So my favorite television show of all time,
is probably the Cosby Show. And after all of the allegations against Bill
Cosby, I have to admit it’s kind of hard to watch, especially certain episodes. CLAIRE: Well, now it certainly is nice to
see them work things out for themselves. CLIFF: They haven't worked anything out for
themselves, it's my barbecue sauce. But at the end of the day, I’m still okay
with calling it my favorite show. The shitty behavior of this individual, for
me, doesn’t diminish the brilliant work done by the many people who worked on this
great show. On the other hand, I pretty much can’t listen
to R. Kelly anymore, and if you don’t know the deal with R. Kelly,
basically it’s been known for kind of a long time that he probably has pedophilic
tendencies, and failing that, all of the accusations against
him involve him abusing his status to take advantage of young women in general. Although, like Bill Cosby and many other people
who are accused of sexual misconduct he’s managed to evade any legal consequences. But I used to be a pretty big fan of R, Kelly. I mean Ignition Remix kind of goes hard, you
have to admit. But there’s only so long you can ignore
stuff like this. And this seems like an inconsistency; in one
case I’m able to separate a person from their work, but in the other case I’m not. So that made me sit down and really think
about why that is. Hi, I’m T1J. VOICE: Follow me! So recently a lot of formerly beloved figures
in media and entertainment have been accused of some pretty f**ked up things. And this has been difficult for those of us
who were fans of the work these people put out. It’s rough when it’s someone you like. Like when Bill O’Reilly lost his job at
Fox because of multiple sexual harassment cases, I was like,
“Makes sense, f**k that guy.” But I think we’ve all learned a lesson about
deifying celebrities. Just because you make stuff that people like
doesn’t mean you’re an awesome person. Now, like I said before, the creator of something
you love being awful doesn’t magically make that thing not good anymore. There is definitely some separation between
the artist and their art. But it kind of feels...dirty to support the
creations of a person that you know is a creep. Now in general, it’s important to keep some
detachment between an artist and their work. This allows for creative expression of ideas
and depictions that the person probably wouldn’t normally express. For example, the movie Funny Games is basically
just 100 minutes of meaningless violence from which there is no real closure or resolution. But it would probably be wrong to accuse writer/director
Michael Haneke of being in support of meaningless violence. He was using his art to express an idea about
violence. Taylor Swift writes a lot of songs where she
complains about her past relationships. A lot of them. And maybe this means she’s just a vindictive
emotional basketcase, but probably she’s just a normal human being
with feelings who has chosen a creative--and lucrative--outlet to express those feelings. So in general I would actually argue that’s
it’s usually not a good idea to judge someone based on their creative work. I mean feel free to criticize the actual creation
if you hate it. But creative people need space to use their
art to express sometimes dark and offensive ideas, without being accused of being evil
people. We all have dark thoughts from time to time,
the difference is, artists sometimes want to express those ideas in a safe and creative
way. However, sometimes the disparity between the
art and the artist gets a little blurry. In the song “Kim,” rapper Eminem fantasizes
about brutally murdering his ex-wife, named Kim. Now it’s unlikely Eminem actually planned
to murder Kim, but the song is called “Kim,” it’s a song about a real person. That’s her real name. And it was well known by that point that the
two were having relationship problems. You know, it’s one thing for Taylor Swift
to vaguely reference real situations as a form of expression. But actually calling real people out and mentioning
real situations really blurs the line between art and reality. Like if I were Kim or someone who cared about
Kim around about that time, I think I’d be justified in being a little concerned. At the end of the day, I think it’s pretty
obvious that the song was just a way for Eminem to express his anger and frustration in a
creative way. And most critics call “Kim” one of Eminem’s
best songs because of its visceral quality and it’s clever tightrope walk of the line
between fact and fiction. But sometimes art does get a little “too
real.” And I think that is the key for me. Comedian Louis C.K finally confirmed the rumors
of his sexual misconduct recently, and beyond the fact that what he did was disgusting,
The most disturbing part to me is that his stand up act and his television show constantly
made references to his own sexual perversion, but it was played up for laughs. He was known as a socially aware comedian
because he often acknowledged the harassment and oppression that marginalized groups, including
women, face. And he would often use himself as a stand
in for the creepy guys that women deal with, as part of his comedy routines. But now we know, it wasn’t a stand in. He IS that creepy guy that women deal with. So it’s almost like he was trying to use
his comedy to justify his sh**ty personal behavior to himself, and or even worse to
us. Like in this case, the art and the artist,
is the same, and it’s pretty much not possible to separate the two things. And going back to R. Kelly, it’s a similar
situation. You may know that R. Kelly illegally married
singer Aaliyah when she was 15 years old, and he was 27. And even though no one knew this until the
story hit the news, many former friends and members of his entourage
suspected that he was having an inappropriate relationship with her. A few months before that Aaliyah released
her debut album called Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,
and the primary producer and writer of that album was R. Kelly. Now the title, Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number,
could reference the fact that Aaliyah was this young girl breaking into the industry
and could stand with the grown ups even though she was just fifteen. However, there’s a song on the album, also
called “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” in which Aaliyah sings about wanting a relationship
with an older man. This song was written by R. Kelly. So if you didn’t catch all that,
R. Kelly, a grown man who was probably having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage
girl, wrote a song for that little girl to sing about how its okay for grown men to be
in relationships with little girls. If that doesn’t eradicate the line between
art and artist, I don’t know what does. And these kinds of accusations have been made
against R. Kelly pretty much his entire career, sometimes very credibly. For example did you know that the police literally
found child pornography in his home, but had to throw out the case due to a judge
invalidating the search warrant? So its really hard for me to hear R. Kelly
sing about putting his key in somebody's ignition, and not think he’s talking about a teenage
girl. Kinda ruins the whole thing you know. R. Kelly actually calls himself "The Pied
Piper of R&B." R. KELLY: Yeah, it's the Pied Piper of R&B
yall. Do you know the story of the Pied Piper, like
do you know what that character did? I think R. Kelly is trolling us. Now because these types of things happen,
sometimes we can’t help but be a little suspicious when artists create things that
cause you to raise your eyebrow a little bit. Like I’m a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino,
but a lot of people have criticized him for how much he makes the characters in his movies
say the N word. Which is quite a bit to be fair. He even seems to frequently find ways to make
himself say it in his movies. So it’s like what is this dude's obsession
with the N word? And it makes you scratch your head a little
bit. I got my eye on you Quentin! So honestly after all this nonsense, I’m
actually MORE likely to separate art from artist. Because it seems like you never know who’s
gonna turn out to be an awful creep. And I can’t just have everything I love
be constantly ruined for me. It’s like, I’ll take that cool stuff that
you made, but other than that, go away, I don’t know you. But when those creations seem to be directly
informed or inspired by real life sh**ty behavior, it becomes a lot harder for me to let that
go. DAS JUS ME DOE. What do you think? Thank you for watching my video. Let’s check the voicemail. So I think I’ve made my feelings on Trump
very clear in my videos and on social media. But I think Roy Moore is worse than Trump. He’s a relentless theocratic extremist with
zero respect for democracy and the constitution. He doesn’t even pretend to give a sh*t about
the things our country stands for. And also apparently he’s a pedophile? Despite all that, he’s still the frontrunner
for becoming Alabama’s next senator. But his democratic opponent Doug Jones is
closer than anyone has been to defeating a Republican in an Alabama Senate race in 30
years. And the last Democrat we elected, Richard
Shelby, switched to the Republican Party halfway through his second term. So yeah, Doug Jones winning would be pretty
extraordinary for Alabama. Now Jones is a pretty standard, mainstream
Democrat. He’s not some kind of revolutionary progressive. But for Alabama, having a left leaning Senator
would be a big deal even if his opposition wasn’t so objectionable. So I’m not like super hype on Doug Jones,
but he’s fine. Of the two choices he's clearly, easily the
better choice. And his opponent is a disgusting person with
abhorrent beliefs. So I’m gonna enthusiastically vote for Doug
Jones and encourage my peers to do the same. But thanks for calling! If you’d like to ask a question or make
a comment, call the number on your screen and leave me a voicemail. And maybe I’ll respond to it in a future
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