30/12/2025
Someone posted this in response to yet another knee jerk bit of cancel culture.
News flash: the only thing I despise more than identitarianism ("identity politics") is cancel culture.
Oh, boo hoo. All our heroes were just as human as you and I. Idols always come with feet of clay.
Grow the f**k up. I celebrate the lives and work of many a person whose eventual politics, views or personal choices I stand in diametrical opposition to. I reject their stances, their statements in support of same or thoughts about contemporary society.
But I still enjoy the hell out of, say, early Woody Allen. Roman Polanski. Stallone. Kelsey Grammar. F**k, I'm the first to admit that the only decent black metal always comes from guys with EXTREMELY oppositional views to mine, spiritually and especially politically. I've interviewed one guy whose metaphysical awareness I respect, but whose interest in, as he put it on the show, "populism" I obviously stand diametrically opposed to.
So when I express my lifelong admiration for Brigitte Bardot, how I found a woman just like her in so many ways, I refer to the natural beauty, the unaffected nature, the primal, animalistic existential authenticity to simply BE, without even knowing (much less bending the knee to) the ridiculous "rules of social engagement" or prudish "societal mores" that ruin people's personal and s*x lives. Bardot in her prime simply WAS, and the fact that this bothered anyone surrounding remained a subject of bafflement and unconcern to her. Know anyone else like that? (Cough)
I by no means refer to, celebrate or even accept the woman she apparently became under the influence of her last husband Bernard d'Ormale. In fact, I choose to ignore the aged Bardot per se. But this was a given, not an expression of acceptance for cancel culture. I often signed off podcasts about flawed figures with a quick caveat of acknowledgement. That Michael Caine became a supporter of Brexit, for example.
Because I've met too many of my musical, televised and cinematic idols to hold anyone in such high regard that I cannot adore what they have given to us in art, what they represented to culture in their day, and the flawed, distasteful human being they have become or may have been all along. Even David Carradine gave us Kung Fu, one of many series that broke through an unshakably white culture to ignite an honest fascination and appreciation of Eastern culture and beliefs (for me personally, as well as to the world per se.)
I present the below commenter's own words in affirmation. And as ever, I fall back on the words of one of my personal heroes, Pontius Pilate. Because the truth is not up for public debate. It simply IS.
"What I have writ, I have writ."
the commenter:
"I truly despise today’s culture because it’s addicted to moral grandstanding, zero-sum thinking, and performative outrage. A public figure dies quietly of old age, and within minutes their entire life is reduced to a purity test run by people who’ve done nothing worth remembering. History is dragged through present-day optics by the most sanctimonious voices in the room, not to understand it, but to posture over it.
If this reflex ever turns back on them, there will be no body of work, no legacy, no contribution to temper the judgment, only a record of sneering, small-minded certainty. That’s the irony they never grasp. They erase others to feel righteous, but there’s nothing about them worth preserving in the first place.
Take, for example, Brigitte Bardot. When people talk about her today, it’s almost always about her controversial statements or accusations of racism. That’s a small part of who she was, but it’s treated like it defines her entire life. What gets ignored is the decades she spent fighting for animal welfare, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, campaigning against seal hunting, animal testing, and cruelty in factory farming, and using her fame to actually make a difference.
Her critics focus on her flaws because it’s easier to tear someone down than to acknowledge the real, lasting good they did. But that good is still there. The shelters, the laws, the awareness she raised, all of that survived her imperfections. And that’s the point: the people who spend their lives pointing fingers often leave nothing worth remembering, while those who take action, even if flawed, leave a mark that lasts."
