok, this art is no longer meaningful to me.” I haven’t revisited yet, but I’m going to someday

Meanwhile, I have two close friends who are obsessed with Gaiman, have tattoos of his quotes, and outright refuse to believe the allegations. When I bring them up they just stare blankly and say, “oh that? yeah, everyone’s got some rumors floating around about them…” and there’s this sense of shame, like they think they’re standing up for themselves by standing up for Gaiman

So (for me, at least) I think it’s important to just fully acknowledge an artist’s transgressions if you’re going to willingly engage with their art. But it doesn’t make you a bad person just because a bad person made something that affected you

[u/UwasaWaya → u/decoy_octopod]

I feel you. I'm more aligned with you, but it's not that I'm telling myself something is meaningless, is just that I can't not think about that while I'm reading it. It's like a mosquito in my ear.

I remember buying a book for an RPG setting a while back that I'd wanted forever, Maze of the Blue Medusa, and then about a week later the creator was accused of sexual assault by several women. It always sat in my head that I basically put money directly into his account right before whatever expenses he paid for court. Obviously I couldn't have known, but it's still not pleasant to think about.

[u/decoy_octopod → u/UwasaWaya]

Right, there’s a dozen other conversations to be had about this, like paying for their work vs pirating vs getting secondhand. What if, like Gaiman, their work and what they preach is so directly hypocritical to who they actually are? Does that devalue the message? Is it possible to appreciate well-written women characters by someone who abused women? What about Roald Dahl, a beloved children’s author who was incredibly antisemitic? Does it change his stories, will you not be able to read them to same, or can you still get lost in the world? And how is Chris Brown still selling out arenas and one of the top-streamed artists?

The answers aren’t black and white and will be completely different person to person. We’re in the early days of a new era where art is strongly connected to artists and it’ll take a long time to figure it out

[u/UwasaWaya → u/decoy_octopod]

It's definitely complex, and something I think about often. I don't begrudge anyone for enjoying such things, we all have to find our bearings in a very nuanced and often fucked up world. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who helped build the parts of the phone I'm typing this on who would make the people we're talking about look like saints.

We're all just doing our best.

Thanks for the chat, I hope you're having a good day.