Short memory, long con: Is it time for cancel culture to be cancelled?
Cancel culture is in Phase 2. Disgraced celebs are riffing on their experiences and are even more popular. Was the movement flawed from the start?
Remember 2017? It was the year Kevin Spacey was cast out of Hollywood, after Broadway actor Anthony Rapp accused him of making sexual advances in 1986 when Rapp was only 14 . Spacey handled the news poorly. He used the attention to come out of the closet, and issued a statement on Twitter saying he owed Rapp “the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior”. He followed it up with the usual admissions about introspection and contrition.
The public, however, viewed it as an attempt to distract against the charge that he had preyed on an underage boy. Spacey was fired from his hit Netflix show House of Cards. Scenes he’d filmed for the movie All the Money in the World were reshot with Christopher Plummer. His biopic on Gore Vidal was canned. His agents and his publicist dumped him. His non-profit, to help young people break into theatre, was shut down. Spacey’s production companies, M. Proffit and Trigger Street, were ordered to pay $31 million to the producers of House of Cards in November 2021, because he was in violation of Netflix’s sexual harassment policy.
Yet, in October, Spacey was back. The actor performed a scene from Timon of Athens at a lecture that covered Shakespeare and cancel culture. He received a standing ovation.
What happens after a celebrity is cancelled? It depends on how long you wait for the answer. Actor Mel Gibson, who circled through homophobic comments, a DUI and arrest and an anti-Semitic tirade, was blacklisted from Hollywood in 2006, but returned after 10 years. In 2016, his film, Hacksaw Ridge, received six Academy Award nominations.
Cancel culture is loud, vicious, but ultimately toothless. Sooner or later, all cancelled people resurface. And why not? Must someone vanish forever because they sent rude DMs, avoided accountability, or said something shitty on stage? Even court sentences for actual crimes ultimately end. Why must public ostracisation be expected to last forever?
But lately, celebrities have been speeding through their penance. In November 2017, The New York Times published a story about, Louis CK, one of the biggest comedians at the time. Five women accused him of intimidating them into performing or viewing sexual acts. CK’s management company and touring agency dropped him. HBO stopped streaming his stand-up specials. The distribution company behind I Love You, Daddy announced it wouldn’t release his film. An animated series he’d co-created and starred in was canned. Netflix axed his second of his two-specials deal.
But less than a year later, CK was back on stage at an NYC comedy club. He was heckled, but it didn’t stop him. In 2021, his shows were sold out, despite protests outside the venues. In 2022, he won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album, one about cancel culture. In January 2023, CK performed to a full house at Madison Square Garden, almost 21,000 seats.
It almost seems like cancel culture is starting to offer offenders the perfect fodder for their comebacks. In an interview in August, Jennifer Aniston said, “I’m so over cancel culture. I probably just got cancelled by saying that. I just don’t understand what it means … Is there no redemption? I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket.”
Aniston stars in Apple TV’s The Morning Show. Its first season had Steve Carell playing a disgraced co-host of the show dealing with the aftermath after his sexual misconduct is made public. He’s confused, coming to terms with the fact that he abused his power, and riding out the storm in a lovely Italian villa. In one scene, as they slow dance, Aniston says, “So honestly, this is what being cancelled looks like.” He responds, “Oh God, that word.”
But before we can truly know if there’s any redemption Carell’s character dies in a car accident in Season 2. It seems like a cop out, like the writers themselves had no real-world experience to draw on.
They could have taken pointers from Dave Chappelle. The actor and comic was panned for making jokes about the transgender and gay communities in his 2021 Netflix special. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that Chappelle had “artistic freedom,” even after some Netflix employees and transgender advocates staged a virtual walkout. In February 2022, Chappelle announced four more comedy specials for Netflix. “If this is what being cancelled is like, I love it,” he says. Oh, and he was nominated for a 2022 Grammy for best spoken-word album.
Or the Morning Show team writers could have looked to Chrissy Teigen. In May 2021, the former model was accused of bullying and sending DMs to people such as TV personality Courtney Stodden, saying, “I can’t wait for you to die”. Teigen quit her role as narrator of Netflix show Never Have I Ever, and her cookware line disappeared from Macy’s shelves.
She wrote on Twitter, “I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior but that is nothing compared to how I made Courtney feel.” and left social media for a while. When she returned to social media, she posted to Instagram, “Cancel club is a fascinating thing and I have learned a whollllle lot.”
She had about 30 million Instagram followers then. Today she has 42.7 million.
