July 18, 2024 - 1:30pm
“The bigger the crowd, the more negligible the individual becomes,” according to the psychologist Carl Jung. We’d like to think we wouldn’t capitulate to mob mentality, but we crave validation and fear being exiled. We like to think we’d stand up for an embattled friend instead of siding with the teeth-gnashers, but things don’t always work out like that.
Jack Black — one half of Tenacious D, the comedic musical duo who rose to stardom after the 2006 film The Pick of Destiny — has become the latest celebrity to take the mob’s side. He threw his longstanding pal and bandmate, Kyle Gass, under the bus after the latter made an admittedly callous joke about Saturday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump. After blowing out his birthday candles on stage at a concert in Sydney, Gass made a wish: that the shooter wouldn’t miss next time.
What followed was excessive, performative and pathetic. An Australian lawmaker said they should be deported from the country; Gass’s agent let him go and Black cancelled the rest of the band’s tour. Black said in a statement that his bandmate’s flippant comment had “blindsided” him and that “all creative projects” were on hold.
You’d think, going off this response, that Gass was himself the shooter and that he’d daubed his messianic beard with Trump’s crimson blood. Surely, an apology would have been sufficient. Black’s grovelling disavowal wasn’t only spineless — if all too common in this age of witch hunts — but it retroactively makes the jesting remark seem more ill-willed than intended.
Interestingly, the ditching of “problematic” associates is endemic in the relatively Left-leaning music industry, particularly in the indie and rock genres. Such cases often involve the self-righteous bandmates sacrificing those with more Right-wing sympathies. One such case of a conservative’s career being immolated was Ariel Pink, an immensely talented hypnagogic pop artist. Mexican Summer, Pink’s label, dropped him for attending the Trump rally on 6 January 2020, even though he hadn’t stormed the Capitol, as outlets wrongly claimed.
Attempting to stand up to this warped moralism is tricky, though. Paz Lenchantin, Pixies bassist for 10 years, was eventually forced to leave the band, seemingly for continuing to collaborate with Pink. Her dismissal could have been for other reasons — it has never been explicitly confirmed — but it’s hard not to see a causal link between the huge online dissent on a Pixies subreddit about her friendship with Pink and the firing. So much for rock stars being rebels: this prudishness is a far cry from Keith Richards throwing TVs out of hotel windows and Led Zeppelin causing mayhem everywhere they went.
The Tenacious D example, however, shows that it’s not just those on the Right who are at risk. Members of the Right who stand up for free speech and argue against the excesses of cancel culture should condemn this latest overreaction. If Gass had been dragged over the coals for bashing Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi, the Left-leaning creative industries would be appalled and the Right would defend his right to speak freely. Those who care about free speech should be doing the same here, regardless of who the joke was aimed at.
In the case of Tenacious D, as with Lenchantin, social media has a lot to answer for. An artist’s clamouring fandom appears immediately accessible and threatening; these noisy few create a potent illusion of consensus. Black was laughing when Gass made that joke, and it was only when he saw the online mobs that he became abjectly penitent. Agents, bookers, and labels are the same. But news cycles have such a quick turnover; Tenacious D could have just waited it out like The (Dixie) Chicks did when they were excoriated for criticising George W. Bush in 2003.
As for Black, the online backlash now seems more trenchant for his betrayal of Gass than it was for Gass’s lapse of judgement. He has subsequently been accused of trying to protect his bottom line as a massive Hollywood actor — his “Bowser money”.
Are pesky things such as friendship and loyalty expendable? Black may have just found out that, sometimes, holding firm is the best course of action.
Rory Kiberd is a freelance writer. He has written book reviews for the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, and the Sunday Business Post, as well as film reviews for Totally Dublin.
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SubscribeI try think it’s a bit of a stretch to implicate the right in this, other than the nutter in Australia.
The Left can make themselves the Victim or Hero of any story. It’s their Super Power of Revisionist History. It comes from having total control over the means of information production for so long.
Speaking as an Australian, the guy you refer to is a nutter.
It’s a little different being canceled for wishing death on a former President, than for merely being conservative. Pretty sure any liberal who wished for Reagan’s death in 1981, or any conservative who celebrated JFK’s death would have been ostracized right quick.
Right wing cancel culture?
Seriously?
How about making your opponent play the game by the same rules they impose on others?
Like a one-armed waiter, they can dish it out, but can’t take it.
Was there any Right wing cancel culture?
The Biden campaign dropped their ads after the shooting.
Was that also Right wing cancel culture?
No. Like Jack Black, they took that decision by themselves.
Uh, no. This was a self-cancelation. Openly wishing for the death of a candidate is bad form no matter which side that person represents.
If Gass had been dragged over the coals for bashing Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi, the Left-leaning creative industries would be appalled and the Right would defend his right to speak freely.
Bashing is quite a leap from wishing the shooter had not missed. That line is an insult to false equivalencies. Give me a break. People have bashed Trump non-stop for 8 years and nothing happened to any of them. A few, like Kathy Griffin and now Gass, crossed the lines of decency that should offend anyone. Please stop with this insipid “both sides” stuff.
The Dixie Chicks, by the way, were ‘excoriated’ for digging into W overseas. That’s just bad form. I don’t hear British acts coming to the States and trashing the PM of the day. It’s one thing to fight among ourselves; it’s quite another to export it.
You mean “The Chicks.” Like Lady A, they’re so enlightened that they only change their names once it becomes unfashionable.
The “excoriation” included death threats, including IIRC to their children.
“I don’t hear British acts coming to the States and trashing the PM of the day“. That’s because nobody in the States would have a clue who the British PM is. Imagine a British act on tour in the US saying “Keir Starmer is such a dickhead”, and the audience thinking “Who is that guy? One of their roadies?”
I think if there was an assassination attempt on a British PM and someone said shame they missed, it would be the same bad taste. Very different from calling Starmer a dickhead. That I am in complete agreement.
Quite agree with you Alex.
No. This was a self-cancel. Nice try, too, at the false equivalence of “If Gass had been dragged over the coals for bashing Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi,” as if wishing an assassin had not missed is the same as random criticism. Where has Rory been for the 8 years of incessant Trump bashing? Lines exist. They exist irrespective of political party.
Exactly. Inciting violence is a clear line. This should be taught in schools throught the West. Along with civic freedoms and the value of/components of a liberal democracy.
Inciting violence is not freedom of speech. Wish that was the conversation we could all agree on. Instead of making excuses for the guy we want to vote for.
Jack Black was at a fund-raiser for Biden last month. He is not on the Right.
‘And when the president wins in November — yeah! — I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a sweet shout-out in his victory speech for what I gave up to be here,” he said. “Because when democracy is at stake, Jack Black answers the call. Mr. President, you’re welcome.”’
It was Black who cancelled the tour. No organiser cancelled any dates. No venue said they would not host him. He cancelled himself.
People forget that these artists we admire and love are almost exclusively people of modest intelligence. We should never care what they say off script.
Celebrities… without a shared belief in one God, it seems we are back to being stuck with a pantheon of competing deities.
I am up for the “pantheon of competing deities” thing, but I don’t think Trump should be one of them.
I’d be careful with that one, buddy. You’ve got but one eternal soul.
”Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” -Saul Alinsky
Sounds like youre going to be a little way behind even Trump on this one, Martin.
That is, if the rumours are to be believed about a revised, reconcilliatory theme to his RNC acceptance speech…
–
“Surely, an apology would have been sufficient.”
Nope.
So what do you recommend instead?
Just go and look at Libs oft TikTok to see rightist cancellation in action.
I feel a feel a bit sorry for some of the everyday dimwits losing their jobs because they’ve been caught saying stuff on social media like “wishing he hadn’t missed”. They’re mostly just dumb-asses.
As for their freedom of speech. Quite rightly in the US that applies and they have the right to say such things, deeply unpleasant as they are. But unfortunately for them most employers also have social media policies which prohibit their employees from bringing the company into disrepute by doing things like publicly advocating violence. Standing behind the counter in your Home Depot uniform and wishing a political opponent had been assassinated brings Home Depot into disrepute no matter how you try to frill it up.
Many of the cases I’ve seen are actually public employees, including a distressing number of teachers, health care professionals and amazingly some law enforcement. It shouldn’t need saying but people who publicly advocate for or celebrate political violence are not fit to do jobs which involve teaching children, caring for sick people, or enforcing the law of the land.
Or running the country.
Do the subjects of the videos actually get cancelled though?
Or is it more just drawing attention to irrational progressive behaviour?
A number of them have been reported as having lost their jobs.
Jack Black was blindsided by his bandmate making an outrageous and inappropriate statement live on stage he had no idea would be coming out of his mouth. He himself may well have been apalled by it and wondered what he was doing in a band with this guy. Anyway Black cancelled the concert and the future ones. No one else. Some loud mouthed Aussie said they should be deported but they weren’t.
Trying to spin this as a six of one and half a dozen of the other on cancel culture is plain dishonest. When the left counts support for free speech as a “far right” indicator and no-platforming and safe spaces as valid tactics. When it equates bemused and silent lack of support for them as actual violence in order to intimidate people into compliance, (Think not offering the Fuhrergruss as a way to identify opponents) with the slogan “silence is violence”. then you know who the cancellers are.
If you take a step back and look at things objectively, the weirdest thing is that the internet is full of people on the political left – many with simpering platitudes like “Be Kind” and “Love is Love” all over their profiles – who somehow don’t understand that celebrating an attempted political assassination is both morally repugnant and contradicts the very democratic processes which they purport to be so desperately worried about.
As for Jack Black. Yes, his bandmate’s faux pas is all over social media, but isn’t it the case that he’s cancelled himself? As far as I’m aware none of the forthcoming venues cancelled the booking and, despite the noising-off of a few blowhard Australian politicos, I don’t think there have been any moves to ban him in any form.
This is very different from cancellation we’ve seen coming from the other direction, like Graham Linehan having his Edinburgh show repeatedly cancelled because of threats by activist venue staff.
Indeed one of the other things that is remarkable about these events is how moderate and controlled the response from the political right has been overall. Their Presidential candidate – a man that some of his base consider to be somewhere between Superman and a God – was an inch away from being assassinated and there have been no riots, no looting, no revenge mobs.
America has a long history of political candidates or officeholders being shot. Obviously the Kennedy’s, then there is Harvey Milk, Reagan of course, etc. Lincoln. There is a reason that even if you are just joking around about shooting the President, you are very likely to find yourself being visited by the Secret Service. So, all things considered, a strong societal taboo against being flippant about shooting candidates is probably a good thing.
Granted “cancel culture” is very bad, and there should be a very broad latitude for saying things and not losing your job, but this seems like a topic where it being off-limits is a pretty reasonable exception to make.
A visit from the Secret Service is considerably less of a threat now we know they can be evaded by climbing onto a slightly sloping roof.
This is true. I’ve been looking into removing our front door step and turning it into a wheelchair-accessible ramp. Compassionate and secure against government agents!
I live on a hill. They’d never get near the house.
The Secret Service Occupational Health and Safety Regulations prevent Agents from climbing on sloping roofs. They could fall, and be injured.
Your not a Classic Liberal if you just play one on TV… The joke was mean spirited and ill advised but the reaction ridiculous… Classic Liberals must condemn cancel culture no matter who’s ox is gored…
It’s more about the underlying truth of the joke. Clearly, there are many who do wish harm on Trump – but don’t consider the knockon effects for Democracy were he to actually die from assasination. Ie; civil unrest.
Exactly! If you can’t joke about shooting Trump, what can you joke about? Comedy isn’t always in good taste, but it remains comedy!
1. Ariel Pink is not an “immensely talented” artist.
2. If you’re a celebrity, you are gaining dividends from being in the public eye – so unless you can be responsible when commenting on things other than yourself maybe just keep your opinions to yourself.
PS This week Kyle quit the band
Jack Black did the right think – to endorse an assassination attempt (murder is ok) is just plain unacceptable. Forget the left or right spin.
Members of the Right?
Maybe the Left should boycott all of Jack Black’s creative endeavours.
This was a joke – that is, not sincerely meant – it was not an incitement to violence unless you are deranged, in which case there are plenty of other sources of encouragement.
Does anyone think Trump’s shooter took his views predominantly from satire? Had he done so he would likely have been far happier and less inclined to turn to violence. A society that can’t take a joke is surely one which is more likely to produce amateur assassins, where all views are held with deadly seriousness.
There were a fair few jokes about Blair’s potential demise during his tenure, and about Maggie Thatcher (who actually was bombed by the IRA) during hers. I don’t remember anyone losing their job as a result, but I do remember laughing a lot.
The drop in double standards is a short term propaganda tactic.
A bit warped. If Gass had ‘bashed’ Obama or Pelosi, the Right would have agreed with him (in a mob like manner with fists pumping). It would not be about upholding freedom of speech. Upholding freedom of speech is when someone wants to express a point of view that maybe is not popular with people who are on an opposing side. It’s about being heard. Freedom of speech is not about soliciting hate or riots. So who were these people on social media who made Jack Black do a u-turn? Incredibly moral Lefties? Don’t think so, the Left would have agreed with Gass. So was it the Right defending freedom of speech? Definitely not. It would have been Trump supporters appalled at such a comment.