Nobody cancels what nobody reads

Even the expression ‘Cancel Culture’ is a very charged one. Addressing it is already  tricky business. Pippa Norris, a professor at Harvard University, makes an important distinction when it comes to cancel culture. Norris says one group supports it, believing it will level the playing field for marginalized communities. In contrast, the second group argues that cancel culture is harmful because it stifles free speech and hinders open debate.

What does it really mean?

Of course, the term “Cancel Culture” itself contains a strong judgement – and a negative one. Those opposed to the liberated use of racial slurs or genocidal ideology rarely call themselves cancellers, it’s a mock terminology from the start. Interestingly, those who criticize “woke” activists and complain most about cancel culture, would also refuse to label themselves with this even when they are literally banning children’s books.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “cancel culture,” refers to  “the removal of support for individuals and their work — or for a group of people, an organization, or a company and their  work— due to an opinion or action on their part deemed objectionable to the parties “calling” them out.”

The current discourse is a rephrasing of the earlier debate on political correctness. But while PC mostly intended to regulate the speech of politicians and media workers, this time around the online audience had a greater say due to social media. And the concept is strongly anchored in television, where cancelling had long meant that somebody’s TV show would be takes off the air or out of production. 

Cancel Culture and TV History 

And if we review TV history, public outrage has more often resulted in the cancelling of programmes that challenged norms and taboos from the progressive side than for being, say ,racist or misogynist – otherwise most American sit-coms from the 90s and 2000s wouldn’t have existed. 

In fact, the regulation of free speech is pretty much the home terrain of conservatives. The infamous Hayes-code, officially called the Motion Picture Production Code forbade, for instance, any positive depiction of homosexuals, or preferably any depictions of homosexuals on film, calling it sex-perversion. It is also the source of the twin bed paradox: any hint of sexual activity, even between married couples, was strictly forbidden under this set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content, which was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It never outlawed blackface or hateful language about disabled people though! And it took decades to dismantle.

Journalists and Comedians

The experience of this centralized censorship lives strongly in the memory of creative industries and journalists, and the self-identified free speech absolutists are referring to an era when dropping a lighter curse word on stage in a club could land a stand-up comic in jail. In the 1960s, for instance, moral outrage was instrumentalized by conservative Christians, and progressives were doing activism to demand more inclusive programming, and against offensive stereotypes.

Cancel Culture and Social Media 

But let’s get back to today. Because social media has transformed the way, time, and place these interactions occur. The term “cancel culture” is believed to have originated from the slang term, “cancel,” which referred to breaking up with someone and was used in a 1980s song titles “Your Love Is Cancelled.”

It was picked up in films and television, eventually evolving and gaining widespread popularity on social media. By 2015, the idea of canceling had become prevalent on Black Twitter, often describing a personal choice – either serious or humorous – to withdraw support from a person or work. This caused an uproar among mainstream entertainers and politicians who feel that audience pressure is encroaching on their freedoms. This was spearheaded by Donald Trump, who’s literally banning all protests on university campuses and deporting people to mega-prisons without any charges of protest. 

And at the other end of this continuum are people who are subjected to excessive online bullying or professional penalties without the protection of a great fortune or a huge public platform.

Some positive traits

Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Michigan, describes cancel culture as a cultural boycott and says it provides a culture of accountability. One example of this is the Heineken ad scandal. In 2018, Heineken launched an advertisement for their light beer with the tagline Lighter is Better, which faced widespread criticism for being racist. The ad showed a beer sliding past multiple darker-skinned individuals before stopping in front of a lighter-skinned person. Following the backlash, the company removed the ad and issued an apology.

 Meredith Clark, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, says that Cancel Culture can give power to disenfranchised voices. Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer for The New Republic, argues that the fear of Cancel Culture stems from the rise of a new group—young progressives, minorities, and women—who have gained influence and are actively shaping discussions on justice and social norms. A good example of that would be the #Metoo movement in 2017, where individuals came forward with their own allegations of sexual assault. This movement started in Hollywood when actresses started to speak out against powerful Film producer Harvey Weinstein, which led to his downfall (children saying yaay)

LeVar Burton and Sunny Hostin suggested renaming Cancel Culture as “consequences culture,” emphasizing that individuals who express opinions or make public statements should be accountable for their impact on others.

Editors and Publishers

It really is a delicate question that needs a lot of care and attention, on a case-by-case basis to decide how and why certain restrictions are applied to a speaker.

The responsibility of editors and publishers to decide which voices to platform is essential. It’s a delicate balance of judgment and accountability. And hats off to the editors bold enough to skip tracking changes in an edited document, an unapologetic power move.

At an editors’ gathering last summer, that single topic set off a room that had, until then, been engaged in three days of thoughtful, measured debate. Suddenly, fifty people were shouting and laughing with the intensity of lottery winners. No consensus was reached, and honestly, the conversation could have taken another three days.

But let’s not forget: the bigger the platform, the greater the responsibility. That includes making space for perspectives that differ from one’s own, especially in an era when major platforms often reinforce echo chambers, cutting audiences off from alternative views.

Now, instead of launching a crusade against an imaginary foe, we want to look into the delicacies of this problem: how should institutions restrict their employees from certain opinions? Who’s responsible for a measured debate and who gets to vent their opinions unchecked? And is it possible to cancel a writer who nobody reads anyway? 

Today we will talk about Cancel Culture in relation to Cinema and Art Universities. 

We decided to sit down with 3 humans that elaborate on the fear of being canceled, what role art universities should play in this phenomenon, and if anyone still reads critics.

Our guests are 

Max L. Feldman is a writer based in Vienna. He currently teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the University of the Arts Linz.

Maja Vouk is a freelance writer and cultural manager from Vienna. As a true cinephile, she regularly attends and works for various European film festivals.

Born in Hanover in 1976, Johan Hartle studied philosophy and political science. After completing his doctorate, he researched and taught in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, Karlsruhe and Rome, among other places. He has been Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna since 2019.

Thank you to the Academy of fine arts for hosting us!