'

I'm not bothered at all.

And where did you get that I have some kind of "feelings" about Roman Polanski?

I never said anything like that. You are putting words in my mouth. No, I said that IMO The Pianist is a great movie about the plight of Poland and the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation. Nothing more.

Then what exactly is your interest, and why haven't you already stated it? lol

Again...

And where did you get that I have some kind of "feelings" about Roman Polanski?

I never said anything like that. You are putting words in my mouth. No, I said that IMO The Pianist is a great movie about the plight of Poland and the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation. Nothing more.

The fact that you want to devolve a civil and respectful conversation ("Should an artist's beliefs influence your enjoyment of their work?") where a discussion of "redemption" is directly applicable into an argument over Roman Polanski is strange at best.

Still, your unsolicited feelings that redemption cannot be earned by "men" -- which is the only reading of what you wrote -- is duly noted.

Why do you ask such a bizarre question when the man chose to flee? And not just any criminal, a man who drugged and violently sodomized an underage girl. He's an unrepentant predator. Period.

You become conversational once you look to save face, but you can't help trying to manipulate the conversation one last desperate time -- painting a legitimate philosophical question as if it were based on an illegitimate premise (or person in this case!). There's a word for that _______.

I think it's rather disgusting that you brought up redemption in regard to a singularly unrepentant predator.

Granted this is after centuries of humanity having divided roles. For all we know they'd evolve just as strong (or men just as weak) after a couple of centuries where everyone's roles are pretty much equal.

As for the OP, it depends on the severity of the opinion. I couldn't watch the Cosby Show anymore for instance.

That depends. In the case you describe, when the beliefs you disagree with don't pervade the work, why not keep enjoying it? A beautiful picture is a beautiful picture no matter who painted it. Same with music.

It's different if it is about supporting an artist you don't agree with. I wouldn't buy stuff from an artist who supports a deplorable ideology. I would still enjoy his paintings when I see them, but I wouldn't buy them.

And when the ideology starts to pervade the work, then I'd probably stop enjoying it. But that's an automatic process. If some story promotes ideas that I hate, then I wouldn't enjoy reading it.

Disclaimer: I base my comment around negative discussion. i.e. if a game developer said something offensive, would that influence my believes towards my own general enjoyment regarding the product and towards the biases that I might have?

The answer is...not really, this stuff is several times more complicated then people think it is.

The types of outrages you see often even existed during ye olden times before people even had something akin to democracy and this problem will sill exists far beyond the time of the internet as well. This type of discussion is probably a couple of thousand years old.

As for my personal reasons why I'm usually not outraged and influenced by most things, I base it due to the concious decisions that everyone involved in the outcome of the art is innocent, except the person who done the offensive deed. So lets say if a piece of music or a video game had people involved who're known for having strange/weird believes or did something offensive it still doesn't include the people who do not share such believes, yet they were still involved in that piece of art that is also unrelated to the offensive deed.

Lets never throw those people under the bus only because they happened to work with people who did/say something offensive because lots of times it has nothing to do about the company or the innocent people. Guilt by association is absolutely toxic and dangerous to art and perhaps even thought but I'm sure most would already agree.

The truth of the matter is that everyone holds sole responsibility of their actions and that includes the offender just like the presecutor and the innocent. Its not something people usually think about this conciously but all of these people do hold the same amounts of power. This became obvious to me once I looked into the whole Life of Brian controversy, which might be interesting if you don't know about any of this stuff. This way of thinking even does extent towards the polar opposite, in which you still won't be wholly influenced by the art even if the artist is a "total saint" who can't do no wrong.

In the end, all people have their biases but, at least if tackled from this approach of mine, it may make people more concious that they're all fundamentally biased in the first place, which logically involves everyone. This is a good thing because making people concious about their own biases might lead them towards overall better decision-making, simply because they put some more thought in what they're doing.

Physical differences have nothing to do with human division of labor, which is extremely recent and nowhere near being on an evolutionary scale.

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As for the OP, "should" is nonsensical. It obviously does. Your every experience influences your interpretation of a creative work, including, yes, familiarity with the artist or absence thereof. If I were to work at a resort and see sweaty fatasses jumping to Britney Spears every night, I would have a worse opinion of Britney Spears.

It is honestly kind of insane to suggest separating perception of art from one's own experiences. Because art is there to supplement our lives.

I actually had a music-related bad experience when I was younger. To this day, I haven't gone back to that music, and when I think about it, I realize it sucks. There's awkward sentences, grossly misused words, half-assed rhymes. Notice how I didn't list a single subjective complaint, like "uninspiring" or "copycat". You could say I'm "prejudiced". You could also say I grew up and have a lower tolerance for corny lyrics.

So I don't like OP's question. Because the only actionable answer, the only way it can make logical sense, is "It shouldn't, and it is everyone's moral obligation to ensure it doesn't." Aka "we should suffer through rapists' movies to show how *~~~unbiased~~~* we are."
(I'm not strawmanning, just look upthread.)

And there's the question of money. While I can suppress thinking about the horrific smear campaign against Alec Holowka when I play Aquaria, it is much harder to do so with Night in the Woods. Even if you can, proceeds from sales go to either his murderous sister or his murderous coworkers. Buying these games and songs right now is aiding and abetting real, active evil. So, er, maybe consider the high seas?

But not everyone is at liberty to recommend the high seas. If you're a game journo - learn to code! - your output is a binary recommendation. Do you cover something if a monster can profit from the coverage? Do you recommend it? One of the recent bestsellers advocates child mutilation. Do you brush it off because you found the gameplay fun? "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Inequality is undeniable, but so too is the fact that patriarchy is every bit as rotten as matriarchy. If we were to eliminate the biases that are rooted in patriarchy, and compassion and nurturing, for example, were valued on par with physical prowess, I think we could very quickly dispense with all of the absurdity regarding "equality".

Short answer is no, I separate the art from the artist. Some people roll their eyes at this, but I really do think it's essential because so many humans are flawed and so much art is speaking a universal language. Does Tom Cruise's Scientology B.S. reflect in Mission: Impossible at all? No it doesn't. Does Ender's Game read at all like a homophobic novel because Orson Scott Card is one? No it doesn't.

If the work itself reflects these kinds of beliefs then I will dislike the movie for THAT, not because of who was involved.

Perhaps a better question would be: should influencer's be allowed to manipulate public opinion with respect to whose work is or is not socially acceptable?

The funny thing is that in the three intervening years, the artist in question quit making his videos after people called him out on his racism. Apparently, he did not like having that pointed out repeatedly.