[Assume Funny Headline Was Here Before the Cancel Culture Hordes Got to It]

14 Pieces of Pop Culture That Found Themselves Embroiled in the Culture Wars of 2021 for Reasons That Will Be Hard to Explain to Our Grandchildren

Not even three months in, and 2021 is shaping up to be an… interesting year, if nothing else.

Some context if you’re reading this in the far-off future and wondering what the hell this is all about: after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat challenger Joe Biden — an election in which Trump claimed massive voter fraud despite offering no evidence to support that — a few thousand of his staunchest supporters showed up in Washington, D.C., in early January to hear a speech in which he told them to “fight like hell” or else they’re “not going to have a country anymore.” This was directly followed by a mob of those same supporters storming the U.S. Capitol and forcing their way inside while legislators inside ran and hid for their lives; in total, five people (including a Capitol police officer) died and more than 140 were injured in the riot.

After Biden was sworn in, his administration immediately got to work by passing the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a bill to help Americans hit hard by the year-long COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic fallout. Though the bill was wildly popular, with some polls showing three-quarters of Americans supporting it (and a majority of Republican voters), not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for it because… well, they weren’t really clear on their reasons why they didn’t like it. There was some talk among Republican legislators about misplaced priorities and government overreach, but in the end it seemed the only reason they didn’t support it was because they couldn’t take the credit for it.

All of this meant Republican opinion-shapers had a problem. Most Americans blamed Trump for botching the federal government’s pandemic response and inciting a deadly riot on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, the CARES Act put money directly in the hands of Americans, who — not surprisingly — liked that. Despite Republican efforts to paint Biden as either a raving socialist dictator or a doddering old man, Republican voters weren’t as incensed by an amiable old white guy as they were by Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ two previous presidential candidates. And on top of everything else, the rift within the party between pro-Trump supporters and moderate Republicans meant congressional GOP leaders had the support of only about half of all Republican voters.  

With all those challenges, what’s a party to do? Go to war, of course — culture war, that is. “Cancel culture” became the new favorite phrase among conservatives who wanted to change the conversation from how badly they didn’t want to help struggling Americans to how determined the Democrats were to “cancel” everything they didn’t like. The idea that conservatives were being “canceled” gained momentum when a number of prominent right-wing voices (including Trump himself) found themselves kicked off social media sites for supporting an armed insurrection, spouting election conspiracy theories, and touting unproven COVID-19 cures; from there, it was just a hop and a skip to conservative voices telling their audiences that an out-of-control “cancel culture” mob was coming to take away everything they held dear, and only voting Republican would stop it. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same tactic that outfits like Fox News have used for years to frighten its conservative viewers; see also the 1990s battles over “political correctness.”) 

No surprise, a lot of of the people crying “cancel culture” fell back on tried-and-true tactics like “they’re going to take your guns” and “they’re going to take your religious freedoms.” But sometimes their cries of “cancel culture” went to… slightly sillier places.

How silly? Well…  

1. “They canceled Dr. Seuss!”
It all started on March 2, when Dr. Seuss Enterprises — the organization that owns the rights to the literary works created by beloved children’s author Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel — announced it was going to cease publication of six Dr. Seuss books: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer. “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” Dr. Seuss Enterprises said in a statement. “Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’s catalog represents and supports all communities and families.” They didn’t elaborate on how these books were hurtful and wrong, but it was obvious to anyone who read them that stereotypical drawings of African and Asian people that were created in a different time weren’t consistent with the company’s modern image. The six were also among the lowest-selling of the more than 60 books that Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated before his death in 1991, and so it made sense that they would choose to stop publishing low-selling books with embarrassing images in them. The owner of a product making changes to its product to ensure its continued viability in an evolving market: there’s nothing more “free enterprise” than that.

That’s not how the conservative echo chamber saw it, though. “PROGRESSIVES SEEK TO CANCEL BELOVED AUTHOR,” blared the headlines at Fox News, as commentators there were quick to tie the company’s decision to Biden’s non-mention of Dr. Seuss in a presidential proclamation saluting National Read Across America Day (held on March 2, Geisel’s birthday). Republican politicians accused Democrats of “outlawing Dr. Seuss” and read Green Eggs and Ham (which wasn’t one of the six dropped books) in videos posted to social media, while panicked consumers — convinced that “they” were taking away the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat, despite no one even mentioning that as a possibility — sent Dr. Seuss books to the top of the Amazon sales charts (at one point 9 of the site’s 10 top sellers were Dr. Seuss books).

It was more than a little ironic watching conservatives defend Dr. Seuss as one of their own, given how in life he was a man who happily altered his work to reflect changing times and someone whose politics placed him among the progressives of his day (he supported FDR and the New Deal, for instance, and his political cartoons like the one linking the “America First” nativist sentiment to Nazism sadly remains relevant today). In any event, the fact that Republicans were raging about Dr. Seuss books being “canceled” at the same time as congressional hearings into the role some of their members played in the Capitol Hill riots was probably just a coincidence.  

2. “They canceled Mr. Potato Head!”
Also surely a coincidence? That the status of Mr. Potato Head’s manhood ranked among conservatives’ most pressing concerns right around the time the U.S. Senate began its hearings on the Capitol Hill riots. Introduced by Hasbro in 1952, Mr. Potato Head was originally sold as a set of plastic body parts that could be stuck into a real potato; the company introduced the toy’s potato-shaped plastic body in 1964. It’s been a steady seller for Hasbro ever since, with spikes in sales whenever it gets a bit of media exposure, like when it appeared in the 1995 film Toy Story. But nothing could have prepared the humble spud for the media firestorm it would find itself in at the beginning of 2021. 

It started with a Feb. 25 announcement from Hasbro that it was changing the name of the iconic toy to the more gender-neutral Potato Head to “better reflect the full line” of Potato Head toys (including the addition of Mrs. Potato Head all the way back in 1953). After some initial confusion about what this meant, Hasbro issued a clarifying statement that the Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head names weren’t going anywhere; instead, the company was just going to introduce a “Potato Family Pack” that will contain parts that encourage kids to create any type of Potato Head family they want. Not good enough, said leading conservative voices, with Fox News hosts claiming Mr. Potato Head was getting “neutered” and actual highly paid grown-ups taking up valuable airtime — during a pandemic, no less — to talk about the “controversy and confusion” created by Hasbro’s decision to rebrand its own toy. (In a sign of how insane things got, the actual Twitter account for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee even tweeted a clip from Toy Story in which Don Rickles says “That’s Mr. Potato Head to you” to another fictional character, as if to prove a point.)

Eventually, some voices on the right gave away the game by invoking the Bible to claim there are only two genders — a position that has absolutely nothing to do with a plastic toy that comes with interchangeable body parts. But it helps explain why, in an age of trans rights and many people reassessing their views on gender, something as simple as dropping the “Mr.” from a popular toy line was like catnip to a party eager to stoke transphobic feelings among its base by suggesting a company’s act of rebranding was akin to destroying the concept of manhood itself. And as troubling as it was to see some peoples’ fear and hatred of trans folk go this far, at least it provided the rest of us with a bit of humor during those stressful times. (One Twitter wag: “Conservatives: ‘Lefties are such snowflakes, offended by everything, always overreacting.’ Also conservatives: ‘MR POTATO HEAD SHOULD HAVE A HUGE DICK!'”)

3. “They canceled the Muppets!”
Airing from 1976 to 1981, The Muppet Show featured Jim Henson’s puppet creations appearing alongside their human guest stars as they performed comedy sketches and musical numbers interspersed with scenes taking place backstage and in other parts of the Muppet Theater. Their anarchic — and often absurdist — brand of humor proved a hit with Generation X kids who passed on their love for Kermit and the gang to their kids, and so no one was surprised when Disney acquired the Muppets franchise in 2004 — just as it wasn’t a surprise when Disney added all 120 episodes of The Muppet Show to its recently launched Disney+ streaming service in early 2021.   

What did seem to surprise some people was the company’s decision to add a 12-second disclaimer to the front of 18 of the show’s episodes. According to the disclaimer, each of the flagged episodes “includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” (Negative depictions of Native Americans or other cultures were common infractions; an episode guest-starring Johnny Cash earned a disclaimer for its prominent display of the Confederate flag, a symbol co-opted by white supremacists in recent years.) Acknowledging that the shows themselves weren’t intended to give offense, the company said it chose not to alter them or to keep Disney+ subscribers from streaming them; instead, it ran the disclaimer in front of each of 18 episodes to “acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.”

It seemed like a reasonable solution: allowing access to the episodes while acknowledging how problematic they might be to audiences in a contemporary media environment. But even that mild step was deemed out of bounds by conservative voices that declared Kermit the Frog had been terminated with extreme prejudice. Donald Trump, Jr., was one of several outraged commentators to take his anger to Twitter, warning his followers the Muppets had been “canceled” and that there is nothing “these psychos [i.e. liberals] won’t destroy.” Whether or not he actually believed these disclaimers equated to the “cancellation” of the Muppets, it was clear that he and others railing about Disney’s decision were reaching for something to be outraged about, and the internet responded in kind, with one person replying to the junior Trump’s tweet with a question that summed it up nicely: “So the show is being put on a popular streaming service that will greatly expand its viewing audience and that means it’s ‘canceled’???”

4. “They canceled Dumbo!”
At least the furor over disclaimers in front of select episodes of The Muppet Show was timely, in that Disney+ made those episodes available for streaming in the same month that conservatives were looking around for things to be upset about. What made even less sense was that they then went into a tizzy over another decision made by Disney+ concerning some of its classic films that had been made the previous year. Why did these conservatives choose the first three months of 2021 — coincidentally the start of a new, non-Republican administration — to notice that decision and get upset about it? It’s a mystery for the ages.

The story: back in October 2020, the popular streaming service decided to restrict access to some of its older titles, placing animated classics like Dumbo and Peter Pan in tiers that could only be accessed by adults and children 8 and older. In addition, Disney placed brief disclaimers at the start of these films, a move it said was part of its ongoing efforts to tell stories “that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.” For various reasons (usually involving outdated and insensitive racial stereotypes) Dumbo, Peter Pan, The Aristocats, Swiss Family Robinson, Fantasia, Lady and the Tramp and The Jungle Book were among the affected titles that Disney decided would not be accessible through kids’ profiles with the parental controls switched on.

In a more sensible world, you might assume conservatives would applaud the company for giving parents more control over what their kids can watch… but alas, that take didn’t fit with the “cancel culture” narrative they were peddling at the time. “The Purge!” Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity cried on Twitter in response to the news that seven-year-olds could no longer choose to watch The Jungle Book without a parent’s permission. “More like Disney Minus,” railed the New York Post five months after the fact. It was odd to see the same folks who once supported ratings systems for video games and record albums change their tune to now say that any attempt by businesses to restrict content based on age was somehow akin to a popular horror film series in which people are literally hunted down by their fellow citizens… but at least we know where guys like Hannity stand when and if those films ever get added to Disney+.

5. “They canceled Gone With the Wind!”
To be fair, the question of what to do with problematic classic films like Gone with the Wind, The Searchers and Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one that film lovers have been asking for years. A number of classics from Hollywood’s early years contain elements that can be uncomfortable for modern audiences; take Gone with the Wind and the way it portrays Black people living in the American South around the time of the U.S. Civil War, or Mickey Rooney’s horrifically unfunny performance as a bucktoothed Asian man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Without getting into debates over whether those uncomfortable feelings are warranted, the fact is film exhibitors have to take modern sensibilities into account when showing films made in earlier, different times.

That’s why the classic movie channel TCM launched “Reframed” in March 2021, a weekly series in which it attempts to put popular but troublesome films in context. Rather than being introduced by one of the channel’s hosts, the films that are shown as part of the series are introduced by a panel of film buffs who discuss the complicated cultural issues raised by each film. “There is still an important cultural conversation around these movies,” said TCM host Ben Mankiewicz in an interview with Variety. “If we don’t point out the misfires that these movies have in terms of gender, race and sexual orientation — if we don’t point these out, we marginalize the movies. Not pointing them out is the risk.”

It seemed a reasonable compromise, allowing fans of those films to still have access to them while offering context to those who might take offense to the channel’s decision to air the films. But of course, some conservatives didn’t see it that way. “The social justice cult is never satisfied,” said one commentator at a site that covers entertainment from a right-wing perspective. “They’ll see this series as a start, but not good enough for their tastes. They’ll demand disclaimers before these films moving forward or similar concessions. Who knows what happens next?” Another blogger echoed this “slippery slope” messaging: “For now, the price of classic movies being left uncensored is to sit through a lecture. But, with the speed in which even recent norms are being denounced as problematic, watching 5 minutes of woke virtue signaling before every movie doesn’t seem too far off.” Or… if sitting through those five minutes are too much of a hassle, fans could just watch their own copies on DVD? Or do what the rest of us do about ads and opening credits at the start of a program and just fast-forward to get to the part we want to see? The phrase “tempest in a teapot” comes to mind here.

6. “They canceled Cara Dune!”
In early February, Lucasfilm issued a statement confirming Gina Carano — the actor and former mixed martial-arts fighter who played the heroic Cara Dune on the Disney+ series The Mandalorian — would not be invited back for future Star Wars projects. “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson said. “Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.” Her offense? In 2020, Carano used her Twitter account to mock the use of trans pronouns, rail against those who wore masks to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and repeat Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in that year’s presidential election. This was enough for some Star Wars fans to demand she be fired from the popular show, while others used a #StandWithGinaCarano hashtag to indicate their support for her freedom to speak her mind. The final straw for Lucasfilm came when Carano shared an Instagram post that compared the U.S. political climate to that of Hitler’s Germany, casting herself and other Republicans in the role of Jews under the Nazi regime.

In any other time, her dismissal for sharing these kinds of incendiary views might have been seen as a simple HR matter, with Lucasfilm exercising its right as an employer to dismiss a contract worker with toxic or controversial views the company doesn’t want to be seen as endorsing or accepting (a form at at-will employment that, ironically, many Republicans have sought to make into law). And in any case, she wasn’t “fired” from the set so much as “not invited to apply for future opportunities after completing her contract.” But that distinction was lost among the louder proponents of #CancelCulture, who immediately leapt on Lucasfilm’s statement as proof that conservatives are the persecuted victims in Hollywood. Carano herself reinforced this belief when she appeared on a podcast by a prominent conservative commentator: “I had a problem because I wasn’t going along with the narrative,” she said, while pointing to other cast members (like her co-star Pedro Pascal, who had nothing to do with her dismissal) who weren’t “bullied” by Disney when “they’ve said and done some harmful things.”

Though it was assumed her dismissal put a monkey wrench in Lucasfilm’s future projects, the company later confirmed it had no plans to recast Carano’s role or to use the character in any future series based in the Star Wars universe. Cara Dune, like Carano herself, was not integral to their brand, something Carano did not seem to understand when she decided her right to speak her mind was more important than maintaining a reputation as someone who doesn’t deliberately go out of her way to cause PR headaches for her employer. In the end, no one’s freedoms were trampled; she was still free to speak her mind, and Lucasfilm exercised its freedom of association (as did United Talent Agency, which also dropped her as a client shortly after her dismissal). When last heard from, she announced a team-up with Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator, to make a film. Whether anything comes from that remains to be seen — though going from the hottest show on the world’s biggest streaming platform to starring in a project by a professional gadfly with no film industry experience might not be the triumphant comeback Carano hopes it will be. 

7. “They canceled Pepe Le Pew!”
First appearing in Chuck Jones’ 1945 cartoon short “Odor-able Kitty,” Pepe Le Pew is an aggressively amorous French skunk who chases and forces himself on female cats he keeps mistaking for other skunks. That was the entire gag on which Warner Bros. hung 18 cartoon shorts (by comparison, fellow Looney Tunes stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck scored 167 and 130 cartoons, respectively). Largely because of the character’s one-note personality (how many ways can you get a white stripe painted on a cat’s back, anyway…?), he never rose to the heights of pop-culture stardom that some of the other Looney Tunes characters enjoyed. He never headlined his own comic book or TV show, instead making cameo appearances in comic stories starring Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig. As for other media appearances, he popped up in projects like Tiny Toon Adventures, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and the 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action — but always as a bit player. “When DC Comics later took over issuing comic books of Bugs and Friends, they did a few short stories of Pepe and I gave him a cameo in a Superman/Bugs Bunny crossover series I wrote for them,” wrote comic and animation writer Mark Evanier on his blog. “But I think at that point, Pepe was just appearing to see if there was any merchandising potential in the character… and apparently, there wasn’t.”

The point being, he’s a minor character in an otherwise very successful franchise, and the only reason most people in their 40s and 50s today even remember him is because his cartoons were recycled endlessly on Saturday morning television alongside the rest of the Looney Tunes shorts. Of course, none of this prevented Pepe from being elevated to the status of Cherished Childhood Icon amongst the cancel-culture crowd once word got out he would not be appearing in the upcoming film Space Jam: A New Legacy. An update of the 1996 comedy starring basketball’s Michael Jordan, A New Legacy will see LeBron James step up to co-star with Bugs, Tweety and the rest of the gang — but not Pepe, as a scene involving him flirting with a human (actress Greice Santo) that was shot in June 2019 was later left on the cutting room floor.   

Santo, a victim of sexual harassment who has spoken out against it, was reportedly upset when the scene was cut, as she thought showing Pepe’s comeuppance would send a strong message to kids about how his kind of sexually aggressive behavior was unacceptable. But that wasn’t the concern of conservatives who took up Pepe as their martyr; following a passing reference to Pepe in a New York Times column that equated his actions with “rape culture,” conservatives concocted a story in which Warner Bros. “canceled” Pepe in direct response to that column, and went on a rampage about which beloved Looney Tunes character “they” were coming after next (after pointing out Elmer Fudd’s use of guns, Daffy’s jokes about suicide, and the likelihood of someone finding offense with Porky Pig’s stuttering, one New York Post columnist opined, “WB might have to cancel A New Legacy altogether. Tha-tha-that’s all folks!”). Lost in the manufactured hubbub were Santo’s valid concerns about sweeping a character’s history under the rug — but then, for conservatives ignoring history and the concerns of sexual harassment victims is right on brand.  

8. “They canceled Lola Bunny! Well, the hot version of her!”
Because a brouhaha over a cartoon skunk wasn’t silly enough, some self-styled Space Jam fans also went ballistic over how Lola Bunny is being portrayed in the upcoming film. First appearing in 1996’s Space Jam, Lola — created to serve as a romantic interest for Bugs — was designed with tan fur, blonde bangs, aqua-colored eyes and a shapely figure. You wouldn’t think that “shapely figure” part would matter to most people, given how she is, well, a cartoon rabbit — but apparently that matters to a frighteningly large number of people. “Conservatives Want You To Be Mad That Lola Bunny’s Not Hot Anymore,” ran the headline at Slate.com, which covered fan reaction to images of an Entertainment Weekly magazine cover that shared an image of the updated Lola for the first time. Gone were her curve-accentuating crop top and hip-swinging sashays that doubtlessly confused a lot of eight-year-olds in the ’90s; in their place was a normal basketball jersey, the same one that all the other members of the Tune Squad wear, smaller curves, and a trusty pair of thigh guards. 

“We reworked a lot of things, not only her look, like making sure she had an appropriate length on her shorts and was feminine without being objectified, but gave her a real voice,” said director Malcolm D. Lee in that Entertainment Weekly issue. Which sounds perfectly fine; who could possibly be upset by that approach? A lot of people, as it turned out. And while you can allow for a certain amount of fan disappointment over the redesign of a character that many of them grew up with, a number of conservative voices tried to hijack the conversation by turning a directorial decision into an assault on freedom itself. One conservative radio host likened the updated version (who at the time had not yet spoken a word in any medium) as a “Karen,” somehow equating the wearing of a proper basketball jersey with someone prone to “scolding me to wear a mask as she drives by in her Subaru,” while another conservative agitator evoked a Holocaust-era poem (tweeting “First they came for Mr. Potato Head, and I said nothing…”) in his disapproval over her new look.  

The punchline? Many of the social media users who voiced their anger over Lola’s new look shared compare-and-contrast images that placed their preferred “classic” Lola alongside Lola ’21… except a lot of those “before” images were actually examples of unattributed erotic fan art from sites like “hentai-img.com.” Not that this seemed to matter to conservatives eager to equate the loss of a character’s bare midriff with “canceling” her entirely. From the Slate article: “Space Jam 2’s less-sexualized design philosophy is proof that the hyperbolic, entirely immaterial grievances of the Trump era aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Lucky us.   

9. “They canceled Mallard Fillmore!”
Comic strip artists are no strangers to political controversy; Pogo, Doonesbury, Bloom County and For Better or For Worse are just a few of the strips that have waded into political and social issues only to see their offerings pulled by newspaper editors for fear of offending readers. While condemnation of contentious content in comic strips and editorial cartoons can (and does) come from all parts of the political spectrum, those who lean conservative tend to more often favor the “comics should be funny and not political” line when they object to what they see in the comics… until they find a comic strip that reflects their views, then it’s a different story.

Debuting in 1994, Bruce Tinsley’s Mallard Fillmore followed the exploits of its title character, an anthropomorphic duck who works as a politically conservative reporter at fictional television station in Washington, D.C. Other prominent characters include Mr. Noseworthy, Mallard’s politically correct boss and a parody of the mainstream media, and Congressman Pinkford Veneer, a hypocritical liberal politician. The strip was apparently an easy sell during the Clinton administration, when it stood in opposition to practically everything the government was doing, and its circulation was soon up in the neighborhood of 400 papers. Despite a few controversies along the way, like a strip mocking the idea of designating crimes as hate crimes at a time when a high-profile murder in New York City made that topic a sensitive issue, the strip has mostly waddled along for almost three decades dishing out its conservative take on current events without ruffling many feathers.

That changed in early 2021, when the election of Joe Biden led to several reversals of Trump’s policies, including Biden’s lifting of restrictions on trans rights put in place by the previous administration. Following a pair of strips in which Tinsley referenced trans athletes in sports — a particular hot-button topic for conservatives who see stroking transphobic fears among their supporters as a winning strategy — he was told by his syndication company that Gannett had dropped the strip from all of its newspapers. “Guess who ‘Cancel Culture’ got this time?” he wrote on his official Mallard Fillmore Twitter account, later telling the Washington Times, “They [the syndicate] said it had never happened before. It was all at once and it was a mandate from the corporation, not any individual editors’ decisions.”

To be clear, Tinsley wasn’t arrested or forced to discontinue his strip because of his political views; Mallard Fillmore still runs in newspapers across the country, just a lot less of them because of a decision made by a company that owns more than 100 daily newspapers and nearly 1,000 weekly papers. Even putting aside the fact media companies can (and do) make these kinds of content decisions all the time, his reduction in income has less to do with a “cancel culture” cabal coming after him than the very real and concerning issue of media concentration in America, with a dangerously small number of voices deciding what qualifies as “the news.” That Tinsley and his supporters would rather cry “cancel culture” than start an honest conversation about the dangers to democracy that media concentration poses is unfortunate, but not surprising — especially given how consolidation in the media industry has been largely fueled by conservatives who prefer that news consumers not think too much about who owns their information sources.

10. “They canceled Piers Morgan!”
After cutting his teeth in the often vicious world of British tabloid newspapers, journalist Piers Morgan made the leap to television in the early 2000s with stints on shows like Britain’s Got Talent and Piers Morgan Live; he became a co-host on ITV’s Good Morning Britain in 2015. Caustic and combative, over the years he became famous for his feuds with other celebrities (he once banned Hugh Grant from any of his shows after the actor spoke out against Britain’s tabloids, calling him a “tedious little man” to boot) and for his admiration for fellow Apprentice star and one-term U.S. president Donald Trump, whom Morgan once unsuccessfully asked to serve as his White House Chief of Staff. 

Morgan was briefly a friend of Meghan Markle before she married Prince Harry became the Duchess of Sussex, but claimed she cut him off early in her relationship with Prince Harry. Since then, Morgan has been a vocal critic of the royal couple, calling them hypocrites and calling the Duchess a social climber. His disdain boiled over after Meghan and Harry sat down with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 for an interview about their estrangement from the British royal family; the morning after, he railed on his morning show about Markle’s “acting performance of her life” and cast doubt over Markle’s comments about her mental health struggles and thoughts of suicide. When a co-host confronted him about his remarks, Morgan stormed off the set saying, “I’m done with this. See you later.” Later that day, ITV — after receiving thousands of complaints about Morgan making light of mental health issues — announced Morgan was no longer a part of the program; he doubled down the following day, calling Markle’s comments a “diatribe of bilge” while defending his right to say what he wants. 

Naturally, in the current climate of manufactured outrage a man who specializes in manufactured outrage couldn’t let an opportunity like this go to waste. He took to social media claiming himself to be “the latest ‘victim’ of the cancel culture that is permeating our country, every minute, of every hour, of every day.” He went on to vow that he is not “canceled” and urged his fans to show support for him by buying a copy of his book before telling them that he did not “write it to make more money.” (Narrator: “He did.”) While it was not surprising to see a self-promoting gadfly like Piers milk the controversy he himself generated for all it was worth, it was… actually, it wasn’t surprising to see conservatives on the other side of the pond join in. For instance, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly (she of “Santa can only be a white guy” fame), invited Morgan onto her talk-show podcast to talk cancel culture and elaborate on his assertion that he was the real victim of “racist bullying” in the whole affair — thereby turning his on-air self-immolation into yet another culture-war issue. Meanwhile, on Twitter she voiced her own take on Harry and Meghan’s allegations of racism and emotional abuse within the royal family: “Have you ever seen such privileged people wallowing in their own (perceived) victimhood like this?” Well, now that you mention it…

11. “They canceled the British monarchy!” 
Piers Morgan wasn’t the only loser in the fallout over the Meghan and Harry interview. The British royal family took a few hits as well, especially over allegations of racism that Markle shared during the highly rated TV special. It was left to Prince William, Harry’s brother and second in line to the throne, to assert the family is “very much not a racist family” after Harry and Meghan alleged an unnamed member of the family asked how dark their son’s skin might be when he grew up. (There was also the uncomfortable matter of Archie not receiving the title “prince” like his cousins, raising questions about how royal titles are handed out and why he may have been treated differently than others in the family.) 

Predictably, the accusations caused a stir in Great Britain, where many people said it confirmed their belief the monarchy is an outdated and intolerant institution, while others decried the interview as a self-serving assault that neither Queen Elizabeth nor her family deserved. (Also predictably, polls showed the division in opinion fell mainly down generational lines, with those aged 65 and over backing the queen and the senior royals, while younger people supported Harry and Meghan.) What wasn’t so predictable was how American conservatives chose to respond to the whole thing… especially considering how Americans once famously fought a war over the right not to concern themselves with the British monarchy. 

But that was 1776 and this is now, and for some conservatives an attack on the British royal family was an attack on civilization itself. In the wake of the explosive interview, the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation announced plans to host an online symposium titled “The Crown Under Fire: Why the Left’s Campaign to Cancel the Monarchy and Undermine a Cornerstone of Western Democracy Will Fail.” It was a curious position to take — asserting that a monarchy your own country once famously cast off should now be considered a “cornerstone of Western democracy” — but the foundation was completely serious: “Britain’s constitutional monarchy—among the most powerful conservative institutions on the world stage—represents everything the radical Left despises: tradition, authority, hierarchy, patriotism, and the political and religious ideals of Western Civilization… The radical Left has seized upon Oprah Winfrey’s televised spectacle with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in a crusade to invalidate one of the most consequential conservative institutions on the world stage.”

To say the least, this defense of the British royal family by those who also profess their reverence for the American Founding Fathers was more than a bit confusing to those who expected some level of intellectual coherence from conservatives. As one online wag put it: “The Venn diagram of the people complaining that the British monarchy is being canceled and the people who call themselves members of the Tea Party is a very weird, very confused circle.” But what the heck, said a writer for progressive blog The Wonkette, this could be the opportunity that American progressives were looking for: “If conservatives truly want to live in a country with a monarchy, reasonable gun control and health care for everyone, we should at least do them the kindness of considering it.”

12. “They canceled Monopoly!”
If you’re going to tweak the noses of conservatives, you might as well do it with the toy store’s ultimate ode to capitalism. In March 2021, Hasbro — makers of the perennially popular real-estate game — announced it was updating Monopoly, and it invited the public to vote on new Community Chest cards. “Covering topics like beauty contests, holiday funds and life insurance, there is no denying the Monopoly game’s Community Chest Cards are long overdue for a refresh,” the company said in a statement. “And, coming out of the tumultuous year of 2020, the term ‘community’ has taken on a whole new meaning. Hasbro is counting on their fans to help reflect what community means in their real lives, into the Monopoly game, by voting for new cards like ‘Shop Local,’ ‘Rescue a Puppy’ or ‘Help Your Neighbors.'” Added Eric Nyman, Hasbro’s Chief Consumer Officer: “We felt like 2021 was the perfect time to give fans the opportunity to show the world what community means to them through voting on new Community Chest Cards.”

Hasbro also announced the updated Monopoly game with the new, fan-voted Community Chest Cards would be available in the fall, but they didn’t say if the classic Community Chest cards would continue to be available in a “classic” edition of the board game. Regardless, the news that Hasbro, fresh off its Potato Head rebrand, was changing things up in its 85-year-old board game was greeted with unbridled enthusiasm by consumers eager to welcome anything new and refreshi…. annnnnd you can already tell where this is going. 

“Wokeopoly,” blares a satirical image on Twitter that suggests what a fully “woke” Monopoly game board would look like (complete with a “You posted an offensive tweet, go to jail” space). Perhaps unaware of the game’s origins as a teaching tool to explain why allowing corporate monopolies in real life is a bad thing, many suddenly loyal fans of the game took to social media to express their outrage that a game about bankrupting your opponents through savvy real-estate deals would want to reward players for (choke) rescuing a puppy. “They have all different versions of Monopoly now,” one online poster wrote. “Just keep the original version we all love, and make another version called Cancel Culture Monopoly.” Which led in turn to another commenter asking: “So a company isn’t allowed to make changes to their own products because you can’t handle change?” You can safely assume the conversation then went where you might expect, with someone else chiming in that this is what the “cancel culture” people wants — “to cancel what they hate the most of all…us. They hate the USA, our history and us. Given the opportunity, they would ‘cancel,’ us too.” First they came for my beauty contest winnings, and I said nothing…  

13. “They canceled Snow White!”
At some point, it gets a bit ridiculous when you see just how little is needed for the conservative outrage machine to start raging again. In early May, two columnists for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a travel piece about Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, the updated ride that replaced Snow White’s Scary Adventures at California’s Disneyland. The park was closed to visitors for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and so it decided to use that time to revamp some of its attractions, including its popular Snow White ride — a change the writers for the most part heartily endorsed.

“The ride, one of Fantasyland’s original attractions, got a major upgrade, with new audio and visual technology installed throughout, including LED black lighting, laser projections, new music and a new animation system,” the columnists wrote approvingly…. but of course that wasn’t the part that attracted attention. Later in the column, they also noted another change they’re not entirely fond of: “The new grand finale of Snow White’s Enchanted Wish is the moment when the Prince finds Snow White asleep under the Evil Queen’s spell and gives her ‘true love’s kiss’ to release her from the enchantment. A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening… It’s hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old-fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman, especially given the company’s current emphasis on removing problematic scenes from rides like Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain.” 

A normal, non-hysterical response to this would be something like, “Oh, two writers in one newspaper are expressing an opinion about a theme park ride. That’s nice.” Unfortunately, “normal” and “non-hysterical” doesn’t pay the bills in the conservative media echo chamber. “Snow White would still be asleep if it were up to the crazies on the left and woke culture,” tweeted a right-wing Texas radio host. “CANCEL CULTURE GOING AFTER SNOW WHITE!” blared the headlines on Fox News, which literally ran with the story for half a day, going back to it again and again so that as many of its hosts as possible could take turns mocking the left and “cancel culture” in general for going after a beloved classic.

Again: one article expressing the opinions of two writers. That’s it. That is all that was needed for grown humans to spend literal hours fuming about how evil leftists are conspiring to destroy Snow White with their leftist ways. Although when you think about it, since two is greater than one, it’s possible you could argue there technically might be a “woke mob” out there calling for Prince Charming’s non-consensual head… although it’s hard to imagine how far a rampaging mob of two people could go in their supposed quest to delete all references to Snow White in our literature and pop culture. But of course, that’s not the point — it never is when these types of stories come to light.

14. “They canceled Morgan Wallen!”
As they say in comedy, timing is everything. On February 2, 2021, gossip site TMZ posted a video clip recorded on January 31 that showed country music singer Morgan Wallen use a racial slur as he walked up his driveway after a rowdy night out with friends. (The video was recorded by a neighbor who was annoyed by the excessive noise they generated at that late hour in the night.) Wallen immediately apologized — “There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.” — but the damage had been done: SiriusXM, iHeartRadio and other radio networks removed his music from airplay; his songs and promotional photographs were deleted from Apple, Pandora and Spotify playlists; his record label suspended its recording contract with him indefinitely; and the Academy of Country Music announced his most recent album would be ineligible for the Country Music Awards.

Was it overkill? It’s a valid question, just as it’s worth wondering if his actions would have provoked that kind of response even five years ago. But it’s a question no one got to consider before the usual suspects leapt on Wallen’s unfortunate situation as yet another example of “cancel culture” run amok. A week after the incident, sales of his album Dangerous saw a spike, just as sales and streams of his music skyrocketed online. “I suspect the real reason is not because they were showing support for using a racial slur, but because they are fed up with the ‘cancel culture’ trying to destroy people’s lives and careers because they made a dumb mistake for which they have publicly apologized,” said former Arkansas governor and Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee. Cancel culture was also mentioned by Wallen’s sister, Ashley, who called cancel culture “the worst thing that has come out of our digital world” in an Instagram post defending her brother.

Mickey Guyton, a country musician who is Black, publicly came out in support of Wallen, saying he did not deserve to be “canceled” for what he did, but she also used the incident to push back against those claiming Wallen’s comments didn’t reflect a larger problem in the genre. “When I read comments saying ‘This is not who we are,’ I laugh because this is exactly who country music is,” she wrote. “I’ve witnessed it for 10 years. You guys should just read some of the vile comments hurled at me on a daily basis. It’s a cold hard truth to face but it is the truth.” To his credit, Wallen resisted the efforts of others to make him a victim of “cancel culture” and accepted invitations to meet with leaders of Black organizations while continuing to take full responsibility for his actions. (“Our actions matter, our words matter, and I just want to encourage anyone watching to please learn from my mistakes.”) So maybe there’s hope for our species yet.