In the May 2023 issue of The Atlantic, Judith Shulevitz asks the questions: Is It Okay to Like Good Art by Bad People? She is, in a way, reviewing the book Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma, by Claire Dederer. The article/review begins by juxtaposing how Oscar Wilde, “the darling of the LGBTQ movement,” has become an icon of that movement, while Paul Gauguin's reputation is, by some, being questioned. (He had sex with his fifteen-year-old models.) But Wilde had sex with young men, many prostitutes, and brief trysts with other young men, whom we would consider juveniles and, as such, his acts would be a crime today. The article mentions the amorality of Woody Allen (he had sex with his lover's—Mia Farrow's—adopted daughter, Dylan), the questionable relationships of Michael Jackson, and Roman Polanski's rape of a thirteen-year-old, whom he drugged and sodomized during the shooting of “Chinatown,” considered by many critics to be one of the best movies ever made. In the end, Ms. Shulevitz states that we should engage with the art, not quash it, but that the artists' “misdeeds” will still tarnish the work. Perhaps so. Picasso's misogyny and sexual escapades, though, have not damaged his reputation or how his art is seen. The laws that sent Wilde to prison, and to an early death, did not diminish his work or his still trenchant social criticism. Rather, they burnished it. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is performed by high school students, and one has to wonder if some of the student's parents, who are out to ban books they think might influence how their children think about sex, even know who Oscar Wilde was and how he lived. Art will remain long after its creator has died, as Oscar Wilde has proven.
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