As I read the Friday, July 24, 2020 headline, "PC Beach Passes Mask Mandate," I was momentarily heartened that finally, the light of science was burning through the dark clouds of preconceived notions of the anti-mask crowd with their Luddite world outlook and faux-freedom rhetoric. At least until I got to Councilman Geoff McConnell's bizarre deconstruction of his vote FOR the temporary mandatory mask ordinance.

McConnell's "deep reservations on the enforcement" side of the mask ordinance, which simply calls for the wearing of a facemask inside all business within the PCB city limits, is rife with political connotations of a politician attempting to appease all sides and failing to do so, excuse himself from what is the correct decision by couching his assent in the vanilla fish wrap of the anti-masking crowd.

Is this McConnell related to Moscow Mitch McConnell? Talk about the character of one's convictions! McConnell's, Geoff McConnell's, that is, comments show part of the deconstruction that has occurred in this country among public officials whose "grave doubts" for voting on controversial proposals seemingly does not extend beyond their own thoughts of Panhandle political correctness.

Why not be satisfied that the Council did the right thing to assist in preventing a further spiraling out of control of a virus already rampant in our State because of the very reticence of public officials, yes that is spelled DeSantis, to do the right thing and heed the advice of the public health officials?

Is there no end to the political grave-robbing of those that wish to highlight their vote by weaseling "Yes, but..."?

It's time for public officials to stop the side commentary in an attempt to appease a segment of the electorate that might get their noses out of joint next election, that is if they survive until then.

They should stand on their conviction that they have voted with the best evidence at hand and work to mitigate the inconveniences caused by having to tell people to do something that costs them nothing and gets the economy back on a more normal footing and saves lives, rather than publicly second-guessing your vote for political expediency.

You ran for office because you wanted to lead. So do so, with conviction.

Gordon Gral, Panama City Beach

Original post:

OPINION: PCB Council did the right thing - The News Herald

KIRK WISEMAYER

DR. HARVEY WOLBRANSKY

There have, of late, been disturbing statements made by high profile individuals on air and in social media that reflect not ignorance, as many claim, but pure, unadulterated bigotry and hate. We are, of course, referring to the anti- Semitic comments made by Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson and Viacom- CBS personality Nick Cannon.

Most of us have experienced anti- Semitism in some form, both veiled in political correctness and overt, which means we can never be surprised when people share views or invoke tropes that are anti-Semitic. It does not, however, mean we will ever be immune to them, or worse, that we should ever overlook them.

What is surprising, and what should trouble us all, is that it appears to be open season on publicly and unashamedly expressing anti-Semitic views. The comments made by Jackson and Cannon certainly reflect this trend, as does Mel Gibsons reference to Jews as oven dodgers and comments made by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. This trend signals a deeper, more problematic issue, one that compelled New York Times opinion writer and editor Bari Weiss to resign due to bullying in what she called a toxic environment, one in which coworkers felt safe calling her a Nazi. The more problematic issue that needs to be addressed is whether anti- Semitism is becoming socially acceptable, or worse, institutionalized. Do the hateful comments in every public forum stem from this trend?

Such statements are never acceptable, but it is virtually impossible to ensure this when high profile athletes, celebrities, politicians, and others utter them in the public arena. Worse still is the impact of empty apologies and flaccid responses. While both Jackson and Cannon have offered apologies (of sorts) to the Jewish community, neither has taken responsibility for their statements. Neither has demonstrated any willingness to examine their views or to question their wellspring. What good is an apology if you do not commit to seeking truth, if you do not commit to educating yourself, if you continue your association and support of hate groups and hate mongers such as the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan? Such apologies are no apology at all; they are lip service. It tells us that in their hearts they believe what they said, and that their only regret is the bad publicity being generated. No visit to Auschwitz will change such hearts.

More insulting than Jacksons comments are the toothless responses of the Eagles and NFL organizations. If there are no consequences and requirement for remediation attached to the statements issued by these organizations, and no elaboration as to how Jackson was penalized, then at best they are no more than pro-forma public relations statements. At their worst, they condone the beliefs expressed and held by Jackson. Ending their official statement with, We must continue to fight against anti- Semitism and all forms of discrimination, while not losing sight of the important battle against systemic racism, the Eagles organization is essentially telling their fans that anti- Semitism takes a back seat to racism.

In contrast, the response from Viacom-CBS was clear and strong. In their statement, they did not share having constructive conversations with Cannon, or that they were ready to take the next steps. They fired Cannon. In further contrast to the Eagles statement, Viacom-CBS concluded its statement by declaring they are committed to doing better in our response to incidents of anti- Semitism, racism, and bigotry.

Those who quote Hitler, who espouse conspiracy theories, who claim that Jews seek to oppress others, who invoke stereotypes of Jews, who deny the Holocaust, who claim Israel is committing genocide, or who claim that Jews are not a Semitic people are not ignorant of history and truth; they are anti-Semites. Those who are associated with and who support individuals such as Louis Farrakhan and organizations such as Nation of Islam are not misinformed; they are anti-Semites. Similarly, the corporations, employers, fans, media outlets, organizations, universities, voters, and others that condone or overlook anti- Semitism in any form and who fail to extinguish it are part of the problem. They are proof that you are the company you keep.s

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You are the company you keep - Jewish Community Voice

Its been 10 years since The Kids Are All Right, a queer family dramedy that was the darling of that years Sundance Film Festival, charted an unlikely ride to the Oscars and helped shift popular opinion about gay marriage.

Written by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, and directed by Cholodenko, the movie arrived as attitudes about gay rights were shifting dramatically. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore starred as a couple whose long marriage had grown stale, further strained by an emptying nest. As their eldest child prepares to leave for college, she hatches a plan with her teen brother to meet their biological father, an Echo Park-dwelling free spirit played by Mark Ruffalo. Tensions escalate as Moore and Ruffalo embark on a secret affair, the kids launch into full rebellion, and Bening unravels with boozy abandon.

While controversial in the LGBTQ community upon release for depicting a lesbian having an affair with a straight man, the movie has now been embraced universally, even by GLAAD. The project has earned lasting cinematic admiration as a portrait of queer people that does not exploit the communitys struggles, but elevates their averageness. Its also widely seen as a valentine to Los Angeles, given Cholodenkos flair for exposing the richness of a town known for palm trees and billion-dollar zip codes.

Variety has unearthed the untold history behind the film, which earned four Academy Award nominations including best picture. Ruffalo had fired his agents and was ready to retire from acting before the film revived his career. Jodie Foster (who wasnt out at the time) passed on the lead role that eventually went to Bening. Quentin Tarantino called the movies climax one of the scariest scenes hed ever seen on screen.

The cast and filmmakers reflect on the decade since we first saw The Kids Are All Right:

Cholodenko was living in Los Angeles in 2004, and had just finished shooting Laurel Canyon, a very different look at California families, starring Frances McDormand as a wild rock star and Christian Bale as her strait-laced son.

Choldenko: I was getting settled in a new place after living in New York for 10 years. My girlfriend said, Get your butt downstairs and start writing your own thing. Youre not going to keep taking jobs for hire. So she shoved me in the apartment downstairs and I started writing The Kids are All Right. I got to about page 20, and I could tell that it was a bit rarefied. I could tell that I was getting into something that I didnt want to get into. I wanted to take this subject and make it a comedy, and make it broader, and play with it in a way that I hadnt with the other stuff that I had done.

Bening and Moore in The Kids Are All RightSuzanne Tenner

Blumberg, the writer-director of Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrows Thanks For Sharing, saw his acquaintance Cholodenko at the 101 Cafe, the legendary diner at the base of L.A.s Beachwood Canyon.

Blumberg: Lisa told me that she and her then-partner were trying to have a kid with a sperm donor, and she was thinking that would be a cool idea for a movie. I said, Wow, thats weird. In college I was a sperm donor, and I always wondered if I have kids and what would happen if they tried to find me. Then the lightbulb just went off.

A lot of guys I knew donated sperm to pay for their spring breaks or to get money for pizza. Honestly, the way I rationalized it for myself was there are people out there who want kids and cant have kids. If they say my stuff is good, then why not me as opposed to somebody else? I did it my junior year of college. They tested me out, said I had good motility, and I donated. I dont know if I have kids. I might have zero, I might have 10.

Anyway, I told Lisa I always thought she was so amazing, and she should try to write something more commercial. She told me, Oh, fuck you! You should try to write something more independent. And then she asked if I wanted to start work dating, and it became this multi-year process.

Their script attracted interest from major studios like Disney and the indie kingpin Miramax, which was still under the control of Harvey and Bob Weinstein. But life was about to imitate art.

Cholodenko: I brought it to Nina Jacobson, who was running Disneys Buena Vista Group. She had just worked with Wes Anderson, so she seemed interesting. We had a nice conversation, but it wasnt for them. There was other interest, but it was not robust. The most interest, weirdly enough, was from Miramax. At the time, I was also trying to get pregnant, and it happened. I had to sit with that. I had a cast, which was different originally, and then the Weinsteins wanted to do this. I said, Time out. Im not ready.

Moore: I met Lisa at a Women in Film event, and I said, How come I never saw the script for [her first film] High Art? She told me, I think you were working. I said, I know I wasnt.

Then she sent me the Kids Are All Right out of the blue. I remember our initial conversations, it took a really long time to get set up. At the time, she said I could choose either part. I wanted to play Jules, because it was something I had never played before. We were finally ready to get going, and then Lisa got pregnant with her son.

Blumberg: We probably rewrote that script fully about eight to 10 times. We had independent financiers going, Why would I make this movie about two 50-something lesbians?

Cholodenko: I worried about that. Plus all of these A-list, very well respected actors were interested. I couldnt understand, when I was taking it around, and people said, Im not sure, and, Is it interesting enough? I was proud that we went to the mat to take the political correctness out of it.

The film landed financing for a tight 24-day shoot in 2009. Moores character Jules, a wispy organic Angeleno who drifted from career to career, would be partnered with Nic a doctor whose nightly wine intake eased the pressure of breadwinning. Their offspring were the academic golden child Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and her adolescent brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson, before The Hunger Games had made him a household name).

Bening: I had met Lisa socially, because we live in the same neighborhood. She asked me to do it. I think Julianne and I maybe had a couple of rehearsals over two days. One of the privileges, as an actor, is that you have an immediate intimacy with each other. Thats what were used to doing. Julianne is very experienced, and Ive made a few movies, and thats the job. The writing was very good, and everything starts and ends there. Lisas process is very straightforward, and shes very observant. Shes watching and listening, not interfering, and she knows where to put the camera. Mia and Josh were so good, and so ready, and real.

Josh Hutcherson: I didnt read the script before I went in. My audition for Laser happened three weeks before production started. It was very quick. Lisa is the shit, and so talented, and such a fantastic director and writer. There was a sense of truthfulness and honesty in the family dynamic. We had one day of rehearsal, we didnt even read the script, we just went to a park and hung out. We all gelled.

Mia Wasikowska: They were the best moms. It was one of those things where everyone was immediately warm, and that helps when youre a slightly awkward teenager like I was at the time. Playing Joni, she sort of mirrors what the family is going through itself. I remember, I was probably quite shy anyway, but I think people might have been a bit nervous about me yelling at Annette and Julianne in some of our scenes. I had quite a bit of anxiety about it, but it was fun to let loose at a couple of amazing actors I grew up watching.

The films third lead was Paul, the sperm donor, a role that had previously attached actors Ewan McGregor and Peter Skarsgaard in various stages of development. With weeks to go, Moore turned to her friend Sunrise Coigney, to see if her husband Ruffalo might be interested.

Ruffalo in The Kids Are All RightSuzanne Tenner

Ruffalo: I was ready to hang it up as an actor and look towards directing. I pretty much had disbanded my team, I didnt have an agent or manager anymore. The things that were getting me down was the business, and what the priorities were. I had good people, but I had lost my joy for it. Then this happened. I got nominated for an Oscar, and I started getting calls. It sort of rejuvenated my career and my feelings about acting. It was a different kind of role for me, and people started to see me in a different kind of way.

Cholodenko: The timing is such that I think it helped. He got an Oscar nomination, and that almost didnt happen. I didnt even work with him before day one. We had a hug, went into the trailer and looked at some leather jackets, and then he walked on the set. That was it.

Ruffalo: Filming this movie, I was very aware that it would be what I thought was my swan song. I came to it with this kind of openness and fearlessness that I hadnt felt since I was a young actor. Working with a gay director, in this particularly important moment, and having it be led by a story about a gay couple I knew that it would have the appeal that it ended up having. I fucking fooled everyone! You wouldnt have Bruce Banner without this queer Focus Features indie. I love that.

The script did not shy away from frank explorations of sexuality, both straight and queer. In one scene, Laser discovers that his mothers enjoy watching gay male porn.

Blumberg: We were at this deli called Victors near Beachwood Canyon, and we were talking and she threw that out. Because I am a white cisgender male, I can see things that she couldnt.

Cholodenko: We were younger, we would have these saucy conversations when we were writing, kind of picking into each others lives. I mentioned that a lot of gay women do that. He said we should put it in the film, and I was like, Theres no way Stuart. Im not putting that in here. It was too intimate, or something. He was like, Its funny. Who cares?

Ruffalo, who had broken out 10 years earlier with an acclaimed performance in the indie You Can Count On Me, had never been cast as a playboy let alone one of Pauls sexual prowess. Ruffalo shot his sex scenes with both Julianne Moore and Yaya DaCosta, the gorgeous Tanya, an employee at Pauls farm-to-table restaurant (shot in Cypress Park).

Yaya DaCosta and Ruffalo in The Kids Are All RightSuzanne Tenner

Ruffalo: Paul was so far from me. Honestly, it was at that time that my brother had passed away, and my brother had these easy vibes, an easy sexuality, a real sense of fun and joie de vivre. He also had alternative points of view, so a lot of that character was [my brother] Scotty.

My feeling was, maybe no one wants to see me do a sex scene anymore, and my wifes like, Youre right. I did have her OK it, and because she said its Julianne and I trust her, youre allowed to do this. My first day at work, first scene, was with Yaya DaCosta and I threw out my back.

Lisa says, Stand in the middle of the room naked. And I want to see your ass, and youre just out there doing it like two animals. So I told Yaya It was nice to meet her, and I apologized in advance.

DaCosta: Tanya was dope, and he was lucky to be hanging out with her! While it wasnt about her being Black, the choice in me to play that role definitely gave some information to the audience about what kind of a dude he was, you know? She was sort of a huge living adjective serving his character.

Among the films pivotal moments was a 12-page dinner scene, where Benings character discovers her wife is having an affair with their sperm donor. The realization comes with an other-worldy tracking shot around Benings face, which many argued landed her the Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Cholodenko: The end of that scene, it was the end of the night. We had to get that shot, and I remember my DP saying, Im going to put the camera on a slider and were going to over crank it so its slow motion. I certainly could relate to that feeling of learning something and being in shock, and having to handle it.

Blumberg: Shes in her own private hell. That was deliberate on the page and Lisa brought it home. I remember Lisa saying she talked to Quentin Tarantino about the film, and he said, Lisa, man, that was one of the scariest scenes Ive ever seen in movies.

Bening in The Kids Are All RightSuzanne Tenner

Bening: Lisa and Stuart somehow knew that the way the movie goes along you dont think about the camera, it never calls attention to itself. But she did that deliberately, because she doesnt do that in any other moment. She draws out and dramatizes that moment in a way that is like handing you a gift as an actor.

The finished film headed to Sundance in 2010 with a great deal of buzz. For Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski, who at the time handled international sales, it was the only movie he cared to see.

Kujawski: It felt naturally like the kind of story we wanted to bring into the world. I drew the straw to see the other things that night, because the majority of international territories had been sold. I remember sitting in another movie, and I dont remember what it was, and I was texting the whole team when I knew they got out. My phone exploded, people absolutely loved it.

Wasikowska: I was so new to all of that, and I dont think I knew at the time how amazing that was. But it was a dreamy experience, the screening and the buzz afterwards. Lisa and her managers and a few people around the dinner table after the screening, they were already in negotiations to sell it and I didnt even know what they meant. Someone said, It got sold! and I said, Great! I didnt know it wasnt sold!

Hutcherson: We were in the Eccles Theater, and I hadnt seen it yet. Were sitting there and watching, and everyone was laughing a lot, and I was very confused. I had read the script and thought it was a family drama. And I thought, shit! This is a dark family comedy. That went right over my little naive head.

Focus landed the film for $4 million, and released it on July 30, 2010. This came two months after the Season 1 finale of Modern Family, and in the thick of preliminary hearings and national discourse about gay marriage. The producers and studio were shocked to see that many lesbians were offended by the film, particularly over the fact that Moores character slept with a man.

Cholodenko: The only people that really, I think, took umbrage with the film were lesbians, who were like, Oh, the trope. And shes with the man. And I was like, Im not having it. Im not saying anything about anything. Im just saying its all on the table and its all fine.

Moore: I can see why people took issue with a lesbian character having an affair with her sperm donor. On the other hand, I think that Jules character was someone described as being very fluid, sexually and personally. She was floating, in the sense of her entire identity as a woman, as a person, in her career.

There was also criticism, at the time, in the queer press about how Bening and Moore were both straight actors playing gay roles.

Moore: Ive thought about that a lot. Here we were, in this movie about a queer family, and all of the principal actors were straight. I look back and go, Ouch. Wow. I dont know that we would do that today, I dont know that we would be comfortable. We need to give real representation to people, but Im grateful for all of the experiences that Ive had as an actor because my job is to communicate a universality of experience to the world. The idea that, rather than othering people, were saying were all the same. Our humanity is shared.

Cholodenko: Super interesting argument. It really is. I tend to err on the side of, Its make believe, and its of the discretion of the director whos the most compelling for that job. So, I dont think its mutually exclusive. While I want to promote gay people representing gay people, trans people, all the rest, queer people its also a commercial prospect. Its all those things.

When I cast Julianne and Annette, I really felt like, on the continuum of gayness, I could feel their gayness. It didnt feel phony to me. I didnt feel like I was putting somebody in an outfit and asking them to parade as something that was false. There was a conversation about going out to Jodie Foster. I think somebody even asked her. So there was a gay person who wasnt interested in portraying a gay person.

Jodie Foster (over email):I honestly dont remember it being offered to me. I really like Lisa Cholodenko. Weve met socially a few times since the film came out. Funny she never mentioned this anecdote to me. FYI, I dont like it when journalists mention parts that were passed on by other actors. It diminishes the actors who DID play the role beautifully. I have NEVER commented on films that I passed on. I find it disrespectful to the artists by creating a gratuitous public competition. Im pretty sure all of my peers would agree. It has been an issue of discussion with some of the actresses I have worked with.

Foster, again, hours later: I was just looking at the dates for the Kids Are All Right release. I was prepping and then shooting The Beaver at the same time as they were doing their film. (our release got pushed into 2011 although was slated for Fall of 2010. We missed the Cannes lock picture date for that Spring of 2010 because the edit wasnt ready. Went onto do reshoots in the summer 2010. Remember?) I acted in and directed that film. I wasnt available in the time period of Kids Are All Right shoot.

Five years after The Kids Are All Right released, gay marriage was legalized in the U.S. The cast and filmmakers feel that legacy today.

Bening: One of the most incredible things that happened was, after the film came out, I was on a trip to Cuba with the Academy [of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences]. We were part of this international outreach committee, so we got to go to the major film festival there. Sadly in Cuba, theyre so forward thinking in many ways but in the revolution, one of the things they really got wrong was gay people, and they were very repressive to gay people. When I landed and walked through the airport, a young guy came up to me and grabbed my arm, and had seen the film. He said that he was able to show it to his family. He said that because they had all watched it together, it made a huge difference in their understanding and acceptance of him being gay.

Ruffalo: What made that movie so powerful is that it wasnt a polemic. It was people watching themselves their own relationships, whether they were straight or gay, thats why it had such a cultural impact. Folks saw these people are really no different than them.

Cholodenko: Recently, I was doing something at the American Film Institute, and a woman from somewhere in China, came up to me and said, I just want you to know that part of why I wanted to become a filmmaker, and actually something that really changed my life was getting a bootleg of Kids Are All Right. It was banned in China, and it changed everything in my life for me. I could see myself, finally.

And things like that, where youre just like, Fuck! That should be so easy to see. You forget that youre doing something that could really touch people, because they dont get to see themselves.

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The Kids Are All Right Turns 10: The Untold History of the Queer Family Classic - Variety

NEW YORK So you've probably read a lot about cancel culture. Or know about a new poll that shows a plurality of Americans disapproving of it. Or you may have heard about a letter in Harper's Magazine condemning censorship and intolerance.

But can you say exactly what cancel culture is? Some takes:

It seems like a buzzword that creates more confusion than clarity, says the author and journalist George Packer, who went on to call it a mechanism where a chorus of voices, amplified on social media, tries to silence a point of view that they find offensive by trying to damage or destroy the reputation of the person who has given offense.

I dont think its real. But there are reasonable people who believe in it, says the author, educator and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. From my perspective, accountability has always existed. But some people are being held accountable in ways that are new to them. We didnt talk about cancel culture when someone was charged with a crime and had to stay in jail because they couldnt afford the bail.

"'Cancel culture' tacitly attempts to disable the ability of a person with whom you disagree to ever again be taken seriously as a writer/editor/speaker/activist/intellectual, or in the extreme, to be hired or employed in their field of work," says Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the author, activist and founding editor of Ms. magazine.

It means different things to different people, says Ben Wizner, director of the ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

In tweets, online letters, opinion pieces and books, conservatives, centrists and liberals continue to denounce what they call growing intolerance for opposing viewpoints and the needless ruining of lives and careers. A Politico/Morning Consult poll released last week shows 44% of Americans disapprove of it, 32% approve and the remaining 24% had no opinion or didn't know what it was.

Confusing debates

For some, cancel culture is the coming of the thought police. For others, it contains important chances to be heard that didn't exist before.

Recent examples of unpopular cancellations include the owner of a chain of food stores in Minneapolis whose business faced eviction and calls for boycotts because of racist social media posts by his then-teenage daughter, and a data analyst fired by the progressive firm Civis Analytics after he tweeted a study finding that nonviolent protests increase support for Democratic candidates and violent protests decrease it. Civis Analytics has denied he was fired for the tweet.

These incidents damage the lives of innocent people without achieving any noble purpose, Yascha Mounk wrote in The Atlantic last month. Mounk himself has been criticized for alleging that an astonishing number of academics and journalists proudly proclaim that it is time to abandon values like due process and free speech."

Debates can be circular and confusing, with those objecting to intolerance sometimes openly uncomfortable with those who don't share their views. A few weeks ago, more than 100 artists and thinkers endorsed a letter co-written by Packer and published by Harper's. It warned against a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity."

The letter drew signatories from many backgrounds and political points of view, ranging from the far-left Noam Chomsky to the conservative David Frum, and was a starting point for contradiction.

The writer and trans activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, who signed the letter, quickly disowned it because she did not know who else" had attached their names. Although endorsers included Salman Rushdie, who in 1989 was forced into hiding over death threats from Iranian Islamic leaders because of his novel The Satanic Verses, numerous online critics dismissed the letter as a product of elitists who knew nothing about censorship.

One of the organizers of the letter, the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, later announced on Twitter that he had thrown a guest out of his home over criticisms of letter-supporter Bari Weiss, the New York Times columnist who recently quit over what she called a Twitter-driven culture of political correctness. Another endorser, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, threatened legal action against a British news site that suggested she was transphobic after referring to controversial tweets that she has written in recent months.

The only speech these powerful people seem to care about is their own," the author and feminist Jessica Valenti wrote in response to the Harper's letter. ('Cancel culture' ) is certainly not about free speech: After all, an arrested journalist is never referred to as canceled, nor is a woman who has been frozen out of an industry after complaining about sexual harassment. Canceled is a label we all understand to mean a powerful person whos been held to account."

'Boomerrang effect'

Cancel culture is hard to define, in part because there is nothing confined about it no single cause, no single ideology, no single fate for those allegedly canceled.

Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, convicted sex offenders, are in prison. Former television personality Charlie Rose has been unemployable since allegations of sexual abuse and harassment were published in 2017-18. Oscar winner Kevin Spacey has made no films since he faced allegations of harassment and assault and saw his performance in All the Money in the World replaced by Christopher Plummer's.

Others are only partially canceled. Woody Allen, accused by daughter Dylan Farrow of molesting her when she was 7, was dropped by Amazon, his U.S. film distributor, but continues to release movies overseas. His memoir was canceled by Hachette Book Group, but soon acquired by Skyhorse Publishing, which also has a deal with the previously canceled Garrison Keillor. Sirius XM announced last week that the late Michael Jackson, who seemed to face posthumous cancellation after the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland presented extensive allegations that he sexually abused boys, would have a channel dedicated to his music.

Cancellation in one subculture can lead to elevation in others. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has not played an NFL game since 2016 and has been condemned by President Donald Trump and many others on the right after he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest a country that oppresses black people and people of color." But he has appeared in Nike advertisements, been honored by the ACLU and Amnesty International and reached an agreement with the Walt Disney Co. for a series about his life.

You can say the NFL canceled Colin Kaepernick as a quarterback and that he was resurrected as a cultural hero, says Julius Bailey, an associate professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University who writes about Kaepernick in his book Racism, Hypocrisy and Bad Faith.

In politics, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, remains in his job 1 1/2 years after acknowledging he appeared in a racist yearbook picture while in college. Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, resigned after multiple women alleged he had sexually harassed them, but Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax of Virginia defied orders to quit after two women accused him of sexual assault.

Sometimes even multiple allegations of sexual assault, countless racist remarks and the disparagement of wounded military veterans aren't enough to induce cancellation. Trump, a Republican, has labeled cancel culture far-left fascism and the very definition of totalitarianism while so far proving immune to it.

Politicians can ride this out because they were hired by the public. And if the public is willing to go along, then they can sometimes survive things perhaps they shouldn't survive, Packer says.

I think you can say that Trump's rhetoric has had a boomerang effect on the rest of our society, says PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, who addresses free expression in her book Dare to Speak, which comes out next week. People on the left feel that he can get away with anything, so they do all they can to contain it elsewhere.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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Everywhere and nowhere: The many layers of 'cancel culture' - Gloucester Daily Times