I have very strong views on the rights of artists to use language. My characters often utter things I would never say in real life. As you have pointed out, to write a villain from yesteryear or even today you cannot imbue them with a modern conscience. You cannot (and should not) attempt to censor what your characters are saying.

This has two caveats. The first is a differentiation between the self and characters. This is being eroded in modern theatre, where characters are in fact the mouthpiece for an author - that’s why we have a lot of autobiographical trauma plays at the moment. A good writer must remain morally neutral or the work becomes didactic, if you don’t have a moral neutrality and your bias is evident in your work, then you’re creating something problematic.

The second caveat is simpler, you have a moral responsibility to be truthful, even if truth is painful. All good writing is the truth of society imbedded in a story. That’s why people go to theatres and watch films. As a writer you have a responsibility for truthfulness - that doesn’t mean (as some suggest) if you aren’t X you can’t write about X. It means, if you have a duty to do due diligence to find the truth of any situation, person or event you write about. That doesn’t have to be the objective truth, but it does have to resonate in some way. Everything else is either too shallow, too trite or propaganda.

This is a great article and brings up a huge amount of discussion about what it means to be a creator - and my worries about a society that muzzles comedians, writers. artists and musicians with weaponised rhetoric.

Great to see you pop up as always! :o)