Malazan Empire: Michael Jackson, R Kelly, boycotting artists and creators - Malazan Empire

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Michael Jackson, R Kelly, boycotting artists and creators

#21 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 11 March 2019 - 07:41 PM

View PostNevyn, on 11 March 2019 - 04:49 PM, said:

I just don't go in for the notion of pressure on others to boycott as if anyone who still consumed the art is compounding the alleged crime.


Well, just as each person has their personal line on their own consumption, it's only right that they have a personal line for general complicity too, isn't it? Why should it be otherwise? Sure, expect people to recognize that listening to "Ignition Remix" that you paid for long ago on itunes is a different act than playing R Kelly in your DJ set, or buying R. Kelly concert tickets. And all are different acts than a Hollywood firm putting an R Kelly song on a movie soundtrack, or in an advertisement. But in the end, if you're going to do any of those things, you have to accept that people are going to react accordingly to any and all of them depending on their lines. Hopefully -- and almost certainly likely -- an average person will react to "I know what he did, but this song got me through a really tough time in life and I can't part with it" differently than "Yah I know, and I don't care, I'm getting backstage passes." But you can't domineer people's reactions to your behavior, regardless.




I would also say, regarding pressure, that the reason one may feel so much pressure to boycott scumbag artists' work so keenly is because it's novel. The pressure to ignore that scumbags' indiscretions and abuses, to let em slide, even to recognize it but separate art from the artists, etc. -- whatever you may think of those notions -- is a constant pressure that is orders of magnitude more powerful than the 'boycott them' side, moderate and hardliner both. It's just so ubiquitous that we're used to it. It's basically a part of us like mercury in tuna.
They came with white hands and left with red hands.
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#22 User is offline   Grief 

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Posted 12 March 2019 - 12:31 AM

To me, this ties into a wider discussion about the limits of 'conspicuous consumerism' in general. While I do think boycotts can be an effective tactic, I think there's also a solid argument that it's harmful to approach social problems through this market-based approach wherein the solution is for the individual consumers to change their demand patterns en-masse. Want to solve climate change? OK, well then everyone just has to individually choose to cut their energy usage, change their diet, and stop driving - simple!

At the end of the day, if they're criminals then they should be treated as criminals and beyond that we need to look at the wider system facilitating the crimes. The free market solution of ditching their individual stuff is a pretty distant second. That doesn't mean it's nothing (after all, I do think people should individually try to reduce their carbon footprint too). I think there's some weight at play in terms of the message it sends about our social values when we let people do terrible things and then promptly return to fame and fortune and that overall it's a positive trend that we're seeing people push against this. At the same time, it's unrealistic to expect people to only consume ethically - indeed I'd say that this is practically impossible - and I think that ideally we'd push for less individualistic solutions.

Cougar said:

Grief, FFS will you do something with your sig, it's bloody awful


worry said:

Grief is right (until we abolish capitalism).
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#23 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 12 March 2019 - 01:08 AM

Yah good points. There's something of the "plastic straws" vs. global industrial plastic issue to it for sure.
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#24 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 12 March 2019 - 05:01 AM

To be fair, the documentary doesn't really tell us anything that as a society we haven't been fully aware of and willfully repressing since 1993, so if you're getting angry about it now you're either disingenuously riding the current social wave or you're incredibly fucking naive. CARNIVAL!

- John Oliver, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

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#25 User is offline   End of Disc One 

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Posted 13 March 2019 - 04:11 PM

IMO if it bothers you to listen to their music, don't listen. If you're okay listening, then go ahead. But general public play is a grey area and I can understand both sides.

I did see on the news that there are calls for Cirque du Soleil to stop their Michael Jackson Las Vegas show. I was hoping to see that next time I'm in Vegas, so I really hope that doesn't happen. For me that one is clear--if you're bothered by it then don't go.
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