Jennifer Aniston is at it again. In a new interview with the Wall Street Journal, the actress had some thoughts on cancel culture. This isn’t the first time: In a 2021 interview to promote The Morning Show season 2, she called it “the new sport” and described it as “reckless,” noting that it was something they wanted to explore in the Apple TV+ series. The Morning Show is about a news program dealing with fallout from a sexual misconduct scandal. With season 3 premiering soon, Aniston has returned to the topic, but her latest comments seem ignorant—especially considering her recent treatment of Jamie Foxx.
In case you forgot, Foxx posted about the betrayal of Jesus and some considered it antisemitic, though many—especially in the Black community—saw it for what it was intended to be: a commentary on fake friends and Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. Foxx literally included the hashtag #fakefriends in his post. Aniston got herself involved when people were outraged that her profile liked Foxx’s post on Instagram. So she took to social media to say that she is against antisemitism, apparently accusing Foxx’s post of being antisemitic. People were not pleased. Foxx had to apologize, while Aniston got to look like a social justice warrior. It seemed like she just took a narrative and ran with it, without carefully analyzing what Foxx was trying to say or what her response to it could imply.
In the new Wall Street Journal interview, Jennifer Aniston says she is “so over” the phenomenon known as cancel culture. She continues, “I probably just got canceled by saying that. I just don’t understand what it means … Is there no redemption? I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket.” Aniston adds that the disgraced Hollywood exec wasn’t someone people were eager to hang out with. And yes, that seems to be the case. He is a serial sexual predator, after all. But why bring him up? Clearly most people aren’t as disgusting as he is, but that doesn’t mean criticism cannot exist.
Many celebrities have offered their views on “cancel culture,” and while they’re often questionable at best, comedian Jerrod Carmichael recently had an interesting take. During a Hollywood Reporter roundtable, Carmichael said:
“Cancellation, that’s not real. The boogeyman doesn’t exist. We got to get over that. Like, if you do something wrong in your personal life, you should go to jail. Like, actual jail. And then everything else is like, ‘What are we talking about? … I think that’s just to give boring people something interesting to talk about, like a ghost villain.”
I would love to hear Aniston’s views on this! Carmichael gives a perspective that I think is a good one. Who has actually been canceled? Here are a few people who probably could have been, but still have enjoyed successful ongoing careers: Floyd Mayweather, Chris Brown, Louis C.K., Woody Allen, and Sean Penn. I could keep going. People like Aniston seem to think speaking against “cancel culture” is a brave thing to do. It’s not. Holding people accountable for harmful or hateful things they do should be the norm. But celebrities are on a different playing field, with millions of eyes on them. Let’s not forget that Americans also have short memories. So many celebrities get a week of backlash and then are right back to doing whatever they do, raking in millions and sometimes using said backlash to further advance their careers.
What Jennifer Aniston could have done is make a real point about unfairly labeling and criticizing people, because that is what she did to Jamie Foxx. Yet I cannot find where Aniston apologizes to Foxx in her interview. That would have at least made some sense. While Aniston didn’t explicitly call for Foxx to be canceled, she did say that his post made her “sick” and proclaimed that she doesn’t tolerate hate “of any kind.” It definitely seemed like she was accusing Foxx of spreading hate—a cancelable offense, for sure. So I don’t get why she couldn’t take a moment to point out that Foxx was unfairly accused of antisemitism and take accountability for contributing to the backlash he received.
But I guess that would have been too much self-reflection.
(featured image: Apple TV+)
