My Favourite Predator

How do we consume media in a post Me-Too world?

When I was in second year in college, studying film, I had to watch Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. I didn’t really want to watch it. I was adamantly against watching things created by men who had been exposed for sexual misdeeds. But I was also in a phase where I was trying to actually do my readings and screenings (which didn’t last long) and I suppose I was curious, so I did. Then when it came time to do the module’s final assignment I knew I was going to have to use Annie Hall as one of my core texts because there weren’t many things that fit the easiest essay title and it was due the next morning, oh college.

To this day it’s one of only two Woody Allen films I’ve seen (the other, Everyone Says I Love You, I watched when I was fifteen and I didn’t even know it was Woody Allen until about halfway through, I just wanted to see Natasha Lyonne sing). I didn’t like it because I don’t like Woody Allen and it’s very difficult to separate the art from the artist when the artist is so integral to the art itself. There are definitely some good parts in the film, it’s funny obviously, and Diane Keaton gives a stellar performance. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re watching a narcissist's origin story. I was extremely conflicted about both watching the film and writing the essay at the time but I reasoned that it was for college and appeased myself by throwing in a few sentences like; ‘it can be difficult to watch knowing what we know about Allen’. I read the essay back when I started writing this and it’s fine, not great, I think I got a B.

For me, it’s easy to say that I’ll never watch a Woody Allen film because I don’t particularly enjoy them. I have seen clips of Hannah and her Sisters that look good, and I’ve considered watching Manhattan so that I can properly argue with the film bros who seem to think their death of the author mindset gives them some sort of moral superiority, but that’s about it. This particular issue for me is a black and white one, Allen did something terrible, honestly evil, and his films aren’t something I particularly want to engage with anyway, so I don’t. Easy. But since my second year in college I’ve stumbled across some issues that are much more grey.

When the Me Too Movement started I was seventeen and it felt very easy for me to disengage with content once allegations started. I was not going to watch Manchester by The Sea and I still haven’t. I could quit R Kelly's music cold turkey. It was harder for someone like Harvey Weinstein because he had a hand in so many projects, but no one was really calling for people to stop consuming his work and people were taking his allegations seriously and not nominating him for Oscars. Anymore. I haven’t listened to a Chris Brown song since he attacked Rhianna, nor have I felt the desire to. And I heavily judged people, particularly women, who went to see his most recent tour. In my mind, I was a better person than these people, or the people who saw Manchester by the Sea, full stop.

When Jeffrey Tambor, the lead actor of Transparent was accused of sexual assault and misconduct he immediately left the show, something similar happened with Kevin Spacey and House of Cards. And as the accusations grew and grew and it felt hard to keep track of what we could watch, this felt like a good rule of thumb for me to follow. If they were fired after accusations, I can watch, if not I won’t. And if the project was made before accusations surfaced and I can reasonably assume other people involved didn’t know, sure why not. But Tambor and Spacey didn’t create their shows, they weren’t playing exaggerated versions of themselves. and I quickly realised that there was no catchall rule that you can follow when it comes to the art you choose to engage with. Especially, as I would find a few years later, when the art is something that really matters to you.

The summer I turned fifteen my parents were putting an extension on our house and we had to vacate it for a few months while builders worked. We ended up staying in a house in Balbriggan which was far from any of my friends, and since I wasn’t going to school over the summer and my parents were working, I ended up feeling extremely isolated. And during this time I decided when randomly scrolling through Netflix one day that I was going to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it honestly changed the trajectory of my life. I’d always been a big fan of television but Buffy was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The worldbuilding, the character studies, the event episodes, all of it was unique and brilliant for me. It quickly became my favourite show and I believed, wholeheartedly, that Joss Whedon was a genius.

In 2020, after the series had firmly established itself in my heart, actor Ray Fisher who worked with Whedon on Marvel’s Justice League, accused Whedon of “gross, abusive, unprofessional” behaviour on set. WarnerMedia began an investigation into Whedon’s behaviour and Fisher’s co stars Jason Mamoa and Gal Gadot (I know but we don’t have time to get into everyone’s controversies) made similar statements. So okay, the work is a bit tainted. I might not be able to look at Whedon in the same way, but the accusations came decades after the series ended so it’s okay for me to watch, according to my own rules. But then in February 2021 Charisma Carpenter who played Cordelia in Buffy and the spinoff series Angel spoke out about Wheedon’s treatment of her on set, saying he ‘abused his power on several occasions’, going so far as to ask Carpenter if she was ‘keeping it’ when learning she was pregnant. Multiple Buffy cast members corroborated these claims. Michelle Trachtenberg, who was just sixteen when she first appeared on the series, called Wheedon’s behaviour ‘Very. Not. Appropriate.’ and later stated that there was a rule on set that Wheedon was not allowed to be left alone with her. All of this becomes even harder to sit with after Trachtenberg’s recent passing at the age of 39.

It honestly gets even worse but I don’t have time to recap all of Wheedon’s misdeeds and that’s not really what this is about.

While it might be easy for me to not watch The Cosby Show or Annie Hall. This was much harder for me to deal with. I love Buffy, truly love it, it’s important to me. And yes, I can reason that many people worked on the series and it’s not just one person’s work. But the thing is that the writing on Buffy is incredible. And as a fan I’ve read books and seen interviews that have shown me how crucial Wheedon’s voice and vision were to the final product. The hardest thing for me to reckon with is that I still think Whedon is a genius, even knowing what I know. His characters are strong and complex and the world and story are rich and impressive. So it’s one thing for me to continue watching the show to support the cast, (minus Xander who, again, I don’t even have time to get into), and another to acknowledge the fact that this monstrous man might actually be a genius. A genius who has honestly been a huge influence on my own writing.

Another difficult thing for me is that to be honest, I still consider the show to be a feminist work. Throughout my teens I often used Whedon as an example of a man who could write female characters well. And I still think that’s true. Buffy, the character, is complex, she doesn’t fit into a box. Yes she’s a strong female hero. She’s charming and funny and brave but she has flaws, she hurts people, she makes bad decisions, she can be weak. The same can be said for all the women on the show. Whedon is a man who writes women as though he understands them, sees them. So how do I compare all of that to the man that has abused so many women in real life?

And since Whedon I’ve had to deal with the actions of more of the creators of the art I love. Many people have been able to completely separate Harry Potter from author JK Rowling. And I get it. That series was so important to so many children. It helped them fall in love with reading, and was maybe there for them when nothing else was. I was one of those kids that was too into Harry Potter. I had merch. I talked about it all the time. I wrote several short stories that were essentially just plagerised versions of the series. And I can still enjoy it to an extent, I can watch the movies at Christmas (illegally, I’m not giving that bitch my money), and I can enjoy the storytelling from a distance (although after the supreme court ruling I did remove the books from my bookshelf). But the thing is, the words and actions of JK Rowling completely contradict what’s in the text. So how can I read a story telling children not to judge people by how they were born when that is literally what she’s preaching everyday on Twitter? How can I accept that there are no rules to who can and can’t be a wizard when she’s so concerned with the rules of who can and can’t be a woman?

Glen Hasnard composed and sings on my favourite film soundtracks, and albums, of all time. And a couple of years ago, a now deleted Instagram post gave accounts from many women who made allegations against him. Not to mention the fact that he met his Once costar and former girlfriend when she was just thirteen and started dating her when she turned eighteen. But I do still listen to the Once soundtrack more than I care to admit and can enjoy the songs with a certain level of separation.

I think the genius of it all is what can be hardest for people, I know it’s hardest for me. On tiktok a few years ago I started seeing a lot of Harry Potter and JK Rowling discourse and noticed a common theme. People that obviously loved the books were using them as examples of bad writing. These people were so eager to dismiss Rowling’s work, to make out that she was a bad author as well as a bad person. Yet these are the people that still care about the work. They were clearly deeply uncomfortable with the idea that someone they hated could have the ability to create something they love. I’m not saying we shouldn’t critique elements of Rowling’s writing (most notably the racism) but to say she’s a bad author when the world was so enamoured with the writing just doesn’t make sense. If you love a book series so much that you’re willing to compromise your own principles in order to engage with it, there was probably something good about the writing. I don’t want to think she’s talented, I don’t want to think any of them are, but I do.

So what allows me to engage with something? Is it just how important it is to me personally? Well not really because I can’t really watch That 70s Show anymore, one of my previous favourite shows. I tried for a while when I thought only Danny Masterson was the problem, but then the majority of the cast wrote letters of support for him, and Demi Lovato released 29. So is it just when there’s multiple problematic people involved? Again, no, because I find it too hard to watch The Handmaid’s Tale now that I know how involved Elizabeth Moss is with Scientology, more hypocrisy.

And the bigger question, the one I really struggle with. Is it okay? Is it okay that I can still derive joy from the Harry Potter series? That I sing along to Glen Hasnard (and sometimes Michael Jackson) in the shower. That I still count Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of my top five favourite shows of all time. Can I still call myself an ally and a feminist when I’m willing to consume these things? Why do I allow myself to engage with certain things when I won’t make allowances for the Chris Brown stans? And does it make it better or worse that I feel bad about it?

In a world where there are moral implications for almost anything we choose to consume. Where we boycott huge corporations and judge others for not participating. How do we choose the things we do consume? Not every piece of media can be made entirely by saints. So where do we draw the lines? How do we choose? And does it say anything about our own morality?

I hoped that while writing this, I’d come to some profound conclusion, but I don’t actually have answers to any of these questions. And of course, there’s a lot more to the discourse. And I know that my opinion will change. Maybe there’ll come a day where I decide to never watch anything Joss Whedon worked on ever again. Or a day where I’ll feel an overwhelming need to watch Manhattan. And which of those choices would have a bigger impact on my morality. Would any?

All I do know is that I can’t separate the art from the artist. When I watch Buffy I’m reminded every so often of Whedon’s behaviour. When I listen to the Once soundtrack I feel guilty. I’m embarrassed, and somewhat ashamed of my lingering admiration for Whedon’s work. And I feel a bit better about it all because of this guilt. But maybe that actually makes it worse. How good does something have to be before we’re willing to overlook who made it? And why does that matter?