Can You Be Un-Cancelled If You Were Never Really Cancelled in the First Place?
that’s gonna be a no for me, dog.
A few days back I got an email letting me know that comedian Chris D’Elia would be coming to Atlanta soon and playing a pretty large venue.
This surprised me. I assumed that after a flurry of women came forward with stories of being groomed, manipulated and abused by D’Elia while they were around the age of consent D’Elia would take the proverbial extended professional break to work on himself.
D’Elia was so toxic, after all, that the 2021 Zack Snyder zombie heist movie Army of the Dead took the unusual and extreme step of cutting him out of the movie entirely and replacing him with Tig Notaro despite the film already being finished.
We call that getting Plummered. E’lia was enough of a pariah that he got surgically removed from a giant movie that had already been completed because his presence represented such an unwelcome distraction that he had to be cut yet that did not keep him from being able to do big national tours playing to big, supportive houses.
D’Elia is far from the only celebrity who has surprised me by working regularly despite seemingly been cancelled for various transgressions. T.J Miller has spent the last six or seven years very aggressively attempting professional suicide yet he still tours regularly. He doesn’t get the TV and film roles he once did but comedy clubs seem willing, if not eager, to let him continue to have a career.
I foolishly thought that Jeffrey Ross’ career as our Roastmaster General would be over when women accused him of grooming them when they were underage.
Nope! Ross is out there working despite the allegations. On a more extreme note a while back it came out that T.I and his wife Tiny were reportedly drugging and sexually molesting oblivious women and running an R. Kelly-style sex cult. T.I denied it of course and he has not been convicted of any crimes.
There were some consequences. T.I was dropped from a supporting role in the second Ant-Man sequel, truly the worst fate anyone can suffer. However, T.I is currently touring big venues as part of the Legends of the Streetz Tour alongside Rick Ross, Jeezy, TI, Gucci Mane, Trina and DJ Drama.
Those are big names! They’re also apparently artists who decided that they were okay being professionally associated with a man who could very well be the Bill Cosby of Hip Hop.
It’s interesting seeing cancelled celebrities tentatively test the waters and see whether the time is right to attempt a comeback. Joss Whedon participated in a profile for Vulture that he foolishly imagined would be a major step in resurrecting his career but instead proved to be the final nail in its coffin.
James Franco did his first extensive interview in years, and we as a culture seemingly agreed that we were totally cool with letting him spend a few more years or decades in a personal and professional wilderness.
In perhaps the biggest sign that cancellation doesn’t mean anything anywhere near what the “Cancel Cancel Culture” crowd think it does, if it means anything at all, Louis CK, who was ostensibly cancelled a half decade ago and has done next to nothing to illustrate spiritual or emotional growth in the interim, won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album for his latest self-released album.
How the fuck did that happen? How did someone whose thriving career hit a brick wall due to allegations of sexual impropriety not only get nominated for a big Grammy but win?
It doesn’t make sense beyond reflecting the entertainment industry’s desire to move past #MeToo so that awful men in power can once again get away with abusing that power without suffering serious consequences.
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