Look before you watch

This past weekend “Birth of a Nation,” a Sundance-favored period drama based loosely on the life of Nat Turner, an enslaved man who lead a slave rebellion in the 1800s, opened with disappointing numbers at the box office. Perhaps the film’s underperformance stemmed from overly high expectations. Perhaps it stemmed from the movie’s formulaic composition. Perhaps, though, it stemmed from the past of the movie’s director, Nate Parker. In 1999, Parker and his roommate at Pennsylvania State University were accused of raping a female student while she was passed out. Parker was cleared of all charges, but his admission that he had engaged in sex with an incapacitated person marred his image. Parker’s new movie and old but sordid history bring up a question of ethical media consumption: where do we draw the line with the personal lives of content creators when it comes to engaging with their content?

The advent of the internet has made it remarkably easy to access information about people’s pasts. That ability makes it much easier to identify characters who have engaged in unsavory actions and avoid supporting them. So should we do that? The strongest argument against consuming and purchasing art and movies by people whose actions are considered immoral is that some of the money you spend goes directly to them. On top of that, consumer purchases signal to movie executives and producers that giving roles to and rewarding offenders is acceptable. It is unfortunate that movies like Birth of a Nation might have to be collateral damage for punishing offenders, but that is the price that must be paid to make clear the ethics that the film industry should be held to. Even if Nate Turner is truly innocent of all moral wrongdoing, the same idea applies broadly to all of the giants of media—Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, etc.

Although we acknowledge that we should avoid supporting and funding living artists who have committed grossly immoral actions, things become more difficult when we talk about engaging with the work of deceased persons who will not benefit from our consumption—especially people like academics who have majorly contributed to areas of knowledge. It would be ridiculous and academically dishonest to simply disregard their work, but at the same time it seems odd to completely let them off the hook for moral transgressions. We hold that when reading the works of such people (e.g. Martin Heidegger or Saul McGinn), it must be understood that they, despite the strides they may have made in their fields, quite possibly did or believed some terrible things. As such, their work needs to be contextualized and presented in a way that does not gloss over who they were and what they did. Academic material does not exist in a vacuum and should not be read in one. For deceased academics this is especially important. It is possible to use their work to build upon, but it is important to, at the same time, analyze the lenses that might have influenced their work.

Ultimately, when dealing with materials produced by unsavory people, engage when you have to, but always be critical of the creators. Additionally, avoid funding and rewarding bad behavior. Although we may not have a choice but to use the work of offensive people in academia, we always have the opportunity to fight against other offenders with our wallets.