# John Cleese Cancels Himself **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comedian-jokes\ **Created:** [November 11, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188 "2021-11-11T14:19:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/141 "2021-11-13T21:17:14Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > When the less radical left are coming out in force against the looney left ridicule loses it’s rhetorical effectiveness. Absolute nonsense, sadly, retains all of its rhetorical effectiveness on the right. Was that the problem with my gibberish–it wasn’t conservative enough? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/142 "2021-11-13T21:17:33Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > The Three Stooges were all Jewish, and they imitated Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels. Their message in the end of the shorts was that Hitler, Goering and Gobbles should die and have their heads shown as trophies or be eaten by lions depending on the short. A year before America was at war with Germany. And yes, the right-wingers in the US had a beef too then. [You Nazty Spy! - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Nazty_Spy)! > _You Natzy Spy_ satirized the [Nazis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party) and the [Third Reich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany) and helped publicize the Nazi threat in a period when the United States was still neutral about [World War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) and [isolationist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism) sentiment was prevalent among the public. During this period, isolationist senators such as [Burton Wheeler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_K._Wheeler) and [Gerald Nye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Nye) objected to Hollywood films on grounds that they were anti-Nazi propaganda vehicles designed to mobilize the American public for war. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/143 "2021-11-13T21:23:39Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > You may notice now how hard it is going forward to dismiss how they are loading that term as a way to discourage talks about social justice, vaccinations efforts, ways to deal with climate change, etc. You are wasting your time trying to convince me of things with which I’m already in agreement. And I’m now convinced that I’m wasting my time trying to make you see that I don’t take my cues from right wing propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/144 "2021-11-13T21:24:10Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > The religion of Woke is based on racism. The only reason the Woke are deliberately obfuscating is because, at the present moment, the exuberance of some of the zealots has become embarrassing. As noted in other threads, that argument is just Orwellian. In the end, to counter critical race theory in schools (that is not really taught there) the right-wing politicians in Texas did go ahead and banned what they really wanted, under the excuse of going against “woke” CRT they had to ban the teaching of many inconvenient historical facts since they could not point at specific CRT lessons, therefore anything that they branded as CRT is, because they said so. > **[Texas Republicans to Ban Public Schools Teaching History of White Supremacy:...](https://msmagazine.com/2021/08/02/texas-republicans-critical-race-theory-erin-zwiener-womens-history-white-supremacy/)** > > Texas Senate Bill 3 attacks critical race theory, removing requirements that public schools teach about slavery and white male domination in America. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/145 "2021-11-13T21:25:56Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > You are wasting your time trying to convince me of things with which I’m already in agreement. And I’m now convinced that I’m wasting my time trying to make you see that I don’t take my cues from right wing propaganda. Uh, I’m not saying that you are, just that you complained too much about having more troubles defending the “center” of this issue. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/146 "2021-11-14T21:26:19Z")
Interesting! I didn’t know this, although I did know that the Stooges and their families were all very aware of and horrified by what was going on in Germany at the time. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/147 "2021-11-14T21:29:26Z")
The problem is that the audience that that is targeted towards in order to undermine legitimate criticism directed at the growing illiberal lunatic wing of the left is shrinking as old school liberals grow increasingly embarrassed with the double think demanded to be Woke. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/148 "2021-11-14T21:35:01Z")
I am glad you’ve decided to give up on the word salad and pronouns with ambiguous antecedents–otherwise, I’d be worried that you were doubling down on the absolute nonsense that retains such rhetorical efficacy on the right. ---
**Author:** ![omenran](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omenran/32/3318_2.png) [@omenran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omenran)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/149 "2021-11-15T01:32:04Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Interesting! I didn’t know this, although I did know that the Stooges and their families were all very aware of and horrified by what was going on in Germany at the time. From what I have heard the Hollywood Blacklist and HUAC related hearings after the war also labeled some as “prematurely anti-facist” because they were critical of Nazi Germany before the US joined the war. Also making pro-Soviet films to help sell the wartime alliance was also used against people, even if those films were asked for by the US Government. (Again, as I understand and simplify it. What a messed up time in history.) ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/150 "2021-11-15T01:42:19Z")
Graham-Dixon’s comments are very clearly impersonating Nazis for the purpose of describing how wrong their position was. Cancelling at its worst. Cleese was quite right to cancel. Graham-Dixon and Cleese are too good for these people. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/151 "2021-11-15T02:23:22Z")
Such word salad! [Woke Racism by John McWhorter: 9780593423066 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696856/woke-racism-by-john-mcwhorter/) It’s now in book form. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/152 "2021-11-15T02:38:59Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Graham-Dixon’s comments are very clearly impersonating Nazis for the purpose of describing how wrong their position was. Cancelling at its worst. As I said earlier, > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I wonder if it’d been different if they’d said, “Dude. This is supposed to be a convivial, lighthearted debate society with drinking, not a place where we make people sit around listening to Hitler re-enactors. Read the fuckin room. If you’re going to turn the event into such an enormous fuckin downer, we’re not going to invite you back.” > > Because that’s what I think they were getting at, only they couched it in Zoomerspeak, and some fogeys are like consitutionally incapable of responding to Zoomerspeak other than in full condescension “kids these days” mode. It’s a weird Godwin’s law scenario. The debate was about good taste, decidely not about mass murder or the Holocaust. In order to score points in a debate about good taste, this motherfucker went straight to Nazis and started quoting Hitler. Sure, he had a point, and sure, it wasn’t a pro-Nazi point; but what a goddamned downer it was, in what was supposed to be a light convivial evening. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/153 "2021-11-15T02:48:11Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > old school liberals grow increasingly embarrassed with the double think demanded to be Woke This is just part of the standard boilerplate from conservatives accompanying their perennial whines about “political correctness”, “PC”, “cancel culture”, “wokeism”, or whatever name is assigned to the imagined enemy in the current iteration of the whining. The perennial conservative script goes more or less like this: 1. Back in the (very distant) bad old days, it was the right wing that tried to repress free speech. 2. But now, in an unprecedentedly dangerous challenge to freedom, attacks on free speech are coming from the left wing! 3. These demands for ideological conformity are paralyzing freedom of expression and endangering the pursuit of truth and knowledge! (It’s not that we like bigotry and oppression, it’s just that it would be very very bad for our society to try to censor them.) 4. Fortunately, some brave moderates/centrists/“old school liberals” are starting to see through this oppressive left-wing movement and turn against it! Recycle every 7-10 years after the “PC hysteria fatigue” generated among conservative audiences by the previous cycle has worn off. [Here](https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/0604/04192.html), for example, is a version of the exact same script dating back to June 1991, over twenty years ago: > [@](#): > > The intolerance of the 1930s came from the extreme right - the efforts to ban books or remove professors who were branded communists, atheists, and the like. > > Today, much of the intolerance is coming from the far left, as some teachers and students would deny freedom to those who don’t agree with them. […] > > Those who believe in and advocate the PC of today shouldn’t be punishing or obstructing those who are expressing views that don’t conform with theirs. > > Encouragingly, many respected liberal observers are speaking out against this new campus phenomenon. [Here’s a sample from about the same time](https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/political-correctness-and-the-suicide-the-intellect) lamenting a particularly nefarious manifestation of the evil “PC of today”: > [@](#): > > What about the use of “he or she”? […] That usage to me seems compulsive and ridiculous. […] > > “He or she” is, I think, a prime example of political correctness and the way it works, which is not confined to universities, or even to ideologues. It’s an attempt to create an atmosphere of self-censorship, also known euphemistically as “raising consciousness.” Oh, the horror, the horror: advocating the use of inclusive pronouns instead of assuming that the masculine pronoun “he” is the default to represent everybody. Twenty years from now, the current cycle of conservative anti-PC hysteria about “woke” pronoun use is going to seem just as trivial and silly as the above complaint about “he and she”. (Well, to reasonable people it already seems trivial and silly, but the point is that by then even the conservatives will have got over it.) Meanwhile, in real life, the situation is that liberals/leftists are always having disagreements about what types of speech and critiques of speech are appropriate in what circumstances, and always will. Conservatives will never stop trying to paint such disagreements as signs of an imminent profound schism, but they’re like millenialist evangelicals predicting the Rapture: always wrong, never giving up. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/154 "2021-11-15T03:31:12Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s a weird Godwin’s law scenario. The debate was about good taste, decidely not about mass murder or the Holocaust. In order to score points in a debate about good taste, this motherfucker went straight to Nazis and started quoting Hitler. Sure, he had a point, and sure, it wasn’t a pro-Nazi point; but what a goddamned downer it was, in what was supposed to be a light convivial evening. So, you’re saying he should be cancelled for being boring? Or for him being in a state of bad taste to illustrate his point in a debate about bad taste? Because in the end, that’s not what the position of Bradwell seems to be. He’s saying that he was blacklisting Graham-Dixon for using Hitlers speech, which appears to be unacceptable at all, not for being boring or depressing. Heck, most debate subjects are depressing on the face of them. And in Graham-Dixon’s defense, I don’t know of another way to prove that bad taste exists without exhibiting the bad taste itself. Sometimes you must cross the line to prove it is there, and the rest of us are usually better off for knowing about it, even if the principle participants have a tough time of it. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/155 "2021-11-15T03:55:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I wonder if it’d been different if they’d said, “Dude. This is supposed to be a convivial, lighthearted debate society with drinking, not a place where we make people sit around listening to Hitler re-enactors. Read the fuckin room. If you’re going to turn the event into such an enormous fuckin downer, we’re not going to invite you back.” > > Because that’s what I think they were getting at, only they couched it in Zoomerspeak, and some fogeys are like consitutionally incapable of responding to Zoomerspeak other than in full condescension “kids these days” mode. What absolute revisionist horseshit. They did not say that. They did not mean to say that. These students are not a bunch of ineloquent numpties. They are the academic crème de la crème of the UK. They are quite capable of expressing what they mean and quite clearly did so. You aren’t going to rescue what they said by pretending they said something else. You are completely kidding yourself. If they thought the guy was just dull and/or a downer, they (a) would at most have said so and (b) would have just never invited him back. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/156 "2021-11-15T15:05:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > As in “kids these days are the first generation to be less cool than their parents”? > > Exactly like that. When you’re like, “Kids these days aren’t as cool as WE were when WE were kids,” you’re part of a long and storied tradition of fogeys who said exactly the same thing, including about you when you were a kid. Historically, aren’t kids supposed to be cooler, edgier, wilder, rock harder, do more drugs, and have more sex than their parents (or at least that what their parents will admit too)? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/157 "2021-11-15T17:12:02Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Historically, aren’t kids supposed to be cooler, edgier, wilder, rock harder, do more drugs, and have more sex than their parents Only in a fairly recent slice of history. Prior to that, there have been plenty of generational cycles fluctuating between more and less permissiveness. The mores of the 1920s tended to be more “wild” than those of the next generation, for example. And even recently, a lot of the children of sixties hippies did a lot less drugs and sex in their youth than their parents had done. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/158 "2021-11-16T17:09:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > And even recently, a lot of the children of sixties hippies did a lot less drugs and sex in their youth than their parents had done. Which is exactly what’s wrong with kids these days. They don’t get out much. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/159 "2021-11-16T17:17:54Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Which is exactly what’s wrong with kids these days. They don’t get out much. You could try yelling at them to get on to your lawn! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188/160 "2021-11-16T17:20:35Z")
I’d be happy if they’d just come out to stand on their own lawn. 😄 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-cancels-himself/954188.md?page=9)