Creative Work Versus Personal Life

Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris

If filmakers, writers, musicians or visual artists are jerks can we still respect their work? It’s a question that has come up recently on Facebook about Woody Allen’s history of sexual abuse, but it could apply to anyone.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that tomorrow your favorite lesbian writer commits a cold-blooded murder. Or your favorite straight male playwright molests his seven year old daughter. Should these folks face the consequences of their actions and go to jail? Of course they should. Do these actions make all their creative work null and void as though it never existed? My answer happens to be a resounding no!

I don’t need to like and admire the way a person conducts his or her personal life to appreciate their work. I condemn child molestation. I abhor murder but I can still respect a  creative end product that transcends an individual's personal failures, even criminal ones. It doesn't mean that I am fine with anti-social behavior. If Adam Lanza, the Newtown Connecticut mass murderer had written a beautiful poem before shooting 20 schoolchildren, would it still be a thing of beauty afterwards?

I used to idolize Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris as the ideal couple of heterosexual writers. I loved Erdrich’s “Tracks” and “The Beet Queen.” I found myself particularly moved by Dorris’ book, “A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.” To me he did an amazing job of taking on the voice of a woman as well as incorporating the struggles of Native women into his narrative.

When Dorris was accused of molesting his three daughters (one adopted and two biological) I thought that was a horrific thing that crossed the line of acceptable behavior.

But I still will continue to admire his writing.

Writers and Access to Privilege

Jane Austen, Member
of the Landed Gentry

Due to the advent of Adrienne Rich's recent passing, I have been thinking quite a bit about how status, money and access to the political power that comes with it greases the wheels to public creative expression. Since Rich's death I have learned that her father was a physician, medical researcher and professor at John Hopkins University. Her mother was a concert pianist and composer. 

While engaged in processing gift books for the library, I came across Rita Mae Brown's biography, "Rita Will." I always thought Brown was a bit of a snob. One of the main things I remember about her opus, "Rubyfruit Jungle," was that there was only one Jewish family in her Southern town and they smelled bad. She also openly criticized lesbians who weren't "good-looking" enough, I assume, by her arbitrary white, gentile, southern standards. So admittedly, I never found the woman endearing to say the least. But after viewing the personal photographs of Rita herself in her riding gear and at fox hunts, I realize that she was not just upper-middle class, but part and parcel of the one percent. 

Even Jane Austen was a member of the landed gentry. I come across queer writers every day like William Burroughs, Christopher Isherwood, James Merrill and Edmund White, all from illustrious backgrounds. With lesbians it tends to be less apparent, but overall lesbians have enjoyed far less success in the literary world. Elizabeth Bishop hailed from a wealthy Massachusetts family, but Mary Oliver had a modest upbringing in Maple Heights, Ohio. And Dorothy Alison is a notable exception to this rule with her ground-breaking work, "Bastard Out of Carolina," but, I believe, she remains relatively unknown to the straight literary world.

Having access to status and power doesn't guarantee creative success but it provides the freedom and time to pursue passions that, in their early stages, will be less than profitable. The ambience of privilege also provides something intangible but critically important to creative ventures: role models of successful people pursuing their dreams and, in the vast majority of cases, the socially-sanctioned and nurtured self-esteem to do the same.