It’s newsworthy when a comedian takes a stand against Cancel Culture.
The most vocal opponents include Adam Carolla, Ricky Gervais, Joe Rogan, John Cleese and Rob Schneider.
Most comics either stay mum on the subject or, in the most embarrassing cases, throw their weight behind it.
Think Marc Maron and Stephen Colbert.
Trevor Noah is finally speaking out on the subject. And, on the surface, it sounds like he wants to join the ranks of Cleese, Gervais and co.
Not so fast.
The host of the low-rated Daily Show, talking to Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, defended Kanye West against his many critics. That’s interesting because Noah himself is one of them.
Noah also took on Cancel Culture without naming it directly.
“I think we have gotten very comfortable discarding human beings, immediately tossing them away and making them irredeemable characters … When in fact, I think all of us should be afforded the opportunity to redeem ourselves. All of us should have an opportunity at redemption.”
It reminds us how Noah’s old, “problematic” jokes magically resurfaced when he first took over for Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Noah survived that cancellation attempt.
Is he worried more attacks are heading his way?
Later, Noah embraced a more nuanced view of public personalities, once more making sense of the world around us.
“We can love people who we hate, we can hate people who we love. Human beings as a whole are a complicated paradox. And so, I don’t like to live in a world where we constantly discard human beings like pieces of trash.”
He’s right, of course. He’s also part of the problem.
Why? He’s less than willing to use his platform to be part of the solution. Noah should be making his Cancel Culture case in front of his small but loyal Daily Show crowd.
He has a bully pulpit, and he’d rather use it to pummel GOP targets.
Now, compare that to Bill Maher’s relentless assault on Cancel Culture and its woke ilk. The progressive star of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher uses that platform on a near-weekly basis to smite woke ideology, a critical factor in Cancel Culture’s rise.
Maher didn’t trade in his progressive beliefs to do so. Nor is he afraid those stances could hurt his ratings.
At this point, how much smaller could Noah’s audience become?
We’ll believe Noah’s Cancel Culture critiques when he starts leveraging his Comedy Central perch to make the case.
[Cross-posted from Hollywood in Toto.]