What: A re-creation of art by problematic men, designed for guilt-free enjoyment.
Who: Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Amber Ruffin.
Why we care: Hannah Gadsby’s much-lauded Netflix special, Nanette, recently made a compelling case for not even bothering to separate the artist in order to save the art. “We don’t give a fuck about women or children, we only care about a man’s reputation,” she says at one point, decrying the historical system that elevated Pablo Picasso at the expense of an underage woman he abused. (Her name was Marie-Thérèse Walter.) On Tuesday night’s episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, one of the show’s writers satirizes our collective desire to enjoy the art of male artists we’ve come to disown.
“I’m some lady named Amber and I haven’t sexually assaulted a single person,” says Amber Ruffin, a writer who frequently appears in onscreen bits on Meyers’s show and also Comedy Central’s Drunk History. With this qualifier out of the way, Ruffin proceeds to remake the music of Chris Brown, the Metropolitan stammering of Woody Allen, and the dating woes of every problematic standup comic, all for the benefit of conflicted viewers who would like their guilt surgically removed. Of course, the true point of Ruffin’s bit is that we need to be much less precious about trashing the art of men who have revealed themselves to be trash.
Watch the full clip below.
Finally, you can enjoy art from problematic men like Woody Allen and Bill Cosby guilt-free now that @AmberMRuffin recreated their work. pic.twitter.com/tZpTwsIcQq
— Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth) August 15, 2018
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