Separating Art from the Artist

This Michael Richards soul-explosion has got me thinking.
I really don't want to be a part of dragging this thing out
for any longer myself, but I cannot help but be reminded of
something one of my profs once said about Hemingway during
the height of the late 80s PC backlash against the white male
misogynistic literary canon. He said that Hemingway did a lot
of things in his life that were all sorts of macho and maybe even
chauvinistic, but what we had to do was separate the art
from the artist. When you do that, Hemingway is an incredibly
sensitive writer with many great female characters that we
sympathize with. That isn't in spite of Hemingway, it's
because of him.

I bring this up in relation to Michael Richards because more
than a few people in the blogosphere have said they will not
be able to watch "Seinfeld" again without thinking of his rant.
I'm torn because his rant was nasty and leaves a bad taste in
my mouth, but I can honestly say that no show ever made me
laugh as hard "Seinfeld" and no one was funnier on that show
than Richards. So is it possible to separate the art from the
artist? To hate the guy whose work makes us laugh? In this case,
I honestly don't know. But I do believe that it's possible.

There is a prime example in the Volkswagen. One can argue
that it is one of the most prominent symbols of peace and flower
power from the 60s. You don't even need to slap a flower on
one of these things to think that whoever is driving one, is
probably a hippie. But did you know that the VW owes a good
part of its creation to two people? One is Ferdinand Porsche and
the other is Adolf Hitler. It's true. Now, I'm not saying that Michael
Richards is a Nazi, nor am I saying anyone should force themselves
to watch his antics if they find him truly disturbing. I am
making a case though for making room in one's own neurotic
little mind for two Michael Richards: the one you hate and the
one you loved watching as Kramer. That makes one no more
of a racist than it makes the armies of hippies who drove VW Beetles
Nazis.