“Why do you think you
haven’t been cancelled yet? I dunno, what’s
being cancelled?” Cancel culture: is it the bane
of our modern existence, an overdue reckoning for the powerful, PC-hysteria-driven mob rule,
or does it not even exist? "We're giving people, their careers,
the death penalty by public. Kicking them out forever and saying
we never want you back, right?” “Are we? Because I've canceled
the NFL after Colin Kaepernick and they’re still kicking strong." "And what if they're wrong?
You know what I mean?" To cancel is, essentially,
to culturally boycott. “James Charles loses nearly
2 million YouTube subscribers in less than two days.” As Ligaya Mishan writes
for The New York Times, Cancel is a consumerist verb. And this modern idea of “to cancel”
is a capitalist form of protest— using your social media
voice and/or your wallet to de-platform a problematic
creator by no longer supporting their career. "Gina Carano will not be
returning to the Mandalorian or the Star Wars Galaxy
amid backlash from a social media post
the actress shared."
There’s nothing new
about public shaming, but today’s version of
cancelling is remarkable for the speed with which
social media can suddenly upend a person’s reputation. Some argue it's sinister, eliminating nuance from debates
and destroying ordinary people who may have made one
minor transgression. “If you do anything
wrong in your life and I find out about it, I’m gonna try and take
everything away from you” Others say it’s an important
warning to the powerful elite that they will be held
accountable for their actions. “Journalist Heather Unroh’s tweet about
Kevin Spacey last month triggered all the allegations against him,
and the police are now investigating.” Most confusingly, while
some paint cancel culture as an out-of-control moral
panic terrorizing our society, others say there is no such thing— and that for the most part
when people are cancelled, nothing lasting really
happens to them. "If you look at folks like
Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, they have still worked
despite huge accusations. So in due time, maybe
he is able to come back." Here’s our take on why
getting cancelled is more of a phase than
a permanent state, and how this tool can be used
for better and for worse. "Don't I get a trial!?" "No! This is a cancelling!
No due process!" If you're new here,
be sure to subscribe, and hit the bell to be notified
about all of our new videos. Thanks to Nord VPN for
sponsoring today's video. We can't talk about our
Internet experience without talking
about Nord VPN. The world's fastest and most
secure virtual private network. Click the link in
the description below, nordvpn.com/thetake, to get a huge discount
on a 2-year plan. As a special bonus
for our viewers, enter the code THETAKE to get an
extra month of Nord VPN for free. It's risk free with Nord's
30 day money-back guarantee. “You know when we watch courtroom
dramas we tend to identify with the kind hearted defense attorney, but give us the power and we
become like hanging judges.” Vox’s Aja Romano traces the first
usage of the modern “cancel” term to Wesley Snipes’ drug kingpin
Nino in 1991’s New Jack City. “You’re a murderer Nino!” “Cancel that bitch.” Lil Wayne referenced the line
in 2009’s 'I’m Single', “Yeah I’m single, [BLEEP] I had to cancel
that bitch like Nino.” but it was arguably a 2014 episode
of Love and Hip Hop: New York that first catapulted it
into mainstream usage. “I’m not going no-[BLEEP]-where!” “Get away from me,
you cancelled.” “Cancelled?!” From here the word took
root in black Twitter as a casual insult you could throw
at someone you disagreed with. And by the time the #MeToo movement
dominated global attention in late 2017, it was hard to go a few days without
hearing of a man who'd been tried in the court of public opinion
and declared cancelled. Meanwhile, separate from
the rise of the term, public shaming in the
age of social media had taken on a new
immediacy and nastiness. In his 2015 book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, author Jon Ronson examined the story
of the PR executive Justine Sacco, who tweeted an offensive joke
about fearing catching AIDS in Africa to her 170 followers
before getting on a flight, and woke up 11 hours later to find
out her name was trending worldwide. “One of her 170 followers had sent
the tweet to a Gawker journalist, and he retweeted it to
his 15,000 followers, and then it was like
a bolt of lightning.” Rosanna McLaughlin argues
that the Justine Sacco story was the birth of cancel culture— that Sacco eventually lost her job, her life deemed irreparably
ruined by her one tweet, was illustrative of the unique,
somewhat terrifying power social media could wield. "While she slept, Twitter took control of her life
and dismantled it piece by piece." The Black Mirror episode
Hated in the Nation, which was directly
influenced by Ronson’s book, makes this idea literal. "It’s like an unpopularity contest. Pick someone you don’t like
and if enough other people choose the same name then
that’s who gets targeted." The hashtag #DeathTo
becomes a trigger word for a swarm of killer robotic bees, and thus the threat of
public shaming via Twitter is elevated to a threat to life. "Most popular target will be
eliminated after 5pm each day." The episode also comments
on how easy it can feel to jump on the online hate train
without thinking of the target of the vitriol as a human being. "Death to Jo Powers" "It’s a-a-a hashtag game, like #DeathTo. You insert the name of someone
who’s being an arsehole. It’s not... real.” The main criticism leveled against
public shaming on social media is that, often, the punishment
doesn’t fit the crime. A sense of proportion can be lost, as anyone who once said or
wrote something regrettable is lumped in with those who committed
objectively wrong or heinous crimes. "Telling a stupid joke
is a long long ways away from taking your
d-[BLEEP] out at work" And the purist mentality
of cancel culture doesn’t allow for
much complexity, "The world is messy.
There are ambiguities. People who do really
good stuff have flaws." forgiveness, or reform. "If you ever made a mistake,
or you thought the wrong thing, or you ever weren't woke, or you've made a mistake now
that you’ve said sorry for and are actively
changing your ways, it doesn’t matter, cuz once you’ve committed
any sin you’re done." Indeed, over 150 writers and thinkers
including JK Rowling and Margaret Atwood wrote an open letter to
Harper’s magazine lamenting 'a new set of moral attitudes
and political commitments that tend to weaken our
norms of open debate and toleration of differences
in favor of ideological conformity'— an act which itself drew criticism. "I see nothing wrong with
signing a letter that says we should defend free speech." But is this state of things
actually worse than it used to be? "There is this sense sometimes of, 'the way of me making change
is to be as judgmental as possible about other people
and that's enough.'"
If we look back at history,
we might note that people were shamed much more vigorously
and lost a lot more for things that today we don’t see
as transgressions at all. Most obviously, women for centuries
have been shunned for any sexual activity that their
societies deemed inappropriate. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850
novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is forced
by her puritan community to literally wear a scarlet A
for the rest of her life as punishment for having
a child out of wedlock. "So that all men will know you
are guilty of the sin of adultery, and shun you in the name of evil." As if to show how far we haven’t come, 2010’s Easy A directly
updates this premise in its story about Emma Stone’s
high-schooler Olive Pendergast, when her lie about
having lost her virginity spreads around her
high school like wildfire. "I think Hester Prynne was,
excuse my language, a skank." "A skank? So you don’t think
she was a victim at all?" "Why should I? She brought it on herself." Recently, the period show
Bridgerton highlights how an unmarried young woman's pregnancy
could get a whole family cancelled by British high
society of the early 1800s. "I must ask you to leave." "But I have an invitation." "Not anymore." If we look at those examples,
the most significant difference between
public shaming of the past and now is that, for the first time, it can
be wielded against the powerful. "The changes we are witnessing are
being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices,
of our voices.
One of the ways that people
have decried the horrors of today’s cancel culture
is to call it a witch hunt. “I don’t really agree with
cancel culture in just the way that it’s like, it's
really aggressive. It’s like a really aggressive
sort of witch hunt.” But of course, real witch hunts
have happened throughout history, and these involved killing
women who were baselessly blamed for bad things that
happened to other people. "You predicted the pigs
would die Martha Corey! How are you to know that?" In moments of widespread
fear, or moral panic, people rush to destroy,
often innocent, scapegoats to try to fend off bigger trends
they don’t like in their society. “Why did you do it?” “We were scared.” Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
famously used the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory to talk about another
time of rampant public shaming: the Hollywood Blacklist. "A person is either with
this court or against it, there be no road between." Miller himself refused
to "name names" before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, who were attempting to root out
a perceived communist threat in the film industry i
n the late 40s and 50s. "Are you now or have you ever been
a member of the Communist Party?" During this time, many members
of the entertainment industry were subject to the
things cancel culture is accused of
inflicting today— public humiliation, loss of employment,
and even criminal charges— just for holding, or appearing to
hold, incorrect political views. “Fire Dalton Trumbo,
and the rest of them, or you got pickets,
headlines and boycotts. We will put you
right out of business.” But while critics of
cancel culture may hark back to these examples, evidence suggests that
getting cancelled today is nowhere near as extreme
in its consequences. "How you gonna cancel me? Twenty awards on the mantelpiece,
pyramid stage at Glastonbury." In more cases than not, getting cancelled is
not a permanent state, but just a step in a cycle. "As an influencer when
you grow a following, you will either say or do something
that people might not like." “So for today’s compact challenge,
you guys will be filming your very own apology videos." One which is often
followed by redemption. "I just hope it was a step forward. It moved things forward for me. It made me think about a lot. I hope I become a better person." Even Justine Sacco
has continued to maintain a successful career
in her industry, and in 2019 was rehired
by the very same company who fired her over her tweet. The whole idea of cancel culture
is satirized by Search Party when the character Elliot is outed
for lying that he’s a cancer survivor. "No I didn’t have cancer,
now everybody knows it, I’m sorry!" At first it seems like Elliott’s
professional life is over, but almost immediately, he lands a lucrative book deal "My agent’s selling a memoir
about my life as a liar." After the whole episode
is quickly forgotten, he goes on to multiple new phases
of greater success in his career. Amazon’s The Boys also mocks this
cycle of cancellation-to-redemption through superhero The Deep, whose career goes on hiatus
after his transgressions against women are made public. "I'm gonna need you
to make a public apology. And you're going to be taking
a sabbatical from the Seven." "What?" As The Deep is groomed to reclaim
his position in the public eye, the show draws attention to
how carefully stage-managed these apparent falls from
(and returns to) grace can be. "Scene take two, Alpha Mark." "Starlight, I hope you can forgive me." "Harder to sell." "To sell it yeah?" "Just a little harder." "Perfect let’s do that." There are some targets of cancel culture
who have no comeback trail— but crucially this is because, while their downfall may have
begun with public outcry, they were charged with or
convicted of actual crimes in our justice system. "Weinstein, once one of the most
powerful men in Hollywood, is in custody tonight." This is so important because
the court of public opinion can be so fickle and allow for
relatively easy redemptions; thus it shouldn’t be the primary place
where people are held accountable for the most significant transgressions. So, can we still appreciate
accepted works of genius if whoever made them
wasn’t a good person? "When I’m hearing things
like Bad, or Dangerous, or Smooth Criminal,
or Pretty Young Thing, it’s hard to listen to that now
and not make that connection." "Now people say 'Oh, you know now you can’t
listen to these recordings without thinking of that.' I think well you can’t, but I can." While it may be a simple choice
not to support the ongoing career of a current creator
we disapprove of, once we start to
evaluate all art by the moral uprightness
of the artist, the territory gets
murky very quickly. If we look back at the best
writers or creators of the past, it may be difficult to find many
who live up to today’s standards. "They’re tryna cancel John Wayne." "Did ya hear what he said in that
interview in Playboy in 1970?" "He was born in 1907!" And when it comes to filmmakers
like Roman Polanski or Woody Allen who’ve been disowned by many today, is there a difference between supporting what they’re
making right now versus still appreciating
their classic works which are still widely
considered an influential part of the film canon?
Often audiences will engage in
a kind of cognitive dissonance to continue enjoying
the work of people they know have
done bad things. "And the reason people are upset is
because R Kelly and Michael Jackson made great music. If I found out Macklemore
did some weird stuff, I’d be happy to free up
the space on my iPhone." Arguably, because all these
questions are so complex, the responsibility for enforcing
these cancellations should lie not with the individual consumer, but with the industries
that have supported them, in some cases,
for far too long. As part of a new policy against
hateful content and conduct, R Kelly will be the first artist
to have music removed from Spotify-owned playlists. What about the art itself— does it sometimes
deserve to be cancelled? "Gone With The Wind
and other films, Song of the South,
They Die With Their Boots On, went just as far to perpetuate
the sense that the slavery- the confederacy was noble.” As popularized by the Tumblr
“your fave is problematic,” cancel culture has been credited
with inspiring a mass reevaluation of past art by
today’s standards. In the wake of the
Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, HBO Max pulled Gone With The Wind
from their streaming service until they could combine it with
appropriate historical context. "This was a story that
was written 70 years after the Civil War
and then released in 1939, part of a greater narrative
of The Lost Cause." On the upside, the increased
scrutiny of today’s audiences can ensure that we don’t repeat
the same mistakes of the past. "This whole period of history
through Covid and the protests has made people reflect, and I’m sure many people will do
things differently from now on.” But totally removing episodes, shows
or movies with problematic aspects can also feel like a way
of erasing history in a way that, in some cases, is
self-serving for the creators "And I don't believe that Hollywood
should be scrubbing these shows. They need to see these stories
and the mistakes Hollywood made." Moreover, this leads to a debate
around whether art must be subject to rigid moral rules. "If you start to think ‘Ooo we mustn’t- we mustn't
criticize or offend them, then humor’s gone, with all humor
goes a sense of proportion." Arguably, the value of great art
is its ability to include three-dimensional human complexity, not to send a one-
dimensional moral message. If we cancel works for dealing
with immoral acts or people, will that lead to a climate
where art can’t even discuss or portray problematic things? "If you’re offended by
To Kill A Mockingbird because it uses language
of its time that is no longer acceptable, if you can’t make that distinction, then you’re a [BLEEP] idiot." And are people losing the ability
to discriminate between what a character does
and what the author intends to say or discuss
by dramatizing that? "It was probably a mistake
for that particular episode of Fawlty Towers to be taken down." "The point of that episode
is that the major is a terrible racist,
not that racism is ok." Robert Downey Jr was targeted
for cancellation for the movie Tropic Thunder
in which he plays Australian method actor
Kirk Lazarus who undergoes 'pigmentation alteration' in order
to play a black sergeant. "I don’t believe you people." "Huh! What do you mean 'you people'?" "What do you mean 'you people'?" But many (including Downey himself)
argued that it was used satirically as a way to criticize the fact
that this was a common practice. "I get to hold up to nature the insane,
self involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think
they’re allowed to do." In fall of 2020, the hashtag
#CancelNetflix protesting the French film Cuties failed to grasp that this story
about sexualizing young girls was, as a Netflix rep put it, "a social commentary against the sexualization
of young children" Though to be fair the problem
was exacerbated by bad judgment in the promotional image chosen
by Netflix’s marketing team. Overall, it’s remarkable that
mainstream society is at last accepting that people
of power and influence should be held accountable— and that being successful doesn’t
allow you to get away with espousing gross views
or hurting anyone. If the larger point
of cancel culture is a drive towards
art that prioritizes representation
and inclusivity, "Cancel culture people are
doing what they're doing. Their hearts are
in the right place." then we are seeing those
positive effects play out. "And they actually added the ability
to track by gender in the script. It was something that got
integrated into the process of making our movies." Comedies like The Good Place,
Schitt’s Creek, and Ted Lasso have drawn praise for managing to
be funny without being offensive and while prioritizing inclusivity. "I love you." "I know I’ll never be
able to compete with Mariah, but this feels like one of
those perfect moments that you dream about." When cancel culture is
aimed at the right targets— powerful people or archaic institutions
in desperate need of an overhaul— then it can be a force for
good, necessary progress. "Cancel culture originated
out of compassion, the voice for
the voiceless, being able to vote
with your wallet." Hi everyone! I'm Susannah. I'm Debra, and we're
the creators of The Take. Please subscribe and tell us
what you want our take on next. This video is brought
to you by Nord VPN. The ultimate resource
in Internet security. In this age of cancel culture,
Nord VPN is all about protecting your privacy
and freedom online. They keep your online activity
secure by encrypting your data so it's never seen by prying eyes. Plus with this VPN, you never have to choose
between security and quality. Nord VPN's lightning fast connection
has no limits on speed or bandwidth. You can stream and download
your favorite content without interruptions any time,
anywhere, on any device. Click the link in
the description below, nordvpn.com/thetake, to get a huge discount
on a 2-year plan, and enter the code THETAKE to get
an extra month of Nord VPN for free. It's risk free with Nord's 30
day money-back guarantee.
