Should Rammstein Be Banned?

— By Ian Buruma

BERLIN – Since the end of May, a #MeToo scandal has rocked the German media. Several women have accused Till Lindemann, the burly, leather-clad, 60-year-old lead singer of the heavy-metal rock group Rammstein, of various forms of sexual abuse.

An Irish fan named Shelby Lynn claims that she was drugged backstage and “groomed” for sex. Others have spoken of unwanted sexual encounters, which they were too intimidated to refuse. There has been talk of an infamous “row zero,” near the stage at live performances, from which young women, including Lynn, were allegedly recruited for Lindemann’s gratification after the show.

How much of this is true is being investigated by Berlin state prosecutors. Lindemann’s former wife avowed that her ex-husband was always unfailingly kind to women. And Lynn later reiterated that he had not touched her.

But whatever the truth may turn out to be, the Lindemann affair raises a question that has been hotly debated over the past few years, especially in the United States, but more and more in Europe, too: must art be judged by the private behavior of its creator?

It has become fairly common for critics to denounce Pablo Picasso’s paintings because he made women in his life suffer. A well-known movie critic declared that he could no longer view Woody Allen’s films in the same way after the director was accused, without any evidence, of abusing his seven-year-old adoptive daughter. Roman Polanski’s movies are no longer distributed in the US, because he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Picasso painted powerful portraits of some of the women he allegedly abused. One film by Allen features a middle-aged man, played by Allen, who falls in love with a teenage girl. Even though lusting after a 17-year-old is hardly the same thing as assaulting a seven-year-old child, this is often cited as evidence that the accusations against Allen must be true. None of Polanski’s films has anything to do with the crime he committed in real life.

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