Appreciating art or artists who offend can complicate the idea of cancel culture, especially when others use that as a weapon against your personal values.

By Ruth Etiesit Samuel | Published Nov. 7, 2023

This story is a part of our weeklong series on cancel culture.
Read the other stories here .

Wait, they were accused of doing what?

Few things compare to the sharp pang of betrayal after learning questionable information about your favorite musician, actor or athlete. The initial shock, denial and confusion sends fans careening down a rabbit hole, googling to find credible sources to confirm the allegations.

Once the explosive claims are substantiated, feelings of disappointment and hurt quickly surface, then guilt for your own naivete. Whats next? Do you solemnly swear to never support their art again? Erase their songs from your music library? Delete their films from your Letterboxd account? Publicly renounce your support of them with one final TikTok fan cam?

Or, do you reserve a special spot for them as your problematic fave, rationalizing your neglect of their poor behavior? A problematic fave could be any celebrity, public figure or fictional character that you continue to hold dear, in spite of their ethically or morally questionable stances, actions or accusations leveled against them.

Ariana Grande has earned two Grammys, despite the donut-licking incident that shocked America. Beyoncs Renaissance World Tour has become the highest-grossing tour by a female artist, despite that blood diamond collaboration following her Afro-pop soundtrack album, The Gift. Taylor Swifts concert movie broke an opening weekend record, despite her romantic fling with an alleged racist earlier this year.

Gina Rodriguez will continue to be a working actor on Season 2 of ABCs Not Dead Yet, despite rapping the n-word in a widely circulated video. Consumers still bought Yeezy slides and listened to Ye after Kanye West said 400 years of slavery was a choice . Shonda Rhimes Scandal and Dan Harmons Community are still regularly streamed series with strong fandoms, despite the presence of alleged abuser Columbus Short and the horrific Chevy Chase .

Whether systemic or interpersonal, each of these strikes against celebs enact varying degrees of harm, yet none of these artists have been barred from work or the public eye. In its distorted form, cancel culture does not really exist for celebrities and public figures. Moreover, every single celebrity, show or piece of media has some stain or impurity. Truth be told, all of our faves are probably problematic, so what does that make us?

At first glance, the notion of a problematic fave may seem like an excuse to overlook celebrities actions or the implications of a piece of media (i.e., film, TV show, etc.) simply because of your own personal reasons: nostalgia, attraction, or plain enjoyment of their product. In extreme cases of fandom, stans a word formed by combining the words stalkers and fans will doggedly campaign for the innocence and sovereignty of their chosen fave.

But below the surface, the problematic fave moniker can be a fans attempt to hold space for nuance, dually acknowledging a public figures legacy of talent and the potential to harm. Recognizing human fallibility and the unrealistic expectation of moral purity from celebrities could be seen as a more mature approach to engaging with entertainment. No one is perfect, and everybody makes mistakes.

However, the standards for what offenses constitute as too egregious to overlook vary from individual to individual. To one person, domestic violence allegations could be seen as worse than fatphobic or colorist comments; to another, they each perpetuate systemic violence in different ways.

These conversations raise questions about the ways we appreciate art: When did the media we consume become emblematic of who we are, or has it always been? Is it reasonable to tether your own morality to entertainment, and what does it suggest about your values? How does having a problematic fave complicate the concept of cancel culture?