This is for those who know what “death of the author” means or who is willing to look it up, but in short, it can summed up to mean “whatever a work of fiction means is up to the people to decide on”.
Question inspired by an incident the other day where I saw someone one day cite “death of the author” when asked why he went into the womens’ bathroom, saying “you keep saying the symbol on the door is a stick figure in a dress, but I look at it and see a stick figure in a cape, and so I entered because I’m super.”
It’s also commonly used the other way around: whatever the artist believed does not invalidate the art. For example, if Beethoven had been a Nazi, it wouldn’t take away from his work.
It’s an interesting question in a lot of ways, and I think it’s a spectrum and there’s no absolute answer. For example, does Kevin Spacey’s off screen behavior invalidate his work in The Usual Suspects? On the other hand, it’s clear that Ayn Rand’s beliefs are clearly expressed in Atlas Shrugged, and it’s easy to see the expression of (some) directors’ politics, or perversions, in the films they make; at what point does it stop being art and become propaganda, such as Triumph of the Will?
if Beethoven had been a Nazi, it wouldn’t take away from his work.
It would have made him more impressive in my eyes, as he would have had to have been able to see the future, or time travel!
There’s also the financial aspect; Does supporting the art also support an artist you don’t agree with? JK Rowling is a good example; She’s a horrible bigot, who penned the single most wildly popular book series in living memory. She made over a billion dollars on Harry Potter, all while being a bigot. So it’s worth asking whether supporting the art is a moral choice, even if we’re using Death of the Artist.
