James Gunn, Kevin Hart, Kanye West and many others have been the victims of a new movement called Cancel Culture. Cancel Culture is when a celebrity, influencer or someone who is prominent presents an idea, opinion, belief, etc. that is controversial or offensive to some. In response to this controversy, society “cancels” the individual or individuals in question. The way that society “cancels” someone is by boycotting the person(s) or by requesting disciplinary actions from their employers. Essentially, this stops them from having a public following or career.
The whole Cancel Culture movement has the ability to completely destroy someone’s reputation. Sometimes this can be a positive thing, but a majority of the time it is completely unwarranted. A superb example of Cancel Culture being unreasonable is when the film director James Gunn was canceled for a bunch of his old tweets resurfacing. These old tweets were extremely disgusting and inappropriate without any context, but with the context they make sense. Before Gunn was a big-time film director, he was a self-described trouble maker. He would make movies and jokes that were outrageous and that many people disapproved of.
Another example of Cancel Culture going sour is when the famous comedian Kevin Hart was canceled for having tweets that joked about being homophobic resurface. This whole controversy is just incredibly dumb in my opinion because for one, Hart is a comedian and it’s his job to make jokes. Secondly, jokes that are not acceptable today could have been acceptable a few years ago depending on the context.
Finally, I know this may be shocking to some, but people actually have the ability to change their views on different topics. I know for a fact that I am personally an extremely different person than I was five years ago. For example, five years ago, I was a self-described edgy teenager who didn’t care about others. Now I would consider myself to be a caring and mature individual. Just like how I changed from an edgy teen to a caring guy, Hart can change over time too.
Cancel Culture can have some positive effects too. An example of society canceling someone that absolutely deserved it is when Robert Sylvester Kelly, aka R. Kelly, was canceled for being arrested on federal sex crimes. I see R. Kelly being canceled as a positive thing because the evidence that has been presented against Kelly shows that he most likely committed those crimes. Therefore, he shouldn’t have a popular platform and career.
Another positive example of the cancel culture movement is when society canceled Harvey Weinstein for having a history of sexual abuse. Weinstein is a notoriously disgraced film producer who was recently found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape.
In my opinion, this whole Cancel Culture movement is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the movement can be used to prevent people who commit unspeakable and illegal acts from having a platform and career, but on the other hand, if someone is wrongly accused or accused without looking at the context of the situation, then their entire life could be destroyed for no reason at all. In the end, I feel like society as a whole should be careful about who we cancel and who we don’t because destroying someone’s career shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Andrew Chase can be contacted at
achase@kscequinox.com
