As cancel culture marches forward with increased momentum, artists are hiding in their foxholes, afraid of being ostracized for a flippant tweet written during their brazen-faced youth. Actors lose jobs, professors get fired and classic films are banned for portraying outdated ideals that don’t fit today’s sensibilities. The safest move is to cancel all forms of culture.
Shakespeare can be deleted, not because of the debate as to whether “The Merchant of Venice” is anti-Semitic (I don’t think it is), but because it is written in English, which excludes people who don’t speak English. His sonnet “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” offends and excludes the other three seasons. Schoolchildren should replace Elizabethan drama essays with analytic critiques of “Love Island” episodes, which shows great family values by not insisting on outdated concepts like monogamy or fidelity.
The instruction manual for 2021 is Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451,” set in a society that burns books, although it doesn’t give any instruction for Kindles. Every schoolchild can be issued with one copy, a box of matches and the instruction “burn before reading.”
Fortunately there are enough big cancellations to go around, including the near-cancellation of the international travel industry, President Biden cancelling various U.S.-Mexico border restrictions, Kim cancelling Kanye, Britain cancelling the European Union and various people cancelling their organic food orders as a result of their income being cancelled last year when COVID-19 hit.
Judaism may have to be cancelled because the Torah is offensive to enemy peoples like Amalekites, who we are commanded to kill, despite the fact that they repeatedly tried to destroy us. It also shows intolerance towards genocidal nations, including Egypt, Rome and Babylon, and other tribal enemies who attacked us, including the Jebusites, Amorites, Hittites and Perizzites.
King David has to be cancelled because of his disrespectful treatment of Goliath, King Solomon is cancelled due to innuendos in the Song of Songs, Miriam and Aaron are cancelled because of speaking out about Moses, who is in turn cancelled because he cancelled the first set of tablets by smashing them on the mountain. Instead of going to synagogue on Shabbat, we can achieve spiritual elevation through weekly binge sessions of “Shtisl.”
There is also a danger of being too woke, and this morning I cancelled my alarm clock because it unapologetically woke me up for the 800th day in a row, which is the one type of wokeness worth cancelling.
this morning I cancelled my alarm clock because it unapologetically woke me up for the 800th day in a row
The entertainment industry has been woken up by the wokerati but does not go far enough. “Star Wars” is a major violator since Ewoks are not played by real Ewoks, the Mandalorian is not actually a Mandalorian and the Jedis are not played by real Jedis, partly because they kept failing auditions due to a lack of on-screen force. “The Sixth Sense” is cancelled because Bruce Willis wasn’t really dead, “The Walking Dead” is cancelled because the actors aren’t really undead, but we’ll make an exception for the movie “Ghost” because the ghost was played by the dearly-departed Patrick Swayze, who was alive at the time.
There was a cancellistic victory when tech giants muted President Trump’s social media accounts, although CNN lost an estimated 50% of nightly viewers in the 24-54 age group. Fortunately Trump will uncancel his cancellation with the launch of a new social media platform, reinstating CNN with the man they love to hate. Every drama needs a villain, and their narrative is currently bereft of a supposed bad guy. Millions of people cheered Trump’s being deplatformed, although platforms themselves are offensive because they allow the person on a platform to look down on the people who are not on a platform, so we must deplatform platforms.
Our society could take longer to reflect before vilifying and exiling people. This is hard since the First Amendment (free speech) has been cancelled. In fairness, free speech should allow us to condemn anyone at any time, although the polysyllabic word “condemnation” is offensive to illiterate people due to its four syllables, as is the even more offensive five-syllabled word “polysyllabic.” If you are in fear of being publicly deleted, play it safe by getting a fake tan and exiling yourself to Love Island.
Marcus J Freed is an actor, author of The Kosher Sutras and creator of The Hebrew Hamilton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x-aoOKlwm8).
