Cancel Culture: Is This Face Funny or Offensive?
Channel: Foundation for Economic Education
Date: 2020-08-06

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It’s time to talk about cancel culture -- and whether Robert Downey Jr.’s face in 2008’s Tropic Thunder is a funny element of important satire or an offensive aesthetic that warrants cancellation. Despite what people on both sides of the issue would have you believe, the notion of “cancelation” is actually pretty nuanced.

Comedy relies on shocking, offensive, and uncomfortable portrayals of deeply sensitive topics, from religion to sexuality to race. The list of classic (and very funny) comedy movies that could never be made today is depressingly long. But a modern example, barely 12 years old, of a comedy that certainly couldn’t be made today is the brilliant satire Tropic Thunder.

Despite the film earning multiple awards, its hilarious send-up of Hollywood pretension and the action movie genre would certainly be condemned as “problematic” if it were released in today’s climate of wokeness. 

While freedom of speech necessarily comes with the responsibility to bear the consequences of that speech, it’s still important to nurture a society that is tolerant of diversity of thought and opinion. No one should be considered a victim because they’ve been told that something they said was inappropriate or insensitive, but neither should they be silenced by the outrage mob. 

Speech does not exist in a vacuum. Tone and context matter, regardless of how offensive or blasphemous the words might appear on the surface. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of comedies like Tropic Thunder and within characters like Robert Downey Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus.

And it’s not just comedy. Cancel mobs have ravaged college campuses, from incidents involving Bret Weinstein’s at Evergreen State College, Lindsay Shepherd at Wilfrid Laurier University, and Nicholas Christakis at Yale. 

So I hope you have the courage and curiosity to join me in a challenging discussion on the limits of acceptable speech and expression on this potentially funny, possibly enraging edition of Out of Frame.

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CREDITS:
Written & Produced by Sean W. Malone
Edited by Arash Ayrom & Sean W. Malone
Asst. Edited by Jason Reinhardt

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LINKS:

--Resignations, Firings, and Controversy--

https://reason.com/2020/07/14/gary-garrels-san-francisco-museum-modern-art-racism/
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/entertainment/hartley-sawyer-tweets-flash-fired/index.html
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17596452/guardians-of-the-galaxy-marvel-james-gunn-fired-pedophile-tweets-mike-cernovich
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/jimmy-fallon-blackface-twitter-saturday-night-live-chris-rock-1234616257/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gilbert-gottfried-fired-as-aflac-167382
https://www.boston.com/culture/celebs/2020/07/15/nick-cannon-fired
https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-challenge-mtv-fires-dee-nguyen-black-lives-matter-comments-george-floyd-1202954698/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/entertainment/snl-shane-gillis/index.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/megyn-kelly-nbc-fired-blackface-747389/
https://reason.com/2019/06/17/kyle-kashuv-harvard-university-admission-cancel/
https://www.ibtimes.com/terry-crews-subjected-cancel-culture-after-black-lives-matter-tweet-see-twitter-3003496
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cancel-culture-harpers-jk-rowling-scam_n_5f0887b4c5b67a80bc06c95e?fbclid=IwAR11bq2EZ_rdP6SQdDN
https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/1-million-viral-beer-money-guy-dropped-by-busch-over-racist-tweets/

--Cancel Culture and Tropic Thunder--

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
https://reason.com/2020/07/08/the-reaction-to-the-harpers-letter-on-cancel-culture-proves-why-it-was-necessary/
https://reason.com/2020/07/14/gary-garrels-san-francisco-museum-modern-art-racism/
https://reason.com/2019/12/31/cancel-culture-2019-year/
https://reason.com/2020/07/08/cancel-culture-is-out-of-control/
https://reason.com/2020/07/10/steven-pinker-beats-cancel-culture-attack/
https://reason.com/2020/01/02/contrapoints-cancel-culture-youtube-left/
https://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/andrew-sullivan-see-you-next-friday.html
https://www.screengeek.net/2020/05/01/robert-downey-jr-tropic-thunder-role-cancelled/
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/robert-downey-jr-tropic-thunder-blackface-regrets-1202204722/#
https://decider.com/2020/04/30/tropic-thunder-robert-downey-jr-blackface-accusations/
https://screenrant.com/tropic-thunder-robert-downey-blackface-no-controversy-why/
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/channel-4-remove-offensive-tv-shows-all4-a9617396.html
https://www.rt.com/usa/494758-idris-elba-censorship-black-lives-matter/