SHOULD WE STOP CONSUMING/APPRECIATING ALL ART?

 In class, we discussed whether it is correct to consume art created by immoral people. While the clear answer is to say that we should not support these immoral people by consuming their art, it is nearly impossible. 

For example, any movie that you watch has had tens of thousands of people working on it. From the Directors, casts members, producers, casting directors, cinematographers, props, makeup, ADs, sound, Foley, VFX team, assistants, to the distributors, production company, the camera companies, sets, construction, and theaters. Any feature length movie has almost hundreds of thousands of people profiting from it. There is almost no way that not a single person profiting from a film has done immoral acts. By the law of large numbers, watching any feature length movie contributes in some way to somebody that has done immoral acts.

This is even more apparent in shows, as they actually switch crews sometimes between episodes and has more distributors to different channels or streaming platforms. For example, a man by the name of Frank Niu who works as a software engineer for one of these big tech streaming companies, Netflix, recently stated that "trans-woman are not real woman" to his 712k followers who follow him for tech advice on TikTok. Yup that's right, by simply watching a show on Netflix, you are in fact contributing to transphobic rhetoric without even knowing it. This guy makes 500k a year from Netflix. That is where you money is going when you watch any show or movie on Netflix. 

While there might be less people that profit from books than movies and TV, there is a still a huge production team behind every book that lands on your shelf. There are still publishing companies, and the numerous editors that the author has, the book manufacturing company and all its workers. There is simply no way to avoid paying a person who is immoral.  

Any product you buy on  Amazon contributes to the Jeff Bezos who pays nearly zero in taxes and is contributing to the Capitalist hellhole that America is becoming. 

In turn, this also means that almost anything that we buy, is contributing to some guy who is a sexist, racist, homophobic bigot. Even the lemonade you bought from the kid in neighborhood is tainted with the immoral thoughts or acts of somebody. The kid probably got the lemons from some store which got it from some lemon company. This contributes to the farm, the manufacturing company, and the distributing companies  like Walmart, Kroger, or any store that sells groceries. Those dozen lemons contributes to a workforce of millions and it is a statistical certainty that someone is immoral in those millions.

You get the idea. 

The idea of simply not buying or appreciating some art because the artist is immoral is flawed because nowadays almost every single product has an someone immoral profiting from it. 

This is why I think it is important that we must separate the art from the artist. If the art does perpetuate hate(racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia), then it is our societal duty to reject and "cancel" it, but I think if the art itself does not perpetuate hate and harmful rhetoric it should not be censored or boycotted.