Jam
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Post by Jam on Apr 15, 2015 23:51:01 GMT -5
So both of these f***ers did some pretty heinous shit. Their horrific crimes completely tarnished their reputations. Most people can't even go back and listen or watch their stuff. Personally I can go back and watch Benoit matches no problem. I really didn't think I'd be able to listen to Lostprohets ever again after what that douchebag did. I just happened to hear The Fake Sound of Progress today and I still enjoyed it. Am I in the minority when it comes to letting the art and the people who created it be separate? Can you still watch or listen to their stuff and not let the bullshit these people did effect your enjoyment of it?
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Post by Unaffiliated on Apr 16, 2015 0:10:59 GMT -5
For me personally, yes because I'm the most emotionless person ever. I never get emotionally attached to entertainers or athletes or any public figure, so while I may enjoy their work, they are never "heroes" or "idols" to me. I've watched and enjoyed Chris Benoit matches and Lostprophets songs before they did what they respectively did, and if I go back and watch/listen again, that's still a good match and that's still a good song.
It may be different, though, if there is a very close association between their artistic output and their heinous crime. That might make things awkward. Some would say that applies to Chris Benoit, since his crime is largely attributed to brain injury from wrestling, but in his case I still can make that performer-performance separation. In the case of Ian Watkins, there was that Lostprophets music video which had lots of allusions to pedophilia, and that may be a bit uncomfortable to watch.
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Post by Mid-Carder on Apr 16, 2015 0:28:44 GMT -5
"Ian Watkins should be in the music Hall of Fame because yeah he did f***ing horrific stuff but he was good at his job and that's more important."
See how messed up that logic is?
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Apr 16, 2015 0:50:06 GMT -5
I don't think there's anything wrong with liking a song even though the person who recorded it has been disgraced in the years that followed. Imagine if Michael Jackson had been found guilty, would it make Thriller a bad album/song? Not IMO. Dislike the person, like the song/film/whatever. I love The Thick of It and can easily watch the first couple of series, even though the co-main star downloaded child porn. There are a couple of moments that are a bit hard to watch (at one point he mentions being a "registered nonce") but I won't let it spoil my enjoyment. I used to have a different opinion about this sort of thing but then I thought about it and changed my stance on such matters.
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Post by sfvega on Apr 16, 2015 1:00:16 GMT -5
For me personally, yes because I'm the most emotionless person ever. I never get emotionally attached to entertainers or athletes or any public figure, so while I may enjoy their work, they are never "heroes" or "idols" to me. I've watched and enjoyed Chris Benoit matches and Lostprophets songs before they did what they respectively did, and if I go back and watch/listen again, that's still a good match and that's still a good song. It may be different, though, if there is a very close association between their artistic output and their heinous crime. That might make things awkward. Some would say that applies to Chris Benoit, since his crime is largely attributed to brain injury from wrestling, but in his case I still can make that performer-performance separation. In the case of Ian Watkins, there was that Lostprophets music video which had lots of allusions to pedophilia, and that may be a bit uncomfortable to watch. I don't think it's so much that people look up to them, it's that they're just disgusted by their actions. I was never into Benoit, but it is a little weird watching his matches now knowing what he went on to do. It does take away from the matches in that I think that is what people overwhelmingly think about when they see Benoit matches. It's distracting. Same with Lostprophets. I had Last Train Home on Spotify and ended up taking it off after I heard about his crimes because it just made listening to it weird. It's hard to disconnect the art from the artist. And when the artist has such a huge stigma, it's even harder. Also, to your other point, Watkins used his celebrity and rock star status to try and get fans of his to bring their kids to him. So in that way, his music is incredibly tainted, because it was used by him as a tool to achieve his goal of pedophilia.
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Apr 16, 2015 1:12:16 GMT -5
I think it depends a lot on the artist and how separate from their work they are. For example, I do have a hard time watching Chris Benoit or even Steve Austin matches these days as they wrestled under their real name (or close to it anyway) and their personas seemed to close their real-life personalities, but the Ultimate Warrior? I still see him as an enjoyably goofy, campy character and not a racist, homophobic asshole.
Honestly pro wrestling is probably one of the arts where its hardest to separate them as it's designed to blur the line between reality and fiction and so many wrestlers work under their real name. For the most part though, I can see works and characters of fiction for what they are. I recently saw Mad Max for the first time and it didn't really bother me that our hero was played by a despicable human being, although it did make a few lines unintentionally funny.
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Eunös ✈
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Post by Eunös ✈ on Apr 16, 2015 1:25:57 GMT -5
Personally I have absolutely no problem whatsoever still watching a Chris Benoit match.
The man is scum for what he did but I can still enjoy his stuff.
Never was a huge Lostprophets fan anyway so I guess it's easy for me to not really listen to their stuff (Though Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja, Fake Sound of Progress and Five is a Four letter word are still good tunes)
Point is if somebody did something bad in their life but made good music/Movies/wrestling matches etc.. I can still enjoy their stuff, I'm not justifying what they did as a person but it wont stop me from enjoying whatever I want.
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Post by crashmatsbazz on Apr 16, 2015 1:57:10 GMT -5
Its hard sometimes, you build up someone in your head as these figures of great talent and you respect them for what they have done, and then they do something so wrong and vile your immediate reaction is to tarnish there work and try to pick apart your respect/awe of them. I think with a bit of hindsight there are differences between the two. What Watkins did was sick, disgusting and just plain wrong and as it seems from what i have read/heard in the reporting he was fully aware of his actions, Benoit was a professional wrestler, who took thousands of unprotected bashes to the head, (I'M NOT SAYING WHAT HE DID WASN'T WRONG!) but i don't believe he was mentally stable, and that is where the difference lies for me. I can't listen to the Lost Prophets anymore, Rolf Harris (Who i once saw at Glastonbury high on mushrooms and thought it was awesome), or Gary Glitter(.....ok not that i did anyway but example) because those guys knew 100% what they were doing and used there power and influence to get away with vile acts. I can watch a Benoit match, it just makes me sad to see him do suicide dives to the outside, chair shots, headbuts off the top rope, and its even sadder when he has a match and Woman is outside the ring.
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Post by Mozenrath on Apr 16, 2015 1:58:29 GMT -5
Wanna Be In My Gang is catchy, even though Gary Glitter is f***ing deplorable. Whether or not you can separate an artist from their art is a case by case basis.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2015 2:06:24 GMT -5
Case in point, I'm still a Justin Bieber and Chris Brown fan when it comes to pop music
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2015 2:06:45 GMT -5
I can't. Benoit was one of my all time favorites and it devestated me as a kid. I threw away all his figures and tried to forget him.
Watkins is deplorable.
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ayumidah
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Post by ayumidah on Apr 16, 2015 2:20:56 GMT -5
I suppose I respected Benoit's work enough at the time, but I've never felt the urge to actually look for it. I did watch some on an Eddie Guerrero boxset, but that was it.
As for Lostprophets, that was always harder for me because their "Last Train Home" song was ALWAYS my 'bus ride' song. Any time I took a bus trip anywhere, that was always played a lot.
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Post by Big Poppa Pumpkin on Apr 16, 2015 2:22:34 GMT -5
Lostprophets were a bad band and I never liked Watkins because he had this preening narcissist vibe about him. That said, even if they were a great band, I probably wouldn't listen to them again. Its pretty arbitrary because I like a bunch of Roman Polanski films and that guy drugged and raped a teenage girl (afaik), I don't know, just something about having a convicted baby rapist sing about his feelings directly into my ears wouldn't feel right. With Polanski i can focus on the actors and the story being told. Maybe that's it or maybe it is just arbitrary.
As for Benoit, I have watched a few of his matches but generally as part of old PPV rewatches rather than individy matches. I guess I just focus on the other people in the match.
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Jam
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Post by Jam on Apr 16, 2015 4:07:50 GMT -5
"Ian Watkins should be in the music Hall of Fame because yeah he did f***ing horrific stuff but he was good at his job and that's more important." See how messed up that logic is? No Where in my original post did I even come close to making an argument for that. So what's your point? I like that one album by the band and they would never be inducted into any hall of fame, regardless of what that douchebag did. Beniot shouldn't be in the WWE HOF either. Nobody in this thread has said anything resembling what you wrote.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Apr 16, 2015 6:04:22 GMT -5
I can, I just have no desire to, if that makes sense.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Apr 16, 2015 6:09:24 GMT -5
well, I listen to at least 3-4 bands who have or had a convicted murderer in their ranks, so I guess it's not that strange. mind, I'm one of those weird people who almost finds it easier to forgive murder than diddling kids.
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Post by 4real on Apr 16, 2015 6:50:14 GMT -5
Lostprophets were one of my favourite bands but I just don't feel comfortable listening to their stuff anymore. I have no Lostprophets stuff on my iPod but still have the CD's which are gathering dust.
As for Benoit I couldn't watch his matches for years. He was my favourite wrestler, I have now started watching them if I'm watching an event he's on but I have no real emotional attachment anymore. I watched the triple threat at WM XX in the lead up to Mania this year probably for the first time since his death. The match was better than I remembered it really.
If people still like listening to Lostprophets stuff than good for them maybe in a few years I'll be able to but for now it still feels fresh.
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Post by sternrogers01 on Apr 16, 2015 7:56:48 GMT -5
I find myself occasionally listening to the song they played over one of Benoit's tribute videos (no not the more commonly known Finger Eleven one that's on the DVD), not only because it's pretty catchy and could have easily applied to a lot of losses I was trying to get over at the time, but the song is such an ill fit in light of his actions ("you kept me safe inside your arms" and "you sacrificed it all just to keep me alive" are among the lyrics heard in it) that it sort of appeals to my dark sense of humor.
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Post by Square on Apr 16, 2015 9:01:24 GMT -5
If Lost Prophets had more than one good album maybe the comparison would be good. Shit band that copied the flavour of the month
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 16, 2015 9:12:07 GMT -5
I think it's still possible to respect talent, but for me the performance is always marred by what they did from a spectator's perspective. By which I mean you can't help but have that thought in the back of your mind about what they did. At least I can't. I can still appreciate a Benoit match, but it's never going to be the same.
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