It’s something I struggle with. Some bad news comes out about some public persona doing something shitty and they get cancelled. But sometimes I really struggle with giving up the things they’ve made because I like them. There are also occasions where the person has been accused of something and it doesn’t seem true to me, or I think they’re genuinely sorry and have been punished enough, and the context isn’t being considered.
What do you think? Who do you feel conflicted about enjoying?
It’s a struggle sometimes, but I think it’s the only real control we have.
It’s a case by case basis for me. Some actor being in a movie I like isn’t a big deal to me, but when someone has like huge creative control over something it’s like a visceral repulsion to me. I don’t want to take a piece of media into my experience with the subtext that the author touches kids or something. It’s not even just that I know these people do bad things, it’s that personal views shape how people make stories etc, and I’m not fond of putting that into my psyche. If they do some fucked up shit in the book, I want to be able to know it’s because this character is evil, not because the author is saying this is a normal healthy thing to do.
RHCP sucks because I think it’s pretty good music, and I was really into them when I was a teen, but given everything I know about them now it makes it impossible to enjoy their stuff now.
Dave Chapelle.
He’s still a comedian, but he’s digging into philosophy a lot more recently. He’s doing it in a way that’s pretty uncomfortable. A lot of the shit he’s said in the past few years is pretty reprehensible. I think he’s ok with making people uncomfortable now.
He made me laugh a LOT about 20-25 years ago. I thank him for those laughs.
I still watch his new stuff when it comes out. In his new special he addressed his reasoning for performing in Saudi Arabia along with some other pretty gross shit he does and has done.
I think he’s kinda a dick now, but in some ways I also respect his willingness to discuss his unpopular perspectives. I don’t think he comes from a place of hatred; but sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Kevin Spacey. ‘K-Pax’ and ‘Swimming With Sharks’ were so good.
still mad about house of cards. I’m more pissed at him than anything though.
Ricky Gervais and Norm MacDonald engage/ed in transbaiting. Which is not cool, okay, or acceptable. But they are geniuses I can’t turn my back on.
Norm will always be a comedy genius to me, but Gervais, as much as I’ve enjoyed his stand-up in the past, has become a self-satisfied insufferable dickhead imo.
He was instrumental in the creation of “The Office” which is the most watched show in our household, but if he’s a transphobic POS then he deserves no respect.
That’s fine.
Al Franken
was a coordinated hit job. What he did was immature but in no way sexual assault, but they knew that releasing it at the height of the Me Too movement would cause the purity-obsessed left to chase him out of office.
Pogo. his music is so fucking good, but the guy is a homophobic piece of shit.
Oh no! I didn’t know that about Pogo ☹️. Fuck.
https://mashable.com/article/pogo-homophobic-comments-youtube
it sucks. Love his music so much.
It always gets me that Matthew Broderick killed two people in a car crash and got off with a $100 fine. I love Ferris Bueller’s day off, and I think he’s really talented, but like this happened just after that movie, and he just did not seem to be held to account for it.
I still like Harry Potter. And Disney’s Fillmore (lead actor was later arrested for domestic violence)
The weird thing is that Kanye’s continual digging through the bedrock has made his art that much more poignant to me. Man went and made himself a Greek tragedy. “Run Away” indeed.
I had an argument with my nephew about Ye being a piece of shit. The next day he played me some of his amazing music.
I wonder if you know what you mean when you talk about people being canceled. Looking at all of the answers, I see all of these people who have done things that raised some public pressure against them and yet many of them are still active in public life. So they didn’t get canceled?
Seriously, can you give me a list of people who actually got canceled, where they had to abandon their entire career and never got it back? And who weren’t close to retirement age at the time? Of course, let’s exclude the people who got locked up in prison because that’s about being convicted of a crime, not about social justice.
This is going to get buried, but I miss Bill Cosby, or rather my mental model of him before all that nastiness came out.
His early stand-up was what ignited my love of the format. “Himself” is a masterclass. Such a shame.
Tell him I said suck MY dick
The Cosby Show is still a good classic show with a lot of humor and heart. It is tainted now though. Really creepy in retrospect that Cosby plays a doctor with exclusively female patients he sees in the basement
this was my answer was well. i haven’t seen it in a while but his “himself” special was my favorite stand up ever
Understood. The TV show was totally hilarious.
Garrison Keillor
Tarantino.
I just know the guy’s a dickhole.
how the fuck did that guy get canceled actually don’t tell me I don’t want to know
Quinten exists in this weird state of permanent precancel. He does wild shit like openly writing a pro slavery character in a film with a black actor in mind and casting women specifically to see/interact with their feet. Yet he somehow keeps going socially.
Considering how easily people in any position of power get corrupted into abusing that power, I have zero trouble believing that there were black people enjoying their position of an overseer of other black slaves.
He does wild shit like openly writing a pro slavery character in a film with a black actor
That’s a real thing that exist and was observed long before Tarantino.
https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/mxp/speeches/mxt17.html
And considering what goes on in Hollywood, Tarantino’s feet thing is probably one of the more boring things going on. Be glad they’ll all adults who know how to say no, unlike that Nickelodeon guy.
he’s perfectly fine. his art is fine. 0% cancelled
Vektor released three progressively more amazing albums of prog thrash before their label dropped them after domestic abuse allegations against the frontman.
Infiltration was an amazing Street Fighter pro who was sometimes completely unstoppable and really fun to watch. At least until he also faced domestic abuse allegations. He got banned from some competitions, his sponsor dropped him, and he nearly completely disappeared. The situation also anecdotally sounds like it’s not just a case of “oh he beat his wife” and possibly was in a mutually abusive relationship. But a judge convicted him based on “a wrist injury and bruises” and that was basically the end of his career.
After being burned by a dozen creators, I find it safer for my own emotional well-being to just assume all things beautiful and evocative are made by someone who is secretly a terrible person.
Saves me from the disappointment of finding out later.
I’m constantly surprised when it turns out someone famous isn’t getting up to some bad shit.
My baseline is that everyone’s human, and we come in an rainbow of dispositions. Humans who create valuable cultural assets or are in the public eye are still just human. Never idolize anyone.
