Johnny Depp: Cancel Culture Is So Far Out of Hand, 'No One Is Safe’
Actor Johnny Depp told a film festival audience this week “no one is safe, not one of you,” because of cancel culture. It only takes one sentence, the Pirates of the Caribbean star said, to have the “carpet pulled” out from under you.
After being asked about his thoughts on cancel culture, Depp said that while he believes the concept was likely started with “the best of intentions,” it has gotten “so far out of hand now that I can promise you that no one is safe, not one of you.”
“Not one of you — as long as someone is willing to say one sentence. It takes just one sentence and there is no more ground. The carpet has been pulled,” Depp told a reporter during a press conference at the San Sebastian Film Festival, according to a report by Variety.
The Edward Scissorhands star is certainly no stranger to making comments that could get one canceled. he made headlines a few years ago when he asked a crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in England, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”
Johnny Depp appears to threaten an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at Glastonbury. https://t.co/BADKCsLY1opic.twitter.com/T2vwPBoXSj
— BBC News Entertainment (@BBCNewsEnts) June 23, 2017
In response to whether or not he feels safe in today’s culture, Depp said, “Yeah, I do.”
Depp is one of several celebrities to have recently shared these types of sentiments about today’s cancel culture plague.
In July, founding member of Mumford & Sons Winston Marshall parted ways with the popular English folk rock band after being targeted by the rabid cancel culture mob after he praised the work of journalist Andy Ngo, who’s spent years exposing the violent radical group Antifa.
Winston Marshall of Mumford & Sons performs onstage during the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena on September 21, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
Earlier this month, veteran late-night TV host and comedian Jay Leno said he will be dropping jokes that may run afoul of the #MeToo movement, stating, “you either change with the times or you die.”
In March, Leno also felt the need to apologize for a series of jokes about Asians that he has told over the decades during his television career.
Last month, actor and comedian David Spade warned that wokeness is killing comedy.
“It’s very dicey. It’s very tricky,” the star said of being a comedian in the age of cancel culture. “Now you say the one wrong move and you’re canceled. It’s a very tough world out there.”
David Spade performs onstage during the ‘Comedy in Your Car’s’ drive-In concert at Ventura County Fairgrounds and Event Center on August 28, 2020 in Ventura, California. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
In May, comedian Dave Chappelle proclaimed, “cancel culture shit bothers me,” and called out the “fake woketivists” who try to censor their opposition.
Cancel culture has also been lambasted from within the music industry.
In May, Glenn Danzig — who founded the rock band Misfits — said his band and “the punk explosion” could never happen today, because of “cancel culture and woke bullshit.” The rocker added, “you won’t have any of those kinds of bands ever again,” because “everyone’s so uptight and P.C.”
In April, Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon — also known as Johnny Rotten — called “wokeness” a divisive political weapon being wielded by privileged, “tempestuous, spoilt children,” whom the media offer a platform to push their unpopular politically correct opinions. “Wokeness,” Rotten said, is “a device used by the privileged to keep the working class in their place.”
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