What to do when your favorite artist is an asshole?

Can you respect beautiful art that's created by a bloody asshole? For example, Francis Ford Coppola is a great director, but he has a habit of hacking up animals in his movies. The butchered buffalo in Apocalypse Now is real. The severed horse head in Godfather is real. So, as great as these films are, I can't enjoy watching them.

Now I hear that Roger Waters is an outspoken fan of Fox Hunting. He says: "My view is that hunting with dogs is not only morally correct but also a natural expression of mans' nature as an omnivore."
What does fox hunting have to do with eating, you moron?
There's already a thread about him in the music forum:
http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91542

So anyway, what's your stance? Is it possible to seperate art from the artist? Or are the two identical expressions of the same mind?

 

It is possible to respect the art (though I wouldn't respect any art that is immoral by nature, like a horse's severed head) without respecting the artist.

Say the artist is a jerk, but his art is cool. I would think exactly what I just said; the artist is a jerk, but I appreciate his art.

Regardless, I don't appreciate a horse's head as art OR the artist who did such.

 

They are usually such simple, accessible, easy going folk...
As for Mr. Waters, I have had a bad impression of him for many years, so long in fact that I don't even remember why.
Coppola, well, I sure enjoy his son's acting, and give Nicholas full points for not trying to make it on his dad's name, and using a different one. Butchered farm animals.... well I guess I'd get more riled up if I didn't see a huge epidemic of hypocrisy in our present society. The grocers have even taken down those posters that used to show a cow divided up into the various cuts of meat cuz it was too 'graphic'. Wouldn't want a buyer to think that steak once belonged to a real live mammal. How many outraged anti-Coppola folk had meat to eat this week? If you did, then I wonder if you could have killed, skinned, butchered, and packaged that yourself. Or would it gross you out? One ox, one horse, all he did is show us ourselves, and I think some of us are grossed out by that. It is us that slaughtered that ox, and cut that head off. Thousands of times a day.
As for anti social artists.....It would be more appropos to me to ask, "What do you do when an artist you admire isn't a consummate jerk?" That would be more rare.

 

don't get me rong i live for floyd. waters is just an asshole. the reason floyd isn't touring is because all he cares about is the money and forgot about the music. i wouldn't be surprised if he said something liek that...he's really not a good person.