The Thing About Cancel Culture
I’m rooting for a society where we can have nuanced conversations that are not commandeered by the press industrial complex and their insatiable appetite for headlines. Every human rights conversation in America has been co-opted by the capitalists’ creed and corporate greed. I don’t have any meaningful thoughts on Dave’s “cancelled” status because no one can be cancelled by other humans- once we exist, we exist. But I do believe in the potential for humanity and the developing nature of thoughts, ideas and norms. So I don’t subscribe to cancelling people as much as I subscribe to cancelling the ideas that people hold on to. I’ve cancelled most of America’s white supremacist ideas, values and norms as lunacy while still acknowledging the white people slowly waking up to its history. But people who seek to profit from my exploitation get checked, called out and corrected. The degree to which they accept that correction determines their proximity to me and my interests. But here’s the gray area.
Dave used a billion dollar tech conglomerate to direct a message at a historically marginalized community. And as funny and brilliant as Dave is, he’s spent the last twelve months publicly pandering about Comedy Central/HBO/Netflix in a way that felt intellectually incomplete. His outlier ability to get rights to a show he walked away from in a moment of clarity is incongruent with him greenlighting the show to remain on air, as he profits from its exploitation.
Yes, he walked away from an opportunity at Comedy Central. But is he giving himself the space to have a similar awakening at Netflix? Would it feel different if he hadn’t been paid a bunch of money by a corporate sponsor to discuss his views?
And about the content. If we acknowledge the broad and undefinable spectrum of gender and sexual identity, are we acknowledging gender as a fact? Are trans women scientifically or genetically distinct from cis gendered women as a matter of fact? If Dave acknowledges the distinctions is he being transphobic? While I can’t impartially answer the question as a cis gendered man, I know that Dave’s jokes land on me different because I’ve never been attacked for my gender or sexual identity.
American society has a funny way of trying to cancel what it doesn’t confront. Indigenous people, slavery, Japanese internment camps, nuclear bombs, etc. and the oppressed people of America have been embracing America’s value systems wholesale. And that’s the problem. Things that are not confronted do not go away. And so we do not grow past bad ideas by cancelling people, we grow past bad ideas by confronting the ideas and creating space for people to grow in our presence or reflect in our absence.
Admittedly, I think Dave is funny. Actually, I think he’s the most skilled comic of our generation. But I also believe he’s embraced a corporate value system that says “I’m good to the people I personally know” in spite of how his impact lands on marginalized communities. And I don’t know if there was going to be a politically correct way to refer to trans women as “impossible pussy.” But was the joke worth it? Is “worth it” the appropriate standard for free speech and human expression?
These are not rhetorical questions. And there is our dilemma. But that’s also the lesson. As much as Dave believes in nuance and layered conversations, he should embrace the concept of spectrum and non-binary identities because there is no binary right or wrong solution to our societal issues. And marginalized communities seeking to rebel against oppressive value systems need to confront individuals and ideologies because cancelling humans does not solve our problems.
