Anime Question of the Week: Can You Separate Good Art From a Bad Artist?
A new segment begins!
You may have noticed I’m not a frequent uploaded on here. It takes time, to be blunt, to write these long analyses and reviews. I have several projects in the works including something on Angel Beats! and Shiki for their 10th anniversaries this year, Blood Blockade Battlefront is turning 5, my best-of-the-decade list, something deeper on the Index franchise and a slew of other things.
But as I mentioned, these take time, and I want to upload more while I work on them. In this new segment “Anime Question of the Week” I’ll be answering questions either I or you may have for me on the medium. Nothing technical that can be answered by some simple research but more opinionated or philosophical questions that can drive conversation. I hope you enjoy this new segment. Feel free to drop questions for me so I have some more material! Now let’s get to question number 1!
It’s been a little over a year since Funimation decided to end their relationship with voice actor Vic Mignogna after Anime News Network published a lengthy expose on the many allegations of sexual misconduct against Mignogna over the years.
This was only a year after Kazuyoshi Yaginuma, a famed anime director behind the hit series “Recovery of an MMO Junkie,” had stirred controversy by engaging with antisemetic content on Twitter, including Tweeting Holocaust denial himself.
Vic Mignogna has always been a huge name in the anime business. He’s provided the voices of many iconic characters in anime, including Tamaki Suou in “Ouran High School Host Club,” Broly in “Dragon Ball Z,” and of course, Edward Elric in “Fullmetal Alchemist,” often cited as having one of the greatest dubs ever made.
And Yaginuma has been involved with classics like “Akira,” a few “Naruto” films, and “YuruYuri.”
These are two extreme cases among many, but the question here is obvious; can you still enjoy their works of art, even if they are, by many respects, bad people?
I’ve always found this question difficult to answer. On the one hand, you should want to separate the art and the artist. Their beliefs and previous actions have no effect on their abilities to create art, but you can’t help but realize that those things often seep into the art they create, thematically, or if it just won’t leave your mind. It can be quite frustrating watching a good anime while not being able to forget that the director is an antisemite. But that doesn’t mean we should completely ignore these important works of art either.
I can’t conclude one way or the other yes or no, and I don’t know if I should. So instead, let me lay out the cases for each:
You CAN separate good art from bad artists
Vic Mignogna is a bad person, but that doesn’t make him a bad actor, just as Yaginuma is a bad person, but that doesn’t make him a bad director. Content creators have an uncanny ability, especially actors, to separate their beliefs and actions to play characters or write scrips or direct series, or compose music or so on and so forth. The audience should be expected to do the same. After all, Vic’s ability to act never changed from before you knew about the allegations to after. You can even support Funimation’s decision not to work with him again and still think his acting itself is good even if Funimation has a moral reason not to use it.
None of us is perfect. But we still think our art is worth showing others. Just go back through history. It isn’t hypocritical to acknowledge that some good art is made by bad people, and that we should recognize good art when we see it, applying an impartial sense of self judgement. You aren’t wrong for enjoying a good piece of art even if it came from a bad person.
You CANNOT separate good art from bad artists
Vic Mignogna is a bad person and even if that doesn’t affect his ability to act, it also doesn’t change the fact that he has built a legacy of sexual harassment while he acted. Something like that can’t just be ignored. When you hear Edward Elric, you’re hearing the same voice that whispered sexual things in a woman’s ear while its owner pulled her hair.
It’s important to know that this good actor and bad person are one in the same. You cannot separate them even if you acknowledge his ability. And with that in mind, if you still support that series, you’re still supporting that person in some form, even if you don’t like it. Bad behavior needs to be called out, to the point that these people need to be held accountable. Stop giving them high paying jobs and expense-paid con appearance invites.
The mentality that you can separate good art from a bad artist is naive and perpetuates bad behavior if artists know that people will continue to support them by willfully brushing their wrongdoings under the rug. The loss of Vic Mignogna in the voice industry is not a terrible loss. He can be replaced. But we have principles to adhere to.
I’m still not sure which of these answers is correct. I still watch FMA in English when given the choice, and my friends have still recommended me to watch MMO Junkie despite the director’s tweets, and I’m sure it is good. They also assure me that subscribing to Crunchyroll to watch it or buying a Blu-ray won’t financially support the director due to the royalty system, but I can’t get the director’s antisemitism out of my mind. I’m afraid I’ll only think about that while I’m watching a series with such a wholesome premise. Then again, it hasn’t stopped me from watching FMA.
What do you think? Let me know in the replies! Though do try to keep things civil. Got any other questions lime this you want an answer on? Let me know about those too.
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