Has Anyone Been Successfully Cancelled?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

For non-trivial academic cancellings, John Searle was shitcanned for sexual harassment but he was always emeritus whoops.

Guess everyone has to throw The Construction of Social Reality in the bin now. What? They're not doing this with that particular book? What I like most about cancel culture is the consistency.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

ive read so many of that guys books before i knew anything i wish they came with a warning sticker "author is extremely weird about asian women" i might not have bothered

[Terry Torpid]

Popcorn-movie hack Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3) was set to produce the Oscars, but he got cancelled for saying "rehearsal is for fags". Eddie Murphy resigned as host in solidarity, and the whole show had to be rejigged.

A few years later he was accused of bad sex crimes, which doesn't fit the OP's criteria, but he was basically cancelled by that point anyway, so I think he still counts. No films since 2017.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Popcorn-movie hack Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3) was set to produce the Oscars, but he got cancelled for saying "rehearsal is for fags"

in door smoking in this day and age? shameful, i hope he never works again

[Terry Torpid]

Yes, surely they can do smoke with CGI these days.

[TrenterPercenter]

For non-trivial academic cancellings, John Searle was shitcanned for sexual harassment but he was always emeritus whoops.

Wowser I didn't know about that but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.  I try as best I can to never get involved with other academics on a personal level especially the more eminent ones.  You will be invited to houses, parties and hotel rooms and I've always had a policy of thanks but no thanks.

[Terry Torpid]

Pee-wee Herman was cancelled for having a wank for about a decade (that's a long time to have wank!), but he managed to uncancel himself.

Speaking of wankers, could we say Jim Davidson has been cancelled? He'll never get on proper telly again.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

When Ong, who is Asian-American, brought up the topic of American imperialism, Searle responded "American imperialism? Oh boy, that sounds great, honey! Let's go to bed and do that right now!" the complaint states.

Continental philosophy is so sleazy. If only Derrida and Foucault had the decorum of their anglosaxon collegues they might have been taken more seriously.

[Terry Torpid]

[clicked quote instead of edit]

[Terry Torpid]

[did it again for fuck's sake!]

[Dex Sawash]

[did it again for fuck's sake!]

#metoo

[Rolf Lundgren]

I was thinking about Jim Davidson too but he was doing Big Break and The Generation Game among other things, all while doing blue stand-up videos and spouting questionable views/jokes.

I don't think there was an incident that made the bosses pull the plug, more like it was his natural time to go. Looking back now, it seems mad he was given as long as he did.

[TrenterPercenter]

Continental philosophy is so sleazy. If only Derrida and Foucault had the decorum of their anglosaxon collegues they might have been taken more seriously.

Who was the one that shot his wife? (and wasn't cancelled).

[BritishHobo]

A lot of the great points raised in here are exactly why I think 'public shaming' as Ronson discussed it is a much more useful phrase than 'cancel culture' or someone being cancelled. Aside from it being loaded politically, it's ineffective, because it doesn't really apply to anybody who was the target of a shaming but still gets opportunities - which is most famous targets of shamings. It defines the entire thing on whether the rare end result was achieved, rather than whether the common cause of internet shaping occurred. For example the reaction to Lindsay Ellis was pretty ridiculous, but because she technically still had a platform on Twitter and Patreon, it allowed terminally online Twitter types to say 'she hasn't been cancelled', and thereby dismiss the idea that any kind of mob mentality behaviour had taken place.

[JaDanketies]

Who was the one that shot his wife? (and wasn't cancelled).

William Burroughs? All his greatest work post-killing his wife

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Who was the one that shot his wife? (and wasn't cancelled).

You're probably thinking of Louis Althusser, a schizophrenic who strangled his wife during a psychotic break and was confined under mental health law. What is usually overlooked is he had a hell of a time with French psychiatry, undergoing electro therapy and all kinds of horrors, and had a lifetime of suffering relating to several neurological disorders. Not apologising for him but the "omg marxist strangles his wife and is excused by straight white male marxists! europe isn't advanced like the ivy league!" story is wrong on the details as much as its right to be outraged by the act.

The real reason he's 'cancelled' is that before his death he 'confessed' to, as the author of Reading Capital, never actually having read Capital. Which I think is certainly untrue, and probably an attempt to keep his personal connection to scientific marxism submerged. That area of thought isn't the big deal it used to be so its not really significant. Althusserian Marxism used to be a big force, and was the big baddie for a lot of people, it was the "class reductionism" of its day in terms of being the straightlaced old dad the hippies wanted to get with it, but nowadays its nothing you hear about all that much outside of Marxists who read Marx which is a very small group in universities. I like it though because I'm completely unreconstructed. Where else am I going to read about ideology

[Goldentony]

Pennsylvania rapper Steady B

[Mister Six]

Mate of mine is friends with a notable male author/academic of colour who won awards for his novels and essays, but found his career hitting a brick wall when he was spuriously accused of sexual harrassment. My mate said the guy shagged around a LOT in his youth (in a wholly and mutually consensual fashion), but was in no way handsy when he shouldn't have been, and thinks the accusers might have just been angry exes. There were a couple of independent investigations, including one by the university he lectures at, that said it was bollocks. But the news sites, blogs and social had a field day with it (nothing like the cancellation of a "good guy" to really get the Twitter gears turning), he lost book deals and tour/discussion appearances, and his time as an author was up. TBH, he might be able to make another go of it by this point, but apparently the whole thing was very traumatic and basically shattered his muse.

That's where this cancellation stuff really bites - academics and people whose careers are based around them being seen as "one of the good ones". And it only takes the slightest paper cut to get the pirahna tanks churning.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

J*** D*** ?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

If you don't know who that it is then its the notable academic and author of Becoming Chalky: Laughter and Affect in Post-Colonial England, Jim Davidson

[Mister Six]

I'm also reminded of this story, about a black woman who stepped down from her new position as editor of Teen Vogue because another journo - I think safe to assume someone with a bone to pick, possibly who was also in contention for the job - brought up anti-Asian racist (and also homophobic) tweets that she had made when she was 17.

Maybe some people won't consider it proper cancellation, because she's probably still got a career somewhere, but it does seem like we need to set some kind of moratorium up for tweets or social media posts made much earlier, especially when the offender was basically a child.

It seems like it would have been a much better thing to do to have the editor own up to her mistakes in the magazine and provide an example to young teenagers of the personal growth that is possible, and should be encouraged, rather than basically saying "yeah, if you put one step wrong - even when your brain isn't fully developed - you can get fucked out of a job a decade later".

I occasionally wonder how many people who support this kind of public dragging also claim to support rehabilitating and releasing prisoners, and reforming laws that make it difficult for prisoners to find work once they're out of chokey. I've encountered a couple, and the cognitive dissonance is astounding.

J*** D*** ?

Yes, John Depp.

[TrenterPercenter]

You're probably thinking of Louis Althusser

That's the guy sorry strangled.

[TrenterPercenter]

William Burroughs? All his greatest work post-killing his wife

Oh yes I think I was getting the two mixed up but yes it was Althusser ultimately.

[jamiefairlie]

I'm also reminded of this story, about a black woman who stepped down from her new position as editor of Teen Vogue because another journo - I think safe to assume someone with a bone to pick, possibly who was also in contention for the job - brought up anti-Asian racist (and also homophobic) tweets that she had made when she was 17.

Maybe some people won't consider it proper cancellation, because she's probably still got a career somewhere, but it does seem like we need to set some kind of moratorium up for tweets or social media posts made much earlier, especially when the offender was basically a child.

It seems like it would have been a much better thing to do to have the editor own up to her mistakes in the magazine and provide an example to young teenagers of the personal growth that is possible, and should be encouraged, rather than basically saying "yeah, if you put one step wrong - even when your brain isn't fully developed - you can get fucked out of a job a decade later".

I occasionally wonder how many people who support this kind of public dragging also claim to support rehabilitating and releasing prisoners, and reforming laws that make it difficult for prisoners to find work once they're out of chokey. I've encountered a couple, and the cognitive dissonance is astounding.

Yes, John Depp.

Or alternatively starkly warn kids that using social media can fuck up their lives. Scare the fucking shit out of them. Won't happen if course because the economy needs them to run on their little wheels.

[TrenterPercenter]

it does seem like we need to set some kind of moratorium up for tweets or social media posts made much earlier, especially when the offender was basically a child.

That would require a serious conversation about public shaming and those that public shame and this is not going to happen because people enjoy it too much.

I occasionally wonder how many people who support this kind of public dragging also claim to support rehabilitating and releasing prisoners, and reforming laws that make it difficult for prisoners to find work once they're out of chokey. I've encountered a couple, and the cognitive dissonance is astounding.

It's puzzling isn't it but there is a potent cocktail of psychological benefits that come from DESTROYING people from positions of morality, namely sadism and piety.  McWhorter is a bit wacky and questionable himself on lots of things but his assertions on the psychology of the Elect is pretty convincing.

[Red Macadam]

Carol Thatcher? She had an incongruous and incomprehensible spell of being a chat show constant and a 'The Wright Stuff' regular.
She made a comment about a black footballer's hair resembling that of a golly, except she used the full word, and was hastily removed from the public sphere.
This was before 'cancelling' existed, but she definitely was cancelled in the way, I think, we mean. Certainly, she's never regained even a slither of her popularity and presence.

[famethrowa]

Continental philosophy is so sleazy. If only Derrida and Foucault had the decorum of their anglosaxon collegues they might have been taken more seriously.

How come they haven't been cancelled? They did publicly tick the box that said "yes, adults should have sex with children"

[Video Game Fan 2000]

How come they haven't been cancelled? They did publicly tick the box that said "yes, adults should have sex with children"

yes but have you seen the other team

[The Lurker]

Not quite successfully but the tabloids wanted Julian Clary banned from TV after the Norman Lamont joke. I was very young at the time so I can't add anything other than that but hopefully some of you old cunts can add some insight into Clary's cancellation.

The two Australian DJs from that unfortunate prank were cancelled for a bit. Successfully? Not sure. The male DJ was back on the air after a few months, whereas the female DJ didn't work for three years and was seemingly the face of the prank whereas the bloke was rarely mentioned. They were nobodies before the prank and I guess they're still nobodies who will forever be described as "that DJ for from that prank call".

[TrenterPercenter]

I think Roger Waters in soon to be cancelled.