Cancel Culture

 Every so often a new term is invented by people who sits all day in front of a laptop with nothing else to do except type away and make waves.  One day the world had never heard of the term "cancel culture" and now it is all you hear from one side or the other on any issue of the day.  It is as best as I can figure out it is a derogatory term which describes when mass support is withdrawn from a person, event or organization for saying or doing something objectionable.

On the Fuck You Friday post, appropriately on last Friday, I mentioned poor old Kate Smith.  The Yankees for years had played her God Bless America record during the 7th inning stretch.  It was as traditional as Yankee Stadium itself.  Then an anonymous sports writer mentioned in an article that poor old Kate had recorded racist songs.  She didn't write them, just sang them in her 20's when trying to start her career, in an age when such music and even black face performance were accepted.  Didn't matter that out of 3000 songs she performed there were only two objectionable ones, she had to go.  Her statue in Philadelphia was removed, as was her 7th inning gig at Yankee stadium.  Oh, did I mention she received the Medal of Freedom for her artistic contributions to America?  Didn't matter, Kate was a gonner.

First off, cancelling is not new.  Seems to me John Wilkes Booth did a bit of cancelling.  Fatty Arbuckle's career, down the drain after that Hollywood party.  Ted Kennedy discovered cancel culture after his little bridge incident. Prince Harry has cancelled the Royals.  Hey, its what we do, right?  We judge.  The electors just cancelled Trumpism last November.  Movies bomb, celebrities put their feet in their mouths and we say, "O no you di-uhnt."  That's not a typo, its kind of a ethnic thing that is supposed to be humorous but may offend someone and now they boycott this website.  

The right cancels, the left cancels, and we shriek "Foul".  

Secondly, our pleas that it is a free country doesn't necessarily matter when you say something a segment of society objects.  Sure, you have free speech until I'm pissed, then we, as a group, will cancel your ass.  So which is it?  Free speech or snowflake?

Mike Lindell, the Pillow guy whose head was firmly placed inside Donald Trumps rump, was cancelled because of his support of Trumpism and furthering the myth that the election was rigged.  He claimed 20% loss of sales, but his accountant claimed a 40% increase from right-minded folks.  Right - left, tomato - tomato.

In recent years we cancelled men who abused women in the Me Too movement.  We have cancelled racism with the BLM movement and cancelled a whole hell of a lot of stuff because of Covid.    

  

Mackenzie sent a page of one of her childhood Dr. Seuss books that will no longer be published for racist intonations.  I may be too old to see the racism.  Do Chinese not use chopsticks?  Do Chinese not dress like this at some point in their history?  Hey, cancel me.  Anyway, at least it wasn't Woke that did in Seuss, it was Seuss themselves.  Frankly, I hate censorship in books.  

The Turner Classic Movie channel has decided to review 22 problematic movies like Gone with The Wind, Stagecoach, and Psycho over portrayals of racism, sexism, and LGBTQ issues.  Like the Seuss guys, TCM is putting these films on examination, not as art, but as a reflection of the times in which they were made.  

This is a much larger issue than I want to delve into at this time, but I think we like or don't like cancel culture according to how we view the thing that is cancelled.  Cancel Trump? Hoorah!  Cancel Kate? Boo!  I may cringe at some scenes in GWTW but it was a fair depiction of Civil War America.  I may wince at some of the gay scenes in Rope, but it seems reasonable for mid-50's America.  

Just remember, next time you run into a cancel situation that there are nuances, degrees and grades of harm.  Abusing women is bad no matter what.  Singing a cringeworthy song in a racially intolerant 20's maybe not as bad as that guy sitting in front of his laptop wants you to think.