Hollywood’s Silence on Cancel Culture Censorship Is Darn Near Criminal
Artists keep looking the other way as more 'problematic' art gets erased
Did anyone think it would stop with “Gone With the Wind?”
That movie classic got temporarily removed from HBO Max before it returned with a “warning” about its outdated content. Even the Blu-ray version of the Oscar-winning film now carries a “trigger warning” for those about to view it.
In a way, “Gone With the Wind” got lucky. It hasn’t been permanently yanked from public view.
At least not yet.
The same isn’t true for several Adult Swim shows. They’ve been “permanently retired due to cultural sensitivities,” Variety reports. Let that phrase sink in. Chances are we’ll be hearing similar verbiage in the weeks to come.
… Reddit users had pointed out “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” episode “Shake Like Me” and “The Boondocks” episode “The Story of Jimmy Rebel” could not be found — or were only briefly found — on HBO Max, the streaming service launched by WarnerMedia in the spring. In “Shake Like Me,” a reference to the John Howard Griffin book “Black Like Me,” Shake “learns what it’s like to be a stereotype” after being bitten by a radioactive Black man, according to the IMDB description of the episode. In the site’s description of “The Story of Jimmy Rebel,” Ruckus “finds his musical soul mate in famed racist country-western singer Jimmy Rebel…”
But per an Adult Swim spokesperson, the 2018 “The Shivering Truth” episode “The Ogled Inklings” will return to the Adult Swim site and HBO Max in the future after being “temporarily rested.”
Tan, rested and ready to amuse a new generation, one not under the fascist thumb of today’s woke mafia.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. We’ve already seen TV fare like “Scrubs” and “The Golden Girls” suffer similar consequences for “black face” episodes. Netflix memory holed multiple British TV shows for similar reasons.
“Blazing Saddles,” one of the most stinging satires of the modern era, earned its own warning recently.
PinkNews.com reports that actors Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter approve of “trigger warnings” added to their beloved 1989 comedy “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” due to anti-gay verbiage.
So where is Hollywood, Inc? Alyssa Milano? Scarlett Johansson? Jeffrey Wright? Michael Moore? Bette Midler? George Clooney? Steven Spielberg?
The biggest, most politically vocal stars of our age aren’t willing to stand up for art, apparently.
They’re stone silent. Again.
What do they fear? Don’t they realize the more they stay silent the more art will be purged? Will their content be next? Are they too frightened to care? And what, exactly, do they fear?
Mean tweets? Social justice shaming? They forget the few stars who don’t apologize for their content and comments survive the attacks?
Think Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle and Adam Carolla.
RELATED: Carolla on Cancel Culture: You Retreat, They Encroach
The current Cancel Culture craze is about power, not sensitivities. It’s a way to shame our collective culture, to reframe the nation as one of hate, not freedom.
Creative expression suffers as a result. So does our cultural past and the ability to explore challenging subjects. It’s why an upcoming immigration documentary hid its credits to protect the crew from professional repercussions.
The same silence greeted the Academy’s decision to demand woke quotas for Best Picture nominees. The biggest directors in Hollywood put down their smart phones rather than rebuke the announcement.
Ron Howard, an Oscar winner whose career dates back to the 1950s, admitted his “A Brilliant Mind” feature wouldn’t pass muster with the new rules. He agreed with them anyway.
Under new Academy rules to encourage Hollywood diversity, @RealRonHoward thinks his Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind “probably wouldn’t have qualified.” Nonetheless, “I really support the spirit of what they’re trying to do and I also think audiences are beginning to expect it.” pic.twitter.com/KpdO3BIIuT
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) September 25, 2020
This is the same Howard who bravely attacked President Trump on Twitter earlier this year.
Imagine if Hollywood stars, the biggest and brightest of them all, stood up together and shared one, vital message.
Enough.
No more censorship. No more erasing stories that make us feel uncomfortable. No more attempts to appease a mob that is never satisfied. We’re artists, and we want to tell our stories the way we want to tell them.
It could turn Cancel Culture on its ear.
Instead, the stars remain silent, meaning the Adult Swim cancellations are just the beginning.