Episode 12: Getting Canceled

   You all know what cancel culture is. It's an especially popular thing on social media, namely Twitter, to dig up/discover negative things a famous person did and decide that they should lose their career because of it. They call this getting "canceled". Whether it's racist jokes or some sexual behavior, many celebrities have fallen victim to cancel culture. Many have deserved it, for having done some bad stuff, but some have not deserved it.

Did they deserve it?

  Let me be clear: some people deserve to be canceled. If you said some horribly offensive stuff in the past and never apologized or obviously grew better, or if you say that stuff now, people should stop paying attention to you. 

   Or if you sexually assaulted or harassed someone, not only should people stop paying attention to you; you should be prosecuted. 

Those who didn't deserve it

   Now, even though tons of people have deservingly been canceled, some people have been canceled who didn't quite deserve to be. Well, one of them got canceled and people tried to cancel the other one: Hartley Sawyer and Terry Crews. Let's start with Hartley Sawyer, the one who actually got canceled.

Hartley Sawyer

  Sawyer played a major role on The Flash, Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man, for several seasons. Then, some old tweets of his began to resurface. In these tweets, Sawyer made some disgustingly offensive jokes. These were gross and unfunny sure, but should we really be so hung up over someone's past when the person they are now is obviously someone who's grown and improved? 

   Sawyer apologized for his old, horrid sense of humor when the tweets came out, but that wasn't enough for the Twitter mob. Despite the caring, respectable man he currently is - Twitter raged against him. There was so much upset that Sawyer was fired from The Flash and outcast by Hollywood. He hasn't had a role since and probably never will again, all because he made some dumb jokes several years ago.

   They didn't even treat his character right. They could've very easily recast him or given him a better exit, but instead they opted to have a voice actor play him while he had to wear a helmet due to an accident, and have his character say he was leaving to pursue some venture. Ralph has never been seen, or I believe even mentioned, on the show since.

    Did Hartley Sawyer deserve to be canceled? No. Very much so no.

Terry Crews

   He's the actor I mentioned who almost got canceled, and he didn't deserve it either. Why was Crews almost canceled? Multiple reasons.

   While the #MeToo movement was booming, Crews came out with his own story of how he was sexually assaulted. Given his giant stature, muscles, and being a famous man, people assumed he was lying. He was accused of taking advantage of the movement and/or mocking it, when in reality he was telling a traumatic experience he went through.

    He's also been targeted for his Christian beliefs and for not explicitly condemning the police.

   Crews did not deserve any of this.

Forgiveness

  Social media has seemingly forgotten how to forgive people. Even if someone has grown and improved as a person, that won't matter if they did or said something offensive in the past. Forgiveness is a thing that is seriously falling behind in today's society.

In Conclusion

  Cancel culture is a very meaty issue, one that can't fully be talked about in a one-and-done matter. So, I suspect I will be talking about this again somewhere down the line. But until then, see you next week!

If you want a teaser, just know this: I hate Valentine's Day.