It’s not exactly news that Lou Reed was an asshole. But a new biography of the musician, who died in 2013, suggests that “asshole” may be too mild a description of what he was. A better word might be “monster.”
That’s the conclusion biographer Howard Sounes reluctantly came to after interviewing 140 of those who knew Reed best. Their recollections of Reed painted a picture of a bitter, angry, volatile man who spewed racist epithets and violently abused women.
The Daily Beast’s Nico Hines has the story:
“I loved his music, but you have to go where the story goes,” Sounes told The Daily Beast. “The obituaries were a bit too kind, he was really a very unpleasant man. A monster really; I think truly the word monster is applicable.”
The genius behind one of the greatest albums of the 1960s, was unstable, egotistical, misogynistic, violent, and selfish, according to some of those who knew him best.
The book — I haven’t read it yet — evidently paints a picture of Reed as a self-centered prick with an acid tongue, referring to Donna Summer as a “nigger” and lambasting Bob Dylan as a “pretentious kike.” In one autobiographical song, Hines notes, he mocked his sister’s husband as a Long Island nobody who “takes the train/ He’s big and he’s fat and he doesn’t even have a brain.”
Paul Morrissey, a prominent personality in the Andy Warhol crowd that Reed hung out with in the 1960s, told Sounes that the best title for a biography of Reed would be “The Worst Person Who Ever Lived. … He was a stupid, disgusting, awful human being.”
As badly as he treated men, Reed was apparently even worse to the women in life. As Hines writes,
Bettye Kronstad, who married Reed in 1973, described life on tour with the tempestuous rock star. “He would, like, pin you up against a wall,” she said. “Tussle you. Hit you… shake you… And then one time he actually gave me a black eye.”
Allan Hyman, an old school friend, said Reed had even been happy to strike a girlfriend while having dinner with him and his wife.
If someone is hitting his girlfriend in public, you can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors.
Reed was a brilliant, innovative musician and songwriter who wrote and performed some amazing songs. But he seems to have been shit as a human being. Somehow I doubt I’m going to go back to listen to any of those old Velvet Underground albums any time soon.
H/T — The Daily Beast
@PoM
OK, thanks for clarifying. I agree with all of that. I misunderstood parts of your earlier comment.
Here’s the the thing, a stunning number of US celebrity men were horrible to women and openly racist in the 1970s. While this is no way unique to that decade, I think people mistakenly believe that decades of the Civil Rights movement and the second wave of feminism with the push for ERA had a noticeable positive effect among celebrities. That famous white people in general would make at least a slight effort to not be openly racist or famous men would make an effort to not treat women like shit. Nope.
It wasn’t until the (boo hiss) political correctness plague set in in the latter part of the 1980s that famous white people were penalized when caught publicly being horribly racist. Seriously, it took decades upon decades of Civil Rights work to get to the point that where something like the 1988 Jimmy the Greek scandal, where a public figure got fired for saying racist crap, could happen.
Note: Jimmy the Greek is hard to explain to people who don’t know who he is, a group that includes all non-Americans and almost all Americans. I’ll try to be brief. Jimmy gave betting odds on NFL games on TV broadcasts. He was filmed at an event saying ridiculous things about black athletes. He was fired ostensibly over these comments, but was more likely fired because the NFL hated having any public ties to gambling. He, of course, became an early martyr of “anti-PC” racist asshats. The end.
Hollywood has always treated women like shit and exploits women, including actresses, for sex. A vast number of the male stars, directors and men with any power in the industry are a unbridled narcissistic megalomaniacs. The music industry is arguably worse to women than Hollywood, which is an incredible achievement, but I know less about that industry. I do know a bit about the film industry.
Let me try to explain the unique awfulness of the movie industry. In the 1990s, I knew people who worked in all sorts of corporate sectors. The only people who had an absurd number of stories about outrageous harassment in a corporate environment, things like bosses taking out their dicks and masturbating on female employees, worked in Hollywood. Everyone knows actresses are consistently pressured for sex by name actors, producers and directors. Everyone also knows any actress who publicly complains is blackballed, a noted example involving Sean Young and sleazy fake feminist Warren Beatty. Hollywood is male sexual entitlement run amok, unfettered and high on cocaine. There are very few exceptions, so good luck only watching films not made at least in part by sexual predators.
@Ellesar
This part is interesting to me. We’re talking about a very poor country with a severe gun/crime problem. I would be inclined to believe that the high murder rate and the violent lyrics in music aren’t caused by one another, but rather they both have a common cause. I know this is also how some artists justify their lyrical content (“I sing about the life I know”). This is related to the point I was originally trying to make.
On the subject of artists behaving badly, one article I always end up thinking about is Leonard Pierce’s “Men You Hate to Love” from way back in 2004:
http://www.thehighhat.com/Detritus/003/hate_to_love.html
@Policy of Madness – (forgive me if this is a bit incoherent – I’m rushed)…
There are a lot of problems with judging the cultural value of a work of art based on the actions and decency of the artist, and one of those problems is: it makes it very hard to study or engage with an art form in a meaningful way. Sooner or later, you’re gonna come across an artist who was an awful person, or who did something awful at one point. To me, it doesn’t feel right to say that endorsing/supporting/loving an artist’s work is also implicitly accepting (or admiring) every bad thing they may have done, because an artist’s cultural legacy extends so far beyond the actions they may have taken in their own life. Like, imagine telling a budding music lover that they should never listen to The Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’ because it was partially produced by the extraordinarily abusive (and probably murderous) Phil Spector, which means that listening to, say, ‘Across the Universe’ is implicitly supporting domestic violence; or, telling an aspiring writer to never read T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway or Knut Hamsun, because if they do then they’re implicitly supporting anti-semitism; or, telling an aspiring blues musician to never listen to Leadbelly – whose early recordings were made while he was serving time for murder – because that would be implicitly supporting murder.
I think that in general, the issue with Polanski isn’t an issue with artists’ behavior so much as an issue specifically with rape culture. So for example: even though he was a murderer, we can find beauty in Caravaggio’s paintings without worrying that people will somehow stop finding murder abhorrent; nobody accepts murder in their communities, even if the murderer also paints wonderful pictures. With Polanski, though, it’s different: many of his fans also insist that he didn’t do anything wrong, in much the same way that people often dismiss or minimize rape (she was asking for it, they were on drugs so it doesn’t count, she’s just jealous and wants attention, blah blah blah you know the score). In a rape culture, people actually do accept rape in their communities, and especially if the rapist is in a position of influence, power, etc. The issue isn’t that respecting an artist’s work also legitimizes their horrible behavior – it’s that some kinds of horrible behavior can too-easily become legitimate in our culture. The problem with Polanski isn’t that people watch his films while knowing that he did something horrible – it’s that they won’t accept that he did anything horrible to start with.
Do you really think these things are not linked?
PoM,
I just don’t see how your position is tenable when I think about putting it into practice. There are just too many problems — it demands retroactive action, either sabotages academics is undermined by academics, and punishes co-creators, to name a few. Also, it puts too much power in the hands of authors and too little in the hands of readers.
Mia Farrow’s performance in Rosemary’s Baby got her an Oscar nomination. If she had won that Oscar, would you ask her to give the Oscar back?
I grew up with no internet, reading library books with no information at all about the authors. I shared and discussed books and movies with my friends without knowing a thing about the makers. Suppose I had written a review of Rosemary’s Baby before I learned about Polanski’s crimes. Should I recant it? Retract it from publication? Simply refrain from re-publishing it? If it ran in an anthology, should I try to remove my essay from future editions? If someone were compiling an anthology of my writings, should they leave it out?
Do academics who study film or literary history study the works of rapists? If so, how do they explain which rapists they are studying and why? Wouldn’t they have to say that they picked this rapist because his films were influential or interesting, and wouldn’t they have to admit that his work was influential because it was skilled? If they can say so, why can’t anyone else?
FInally, does your policy apply only to fiction and art, or also to philosophy? If it doesn’t apply to philosophy, where do you draw that line? If it does apply to philosophy, where do you draw the line between philosophy and mathematics, sociology, and economics?
There seem to be at least four ways people react to the work of problematic creators:
1. To appreciate the work is to endorse the behaviour/character of the creator so I just won’t view it.
2. I can separate the work from the worker. So whilst I condemn the creator that doesn’t affect my appreciation of the work.
3. The work is so amazing it justifies/mitigates the behaviour. Criminality is the price we pay for genius.
4. I admire the art so much I find it impossible to believe it can be the work of a flawed creator therefore I don’t believe the accusations.
Of course there are other issues at play (does admiring the work reward the artist, through royalties etc. Is it disrespectful/hurtful to the victims if they’re still around?) but I think most people’s attitudes fall into one of the above categories.
@Alan
There might be a 2b, where it does affect your appreciation of the work, but you still appreciate it to some degree.
@Orion
So, because it would be hard, it shouldn’t be attempted?
Okay, lemme clear something up:
I don’t believe it’s possible to separate artist and art, not because it is technically impossible, but because it’s infeasible. The message sent is not that we can appreciate Roman Polanski’s films on their technical merits, as art, because that’s not what most people do with Polanski films. Most people watch Polanski films because they enjoy them. Appreciation and enjoyment are not the same and should not be elided, but they are elided. Nobody makes this mistake with Birth of a Nation.
I don’t watch movies or TV shows, or read books created by people who I know to be horrible people. Doing so would send a message that I think their horribleness is not a bar to my enjoying their work. That’s not a message I want to send, mainly because it totally is a bar to me. Bizarrely, I am able to live without these things. Art is one of the things that makes us human, but there is so fucking much of it out there that it isn’t too hard to cut out the parts of it made by people I don’t care to endorse. There is still plenty left for me.
Your calculus may be different, but you need to ask yourself why your calculus is what it is.
Eh, I tend to be dubious of “shocking” and “revealing” biographies that are published after the subject’s death when they can’t defend themselves. More often than not, biographies of famous and/or controversial figures tend to go the route of tabloid journalism. In other words, it’s not the truth that matters so much as writing a sellable story.
@frances
Stop.
In case it’s relevant: I have never seen anything by Polanski. I hear Rosemary’s Baby is good and I have it on my “to-watch” list, but I haven’t made a point of seeking it out in part because of who Polanski is. Knowing who he is *does* bother me when I think about the movie, but I think I’d feel differently if I had already seen it when I heard.
Anyway: I have never really be impressed by this line because in almost all cases “hard” and “costly” are equivalent. I’d say “it” shouldn’t be attempted because I expect it to cause observable harm to a number of real people that outweighs the intangible, unknowable harm that might be prevented. I put ‘”it” in quotes because I don’t have a handle on what exactly you’re proposing.
Anyway, even if you reject arguments from cost and want to stick to feasibility, I’d say feasibility is a problem in both directions. If it’s unfeasible to fully sever art from artist, it’s also unfeasible to full wed artist to art.
@PoM –
They’re linked, sure, but I think it’s possible to simultaneously take his art seriously and take his crime seriously. If the point here is what subtle or implied messages we send – to our friends, to our society, to the world – when we enjoy an artist’s work, well, I think that that sort of thing is endlessly debatable and nebulous (like I was saying, I don’t accept the premise that enjoying an artist’s work is tantamount to publicly endorsing everything they’ve done); the important thing is to send more direct messages about the behavior itself. I’ll do it right now: Roman Polanski is a rapist.
@ POM
You’ve got me thinking here.
I’m considering 3 things: appreciation, enjoyment and endorsement.
I think to a certain degree appreciation can factor into enjoyment. I never used to like figurative, representational or fine art. Then I got dragged to some lectures (I highly recommend particularly David Hockney).
I learned more about both how the art was produced and the symbolism in paintings. As a result I could obviously appreciate them more but I also found that I now enjoyed looking at them and applying what I now knew to art generally.
Similarly with films. I do know a bit about film production and that adds to my appreciation of films. But I’d that the same as ‘enjoying’ them?
I find viewing them something I like to do and I find that stimulating so I’d have to say ‘yes’.
But what about stuff like Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will?
Is the fact that I appreciate the construction of the piece and can appreciate them a form of enjoyment? It’s maybe a matter of semantics but as I don’t find it a chore to look at them, quite the contrary then I think it does count as enjoying them.
Now does that mean I endorse either the message of the films or the people who created them? Obviously not.
Does the passage of time make a difference and the fact that the creators are not rewarded by my viewing? That probably is a factor.
So I’m not going to seek out Polanski stuff. I think that to support his work is currently to support him. I don’t have a problem with people who think differently though so long as they’re not defending him.
Is he a good film maker? Yes. Even his recent stuff. I saw the ghost before I knew he’d directed. It is a well constructed film. Ironically I think it also helps give him a “pass” in certain circles due to its anti Blair/US narrative. As we’ve seen with Assange that’s pretty much a get out of gaol card these days.
It’s always good to remind oneself of things like John Lennon had a giant refrigerated glass walled closet for his fur coat collection.
It’s probably even more important to remember he used to batter women.
Although also bad on the animal rights and hypocrisy about materialism.
Dagnabbit.
Having watched film academics for decades inexplicably defend the content of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, grotesquely downplaying both it’s racism and it’s key role in the revival of the KKK in the 20th century, I have no problem requiring film criticism to acknowledge the real world effects of the films being studied.
There’s an enormous amount of writing on Birth of a Nation but here’s a good article about the historical context.
How an Infamous Movie Revived the Confederacy
100 years ago, Birth of a Nation reimagined the Civil War and created the modern and enduring cult of the noble Lost Cause.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/charleston-shooting-confederacy-birth-of-a-nation-119300
Now here’s a little shitty example of a typical Griffith apologist as he whines about DGA dropping the D.W. Griffith name from their lifetime achievement award.
He uses the classic bullshit argument of every Griffith apologist, which that his later film Intolerance, a little seen flop, “makes up” for Birth of a Nation, a massive culture changing hit. Intolerance offers a portrait of “mankind’s intolerance” that includes Babylonian religious conflicts, Jesus’ crucifixion, a 16th century Huguenots massacre and modern capitalists oppressing striking workers. What it does not include is modern racism of any kind, including racism directed at black Americans and the other minorities whose lives were worsened by his spectacularly successful KKK recruitment film.
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jan/10/entertainment/ca-52511
If you want a longer example of Birth of a Nation film critic spin, here’s one that contains an inordinate amount of hand waving.
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/DWGriffith.html
@dhag85 Stop what exactly? I didn’t say for a fact that the biography is wrong. Maybe Lou Reed really was as awful as it says. I just don’t want to jump to conclusions. Maybe it’s because I’ve become so disillusioned with biographies lately since so many of them that I’ve read have turned out to contain lies.
Example: http://www.amazon.com/Room-Full-Mirrors-Biography-Hendrix/product-reviews/0786888415/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_2?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=critical&pageNumber=2
I honestly don’t see how Birth of a Nation is relevant to this conversation. It, unlike the Beatles’ music or Polanski’s films, is condemned by its own content, not its creator’s biography. A minute ago I knew nothing at all about “Griffith”; I didn’t even know that Birth of a Nation was made by someone named Griffith. After reading your post, I still don’t know anything at all about Griffith, because none of your quotes say anything about him at all. They’re only talking about what’s in the films.
@brooked
Not that is isn’t worth discussing, but I do think the issue you’re bringing up here is fundamentally different from the discussion at hand. The question raised in this thread is one of whether, for example, it’s okay to listen to and enjoy “Candy Says” or “I’ll Be Your Mirror” with the knowledge that the guy who wrote those songs was an abusive asshole. The “Birth of a Nation” stuff is kinda the opposite: the idea that we should pay attention to the effects of artworks without factoring-in the personalities or behaviors of the people who made them.
Huh. I’m happy I never got into Velvet Underground, then. At least any money they get now won’t go into his pocket.
Thanks for the replies about the train bit. I suspected something like that, but I wasn’t sure. I thought it also might be about trains being less working-class than buses.
Concerning art and artists, I had this problem when starting my MA thesis. I was writing about a somewhat obscure work of Ezra Pound’s, and I came across an essay on his letters. At first I was excited to read it because Pound’s letter-writing tends to be entertaining (witty, full of slapdash abbreviations) but when I read the letters quoted in the essay I felt revolted. It was some of his most racist writing, with slurs for Jews and other groups. I took a walk and thought things like, “My cousin’s Jewish, so is it an offense to her to even study this guy? Is writing a research project on Pound promoting his reputation and indirectly contributing to racism?”
I decided to go ahead with it, but focused my research on his advocacy of totalitarianism (more Mussolini than Hitler, but that’s a long story) as well as his theories about art and music.
At any rate, I admit it’s a marker of middle-class privilege to be able to do a graduate degree in friggin’ English Literature.
By the way: the only film by Polanski that I watched, Frantic, did seem misogynist – also a fairly boring genre film, if I want to be snobby – but I’m not sure how much that had to do with the director. Films are tricky in terms of this debate (I think); since they take so many people to make, it’s hard to talk about their being one or even several artists.