By Hien Bui
Haven’t you heard? It’s the worst time to be a celebrity.
Recent years have done what no amount of gratuitous “celebrities—they’re just like you!” taglines on paparazzi pictures of public figures getting groceries could; we’re now aware that these glamorous people posing on page four of the entertainment rag are human too. In fact, so human that they can make splashed-on-the-front-page, sentenced-to-years-of-jail-worthy mistakes. No biggie. Who hasn’t, right?
If we haven’t already abandoned celebrity worship following the #MeToo movement and the nearly monthly allegation of misconduct waged against a Hollywood somebody, then the lack of response or oversaturation of ignorance is proving to be more than enough reason to. More than ever before, people are unsubscribing from celebrities as our socio-political environment demands more from those who have platforms, a new standard that gets hard to meet when there’s no real guideline to what that entails.
People demand that you not have a bigoted past, hold your peers accountable and speak up about current issues all while being a nice person and pleasant to work with.
Horror! Can’t they just judge you by the measure of your work or ability to entertain? Separate you, the person, from your art? Are you even allowed to have opinions that aren’t shared with the pitchforked mob anymore?
In his 2019 stand-up comedy special “Sticks and Stones”, Dave Chappelle echoed a sentiment that’s becoming more and more shared in our cultural climate: “[It’s] celebrity hunting season… Everyone is doomed.”
This brings us to “cancel culture,” or the biggest threat to the celebrity according to the aforementioned comic.
The term has familiarized itself in our language, whether it’s part of a discussion somewhere on social media or the topic of about a million think pieces with clauses like “have we’ve gone too far?” tacked onto the headline.
Cancel culture’s detractors say that it fosters a hostile environment that doesn’t so much allow people to change for the better but will witch hunt them for something they said in 2009. Those for the social phenomenon say we haven’t done nearly enough to hold anyone accountable for their actions, having just settled for brief media frenzy until the news cycle refreshed itself for far too long.
There is something concerning about the gleeful way the Internet descends on a scandal, guns ablaze with trending hashtags and relentless social media battering of those involved or closely related to the epicenter of gossip.
It’s also easy to understand how the mob mentality sweeps people up with the conversation, and it usually gets carried by those who are more interested in running a smear campaign against someone than holding anyone accountable for anything more than a brief stint in the public consciousness.
This gets even trickier when “scandal” has undergone a revamp.
No longer is “breaking news” limited to the present. The Internet’s archival nature has expanded the narrative, with problematic comments resurfacing in a clockwork cycle.
Going a step further and beyond current-day, people’s pasts predating digitalization and cyberspace are also recorded in excruciating detail for the masses to pick apart decades later whether it be modern takes on director Woody Allen marrying his girlfriend’s adopted daughter or author J.K. Rowling coming under fire for her lack of diversity in her “Harry Potter” series.
Yet, for all the faults in how it can be performed, what is so wrong with holding people to their actions and having them face consequences? While focus has largely shifted from accountability to “who’s getting canceled this week?”, there is a legitimate need for cancel culture. People should face the music if they’ve done something worth the criticism, especially if they have a platform to influence others upon.
However, in the case of celebrities, cancel culture doesn’t seem to exist or, at least, doesn’t work as unilaterally as it should. This proverbial epidemic that’s supposedly striking down the famous left and right hasn’t done all that much. There’s not so much “life ruining” as there is “careers remaining completely intact”.
Woody Allen and his sexual abuse allegation are still active in the industry as stars come out of the woodwork to apologize for working with him. J.K. Rowling, champion of shoehorned representation and transphobia, was allowed to publish a book “whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress,” according to an early review from the Telegraph.
Cries of “separate art from the artist” echo in the wake of both of these people still enjoying intact careers. Ellen DeGeneres, the daytime talk show host who recently came under fire for years of workplace misconduct, gets to air out her wrongs in another season of her show green-lit by the same studio that called the situation “unacceptable.” Her celebrity friends speak over her staff’s accounts of abuse to talk about what a kind person she is.
Time and time again, “cancel culture” has shown itself to only work in the limitations of public attention. This inability to hold our public figures responsible for their actions has created a butterfly effect that ripples closer to us, the media-consuming majority.
Cancel culture has trickled its way down to our lives as we struggle to hold our community, closest relations and even ourselves accountable in the face of rapid social change unfolding in front of us. It’s impossible to look away from for better or for worse, so maybe there’s no better time to examine our actions.
Is it that hard to not have a discriminatory past? What kind of standards are we setting for ourselves now that we’re so accustomed to being let down that we’ll dig through celebrities’ pasts for misconduct? Even more importantly, what kind of message are we sending to the often marginalized groups who these past transgressions have targeted, traumatized, and/or taught to be so normal it doesn’t even warrant getting mad anymore?
In anticipating scandal, we have already normalized it. Yet, we must account for how people can be ignorant and can change, but who’s to decide when someone else has? How much further can we run in circles?
To start, we have to do away with the idea that we can mold cancel culture into something standardized where we can pick and choose what we “cancel” over. It’s impossible to curb the actions of so many and such a widespread movement, but impactful change begins with the individual and within the community.
The next thing on the agenda is stepping away from how we interchangeably view getting held accountable and being attacked. It’s too easy to turn defensive when you find yourself in this scenario. You’re a good person, you try to do good things and it isn’t fair that someone like you is caught up in this, right?
While a published article cannot determine whether you were in the right or wrong of a situation, it’s a good idea to closely read what’s being said about you before jumping in to rectify people’s perceptions of you. Everyone makes mistakes; it’s when you continue making them that makes you a bad person.
If the situation is one where you’ve messed up, it is feedback and an opportunity to try and do better from here on out. If you feel that this boils down to a misunderstanding or miscommunication, reflect on why your words or actions were taken in this way and how else it could’ve been presented.
It’s not up to you what gets misinterpreted or what ends up offending even when you had no harmful meaning behind it. While these conflicts loom large and can make it feel like the world is out to get you, handling things maturely is a better strategy than jumping into the character assassination of those calling you out or similar self-sabotage.
Equally as important is our role as the standby audience.
It’s easy to quickly form our perceptions and judgements based off of very little. Although everyone’s entitled to choosing what they believe in, it’s imperative that we allow people the space to educate themselves and grow, especially if their mistake came from a place of ignorance rather than true malicious intent.
We also have a duty as observers to not steer the narrative towards phrases like “everyone’s getting canceled these days” or “I won’t let them cancel ___”. Accountability is necessary, and to pass all criticisms away under a blanket statement is increasingly harmful as we face the glaring deficiencies in our nation.
That said, as we move forward, we must try to make cancel culture as much of an asset to us as possible to bring about meaningful change and growth.
