Cancel culture is beyond
out-of-control now.
The latest casualties have been Gina Carano of the Mandalorian series (fired by Disney) and Chris Harrison, longtime host of the reality TV show The Bachelor (fired by ABC). Carano was fired because she compared Republicans to Jews during the Holocaust, which insinuated that Democrats were the Nazis. Boom. See ya. You’ve been cancelled. As for Harrison, he (somewhat) defended a bachelorette for having an Old South-themed party in 2018 that celebrated the antebellum era. His argument was that having it in 2018 wasn’t as racially insensitive a look as it would be if she had it in 2021, post-George Floyd-era. In other words, having the party in 2018 could be understandably done out of ignorance, but in 2021 it would be tone-deaf. Oh, and he also happened to say two forbidden words: “woke police”. Boom. See ya, Chris. You’ve been cancelled.
Now, it can be reasonably argued that what both of these people said wasn’t the most perfect, sensitive and responsible thing ever said. But, really, they’re going to be fired, just like that? No second chances? No talking things out? No apologies accepted? No forgiveness whatsoever?
At the rate we’re going, in two or three years, every single person on the planet is going to be cancelled. Because, as we all can admit, we don’t always say the most perfect things, especially when we are speaking freely. So what is the message, then? Never speak freely ever? Make sure everything that comes out of your mouth gets run through a complex filter of political correctness and is, thus, the most safe and boring and banal thing that you can possibly say? If that is the case, then I guess we can say goodbye to the 1st amendment, goodbye freedom. Goodbye to saying anything even the least bit interesting. Doing so would be too risky.
Let’s face it: no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on—right or left or somewhere in between—we all know that this cancel culture is absolutely ridiculous. We also all know that this is NOT progress; if anything, it’s being used as a way to distract from and avoid true progress in society. This road that we’re on will lead us to nothing but a dystopic, near-Orwellian-like culture where everybody is either not allowed to speak freely (because they have the scarlet letter ‘C’ on them, for ‘cancelled’) or because they’re scared shitless to speak freely lest they get that scarlet letter C branded on their foreheads.
That’s right: everybody knows this is where cancel culture is going to get us.
So why do we keep doing it, then?
Well, part of the problem, I think, is that we’re not really doing it. It’s the corporations that are doing it. In Gina Carano’s case, she was fired by Disney. And, incidentally, in Chris Harrison’s case, he was also fired by Disney, which owns ABC, the network that The Bachelor is on. But it’s not just Disney who is doing this. Today, pretty much every corporation across the board is doing it. Why? Because, by nature, a corporation is a sociopathic, spineless, inhuman coward. And, no, I’m not trying to be one of those punkers who rants and raves that “CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL! Oi! Oi! Oi!” What I mean is that this is the nature of the corporation. Its allegiance is to one thing and one thing only: the bottom line. If there is a threat to that bottom line, no matter how remote, it eliminates that threat. The corporation doesn’t give a damn about giving anybody second chances. All they care about is that bottom line. If you stand in the way of that bottom line? Forget your ass. Boom. You’re gone.
Now, the main reason why a corporation is like this, at least from what I understand about them (and I’m admittedly rather ignorant when it comes to the corporate world) is because a corporation is beholden to its shareholders and shareholders, by law, have the right to sue a corporation if that corporation isn’t doing anything and everything in its power to ensure that its bottom line is as profitable as possible (look up derivative lawsuits for more about this). This is why, if a person working for that corporation says something that may hurt the corporation’s image (like Carano or Harrison), well, then, BOOM, you’re gone, no second thoughts about it.
Thus, we see why corporations are the biggest spineless, cowardly wuss-bags in existence. Again, not because “THEY’RE EVIL!!! Oi! Oi! Oi!”, but because, by law, they must be slaves to the bottom line. The bottom line is their god.
So, what I’m getting at here is that “cancel culture” is a corporate-driven movement and it is a glaring indication that we have allowed the corporate world to obtain waaaaaay too much power over us. Basically, the more corporate power that exists, the more scared we are to speak our minds, because the sad reality is that the majority of the people out there, especially in the public eye, are beholden to a corporation in some way or another, whether they work directly for one or they use one (like Twitter, Facebook, Google etc.) for marketing purposes and/or, of course, to speak their mind.
Long story short: you can’t blame the corporations for cancelling everyone. It’s their nature to be like this. It’s actually our fault for allowing them to possess so much power over us. We need to remember that corporations are inhuman entities that we created. They should be slaves to US, not the other way around. It’s time we take back control and say enough is enough. This cancel culture has got to stop. If we, instead, allow the sociopathic entity that is the corporation to override what we as people actually want (i.e. free speech), then it will be our downfall as a society.
More articles by Matt
Burns on cancel culture and mass censorship:
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MATT BURNS is the author of THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON, which is a novella loosely based on chapter 12 in The Book of Revelation. He’s also the author of JOHNNY CRUISE, WEIRD MONSTER and a memoir called GARAGE MOVIE: MY ADVENTURES MAKING WEIRD FILMS. Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.
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