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Chris Rock spoke out against cancel culture, noting that it’s led to "unfunny" and "boring" content from comedians.
The stand-up comedian appeared on "The Breakfast Club" radio show earlier this week to discuss his entrance into the horror genre with "Spiral," which is a spinoff from the highly popular "Saw" franchise.
During the interview, Rock was asked about "cancel culture" and how it has impacted him as a comedian. He noted that, after a year in quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, he’s found the landscape to be drastically different.
Rock opened his statement on cancel culture by noting that, for comedians, there was already a built-in method of letting them know that their material doesn’t work.
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Chris Rock spoke out against cancel culture. (Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
"It’s weird when you’re a comedian because like, when you’re a comedian, when the audience doesn’t laugh, we get the message. You don’t really have to cancel us because we get the message. They’re not laughing," he explained. "Our feelings hurt. When we do something and people aren’t laughing we, like, we get it."
Rock continued by calling the cancellation of comedians "disrespectful" to the audience who is there at a live performance for the sole purpose of judging the content.
"I don’t understand why people feel the need to go beyond that, you know what I mean?" he explained. "Honestly, to me, it’s a disrespect. It’s people disrespecting the audience like, ‘oh, you think you know more than the audience?’ The audience knows more than everybody, OK. You know but hey, some things don’t need to be said. Some people need to be looked out for, I definitely understand that but not letting comedians work is, you know — what happens is everybody gets safe and when everybody gets safe and nobody tries anything, things get boring."
The star went on to lament that fear of getting canceled has led many comedians to avoid taking risks, thus leading to a slew of "unfunny comedians" as well as "unfunny" shows, movies, and other projects.
"Everybody’s scared to make a move," Rock declared.
"That’s not a place to be. You know, we should have the right to fail because failure, failure is a part of art," he added.
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The star concluded his thoughts on the matter by noting that he is particularly surprised to see this kind of behavior happening in America.
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"But now you know you’ve got a place where people are scared to talk. That’s not, you know, especially in America you’re scared to talk," he stated. "But you know, that’s what people want, you know, got to make adjustments."
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