I think the subreddit community here is missing the point when it comes to the Joao discourse
TL;DR Joao's views are not just "politically conservative", they're disgusting and that's why people are talking about it
A lot of comments I see are saying
"Why are you bringing up politics?" (Most common sentiment)
"Why do you care? Separate art from the artist!"
"Just stop listening to band, duh!"
"The dude isn't a threat to anyone, even if his views are problematic, what difference does it make?"
Here's a comparison to draw from: People don't listen to Lostprophets anymore because of what Ian Watkins did. Nobody separated the art from the artist in that situation because it was clearly horrible, ugly and disgusting what he did and stood for. Most people understand that. There is no "Hey man you don't have to agree with everyone's views to get along with them", or "I don't care, I like the music anyway", or "Why are you bringing up politics? Ok yeah he's gross but so what?" No people drew a line and that was it. (To be clear I'm not directly comparing Joao to Ian Watkins).
When it comes to Joao, this man literally advocates for stripping rights away from women. His talk show is basically MAGA-slop for Brazil. When people have disagreements over politics, it's fine to disagree on things like fiscal policy or resource management etc. But not things like rights, and in this case women's rights.
To all of you guys who keep parroting "I don't support his views but I don't see why this is such a big deal?" The reality is that it's not a big deal to you because you're not personally affected by it. Maybe you don't have enough women in your life who have spoken up about abortion restrictions, or maybe you have and you think they're whining about something you deem inconsequential.
The fact is that people are talking about this because they love Mastadon, and in this case it is confusing, bizarre and trust-breaking to have brought on a guy like Joao when literally they could have ANY OTHER KEYBOARD PLAYER THAT DOESN'T ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN BEING FORCED TO GIVE BIRTH TO RAPE BABIES.
If they agree with his views, that changes how people see the guys in the band that they love. If they don't agree with him, then they don't seem to care enough about these issues (or women) to actually speak out against the dude they hired for advocating for this stuff. If they don't agree and they DO care about these issues, then again... Of all the keyboard players in the world, why choose Brazilian Steven Crowder??
I posted this in a comment to somebody else. Imagine Metallica's Lars Ulrich is no longer able to play with the band for whatever reason, and for his replacement they hire... Alex Jones. And everyone's like "Who cares about Alex Jones? Just let him play drums and enjoy the band man!!" When it's like no dog, I don't support Alex Jones making money off the band to fund his endeavors, it's disappointing at best and downright WTF at worst.
You can't keep acting confused as to why people are concerned about it. If Joao doesn't bother you, it might help to wonder why people feel the way they do, and what you would do in their shoes. How do Mastadons female fans (and especially their Brazilian female fans) feel about him being in the band/making money off of them?
I just can't help but shake my head at the discourse. You may not care, but surely you understand why people do?