|

Men You Hate to Love

By Leonard Pierce
There’s a thin line, they say, between
genius and madness. There’s also a thin line between being
a talented and idiosyncratic creative artist and being a complete
asshole — and this line is a lot more blurred from crossings back
and forth than the razor-edged but clearly defined Mason-Dixon
of brilliance and insanity. The problem with the cliché (aside
from the fact that it’s trite) is that it sets up a false
dichotomy: no matter how narrow that divide between genius and
madness, you’re either on one side or the other. In unfortunate
fact, the two are not mutually exclusive; there are more than a
few people who reside in downtown Genius, but still take frequent
day trips to downtown Madness to do a little shopping. In fact,
the number of people who hold dual citizenship almost outnumber
those who reside in one mind-state or the other exclusively. The
difficulty isn’t telling the difference. The difficulty is
knowing what to do about it.
Society has always had a sort of built-in
tolerance for eccentricity in artists, and, provided they could
bring it in an aesthetic sense,
poets and painters have always been able to get away with things
that would get you put in an asylum or a prison if you were, say,
a tailor. The modern era, though, has brought us two redirections
of sensibility — although seemingly at war, in reality, they
contain the answer to one another. The first is what is often and
ignorantly called political correctness, but this phrase contains
an ugly scorn that the phenomenon does not deserve: what is really
under discussion is an increased tendency to empathy, a heightened
sensitivity, an improved awareness of the dangers of prejudice
and intolerance. One offshoot of this increase in tolerance is
that we are less willing to ignore the character flaws of racism,
sexism, hatred and bigotry, even in our artists. The other, a manifestation
of certain aspects of critical theory, is marked by the ability
to compartmentalize the behavior of artists: a maturity of thought
which teaches us that a man who makes good art may nonetheless
be a bad man, and that an understanding of both facets of the artist
is essential to an understanding of the art. This last has been
handed down to us by the deconstructionists, but is no longer theirs
alone and has become part of our cultural currency.
We have new
ways of thinking about the problem now, but we are stuck with the
same old ways of dealing with it. In practical terms,
we are left with little more than the old preacher’s maxim
to “hate the sin and love the sinner”; when faced with
creators who are clearly unacceptable human beings but who stubbornly
insist on producing works of greatness, we have very few options
more sophisticated than “love the art and hate the artist.” Modern
man is less able than before to ignore the heinous behavior of
those who make his masterpieces; and yet rejecting the work based
on the flaws of the worker seems juvenile, unsophisticated, naïve.
Media saturation has left us almost entirely incapable of knowing
about art without an equal knowledge of the artist; and so knowing,
we sometimes have to reconcile our distaste for the wicked ways
of those who make our culture with our appreciation for what is
made. The following examples can be read as biographies, examples,
cultural snapshots or cautionary tales, but in the end, they’re
little more than baseball cards in the great game of the Men You
Hate to Love.
Vincent Gallo
Before there was The Brown Bunny — the
most widely reviled picture in the history of the Cannes Film Festival
— there was Buffalo 66, one of the most widely embraced
movies in the history
of independent film. And the man behind it was Vincent Gallo, an
undeniably talented habitué of New York’s fashion
world with a wide array of artistic abilities. A designer, songwriter,
visual artist and actor of considerable skill, he exploded into
the world of filmmaking in 1998 with Buffalo 66, a surreal,
hilarious and amazingly sure-handed story of a self-deluding loser
who kidnaps
a young woman, convinces her to pose as his wife and embarks
on a futile and desperate mission of vengeance against the pro
football
player he blames for the mess his life has become. Stylish, funny,
gritty and assured, the film was so well-received that it instantly
became an American classic of sorts, vaulting its first-time director
up into the ranks of filmmakers whose names were a cause for excitement.
Gallo,
who had come seemingly out of nowhere to establish himself as a
talent to be reckoned with, wasted no time in squandering
the goodwill his abilities as a filmmaker had won. Raising eyebrows
with his incessant trashing of Buffalo 66 co-star Christina Ricci
for no discernable reason, he almost immediately earned the enmity
of the critical establishment by engaging in vituperative personal
attacks on the few reviewers who didn’t like the film; expletive-laden
and homophobic tirades against anyone who dared give him a negative
review were his preferred way of dealing with bad press. He soon
had to deal with a lot of it; as good as Buffalo 66 was, it was
almost entirely overshadowed by the storm of negative attention
he received due to his chronic inability to avoid behaving like
an ill-tempered 16-year-old. He disappeared for a time from the
public eye, appearing only occasionally in acting roles where he
reminded us, even in low-rent though enjoyable trash like Freeway
2: Confessions of a Trickbaby, how good he could be when he put
his unstable mind to it.
Then came The Brown Bunny.
Supposedly his masterwork,
on which he’d been working on
and off for five years since he wrapped Buffalo 66, Vincent
Gallo clearly intended the movie to be a triumph. Instead, it was
universally
reviled. Audiences walked out in droves, and critics absolutely
savaged it. The worst-rated competition film ever judged by the
critics’ jury, it prompted comments, in even the kindest
reviews one could find, like “staggeringly self-indulgent” (The
Daily Telegraph). Simply put, everyone — from friendly TV
talking heads like Roger Ebert to highfalutin critical journals
like Cahiers
du Cinema — hated it. And how did Gallo respond? The same
way he always did: with blind, arrogant, juvenile contempt. He
publicly
derided various actresses associated with the film at its premiere
press conference (as co-star Chloe Sevigny sat, mortified, beside
him), he wished for Ebert to get cancer and he dripped venom on
everyone who dared dislike the film — all this before immediately
reversing himself and tearfully apologizing for The Brown Bunny,
then reversing himself again and spilling rancor on anyone who
didn’t understand his vision! Gallo even haunted the internet
and launched into incoherent tirades against his enemies there,
consisting largely of junior-high “needle-dick” and “faggot” taunts.
Vincent
Gallo has talent; he may, indeed, have so much talent he doesn’t
know what to do with it all. He’s seemingly
overachieved at everything he’s tried to the degree that
he can never follow up on his efforts and either abandons them
for another field of artistic endeavor or sinks into self-pity
and, ultimately, self-parody. Buffalo 66 was the work of a man
who clearly knew how to laugh at himself, but Gallo’s behavior
in the wake of the Cannes disaster was that of someone who never
had. Photographic proof exists that Gallo didn’t forget how
to act in the period between Buffalo 66 and The Brown
Bunny, but
did he forget how to direct? We may never know; The Brown Bunny was such a total disaster it may never be released, and its director
has vowed never to make another film. If this wasn’t just
typically Galloesque bloviating, then he’ll be remembered,
perhaps, as independent cinema’s ultimate one-hit wonder,
a man who had exactly one great film in him and spent the rest
of his short career embarrassing himself and everyone else. If
he’s somehow able to get past this gory crash-and-burn, however,
and make another movie, he’ll have thousands of people who
respect his talents enough to be enormously curious as to where
he’ll go next — and who doubt his stability enough to wonder
if he can possibly top himself in the humiliation department.
Dave Sim
In
1978, a young man from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, self-published
the first issue of a black and white comic
book called Cerebus. At the time, it seemed to be little more than
the work of a clever
fanboy writing a funny-animal parody of the then-popular Conan
the Barbarian comics being put out by Marvel. No one, with the
exception of the artist himself — an eccentric loner by the
name of Dave Sim — could have possibly anticipated that the
book would become legendary: one of the most creative, interesting,
intelligent,
ambitious and talked about comics in the history of the medium,
artistically daring, politically and philosophically sophisticated.
No one could have predicted that it would become impossibly durable
and long-lasting, economically profitable, a bastion of creative
integrity and a virtual blueprint on how to make a good living
as an independent comics artists. But, by the same token, no one
— again, perhaps, with the exception of Sim himself — could
have predicted that it would also become one of the most polarizing
books in existence, so critically fought over and torn apart that
some critical journals preferred simply to pretend it did not exist;
or that its creator would prove so unstable, hateful, intolerant
and unyielding that the mere mention of his name would conjure
images of flagrant homophobia and grotesque misogyny.
The amazing
thing about Sim’s creation isn’t how ambitious
it was (Cerebus was, decades ago, projected as an extended
epic that would run a total of 300 issues over 25 years), but how
precisely
it succeeded. Sim has written and drawn every single issue of the
book since 1978 (assisted since the late 1980s by the tremendously
skilled background artist Gerhard), and he has been responsible
for every inch of its incredible progress from a relatively unsophisticated
swords-and-sorcery parody to a sort of masterpiece, attempting
to encapsulate within its pages all aspects of existence — an
aspiration normally seen only in the most lofty modernist literature.
He has
also been responsible for its transformation from a tiny quasi-fanzine
into a cottage industry and then into a mini-empire. Sim’s
lasting legacy may be less that of his lusty aardvark’s exploits
and more his tireless devotion to, advocacy of and education in
the cause of self-publishing, creative control, and artistic independence.
Cerebus has been a success on every level — it has been a
financial winner, a testament to its creator’s integrity
and vision, and (until recently, when the storyline became bogged
down in what
can only be described as misguided hagiography), an endlessly fascinating
and largely rewarding artistic accomplishment.
But the longer the
series has gone on, the more controversial its creator has become.
Always a maverick, an iconoclast and a bit
of a misanthrope, the passage of time has seen Dave Sim degenerate
into a religious fanatic, an intolerably aggressive near-sociopath
and perhaps the most blatant misogynist in the comic book industry,
which, even in the best of times, isn’t known for its progressive
feminist views. In the early 1990s, his problematic political views
began to blossom into full-blown reactionary crankitude, and for
the first time, his woman-hating views began to spill from the
letter column into the comic proper. By the end of the decade,
Sim (who had added homophobia, religious fanaticism and a bizarre
and belated anti-communist fervor to his arsenal alongside his
already potent sexist views) had become so detached from anyone
who dared dispute his views that even his oldest friends in the
comic book industry couldn’t defend him any longer. He fired
his company’s employees when they expressed dismay at his
misogynist ranting; he alienated himself from almost the entire
industry with his inability to keep his mouth shut at the right
time; and he even challenged Bone creator Jeff Smith — who
idolized Sim and emulated his indie self-publishing credo — to
a fistfight when Smith’s wife dared to contradict his woman-hating
speechifying.
Lately,
even the most diehard fans have found reading Cerebus pretty
hard going. The storyline gave itself over, for several years at
a time, to extended biographies of Sim’s literary heroes
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in plot arcs that failed
both as comic book stories and arts biographies. He began to forsake
even his oldest and closest allies in the industry, and let his
personal rancor spill over into his creative work. Finally, early
last year, he published a lengthy, incoherent essay, “Tangents,” which
spelled out so nakedly his misogynist, homophobic, intolerant political
views that his readers simply deserted him en masse. It couldn’t
have happened at a worse time — December of 2003 would see
the publication of issue No. 300 and the end of the series. It’s
a unique accomplishment, an astonishing realization of an incredibly
ambitious agenda that
should be cause for celebration, but instead will be noticed by
a tiny few, and with shame and regret rather than bittersweet happiness.
But, given Sim’s apparent mental degeneration, it probably
couldn’t come at a better time, as well.
Varg Vikernes
Varg (nee Christian) Vikernes,
also known as Count Grishnackh, also known as Burzum, separates
the men you love to hate from the
boys. Not merely a jerk like Vincent Gallo, a control freak like
Bill Monroe, a misogynist like Dave Sim or an anti-Semitic fascist
like Ezra Pound, Vikernes is really an asshole. He’s a racist,
a Nazi, an unrepentant anti-Christian and Jew-hater, a thief, a
slanderer, a liar, a career criminal, a literal iconoclast, a multiple
arsonist — and, to top it all off, he’s an honest-to-goodness
murderer. As of this writing, he’s been in a Norwegian prison
for 11 years after having been convicted of pounding a knife through
the head of ex-bandmate and Scandinavian black metal founding father
Euronymous; and, with extra time having been tacked on to his sentence
for repeated escape attempts under bizarre circumstances, he won’t
be getting out anytime soon.
But those who assume that those who
enjoy Count Grishnackh’s
work are engaging in bottom-shelf fetishization of the extreme,
à la the hippies (and later, punk rockers) who made a folk hero
out of Charles Manson, would be incorrect. Vikernes, formerly of
Mayhem and later the sole member of Burzum, is a genuine talent,
and listening to his output (seven albums in all so far — four
of which were recorded in prison and at least one of which, the
Aske EP, is a genuine masterpiece) proves it. Burzum’s music
is restlessly experimental, moving from Viking-themed black metal
to dark ambient/industrial stylings and, most recently, into a
satisfying hard-electronic instrumental vein. Burzum’s Det
Som En Gang Var and Filosofem are both excellent albums, and his
post-incarceration output, including the all-instrumental ambient
Daudi Baldrs and its ambitious sequel Hlidskjalf, are the work
of an artist (yes, an artist) who isn’t happy to rest on
his laurels. Although their audience is incredibly small and they
were recorded under less than ideal circumstances, these are accomplished
and intriguing albums by someone who genuinely has something to
say.
But what is it? Varg Vikernes is, frankly, nuts.
He changed his first name from Christian to “Wolf” (varg)
so as to disassociate himself from the Christian religion he so
reviles,
and the cover art of his finest album is a photograph of the flaming
steeple of a church that Vikernes burned down himself. His prison
writings are incoherent, deranged neo-Nazi screeds stuffed with
bewildering Odin-worship, virulent racism and ugly Scandinavian
nationalism, and his lyrics are often a mishmash of ninth-grade
fantasia and hopelessly muddled Norse mythology. He’s attempted
to break out of jail twice — once with the aid of his mother
and a gang of Swedish bikers armed with rocket launchers, and most
recently by walking out of his unlocked cell(!) and carjacking
a family at knifepoint before being recaptured. And he murdered
his mentor, friend and former bandmate for no particular reason
that anyone can determine.
It’s tempting to dismiss him altogether
as a maniac who is best left forgotten. Even many of those who
enjoy his music choose
to download it online or exchange second-generation tape and CD
dubs rather than chance putting money in the pockets of someone
who is, after all, a Nazi murderer. But once you hear his music,
it isn’t easily forgotten — dark, sinister, powerful and
inventive, it’s fascinating stuff that, if you were somehow
able to hear it in a vacuum, might well convince you that it was
the work of a musician who might someday become a force to be reckoned
with. It’s only because you cannot escape the knowledge of
the man who made it that listening to it goes beyond being an exercise
in aesthetic judgment and turns into an ethical dilemma.
These three are but a few examples; everyone
has their own particular favorite bête noir, some artist who keeps
putting out solid, interesting
work that they
enjoy while simultaneously behaving in such an unpleasant fashion that one can’t
help but feel guilty about liking them. So what, in the end, do we do about the
Men We Hate to Love? Really, there isn’t much we can do. We either stop
paying attention to them altogether — and find ourselves regretting it
whenever
we hear they’ve got a new album or film or book out — or we try our
best to appreciate the art while quietly kicking ourselves for supporting the
jackoff
who made it. Sometimes, circumstance will help us out; like the saying goes,
evil often contains the seeds of its own destruction. Of the examples above,
Vincent Gallo and Dave Sim have both reached the point at which the quality of
their art has seriously declined, so that the only thing left to contemplate
is what assholes they are; and Varg Vikernes’ constant attempts to break
out of prison may mean the end of his musical career as his privileges are taken
away.
But there will always be those whose artistic
output keeps pace with their antisocial behavior, and there will
always be those who step in to take over
the role of
enfant terrible when the old titleholder can’t hack it anymore. There will
always be those who throw a monkey wrench into the “you either like them
or you don’t” equation. There will always be the men we hate to love,
and there will always be those of us who hate them and love them. In the end,
they’re like a church fire: sometimes all you can do, ultimately, is sit
back and watch it burn.

back to top
|