Ep. 15: Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists | A Discussion with Mary-Beth Willard

Описание: Mary-Beth Willard (Weber State University | she/her) and Brandon Polite (Knox College | he/him) discuss Willard's recent book, Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists (Routledge 2021).

We begin by discussing attempts to "cancel" artists on social media, and some practical and moral problems with doing so. Cases we consider include: James Gunn being fired by Disney for old tweets; Louis CK doubling down on his awfulness after getting cancelled; and Aziz Ansari's more reflective and thoughtful response to being cancelled.

We then discuss the role that an artist's persona can have in shielding their immoral behavior, using Bill Cosby as our main example.

We also consider the difficulty in stopping ourselves from enjoying art that has meant so much to us and played important roles in our lives and whether we should do so.

We next discuss the possibility of replacing Michael Jackson's vocals on his albums with those of a very good impersonator, similar to how Tig Notaro digitally replaced Chris D'Elia in Zack Snyder's 2021 film *Army of the Dead*.

We conclude by briefly considering the ethics of using technology to resurrect dead artists, using the deep fake of Anthony Bourdain's voice in the 2021 documentary Roadrunner as our example.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction
1:00 Problems with Cancelling Artists
11:05 James Gunn
16:55 Louis CK, Bill Cosby and Aziz Ansari
28:00 Bill Cosby
33:22 Michael Jackson
39:14 Replacing Immoral Artists
48:30 Conclusion

Check out Willard's book here: https://www.routledge.com/Why-Its-OK-...

SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL
https://www.youtube.com/c/Philosopher...