I couldn’t be more upset that I have spent $ to help fund the paycheck of someone that supports terfs and nazis. Literal nazis. This isn’t hyperbole. How Patton could support them is beyond me, and sickens me to the very core of my being. I’m going to be ill now. Happy New Year.
I don’t even know if I’m going to watch season 13 now, and I kind of want my $150 back. My MST Xmas card is in my mailbox and now i just want to burn it.
I am so upset.
I understand it’s disappointing when someone does or supports things of which we don’t approve. I think, however, you should cite reputable sources. The header of the first picture you posted is, in part, not true. McCaw Hall requires vaccination status and masking; therefore, he did not “host a superspreader event.”
I should have cut off the header. For me, this is all about Patton supporting a TERF that’s friends with nazis. I have now given money to a man that has used his resources to support those that would legislate against my rights. And I am not pleased about that. At all. It’s time for us to come together as a commmunity and stand together against this.
I don’t think Patton or Chappell votes that way, though I understand your concern.
Nazis?
yes Dave chapelle is, by his very own words, “on Team TERF with JK Rowling”, who supports anti-trans legislation and self professed nazis. literal nazis.
I wish to god I was making this stuff up.
Can you support your assertion that Chappelle supports Nazis?
As we say in Germany “if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis.” Either way - supporting bigotry is uncool. We should all be united on that front, at the very least.
I’m not interested in defending Dave Chappelle - he’s gone off the deep end on this issue and will likely take it to his grave - but things get tricky when you start condemning people who are associated with people who have a widely reported crappy opinion or character trait. Chances are, if you work at a job with a lot of people, you work with people who have ignorant or bigoted opinions. Probably a lot of us have family members with similarly ignorant or bigoted world views.
That does not make you bigoted by association. Your co-worker or your family member or your friend’s world view is not automatically your own. And I would argue an entire TV show production should not be held responsible when an actor on it is friends or co-workers with someone (who isn’t even on the show) who has a gross, bigoted opinion on an issue. If you walk down that path, you will never let yourself enjoy another piece of media again. There is always someone associated who is a piece of junk, or at least said something ignorant or hurtful.
Even just going back to the Netflix seasons of MST3K - Har Mar Superstar (the musician who sang the theme song for those seasons and was the lead singer of the Skeleton Crew) was accused, by multiple women, of sexual harassment and assault. Now, I’d be disappointed if they brought him back to do the new season’s music because of those accusations, which I think are credible. But I’m not going to not watch those previously created seasons because of something that happened with one person who was involved in their creation. And I don’t blame Jonah, who is friends with Har Mar Superstar, for the actions of someone who is not him.
Obviously, I agree with you entirely that supporting bigotry is uncool. And if you think that boycotting a show because one person involved worked with someone outside of the show who is a known bigot, by all means, do it. But I personally do not generally believe in a blanket rule of guilt by association, and I also think that you will lead an exhausting life if you require that every person involved in the creation of every piece of media you consume is not an asshole and does not associate with assholes. To me, that is simply not feasible.
Finally, while I do not know Patton Oswalt and have no idea what’s truly in his heart, he did tweet this not too long ago. It could be performative, but I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I tend to avoid paying attention to the politics of entertainers because when push comes to shove it seems like this kind of cronyism always wins the day. It’s easy to say you stand for justice until it’s time to challenge one of your own. Of course, as long as they humor a guy like Chappelle he has 0 motivation to change. I just hope he doesn’t end up on the show because that would really tick me off.
Guys, can we not say things like that? I don’t want cancel culture overflowing the forum.
No one is being cancelled.
Yes, please, can we just keep MST world politics free? This is a contentious issue and it’s not the place to be talking about it. Thank you!
Well then, at least someone’s on my side!
Like I said before, I think the original post is hyperbolic and I don’t really agree with it, and would prefer to give Patton the benefit of the doubt as to what he personally believes.
However, I also don’t think it’s good for a people to pretend that problems don’t exist, or if they do you should just ignore them, just because they are fans. I also don’t like that people use “cancel culture” in a derogatory way that seems to imply that people, especially those in power, shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions.
Besides, almost no rich and famous person who gets called out for terrible behavior really gets “cancelled.” Louis CK is still out there touring and making boatloads of money, Chapelle keeps pumping out Netflix specials, JK Rowling is still writing books, movies, and swimming in money, Woody Allen is still making movies, etc etc. Who, really, has been “cancelled?” Harvey Weinstein, maybe. But I would hope that no one here would be interested in defending him.
But getting back to the world of MST3K, if a major cast or crew member was involved in being seriously horrible to other people, either in the form of bigotry or something criminal, I would hope that a MST3K forum would be an appropriate place to bring it up. That’s not politics - that’s just human decency and holding people accountable for their actions.
Well, I disagree with your examples, but this isn’t the place to get into that as I said before
And it’s important to remember that individual actors do not solely represent the entire organization/IP they’ve been a part of. Especially someone like Oswalt, who has many different jobs on his resume, and is not the “face” of, say, Mystery Science Theater. Like someone said above, it’s not fair to punish an entire group of creators for the actions (which in this case only refers to Patton Oswalt having dubious taste in friends, not even anything he’s done himself) of one person who doesn’t even act as a speaker for them and in fact worked with them but briefly compared to the entire history of the show.
If it makes you upset enough to swear off any media that Oswalt participated in, that’s a personal choice and not one we’ll dispute here, but it’s not really fair to incite ire against his coworkers on *one particular project, who actually have nothing to do with this
@GlennH does have a point there. Can we just not say things that people like me don’t understand, and are too controversial? Lesley’s not gonna be happy, y’know.
I’m certainly not trying to upset anyone. And again, I disagree with the OP and do not think it makes sense to boycott MST3K because one person from the show is friends with someone who has a bigoted world view. Especially when that person also has a history of being in clear disagreement with their friend when it comes to the issue at hand. Like Clang mentioned, no one is being “cancelled” here.
However, if something earth shaking about central cast or crew member come to light, I would like to know about it, and I would hope that we could all talk about it on these forums. Not because I enjoy gossip (I don’t), and not because I’m interested in anyone being “cancelled.” But I don’t want to personally financially support a show that, as a whole, doesn’t take serious issues seriously.
Luckily, I do not think that is the case. Joel & company have repeatedly shown to be thoughtful and measured when it comes to real world, tough issues. One example would be how they handled filming during COVID - they always made it clear that human safety was a priority, and the evidence has backed that up time and time again. If it was clear that in the hunt to create a financially successful product the MST3K team knowingly put lives at risk, I would want to know that, because I would not want to financially support a show that didn’t respect the lives of the people who worked to create it.
“Someone like Oswalt, who has many different jobs on his resume, and is not the “face” of, say, Mystery Science Theater”
This was never said nor implied. But if Pattton Oswalt is openly supporting Chappelles’s bigotted standup act by making free guest appearances, then it’s time to call that person to account or distancing yourself from them. Noone’s getting cancelled here. Joel & crew have done NOTHING wrong. But someone should talk to Patton. Felicia Day is NOT going to be happy about this. Other members of the MST3K staff are not going to just “be okay” with working with someone who unaplogetically supports bigotry. And whether you want this to be important or not, it is. It’s huge. And for many people it’s utterly devastating. When someone you support turns around and gives you the middle finger by proudly buddying up and supporting someone that literally profits from spouting hate-speech, it hurts.
And let’s make no bones about it - Chapelle currently makes his money by spouting hate-speech. And Patton Oswalt just openly supported that. There’s no 2 ways about it.
I wish I could ignore it. I really do. I wish it was as trivial to me. I hope that Patton comes to his senses.
And I never said anything about boycotting MST3K. I’m here aren’t I?
