Can I still think a writer is good even though he is kinda misogynistic and probably a homo/acephobe? (Not an author, a writer for some of my favourite TV shows. I like his writing and his characters, I think some of his ideas were a stroke of genius. Yes I am talking about Steven Moffat specifically)
Not every idea an author has ever had is related to their bad opinions, so? 🤷 It’s important to acknowledge that good art isn’t only made by the ideologically pure.
But as for where you draw the line–
I can only speak to you from our own experience.
I think it depends, and what it depends on is YOU. And it’s always entirely a case by case basis.
There are some pieces of fiction that I used to interact with on a fandom basis that I no longer can, because the creator is just SO toxic, and their toxic ideology just completely invades and is obvious in their work to a degree that I can’t ignore it, or even fully root it out in fandom.
JKR is like that for me. I used to be huge into Harry Potter fandom in the 2000s, but something was always “wrong” with the books to me. They always had such potential, but characters and plots never went the way I expected them to, and they needed to be ‘fixed’. Later on, now in the modern day, know exactly why things felt “wrong” and its because JKR’s outlook on the world colors her writing and storytelling in a very obvious and gross way. And so, I just can no longer interact with the Harry Potter fandom.
On the other hand there are pieces of fiction that I know the author has gross and unpleasant and evil political opinions that I don’t agree with and don’t support– but it doesn’t make me enjoy the work any less.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Five Nights At Freddy’s are like that for me.
Ender’s Game, despite being written by a mormon who is definitely homophobic– despite this, his writing to me is charged with powerful and relatable, even queer, themes that I know the author didn’t put there deliberately. But it doesn’t make it any less meaningful or enjoyable to me.
Five Nights at Freddys meanwhile- well, frankly there isn’t enough actual WRITING in the series for the creator’s toxic conservative mindset to appear in it at all so it’s easy to ignore. And I pirate all the games, so I don’t feel bad about giving him money. 🤷 FNAF I can live with because it’s really nothing more than a gateway to a shared fandom experience, and the creator’s worldview hasn’t contributed any meaningful “ick” to the way the world we’re playing in is built.
So, I guess that’s what you have to evaluate for yourself. Does Steven Moffat’s “ick” ooze heavily enough on his works to make you want to reject them outright, or can you strike a bargain with your own emotions and enjoy them despite him?
With TV I almost feel like it’s a lot easier to strike that bargain, because everything is a collaboration. Moffat contributed something, but so did the directors, and the actors, and the special effects people, etc etc. It wasn’t one singular vision.
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