I would personally like to thank Jake Shane for his Therapuss podcast because his episode with Glen Powell has delighted me for the last two days. And one section of it has people talking. It was Powell getting into cancel culture.
His new show, Chad Powers, details the fall of Russ Holliday (Powell), a former quarterback who makes the mistake of dropping the ball before he’s in the end zone and costing his team the win. Russ is not a bad guy at heart. He can be rude and a jerk, yes, but he’s not an evil person. So Powell and Shane talked about the idea of cancel culture and Powell had a pretty iconic quote.
“Russ Holiday is just a guy who made a mistake, he’s not a bad guy,” Powell said. “Some of these other people who get canceled, they should lie where they’re shot … In today’s day and age, cancel culture is just a thing where the world that doesn’t let you forget your mistakes. With phones, with TikTok, with Instagram, so many people make mistakes and the world doesn’t let you forget. And I found it to be interesting how people react to those moments. Do they double down, do they take accountability, do they believe in conspiracy theories? Just having a character learning to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ is a really beautiful thing.”
As someone who has been willing, in my own heart, to forgive some of these people because they’ve taken the right steps and reflected, it is nice to hear a take on cancel culture that isn’t “boohoo you can’t say anything anymore.” Powell’s response was nuanced and frankly correct. And now we have “Some of these other people who get canceled, they should lie where they’re shot” in our lexicon.
Glen Powell realized in real time you can’t separate the art from the artist
Another story Powell shared was about the time he saw an actor he used to love at a party. He said that he was at a Hollywood party with a mix of press and celebrities when he has someone he used to be a fan of. “I was at a party and there was somebody [there] that had basically been on the ropes in terms of sort of getting canceled,” Powell said. “This person had made some of my favorite movies and I was like, ‘Oh, this is great.’ He came up and he said, ‘Nice to meet you.’ I was like, ‘Oh, dude. Such a big fan.’ And then a photographer said, ‘Hey, can we take a picture of you guys.’”
When Powell realized that this was someone who he probably shouldn’t be associated with, he tried to get out of the situation. “This person was recently canceled and it was not good,” Powell said. “I was a fan of their work, but not a fan of their choices. So I was kind of just being nice.”
Ultimately he decided against taking a picture with this person. “But then, when they wanted to take a picture with you, I realized very quickly — I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is a good idea.’ He clearly clocked that I was like, ‘Oh, this is probably not a good idea.’ And I realized that this guy, his face is toxic. Going out into the world, people are having a visceral reaction to this person in terms of the bad choice they’ve made.”
It is so nice to not be disappointed
More often than not now, I have to hold my breath when cancel culture is brought up in Hollywood. Not that a lot of my favorite people have said bad things. But just because it is an exhausting cycle of “Cancel culture is ruining lives” rhetoric without realizing that it is someone facing consequences. Powell’s take on the situation was very leveled and it is rare in this day and age that someone has that perspective on it.
Sometimes, someone deserves the “canceled” label and that’s an important thing to remember. They aren’t persona non-grata for absolutely no reason! But I really do love and appreciate this perspective and we all can thank Glen Powell for the next great quote about cancellations. “Some of these other people who get canceled, they should lie where they’re shot.”
(featured image: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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