Has Anyone Been Successfully Cancelled?

[JaDanketies]

Matthew Kelly and John Leslie came out of Barrymore-esque scandals with promising careers in tatters. It might just be hard to get the light entertainment audience back once you a bad smell about you.

You don't see Angus Deaton about much these days either

[Famous Mortimer]

Matthew Kelly and John Leslie came out of Barrymore-esque scandals with promising careers in tatters. It might just be hard to get the light entertainment audience back once you a bad smell about you.

You don't see Angus Deaton about much these days either

Kelly has had an acting career more successful than 99% of working actors since his "scandal" and Deayton hosted many shows after his, and has continued to write and act too. Not bad for a couple of fellas who are now at retirement age and would have been slowing down anyway. Leslie did work, too, although his most recent job was an AM radio station.

Not sure any of these count as "cancellation" - yes, they all earn less than they did, but they probably earn more than anyone on this forum (well, maybe not Leslie). 

[JesusAndYourBush]

Just remembered Michael Barrymore was more or less cancelled. He had some post-body in the pool TV appearances, like Celebrity Big Brother

And in Celeb BB he did his* comedy Hitler routine (which has been enough to get other people cancelled.)


*Nicked from Freddie Starr.

[Goldentony]

GRAVERAPER?

[dissolute ocelot]

Roseanne? (her revived show was literally cancelled after her comments)

Her show wasn't cancelled, it was renamed The Conners and is still in production without her, with season 5 ordered for the 2022-23 season. Roseanne herself has been a bit quiet of late, outside a few podcasts and TV appearances and social media, although she's had various health issues too (she is 69). It probably was one of the faster and more lasting "cancellations" though.

[TrenterPercenter]

We can see a trend here can't we.  That cancellations are only identifiable if the person is of celebrity stature.  Are they the only ones that are "cancelled" or the only ones that matter? This should probably be considered in that lots of people loss their job unfairly, are dismissed or ostracised from groups unfairly without anyone knowing or caring. 

This is often completely ignored or dismissed but obviously goes against lots of leftwing principles i.e. unions obviously represent people everyday that has vexation claims made against them from people trying to get rid of them (it's what unions do) - a complete collision with absolutist/reactive forms of identity politics.

[JaDanketies]

Yeah Roseanne got herself pretty cancelled. I recall some woman - Gina Carano - who played a significant role in The Mandalorian and got fired after repeating things that Donald Trump said on social media.  She's now been hired to play a role in a Republican-made biopic about Joe Biden's son, which seems less prestigious.

What TrenterPercenter is going on about - I know I've mentioned it here before, but I said a racist slur (p*ki) when I was pissed out of my head aged 21, and it had zero consequence on my life except for on the night I said it.

Several years later I criticised Thatcher on Facebook and someone who was there on the night commented on my wall repeating the story. And at the time I worked for a bunch of Pakistani guys in an office that was probably 75% Pakistani. Deleted and unfriended and the guy blew up at me in my DMs. He must've been upset about Thatcher.

I felt really blindsighted though, and that's pretty small-fry to the ancient social media posts you see other little people getting dragged about.

[Pdine]

Trivial infighting that wouldn't even seem controversial to someone outside of the argument. Nothing exciting or politically intriguing at all.

There are worse epistemic issues with the academic world though. Even in the 'hard' sciences the ongoing reproducibility crisis and serious failures of peer review like this:

https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

crop up because social phenomena ('respect', fashion in funder approaches) stop the efficient identification of error. In the social sciences and humanities it's much, much worse, with paradigms lingering unjustifiably for decades with - again - mainly social phenomena preventing them being challenged. There's pretty much no part of academic practice untouched by silent freezing out of ideas that are in themselves worthy of investigation.

[Sonny_Jim]

Kevin Spacey seems to be very much cancelled.

She's now been hired to play a role in a Republican-made biopic about Joe Biden's son,

I want to see this.

[JaDanketies]

I want to see this.

Lawrence Fox plays Hunter Biden.

Gina Carano said: "The script was instantly intriguing and side achingly hilarious to me, especially after being newly exposed to the political realm in 2020. Robert Davi is someone who reached out to me as soon as I was 'canceled' in Feb. 2021. I signed on in support of him and one of my favorite humans, Laurence Fox."

[Sonny_Jim]

It'll be 'side aching hilarious' for me too, just not for the reasons they intended,  Glorious, can't wait.

EDIT: My Son Hunter  filmed in Serbia for 4 weeks, with one of the FBI guys from Die Hard directing.  Fucking hell it's going to be amazing

[Mr Vegetables]

Christopher Eccleston wasn't exactly cancelled for finding Doctor Who horrendous to work on, but what happened to him does orbit that, I think. And it's the flip side of all this to some degree; if you don't draw a line where you say "you've made this working environment unsafe" you end up with an environment that blacklists the people who won't or can't tolerate it.

[TrenterPercenter]

Any idea what his gripe was with Dr Who?

[Endicott]

It's difficult as he took years to talk about it, but I think he thought the crew were being bullied by the director and other senior management.

[Kelvin]

Not sure if they've been mentioned yet, but Kevin Spacey and Brian Singer were both huge names who seem to have been permanently cancelled for being, you know... rapists.

[Sgt. Duckie]

Joâo Cancelo hasn't been cancelled yet which is IRONIC

[Sonny_Jim]

Can't cancel a Cancelo, it's a double negative and cancels itself out.

[Dex Sawash]

Still sniping I see

BULLSEYE!

[Rolf Lundgren]

Kelly has had an acting career more successful than 99% of working actors since his "scandal".

That's true but there's something irrevocably sad about Kelly's story. A primetime career virtually ended overnight for something that never happened. I heard an interview with him recently and it was clear he still hadn't come to terms with it and I can understand why.

[Jockice]

Yeah Roseanne got herself pretty cancelled. I recall some woman - Gina Carano - who played a significant role in The Mandalorian and got fired after repeating things that Donald Trump said on social media.  She's now been hired to play a role in a Republican-made biopic about Joe Biden's son, which seems less prestigious.

What TrenterPercenter is going on about - I know I've mentioned it here before, but I said a racist slur (p*ki) when I was pissed out of my head aged 21, and it had zero consequence on my life except for on the night I said it.

Several years later I criticised Thatcher on Facebook and someone who was there on the night commented on my wall repeating the story. And at the time I worked for a bunch of Pakistani guys in an office that was probably 75% Pakistani. Deleted and unfriended and the guy blew up at me in my DMs. He must've been upset about Thatcher.

I felt really blindsighted though, and that's pretty small-fry to the ancient social media posts you see other little people getting dragged about.

Yeah, it's sometimes hard to tell what's acceptable. In my 20s - circa 1991 - I was at a do at which there was a group of people from a magazine that covered a certain cultural activity. They were all having a good laugh at a celebrity in that field's alleged substance abuse. I was only very vaguely aware of this but had heard a rumour about their sexual preferences. So I mentioned it. Nothing illegal just unexpected. But it was followed by total silence from everyone. Tumbleweed. I'd obviously said something terribly wrong. My very own David Brent moment. The conversation moved on but I said very little for the rest of the evening. Too embarrassed

I've never met most of these people since and I'm still not sure exactly why my comment was so unacceptable. I mean I as a total outsider (it wasn't a music magazine) had heard these rumours so those in the business must have been aware of them. I didn't even say it in a sneery way, more questioning. I certainly wouldn't say anything like that nowadays, but then I wouldn't have laughed at anyone else's alleged addictions whether then or now. But that was considered completely fine. Which is quite ironic because most of these people were totally off their heads by the end of the night.

[Famous Mortimer]

Oh, no doubt, but I think his circumstances were very unusual. And he's still working in the same industry.

Not sure if they've been mentioned yet, but Kevin Spacey and Brian Singer were both huge names who seem to have been permanently cancelled for being, you know... rapists.

Just to be crystal clear, I'm looking for cancelled (ie career-ended) people who have not been accused of illegal or borderline illegal stuff. This rules out sexual abuse allegations or getting your willy out.

The number of people who've suffered unjustly, compared to what they did, is pretty fucking small. Gina Carano, mentioned above, wasn't really an actor, she just got parts because she was so good at fighting and looked quite nice. There are a limited number of entertainment jobs and lots of people going for them, but no-one would say the people who failed auditions were "cancelled". So much of this argument is just noise, and the alternative that people who complain about cancellation want is never articulated.

[Dr Rock]

Michael Richards was thoroughly cancelled, though I don't know if he had much career left in him.

[Small Man Big Horse]

It's difficult as he took years to talk about it, but I think he thought the crew were being bullied by the director and other senior management.

Here's a couple of quotes:

"He noted that the crew "could've have been treated better," and acknowledged that harsh shooting conditions are unfortunately typical for the industry. Although Eccleston and Davies once had a "great working relationship" from working on a previous series together (2003's "Second Coming"), it was a breakdown in the relationship between the two that served as the last straw. Although Eccleston kept away from specifics, it seems clear the respect was gone by the end of filming: "I learned about the politics and I learned that I don't necessarily ... If somebody asks me to kiss their ass, I bite it. That's what I learned about myself."

Also as to why he's never come back:

"My relationship with the BBC over "Doctor Who" has not healed," Eccleston stated during recent DragonCon Q&A. It wasn't just the conditions that led to him leaving, but how he was treated afterward:

"They created a quote, and they attributed it to me, which said I was tired... Any other producer reading that would go 'Oh, we're not going to employ Christopher Eccleston because he gets tired'. So it was a lie, and it was in quotation marks, and I'm from Salford, you don't do that to me."

https://www.slashfilm.com/784715/the-on-set-drama-that-made-christopher-eccleston-leave-doctor-who/?utm_campaign=clip

It might have initially hurt his career but his choice of projects wasn't great, including GI Joe Rise Of Cobra, a shitty role in Heroes, a poor itv tv movie called Perfect Parents, and Thor 2 (the one Marvel movie everyone I know seems to hate). I know he's done a lot of great work since and would say by 2014 he's having a real return to form, but some of the things he did after Who really weren't all that even if he was still good in them.

[Zetetic]

Along the lines of Eccleston, there's the claims that Brendan Fraser's allegations of being sexually assaulted did substantial damage to his career and life.

[TrenterPercenter]

I think any rounded conversation on cancel culture has to consider both the motives and the behaviours of the cancellers - this the bit that is generally always missing (from the group who the cancelling benefits). 

If someone says something controversial something 20 years ago, has realised their mistake and contributed good things to society since, then someone trying to character assassinate them because they enjoy the power that this gives them then this is problematic surely.  Constantly harassing people for perceived transgressions (and ones that might not even be accurate) and being horrid to people because you can isn't a thing to support or be proud off (well of anyone that believes in redemption not retribution).

These are the things that Ellis and Contrapoints raised about the mob and the people within that mob, that intentions and behaviours matter it's really not rocket science that someone might be attacking someone for personally malicious reasons and not being honest about it and exaggerating and embellishing aspects of their accusations.  In the online world it all about DESTROYING your enemy and getting as many people as possible to see your enemy in the frame you want them to be seen through.

[lipsink]

Was gonna say Casey Affleck but he's another one for sexual harassment onset and he's in Oppenheimer next year!

He's definitely taken a step back from acting a bit since his Oscar win and the allegations that resurfaced around that time. He has sort of addressed it but dunno if his career will ever be the same with big leading roles etc.

[maett]

Don't know if it counts as cancelled but there was the New York real estate bloke that tweeted about BTS "They look like kids. How old are they? Are Asian women even attracted to their own men?"
He was fired for racism

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2021/07/398_267384.html?KK

[TrenterPercenter]

It is interesting how people like Ferrari, Clarkson and Morgan can say virtually anything and not get cancelled.

[curiousoranges]

I'm sure Will Smith is going to be fine, but I wonder how much longer that Oscars slap is going to follow him around.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

There are worse epistemic issues with the academic world though. Even in the 'hard' sciences the ongoing reproducibility crisis and serious failures of peer review like this:

https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

crop up because social phenomena ('respect', fashion in funder approaches) stop the efficient identification of error. In the social sciences and humanities it's much, much worse, with paradigms lingering unjustifiably for decades with - again - mainly social phenomena preventing them being challenged. There's pretty much no part of academic practice untouched by silent freezing out of ideas that are in themselves worthy of investigation.

Yeah, in the humanities there are whole fields of studies built on "its the way we've always done it" and nothing more, while more useful or fruitful stuff goes by the wayside. In criticism and theory there are whole branches built on a single book that a bored undergrad with a free weekend could shoot full of holes. One of these is undergoing a huge wave of popularity right now, the current fashionable basket for people to put all their eggs in.

But in terms of interpersonal stuff, which I take 'cancelling' to mean here, the complete triviality is what strikes me. Although I think the latter is often in service of the former.