The term Cancel Culture is bandied about in the press with too many caveats.
Liberal news outlets preface the phrase with either “so-called” or put it in scare quotes. The message is clear. Many on the Right are blowing the term out of proportion. It’s partly what TheWrap.com did with its recent, four-part series on Cancel Culture.
Fox Nation attempts no such thing.
The streaming platform’s series, Canceled in the USA, highlights the lives impacted by Cancel Culture as well as the microscopic offenses that sparked those cancellations.
Dan Bongino hosts the five-part series that takes a personal look at Cancel Culture victims. [Editor’s note: This reporter has contributed to Bongino.com]
Episode one features an unlikely pair of Americans canceled under spurious circumstances. Tennessee-based CEO Sam Johnson had an unfortunate run-in with a prom party at a local restaurant. The boisterous group featured a gay teen wearing a bright red dress. Johnson says the party’s loud antics interrupted his dining experience.
That’s when the trouble began.
The special lets both Johnson and the gay prom couple share their sides of the story in a sober, and balanced, fashion. It’s up to the viewer to determine who was right or wrong, but it’s hard for anyone to think the punishment fit whatever crime Johnson committed.
One thing is clear. Johnson told the boy he looked like an “idiot” in his dress. Johnson was the adult here, and he should have extricated himself from the conflict in a more mature manner.
Yet in today’s culture gay acceptance trumps all, something the boys leaned into by sharing a video of their encounter on TikTok. Death threats followed. And, eventually, Johnson lost his job. The boys in question say the now ex-CEO got what he deserved.
“Times are changing. Either get with it or shut up,” the boy in the red dress says.
An interesting angle? How celebrities like Kathy Griffin and Patricia Arquette, who routinely dole out hate against those with whom they disagree, poured gasoline on the social media fires. Griffin was briefly “cancelled” herself years ago for her heinous art display against President Donald Trump.
Yet she has no qualms doing the same to Johnson. Let’s not forget Griffin also whipped up a mob against the innocent Covington Catholic kids in 2019.
Author Natasha Tynes, a Jordanian-American, also got canceled for sharing an image of a black Metro worker on Twitter breaking the service’s rules – eating on the job. “Black Twitter” assumed her admonition was racist in nature, and soon her book deal for “They Called Me Wyatt” vanished.
Being a female person of color was no defense. Nor was her swift apology.
Bongino’s views on Cancel Culture, and politics in general, are no mystery. He narrates the series but keeps the editorializing to a minimum. The events speak for themselves.
Episode two zeroes in on Hollywood, showing how prominent stars got canceled despite extended apologies. The series mentions the Chris Harrison kerfuffle, for which “The Bachelor” host’s repeated apologies, and inoffensive comments, still cost him his gig.
It’s vile watching Harrison apologize like he had kicked a nun down the stairs, not deviated from the far-Left groupthink on racial matters.
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried weighs in, slinging “offensive” jokes to bolster his arguments against Cancel Culture. Once upon a time there was nothing wrong with black humor as a way to process tragic events, which is what the comedian did by sharing crude jokes following the 2011 Japanese tsunami.
“Really? I’m the biggest villain in the world now?” he says of the kerfuffle, which cost him his Aflac gig voicing the company’s mascot.
Social Justice Warriors, he notes, relish the chance to hurt complete strangers. He compares the sentiment to ancient Romans who flash their “thumbs down” signal to those they want punished.
The episode’s segment on fired Disney star Gina Carano captures the hypocrisy in full display. The Mouse House ignored the show’s liberal provocateur, “Mandalorian” star Pedro Pascal, but fired Carano over a similar social media message.
The Hollywood/Cancel Culture story is far too massive for one TV-style episode. Yet “Canceled” slickly packages many key elements, including how reporters egg on the movement.
Kudos to Fox Nation for sharing a vital series at a time when it’s needed the most. It’s a shame the souls who need to see “Canceled in the U.S.A.,” the woke elites, likely don’t subscribe.
Fox Nation rolls out a fresh episode of the series each day this week.
[Cross-posted from Hollywood in Toto.]
