Lots of things that squick me have plenty of precedent.

Sure. Vivisection, Steve Gutenberg, soy-based meat products. It doesn't make it right. But it does lessen any potential squick I might feel since I presume the very nature of the writing process (or creative process) has always included the Real Person itch, which has been scratched in a variety of ways. Faulkner had a famous quote that given the choice between rescuing grandmas or masterpieces from a burning museum he'd take the paintings. Nobody has yet written a piece of puppyslash (I'll presume) worthy of compare to Ullysses. But there's no reason it couldn't happen. And if it did, I'd say the privacy issues are secondary.

An actual example might be Todd Haynes Superstar where he did Karen Carpenter's bio using barbie dolls. The movie is illegal - he doesn't have the legal right to tell her story. But that movie is a better work of art than the Carpenter's entire recorded legacy, and it's my assertion that the art trumps the legal or moral issues (in that instance).

Might I suggest, Hec-o-mine, that you're trying to argue a bunch of people out of their own ethical choices, and that, as such, you're gonna fail even if you turn out to be Jesus Christ on a stick with divine revelation on your side, and all you're doing is testing tempers.

Cause, you know, ethical choices, personal squick levels -- these aren't necessarily tied to things like logic, tradition, precedent, "subversion", or anything else you can argue. Are you going to try to convince me I should like foie gras next? (Yes, I hate foie gras.)

Burrell, that's interesting to know about Joyce. (I know practically nothing about Joyce.)

So. How about that fanfic?

Third, the fact that he wrote great art doesn't mean that his methods weren't unethical. They are entirely separate issues in my book.

Or the point Burrell made earlier. I'm just saying unethical artists make great art and I'd rather have the art than the ethical artist.

Might I suggest, Hec-o-mine, that you're trying to argue a bunch of people out of their own ethical choices,

Honestly, I'm not. I think ethics is a very individual, almost private act and no less than your primary responsibility as a thinking person on this earth. To know and understand your own choices.

and that, as such, you're gonna fail even if you turn out to be Jesus Christ on a stick with divine revelation on your side, and all you're doing is testing tempers.

For which I apologize. I don't mean to stomp through everybody else's morality telling them to Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (C.O.Y.O.T.E.) - and maybe I have. Truly, I respect everybody's ethics and arguments here.

But I'll stick to my note at the top of this post: more important to have great art than ethical artists. They're not exclusive, but there will be times when they are in conflict. I wouldn't close that door to an artist on moral grounds. It's more important that Superstar be available than Karen Carpenter's estate be respected.

more important to have great art than ethical artists

More important to you, I'm assuming. Or are you positing that it's more important for humanity?

I'd rather have ethical art, myself. Much like I'd rather have ethical, say, medical research. Because it's not all about me, and what I experience. It's also about (in my own little worldview), about who suffered unwillingly to get me to that experience.

Or are you positing that it's more important for humanity?

Yes, I am saying this. It was wrong to ban Ullysses even if Joyce was immoral to libel people.

Why is it more important to humanity, then?

And is humanity required to participate in this great art, or may it abstain itself and shun the things it deems unseemly?

Have all the unethical art you please, David, but don't make me look at it against my will. I'll make that decision myself.

Kind of jumping in with a tangent, but what about people like David Sedaris? Who write presumably non-fiction, about real people with their real names, but embellish and generall make shit up to make it a better story? Where does that fall in the continuum?

And is humanity required to participate in this great art, or may it abstain itself and shun the things it deems unseemly?

Your choice of course.

Have all the unethical art you please, David, but don't make me look at it against my will. I'll make that decision myself.

Again, that's your biz and I'm sorry to have implied otherwise. I just don't see the arguments against RPF as being that hard or clear. As a matter of individual choice, nobody needs to justify their taste.

Why is it more important to humanity, then?

I'm not sure I'm clear on the question except what I said above: the value art brings to culture trumps my concerns about treading on privacy issues that people are using here. I can cite dozens of literary works which have abused the right-to-privacy and used real people in their work (either by name or barely disguised such that people who knew the artist and the characters would know who they were talking about). Dante's Inferno doesn't exist without him putting all of his (still living at the time) enemies in hell.

I'm not going to contend the quality of Ulysses or Dante's Inferno. But would the world be a demonstrably poorer place without them?

I'm going to swerve into complete hyperbole here, hovering around Godwin's law, but there are a *lot* of things one could do unethically to advance one field or another. I don't think doing them makes the world a better place.