In our current world of cancel culture – should Hollywood be cancelled?

Cancel culture was born from societies’ need to take away their support of behaviour, methods, character traits, lifestyle, and speech that they deem unacceptable.

Yet, we still accept the insidious poison that continues to bubble and brew out of Hollywood. We embroil ourselves in the bullying, the misogyny, the racism, the shallowness, and the hypocrisy that Hollywood fostered for decades and still allows. We ignore the cowardness of actors too scared of being cancelled to speak their minds. In fact, we seem to admire them and hold them in high esteem. Why not cancel the whole lot? Why do we tolerate the entitlement and accept the poison?

The allure of Hollywood is huge when you don’t know anything. You don’t know the knives behind the smiles. – Steve Guttenberg

What is the allure of Celebrity Culture addiction, and is it finally coming to an end? I think it might be changing and here’s why.

We’ve Seen too Much

Covid brought Hollywood actors, and starlets into our living rooms. Their veil of obscurity was lifted. The Hollywood elites were so desperate to stay relevant – they peeled back their beautiful facades and bared too much. Now, we can’t unsee what we’ve seen. The whining from their mansions, the desperate music videos from A-list actors who can’t carry a note. Does anyone remember the horrible cringefest that was the “Imagine” video? Man, what in the AF were they thinking? Just awful.

Social Media has them streaming onto our phones. Spooning out advice from relationships to muffin making. Although Covid was a bad time for actors, it was a great time for other entertainers. Unlike actors, musicians don’t need a big studio behind them to entertain and shine at their craft. I loved the musicians who played for us through those lockdown months and I did a lot of eye-rolling at the many narcissistic actors grasping for a rung on the relevancy ladder.

Glamourless Hollywood

Hollywood stars of the Golden Age were untouchable. They were glamorous and stylish. They appeared elegant and cultured. They maintained that allure by remaining somewhat of a mystery. They were masters of illusion and knew the art of subtlety.

Today, social media has stripped away any remaining mystery around Hollywood and fully exposed the brutal ugliness of its greedy and vanity-driven toxicity.  We are now invited into many of the A-listers’ thoughts and have been given a first-row seat to view their demons. It’s not really what we signed up for as an audience. We just want to be entertained by their acting abilities. The dirty laundry is completely unnecessary and frankly unwelcome.

The Awards Shows

Here we go. Who even watches the Oscars these days? The Oscars and other awards shows have been boring and narcissistic for decades now.

I basically lost interest after Angelina Jolie all but made out with her brother back in 2000.

This year, I didn’t watch the usual five hours of drivel adorned in designer threads. But I did watch the highlights or rather the lowlights.

Chris Rock vs. Will Smith

So Chris Rock made a joke that drew attention to Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia. The joke wasn’t even funny and was frankly lazy & beneath CR’s comic ability. Pretty sure the millennials didn’t get it. Also pretty sure the millennials don’t watch the Oscars.

Anyway, here’s the thing – JPS has publically addressed her alopecia condition since 2018.  This was an Instagram post of hers from 2022:

Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something … Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period!”

So CR tackles the elephant in the room. But he isn’t cruel. He doesn’t liken JPS to Shrek. He likens her to G.I. Jane – Demi Moore’s iconic and beautiful (bald) bad-ass marine character from the late ’90s. Back when Hollywood was churning out blockbusters. A time, when we all drooled at Demi’s incredible physique and how she nailed that role. Not sure how that analogy could ever be taken as an insult.

If you look at the Oscar clips, it wasn’t initially perceived as an insult to WS as you can see him laughing. But JPS is eye-rolling and smirking.  Less than a minute later Will storms the Oscar stage and bitch slaps CR in the face. Then he returns to his seat and proceeds to rage. Only now he is dropping f-bombs and apparently forgets how to speak in complete sentences.

Get my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.

Really? It’s like he slipped into character and forgot where the hell he was.

CR is clearly shaken but manages some adlib carries on with his presentation and gracefully averts further escalation and cringyness.

Recap

So let me put the above in basic terms. Will Smith assaulted his colleague at a work event. The work event was televised and millions of people bore witness to the assault.

A still unruly Will Smith then screamed obscenities at his colleague from across the room.

Will Smith does not get ejected from the work event or arrested by authorities for assaulting his co-worker.

In fact, five minutes later, he receives the biggest work honour of his career and receives a standing ovation from his peers, and other fellow colleagues.  All bad behaviour is overlooked, and the focus shifts to his Oscar award.

His acceptance speech is a babbling narcissistic rant that lasts for ages and culminates in a flood of tears. He spews nonsense about being a protector and deluded ideologies about being called on by a higher power. Seriously Will? Seriously Oscar attendees?

The only really great moment of the night was when Lady Gaga whispered to a struggling Liza Minelli:

I got you.

That was some genuine reality that we don’t mind seeing.

Famous Without Talent

Shortly after the Oscars, Will & Jada’s punk-ass son piped up on the Twitterverse:

And That’s How We Do It

Really? What does Jayden Smith even do? Other than riding on his famous parents’ coattails?

He was kind’ve cute with his Dad in The Pursuit of Happiness but that was a decade ago. What does the adult version do? I have no idea. Yet, he has 8 million followers on Twitter and mouthy support for his Dad’s unstable outbursts.

The being famous without talent thing came along with the Hilton sisters and skyrocketed with the Kardashians. I didn’t get it then and I still don’t get it now. Why does society honour vain narcissistic people without talent? Oh, right – it’s all about the sex tape. If you’re pretty, rich, and lack talent – drop a sex tape and launch yourself.

Or if your parents are famous and you’ve been raised with every privilege and you are a little douche that lacks talent or ambition – post shit like the above on Twitter and grow your following.

Say, Less. Please!

Why do celebrities want to tell all?

FFS please say less.

I’m going to go back to Jada & Will here. Only because they have done a spectacular job of airing their shit to the masses.

The Red Table talks – yuck! The two of them discussed their extramarital affairs. JPS admitted to sleeping with her son’s rapper friend. Again, why?

Why do the Smiths want us to know about their “open marriage”, and the fact that they refer to their relationship as “grown“? That’s not woke, it’s oversharing. Most people withhold their opinions of people’s marriages. But, if you’re throwing your so-called “grown” shit out there under the guise of “healing” and “transparency”. Then expect the opinions to come and don’t assume they’ll be kind.

Sorry Not Sorry

So today, Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock.

Which was clearly on the advice of his publicist and due to the backlash he’s receiving for his violent outburst. Quite disingenuous, and a bit too little too late.

See, this can’t be our new reality. We can’t bitch slap people when we don’t like their narrative. We can’t act like petulant toddlers when we’re angry or scream obscenities at people in public. We especially can’t withhold apologies until we’re told to give them.

The fact that Hollywood took the coward’s path, again, and turned a blind eye to Will Smith’s bat-shit behaviour last Sunday is all we need to know about the backbone of Hollywood, it doesn’t exist.

The man was a shitstorm of emotions – laughing, slapping, and yelling for one minute. And then sobbing through his weird-ass gas-lit speech, the next minute.  Then off  “gettin’ jiggy wit it” at the after-party while dancing around with his Oscar. All after he embarrassed himself, and quite possibly put another nail in the antiquated Academy’s coffin.  Again, we saw way too much.

A New Era

With the likes of Apple TV, Hula, Netflix, etc. The world of film is changing. Hollywood as we knew it, is gasping its last breaths.  I haven’t seen a good blockbuster that wasn’t a Marvel movie in ages. Nor can I remember the last time I felt movie chills. Yet, I have been sucked into hours of Netflix series that are mind-blowingly good. All these series stars have loads of talent but no inflated egos. It’s refreshing.

The award shows have always ignored the movies that make us laugh. The movies that receive the accolades are preachy, or ad nauseam politically correct. I don’t watch movies for a lecture, I watch to be entertained.

I have no desire to emulate scores of emaciated women whose faces haven’t moved in a decade. Nor do I want my boys to hero-worship a bunch of whiny and douchy “famous” assholes. The so-called beautiful people really aren’t so beautiful when you look too close.

Hollywood A-listers aren’t heroes. They aren’t even very interesting for the most part. They are not who we should aspire to be.

The people who save lives, and risk their lives to save others are heroes. Scientists and inventors are what make for interesting people. The brave people fighting for Ukraine are heroes – not these self-important jackasses occupying Hollywood.

Remember, the Hollywood A-listers are nothing if we don’t watch their movies and follow their social media accounts. We drive the standard and we keep them relevant.  It’s overdue for us to raise the bar much higher.

The Future

Obviously, Hollywood shouldn’t be cancelled.  I completely dislike the prickliness of cancel culture and the kid gloves it inspires. Comedians should be allowed to push the envelope. That’s their job. Sometimes they fall completely flat. If you don’t find them funny, don’t laugh and don’t go to their shows. But never walk into their personal space and physically assault them.

I’ve seen CR live a couple of times – the dude is really funny. But even someone as sharp-witted as him will occasionally miss the mark. It goes with the territory,

Hollywood needs a makeover. All the bullshit needs to be called out. Actors need to get back to acting and step back from the current need to overshare every detail of their lives.  We should question why talentless celebrities occupy our newsfeeds and reject the phony and cowardly ideals that have been allowed to propagate out of Hollywood and into the media.

Women should not be called “statuesque” when they appear malnourished. Blatant bad behaviour should not be swept under the red carpet or any carpet.

But hey! On a positive note – the reboot of Top Gun is coming soon. Tom Cruise, the ultimate Hollywood nutter is going to reprise his famous 80s Maverick role. I can’t wait. Hollywood could use a non-superhero blockbuster and Tom can generally be relied on to turn out good movies.

We need some new one-liners, and cheesy movie moments because after all we simply want to be entertained. We want the movie thrills and chills back. Bring back the cinematic goosebumps! Once upon a time that’s exactly what Hollywood movies offered – a short reprieve from reality and some damn good entertainment.

Love, Kate. x

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