Comment by jonfromsf
2 days ago
The expectation that artists be "good people" always baffles me. Anyone who becomes a great artist has: 1)High levels of narcissism required to think the world needs to hear "your vision. 2) High levels of sociopathy to thrive in a snake pit like the art world or Hollywood. It's even stranger than if someone expected CEOs to be good people (which we don't).
Keanu Reeves, Dolly Parton, Weird Al Yankovic, Bryan Cranston… By all accounts I ever found, they’ve always been described as genuinely nice human beings.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe Keanu Reaves as a "great artist". Quite the opposite in fact. Most charitably, he's a decent character actor who does really well in certain roles that suit him well, but outside of those, he is not a great actor. He also allegedly plays bass in a band decently well, though again is no world-class master of the instrument.
But yeah, he's generally acknowledged as a really nice guy, and also easy to work with.
Weird Al Yankovic, too, is not generally considered a "great artist". A funny musician who made a career making silly parody songs a few decades ago, sure, but that's not what I'd call a "great artist". Again, not to denigrate his work; it was pretty funny stuff as I recall, but nothing super-amazing.
By contrast, people who are generally considered the very top of their profession frequently have serious personality problems. Kevin Spacey was considered one of the best actors in Hollywood, and look what happened to him. Tom Cruise is generally considered one of the most talented actors of all time, and while he's amazing on-screen, he's a certifiable crackpot and mouthpiece for a dangerous cult. Klaus Kinski was also an extremely talented actor, and also extremely mentally ill and unstable.
I notice you skipped two of the names, including Dolly Parton, which I included specifically for nitpickers.
And you’re treating Al as a has-been, but his latest album was number one in the US charts.
What exactly makes a “great artist” then? Surely that’s subjective, and popularity isn’t the only metric. We’re talking “great”, not simply “famous”.
But alright, take your pick:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahdobro/nicest-celebs-people-ha...
https://www.quora.com/What-famous-rock-musicians-are-genuine...
https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/s4rrug/artists_th...
Plenty of names there who are “generally considered the very top of their profession”, and bigger than the ones you picked.
I refuse to accept that a genius in their field cannot be a decent human being. If that makes me naive, so be it.
The difference is between "can be" and "are".
They can, but they're competing with assholes, you can figure out the odds.
Like there's an Olympics where everyone's on drugs but a few good folks decide to compete clean.
Want to win fair? Sure, same here. Now here come the whispers, you can just ignore them, sure, but now your girlfriend's pregnant and your bank account is looking a little thin. Good luck.
Seems like quite some assumptions are being made there. Can't work be done for intrinsic reasons? Can't artists (creators more generally) be insular or even reclusive?
I can't agree with that. While unwavering determination is definitely necessary to overcome lack of success, there are other ways to achieve that.
And as was once put to me, the reason that some artists are not appreciated until after their death isn't just a matter of not meeting your heroes, but because they understood something about the present moment that the public was not yet prepared to reflect upon. That we appreciate them in retrospect because they tell us something we are not yet ready to hear. That requires a degree of empathy for humanity that is not well represented in a strictly narcissistic diagnosis.