Cancel Culture Conclusion: Cuties

There are so many examples I could use to show white men claiming they were canceled, and women actually paying the price. 

I could write about Andrew Cuomo swearing not to bow to "cancel culture" as he is investigated for sexual harassment and cover-up (separately), and yet he is still in office, and nothing has changed for him yet. To date he has only faced criticism and questions, and yet, he feels victimized:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/andrew-cuomo-cancel-culture

Whereas Alexi McCammond stepped down from Teen Vogue after some tweets that foolishly threw in race:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56446635 

I could write about Jesse Singal -- "cancel culture" combatant extraordinaire -- hounding Julia Serano off of Twitter while he remains there:

http://www.juliaserano.com/av/JesseSingalStatement.pdf

We could draw lessons from the power imbalance that tends to prevail, whereas white privilege and male privilege -- things that give you a higher position in patriarchy -- tend to be the best protection, and how said privilege also tends to create the thinnest skin, where the complaints about any criticism or questioning will increase.

We might talk about how for a wealthy white man to actually be canceled seems to require at least 50 accusers, but only if at least one is well documented and still within the statute of limitations.

However, I think the most valuable topic will be to briefly focus on the movie Mignonnes, known in English as Cuties.

Maïmouna Doucouré is a screenwriter who came upon an inappropriate talent show one day, with "inappropriate" meaning that young girls were acting too sexy for their age, a common thing to see. Drawing from that and her own experiences she wrote a film about a young Senegalese immigrant to France who desperately wants to fit in with the girls at school, and who is angry at how her father's second marriage is hurting her mother. Amy is given a fair amount of responsibility and a fair amount of unsupervised time, but she does not have anyone trying to understand her or explain things to her.

And she does take part in an inappropriate talent show number, making some pretty bad choices along the way.

It would be very easy to get the telling wrong, where the sexuality of the girls is enjoyable to the audience, but it is really very well done. What the camera shows and does not show leaves you perfectly understanding what the girls are trying to do, but not lingering on it or glorifying it. In addition, you are constantly aware of their immaturity, and their lack of knowledge, and reminded of how hard navigating adolescence is. You can see why Amy finds the dancing liberating, while wishing she would find some other way. 

You also know this path is not going to lead her to happiness, because the film starts with a flash forward of Amy crying at the talent show.

It seems like something that could be a good topic of discussion, especially for parents and teachers of teenagers. It was well-received in France, and won an award at Sundance.

And it got death threats for Doucouré, and petitions to Netflix to pull it, and campaigns for people to cancel Netflix.

That was largely based on a misunderstanding, and Netflix changing the promotional materials in a bad way, but QAnon fanned the flames, and the boycott was popular with church members.

I remember seeing one friend righteously indignant about it. I tried to rein her in, but she was just more determined to cancel Netflix, because how dare they? 

There are ways in which this film made an easy target. It is about how young girls can easily fall prey to sexualization that they don't understand, and how they need better options than a choice between simple obedience to parents and husbands versus objectifying themselves to attract men. There are people who are against that level of conscious choice for women, and especially young women, so yes, the film is the villain, not society, and we can safely excoriate the maker of the film.

It is even more desirable to direct hate against her, because she is a woman, and a child of immigrants, and Black. She is also Muslim, and while we criticize their enforced modesty, we will also shame girls for showing too much leg or shoulder or neck; we win because our young women are allowed to show their hair.

And because this was Doucouré's first film, this can really set back her career, but successful careers are for men, and maybe occasionally white women.

There really was a full-blown attempt to cancel Doucouré, and Mormons helped. No one seems to have thought about mentioning the First Amendment in the same way in which they would for John Schnatter using the N-word.

Getting back to Alexi McCammond, it would be easy to defend and minimize her tweets, compared to other things that have happened. That isn't really right, but when there are credible accusations that Trump raped a 13 year old girl ignored, but the film where girls feel sexy and like it's a good thing while twerking is the real problem... what is the thought process there?

And that is why it was worth spending a few weeks on "cancel culture" if we are going to talk about fighting white supremacy. Repeating the phrase is more likely to be used as a way of not merely deflecting criticism, but also enforcing white supremacy. The damage will be done to others.

We need to understand how that works, and that the current system is rotten at its core.

Cancel Culture, part 3: Is that really canceling?

Let me refer back to Dr. Seuss just briefly, in how so many people have been defending Green Eggs and Ham -- a classic -- when that is not one of the books no longer being published. The things that people say when they are decrying "cancel culture" are frequently less than accurate.

It may not merely be a lack of sincerity. It is possible that people latch on to one detail, and then ignore others.

I will start with an example on the Democrat side, former Senator Al Franken.

There is a contingent that will tell you that because he took some pictures making fun of one sleeping woman on a plane that he was kicked out of congress by Kirsten Gillibrand  -- who might even be more to blame than Leeann Tweeden -- and because we lost such an important Democrat voice we need to learn from that and not bother Andrew Cuomo.

Except, that is not how it happened.

As of 2019, Franken has had 9 separate accusers. He could have appeared before the Senate Ethics Committee, but Senator Chuck Schumer gave him a deadline for resignation versus being censured and losing committee assignments. He chose resignation. 

Franken was replaced by former Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith, who is still a Democrat -- one with no harassment allegations -- and who has since won one special and one regular election. 

Should Franken have taken the censure and allowed the investigation to exonerate him? The proliferation of accusers makes exoneration seem less likely. Resignation allows him to maintain a posture of wounded innocence, which would be unlikely to hold up to further scrutiny.

Should Schumer have given Franken more time? Possibly; I don't know what pressures there was on him. Again, exoneration seems unlikely, so not dragging out may have been best for Senate Democrats. I still think the resignation was the least damaging option for Franken.

Is it true that Democrats are the ones most likely to be held to account for abuse? Sadly, that is absolutely true. That isn't a reason for us to stop being better, though; we aren't nearly better enough.

It is also clearly not true that we cannot afford to be better. Franken may have been better known than Smith, but that is for his show business career. Television fame is no guarantee of good governance, which we already knew, but the lessons were painful.

It is interesting -- and to the point -- that Gillibrand has faced more backlash than Schumer for the pressure on Franken.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/al-franken-kirsten-gillibrand-2020-1014697

Instead of exploring that now, I am going to mention one other example.

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/amber-heard-was-never-enough-of-a-victim

Notice in the first quoted tweet, the Johnny Depp defender refers to "canceled", like that did happen to Depp.

The article focuses on how the court evidence clearly bears out that the abuse allegations against Depp are true. Amber Heard having also done abusive things does not exonerate him, though that is not the way that fans are interpreting it. There is a lot of food for thought about interpersonal violence there.

However, it also makes the point that even before court evidence about both parties having done abusive things, Depp was not canceled. He still had movie roles. I remember seeing him in a (racist and appropriating) cologne commercial.

He still had people defending him, far more than Heard. Is that because he is more famous, with the longer career?

Or might there be some trend, where who can absorb career damage and who actually does get removed and harmed and "canceled" somehow relates to the already existing patriarchal structure?

Cancel Culture, part 2: Dr. Seuss

While my initial inspiration for writing about cancel culture was the John Schnatter booster going after it, so much has come up since then that there is a veritable wealth of material. 

People are decrying "cancel culture" right and left. 

Phrasing it that way not only hints at the ubiquity but also works as a political metaphor. And one of the complainants is John Schnatter! It's all connected.

Recent specific complaints about cancel culture include Schnatter and Andrew Cuomo (who differ politically, at least a little) for themselves, and others clamoring on behalf of Piers Morgan, Winston Marshall (the banjo player in Mumford & Sons), and Dr. Seuss.

My goal is to look at some of those and try and get beyond the reflexive response. That will cover multiple posts, but we will start with just Dr. Seuss.

In the case of Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to no longer publish six of the books because of offensive stereotypes depicted therein.

One possible hint that conservative backlash is not sincere is that the most common form of protest has been readings of Green Eggs and Ham, which is not one of the books being removed from publication. 

One complaint has been that Dr. Seuss did not have any children, so he is not the one making these decisions. This was also brought up when people thought The Cat in the Hat movie was terrible. (Apparently his widow agreed.)

That can be difficult, and some heirs (who may not be the literal children) may be overly protective, where others may seem overly mercenary. The law covers what is required, but there is a lot of room for variation within that.

In this case, it is the foundation's place to make the decision. It is not government censorship, it doesn't recall already existing editions of those books, and it doesn't do anything to the more than 50 other books he wrote.

There can be two good reasons for the decision. 

One is that children learning to read are also learning about the rest of the world and people. Not indoctrinating them with harmful stereotypes seems like a good idea. 

The books are for children, even if adults often like them or have fond memories of them. 

(This is why the complaints of how you can defend "W.A.P." -- a song that is not aimed at children -- while being against If I Ran the Zoo are specious arguments.)

In addition, you can wonder about Dr. Seuss's intent, and how he would have felt about it. It is true that he produced propaganda during WWII that was anti-Japanese and played into stereotypes, which can be a whole other subject. However, it is also true that the man who wrote The Lorax may have wanted a better world, and could very well have grown along with his books.

Richard Scarry was able to go back during his lifetime and update one of his classic books to make it more inclusive:

https://www.upworthy.com/8-changes-that-were-made-to-a-classic-richard-scarry-book-to-keep-up-with-the-times-progress

It is not impossible that Dr. Seuss might have done the same. His death may mean that the books cannot be altered with his blessing, but it does not mean that this subset of his books need to be published in perpetuity, freezing those stereotypes in amber.

I like this perspective from his godson:

https://www.danvillesanramon.com/news/2021/03/15/dr-seuss-godson-weighs-in-on-the-culture-wars-uproar-over-decision-to-stop-publishing-several-books

Really, is there any cancellation here? The author is still beloved, with many books that are beloved, but with some that might have done harm in the past now retired from doing harm. That was decided by people who care about his legacy but who do also care about capitalism and profit.

If the objection is going to be to racist stereotypes becoming less common, then say that outright.

Barking up the wrong tree: Cancel Culture!

I wrote about Operation Underground Railroad because I have seen several members focusing their birthday fundraisers on it. The idea for this series, though, started with another person I know.

He is planning on trying to make the world a better place (things have gotten so ugly) by taking on "cancel culture". 

This is the guy who tried to hold an event showing support for John Schnatter after Schnatter was criticized for refusing to give his workers health care. This was seen as more egregious because employee health care would have been very affordable (.02 per pizza, though it was thought it would be .08 when he first refused) and because Schnatter already had a pretty opulent lifestyle. 

What I am saying is that this person I know is on the board -- if not the actual chairman of the board -- of barking up the wrong tree.

I criticized the event for what I thought were obvious reasons and got a lot of abuse from his minions. To be fair, any time he doesn't agree with a given conspiracy theory his minions abuse him too, so perhaps being him is his own punishment. 

I blocked him a while ago, but I still hear about him through mutual acquaintances. His fight against cancel culture is a response to all of the negativity out there post-election, but he is also focusing on how China is more of a danger than Russia.

Now, that is a key conservative talking point. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but it still gets repeated a lot. That indicates to me that a lack of scrutiny is the problem.

The thing is, you can have a pretty good discussion about "cancel culture", and I will try and do that over the next post or two. Before that, I want to talk about it NOT being discussed, like when it just becomes a phrase that gets thrown out there, believed to be unassailable. Since there is no listening by the person who uses the term, they continue to believe they made a valid point.

We see similar issues with "fake news", "snowflakes", and "politically correct", though "cancel culture" is kind of replacing that one.

There was a book I really appreciated: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. It makes short, critical points from the last century and what was seen of fascism and authoritarianism.

Lesson 9 was "Be kind to our language."

Part of that is not simply repeating words without knowing their meaning or if they merit the repetition. 

For example, the phrase "fake news" did not start with the United States and Trump. It was used by Russia in Ukraine. Its purpose was not merely to discount specific stories (that tended to be true) but also to make it so people got cynical and didn't trust anything. Fighting gullibility may be a worthy cause, but spreading general cynicism is not the solution.

Therefore, even if you need to criticize something for being false or fragile or overly delicate, it is best to find your own way of phrasing it. If in the process of thinking about that, you discover that your criticism is unfair, that's a good thing to learn.

My plan is to explore "cancel culture", and show how it does and does not work. We will get into that in subsequent posts.

For this post, I would like to make one more point about conservative talking points.

Currently, Republican politician Matt Gaetz is under scrutiny for various things, including sex trafficking, which conservatives have tried really hard to frame as something Democrats do.

It does look bad for him, especially considering that the investigation started under Bill Barr, who was not know for his diligence in prosecuting Republicans.

However, there was a noticeable uptick in leading conservative figures complaining about Hunter Biden, and how he should be investigated.

This comes after one very convoluted story that was not even close to true, then another story that was at least more probable, but still proven to be untrue upon investigation, though there were phone calls requesting that it be made to look more true, but those phone calls don't incriminate any Bidens.

I know, all of that is convoluted, and it might be unfair for me not to delineate all of that, except the information is out there. Also, if you think that is complicated, wait until you catch up to the Joel Greenberg part of the Gaetz story.

However, this is the point. Once the story about Gaetz broke, conservatives started talking about Hunter Biden right away. It was an immediate attempt at deflection. It is not really possible to tell how well the attempt is coordinated because it gets picked up on so quickly, without questioning.

Of course, anyone who really wants to stop trafficking should be focusing on Gaetz, but the distraction seems to work.

And, it is not completely coordinated. There was also a smaller-scale resurgence of #FireFauci, which seems like an odd way to go now, except it is still a way to deflect. There is less to choose from now. Other choices are mainly focused on Major the dog, and too many people rightly love dogs and have sympathy for older ones.

So because it is visceral and vague and appealing in an alliterative way, you will be hearing "cancel culture" a lot. It will be helpful to recognize why it is being used and notice patterns in when it is being used.

As I first started taking notes, there were a few examples but the list kept growing. 

I can only imagine how many more there will be next week.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/09/economic-corruption.html