In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.
Each week, WaterGirl and I sift through the hundreds of cards & letters we get from people all over the world. In this week’s mailbag we were fortunate to spot citizen dave’s suggestion that we do a post on so-called cancel culture that coincides with the premier of the HBO documentary “Allen vs. Farrow“.
As citizen dave points out, the definition of cancel culture is: “Cancel culture (or call-out culture) is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – either online on social media, in the real world, or both.”
Dave suggests that in this week’s Medium Cool, we (paraphrasing him) discuss how a revelation about an artist caused you to reassess or stop enjoying their work. Feel free also to critique “cancel culture” as an idea.
Open Thread: Spring Fever
Baud
TIL I’ve been cancelled.
WaterGirl
I think we should ditch the phrase “cancel culture”, which is right-wing phrasing, and replace it with “consequences, bitches”. Or something similar.
Omnes Omnibus
Can I comment on this post if I have been canceled?
sab
I hope I don’t alienate a bunch of people that I really like, but here goes. I have a trans niece who is my favorite. She was my nephew for 30+ years and I was not the least bit surprised when she went trans. “About time” was my husband’s and my reaction.
On the other hand, I do not know what the fuck JK Rowling thought she was doing when she defended that toxic bitch Maya Forstater, but nothing JK Rowling has ever written makes me think she is anti-trans or a TERF. I miss her on twitter
ETA I belive my niece disagrees with me on JK Rowling. We haven’t discussed. Hope I am wrong or she is just caught up in the current swirl.
Ken
@WaterGirl: I prefer “free speech“.
Jinchi
“Cancel culture” doesn’t exist for the vast majority of people, who were never invited in the first place.
It’s just a whine by celebrities, pundits and politicians against being held accountable for their words and actions.
Chetan Murthy
I have high blood pressure, so I won’t be watching that Allen vs Farrow doco. But if anybody does, I’d be curious what the message is. Just to be clear: I haven’t watched one of his movies since 1992. And he used to be my favorite film-maker. B/c “eeew”. Also “the fucker!”
I guess, I’m wondering whether this might precipitate a real #MeToo moment for the
pedophileephebophileold pervert.trollhattan
The CNN three-parter on James Brown still gives me the creeps, especially since his music has endured so well. Plus, seems like a plausible theory he was murdered.*
*Said in spooky voice.
Wapiti
When it came out that Orson Scott Card was a serious (Mormon?) religious right-winger and contributed to some anti-gay campaign, I thought about the last book of his that I had read – iirc, the first one of his Maker series – and I reexamined the gender roles within that tale and said, uh huh. And I haven’t touched anything by Card since then.
My niece is Black, and once told me that there is so much stuff to read and view and listen to, that she chooses not to partake in known bigots’ works, and she still doesn’t have time to get through everything that remains.
trollhattan
@Jinchi:
Cancel culture is a very helpful term, ranking the equal of “deep state.” Which is very, very deep.
“Hey, let’s make up some enemies to explain why we’re so unhappy and unfulfilled.”
BGinCHI
@WaterGirl: Agreed.
Of the many problems the right has with this whole issue, the major one is perhaps that they think it’s all about words, as if these were suddenly a trivial way to hurt, control, repress.
They’re of course the first ones to flip out over any language that characterizes them.
So, to summarize: For the right, language that demeans is OK if they use it, but not if anyone else does.
Pure power games.
Gravenstone
@WaterGirl: That’s just it. People previously in power of some fashion (relationships, workplaces, politics) rail against the loss of that power and finding themselves held accountable for abuses of that power. They just don’t believe that it could ever happen to them. They were wrong. In other words, life sucks. Learn to deal…
BGinCHI
@Chetan Murthy: Bullets Over Broadway was the last one I liked.
I can’t believe how many incredibly shitty films he’s made after making so many good ones.
Jinchi
@WaterGirl:
I think we can all agree that BJ’s Pie Filter is the ultimate in cancel culture.
Mo MacArbie
Yeah, “Cancel Culture” is just “New Improved Political Correctness”. Feh.
I have fond memories of Bill Cosby albums though never owned them myself. I speak only of “Cleveland” in baseball. I look for other ways to talk about card games in which one suit is considered the topmost.
Chetan Murthy
@BGinCHI: Purple Rose of Cairo (lordy, I was in love with Mia Farrow in that one) and Hannah and Her Sisters. But never since. None of them. Too triggering.
Delk
Susan Sarandon. If she couldn’t have Our Revolution she was all too eager to let trump have his revolution. Anything but the ‘status quo’ (Hillary). I can’t bring myself to watch her anymore.
Marmot
Hi. I’m mostly around when somebody disparages Texas. And then I’m like, “Put your face in range, kindly.”
But I’ve been having a contentious discussion with one friend about so-called “cancel culture” a lot lately. There is no such thing. If it were ever separate from the “political correctness” conspiracy theory, it could never stay that way. The concept is a tool for conservatives to protect themselves from criticism and self reflection.
It has all the earmarks of propaganda. It could never have been otherwise:
There is no testable definition to be found, there is no guide in the words “cancel” or “culture,” but there is alliteration, vague accusation, and a collection of aggrieved traditional hierarchical betters.
Uncle Omar
My “cancel culture” has been as follows: If I walk into a store or office with the intent to do business and Sean Hannity, (the thankfully late) R. Hudson Limbaugh III, Fox News, or any of their respective ilk is on the radio or TV, I turn around and walk out, never to darken that door again.
JPL
@WaterGirl: This! The secret for republicans is to scream louder.
MattF
The example that comes immediately to me is Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist. It helps that the strip isn’t funny any more, although I’m unsure whether the change is in me or in the strip.
Card is a good example in SFF, although Ender’s Game is a classic.
NotMax
Meh. Essentially ambivalent about it in the aggregate when it concerns the entertainment industry.
A Ghost to Most
Eric Clapton is a racist asshole. Even “Layla” suffers from the knowledge.
sab
@Jinchi: Good thing that. I cancel and uncancel people weekly.
Thing is, it’s private. No group think or peer pressure at all. The filtered doesn’t even know they have been filtered.
Jeffro
One of the posters in a politics-themed FB group I’m in posted the following:
Feel free to share ;)
BGinCHI
@Uncle Omar: SAME
Jeffro
@Uncle Omar: I do the same, only I make sure to either tell them then & there why I’m leaving, or follow up later via email, letter, website comment, etc. I like to think it’s doubly effective (no way to measure that, ‘tho)
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: Susan Sarandon can cancel herself via catapult into the Sun. No telling how many unicorn-loving idiots listened to her Hillary-hating bullshit.
BGinCHI
@Jeffro: YES
The Thin Black Duke
Bigots miss the days when they could hit people in the face with a brutal punchline for free. Consequences are taxes they don’t want to pay.
Marmot
@Jinchi: you say what I mean, but with fewer words. Nice.
The Thin Black Duke
Terry Gilliam going batshit nasty and crazy broke my heart.
debbie
@trollhattan:
Morgan Wallen says something racist, loses sponsors or whatever, and his defenders cry out “cancel culture!” He is not being canceled; he’s facing the consequences of his words.
Tim C.
@MattF: Literally Orson Scott Card was the first one who came to mind, however that said. He really seemed to have lost his mind in the 90s. I used to like buying his sci-fi as it came out, but around 2000, both his writing and his politics took a huge downward plunge. (Fair to say, I was also becoming more political aware around that time myself, so maybe it was always that bad)
But yes, “Cancel Culture” is the new “Political Correctness” which goes to the main difference is that “Political Correctness” was all about facing consequences for saying racist, homophobic or misogynistic nonsense. and “Cancel Culture” is about facing consequences for trying to violently overthrow the US Government.
JPL
@Jeffro: Love that and I will share.
Jeffro
Speaking of cancel culture…sad to say, my mom is devolving into a RWNJ (99% due to spending most of her free time on FB)…her latest post was about how she wasn’t going to buy Aunt Jemina syrup and Uncle Ben’s rice anymore, as both companies/brands have decided to revamp their racist brands (to ‘Pearl Milling’ and ‘Ben’s Original’, respectively).
This offends her, somehow.
Hmm…if changing a racist brand offends you…what does that make you, again?
Anyway, when a cousin noted that it was good that the companies’ logos wouldn’t be based on other folks servitude, my mom responded that she sees the logos as “loving people, warm and friendly. They make me feel like home.”
And…denied that love by a couple of outdated corporate brands…RWNJ mom simply had no choice but to continue voting GQP. sigh
NotMax
Actually, kind of funny coincidence (although but a tenuous relationship to cancellation). Was just a few minutes ago randomly poking around Amazon and came across this review for some hard candies:
No big surprise they won’t be receiving any orders from me.
Same product, different review – :) –
Suzanne
Life is a popularity contest. Has been forever. Cancel culture is just what right-wingers call it when they aren’t popular anymore.
Learning that Carl Andre probably pushed Ana Mendieta out a window was…. a thing.
Baud
@Jeffro:
It’s like New Coke all over again.
Emma from FL
I don’t understand the value of the concept. Maybe it is because I have never made the mistake of equating an artist with his art. There have been, and are, great artists who have also been first class bastards. Rowling wrote one of the best, most amazing tales about growing up I’ve ever read; I’m not going to start banning Harry Potter because she’s a barbarian. Nothing in the books reflect her personal opinions.
Believing that a artist must mirror my morality or he has no value and must be eliminated from the conversation bothers me. It’s too much of a totalitarian concept. Maybe it’s because I lived until I was 15 in a culture where artists of all kinds disappeared frequently and without trace because they refused to toe the political line.
I guess we all are formed by our experiences.
Marmot
@The Thin Black Duke: oh , no.
socratic_me
@sab: This has to mean you haven’t read anything she has said or written SINCE that incident, since she has been the face of a number of trans-harming laws under consideration/passed in the UK in the last year.
Citizen_X
@Ken: “Freedom of association” works, as well.
sab
@Jeffro: My family was involved in high up management with Aunt Jemima (Quaker Oats). The management wasn’t racist. Hence Aunt Jemima. They could have had a white woman. The problem was the mill workers. Quaker Oats started in NE Ohio with heavy abolitionist influence. But later influx of southern and immigrant workers totally changed the environment. It was dangerous for the mill and black workers to hire them.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Wapiti: I’ve enjoyed a lot of Card, even after hearing what a wacko he was. It was mostly when overtly Mormon or religious stuff crept in that it took the enjoyment out of his work.
@Chetan Murthy: We’ve continued to watch Allen films even after all that crap, and there have been some really enjoyable ones. “Midnight in Paris” in particular was good, and Owen Wilson as the Woody Allen character was great. Best thing he’s ever done.
David Mamet is another wacko who I can’t quite give up, at least the stuff we’ve seen in earlier years. I love his particular brand of cynicism. Except “Glengarry Glen Ross”, never understood the popularity of that one.
I guess the only people that fit the bill for this thread for me are Bill Cosby and Louis C.K. Cosby was a big part of my childhood and that of so many other kids who memorized his comedy records, and I treasured the time we saw him do a live show. Just breaks my heart that I can’t stand to listen to any of those any more, or see his face on TV.
danielx
Roman Polanski.
mrmoshpotato
Culture’s been cancelled? Gotta watch static on the TV now?
planetjanet
When I was much younger, I adored Mel Gibson. He portrayed the ultimate hero and I loved his movies, from Mad Max to Braveheart to the Patriot. I felt a stronger connection to him in The River with Sissy Spacek. The film was set in East Tennessee where I grew up and filmed in Church Hill, the first place I remember living as a young child. The revelations about his bigotry were difficult. The mugshot from his DUI arrest broke the spell and I no longer wanted to see any of his movies.
Recently, I saw him in the Professor and the Madman, not by my choice. My cycling group organizes “bike-in” movies for winter training. In the before time, we gathered at a bike shop and watched a movie while we rode on trainers. We have continued during the pandemic riding at home and sharing. It is great to feel like we are doing something together even if we are apart. Looking at a still from the movie in the announcement, I noticed Mel Gibson was in it. I presumed he was the Madman. That is the place he now holds in my head. So I was quite surprised to find that he was the Professor, with Sean Penn playing the Madman. The film really drew me in. I did not know any of the history of the making of the Oxford Dictionary and the storyline was utterly intriguing. Sean Penn played Dr. William Minor, who suffered from paranoia and murdered an innocent man who he thought was following him. From his jail cell, he provided a lot of research material to the first volume of dictionary that was being led by Dr. James Murray, as played by Gibson. As the storyline developed I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having the notions of redemption and Mel Gibson in my head at the same time. Now I do sincerely believe in the power of redemption. But it must come with atonement and sincere regret. I have no idea that Gibson has earned any such consideration. But it has made me think more deeply about my beliefs.
sab
@socratic_me: Point me to something.
When my husband and I have an argument and either of us refers to the vague “anything ” or ” everything” we both agree that person lost.
RSA
I haven’t yet figured how someone’s cancellation is different from a boycott of someone (of their work and attention to them) by people who have a negative opinion of them. Assuming that’s in the right ballpark, it’s perfectly fine with me.
People on my list: Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Roman Polanski, Marion Zimmer Bradley, … probably others I’m not thinking of. For good reason.
It seems to me that cancel culture is intended to apply to people who are alive and active. I know not everyone feels the same way, but the passage of time seems to make a difference.
I appreciate Picasso’s work, though he was a notorious misogynist: Françoise Gilot, his lover of nine years, wrote of “his lack of remorse and facile rationalizations for hurting others; a lust for seduction as a form of exercising power over women; duplicity and manipulation as a way of life; the pattern of idealize, devalue and discard in every romantic relationship he’s had; the underlying desire for control; an unshakable narcissism and the drive to do evil by damaging the lives of the women who became his partners.” Two of the women in his life committed suicide.
I appreciate Gaugin’s paintings, though his son Emil wrote, “When I was 10 years old, I saw my father bloody my mother’s face with his fist.”
The stories could go on. Separating artists from their work is hard when they’re alive, but maybe after they’re gone, we can appreciate what they’ve left behind, now that they’re absent? I don’t know.
BGinCHI
@danielx: As a huge, huge “Chinatown” fan, that one really hurts.
Chetan Murthy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Ha! Funny, I’m not a giant fan of Mamet, but this film …. *wow*. To me, it exposes and explains the culture of salesmen in a way that no other film has ever managed. I worked at IBM for 19yr, and spent >10yr of that time working closely with salesmen. And hooboy, that film is accurate. I met a guy who could have been the salesmen that Alec Baldwin followed around in order to learn his role for the film.
Just *incredibly* accurate and educational.
ETA: I still use that line “don’t open your mouth unless you know the shot” in various “human relations situations”.
Tim C.
@RSA: And now I had to go look up Marion Zimmer Bradley.
God damn it.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Card, Adams, Allen, Cosby, Sarandon – check. Not into Potter, but Rowling sounds like a right git too. Clapton also a known commodity.
As said upthread, this has always existed, it’s just that now, like everything else, it’s more amplified given the winger whining. They can’t say what they want with impunity and it manages to hurt their shriveled chicken liver hearts.
Lemme check my field – no fucks.
smith
There have always been Things Nice People Don’t Say. It’s a way for human societies to define the boundaries of acceptable behavior and maintain enough comity so we don’t spend all our time in fistfights.What has changed is who gets to define what the forbidden words, phrases (and ideas) are. No accident that this cultural hegemony once belonged exclusively to white, well-off, powerful people, and now that it apparently doesn’t, those people can’t stand the idea that some things are socially acceptable and others aren’t. This is just another manifestation of the fact that American culture is now driven by more urban, egalitarian and diverse forces instead of the rural/small town, homogeneous and hierarchical forces that once prevailed.
Ken
@NotMax: That’s a microcosm of the GQP, isn’t it? “The product is foully inedible and the customer service is nonexistent, but they say the right things.”
NotMax
@Baud
Liberty cabbage on your
frankfurtertube steak, with a side of freedom fries, anyone?(In the U.K. it wasn’t until 1977 that the pooches were again called German Shepherds instead of what they were rechristened during WW!: Alsatian Wolf Dogs.)
:)
Baud
I’ve never been able to get into Woody Allen, even his “good” stuff.
Emma from FL
@Baud: I find him unbearably twee.
danielx
@BGinCHI:
Yep.
Kayla Rudbek
Marion Zimmer Bradley for me.
zhena gogolia
@Delk:
I can’t bear Susan Sarandon either.
I do not actually know what Woody Allen did or did not do, so I am not having this reaction to him.
Roman Polanski, on the other hand . . .
socratic_me
@sab: Here you go. I am sure that your niece can point you to plenty more, as Rowling hasn’t exactly been hesitant to voice her views. But invoking conversion therapy and attacking one of the few places where transgendered people can receive hormone therapy counts as trash on my end. I don’t really have an interest in doing a ton of research to convince you that Rowling is what she spends a LOT of time saying she is.
West of the Rockies
John Lennon. I still enjoy the Beatles, but I can’t stand him. I much prefer McCartney and Harrison’s contributions. Lennon was an abusive husband, father, bandmate, and person in general.
patrick II
@Chetan Murthy:
I haven’t watched an Allen film in years either. I don’t know why some movie stars that seem to be decent people work with him — but they do.
Having said that, I cannot resist watching “Chinatown” about once a year, so I have no room to talk.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Remember the brouhaha over Vanessa Redgrave portraying a concentration camp prisoner?
None of this is in any way new, it’s only been repackaged.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
That was a very good performance, IMO.
Chetan Murthy
@patrick II:
Just make sure you pirate the video, heh.
danielx
@Emma from FL:
“Twee” is one of those terms like “hipster douchebag” – I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.
Almost Retired
I, for one, no longer consider “Charles in Charge” to be a sophisticated yet comedic exploration of the modern family trying to balance the demands of career and family, while also defying gender stereotypes in childcare. It pains me.
zhena gogolia
@danielx:
I don’t think Take the Money and Run, Bananas, or Sleeper are at all twee.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
Hahaha. I enjoyed that show too back in the day. IIRC, the oldest girl was cute
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: Why would that alienate anyone here?
sab
@socratic_me: You can’t be bothered to point me anywhere. Hmm.
Maybe not so much boy to girl, but I have known (I am old and have been gay and trans friendly my whole life) dozens of women who decided they were gay or trans-men and changed their minds years later. Girl to boy is iffy.
Sorry if you have a problem with that but it is a fact.
Emma from FL
@danielx: To each his own. Manipulative, precious New Yorkie… Blech.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Almost Retired: Man, that was dry. Shaken or stirred?
Well done in either case.
raven
I saw the fucking Nudge at the Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival in 1970. I don’t need to say much more.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Ah, the Nebbish Trilogy.
:)
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t be a jerk. There is a trans west coaster I really like that I hope doesn’t cancel me.
RSA
@Tim C.: I know, right?
raven
Also, John Voight was pretty good in “Conrack” and really good in “Midnight Cowboy” and great in “Coming Home”. Fuckin pig.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Consequences – Asshole, seems about right.
socratic_me
@sab: I literally provided a link.
Also, too, “I have had many gay and trans friends” is maybe not the most impressive rejoinder, especially since you won’t seem to understand the difference between hormone replacement therapy and surgical interventions.
Scout211
Al Franken’s memoir, Giant of the Senate, changed my view of him. He wrote the damned book himself, but throughout the book he seemed like a self-centered, self-important jerk.
I don’t think it was enough (at the time) for me to “cancel” him because I still liked him as Senator. And let’s face it, politicians are often full of themselves.
But when he was “canceled” by the Senate Democrats after his “me too” moment, I wasn’t all that surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.
japa21
@Emma from FL:
I have been thinking about how to answer the question since this thread started. Then I read your answer and decided, ’nuff said. Perfect summation of my feelings and thoughts on the subject.
sab
@socratic_me: Not her. An article about her saying what they think she thought.
Hey guy/girl. This isn’t rocket science. Try just reporting.
Geoduck
Others have mentioned Cosby. A lot of his early stuff is still funny in itself, and maybe after he croaks I can enjoy listening to it again. At least the Noah sketch..
Wag
The GQP only objects to “cancel culture” because it represents the broader market doing the same to them as they’ve been doing for decades to those on the outside. People of color, women, LGBTQ, immigrants, all have been canceled by the GQP for decades.
Turnabout on our part is more than fair play. It is a necessary corrective.
raven
@Emma from FL: It took me a couple of years after reading Zevon’s bio to get over what a fucking scumbag he was.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: I wasn’t intending to be a jerk. You said that you accepted without question your nephew’s transition. You expressed an opinion on Rowling while noting what you think is problematic about her behavior. I don’t see why that would alienate anyone.
raven
@Geoduck: “Who put the bullet in the oven”?
socratic_me
@sab: Yeah no. They provide quotes from her. I don’t need to do your research for you. Good luck with your niece.
NotMax
Spooky coincidence that had also begun half-watching Jew Suss: Rise and Fall on Prime when this post appeared.
Opening scene is Nazis canceling a performance of Othello. (Strange stage set for the play shown, too. Iago and Othello emoting in German on a stage totally empty except for what appears to be a row of Brobdingnagian urinals across the back.)
:)
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: This isn’t casual politics to me. I do actually have a trans niece who I dearly love who has had a difficult transition through her family.
Catherine D.
As much as I loathe their later selves, Woody Allen’s moose joke and Bill Cosby’s Noah are gems of comedy.
MomSense
I’m not concerned about cancel culture. I think the fact that some of those who have been canceled were the gatekeepers deciding which voices were printed, or viewed in tv, news, and movies is far worse.
AM in NC
@Emma from FL: I understand this stance, and have been thinking about this question since learning about Ezra Pound’s anti-semitism in grad school. But I also don’t want my money going to someone who is a racist, misogynist, homophobic asshole. I don’t want to reward these people with my dollars, and so I won’t go see a Woody Allen movie or eat at Chick-Fil-A. It’s definitely a complex question.
BGinCHI
@Almost Retired: Joanie Loves Chachi also ruined. Ruined!
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
A complete sucker for all three, I am, e.g., playing cello in the marching band gets me every time.
Emma from FL
@raven: I think it was last year… I read an article written by a woman who had become a feminist directly due to The Mists of Avalon and her moral and emotional conflict after the Bradley story came out. It’s a horrible struggle. But the thing is she assumed that Bradley’s personal mores were reflected in the book. It never occurred to me.
My great-uncle and my father trained a cynic.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: New Coke knows what it did.
sab
@socratic_me:
Quotes out of context are not context.
Good luck with your life silly person out of whatever place you come from
Major Major Major Major
“Cancel culture run amok” is a real thing, but I hate these terms because they obscure the issue. Anyway. The only one I can think of is Kevin Spacey, but I wasn’t seeing much of him anyway when that came out.
Realixing Belle & Sebastian are deeply Christian definitely changed the way I interpret their music…
RSA
This isn’t in the world of culture so much, but sometimes I’ll read about conservatives decrying efforts to “cancel” Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and so forth, for having been slaveholders.
This is disingenuous (of course) because I think what people (with the 1619 project, for example) are mainly doing is countering the blind hero worship that’s part of American culture and history. It’s okay to teach schoolchildren that the founding fathers were human beings: they did great things, but they also accommodated and even participated in some evil things.
Ruckus
@RSA:
Maybe the realization that all of us are flawed but modern life has given us a chance to see that a lot of the flaws, are really things that can be overcome, we just have to want to do that, and a lot of people have no introspection whatsoever and will never recognize that they are not just flawed but massively, dangerously flawed. And of course if you are dead, you aren’t changing anything any longer, what was is what is.
I also wonder, in the abstract, if an artist is dead, has the work they left behind died? No. So is it possible to appreciate the work but not the artist? Of course it would be nice to appreciate both but do we have to discard the art? A performing artist who is personally a complete asshole, I can really understand not partaking of their performances. For example, I can surely see not paying or watching Louis CK, he is his art, and he sucks.
trollhattan
@raven:
With Voight, maybe more than other actors who–surprise!–turn out to be assholes I wonder if something medical happened to him. Because goddamn, it was quite a transition.
It’s very possible I’m just a sucker.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: You have a point that I missed in the turmoil. Get back to you later thread?
Amir Khalid
Nohing is modern about “cancel culture” except the name. If you’ve done something people disapprove of, they shun you. It is an unwritten social rule that has been around as long as society itself. Cancelling used to be called “sending to Coventry”. (I don’t know what the people of Coventry, England called it.)
About cancelling artists like Mel Gibson and Orson Scott Card and JK Rowling and Sarandon and whoever else. If the bad thing they did/are makes you uncomfortable around their works, it’s your right to shun them. You don’t owe them your loyalty; and it’s on them, who depend on having an audience, not to offend that audience. This is one of the reasons that many artists in the public eye are reticent about their political views.
On the other hand, if you now disapprove of the artist but still enjoy their work, that’s okay too. I will always admire Eric Clapton the trailblazing guitar player and the writer of Tears in Heaven, and I can still despise Eric Clapton the racist old git.
socratic_me
@sab: I am going to choose to believe that your expressions to OO about how seriously you take this are sincere and simply offer this. I am a cis-passing gender queer teacher who spends a lot of time in support of LGBTQ students. One of the things I have learned from them is how regularly they are hurt by people who claim to support them as individuals but then don’t believe them about the people who are doing them harm. How quickly people shift from “I love and support you.” to “You’ll have to prove that JK Rowling has said awful things because I just haven’t seen them.”
Now I am just some blowhard on BJ who hasn’t been a regular commenter in roughly a decade, so why would you blindly believe me? Seriously, I get it. But I really truly hope that your efforts to support your niece are better on this front than anything you have shown here. From the sounds of it, your niece really wants your support and you really want to give it.
BGinCHI
@Major Major Major Major: I love this line and think about it all the time:
“Hilary went to the Catholic Church because she wanted information
The vicar, or whatever, took her to one side and gave her confirmation….”
trollhattan
Oh yeah, Henry Fonda. The recent Jane Fonda documentary spotlights him in a very…unflattering way.
Chyron HR
@sab:
Go read her twitter feed, you stupid asshole.
NotMax
@BGinCHI
Saw Chinatown when it first played. Left no impression of me whatsoever. But along the same type of talent vs. philosophy tug o’ war I’ll mention Clint Eastwood and Play Misty for Me.
RSA
@Ruckus:
This is the way I see it.
Warren Senders
@trollhattan: I know a guy who was a crunchy-granola hippie in HS, suffered a TBI about 15 years ago, and immediately turned into a Tea-Party RWNJ.
trollhattan
This fuckin’ guy.
He arrived precancelled, so….
Emma from FL
@AM in NC: I think I’ve only bought one Rowling book after Potter; her detective fiction leaves me cold. If she stood up for election and I were Brit, I would definitely vote for her opponent. But I have bought a ticket once or twice to Die Walküre.
I think it is a matter of personal moral choice. But I am glad that I have neither Twitter nor Facebook. The rage noise would be unbearable.
trollhattan
@RSA:
I saw the traveling Tut exhibit a couple times and can’t tell ya a thing about the artists and what sort of people they were. Certainly appreciated their work.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: Thanks for addressing my reply. I am not going to engage further with you on this.
Jeffro
They’re terrified of our numbers. They know they represent no-growth areas. They know they only hang in there but for a few creaky and old anti-majoritarian structures and traditions.
trollhattan
@Warren Senders:
It does happen, sadly. And for whatever reason I don’t know anybody who went from jerk to pussycat after suffering some awful injury, there might be a lesson there somewhere.
We still have Ebenezer Scrooge.
NotMax
I do 100% support cancel (horti)culturing the persistent intrusions of cane grass on the property.
:)
Jeffro
@sab: thanks. I don’t know anything about all of that…but what I do know is that my mom getting fired up about a corporate brand changing its logo and name so that it’s not perceived as being racist…is probably racist on her part.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: socratic me ( sic) is my issue. Not honestly arguing. Just being a jerk. This is a really painful issue for my family.
Had a niece who had doubts about her preference who killed herself because she wasn’t sure she was gay and her lesbian people hijacked her funeral. It was beyond horrible. Her actual family was grieving. These other people shoved themselves into the reception line. They stayed forever. They ate all the food. They were rude to everyone.
Then months later, reading her journal, these bitches weren’t even her friends. Caused all sorts of strife, and didn’t even like her.
WaterGirl
@Chyron HR: You don’t have to be a dick about it.
Brachiator
I ignore most of this stuff, mainly because I am too old to care. I notice that cancel culture is often a big deal for younger people. Many of the people they obsess over I have barely even heard of.
I also notice that among a lot of liberal minded people, there is a strange oscillation between hyper-tolerance and the desire to ostracize. Fer example, cautions about using gendered expletives to talk about hated right wing figures. Note that I generally comply with this in online conversations, but I also note that right wing assholes will both violate this and brand liberals hypocrites if they fail to uphold their own lofty standards.
There is so much racism and sexism built into some national cultures that there would be only a couple of books and three songs that I could enjoy if I let most revelations about artists interfere with my enjoyment of their work.
I also love to read biographies. And in doing so I learn that many great artists were terrible people, had blind spots, did horrible things to their friends and relatives. Also, thanks to a couple of YouTube history channels, I have learned that the diaries of a number of 18th and 19th century artists were censored by their biographers and others to omit all manner of sexual improprieties. Much of this was not criminal, but it definitely leads to a re-assessment of their lives.
One bright line for me is that I will probably put aside an artist who has committed a terrible crime or who openly advocates a great evil.
For example, I greatly admire much of the work of Roman Polanski, but decided that I will not watch any of his films until after his death. That’s my compromise.
There is a working actor I choose not to name who made a terrible admission, and later clumsily apologized for what was said. I will still watch some of the older works of this person, but not new material.
One person who I did not pay much attention to in the past, but who I am not interested in for future consideration is comedian Louis CK. His behavior was odious and reprehensible.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan:That face should come with a trigger warning.
sab
@Chyron HR: Whose twitter feed you stupid asswhole?
Tehanu
@Amir Khalid:
I agree, not specifically about Clapton but in general. I don’t have to approve of Caravaggio, who was a murderer, or Woody Allen, whatever he did, or whoever, to like their work. And I know I’m not totally consistent in this — there are a few I’ve refused to buy tickets for — but so what?
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope you do. I am confused and need help.
CaseyL
I have some difficulty with this – not with people deciding to boycott whoever they want to boycott (there’s a long, long list of people whose work has been rendered radioactive for me), and not even asking/demanding that others do so as well (because we all have the right to advocate for things we care about).
What does bother me is the piling on of individuals deciding not to join the boycott. That’s too much like bullying for my taste.
RSA
@Amir Khalid: Well said.
dexwood
Oh, hell, I canceled Adam Sandler and Pauly Shore years ago. General principle.
MomSense
@sab:
Here is a link to the article she wrote to try and explain her views.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/
Brachiator
@sab:
This gets interesting. Rowling is clearly tolerant about most things. Her tolerance does not go far enough. I do not know whether she advocates actual intolerance or bigotry.
And I certainly cannot ask for people who feel hurt or even endangered by anything that Rowling has said to simply sit back and accept it.
But what do you do about people who are on the right side of most things, and who seem to be struggling to go further?
Baud
@CaseyL:
Cancel them!
raven
@NotMax: We’re watching “The Plot Against America” by David Simon and Ed Burns. Lindberg beats Roosevelt and America First becomes the reality!
sab
@Chyron HR: Back in the piehole you nit wit. Sorry I ever let you out.
khead
Bill Maher. Because he gets the whole “cancel culture” thing so wrong.
RSA
@trollhattan:
LOL. I am woke enough :-) to have looked (briefly) into how the great cathedrals in Europe were built, given my appreciation for the art and wondering if it had involved some equivalent of slave labor. Apparently not. Whew.
debbie
@raven:
One of Philip Roth’s best!
sab
@MomSense: Read thst a bunch of times.
PJ
@Brachiator:
You may be reassured to know that many (most?) people who are not great artists also share these characteristics. Most people tend to view themselves favorably, despite the bad things they do from time to time.
dexwood
@raven: Will check that out. Did you like it? I read the Roth novel.
Doug R
Considering that we ALL spend considerable time in the womb as a gender neutral protohuman until our hormones usually driven by our chromosomes pushes our body in a particular direction, I don’t get the big fuss about gender either way.
You are who you are. If you want to dress one way or another, it’s not really my business.
Physically transitioning only bothers me in that it can be damaging-surgery I’m sure is getting better and hormones can help but the danger of cancer and the damage surgery can cause means I can’t really get behind it but it’s not really my business and if someone wants to make a fully informed decision, it’s up to them.
West of the Rockies
I normally dig this recurring post because it’s mostly just a fun exchange of ideas on the arts. This particular topic, however, appears to have inspired more frustration and turmoil. So it goes…
PJ
@CaseyL:
If you didn’t want piling on, I think you came to the wrong internet.
Almost Retired
@BGinCHI: an even greater tragedy.
Brachiator
@BGinCHI:
A long time ago I said to a friend that I thought that Allen was a great second rate movie maker.
But he has made some very good films. But times and the culture change. There are some of his films that I have enjoyed that I can now see have very questionable elements. And this is not just because of later revelations about Allen, but because of shifts in what behavior we find unacceptable.
raven
On Hbo
Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline
A look at major events in the complicated history of the director, his children and the Farrow family as a new documentary revisits the case.
Baud
I honestly can’t think of a celebrity I care about enough to hate giving up if they did something odious.
piratedan
I guess for me it comes down to how much I appreciated their work prior to finding out that they are oh so very human. Do I still think the HP books are well written… yes. Cut my teeth on the MZB books when I was a tween. Did I enjoy Sarandon in RHPS, yup.. that too, can I appreciate Clapton’s skill as a guitarist, yes I can. Can I appreciate the acting chops of Voight and James Woods… yes, I think I still can. This is still a place where these people can believe what they want to believe and stand on their collective shine boxes to do so. I keep coming back to the idea that they’re just people, flawed, subject to influences and biases that shape them and while I can appreciate the work that they do and the joy that their performances have brought me in the past, it doesn’t mean that I can’t decide to devote my attention and energies to different performers who are more in line with my own outlook or who remain apolitical in such as fashion as to not allowing that to shape their public personas.
So I guess what I am saying while I enjoyed their work, I don’t continue to place them in a favored status for anything new that they do, while acknowledging that their work in the past brought enjoyment… does that make sense?
raven
@dexwood: I haven’t read it and it certainly reeks of Trump. Simon and Burns are my favorites and I’m interested to see where it goes. No one plays a skunk better than Turturro!
sab
@sab: I don’t see where the proplem is. She recognizes trans as an issue that needs to be taken seriously.
Anotherlurker
I was so sad to hear about asshole behavior from Ray Bradbury and Larry Niven, among my favorite SciFi authors.
Cancel Culture has been around for a long time in the guise of shunning.
Try this “one weird trick” the next time a Jehova’s Witness comes calling: The him that you are “dis-fellowshipped”. They are obliged to shun you, thereby freeing you from their proselytizing.
debbie
@raven:
It would not surprise me if Trump had read it when it was published in 2000 and took notes.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
I have actually missed the whole Clapton is a racist thing. I’m not sure I want to know.
Baud
@debbie:
Say what now?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You and me both.
Ever since Kangana Ranaut revealed herself to be a BJP bigot I can’t watch anything with her in it.
cope
When I was 7 or 8, I hated any form of rice and could not eat it. My favorite candy bar was the Nestle’s Crunch until the day I read that they were made with rice. Immediately stopped eating them. Does that count?
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I see what you did there.
dexwood
@raven: Don’t fuck with The Jesus. Love Turturro.
Brachiator
@Delk:
Totally understand your position. And I detest her politics. But she is a great actress.
But here I think of right wingers who hate Jane Fonda or Sean Penn because of their politics.
sab
@Brachiator: Having been a teenage girl at one point in my life, I can understand why she has issues. Most of those girls know nothing about anything, including their gender. They shouldn’t be making lifechanging decisions.
If you have gender issues at age four and still at age fifteen you probably know.
If you only just noticed at age thirteen, better let adolescence play out.
zhena gogolia
@West of the Rockies:
Yeah.
raven
@dexwood: Seen “Miller’s Crossing”?
Ilieitz
Seems like most blues guitarist still flock to play with Clapton
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
This is pretty funny.
dexwood
@raven: Oh yeah, love the slang.
Chetan Murthy
@raven: “Look into your heart!”
Baud
@cope:
From what I understand, you’re supposed to cancel Nestle as a whole. Can’t recall the details.
raven
@dexwood: Machine gun dialogue. . .
smedley the uncertain
In our righteous indignation we often discard the baby with the bath water.
The righteousness is strong tonight.
dexwood
@raven: Accurate description. We saw it at a local art theater near the University, the same house where we viewed Blood Simple years before.
debbie
@Baud:
Well, maybe books on tape?
Brachiator
@sab:
Aunt Jemima is and always has been a racist caricature.
A number of white people have fond memories of black domestics. Still racist.
Ruckus
Adding to my comment.
I look at art from the perspective of talent, style and results. An example would be Monet. From 20 feet away his paintings are stunning. And from up close many of them are even more amazing, in that he could create such a stunning display from dots, or if you will in modern terms, pixels, and with a paint brush.
And yet movies are also art, as are several pieces that I’ve collected from NZ and the US – handmade wooden bowls. Art is all around us and some of it is stunning, even if the people who made the art are not. But books and movies, or performance art, is different. It’s not as much a thing, as performance art is the person, either directly or the person they portray. And we often get to see the artist and hear them speak in their own words and fashion. Someone like Louis CK, as I said he is his art, if you don’t like him it’s easy to not like his art. But actors and artists get paid and with money we earn, just to watch them make those movies – shows, most often the portrayal isn’t actually them, although sometimes it is. I think it’s the money we earned and just lost to a person who pisses us off, or is a racist fuck, or whatever. We are supporting their deviance, condoning that deviance with money we earned. I’m not sure how much difference there is but it feels different, to be supporting someone who practices a deviance. Sort of means we are condoning that deviance.
Brachiator
@RSA:
Marion Zimmer Bradley? Really?
What’s the deal?
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: if I recall correctly, pushing infant formula use in countries that don’t have good access to clean water, thus driving up infant mortality. Or it could also be general boycott of choc that’s not fair trade/free of child labor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott
ewrunning
I suggest we appropriate a useful Britishism and start referring to “right whingers” vice right wingers. Does no one else remember when Gingrich was mouthing off about Woody Allen representing “Democrat family values?” I always “cancel” NPR by turning off my radio when they trot out Newt, Rove, Jonah Goldberg, Alberto Gonzalez, etc. Still waiting to see which veteran of the Dolt 45 administration they add to their stable.
The Thin Black Duke
@Brachiator: It’s bad.
Lyrebird
@sab:
Hi, let me try, but first let me say – I am in the group of “don’t have to approve of the artist’s views to enjoy their work”.
I hugely appreciate JKR’s work. What she has said, well, I would not vote for her either, because bathroom bills are pure trans scapegoating, and trans people as you well know have been scapegoated enough! Like JKR I have been made to be afraid just because I am female. Like JKR I have never experienced the level of danger of being trans in our society.
I think people who need to use a bathroom should be able to do so, and as someone who has had some chronic illness reasons to be in the ladies’ lounge more than other people, I do not give a [expletive deleted] what plumbing is possessed by the other people who walk in to just use the toilet. None of the people — okay let’s say it, none of the men who have threatened me were anything other than cis het etc. I wish Rowling would stay off twitter, and I wish other people would stop expecting their literary heros to be totally enlightened. MZB and W Allen are a totally different kettle of fish to me, I don’t know.
But really, none of the above matters much imnsho regarding your niece. You have a strong relationship with her. You are loving family, you get to say “okay maybe I am too middle aged to follow, but we love you, and you let us know if you need anything.”
Thursday
@sab
If a Trumper shows up here and says “show me a bad thing Trump has said”, you would instantly dismiss them. Why? Because someone who doesn’t know a single bad thing Trump has said, has simply not been paying attention, or because they agree with him. Similarly, if you don’t know the problematic things JK Rowling has said in relation to trans people, it is because you have not followed that topic at all, or that you agree with her. And based on the latest postings you’ve made, I’m going to go with the second.
“If you have gender issues at age four and still at age fifteen you probably know.
If you only just noticed at age thirteen, better let adolescence play out.”
This is in line with the article that Socratic posted, that you first ignored and then dismissed entirely. Rowling has referred to hormone blockers as the new conversion therapy, which… honestly, I’m not even sure how to go about explaining how wrong that is? Even your pithy response – in the UK, it commonly takes three to four years just to get into the doors of a clinic to talk about hormones. That hardly seems like an epidemic of rash decisions, and yet that seems to be a conception you’re happy to go along with.
But back to Rowling…
A Complete Breakdown of the J.K. Rowling Transgender-Comments Controversy | Glamour
I’m sure you’ll just accuse me of putting words into her mouth, but whatever amount of “support” Rowling says she gives to the trans community, at the end of the day she doesn’t consider a trans woman a woman, and she doesn’t consider a trans man a man. She “supports” them in the same way an Evangelical family that “hates the sin and not the sinner” “supports” their gay children – that is, they are perfectly accepting of them in an abstract and meaningless way, as long as that person isn’t too loud or pushy about things. And that’s… well, not meaningless, but pretty close. It’s certainly not a level of “support” that’s going to be celebrated and welcomed.
And she continues a troubling trend from her Harry Potter days in playing into the worst stereotypes:
JK Rowling’s new book features a psychotic male killer who wears dresses to dupe his female victims | Business Insider India
So this is the tip of the iceberg, but should give you a good idea of why so many people no longer want to give Rowling their time or attention.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
I can separate the artist from the art. So John Lydon is a Trump fan. So he threw in with a carny and huckster. Can only assume he misses Malcolm. And Morrissey is full-on National Front or whatever. How can I hate Johnny Rotten? How can I dismiss Morrissey? The music meant too much to me, and still does. I needn’t listen to their opinions to find joy and solace in their songs. I can only shed a single tear for their tragic declines.
BGinCHI
@dexwood: I liked that series more than I thought I would.
Ilieitz
Probably most of the artists we all love are flaming assholes. Bob Marley once beat up a Peace Corps Volunteer for Gods sake
BGinCHI
@West of the Rockies: Ye olde Maile Bagge giveth, and etc etc taketh away.
hilts
Regrettably, it’s easy to find many examples of individuals were brilliant, gifted artists but horrific human beings.
Knut Hamsun supported Hitler, D. H. Lawrence voiced opposition to enfranchising the working class and hostility to the burgeoning labor movements in letters to Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw expressed admiration for Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, and Ezra Pound was a supporter of Hitler and Mussolini .
I continue to appreciate their great literary works but detest all of them on a personal level.
dexwood
@BGinCHI: Thanks. Good enough. Will add it to one of the many lists floating around this home.
BGinCHI
@Brachiator: The other thing that’s probably worth saying, is that with all the talent he’s been surrounded with, and all the opportunities he’s been given, he’s pretty mediocre over the long haul. Smarter, better people got almost no chance, or made a couple films and lost their ride. The system rewards dudes like him.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I once went into a vintage motor vehicle restoration business with a buddy and we talked with the owner for 45 – 60 min and my buddy had to use the restroom. Owner told him where to go, he came back telling me I had to go. I was wondering what the hell, but I went and walked into a very nice bathroom, with metal signs known as barn signs on the walls. All of them rather racist, as viewed by anyone on this blog. And then you turned around to walk out and on the back of the door was hanging a robe. White cloth, well aged, pointy hat. Yes it was a klan robe, had very likely seen it’s share of hangings/burnings/beatings. Owner said it was real. We left. You would have never known if you hadn’t walked in that bathroom.
The point is that yes Aunt Jemima is a racist depiction. As were all those signs in that bathroom, including an Aunt Jemima one. BTW this business was located in South Carolina.
Citizen_X
@Thursday: Trump had political power. Rowling does not. How can you compare the two?
RSA
@Brachiator:
Delk
Can somebody cancel the snow?
BGinCHI
@dexwood: “The Investigation,” currently running on HBO, is fabulous. 3 episodes into its run.
Kristine
@Major Major Major Major:
I did not know this. I always sensed identity confusion and rootlessness. Melancholy.
Omnes Omnibus
@There are those who call me…tim… (Still posh): Of course Lydon supports Trump; Johnny Rotten was a troll – that was his whole point. Whatever the motivation the rest of the Pistols, John was there to troll. As far as Morissey goes, one assumes he is miserable now.
BGinCHI
@RSA: JFC!
Gin & Tonic
@RSA:
But where did the money come from? In, say, Toledo or Sevilla?
VFX Lurker
@MomSense:
Learning how John Lasseter treated women at Pixar gave me greater insight into work made under his leadership. Early Pixar films centered male perspectives, had few female characters, and gave more lines to male characters than female characters.
Pixar’s doing better these days. Soul evenly divided its spoken lines between male and female characters. 👍
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Possibly, but.
Is there any chance that she’s never seen Aunt Jemima as racist, just the syrup from the store on her table and now that the company is changing it because people talk about it being racist, that she’s getting/got the idea that as she’s used to it, she must be racist? And wants to keep it to prove that it wasn’t racist and by extension then she isn’t either?
Yes it convoluted but it’s also humanity, doesn’t always or often have logic attached to every thought.
Brachiator
@PJ:
And in doing so I learn that many great artists were terrible people, had blind spots, did horrible things to their friends and relatives.
Yeah, but I don’t own many books or music created by the average ordinary nobody, so there failures don’t matter to me.
Thursday
@Citizen_X: I compared the two, not in levels of awfulness, but as very public figures that are covered constantly by the news. Which, I think is a very reasonable claim?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: The Church. Where did the Church’s money come from? Mainly property. What is property? Property is theft.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I always had trouble canceling membership in the Columbia Record & Tape club
UncleEbeneezer
Johnny Depp. Just can’t watch anything with him since his domestic violence issues became public.
J R in WV
@Wapiti:
Me too!! There are too many great writers who aren’t shitty bigots for me to spend a moment on someone like Orson Scott Card, who appears to be a despicable bigot, at best.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: So close.
Where did this gold come from? I literally felt sick to my stomach and had to walk out when I stopped to think about it.
Citizen_X
@Thursday: No, because one could safely ignore Trump before he was in power. Once he was “elected,” you could not do so. Whereas you could ignore Rowling all day, and it won’t make a difference in your life.
On the other hand, you could make the case that Trump–as long as he’s out of power–is culturally insignificant, whereas people care about Rowling’s work. I think that’s what makes her comments sting so.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Sounds like something out of the movie Pulp Fiction. You paint a very vivid, very good depiction of what you saw. Appreciate it.
Of course racism has been part of America, north and south. And a lot of the racism was comfortable, and white people steeped in it never understood how offensive it was because they grew up with it as normal, and they were rarely in a position where they had to deal with or even consider how awful it was.
A friend and I once went into an antique shop in the Pasadena area. We were astounded at the number of racist bits of household items that used to be found in the homes of the upper middle class and upper class white people who lived in the area.
Winston
At our 45th class re union one of my best friends in high school came out as trans and wore a dress to the party. As he viewed me as a well known liberal he asked to sit with us, which I welcomed. Lots of side eye from the rest of the group, but I really couldn’t care less. His aunt lived across the alley and she commented on it, and I just said “Why did he wait till he was 63 and miss out on all the fun.” She laughed. Cancel Culture wasn’t a thing then, for me, but the rest of the class engaged in that, pretty much.
Then after a few years Facebook came along and we befriended each other and then she (at this point) started posting a lot of right wing memes and knocking liberals. A RWNJ in spades. Eventually I unfriended her. That is not to say I think trans is wrong or anything, I don’t. What you think you are is not in my bailiwick to say right or wrong. I still love them like I did. I listen to my favorite music with as much relish today as ever, whether it be Lennon, Clapton, Jaggar, or whoever. Just nobody tell me anything bad about Linda Ronstadt.
I support cancelling DiSantis culture though. Asshole wants to lower all flags in Florida to half mast to honor Limbaugh. Uck
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: That’s right, you named Spain. I was just speaking in general.
J R in WV
@Tim C.:
She was a great writer, but somehow went askew. Her Arthurian fantasy novels were great, but then we learned about her private life. Yuck!
I never cared for Woody Allen movies, but lot of people did, but then went askew. Bill Cosby was apparently askew for decades. Orson Scott Card… so many more. Shocking.
Thursday
@Citizen_X: I may have been unclear. For the past four years, if you didn’t know what Trump or Rowling had done, it wasn’t because that information wasn’t available – my news feed was constantly filled with both. You had to choose not to click. And you can argue about the merits of clicking through in either case, but my point was it’s not like a more minor author where you’d have to deliberately look up their positions. This information was constantly front and center.
So I was trying to highlight that supposed ignorance in this case was suspect – if you didn’t know, it was because you chose not to know, or because you do know what’s been said and don’t see the problem with it. Which is a common thing you’ll see with a TERF – pretending not to know the problem just so you can explain it, at which point they’ll just tell you why the statement was good, actually. Which is a similar tactic I’ve encountered with Trump supporting family members.
AWOL
Dali: Fascist. Italian Futurists: Fascists. Celine: Nazi. Pound: Fascist.
Self-educated, I had stumbled upon these humans when I was 14–16 in the real NYC 1970s, dug them a bit on different levels, then felt shame that I found minimal-to-maximal shared intellectual admiration as a teen for these shits.
Omnes Omnibus
@Thursday: What filled your newsfeed may not have filled others’.
smedley the uncertain
@Kayla Rudbek:
Nestle is also depleting aquifers all over the world; even after agreements and contracts have expired.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Pedophilia, mostly.
Look it up.
Great writer — sick individual. Such a disappointment!
Amir Khalid
@Citizen_X:
I remember Daniel Radcliffe reminding people that, while JK Rowling was wrong about transgendered women, every good thing they learned reading Harry Potter is still true.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
We visited an ancient church in Basque country of Spain, and it was fascinating. There were small stone idols that local farmers turned up as they plowed, and brought to the church because they were pagan god images.
Then we visited a majestic cathedral, a tomb of El Cid was a highlight. So much gold and silver, all from slaves in mines in Central America.
It was repulsive in so many ways, in spite of the workmanship and glitter. I have a ton of pictures… perhaps it would make a good On the Road feature. Beautiful and horrible all at the same time!
the pollyanna from hell
Carmina Burana is part of the cultural loot that we liberated from the Nazis and brought home for ourselves. As long as I’m not supporting a living artist I don’t care, and even then I make exceptions. Partly because I know my own inner Nazi, or Communist partisan, etc, and how fragile is the somatic basis of my own character, no matter how heartily I approve of it.
Obvious Russian Troll
@MattF: I cancelled Scott Adams when I read The Dilbert Future in the late nineties. I got it for my dad for Christmas, and I picked it up after he read it the next time I was there. It wasn’t that funny, and it felt off. It didn’t help that there was some kind of Law of Attraction-type bullshit at the end.
Later when he became an evolution skeptic (“Fossils Are Bullshit”) and an MRA after his divorce I was not surprised.
I should have known he was the pointy-haired boss all along.
Vickie Leonard
Learning bad things about entertainers has made me sad. Kevin. Spacey, an actor I loved to watch, but even I heard stories of young gay men he harassed. Tobey Maguire is the cruel rich actor in the true story movie about hosting poker games and he had been so amazing in Spiderman and Seabiscuit. Now we learn that Joss Whedon bullied the actresses while talking a great feminist line in public.
So I am grateful for BJ and all the progressives Biden has brought in to run the country.
schrodingers_cat
I didn’t have to cancel Orson Scott Card or JK Rowling because I was never a big fan. Besides Ender’s Game his books aren’t all that great. And even Ender’s Game was problematic in many ways. As for the Harry Potter series, I have no idea why it became such a big hit. English boarding schools and their cliques has been beaten to death as a subject matter in fiction.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Very sad.
CaseyL
@UncleEbeneezer: And that’s a major problem with cancel culture right there: Depp did none of the things his ex-wife accused him of doing. It was a smear job from top to bottom.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Anyone claiming to care about LGBTQ issues who isn’t aware of Rowlings’ transphobia, is doing it wrong. Rowlings has been the most well-known offender, especially on Trans issues. Also, anyone who thinks “went trans” is an appropriate and non-offensive thing to say, clearly is not hanging in the right spaces, reading the right links, etc.
kh
@socratic_me: ” since she has been the face of a number of trans-harming laws under consideration/passed in the UK in the last year.”
Goodness – which laws were these? Were they considered/passed in the UK?
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: While I agree that that Rowling’s transphobia is well known, I still take issue with the idea that because something was constantly in one person’s news feed it was constantly in everybody’s.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I saw Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” decades ago and I thought it was really weird and couldn’t understand how so many people approved of it. In the movie, he’s a 42 writer in a relationship with a high school girl. It’s nutz – he’s dating a girl who has to report to home-room in the morning. How is that okay.
But TCM runs it all the time, and still baffled by this, I looked up an article and found it’s based on true life, where Allen had an affair with a 16 year old child (photo). My gawd. I read another account were she was 15.
He should have been cashiered years ago.
socratic_me
@kh: @kh:
This was covered above, I think. Rowling supported bathroom bills and her support has meant a substantial increase in public support and I believe has helped the bill move forward. Cant recall if it has passed yet.
They have also pushed for restrictions on hormone therapy that massively slowed down services to those who need it. I am not from the UK, but my recollection is that that was actually a lawsuit brought by parents without the child’s consent. It has done substantial harm to the trans community, especially as waiting times, which were already YEARS (plural, usually 3-5) to get an appointment have slowed down even more.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@Omnes Omnibus: what you say is valid.
socratic_me
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure. But throwing out an argument from ignorance and getting feisty because the people who DO follow this stuff haven’t provided sufficient evidence is obnoxious as hell. Given that response, it isn’t unreasonable for people to decide at some point that you aren’t aaaactually super interested in being a supportive ally, no?
kh
@socratic_me:
I’m not from the UK either.
Is that possibly related to this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55282113
or this:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n356
socratic_me
@Thursday: Thank you for the Glamour link. I was trying to find the Andrew James Carter Twitter thread and struggling to hunt it down.
Hoppie
Duh, NA
jame
Joan Jett, she didn’t help Jackie Fox when she could and should have.
socratic_me
@kh: Yes. Also this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-53101071
hitchhiker
Sarandon … I think that her public statements during the 2016 campaign mattered, in the sense that she gave cover to haters and permission to wobbly voters. She said that there wasn’t much difference between HRC and Donald, for fuck’s sake.
I’ve liked some of her films, and maybe if we get past this current madness and into something resembling stability, I’ll like them again. At this point, though, I’m not interested.
As far as JKR, I’ve seen the contempt expressed here on twitter. I’ve read the articles posted upthread, including the one she wrote. I don’t pretend to understand. I do think that the person who created the imaginary universe of HP has a working heart and a sense of justice … is it that trans people represent a big destructive blind spot for her? Is it that she’s required to repair that because she holds so much influence? I can’t hate her.
citizen dave
Hey I helped suggest this topic, then forgot and remembered it a couple times. Looking forward to reading it tomorrow!
socratic_me
@hitchhiker: It’s that she has a massive blind spot and has been utterly resistant to reconsidering it. She also cis-splains transitioning and speaks on behalf of the lesbian community (as a straight woman) in a letter where she is defensively trying to explain away criticism. And she just KEEPS doubling down and allying herself with the worst actors, with real negative consequences.
Oh, and a non-trivial number of people were already irritated with the fact that her non-white characters are often caricatures and her “Dumbledore was always gay” stuff felt like queer baiting. So a decent number of younger people were already meh and then she went all in multiple times on transphobic shittiness. I highly recommend the Andrew James Carter thread linked in the Glamour article to understand why her letter was actually a big huge issue on its own.
Citizen Alan
@Delk: For the better part of 30 years, I had a personal tradition of watching “Rocky Horror” every year around Halloween. And now, I can’t watch the original film version with wanting to scream obscenities at Sarandon every time Janet is on the screen. Luckily, I acquired a copy of the BBC 40th Anniversary live broadcast. No, if someone would just to a remake of Bull Durham, I can pretend the vapid twit doesn’t exist.
hitchhiker
@socratic_me:
Well then, we’re talking about a person who has arguably done not just well but good, but who has a blind spot that prevents her from seeing the harm her position creates.
Repeating myself, the evidence from HP-world is that she is a person with heart and a sense of justice. A careless, cynical, destructive woman is not the author of those books, which taught a whole generation of children to consider questions of fairness and kindness, loss and redemption.
I’m not saying she gets a pass. I am saying that she’s not evil. The vitriol that comes her way feels quite mad to me, which I guess must mean that I’m unable to see the depth of the harm her stubborn ignorance is causing. I mean, you’re saying that a bathroom bill has gotten support because of her, but that it hasn’t passed.
Something feels out of proportion.
Citizen Alan
@Vickie Leonard:
One thing that seriously bugs me about all the Whedon hate atm is that I have yet to hear a clear description of what he is alleged to have done beyond be a jerk boss of the type that probably 75% or more of the American people have had to put up with at some point, but because we’re not beautiful celebrities, no one cares about our plight. And yet, articles about him routinely talk vaguely about how “abusive” he was to someone and then immediately reference #MeToo even though I’m not aware of any accusations of him sexually harassing actresses or forcing himself upon him. I read one such article just last week that talked (vaguely) about his conduct and in the next sentence, referenced Louis CK who basically forced women to watch him masturbate. Honestly, I am actually starting to wonder to what extent this Whedon-hate is influenced by Zach Snyder cultists who want to tear down Whedon in preparation for the Rapture that is sure to accompany the release of the Snyder Justice League cut.
Angie
@hitchhiker:
I’m not sure how long it has been since you’ve read Harry Potter, but it might not be a bad idea for you to read it again and keep an eye out for certain things when it comes to stereotyping and unfortunate implications. One of the hard to miss ones is what she does with werewolves as a whole after setting up certain parallels with Lupin specifically.
She caught flak for some of it back in the day, but the JKR publicity machine was able to handle it and she didn’t have a Twitter account with which to dig herself in deeper.
With that said, the books and movies are here and they aren’t going away. We’re allowed to like media by flawed people and media that has flaws. We’re also allowed to ignore flawed creators who insist on doubling down on their bigotry whenever they get an opportunity.
lee
@Citizen Alan:
I was similar until I stumbled across an article that outlined what he did.
I’m going from memory so I might miss some of the details.
Joss would ‘mentor’ young actresses in Hollywood and even give them a place to stay. He would have sex with those actresses (he was married at the time).
Those he couldn’t sleep with (or no longer sleep with) he would be abusive towards.
He claimed multiple times to his wife that ‘all these young actresses want to sleep with me’ that he never did.
His wife found out he was sleeping around and divorced him (there might have been claims of domestic abuse).
lee
@Emma from FL:
I’m of a similar opinion. I do get disappointed when I find out some artist is a loathsome person but that usually* doesn’t prevent me from enjoying their work.
*the exception to that is Bill Cosby. I can no longer enjoy his comedy. Maybe because it is such a personal form of art.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@NotMax:
If I’d seen that, I probably would have posted something like:
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Emma from FL:
I don’t know that we always do it as a matter of punishment or passing judgement. Sometimes it’s a matter of simple revulsion.
I mean, I can’t watch a Polanski film without thinking of him raping a 13 year old girl, or watch a Woody Allen film without thinking, “That guy married his daughter’s sister. Ewww.”
Uncle Omar
@Brachiator: As Malcolm X (as he is popularly known) said, “The Deep South starts at the Canadian Border.” I’ve often thought that it should be amended to say “The Deep South starts at the Arctic Circle (or Point Barrow, or the ANWR, or wherever.)”
PaulB
@sab: “Quotes out of context are not context.”
There are none so blind as those who will not see. There was context provided in the linked article. That you chose to pretend otherwise says much about you, none of it good.
BellyCat
@Baud: You made me fucking lol. (…and now I can’t even pretend to be a pseudo-intellectual by viewing his “oeuvre”, such as it is, due to the creep factor)
wuzzat
That’s a lot of it. Also, certain things just… play differently once you know too much about what an actor/creator has been up to. I can’t imagine watching Mother, Jugs & Speed again, knowing what we all know about Bill Cosby now.
Similarly, it’s hard not to notice now that HP holds a fairly narrow definition of the “correct” way to look and act feminine, and those who fall outside it tend to be some combination of deceptive and wicked.
Ascap_scab
Future topic for Medium Cool:
If you could destroy all copies of any film so that it would never again be seen by anybody, what would it be and why?
ROAD HOUSE.
For whatever reason, this is a favorite of cable TV programmers. Not only is the plot absurd, the acting is horrific, the villains are cartoonish, and the dialog is awful. If the Oscar’s ever had an award for ” Worst performer in a major motion picture”, Ben Gazarra is a sure nominee. This film is a true waste of Sam Elliot’s talent. May this movie forever burn in hell.
Runners up:
OFFICE SPACE
DEEP IMPACT
MONTY PYTHON and the HOLY GRAIL
GHOSTBUSTERS (the remake)
A CHRISTMAS STORY