On the latest episode of Club Random with Bill Maher, comedian Bill Burr left Maher scratching his head when Burr, who has famously passionate opinions on the subject of cancel culture, confidently declared the phenomenon to be over.
Maher had steered into semi-predictable territory only minutes into the show when he brought up Louis C.K., the once-revered auteur comedian whose career came to a grinding halt when he was accused by several women of exposing himself and masturbating in front of them—behavior that his accusers said was very much unwanted.
“You have a very big future in filmmaking, very much like Louis C.K.” Maher began, before lamenting C.K.’s supposed cancellation: “Enough. Enough. It’s not the end of the world. People have done so much worse things and gotten less. There’s no rhyme or reason to the Me Too-type punishments.”
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After C.K. admitted in 2017 that the allegations about his behavior were true, the comedian claimed he lost $35 million in an hour, but nevertheless has since independently released a film, performed at Madison Square Garden and won the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
“Well, it was like most things,” Burr replied to Maher. “It started off with something everyone could agree on and then quickly it just spun out. I remember when cancel culture got to the point of where it was, ‘I don’t like some of the topics in your standup act.’ That’s when it got weird. But that’s all over.”
“What’s over?!” Maher asked in disbelief. “Cancel culture?”
“Yeah,” Burr confirmed. “No one cares anymore.”
“That’s so not true, either one of us could get canceled in the next two minutes,” Maher protested, incredulous.
“No. For what? If you’re not doing anything, it’s just like, you did this joke about this group of people or that group of people,” Burr said. “I feel like I’m going back two years of my life. I don’t even think about it anymore.”
Despite warning the live audience not to get him “canceled” by filming his controversial set at last week’s Netflix Is a Joke festival, Burr has been fairly consistent in his stance of not taking outrage culture, or cancel culture, too seriously. In 2020, he said on the Last Laugh podcast that “outrage culture is one of the most misrepresented things out there, how they will make such a small percentage of people seem like they’re three million people.”
“Eyeballs and controversy and people arguing and being offended and watching somebody get in trouble makes people stop on your website or your TV channel and watch,” Burr continued. “But it’s just not an accurate portrayal of where people’s heads are at. It just isn’t.”
For more, listen to Bill Burr on The Last Laugh podcast.
