Separating the Art from the Artist: The Complex Case of Casey Affleck

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion, but I am not as angered by Casey Affleck winning the Oscar for Best Actor as many people are. I think it is a more complex situation than what we want to admit, but I am going to try and explain my own perspective on it.

First of all, I want to be clear that I am in no way blaming the victims or discrediting their allegations. However, I’ve seen posts and stories calling Affleck a rapist and accusing him of sexual assault. We need to be clear about the case. The accusations were part of a civil trial for sexual harassment. This is not the same of sexual assault in legal terms. Civil cases demand less rigor in terms of burden of proof. That is, in order for someone to be found liable in a civil case, it does not need to be without reasonable doubt. Because there is not the same level of evidentiary support required for a jury to find for the plaintiff, it can be easier for a defendant to settle a case simply because he/she cannot prove that it didn’t happen. In this case, it was a he said/she said situation. Basically, all of this is to say that the fact that Affleck settled the case with his accusers does not necessarily indicate guilt. The fact is that we simply don’t know the truth other than what was stated in the legal briefs as part of the initial accusation and accompanying depositions. As part of the settlement, both parties agreed to a nondisclosure agreement in which they were not permitted to discuss the case. 

That brings me to next point. There are those who have criticized Affleck’s lack of remorse over the incident. The truth is that we don’t actually know how Casey Affleck feels about the incident. We don’t know if he actually repentant because according to the legal agreement he isn’t permitted to discuss it. Now, I know that this is giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it is possible that he does regret his actions. It’s also possible that he is the jackass that he is being labeled and doesn’t regret his actions. We just can’t say with any certainty.

Then there is the question of redemption and mercy. Provided that Casey Affleck does feel remorse for his actions in sexually harassing those two women, do his actions mean that he must be blacklisted from receiving accolades for his craft? Where do we draw the line? Is it possible for people to change and grow? Should we condemn all those accused of sexual harassment for the rest of time? This is a complex question. As a society, we are certainly more likely to forgive Casey Affleck than we were Nat Turner, director of the recent Birth of a Nation. Now, with Turner, we were dealing with allegations of sexual assault and not sexual harassment. However, that adds another level of complexity. Is there a difference in terms of how we treat issues of sexual misconduct based on the gravity of the offense? It certainly doesn’t feel that way for the victim in any situation. Then there is the question of whether or not we are more willing to forgive Affleck because he is white and more likely to hold it against Turner because he is black.

Casey Affleck is certainly not the first time that this type of controversy has followed an accolade. There was a similar controversy several years back when the Golden Globes decided to award Woody Allen the Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award. This brought the decades old accusations of sexual abuse of his adopted daughter. Criminal charges were never filed in that case, so we also need to consider if accusations or allegations are enough to reject an artist. Within the criminal justice system, we adhere to the principle that all people are innocent until proven guilty. This is not the way the court of public opinion works. People are usually presumed guilty until proven innocent and perhaps not even then. So how do we proceed in this type of situation? Can we separate the art from the artist?

I think we need to look at what we have done as a culture. For example, is it fair to label Casey Affleck as a sexual abuser based on these allegations when we do not ignore the contributions to the literary tradition of a confirmed alcoholic misogynist like Ernest Hemingway? Or consider F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the greatest American novelist when he plagiarized whole sections of his novels from his wife, Zelda’s unpublished works? 

The truth is that there is no easy answer to the questions because if we begin to condemn every person based on their misconduct, we may just find that we deserve to be lumped into the same category. If I am honest, there have probably been times when I have done or said something that could be considered sexual harassment. If I were a man, I would likely get called on it more. You can argue that, in part, the reason we don’t call women out on this behavior is because men hold the power in the social structure. However, if we believe that men and women should be treated equally, then we have to acknowledge our own shortcomings and misdeeds as well.