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You had me until "cancel culture" Exactly how many irreverent comedians who achieved significant success and are not really accountable to anyone, telling it l
by davvolun 7y ago
You had me until "cancel culture"
Exactly how many irreverent comedians who achieved significant success and are not really accountable to anyone, telling it like it is, have been cancelled by the cancel culture?
Cosby, TJ Miller, Louis CK, Jeffrey Tambor, James Franco, ...? A good list of people who did morally reprehensible things of varying degrees, from illegal to merely opening their employers to civil liability, and in my mind, they should be "cancelled." Maybe you can argue some of these, I don't think so.
Azis Ansari? I don't know how tranchant his "speaking truth to power" has ever been, but he did a Netflix special this year, and I would need pretty compelling evidence to believe that's your smoking gun. I predict he'll be just fine in a few more years.
Kevin Hart? Maybe. Again, not much of a politically-motivated comedian, but getting removed as Oscar (?) host was damaging. Nonetheless, it looks like he had 5 movies/specials in 2019 and has work scheduled for 2020. Besides the car crash, I think he'll be alright.
Dan Harmon (like James Gunn) was a political hit job and didn't go anywhere.
Am I missing anyone?
Outside of e.g. #metoo, some people didn't like Dave Chappelle's recent Netflix special. I'm not a fan of him "punching down" at trans people myself, but, I don't think it's anything he hasn't said before. Nonetheless it was trending in the top five for most of last month, I think he is, and will continue to be, doing fine.
I just don't see where people attribute all this power to "cancel culture." Chik-fil-A, Nike, ..., all doing just fine despite on-going boycotts from "cancel culture."
- ousta 7y agoJames Gunn had 10k pedophile friendly tweets. but yeah it is a political hit job sure.
- briandear 7y agoRoseanne Barr. Had her ABC show cancelled over a tweet, yet ABC-owned ESPN hired Keith Olbermann. Multiple examples of someone posting vile stuff on a blog or twitter and being unscathed (Joy Reid is one quick example,) but Roseanne gets canceled because she happens to support Trump. Another example is Shane Gillis — cancelled because of something he said, not any specific action. Getting cancelled for sexually abusing people is one thing, getting cancelled because of “offensive” speech is the real problem. Roseanne and Gillis and Hart got cancelled for words. CK, Franken, Spacey — they were ousted for actions. That isn’t really part of cancel culture. Driving someone out of business because of vile and criminal actions is much different than firing a comedian because of a joke. If I were a comedian that make vile jokes about Obama and his daughters, I’d be cancelled. If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
- fishtacos 7y agoWords don't exist in a vacuum. They have meanings that people interpret to varying degrees of importance. Dismissing what he did as just "something he said" as opposed to meaning or intent, is not cancellation - it's society's backlash toward intolerable racist speech.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoYou might want to investigate the meaning and intent then. He was mocking dumb old white dudes. Everybody just saw the slur and lost their mind, totally missing this fact. It’s fine to not think that the joke landed, but it’s silly to be offended by it. And yes, it was literally cancelation.
- dfxm12 7y agoBarr, Gillis and Hart were fired from one job because they alienated a large enough swath of their employers' customers and advertisers that they thought it would be bad for business. That's capitalism. Furthermore, they're all still working, so I don't see how cancelled is the right word here.
- triceratops 7y ago> Roseanne gets canceled because she happens to support Trump This is false. The show got cancelled because of tweets by Barr that were seen as racist.[1] She was already known as a Trump supporter for 2 years before her show was revived[2][3] so that could not possibly have been a factor in her firing. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Valerie_Jarrett_tweets_and_Roseanne_cancellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Valerie_Jarrett_... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Reality_television_and_Roseanne_revival:_2011%E2%80%932018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Reality_televisi... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Support_for_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Support_for_Dona...
- darkarmani 7y ago> but Roseanne gets canceled because she happens to support Trump. That's not the comment she got canceled for. She was being horribly racist. Trump support is less the issue than it is extra gasoline between his racist comments and her horrible comment. > If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special. Where is your example here?
- jfengel 7y agoThe name "cancel culture" is a just a rhetorical tactic to punch down at anybody who dares to complain. The ones crying "cancel culture" are the same ones wailing when football players kneel to call attention to abuse, and pass rules to forbid it. When you do it it's censorship, and when we do it it's patriotism. They needed a dog-whistle to avoid putting it that way, so they seized on "cancel culture".
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoYou’re not up to speed on that term if you think it has anything to do with people’s right to complain. And it has nothing to do with Cosby or football, at all. And there we go with that silly “punching down” term again.
- sodosopa 7y agoIf you didn’t finish Chapelle’s most recent bit, you missed what the piece was about.