Comedians and satirists are so good at underlining the ridiculous hypocrisy of nitwits. This kind of move is probably my favourite way to deal with people. It’s nonviolent and uses their own mass against them.
Hand-wringing about political correctness has existed for many years now (with the "anti-correctness" people trouting out the same sort of stories that fall apart under any scrutiny, and major publications running the stories anyways).
Not exactly a tale as old as time, but it's at least a live thing in the early 90s.
That surprises me because she’s been getting banned from various shows and venues for most of her career. Shock value has always been her shtick. It’s weird how that one was the one that was “too far” even for her. (Maybe she was contacted by a three letter agency about it?)
That’s not quite it. He was a very successful comedian and a big name in the industry. Imagine a titan of industry in your field asking you the same thing - you might go along with it out of fear that you’d face repercussions in your career if you said no. Sure it’s not assault, but it’s still coercive and unsettling.
Conversely, going to a social kink meetup and asking people to watch you masturbate would be totally fine. That’s a different situation - there’s no career dynamic involved.
To be clear, he did that and then had his manager blacklist the two women who spoke up about it. It’s not just the act, it’s the cover up that makes it particularly heinous.
It’s also, ironically, a better description of “cancellation” than what happened to him afterwards. He tried to use his power to silence victims and destroy their careers.
That's not the issue. For those of us who aren't interested in judging him for this transgression, he's still a good comic that is quite entertaining, and we'd like to see him perform.
The issue with cancel culture isn't that people can't decide to not patronize a comic. That's always their right. You can choose to not watch a comedy special because of any reason that is important to you. Just understand others may decide differently, and they also deserve to have the choice of who to watch.
There is a difference between choosing not to watch a comedy special, and getting so outraged that you need to prevent others from watching the same special.
So I'm not defending "cancel culture" or whatever that is.
Louis did not say things that were considered not politically correct, he did a thing that falls under reasonable definitions of sexual assault. This is distinct - Louis does not have "bad opinions", Louis did something abhorrent. Louis didn't get "cancelled" for "wrong think" or however people want to phrase this right now, Louis got dropped from his bookings because he assaulted people.
There's a line somewhere, and there's grey areas, but, to be clear, again: Louis CK committed sexual assault. That is why he got dropped from venues, from specials, etc. - because the people who host those venues and produce those specials decided they did not want to support a man who committed sexual assault.
But I'm troubled by the idea of people just concluding that he commited sexual assault when he hasn't even been charged with that, there was no fact-finding process at all, and people are basically inventing their own legal definitions and deciding what someone is guilty of based on public accusations.
We have courts and investigators to make these determinations for the public at large, where people are put under oath, facts are gathered according to rules evidence, there is cross-examination and testimony from all sides, etc. You know, all that rule-of-law stuff so that people are not condemned or punished unjustly.
What I am not in favor of is trial by internet where people who are either not impartial or do not have access to all the evidence, decide to mete out punishment on their own. Of course such people can decide for themselves what happened and then choose not to patronize whomever they want, but those are personal opinions and don't carry a high truth value, nor should they be used to try to deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience and continue making a living.
I understand the argument, and I broadly agree. I’d add three things - first is to generally point out how difficult it is to actually prosecute a case like this; the second is to suggest that there’s a wide range of behavior that isn’t strictly illegal but which I think we as society are broadly within our rights to have opinions about (Martin Shkreli jacking up the prices of drugs he’s purchased the rights to, for instance); and the third is that Louis admitted to the allegations.
Yes, I agree with your first two points. But it's important to point out that just because something is hard to prove does not mean that we should presume guilt.
> and the third is that Louis admitted to the allegations.
Did he? AFAICT he did not admit to anything that would rise to the level of sexual assault. If he did, and there was a confession to that effect, he certainly would have been prosecuted as that would be an easy case. Also a high profile case that would put a feather in the cap of any prosecutor.
For example, there was no admission of forcing anyone to do anything, and without that, you are not going to get to sexual assault. In fact, no one was locked in a room, unable to leave. No one was held down or threatened with bad repercussions if they left -- at least that is not something he admitted to. He also said ahead of time, "I am going to do X". And still no one left. Perhaps they felt more awkward leaving than staying, but again that doesn't get you to sexual assault.
This goes to your second point - what he did (that is known) wasn't actually illegal. It was antisocial.
Now the question is, do we want to avoid antisocial comics? I mean, maybe. Some do, some don't. But my position is that we shouldn't try to intervene and prevent the comic from being able to find their audience. Let each person make up their mind about that, instead of forming coordinated pressure groups that lobby to deplatform those they deem antisocial.
This is always the problem with anti-"cancel culture" arguments. They end up being vague and actually arguments against free speech, ironically. You cannot square the need to stop "cancel culture" and free speech; they are incompatible.
> But I'm troubled by the idea of people just concluding that he commited sexual assault when he hasn't even been charged with that, there was no fact-finding process at all, and people are basically inventing their own legal definitions and deciding what someone is guilty of based on public accusations.
Are you saying that we can't discuss and come to our own conclusions until a criminal trial has completed? Because that is just not workable. People will always talk, that's part of free speech. If you're upset that they came to a conclusion that you don't agree with, that is also free speech.
> We have courts and investigators to make these determinations for the public at large, where people are put under oath, facts are gathered according to rules evidence, there is cross-examination and testimony from all sides, etc. You know, all that rule-of-law stuff so that people are not condemned or punished unjustly.
Yes, and all of these are very important when the state is going to punish someone. To hold this up as a bar before we can discuss something is an anti-free speech position for you to take. The only way to restrict discussion to those things that the state has done fact finding on would be to massively curtail the right of the public to discuss basically anything anywhere close to a possible crime. This is obviously incompatible with the first amendment, and also probably completely unworkable in practice too.
Also, I find it really quite distasteful how you're drawing a direct parallel between people tweeting mean things or not going to his shows to the state locking someone in a concrete cell for years. They are very different things.
> Of course such people can decide for themselves what happened and then choose not to patronize whomever they want,
Right, but you just spent the past two paragraphs talking about how we should wait for the courts, and how those who aren't impartial shouldn't hold a "trial" for him. These two things are mutually incompatible, you must pick one and not both.
> nor should they be used to try to deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience and continue making a living.
How exactly did they "deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience"? Be specific. Because I don't think you actually know.
Louis has legal options if his rights were actually violated. If the accusations were lies, he could sue for defamation. If someone encouraged a venue to illegally break his contract he could sue the venue for breach and the other party for tortious interference. Bet he has not done either of these things, nor have you alleged any facts consistent with either case.
Rather you've hand waved around the idea that choosing to not see him and whining on Twitter is somehow an interference with his rights. The implication is that something must be done to stop the mean tweets and force venues to continue booking him against their will. This is a pretty direct and weak argument against free speech and free association, which is sadly consistent with what I've seen out of the anti-"cancel culture" crowd.
> ironically. You cannot square the need to stop "cancel culture" and free speech; they are incompatible.
Absolutely not, opposing and trying to overcome cancel culture does not violate anyone's free speech. No one is being muzzled and told they cannot speak. Cancel culture simply being opposed as with any other political discussion does not violate anyone's freedom of speech.
Which is why I say it can also be vague. “Oppose and overcome cancel culture”, well what precisely are you suggesting? How do you recommend that “cancel culture” be opposed? I presume you’re making a recommendation beyond expressing a general resistance to it, right?
For me, the reason it's vague, is because everyone's opposition will come in different forms. Some will engage on forums like this, others will donate time and/or money to organizations that promote free speech, etc. For the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter, as long as folks opposing cancel culture don't fall into the same oppressive and regressive tactics that cancel culture (i.e. trying to intimidate and forcibly silence others).
So you’re going to side step towards “organizations that promote free speech”. And what, exactly, do those organizations recommend? What policies or actions do they support or take themselves?
After all, you’re saying you oppose “cancel culture”, surely that opposition has to take some form somewhere, right?
> After all, you’re saying you oppose “cancel culture”, surely that opposition has to take some form somewhere, right?
Presumably, those groups mainly would try to increase awareness and support free speech (get in the news, post articles like on this site, encourage activism like what John Cleese did, etc.), while others might lobby the government to oppose/support laws around freedom of speech. As I originally stated, this is all entirely self-consistent, as long as everyone is free to speak.
And that’s where my alarm bells started to go off. I have never heard an anti-“cancel culture” bill that doesn’t end up being authoritarian and anti-free speech gobbley gook. After all, the only solutions here are to restrain the free speech of the “mob”, or to restrict the free association rights of businesses and other people.
It’s always very poorly thought out, unconstitutional junk that’s at best thrown out to sate the culture war crowd with the desperate hope that the courts will strike it down before we’re stuck with the actual consequences. At worst, it’s actually an authoritarian push by cynical politicians who hope to use it as a cudgel to beat their opponents with the power of the state.
> You cannot square the need to stop "cancel culture" and free speech; they are incompatible.
They're perfectly compatible. I'm perfectly fine with angry mobs screaming "FIRE THAT GUY AND NOBODY EVER HIRE HIM AGAIN!!" or things like it all they want. I just don't want anyone to obey said angry mobs.
Ah, so a vague and non actionable request that people not listen to the “mobs”. I’ll grant that that’s compatible with free speech, but it’s also not exactly an actionable suggestion.
As an aside, I really hate it when people call twitter “angry mobs”. It trivializes the actual horror of what an actual angry mob can do.
He’s a pretty good example of how cancel culture as it’s commonly presented does not exist. He didn’t tell edgy jokes that ran afoul of the “mob”, he masturbated in front of people without consent and ruined the careers of comedians who didn’t play along with him. That’s really fucking gross, and is damn close to the legal line. If anyone deserves cancellation, excluding those charged with crimes like Crosby, it would be Louis. And yet there he is, still getting sets at Hollywood standup clubs.
To think that 'he does some shows' means he's not 'cancelled' would be to miss the point.
Whether he deserved to be cancelled or not is another question - but he had is shows cancelled, TV show bookings, roles, future roles, any mention in pop culture outside of his cancellation etc..
When you make a career out of appearing 5 times a year on nightly talk shows, daytime TV, the occasional SNL, TV role - and then all of that 'goes away' - then that's what we call 'cancelled'.
Louis CK was a tricky one because he did something questionable, that said, the details are also kind of odd and there's nuance to it.
There is something genuinely farcical talking about how Louis CK was “cancelled” when he’s on a nation wide tour right now. If we accept that “booking fewer national specials” is “cancelled”, then we also admit that the term is watered down to meaninglessness.
Louis CK went from being B/C list celebrity, TV/Comedy Start, Netflix Specials, massive sold out tours promoted on national and international media ...
... to being shunned by the entire media establishment, no TV deals, no appearances, and doing many fewer shows with a tiny fraction of the audience.
If he were not cancelled, his Netflix appearances alone would be worth $25-75 Million, just in the last few years, probably the bulk of his earnings.
His income dropped by 100% for several years, and is now probably less than 10% of what it was.
"he term is watered down to meaninglessness."
His career and personal identity were totally dismantled.
His brand value is nil and future income prospects are a tiny fraction of what they were.
What kind of person would see this as a 'meaningless' distinction?
Honestly the question comes down to how frothy people have to be to not understand the obvious materiality of the situation.
He’s still selling out tours! He still has a career! The people whining about “cancel culture” talk about how the cancelled lose any ability to work and make money. He has lost some opportunities yes, but it’s not like he’s now begging in the streets.
Furthermore, he wasn’t “cancelled” for saying something distasteful or forbidden, people stopped liking him because he was credibly accused of sexual assault. The proper word for that is “scandal”.
That’s my perception. He’s an insanely successful comedian and could probably get a gig anywhere he wants besides debate clubs on college campuses. But he’s decided to become a Twitter crusader instead. It comes off as whiny because to the average observer it seems blown out of proportion.
I’m hardly ever on Twitter so I only see things on a case by case basis. Whether I agree with them or not is a moot point. It’s just a behavioral pattern I noticed here.
So to summarize, you are on Twitter enough to know that John Cleese is a Twitter crusader, but you are hardly ever on Twitter so you couldn't know whether someone whose views you agree with is a Twitter crusader.
Calm down, Phoenix Wright. I read the article that OP posted. That shows a huge Twitter thread of John Cleese complaining about things. I’ve read other news articles about other times he was on Twitter complaining about things.
I suppose it depends on what you define as 'cancelled' but we can define it as something like "a dramatic reduction in demand to the point where it's extremely difficult to find work in that industry". The answer is probably yes. As for the names, the other comments mentioned some good ones.
I think most of them still have careers. Even Chris D’Elia is back performing despite literally admitting to sexual misconduct allegations, and jokes about “being canceled”.
Aside from literal prison terms (Bill Cosby) I can’t think of anything that actually truly cancels comedians.
The ones who complain the loudest seem to be getting bigger and better work, so I’m honestly not sure what their complaints are founded on: but I might be missing something, of course.
The better question I think is, how many unknown comedians are afraid to say what they think because their career wouldn't hold up the way Dave Chapelle's did?
Guess it depends what you mean by "cancelled". There are accusations of misconduct which caused specials and projects to be temporarily or permanently halted (Louis CK/the TV show Louie, Roseanne Barr, TJ Miller, Chris Hardwick), there are attempts to censor or delete (Dave Chapelle, Joe Rogan), and outright disappearance from the comedy scene (Bill Cosby). Each accusation has its merits and detractors, but there is no doubt that everyone above has had their comedy output affected by (usually) unrelated aspects of their personal life being called to question.
Are you saying Cosby’s serial drugging and raping habit was unrelated to his career? I know you’re not defending him, but that’s still a crazy take in my mind. His career and popularity helped put him in the position to be able to do that, and to get away with it for so long.
That's why I threw the qualifiers like "usually" in there. I doubt Cosby would have much of an audience or desire to tour even if none of that occurred.
It seems like it ought to be called "cancellation" only when a relatively small number of people cause the artist/speaker to go silent. If the vast majority of their audience vanishes, then nobody in particular has done anything to them.
But it might be hard to distinguish those two cases -- a few clubs/publishers/etc. might refuse to book you, and that could cause your audience to dry up.
Michael Richards (of Kramer fame from Seinfeld) has been pretty silent since his whole racial slur fiasco.
People think cancel culture is a new thing. Before there was a politicized term for it, specific incidents were just called “scandals.”
It seems like a truly case by case basis as to whether it sticks or not.
EDIT to add: the cultural Right has been attempting, with mixed success, to “cancel” people for decades. McCarthyism, the Satanic Panic, and ruining the careers of country singers who criticize Republicans all come to mind. None of this is new and none of it is unique to the modern cultural Left. It’s just different cultural criteria and different targets.
If by "successfully cancelled" you mean "disappeared" or "eradicated" the answer is no. If you mean "lost gigs", "no longer welcome in certain locations", "lost income" or "forced to find another line of business" the answer is very much "yes". So-called "cancel culture" - another term would be weaponised political correctness - has had a deleterious effect on comedy by laying minefields around many areas which used to be available for comedians. Step on a mine and "boom", the mob comes out in force. While big names - Chapelle, Cleese, Rogan - have enough clout to survive this is not true for up-and-coming or beginning comedians. They can no longer expect to have the same freedom the court jesters of old had, they are no longer free to point out the king is indeed not wearing any clothes. In short, they are no longer free to sharpen their skills without being shouted down - not for bad comedy but for violating some shifting narrative. The net effect will be a dearth of comedians and comedy, a void which will be filled by "comedians" who follow the narrative and as such are anything but funny.
? Roseann Bar, TJ Miler, Louis CK, Kathy Griffin, Kevin Hart was cancelled from the Oscars although his career will probably be fine.
Probably only a single Comedian in the entire world, Dave Chapelle, would have walked the line he did and gotten away with it. The backlash against his Netflix special would have probably tilted against any lesser person, and that would have been it for their careers.
No regular comedian could conceivably try to do that without enormous risk, and that's the point here.
I don't think that comedy is a particularly bad place for cancellation, it's the rest of entertainment and pop culture.
Has any comedian been successfully been persecuted by the Romans and crucified, or were Cleese and co. just fishing for something to whine about when they filmed Life of Brian?
Oh no! Cleese chose to make social commentary about cancel culture, without passing the script through the approval bureau of kevinh.
I’m surprised anyone from
Britain is willing to have any honor whatsoever for their disgusting nation. Hundreds of years of colonialism, disgusting and immoral rape and murder of indigenous people from numerous islands, plus India? The entire UK should be ashamed for their entirety brutal, racist, and disgusting past. The fact any of their leaders can show their face in public is absurd.
It seems odd to complain about cancel culture and then make a stunt out of self-censorship. You achieve the same result as the vocal minority who would want to ban you, but now you can claim it was your own doing, so… success?
It’s hard to imagine being in that situation, but I think the better move would be to show up anyway and call their bluff.
If you’re comparing Cleese not attending a talk to protest people not liking his jokes, to a monk self-immolating to protest genocide, then maybe you need to reset your perspective a bit.
Cleese was acting in solidarity with someone who did something (at least apparently) similar to what he has done in the past but was actually cancelled for it (because a lot of people here don't seem to think it happens).
By not appearing, he's made international headlines, which is the point. If he were to have appeared, probably nothing would have happened.
As a result, the student's union has changed their tune a bit, so at least he's had some impact.
The broader point Cleese is making is that he's been poking people in the eye for generations, but now there's a 'new establishment' keen to try to deride him and his peers and that he's taking the same position now, as he would have 30 years ago.
There's a famous debate between him and a very conservative intellectual regarding the 'Life of Brian' and it's religious implications, I'm looking forward to that debate in 2020.
The term 'woke' is a bit needlessly incendiary, but it's fully within his perogative.
Blacklisting himself is a silly and comic thing to do that has now drawn huge attention to the controversy. Depriving The Cambridge Union of his appearance is a much bigger penalty for them than it is for him. He is also suggesting people who agree with his opposition to cancel culture could set up an alternate venue where as he says, woke rules would not apply.
There’s few things more pathetic than a comedian whining about how audiences are too sensitive now. Your literal job is to read the audience and the culture you live in. If you can’t make audiences laugh anymore then you’re not “canceling” yourself, you’re retiring.
The whole situation is just pathetic, not funny. He’s storming off in a huff because he maybe can’t do one joke from half a century ago? Like, if the joke doesn’t land anymore, write new ones? Cancelling your entire appearance because you maybe can’t do one bit that most of your audience doesn’t even remember and doesn’t know you planned to do is more than a bit self absorbed.
At this point I find comedians whining about cancel culture to be as unique and insightful as a new bit about airline food. It’s usually not funny, it’s been done, and it is far too self indulgent to be healthy. Half of the time these “canceled” comedians make these jokes from their massive platforms, making the entire situation farcical.
But it seems like Cleese has stooped down so low as to do entire specials about cancel culture, a disappointing descent into culture war bullshit for a comedian I genuinely like. I suspect that this entire event was nothing more than a PR stunt for his “cancel me” series, which has increased my eye rolling.
Oh wow thanks “Summit News.” I assume a totally unbiased perspective from partners with InfoWars with categories such as “globalism” and “clownworld.” Get real.
You know there is a "hide" button that removes posts you dont want to see. You dont have to wait to be "thankful" that somebody reported content you dont like in order to be protected from it.
It’s not about an individual experience, it’s about the general quality of HN being polluted by clickbait. More clickbait makes more targets for trolls. If trolls find lots of fodder they’ll spend more time here. Etc etc.
Strong moderation is the key to keeping up the quality of discussions around here. I’m also glad this post got flagged.
I don’t know how deep people’s memory goes, but when I talk to older generations about this stuff, they tell me all these stories about how kids at college in the 1960s were competing to be the wokest kid on the block. That’s not to say all kids at college were doing it then, and the word “woke” didn’t mean then what it means now, but the behavior of kids at college in the 1960s would not seem out of place in more recent decades, from the stories I heard.
Colleges were hotbeds of posturing and hypocrisy then as they are now. College kids are typically in the most radical years of their life, when they have the most freedom and desire to redefine who they are. They largely don’t have any money or accomplishments, so the big way up the social ladder is posturing and value signaling. If you’re more spiritual, more woke, more radical, then you get attention from your peers.
I don’t know what else to say, except people should spend more time hanging out across age groups, and people in college will eventually burn out of it. More people should take gap years, it lets it really sink in the reason why you’re in college in the first place, and it gives you more of a sense of how worthless posturing can be.
For these reasons and others, the college circuit is a real beast.
I feel colleges today are at an extreme beyond those in the past. For example consider that UC Berkeley once had a movement to uphold free speech (https://www.dailycal.org/2020/01/26/free-speech-movement-caf...). Today supporting free speech would have you labeled as a far right fringe reactionary, and it’s not a position students can take freely. And of course there have been numerous events that were cancelled or disrupted by rioting mobs of students that do not want their adversaries to be heard. At a very fundamental level, colleges today are illiberal compared to the decades past.
Nah, they were pretty crazy in the 1960s and 1970s too. Some students went as far as promising to take up NVA arms in protest of the Vietnam war, an obvious farce.
These things come and go in waves, and people have short memories.
Great points. I mentioned this in another comment but it’s worth adding that the Right does this too. Like adults in the 70’s and 80’s trying to cancel heavy metal bands and get dungeons and dragons banned because it was “satanic” and would corrupt the youth. Ridiculous stuff, but similar behavior from a different political faction.
Yup! And some of the other things involved actual state action, which is obviously way more problematic than people whining on twitter.
Honestly, I’d go further. First, college students are and have always been extreme. Getting too riled up about it is frankly blasé. Second, contrary to the pearl clutching we live in a golden age of free speech. You can say all kinds of shit online now that would’ve gotten you literally lynched a few decades ago in some places. On the right and the left there has been an absolute flourishing of the kind of speech that “respectable” society chilled out even during my childhood, the idea that free speech is in trouble is utterly unfounded. Never mind how much easier it is to speak your mind anonymously, something that was reserved only to the kind of people who could get op-eds in the past.
What I think is actually happening here is that the kind of cultural and economic elites used to speaking at the people are suddenly finding them speaking with the people, and they’re not enjoying finding out what the people really think. In fact the only threat to free speech I can see is the very people whining about the “woke mob”, who are trying to connect online criticism with actual violence.
Students at UC Berkeley have been accusing people of being far-right reactionaries for longer than I’ve been alive. They’ve always been seen as extremist. Maybe it’s just the student protests in the 1960s succeeded in completely changing the political landscape.
But the idea that 1960s UC Berkeley was not “extreme” is ahistorical. Hell, UC Berkeley protests have their own Wikipedia page, just for the 1960s:
I think a non trivial percentage of this is some people refusing to admit that they’re now the very adults that they once pilloried and hated. It can’t possibly be just that they’re now the adults rolling their eyes at the annoying college students they once were, no the children must be wrong (insert Simpsons meme here).
that's such an odd story; at the time, I attended UCSC (not far from UC Berkeley) and public nudity was a regular feature and totally accepted in classes (my RA spent the entire day nude, including cafeteria, class, and studying on the quad, and nobody batted an eye). We also had co-ed bathrooms and pot smoking was not disallowed (amusingly, the leadership went out of its way to reduce drinking, but not smoking, based on the history of abuse they had seen).
We had the co-ed dorms, which seemed to work out. If you were too offensive, you were Spoken To.
I had friends who were members of fraternities or sororities, and they were far more strict on a daily basis. That structure also seemed to work for people who were more accustomed to family as a public persona. The scope of their mistakes were perhaps more broad.
And then... there were the co-operatives. The communes. More rules and work duty, usually better living conditions than the dorms.
Finally, perhaps, there were the Streets, which at the time were very densely packed with people in urgent need of psychiatric care. De-fund the hospitals! 1980s.
For all that, nudity was a real stretch. It was rough, and it was weird.
Differences are 1) the students didn't run the institutions, with the ability to thwart rhetoric made in good faith, have professors punted etc. and, 2) protesting against Black people having to use the 'back entrance of the theatre' in the 1950's is altogether different than many of the tactics used today related to not allowing discussion about issues with which some might disagree.
I'm glad 1960's students made progress, especially with respect to difficult issues like apartheid.
I'm equally glad (and I'll bet most share the same view) that students might want a more objective look at, for example, the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The issue is the authoritarianism of the context, and the cancellation/derision of those who don't share the same view, and other ridiculous postmodernisms, such as literally removing photos of previous graduates (i.e. mostly white men) because it's offensive to the sensibilities of those who think it contravenes a positive learning experience. [1]
Cleese is exactly right. Very few are concerned with the 'good faith' arguments of any group. It's the intolerance displayed by some camps that is the problem, not their arguments.
> protesting against Black people having to use the 'back entrance of the theatre' in the 1950's is altogether different than many of the tactics used today related to not allowing discussion about issues with which some might disagree.
That’s some kind of ahistorical, mythologized idea of what the UC Berkeley protests were like. They may have started out with good intentions, but they turned into parties, and the parties turned into riots. It was civil rights protests, LSD, mace, riots, free love, and firebombings.
You can’t just pick out the civil rights part of it, the part you like, and pretend the other parts didn’t exist.
Also, some of it turned into legitimate terrorism campaigns, such as the weather underground.
Taking a step back and looking at the typical behavior of college age radicals, this current cohort is pretty mild. Any attempt to mark them as uniquely strident and aggressive is pretty ahistorical. Call me when they start building and mounting barricades.
Honestly I would have much, much more respect for somebody advocating for gay rights (even to extremes) back then than today. Back then there was real issues for gays, including legal discrimination. Today there is only social discrimination and that is at a much lower level.
Basically back then it seemed not only sincere but useful. Even if you were only doing it to show of, you were doing some good and risked some social cost. If you do it today you do no good and do not risk anything.
Everyone complaining about “woke” culture misses the fact that it’s basically driven by teenagers. The only reason it has any effect at all is because teenagers are one of the most valuable advertising demographics.
You're hitting upon something here. Woke culture is intolerant precisely because it's made of immature young people, who take in certain concepts and world views, strip them of all nuance and context and simplify them into set of hard rules to be imposed on everyone everywhere.
That and plus everything in woke culture that touches on sex reeks of juvenile prudishness.
Right; the culture wars are less “the culture wars” and more “don’t offend the kids”. You can make a choice to offend them, but then you’re not worth as much as an entertainer. I’m not sure many 13 year olds in 2021 even know what Monty Python is.
Most 13 year olds don’t know about Monty python not because they’re too sensitive, but because it’s over half a century old and they’re 13. Lots of them are unaware of the beetles too, it’s just a time moving on thing.
Totally agree! I was mostly saying John Cleese doesn’t have much to worry about being cancelled because the audience that would cancel him doesn’t know he exists.
How I would articulate it is that an artist worth their beans doesn't care whether or not their work offends thirteen-year-olds, no matter if they have a slight preference that it does, or that it not.
The site is banned on HN, like most primarily political sites. Some users vouched for this particular submission. Other users flagged it. That's not particularly unusual.
OP chose an unflattering photo of Cleese - is there an agenda here? The worst thing I've heard is the wag on twitter who said it's the funniest thing he's done in 30 years!
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 1967 ms ] threadNot exactly a tale as old as time, but it's at least a live thing in the early 90s.
But he was cancelled.
Sometimes cancelled shows get renewed. Or they make money in syndication, etc.
But it’s certainly not meaningless.
He didn’t assault anyone. He’s just a pervert.
Conversely, going to a social kink meetup and asking people to watch you masturbate would be totally fine. That’s a different situation - there’s no career dynamic involved.
Definitely "cancelled" :eyeroll:
The issue with cancel culture isn't that people can't decide to not patronize a comic. That's always their right. You can choose to not watch a comedy special because of any reason that is important to you. Just understand others may decide differently, and they also deserve to have the choice of who to watch.
There is a difference between choosing not to watch a comedy special, and getting so outraged that you need to prevent others from watching the same special.
Louis did not say things that were considered not politically correct, he did a thing that falls under reasonable definitions of sexual assault. This is distinct - Louis does not have "bad opinions", Louis did something abhorrent. Louis didn't get "cancelled" for "wrong think" or however people want to phrase this right now, Louis got dropped from his bookings because he assaulted people.
There's a line somewhere, and there's grey areas, but, to be clear, again: Louis CK committed sexual assault. That is why he got dropped from venues, from specials, etc. - because the people who host those venues and produce those specials decided they did not want to support a man who committed sexual assault.
But I'm troubled by the idea of people just concluding that he commited sexual assault when he hasn't even been charged with that, there was no fact-finding process at all, and people are basically inventing their own legal definitions and deciding what someone is guilty of based on public accusations.
We have courts and investigators to make these determinations for the public at large, where people are put under oath, facts are gathered according to rules evidence, there is cross-examination and testimony from all sides, etc. You know, all that rule-of-law stuff so that people are not condemned or punished unjustly.
What I am not in favor of is trial by internet where people who are either not impartial or do not have access to all the evidence, decide to mete out punishment on their own. Of course such people can decide for themselves what happened and then choose not to patronize whomever they want, but those are personal opinions and don't carry a high truth value, nor should they be used to try to deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience and continue making a living.
> and the third is that Louis admitted to the allegations.
Did he? AFAICT he did not admit to anything that would rise to the level of sexual assault. If he did, and there was a confession to that effect, he certainly would have been prosecuted as that would be an easy case. Also a high profile case that would put a feather in the cap of any prosecutor.
For example, there was no admission of forcing anyone to do anything, and without that, you are not going to get to sexual assault. In fact, no one was locked in a room, unable to leave. No one was held down or threatened with bad repercussions if they left -- at least that is not something he admitted to. He also said ahead of time, "I am going to do X". And still no one left. Perhaps they felt more awkward leaving than staying, but again that doesn't get you to sexual assault.
This goes to your second point - what he did (that is known) wasn't actually illegal. It was antisocial.
Now the question is, do we want to avoid antisocial comics? I mean, maybe. Some do, some don't. But my position is that we shouldn't try to intervene and prevent the comic from being able to find their audience. Let each person make up their mind about that, instead of forming coordinated pressure groups that lobby to deplatform those they deem antisocial.
> But I'm troubled by the idea of people just concluding that he commited sexual assault when he hasn't even been charged with that, there was no fact-finding process at all, and people are basically inventing their own legal definitions and deciding what someone is guilty of based on public accusations.
Are you saying that we can't discuss and come to our own conclusions until a criminal trial has completed? Because that is just not workable. People will always talk, that's part of free speech. If you're upset that they came to a conclusion that you don't agree with, that is also free speech.
> We have courts and investigators to make these determinations for the public at large, where people are put under oath, facts are gathered according to rules evidence, there is cross-examination and testimony from all sides, etc. You know, all that rule-of-law stuff so that people are not condemned or punished unjustly.
Yes, and all of these are very important when the state is going to punish someone. To hold this up as a bar before we can discuss something is an anti-free speech position for you to take. The only way to restrict discussion to those things that the state has done fact finding on would be to massively curtail the right of the public to discuss basically anything anywhere close to a possible crime. This is obviously incompatible with the first amendment, and also probably completely unworkable in practice too.
Also, I find it really quite distasteful how you're drawing a direct parallel between people tweeting mean things or not going to his shows to the state locking someone in a concrete cell for years. They are very different things.
> Of course such people can decide for themselves what happened and then choose not to patronize whomever they want,
Right, but you just spent the past two paragraphs talking about how we should wait for the courts, and how those who aren't impartial shouldn't hold a "trial" for him. These two things are mutually incompatible, you must pick one and not both.
> nor should they be used to try to deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience and continue making a living.
How exactly did they "deprive someone of the right to seek their own audience"? Be specific. Because I don't think you actually know.
Louis has legal options if his rights were actually violated. If the accusations were lies, he could sue for defamation. If someone encouraged a venue to illegally break his contract he could sue the venue for breach and the other party for tortious interference. Bet he has not done either of these things, nor have you alleged any facts consistent with either case.
Rather you've hand waved around the idea that choosing to not see him and whining on Twitter is somehow an interference with his rights. The implication is that something must be done to stop the mean tweets and force venues to continue booking him against their will. This is a pretty direct and weak argument against free speech and free association, which is sadly consistent with what I've seen out of the anti-"cancel culture" crowd.
Absolutely not, opposing and trying to overcome cancel culture does not violate anyone's free speech. No one is being muzzled and told they cannot speak. Cancel culture simply being opposed as with any other political discussion does not violate anyone's freedom of speech.
After all, you’re saying you oppose “cancel culture”, surely that opposition has to take some form somewhere, right?
Presumably, those groups mainly would try to increase awareness and support free speech (get in the news, post articles like on this site, encourage activism like what John Cleese did, etc.), while others might lobby the government to oppose/support laws around freedom of speech. As I originally stated, this is all entirely self-consistent, as long as everyone is free to speak.
And that’s where my alarm bells started to go off. I have never heard an anti-“cancel culture” bill that doesn’t end up being authoritarian and anti-free speech gobbley gook. After all, the only solutions here are to restrain the free speech of the “mob”, or to restrict the free association rights of businesses and other people.
It’s always very poorly thought out, unconstitutional junk that’s at best thrown out to sate the culture war crowd with the desperate hope that the courts will strike it down before we’re stuck with the actual consequences. At worst, it’s actually an authoritarian push by cynical politicians who hope to use it as a cudgel to beat their opponents with the power of the state.
They're perfectly compatible. I'm perfectly fine with angry mobs screaming "FIRE THAT GUY AND NOBODY EVER HIRE HIM AGAIN!!" or things like it all they want. I just don't want anyone to obey said angry mobs.
As an aside, I really hate it when people call twitter “angry mobs”. It trivializes the actual horror of what an actual angry mob can do.
To think that 'he does some shows' means he's not 'cancelled' would be to miss the point.
Whether he deserved to be cancelled or not is another question - but he had is shows cancelled, TV show bookings, roles, future roles, any mention in pop culture outside of his cancellation etc..
When you make a career out of appearing 5 times a year on nightly talk shows, daytime TV, the occasional SNL, TV role - and then all of that 'goes away' - then that's what we call 'cancelled'.
Louis CK was a tricky one because he did something questionable, that said, the details are also kind of odd and there's nuance to it.
Louis CK went from being B/C list celebrity, TV/Comedy Start, Netflix Specials, massive sold out tours promoted on national and international media ...
... to being shunned by the entire media establishment, no TV deals, no appearances, and doing many fewer shows with a tiny fraction of the audience.
If he were not cancelled, his Netflix appearances alone would be worth $25-75 Million, just in the last few years, probably the bulk of his earnings.
His income dropped by 100% for several years, and is now probably less than 10% of what it was.
"he term is watered down to meaninglessness."
His career and personal identity were totally dismantled.
His brand value is nil and future income prospects are a tiny fraction of what they were.
What kind of person would see this as a 'meaningless' distinction?
Honestly the question comes down to how frothy people have to be to not understand the obvious materiality of the situation.
Furthermore, he wasn’t “cancelled” for saying something distasteful or forbidden, people stopped liking him because he was credibly accused of sexual assault. The proper word for that is “scandal”.
Is that a fair summary of your argument?
Aside from literal prison terms (Bill Cosby) I can’t think of anything that actually truly cancels comedians.
The ones who complain the loudest seem to be getting bigger and better work, so I’m honestly not sure what their complaints are founded on: but I might be missing something, of course.
Yes, a prison sentence has a certain je ne sais quoi about it that makes comedy clubs reluctant to schedule you, at least until you’re released.
He’s also, you know, 84 years old and incredibly wealthy.
But it might be hard to distinguish those two cases -- a few clubs/publishers/etc. might refuse to book you, and that could cause your audience to dry up.
People think cancel culture is a new thing. Before there was a politicized term for it, specific incidents were just called “scandals.”
It seems like a truly case by case basis as to whether it sticks or not.
EDIT to add: the cultural Right has been attempting, with mixed success, to “cancel” people for decades. McCarthyism, the Satanic Panic, and ruining the careers of country singers who criticize Republicans all come to mind. None of this is new and none of it is unique to the modern cultural Left. It’s just different cultural criteria and different targets.
Let's hope the tide turns and that it turns fast.
Probably only a single Comedian in the entire world, Dave Chapelle, would have walked the line he did and gotten away with it. The backlash against his Netflix special would have probably tilted against any lesser person, and that would have been it for their careers.
No regular comedian could conceivably try to do that without enormous risk, and that's the point here.
I don't think that comedy is a particularly bad place for cancellation, it's the rest of entertainment and pop culture.
Oh no! Cleese chose to make social commentary about cancel culture, without passing the script through the approval bureau of kevinh.
It was exactly as insane as I would have expected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Eddie_Izzard#Gender
Apparently the Wikipedia crowd cannot comprehend the nuances in 'Sometimes I use one gendered pronoun, sometimes the other.'
(Personally, I felt like it would have been the most respectful and true to his comedy if the article had switched gender for every other pronoun)
It’s hard to imagine being in that situation, but I think the better move would be to show up anyway and call their bluff.
It’s as logical as killing yourself to protest killing.
Perhaps you should reset your perspective a bit.
By not appearing, he's made international headlines, which is the point. If he were to have appeared, probably nothing would have happened.
As a result, the student's union has changed their tune a bit, so at least he's had some impact.
The broader point Cleese is making is that he's been poking people in the eye for generations, but now there's a 'new establishment' keen to try to deride him and his peers and that he's taking the same position now, as he would have 30 years ago.
There's a famous debate between him and a very conservative intellectual regarding the 'Life of Brian' and it's religious implications, I'm looking forward to that debate in 2020.
The term 'woke' is a bit needlessly incendiary, but it's fully within his perogative.
Cleese is on the right side of history.
At this point I find comedians whining about cancel culture to be as unique and insightful as a new bit about airline food. It’s usually not funny, it’s been done, and it is far too self indulgent to be healthy. Half of the time these “canceled” comedians make these jokes from their massive platforms, making the entire situation farcical.
But it seems like Cleese has stooped down so low as to do entire specials about cancel culture, a disappointing descent into culture war bullshit for a comedian I genuinely like. I suspect that this entire event was nothing more than a PR stunt for his “cancel me” series, which has increased my eye rolling.
You know there is a "hide" button that removes posts you dont want to see. You dont have to wait to be "thankful" that somebody reported content you dont like in order to be protected from it.
Strong moderation is the key to keeping up the quality of discussions around here. I’m also glad this post got flagged.
If it's just about the source, the URL should have simply been changed to that Twitter thread.
While possibly not relevant for HN, it's definitely relevant in the context of our current news.
Colleges were hotbeds of posturing and hypocrisy then as they are now. College kids are typically in the most radical years of their life, when they have the most freedom and desire to redefine who they are. They largely don’t have any money or accomplishments, so the big way up the social ladder is posturing and value signaling. If you’re more spiritual, more woke, more radical, then you get attention from your peers.
I don’t know what else to say, except people should spend more time hanging out across age groups, and people in college will eventually burn out of it. More people should take gap years, it lets it really sink in the reason why you’re in college in the first place, and it gives you more of a sense of how worthless posturing can be.
For these reasons and others, the college circuit is a real beast.
These things come and go in waves, and people have short memories.
Honestly, I’d go further. First, college students are and have always been extreme. Getting too riled up about it is frankly blasé. Second, contrary to the pearl clutching we live in a golden age of free speech. You can say all kinds of shit online now that would’ve gotten you literally lynched a few decades ago in some places. On the right and the left there has been an absolute flourishing of the kind of speech that “respectable” society chilled out even during my childhood, the idea that free speech is in trouble is utterly unfounded. Never mind how much easier it is to speak your mind anonymously, something that was reserved only to the kind of people who could get op-eds in the past.
What I think is actually happening here is that the kind of cultural and economic elites used to speaking at the people are suddenly finding them speaking with the people, and they’re not enjoying finding out what the people really think. In fact the only threat to free speech I can see is the very people whining about the “woke mob”, who are trying to connect online criticism with actual violence.
But the idea that 1960s UC Berkeley was not “extreme” is ahistorical. Hell, UC Berkeley protests have their own Wikipedia page, just for the 1960s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s_Berkeley_protests
Also there was Naked Man:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Martinez
I had friends who were members of fraternities or sororities, and they were far more strict on a daily basis. That structure also seemed to work for people who were more accustomed to family as a public persona. The scope of their mistakes were perhaps more broad.
And then... there were the co-operatives. The communes. More rules and work duty, usually better living conditions than the dorms.
Finally, perhaps, there were the Streets, which at the time were very densely packed with people in urgent need of psychiatric care. De-fund the hospitals! 1980s.
For all that, nudity was a real stretch. It was rough, and it was weird.
I'm glad 1960's students made progress, especially with respect to difficult issues like apartheid.
I'm equally glad (and I'll bet most share the same view) that students might want a more objective look at, for example, the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The issue is the authoritarianism of the context, and the cancellation/derision of those who don't share the same view, and other ridiculous postmodernisms, such as literally removing photos of previous graduates (i.e. mostly white men) because it's offensive to the sensibilities of those who think it contravenes a positive learning experience. [1]
Cleese is exactly right. Very few are concerned with the 'good faith' arguments of any group. It's the intolerance displayed by some camps that is the problem, not their arguments.
[1] https://thepostmillennial.com/university-removes-alumni-phot...
That’s some kind of ahistorical, mythologized idea of what the UC Berkeley protests were like. They may have started out with good intentions, but they turned into parties, and the parties turned into riots. It was civil rights protests, LSD, mace, riots, free love, and firebombings.
You can’t just pick out the civil rights part of it, the part you like, and pretend the other parts didn’t exist.
Taking a step back and looking at the typical behavior of college age radicals, this current cohort is pretty mild. Any attempt to mark them as uniquely strident and aggressive is pretty ahistorical. Call me when they start building and mounting barricades.
Basically back then it seemed not only sincere but useful. Even if you were only doing it to show of, you were doing some good and risked some social cost. If you do it today you do no good and do not risk anything.
That and plus everything in woke culture that touches on sex reeks of juvenile prudishness.
I love the topic too, a comedian whining about "cancel culture."
So great. Sparks joy. Definitely not a tired subject, more please!
If someone is impersonating a bloody dictator in order to advance their evil views, then yes you should not give them a platform.
If they're doing it to skewer them - isn't that good? Mockery can be an effective social tool.
- Because their IQ is low.