I hoped it obvious that I am not comparing being a liar and a bad family man to being a serial rapist (unsurprisingly there is quite few allegations of this exact same behaviour against Polanski). I simply used Polanski and MJ as obvious examples of A) why not separating the art and artist absolutely is not just “immature virtue signaling” B) how people loving the art are able to compartmentalise the evidence and suffering of the victims to keep enjoying the art, meanwhile making any justice very difficult.
There’s artist with whom we can “forget everything else”, then there’s not. Where one draws the line, well, I suppose that up to one’s own discretion, but I would recommend offering a serious thought on where oneself draws the line.
ah, my apologies. I read more than you wrote. I think you and I are probably more in agreement than not. I read a book last year, "Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People" by Claire Dederer, on this topic. Good in parts. Left me hanging. She talks a lot about several probably bad people, Polanski, Woody Allen, Picasso etc. But she never seems to hit a conclusion. Maybe that's the answer; there is no easy, pat answer. You just have to push through each case, as you find it, according to your judgement at the time.
While writing this, I dug out a Reddit thread about the book, where one of the participants (YakSlothLemon FTW!) hits us with Wagner. Well, yes, game over. I'm not a fan of that sort of (to my ears) overcooked opera, but if you like it, play it. The dirtbag isn't getting any royalties because he's good and dead.
There’s artist with whom we can “forget everything else”, then there’s not. Where one draws the line, well, I suppose that up to one’s own discretion, but I would recommend offering a serious thought on where oneself draws the line.