Neil Gaiman and Art: Stop Pressuring People to Separate the Art from the Artist. Let Them Do It on their Own.
January 15, 2025. Published January 21, 2025.
I knew about Neil Gaiman’s horrifying acts months before that article went viral. And it took a while for me to REALLY let it sink in. So imagine me in the last keg of last year, just trying to pull myself together — then I learn about this. From a friend who was just as distraught as I was.
I used to have Neil’s famous Tumblr post (about how he was 25 and broke going nowhere) cemented in either my Notion homepage or whatever journal entry I had where I just thought about him. He was what fueled me to keep believing in my craft no matter how little I did.
“Nobody should really meet your — “
No, babes. There are plenty of great artists out there who are great role models, too. But, while I’m going back to an era where I separate the art from the artist (mostly through checking my own parasocial tendencies and secondhand book shopping, amongst other things), it’s absolutely valid for people to look up to the talent behind their favorite works. It’s art. And one of art’s jobs is to resonate with the deepest pits of the human condition. That, alone, makes it difficult to separate the artist from their craft: a part of the artist lives in the art. It’s a natural human emotion that nobody should patronize when fans discover that their favorite artist is a grade-A jerk.
Because, yes, the guy who championed women’s rights and wrote inclusive literature that uplifted a generation of alt to alt-leaning kids is the SAME GUY who did those unspeakable acts to those women.
This is also the reason why the word ‘performative’ exists. Yeah, people make mistakes. And yeah, Neil’s neurodivergent. But do you have any idea how insulting it is to always use his mental condition as an excuse behind why he abused his power? How did he advocate for better conditions for women and write multifaceted LGBTQ+ characters while it was an open secret in the publishing world to keep young women away from him? That’s SO HARD to reconcile with.
JK Rowling was unexpectedly easier for me to detach myself from. Be it from her past questionable behavior to how she spiralled into her transphobic mess, it was easy for me to still love Harry Potter while considering her dead, so to speak. I can’t say the same with Neil. OR Pablo Picasso. Or Pablo Neruda. Granted, a bunch of my other favorite artists are dead anyway, but it was so hard for me to accept that many of the painters and writers and poets I looked up to were horrid people when they were alive.
Coraline is still something I hold close to my heart. And Stardust. And that’s okay. I refuse to let Neil’s actions take that away from me, but I also refuse to support whatever else he has in store, too. Part of being a geek involves grief with these things, but they happen.
I have no idea what else 2025 has in store. It’ll be really hard for people to separate the art from the artist — mainly because it’s like separating the soul from the body. But take it from the fans of H.G. Lovecraft. The guy was an absolute racist and a wh1te supremac1st. Even wikipedia has that on record. Yet Chulthu’s fans still persist to this day — all while disregarding the author and his views.
