When You Like Work Made by a Jerk, is Lack of Support Enough?

A monthly trip through a land of design and nonsense with executive editor Perrin Drumm. Opinions are most definitely her own.

We’ve all loved an asshole at some point in our lives. We’ve worked with them, dated them, been born by them, voted for them. The asshole comes in many forms, so how can you spot one in the wild? And then, how do you take it down?

I bring it up because assholes seem to be spending more time in the spotlight today (though the word itself dates back to the 1300s), which is both a good and bad thing: Bad when the asshole is in a position of power; good when that position exposes the depths of their true asshole nature. Good, too, when people acknowledge that what’s revealed is a bad thing, indeed; but bad when nothing is done about it. I’ve simplified this horribly, but there is nothing simple about asshole hunting.

Sometimes the asshole is not shy about their asshole-ness, and wears it like a merit badge. Sometimes the asshole is so clever we don’t even realize we’re in the company of one until after we’ve laughed at their jokes or accepted a meeting or a job. Sometimes this person is a secret asshole, privately cruel to those closest to them, who help the asshole keep their truth hidden while the rest of the world spins around them unaware, basking in the asshole’s glow.

When Kurt Vonnegut wrote (and illustrated) Breakfast of Champions in 1973, he included a crude picture of an asshole, an indication of the “maturity” of the drawings throughout the book, and perhaps a warning to prudish readers to turn back now. Not all assholes announce themselves so plainly. I loved Vonnegut’s asshole drawing so much (not enough to get it tattooed on me like some of his super fans) that I made an etching of it for a letterpressed booklet I made to accompany my MFA lecture on satire (a pedagogical artifact I was recently reminded of via, of all things, my mom’s Instagram). As far as I can tell, Vonny wasn’t one of the notorious writer-assholes you often hear about, but then again I’m not doing too much digging lest I discover otherwise (Charles Dickens was spoiled for me that way).

Which brings me to the topic of this month’s column: when assholes, degenerates, and other moral reprobates make great work, is it okay to like it? Is it ever possible to separate good work from its not-so-good creator?

Asshole page from “Breakfast of Champions”

If you’re a regular 99U reader you know it’s something the whole team here (like the rest of the world) has been thinking a lot about, so we put the question to three top designers in our new series, Design Debate, where we hear three distinct points of view that might get you to reconsider yours. This time, Erik Carter, Debbie Millman, and Paula Scher took the topic to places I never expected it go, and highlighted some of the grayer areas, like: what if someone’s not an outright sexual predator, but you simply disagree with their stance on a controversial subject? Debbie talks about loving The Handmaid’s Tale, but the fact that Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist? Not so much. Personally, I’ll watch anything Ms. Moss is in, unless it’s a video about Dianetics.

Knowing that a work, whether it’s a song or a painting or a logo, was created by an angel incarnate doesn’t make me appreciate the work any more, so in theory, why should a song or a painting or a logo created by an asshole make me like it any less? That’s easy to say in theory, or from the safety and sense of removal provided by an art gallery. But what if you know the asshole in question? I’ve known plenty of assholes who also make great work, and while I’m able to appreciate the work for what it is, I sort of wave it away after that. Like, Okay this is nice, good, next. I move on before I can really consider the relationship between the work and its maker. I don’t let myself go there. It’s a cowardly move, and I don’t consider myself a cowardly person. When people bring up how Picasso was kind of a dick, I counter with how I’m actually not that big of a fan, so I don’t have to deal, right? Ditto for Dali and Diego Rivera. But if I ever learned that Paul Klee or Joan Miró were assholes, I’d be forced to reconsider. And what about a museum’s obligation here? If I was deciding between two paintings I loved equally, I’d go with the one by the non-asshole. But that’s personal. If it was for the MoMA’s permanent collection, I’d say, take them both.

Eric Gill’s Girl in Bath II, 1923 – the model for which was his daughter Petra. Image c/o Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

Let’s bring this even closer to home with a famous asshole who crossed the line: type designer Eric Gill, who’s celebrated for achievements like his universally beloved Gill Sans, even though he molested his two young daughters for years, a fact that history has kindly helped us forget. He’s dead now, but should we treat his legacy any differently than we’d treat him were he still alive? Last year the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft considered this in its exhibition of his work, but the resulting conversation was uneasy at best. One critic noted of her fellow critics, that “Perhaps they were worried that, for all their expertise, they did not have the right language to discuss Gill’s behavior towards his older daughters, Betty and Petra (a sheet we were given on arrival informed us, for instance, that some organizations working in this field believe it is better to use the terminology ‘a person who has experienced violence’ than the words ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’). Or perhaps they feared how they might sound to others—hard-hearted? Politically incorrect?”

It’s easy enough to retire Gill Sans and simply choose another typeface (Paula Scher recommends Johnston Sans, by Edward Johnston, an early influence on Gill’s work), but should more be done? If Gill were alive today, surely he’d be one of the figures at the heart of the #metoo movement, which so far seems to have skirted the design industry (though I’m taking bets on how long it can hold out). Should we treat him any differently just because he’s (thankfully) no longer with us?

Some people, afraid of accidentally supporting the “wrong guy,” are erring so far on the side of caution as to leave no room for discourse. The Manchester Art Gallery may claim that removing the painting “Hylas and the Nymphs,” by JW Waterhouse was an act of discretion (the nudes are of adolescent girls), not of censorship, but how does hiding “tricky issues about gender, race and representation” according to curator Clare Gannaway, further valuable conversation on those issues? You don’t make a statement by backing out of the room.

The Ditchling’s Nathaniel Hepburn, who curated the Gill show, wants to spark meaningful discourse between the museum and the public, albeit by entirely different means. “I don’t want to censor which works we show because we don’t have the confidence of language to be able to interpret them properly.” So far that’s meant amplifying all the voices in the room, with no clear arbiter. It’s a noisy, messy business, but before the dust settles it must be kicked up.

Have an asshole story of your own you care to share? Tweet us @99U, or DM me @perrindrumm.

And because you haven’t seen enough useless GIFs lately, here are a few taken from great movie moments featuring assholes:

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