Do we like John Carpenter?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a decent one on character, held back only because the sourcing on his private conduct is thin.
John Carpenter is the bloke who made horror cool for the grown-ups. In 2019 the French directors' guild gave him the Golden Coach at Cannes, an award for innovative, courageous and independent work. His own acceptance line said it all: he was proud of 'transporting' an audience through light and shadow.
After the January 2021 Capitol riot he said it felt like a scene from one of his films. He asked where the police were, and said he couldn't believe white supremacists still exist. He also called Fox News horrible. That's a man putting his name to a side, not sitting on the fence.
As for being difficult, the record is mostly grumbling about bad jobs. Of the 1992 film Memoirs of an Invisible Man he said, “I really wanted to quit the business after that movie.” He called the set a horror show and said there were difficult personalities, without going into detail. That's one rough shoot and one blunt man, not a pattern of hurting people.
Gaps, since we like to be straight: we found no court outcomes against him and no serious allegations from established outlets. We also found little on his charity work or on what he has said about trans people specifically. So the pass rests on what he has said about racism and politics and on a clean record, not on a long list of good deeds.
So would we support him? Yes. He's a grump with a guitar who has spoken up against hate, and the only thing he's guilty of in the sources we read is a bad shoot in 1992 and some very strong opinions.