Her working with someone so blatantly racist and vile as Ben Shapiro proves she hasn’t been misunderstood or taken out of context or something like that. In fact, she’s obviously much worse than we even knew. I think her bad posts were actually probably her filtering herself somewhat.
The right-wing victim complex is a seriously real thing. My Trumper father is constantly complaining about the huge disadvantages and struggles white male Christians have in this country. He feels they are the most discriminated against group. I mean, he literally thinks being successful in America is much harder is you’re white than if you’re black, harder for a man than a woman, and that Christians are literally persecuted (unlike Muslims and atheists).
Also, I saw a good meme about being “cancelled for conservative beliefs” the other day, I wish I saved it. I’ll share the gist of it though:
Person A: I ‘m being cancelled for my conservative beliefs!
Person B: Oh, you’re being cancelled for believing in lower taxes?
A: No, not for those beliefs.
B: Oh, you mean you got cancelled for believing in governmental deregulation?
A: No, not for those beliefs either.
B: Oh, so you got cancelled for believing in state’s rights?
Preface: I haven't even watched Mandalorian yet, so I don't mind arriving late. I didn't find out about the Carano incident until today and besides, it feels like a rerun of an old show. These things happen all the time - some celeb says some exaggeration on social media, people start asking whatever company to cut ties, then company cuts ties, nobody lives happily ever after, etc. Most of the time the celeb is of the right variant in politics - because the right is kind of awkward and unpopular (at least in pop culture, but pop culture may have a different right-left distribution than the full population). It's a very familiar formula and it's all just so tiresome.
Instead of just discussing the event itself we should probably also ask what we can learn from this.
First, I want to point out that just because Carano did indeed post some dumb things online, it doesn't mean that her firing wasn't politically motivated. If Disney would just outright fire people for supporting Trump or for having conservative views on, say, abortion, then it would truly be a PR nightmare for them. However, if Disney secretly wants to get rid of her because they are angry about her views on Trump, then it's a stroke of luck that Twitter finds her dumb posts and starts a controversy about them. Now Disney can play the victim and make it seem like they 'reluctantly' let her go amid the controversy. I am not claiming that this indeed is what happened, but it is one possibility among several and it's important to keep multiple possibilities in mind until all the facts are in.
Also, Carano herself may seem like she is doubling down or like she is pretty happy about the situation, but how do we know that this is actually the case? The opposite case would be that she is pretending to be okay for either professional reasons or perhaps for some personal sense of pride. The situation with all the political chaos and the pandemic has surely made everyone a bit more on edge than usual, and I also believe that people like her must have many different stress factors that I couldn't even begin to imagine.
I don't personally know any people who have been cancelled (or had an attempt made at them) but from a few less well-known cases there have been rumors that the cancellation actually severely impacted the victim's mental health although nobody could have known based on public behavior. I think this is a reasonable possibility and I want to stress that all may not be as it seems. Stress could also be used to potentially explain Carano's weirdness on social media.
That brings me to another topic: conservatives seem to constantly be freaking out nowadays, what's up with that? Is that also stress? I'm going to make an attempt to argue something in that direction (but not without reservations).
One way to formulate this question more precisely would be to ask whether this "persecution complex" is caused by some psychological traits related to American conservatism, or if the cultural environment actually is biased against them? You could also try the "why not both?" approach.
Well, to start with the more negative aspect, paranoia seems to be a recurring thing in American politics. In the 60s, Hofstadter wrote a famous essay ("The Paranoid Style in American Politics") about this and I've seen interest re-emerge in his essay now during the Trump presidency. Somewhat similarly, in the 60s conservative Republican Barry Goldwater used a remarkably aggressive and accusatory rhetoric during his campaign. His campaign was in opposition to the '64 Civil Rights act, which he argued was a plot by the federal government to increase its own influence. Hofstadter certainly had an anti-Goldwater agenda in writing his essay, but it was also about using American political history as a proposed explanation for why Goldwater's angry rhetoric was successful among the rural conservatives of the time. (By the way Erik, I'm not sure and this may be common knowledge, but Goldwater was from Arizona)
The point where I start getting stumped is where I try to understand why American politics, of all countries, contains such paranoia. Maybe Hofstadter (and others) just overstated it, but after the last 4 or so years it's difficult to think so. If I would seriously try to write something about this maybe I would start by something about evolution, how it's important for a species to be a bit more than cautious about predators, and speculate that ancient evolved instincts today leads to a paranoid temperament in some cases, and schizophrenia in the most extreme cases. In that case the paranoid style in America would just be a consequence of random chance - a bunch of paranoid early settlers made the foundation of the paranoid style we know today.
Well, her net worth is reportedly around $8MM. If she manages her money, she doesn't have to work again. So, I guess she can afford to make statements that will prevent from working in Hollywood again
It's funny how cancel culture is only deemed "accountability" when a conservative voice is in the crosshairs. Gina was making an analogy, that bad shit starts with neighbors. Flat footed? Perhaps. Worse than other social media faux pas made by the woke crowd? Absolutely not.
Now I'll be exercising my cancel muscle by unsubscribing to this Substack. I just don't need to read any more apologies for left wing behaviors that demonize those with whom they disagree.
Her working with someone so blatantly racist and vile as Ben Shapiro proves she hasn’t been misunderstood or taken out of context or something like that. In fact, she’s obviously much worse than we even knew. I think her bad posts were actually probably her filtering herself somewhat.
The right-wing victim complex is a seriously real thing. My Trumper father is constantly complaining about the huge disadvantages and struggles white male Christians have in this country. He feels they are the most discriminated against group. I mean, he literally thinks being successful in America is much harder is you’re white than if you’re black, harder for a man than a woman, and that Christians are literally persecuted (unlike Muslims and atheists).
Also, I saw a good meme about being “cancelled for conservative beliefs” the other day, I wish I saved it. I’ll share the gist of it though:
Person A: I ‘m being cancelled for my conservative beliefs!
Person B: Oh, you’re being cancelled for believing in lower taxes?
A: No, not for those beliefs.
B: Oh, you mean you got cancelled for believing in governmental deregulation?
A: No, not for those beliefs either.
B: Oh, so you got cancelled for believing in state’s rights?
A: No.
B: What beliefs are you being cancelled for?
A: Ummm.... uhhhh.... you know.... Ummm...
Preface: I haven't even watched Mandalorian yet, so I don't mind arriving late. I didn't find out about the Carano incident until today and besides, it feels like a rerun of an old show. These things happen all the time - some celeb says some exaggeration on social media, people start asking whatever company to cut ties, then company cuts ties, nobody lives happily ever after, etc. Most of the time the celeb is of the right variant in politics - because the right is kind of awkward and unpopular (at least in pop culture, but pop culture may have a different right-left distribution than the full population). It's a very familiar formula and it's all just so tiresome.
Instead of just discussing the event itself we should probably also ask what we can learn from this.
First, I want to point out that just because Carano did indeed post some dumb things online, it doesn't mean that her firing wasn't politically motivated. If Disney would just outright fire people for supporting Trump or for having conservative views on, say, abortion, then it would truly be a PR nightmare for them. However, if Disney secretly wants to get rid of her because they are angry about her views on Trump, then it's a stroke of luck that Twitter finds her dumb posts and starts a controversy about them. Now Disney can play the victim and make it seem like they 'reluctantly' let her go amid the controversy. I am not claiming that this indeed is what happened, but it is one possibility among several and it's important to keep multiple possibilities in mind until all the facts are in.
Also, Carano herself may seem like she is doubling down or like she is pretty happy about the situation, but how do we know that this is actually the case? The opposite case would be that she is pretending to be okay for either professional reasons or perhaps for some personal sense of pride. The situation with all the political chaos and the pandemic has surely made everyone a bit more on edge than usual, and I also believe that people like her must have many different stress factors that I couldn't even begin to imagine.
I don't personally know any people who have been cancelled (or had an attempt made at them) but from a few less well-known cases there have been rumors that the cancellation actually severely impacted the victim's mental health although nobody could have known based on public behavior. I think this is a reasonable possibility and I want to stress that all may not be as it seems. Stress could also be used to potentially explain Carano's weirdness on social media.
That brings me to another topic: conservatives seem to constantly be freaking out nowadays, what's up with that? Is that also stress? I'm going to make an attempt to argue something in that direction (but not without reservations).
One way to formulate this question more precisely would be to ask whether this "persecution complex" is caused by some psychological traits related to American conservatism, or if the cultural environment actually is biased against them? You could also try the "why not both?" approach.
Well, to start with the more negative aspect, paranoia seems to be a recurring thing in American politics. In the 60s, Hofstadter wrote a famous essay ("The Paranoid Style in American Politics") about this and I've seen interest re-emerge in his essay now during the Trump presidency. Somewhat similarly, in the 60s conservative Republican Barry Goldwater used a remarkably aggressive and accusatory rhetoric during his campaign. His campaign was in opposition to the '64 Civil Rights act, which he argued was a plot by the federal government to increase its own influence. Hofstadter certainly had an anti-Goldwater agenda in writing his essay, but it was also about using American political history as a proposed explanation for why Goldwater's angry rhetoric was successful among the rural conservatives of the time. (By the way Erik, I'm not sure and this may be common knowledge, but Goldwater was from Arizona)
The point where I start getting stumped is where I try to understand why American politics, of all countries, contains such paranoia. Maybe Hofstadter (and others) just overstated it, but after the last 4 or so years it's difficult to think so. If I would seriously try to write something about this maybe I would start by something about evolution, how it's important for a species to be a bit more than cautious about predators, and speculate that ancient evolved instincts today leads to a paranoid temperament in some cases, and schizophrenia in the most extreme cases. In that case the paranoid style in America would just be a consequence of random chance - a bunch of paranoid early settlers made the foundation of the paranoid style we know today.
Well, her net worth is reportedly around $8MM. If she manages her money, she doesn't have to work again. So, I guess she can afford to make statements that will prevent from working in Hollywood again
It's funny how cancel culture is only deemed "accountability" when a conservative voice is in the crosshairs. Gina was making an analogy, that bad shit starts with neighbors. Flat footed? Perhaps. Worse than other social media faux pas made by the woke crowd? Absolutely not.
Now I'll be exercising my cancel muscle by unsubscribing to this Substack. I just don't need to read any more apologies for left wing behaviors that demonize those with whom they disagree.