Separating the Art from the Arsehole: Claire Dederer's ‘Monsters’ and the ongoing problem of problematic ‘geniuses’.

On Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma, the myth of male genius, performative morality and the uncomfortable business of loving the work of people we should know better than to admire.

It’s particularly gutting discovering that somebody responsible for a piece of art you love is, by all accounts, a deeply unpleasant human being. We like to imagine that creativity and character are somehow connected, that the person capable of producing something beautiful must possess some understanding of beauty themselves. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

The question of whether we can separate the art from the artist is hardly a new one. We have been having variations of this conversation for decades, from Roman Polanski and Woody Allen to Pablo Picasso, Michael Jackson and, more recently, the increasingly difficult conversations surrounding the cultural legacies of men whose reputations have been dismantled by allegations of abuse and misconduct.

It is a question that feels particularly relevant this week.