Cancel culture

The late-night talk show has been a staple of American television for three quarters of century. It is a tried and tested formula that works beautifully... until it doesn’t — as Jimmy Fallon learned this week when Rolling Stone published the feature “Chaos, Comedy, and ‘Crying Rooms’: Inside Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Tonight Show’.” There are millions of people who would sell their souls to make it Hollywood — and the competitiveness and desperation has been exploited time and time again by those at the top. But unlike many of the abusive tales that have been told over the past decade, the accusations against Fallon are watery at best.  In fact, the piece has bears all the hallmarks of a classic hit job.

When the history of comedy’s resurgence in the early twenty-first century is written — when masses of people, silenced by the speech codes of the day, found solace and contrarian hope in the words of unsilenced comics — Shane Gillis will be a major turning point in that story.  It’s not just that he’s arguably the best stand-up under forty working today; it’s that his work won out over all the obstacles the world threw at him. He is now the comedy world’s embodiment of the Streisand Effect, where his attempted cancellation functioned instead as a rocket ship for his career based not on victimhood but on the stubborn nature of his skill. Gillis’s first special, Live in Austin, was a YouTube joint that has racked up 14 million views.

It must seem very strange to Armie Hammer — once a successful, if not quite an A-list actor, who has latterly been reduced to selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands — that his career has taken such a decisive dive into the dumpster. Not very long ago, he was appearing in leading roles in the likes of Death on the Nile and Rebecca, and then his life went into a nosedive because of allegations of everything from cannibalism to sexual abuse. In present-day Hollywood, there is no such thing as a presumption of innocence until guilt is proved, and Hammer was fired from various projects, as well as being dropped by his agency and management company. His days of fame appeared to be over.

When I saw on Twitter that Bluey was the latest victim of cancel culture, naturally my first thought was "who did she say the N-word in front of?" For those not in the know, Bluey is an Australian cartoon dog who stars in an eponymous kids' TV show that airs on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC and, in the US, Disney+. She and her family go on a series of adventures that guide viewers through a healthy mix of toilet humor and confronting difficult emotions, in a tenor suitable for the under-tens.

Marvel is releasing its latest extravaganza, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, this weekend. Although early reviews have been largely negative and suggest the film is overwrought, it will inevitably make a huge amount of money and begin Marvel’s so-called "Phase 5" in high-profile fashion. Which is why it’s crucial for the publicity machine that its star Evangeline Lilly’s views on the anti-vaxxing debate do not overshadow the film’s more straightforward themes of good, evil and quantumania. Unfortunately, real-world issues are more complex than Marvel might like them to be. Lilly has enjoyed a successful career in films such as The Hobbit and in shows including Lost, and her appearances in the Ant-Man pictures were, until the advent of Covid, entirely uncontroversial.

When someone compiles the history of 21st-century Hollywood, the section devoted to Armie Hammer will be one of the most bizarre. “Handsome leading man, came to prominence playing twins in The Social Network, a film about a forgotten invention known as Facebook. Most of the films he was subsequently cast in flopped, despite often being quite good. Amidst allegations of sexual assault and worse, it was then revealed that he had a cannibalism fetish, and that was the end of his acting career.” Yet canceled Hollywood figures often refuse to stay canceled these days.

This week it was reported that Justin Roiland, the co-creator and star of the smash-hit animated sitcom Rick and Morty, is facing two felony domestic charges in Orange County related to an incident in January 2020. According to court records, Roiland is charged with “domestic battery with corporal injury” and one count of “false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, and/or deceit.” Some documents related to the incident are sealed, meaning the full details of his case aren’t publicly available — but if convicted, Roiland could face several years in prison. Shortly following this news, several women online accused Roiland of online harassment. And not just harassment, but bona fide creep behavior.

Apple Music has “quietly” removed two of Kanye West’s playlists from its platform. This news was leaked to the music press quietly, of course, and has (thus far) produced tons of free media impressions for the streamer. The move was presumably a shrewd public relations stunt, or maybe a rogue employee with coding skills. Who knows? But the media framed it as Apple Music taking a stand, quietly, of course, as the streamer repositions itself in the headlines after it announced last week that it was raising subscription prices. “De-platforming” Kanye West is messaging they’d like to piggyback, for obvious reasons, as it appeals to a swath of bored subscribers who could end up tweeting Apple Music for not being on the “right side of history.