I was asked a very compelling question this week that I cannot stop thinking about. Which famous or well known male artist or politician would you be most disappointed to find out was a sexual abuser? It is a question that opens the door to a very uncomfortable conversation-- one that I have found myself having with more and more people in my life, inside and outside academia, and one that is forcing me to make judgements and decisions even as far as what I will include and exclude from my teaching and research. Perhaps even more striking than the question is the growing awareness that we are at what appears to be a watershed moment when it comes to open discussion about sexual exploitation in the world of art, entertainment, and politics. How this will affect how we collectively judge the creative and intellectual legacy and output of exposed abusers is a very tough topic to navigate. In the past, especially in film studies courses, I have attempted wherever possible to discuss the artistic vision and biographic elements of controversial individuals (such as Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and Leni Riefenstahl for example) separately, analyzing the legacy of of important filmmakers without allowing psychobiography to override the broader influence of their creative vision. Admittedly, this is becoming tougher and tougher to do, and I am not quite sure yet how the more difficult conversations will evolve in my teaching. Check out one of the links below from the New York Times that takes a stab at the problem. Happy Sunday, and for the record, I think I would be crushed if Martin Scorsese, Gerhard Richter, Ai Weiwei, or Barack Obama were on that list of men!