"Cancel culture could wipe out comedy"

[Zetetic]

[Removed - BAdmin]

ffs

[poodlefaker]

Dame Maureen spoke to me while taking a break from recording her rib-tickling new Radio 4 sit-com "The Woman Upstairs" in which she plays an outspoken grandmother forced to move in with her adult lesbian daughter, her mixed-race partner and their adopted Vietnamese daughter. There are laughs aplenty as she tries to navigate her way around 21st century London life!

[madhair60]

ffs

I'm meant to challenge people. If you don't like being challenged, don't read my posts. What's the matter, too challenging for you?

[Kankurette]

If that's the case, why does Jim Davidson still have a career?

And I'd love to know what views these people are scared of expressing.

[Dr Rock]

Lipman is cuckoo coconuts

[Kankurette]

The BBC's interpretation of that YouGov poll is doing some heavy lifting, too:

"Effectively" said they felt cancelled. i.e., they didn't actually say they felt cancelled, that's how the article has chosen to interpret it. And what did people actually say?

Keeping quiet about what you really think because you feel it might offend someone, or cause an argument, is just basic politeness. It's not being cancelled, and it's certainly not being "shouted down."

This. And I kept quiet about what I really thought at work, because when I argued about politics or whatever, I got into trouble. My view on trans people was in the minority. If I still worked with that nest of vipers, they'd constantly be calling me woke.

There's a whole thread on MN about things that are banned as dinner table topics and there's a real air of 'I want to rant about trans people but my woke kids won't like it'. Why would you want to create a miserable atmosphere?

[Buelligan]

The BBC's interpretation of that YouGov poll is doing some heavy lifting, too:

I noticed they didn't ask anyone about their views on Labour's antisemitism crisis or whether Corbyn can say anything whatsoever, funny or not, in that BBC thingy.

Try googling Lipman Corbyn and see what happens to your account.  She wants freedom to rip the piss out of others as long as it doesn't affect anything she cares about.

[Kankurette]

I bet she hates Miriam Margolyes.

[Fry]

I'm starting to think that all this wailing about "cancelling" is actually just people so used to consuming everything through the gushing content pipe of our global monoculture that something existing in a niche way to a select audience  feels like it isn't "real" or in some way amateur or failed. Nick Mullen became a millionaire off a podcast based entirely around saying slurs and doing offensive accents. There have been people complaining about his output for as long as he's been producing comedy, but that's never stopped him making a decent living.  However, the fact he is a podcaster with no associations to large networks and no releases from 'legitimate' studios  would lead people like Lipman to conclude he isn't a success, as their barometer for success is having a write-up in the Guardian and a recurring slot as the nation's 5th favourite panellist on 8 out of 10 cats.

There have always been comedians performing non-mainstream comedy to a select audience, but up until recently have any found it so easy to become incredibly successful with so little overhead? All this cancel culture talk has nothing to do with how easy it is to have a career if you are a somewhat heterodox entertainer, it's just how you don't get to be the nation's golden boy anymore. It's just frustration that racism, sexism and homophobia aren't mainstream views anymore, old people shouting at clouds.

Now there may be some value in the idea that its harder to get higher budget things produced that are risky and offensive. However I feel like even that's less a result of a few aggy loudmouths on tik-tok, and more the fact that the media landscape is now presided over by a handful of gigantic megacorporations that have successfully either consumed or obliterated any smaller, idiosyncratic studios and production houses and flattened their output into whatever the all-seeing algo-machine has dictated will get the most return for their investment and that means going against the mainstream is a big NO.

The only legitimate difference now is that when you say something offensive, criticism from the audience is now a lot easier to see thanks to social media. I've got 0 sympathy for this because nobody needs to be on Twitter. Nobody. Twitter is designed to have its users scrapping with other like rats in a washing machine, you can't have Twitter and not have people yelling at you for your opinions. It wouldn't be Twitter if that was the case. Complaining about criticism on Twitter is like complaining about sugar and booze in your long island iced tea.

[Kankurette]

The only time when cancelling is effective is when it involves up-and-coming YA writers who get dogpiled over something deemed problematic (usually, of course, over Twitter). Most supposedly 'cancelled' celebrities are untouchable. I'm sure Marilyn Manson will still be making music, for instance.

[Buelligan]

It's so fucking ludicrous.  Dishonest.  Within living memory, people have been cast down and out for having children out of fucking wedlock - the idea that because some horrible old cunt isn't allowed to punch down for fear of people on twitter saying what a cunt they are, that means we've reached some sort of line in the sand - The Death of Fucking Comedy - because society is now so under the moral lash, is just some disingenuous clickbait bollocks spouted by a nasty old shite and broadcast by Auntie for fucking clicks and shits.

[Zetetic]

I bet she hates Miriam Margolyes.

Yes, she's an example of one of the actors she's said she wouldn't work with... because of Margoyles' criticism of the Israeli government.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Lipman was on Radio 4 a few years ago complaining about 'young ladies wearing trousers cut so low (edit: not 'long', sorry) you could practically see their pudenda' so I think she's just at that 'harrumphing national treasure' stage.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

What about someone going "uh... helloooo? Earth to [name]?!?"

(Forgive me, this could go on forever)

It's not really a punchline any more because it's so well-known, but it's fine as an interjection or a bridge to another joke/further exposition.

(I know, imagine talking about comedy on a comedy forum like some sort of comedy fan)

There's a whole thread on MN about things that are banned as dinner table topics and there's a real air of 'I want to rant about trans people but my woke kids won't like it'. Why would you want to create a miserable atmosphere?

Isn't it just generally good manners not to talk about politics or religion at social events? Clearly Mumsnet members have been dragged up.

[The Guppy]

They are most likely to keep quiet about what they really think when they are with people they've just met (49%) or are at work (40%), according to the data. A third (31%) also self-censor with friends, a fifth (21%) with family.

Nearly everyone self-censors. I think all Tories should be stoned to death, but I don't say that to people I've just met.

Unless they're Tories. Then the stones do the talking.

[Zetetic]

The only time when cancelling is effective is when it involves up-and-coming YA writers who get dogpiled over something deemed problematic (usually, of course, over Twitter).

It's not a novel or unique thought, but it does occur to me that if you wanted to either a) talk seriously about "cancelling" as both burying a text and its author or b) stick the knife into "the trans community" for no good reason, then you might look to Fall's I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.

But very few people are genuinely interested in a), it seems, and the people who are miserably earnest about b) presumambly aren't aware of or capable of engaging with it.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

b) stick the knife into "the trans community" for no good reason, then you might look to Fall's I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.

I don't know how people can be aware of incidents like this and still beat the "cancel culture doesn't exist" drum or think that what happens on Twitter stays on Twitter. The Attack Helicopter story incident was far from isolated or just a weird outlier, but as most of the people who fall foul of this kind of "cancelling" aren't people with Louis CK or Chappelle money, we don't hear about them.

Lipman and Cleese are bores (and worse, baddies) but there is no sensible reason to deny that the overwhelming economic power of the social media has had a monstrously chilling effect on things like arts, entertainment, journalism, academia... whether left or right, it acts to preserve the positions and status of people with means against those without.

[paruses]

Rather than there being no comedy doesn't she just mean that commissioning editors will be more risk averse? All the approved edgy stuff will still be created and released cf. Afterlife, 8OO10C, all the sideways looks at the news.

Hasn't comedy always been like runway fashion? You have to go to clubs and these days podcasts and the like to see the equivalent of a man wearing the distributor cap off a Ford Mondeo, and then it's adapted to the high street/TV so it's more acceptable / commercial?


Never been 100% sure what cf. means.

[Zetetic]

I don't know how people can be aware of incidents like this and still beat the "cancel culture doesn't exist" drum

I suppose because "cancel culture", as widely used and certainly in the mouths of Lipman and Cleese, doesn't really reference that sort of incident, even if you think it should.

[Kankurette]

So Lipman is allowed to have an opinion on Israel, but Margolyes isn't.

It's not a novel or unique thought, but it does occur to me that if you wanted to either a) talk seriously about "cancelling" as both burying a text and its author or b) stick the knife into "the trans community" for no good reason, then you might look to Fall's I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.

But very few people are genuinely interested in a), it seems, and the people who are miserably earnest about b) presumambly aren't aware of or capable of engaging with it.

That was one of the things I had in mind. And she'll never write again now because she got ripped to bits on social media.

I don't know how people can be aware of incidents like this and still beat the "cancel culture doesn't exist" drum or think that what happens on Twitter stays on Twitter. The Attack Helicopter story incident was far from isolated or just a weird outlier, but as most of the people who fall foul of this kind of "cancelling" aren't people with Louis CK or Chappelle money, we don't hear about them.

Lipman and Cleese are bores (and worse, baddies) but there is no sensible reason to deny that the overwhelming economic power of the social media has had a monstrously chilling effect on things like arts, entertainment, journalism, academia... whether left or right, it acts to preserve the positions and status of people with means against those without.

My point exactly. The writers who get dogpiled don't have the clout or money someone like JKR has, and they're often young, a little insecure, and from a marginalised group themselves. There is a discussion to be had about cancel culture but Lipman, Fox, Cleese, Burchill etc. are focusing on the wrong people.

[the science eel]

[Removed -BAdmin]

Prick.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I suppose because "cancel culture", as widely used and certainly in the mouths of Lipman and Cleese, doesn't really reference that sort of incident, even if you think it should.

Cancel culture definitely applied to that kind of thing, seeing as people used to use "is cancelled" or "is over" before the term became popular. It was "call-out culture" before that, which was arguably worse but less widespread due to Twitter not yet having borged the liberal press, and that was used almost exclusively in left, feminist and LGBT circles. (Some of the very worst offenders of old 'call-out culture' are now high profile Twitter users who'll insist cancel culture isn't real)

Just because a few old fogeys use it just mean lefties or culture warriors doesn't erase past usage or how the phenomenon has actually played out. Pointing to a few multi-millionaires who have survived it doesn't mean the phenomenon doesn't have an broader effect. It should chill people to think of all the Isabel Fall's we don't hear about.

[13 schoolyards]

It's not a novel or unique thought, but it does occur to me that if you wanted to either a) talk seriously about "cancelling" as both burying a text and its author or b) stick the knife into "the trans community" for no good reason, then you might look to Fall's I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.

But very few people are genuinely interested in a), it seems, and the people who are miserably earnest about b) presumambly aren't aware of or capable of engaging with it.

One of the theories inside the SFF community was that Fall was previously a fairly well-known & successful young author who had made a few enemies (or had simply written a couple of high profile books that other writers felt was stepping on their "turf"), and her cancelling was more about a few people seeing a chance to really go to town on a personal rival and the mob went along for the ride.

It seemed a bit unlikely to me, but if the prime candidate for Fall's previous identity is correct it's not outside the bounds of possibility.

[Buelligan]

Cancel culture definitely applied to that kind of thing, seeing as people used to use "is cancelled" or "is over" before the term became popular. It was "call-out culture" before that, which was arguably worse but less widespread due to Twitter not yet having borged the liberal press, and that was used almost exclusively in left, feminist and LGBT circles. (Some of the very worst offenders of old 'call-out culture' are now high profile Twitter users who'll insist cancel culture isn't real)

Just because a few old fogeys use it just mean lefties or culture warriors doesn't erase past usage or how the phenomenon has actually played out. Pointing to a few multi-millionaires who have survived it doesn't mean the phenomenon doesn't have an broader effect. It should chill people to think of all the Isabel Fall's we don't hear about.

Two sides to every coin though, innit?  Maybe some people said some cunty things and lost the approbation of the potential world but through the same vector, other voices have gained traction and not all of them are cunts, many of them needed hearing and have been silenced by the traditional media since ever.

[madhair60]

Prick.

Too challenging for you?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Two sides to every coin though, innit?  Maybe some people said some cunty things and lost the approbation of the potential world but through the same vector, other voices have gained traction and not all of them are cunts, many of them needed hearing and have been silenced by the traditional media since ever.

There's no "two sides" from the perspective of Twitter, which get more control over peoples lives and communication whether outrage is justified or not. No matter who's up or who's down, they're profiting and extending themselves.

I am definitely not a fan of the idea that social media has given voice to the voiceless - the internet did, not Twitter and Facebook. If anything Twitter had a noticeably cooling effect because it is first real effect on marginal groups was to juice up the respectability politics beyond belief.

[Fry]

Too challenging for you?

I know you think what you're doing here is clever, but it doesn't really work because nobody in this thread agrees with Lipman and she'll never see it so you just come across like an wannabe edgy prat.

[Buelligan]

There's no "two sides" from the perspective of Twitter, which get more control over peoples lives and communication whether outrage is justified or not. No matter who's up or who's down, they're profiting and extending themselves.

I am definitely not a fan of the idea that social media has given voice to the voiceless - the internet did, not Twitter and Facebook. If anything Twitter had a noticeably cooling effect because it is first real effect on marginal groups was to juice up the respectability politics beyond belief.

Twitter isn't everything is it?  Fall wasn't published on twitter.  Facebook is not the social media world.  It doesn't matter whether you, personally, are a fan of any idea, its an idea, like The Helicopter Story.

[Kankurette]

Twitter should not be used as a battleground for political discourse. The layout and character limit makes it impossible and it's full of bots and trolls. Just look at the Glinner thread, he and his fangirls live their entire lives on that site!

[madhair60]

I know you think what you're doing here is clever, but it doesn't really work because nobody in this thread agrees with Lipman and she'll never see it so you just come across like an wannabe edgy prat.

I don't think anything I've ever done has been clever