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For me, the astonishing bit of
this article about cancel culture, is the huge number people who claim to not have self-censored in various situations. 51% of people say they haven't self-censored with people they've only just met? So they've felt comfortable saying whatever thing crosses their mind. If I said everything I thought about a stranger I would have been pummelled to death years ago. I am a comedian who has done a fair amount of edgy comedian and even I have self-censored. Self-censorship isn't a bad thing. We all think some awful and ridiculous things and it's worth considering whether it's worth saying them out loud.
And even if this is just about people not getting into conversations about immigrants or the Trans community, then of course, on whatever side of those subjects you are, there are times when you shouldn't bring them up. When meeting a stranger at a funeral for example or the very first thing you say to someone in any conversation. Or all the time in a weirdly obsessive way. You might really want to tell them that you think certain people should be sent home or not be able to use your toilet, but it's probably worth waiting for another time or even just not getting into the conversation at all.
Comedy is not in any danger of stopping. Even edgy comedy still exists and probably gets more actual air time than it would have done thirty years ago due to the proliferation of streaming and internet comedy. The stuff that gets on TV rarely had that much edge, but now Netflix and podcasts mean there is more supposedly cancelled comedy available than ever.
Even the BBC is putting on
an anti-woke show though giving work to such a minority
really smacks of tokenism and box ticking to me. I hope the anti-woke comedians will point this out. (To be fair a good proportion of the comedians on that bill aren't particularly political and do interesting stuff and I think it's good to take the piss out of all persuasions anyway, but it's hard to argue that views are being cancelled when shows like this are being commissioned and shows like the Mash Report are being edged off of terrestrial TV).
We went through a similar argument in the 1980s when old school comics felt comedy was being destroyed because it became unacceptable for them to do their racist jokes any more. Just like I feel we've been through arguments about the atrocities that minority groups will commit in toilets before. But blah, it's all pretty boring and even engaging in the conversation is probably helping the people on both sides who just want to shut things down.
My puppets say what the fuck they like and no one has cancelled them. Though to be fair, it's hard to cancel something that no one is watching already.
