Dilbert Guy Could've Just Not Been Racist. Not Everyone Who Faced Cancellation Had It So Easy.
Some 'Cancel Culture' history!
The past week has witnessed the "grand closing" of Scott Adams's career. The "Dilbert" creator's distributor and book publisherhave both dumped him after his (most recent) racist comments. See, the Constitution guarantees freedom of association, as well as speech, and reasonable people don't want to associate themselves with a bigot.
It's quite tragic, really, if you're totally oblivious to actual tragedies in the world. Adams was in a position to continue churning out his graphically illiterate comic strip, but he just couldn't shut up. No one paid him to be Rush Limbaugh, and even Rush Limbaugh couldn't hold a job in the non-professional asshole industry.
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About a month ago, actor Zachary Levi posted a seemingly anti-vaccine comment on Twitter, responding "hardcore agree" to some rando's tweet, "Do you agree or not that Pfizer is a real danger to the world?" Levi is the lead in the upcoming Shazam! sequel, which is expected to have a less-than-super box office reception. There's no evidence that Levi's public remarks are responsible for a potential flop (it's a DC movie, after all), but they probably aren't helping. What happened to just pretending you're a normal person before your film is released or while your TV series is in production? I remember when stars shared innocuous anecdotes on late-night talk shows. That's where the real acting happened.
Nowadays, celebrities with overall abhorrent ideas feel oppressed when they can't express them publicly with zero professional consequences. But the average person understands that they can't share offensive emails at work and keep their job. The Starbucks baristas don't scribble hateful messages on the to-go cups even if you could read what they wrote.
Some conservatives with an inflated victim complex whine that their "predicament" is like closeted queer actors back in the bad old days when living openly would've cost them their careers. This is infuriating, because queerness is an identity not a political position, despite what Republicans insist. Of course, there is no ultimate morality governing the free market. Offending people can end your career, even if through no fault of your own.
People might assume that national treasure Nathan Lane was always out, but that wasn't the case in 1995 when The Birdcage was released. Although Lane never hid who he was, he knew his personal life would receive far more scrutiny once he starred in a major movie with Robin Williams. He was rightly nervous about a potentially fatal fallout: Heterosexual actors in the 1990s could play a gay role, win an Oscar, and then go back to buddy cop films. Career options were much more limited, perhaps even perilous, for openly gay actors. (Lane would officially come out in a 1999 interview for The Advocate .)
When Williams and Lane appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show to promote The Birdcage , there's a moment Lane himself describes as "terrifying" when it seems as if Winfrey is trying to out Lane before one of the largest TV audiences in the world. This is almost 30 years ago. (Tests audiences had literally booed the teaser trailer, presumably because it showed gay people existing.) We're not talking about Lane losing out on the "obviously gay but we won't talk about it" best friend roles. This could've jeopardized his entire theatre career.
“Were you afraid of being typecast as ‘are you, are you not?’ ‘Is he, isn’t he…?'” Winfrey asked. However, Williams quickly jumps in and redirects the conversation, as only Williams could. He was very kind and generous to his friends, and you wish he could've been the same way to himself. Depression is a brutal disease.
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Lane didn't jump on a couch or make an unhinged joke about some big COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy. He was just trying to do his job as an actor in a movie and narrowly averted a possible career extinction event. In comparison, it seems very easy for Scott Adams, Gina Carano, and Kevin Sorbo to just shut up . I mean, Sorbo's career is in the toilet because he sucks, so he can probably say whatever he wants. It won't hurt.
Almost a decade later, George Michael would appear on Winfrey's show to promote his new album Patience, his first major release* since he publicly came out as gay. Winfrey asked him if he was "worried" about American fans accepting him as a "gay artist." His response was defiant and brilliant.
"I’m not worried about it. I think if people ... " He paused, as if suddenly over this shit. "I have to be totally straightforward here. I’m not interested in selling records to people who are homophobic." Really.
Conservatives might insist their extremist religious or political beliefs are no different from a marginalized group's existence. However, Michael said flat-out, "This is who I am. If you can't accept that, fine. I'll take the hit." Michael demonstrated the kind of courage that whiny, right-wing celebrities — who still want our money! — thoroughly lack.
[ Matt Baume ]
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Glad you said it, because that’s one thing about her I’ve never liked. Oprah is weirdly preoccupied with gay people. Like I remember her interviewing someone and asking “How could you not know you were gay?” She not a very nuanced person and doesn’t get that sometimes it’s not that a person doesn’t know, but rather all the things that go into coming out.
She’s always had a weird fixation with homosexuality. I won’t go as far as to call her a homophobe, but there certainly some things about it that you can tell don’t quite sit right with her.