The Dark Arts of Loving Problematic Artists

After seeing Giant on Broadway, I’m rethinking Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling, Michael Jackson, and what we owe our kids when the stories they love come from artists we can’t defend.

From Harry Potter to Willy Wonka, what happens when beloved authors turn out to be worse than some of the villainous characters they created? Must we burn their books? Do we lock away the DVDs? Or do we make deeply personal decisions for ourselves and allow others to do the same?

Canceling each other for liking a book or movie may not be the cleanest road to redemption. It may just be one more way we avoid the far messier work of living with contradiction.

I went into Giant on Broadway, starring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, with very little context—as I still stand by the idea that shows should be experienced with as few spoilers as possible. I knew only that the play dealt with the controversy surrounding Dahl’s antisemitism. I wasn’t old enough to have been aware of that moment in real time, around the publication of The Witches, and even as a Jew, I don’t recall thinking of Dahl as a controversial figure until recently.

Like many people, my experience of Dahl probably began with Gene Wilder’s portrayal of Willy Wonka. Maybe there was a school reading of The BFG somewhere in there. As for The Witches, which was published in the aftermath of Dahl’s antisemitic outburst in the press, I still don’t think I’ve read the book. But I was obsessed with the movie starring Anjelica Huston. It was sufficiently creepy for a kid who loved anything scary, albeit in full context of my adult understanding, the source is clearly full of antisemitic dog whistles.

Had I known as a child that the author of these books hated my kind, would I have continued enjoying his art? Likely not. But his art rooted itself in my creative imagination before that kind of disillusionment had a chance to set in.

Much like Harry Potter.

Another now clearly vile author. Another world that became foundational to millions of childhood memories. Clearly, we can blame my lack of exposure to the outside world during those formative years. While others were developing informed moral frameworks, I apparently had my eyes glued to a movie screen or buried in the pages of a book.

Am I to blame for not knowing?

And like nearly every parent of a certain age, I enthusiastically tried getting my kids to appreciate the art that shaped me. The stories that sent my curiosity and imagination spinning in a million directions. I’m not sure my personality would be quite what it is today without the wry wit of Wonka or the fantastical dreaming of my namesake James and his giant peach.

My oldest son got hooked. He loved Wonka. He burned through Potter faster than I ever could have at his age.

Walking out of Giant, however, I felt something close to shame. I simply had not understood the depth of Dahl’s reported hatred of Jews before setting my kids on a path toward appreciating Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the rest of his strange little universe.

Lithgow is superb, delivering a chilling, villainous turn as Dahl in this historical look at the unraveling of a celebrated author’s public image. Ignorant of the detailed history before going in, I found myself leaning forward—and away—grabbing my knee and cringing at each escalation toward the full reveal of Dahl’s deep hatred and anger toward Jews.

There is no excusing antisemitism. Full stop.

But is there any ability to excuse an artist’s work? I’m left uncertain. Do I pull Dahl’s books from my kids’ rooms? Do I ban them from revisiting the world of Harry Potter as HBO’s new series readies itself for another round of wizarding-world cash extraction?

Much of Giant surrounds a debate over a review Dahl wrote of a book about Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon. At first, the play seems to circle an argument that criticizing Israel is not the same as antisemitism. That is, of course, true. But Dahl’s argument keeps curdling. He escalates and escalates until he is no longer criticizing a government or a war but painting Jews themselves as the problem.

The most nauseating line comes near the end of the play, when Lithgow’s Dahl says, “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

That’s all she wrote, I thought.

Time to dump some books.

And yet, I still haven’t ditched my DVD of Annie Hall. I still consider On the Waterfront one of cinema’s great films, despite my utter disgust with director Elia Kazan’s role in naming names during the Hollywood blacklist. I still watch Chinatown at least once a year, even though Roman Polanski makes my skin crawl. And when my kids are old enough, I’ll probably still make sure they understand why those movies matter.

So why was my instinct to torch Dahl’s books but not Rowling’s escapades through Hogwarts?

Because it’s personal.

Dahl hated my kind, so it hits differently. Just as Rowling’s attacks land with an entirely different force for the trans community. Of course they do. I understood that intellectually before. I think I understand it more viscerally after leaving the Music Box Theatre seething.

Lithgow now finds himself in an odd cultural split-screen: portraying the dastardly Dahl on Broadway while preparing to play a beloved character in HBO’s new Harry Potter series. In an interview with David Remnick for The New Yorker, Lithgow spoke about Rowling and the decision to still take part in telling her stories.

“I just felt the reasons to do it were much, much stronger than the reasons to protest against what Rowling has done and said,” Lithgow said. “I do disagree with much of it. Much of it I think has been twisted and misrepresented, and she has sort of doubled down on it at her own cost.”

That “twisted and misrepresented” bit made me wince.

Had Lithgow been transgender, perhaps he would have weighed the cost of playing Dumbledore differently. Just as I weigh Dahl’s books differently than Rowling’s. Attack the Jews? I can’t get around my own feelings. Attack someone else? I may hate your views. I may believe your actions are cruel. But I don’t always feel compelled to burn your books or trash your films.

Does that mean I’m not sympathetic enough? Does that make me a bad person?

I don’t think so. At least I hope not.

For me, connecting the love of art to the life of the artist requires a deep level of personal animus before discomfort turns into action. That is why I fully understand why so many people have cast the spell of Potter out of their lives. It is also why I haven’t been able to make that same leap across every affront.

I do sometimes wonder whether I’m sympathetic enough to the cause. A friend of mine has been vocal about his own reasons for turning away from Rowling’s creations as a show of support for the trans community. It is commendable. Truly. I respect the clarity of that decision.

I’m just not sure I’ve reached the same place.

Recently, my oldest son had to do a report for his fifth-grade class on a notable Black figure for Black History Month. He was given a list to choose from and picked Michael Jackson.

Like my son, I love Michael’s music. He was one of our greatest entertainers. He was also one of our most complicated. I did grow up at the exact right moment in history to know the accusations against Michael during his lifetime. Since those trials, I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable returning to his music.

So when my son told me who he was covering in his report, I raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s make sure your research sticks to the ’80s, okay?” I told him.

I was not prepared that day to explain Neverland and adult sleepovers to my son. I had not had enough coffee for that particular parenting seminar.

Now, with a new Michael Jackson film out in theaters, I’m left wondering whether I should keep it away from my kids until they are old enough to decide whether they want to fawn over the King of Pop while knowing the full complexity of his story. From what I’ve read, the film is already being criticized as a whitewashing of Michael’s life—much like Broadways MJ the Musical—which hardly helps.

With the dialogue from Giant still ringing in my ears, and the cringeworthy nature of Lithgow’s dismissal of some elements of Rowling’s vitriol still sitting with me, I’ve been thinking deeply about how to handle art and artists in my household.

And I can’t bring myself to embrace book burning, especially when the art itself is not always the source of the rot.

There are limits, of course. I couldn’t imagine reading some charming entertainment book authored by Hitler, but that is such an extreme case that it hardly requires debate outside of the worst dinner party ever assembled. When it comes to Dahl’s writings—trivial and often empty as some of his books may be—or Rowling’s wizarding world, it does not feel urgent to excise them from my children’s memories.

My kids have already made an attachment to the art without understanding the artist. And like Chinatown and Annie Hall, I can’t quite imagine ridding my Blu-ray cabinet of those cinematic treasures because the people behind them have made me recoil.

This is the harder part of parenting through culture. The red flags are not always there before the attachment forms. Had Rowling’s views been clear to me before my oldest became enamored with Potter, I may have avoided introducing the books altogether. But the attachment is already there. It feels unfair to strip him of stories he enjoys before he is old enough to understand the context and consider that choice for himself.

So in this household, we will live in the gray area.

We will be empathetic to those who have made different choices. We will acknowledge that art and artistry are not always neatly separable. We will also acknowledge that sometimes an artist steps so far into darkness that the work becomes impossible to enjoy. The Cosby Show certainly comes to mind, though I didn’t form a deep enough attachment to the Huxtables before knowing the darkness of Bill Cosby to worry about any great rewatching temptation.

I’ll leave the book bans to religious zealots and extremist politicians in Texas.

As a Jew, I may not pick up another book by Roald Dahl. But I won’t yank them from my kids’ shelves. I will, however, give them context when they are old enough to understand the complexity. They can decide for themselves which art to consume, which artists to reject, and which contradictions they are willing to carry.

That may not be as satisfying as a bonfire.

But it feels a lot more honest.