Seth Rogen says comedians should stop complaining about cancel culture.
During an appearance on “Good Morning Britain,” Rogen said that comedians should stop complaining and own up if their jokes age poorly.
“There are certain jokes that for sure have not aged well, but I think that’s the nature of comedy,” Rogen said, as reported by Mediaite. “I think conceptually those movies are sound and I think there’s a reason they’ve lasted as far as people still watching and enjoying them today. Jokes are not things that necessarily are built to last.”
Without defining how a joke can age “terribly” and whether or not an objective standard can be established with an art form as intensely subjective as comedy, Rogen just told comedians to “accept it” if they offend someone.
“If you’ve made a joke that’s aged terribly, accept it,” he said. “And if you don’t think it’s aged terribly, then say that.”
Regarding himself and his own jokes, Rogen said he is happy to admit that some of his jokes may not have aged well.
“And those things are in our movies and they’re out there, and they’re things that I am more than happy to say that they have not aged well,” he said.
“But in my Twitter, I’ve never made a joke that’s outwardly horrific in some way, and if you have, I would question why you did that,” he added. “Saying terrible things is bad, so if you’ve said something terrible, then it’s something you should confront in some way, shape, or form. I don’t think that’s cancel culture. That’s you saying something terrible if that’s what you’ve done.”
Seth Rogen’s tacit defense of cancel culture is markedly different from that of comedian Chris Rock, who said recently that it has made people afraid to talk.
“It’s weird when you’re a comedian because like, when you’re comedian, when the audience doesn’t laugh, we get the message. You don’t really have to cancel us because we get the message,” Rock said on “The Breakfast Club.” “They’re not laughing. Our feelings hurt. When we do something and people aren’t laughing we — like we get it.”
“I don’t understand why people feel the need to go beyond that, you know what I mean? Honestly, to me, it’s a disrespect. It’s people disrespecting the audience like oh, you think you know more than the audience,” he continued. “The audience knows more than everybody ok. You know but hey, some things don’t need to be said. Some people need to be looked out for, I definitely understand that but not letting comedians work is, you know — what happens is everybody gets safe and when everybody gets safe and nobody tries anything things get boring.”
Last month, actor LeVar Burton (“Star Trek,” “Roots”) argued that cancel culture does not really exist and hailed these new cultural shifts as “consequence culture.”
“In terms of cancel culture, I think it’s misnamed. That’s a misnomer,” he told Meghan McCain on “The View.” “I think we have a consequence culture, and that consequences are finally encompassing everybody in the society, whereas they haven’t been ever in this country. I think there are good signs that are happening in the culture right now. I think it has everything to do with a new awareness of people who were simply unaware of the real nature of life in this country for people who have been othered since this nation began.”
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