After Gina Carano, Now Another TV Star Has Been Cancelled For Speaking Out
This article is more than 2 years old
Gina Carano wasn’t the first Hollywood talent to fall victim to cancel culture, but she’s sure becoming the face of it. Her ouster from the Star Wars franchise is one of the most high-profile moves from a studio when it came to an actor or actress’s public comments on a particular issue. But she isn’t the only one these days who’s been canceled thanks to unfortunate remarks or opinions. The latest is Chris Harrison who will no longer be hosting The Bachelor because of comments he made last season to a contestant.
The Chris Harrison incident and the Gina Carano firing are under different circumstances though have had the same result. Recently, Harrison was being interviewed about a previous Bachelor contestant, Rachel Kirkconnell, being accused of racism and having attended an antebellum party a few years back. When Harrison responded, apparently he didn’t come out with enough derision for the activity and behavior from Kirkconnell. This is what he had to say in the interview regarding Kirkconnell’s previous accusations of racism and her attending of the party:
“I haven’t heard Rachael speak on this yet. And until I actually hear this woman have a chance to speak, who am I to say any of this?…And again, I’m not defending Rachael. I just know that, I don’t know, 50 million people did that in 2018. That was a type of party that a lot of people went to. And again, I’m not defending it; I didn’t go to it.”
The fallout from these comments was swift and harsh for Harrison. He immediately tried to walk back the quotes, apologizing for taking too wishy-washy a tone towards what many believed were instances of overt racism. Four days later, it was announced that he would be taking a leave from his hosting responsibilities on the show. This differed somewhat from the Gina Carano situation in that the latter had seen months of backlash from fans of The Mandalorian after the actress had posted several messages related to the pandemic and possible fraud in the United States Presidential election. The final straw for Carano came when she compared the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust to how Republican party members were being treated in the current political climate.
Now, it appears that like Gina Carano, Chris Harrison has lost his gig. The Bachelor’s offshoot show The Bachelorette is set to begin filming but Harrison was not quarantining with the cast and crew. ABC did announce at least temporary replacements for the host and now former contestants Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristow will take up the duties for this season which begins filming at the end of the month.
Cancel culture in the United States continues to roll on with different celebrities caught in the crossfire and fallout from comments or stances. Whether this is a net positive trend remains to be seen. Some, like Gina Carano, have been able to find new gigs in a relatively short period of time. The day she was fired from Disney, she signed with conservative outlet The Daily Wire on a new movie production deal. It won’t have the same reach as a role on Disney of course, but it’s’ work. Where it leaves Chris Harrison is another question. There’s some chance he never returns to show, having been the host for 17 calendar years in different iterations of the program.
Gina Carano and Chris Harrison are just the two latest examples of cancel culture and its fallout. What do you think? Is this the way we should be going with celebrities and those in the public eye? Do you see the Gina Carano and Chris Harrison situations as similar?
