Is cancel culture killing the arts?

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Almost everywhere you look, the arts are beset by controversies and cancellations.

At the Edinburgh Fringe this year, the infamous comedian Jerry Sadowitz had his show cancelled by The Pleasance for what staff called ‘unacceptable’ content. Cineworld pulled UK screenings of the film The Lady Of Heaven this year, after protesters claimed that the film was ‘blasphemous’ and offensive to Islam. In 2020, staff at Hachette Book Group staged a walk-out demanding the cancellation of the upcoming release of Woody Allen’s memoir.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many arts organisations cancelled performances linked to Russian artists and funders. Similar cancellations – or boycotts – have long taken place against Israeli artists under the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Critics of cancel culture say that the arts cannot survive this worsening climate of censorship. Artistic freedom, they say, cannot flourish when artists themselves feel hemmed in by political orthodoxies or concerns about causing offence. But others argue that accountability, not free speech, is more important for a thriving art world. Giving films like Gone With The Wind a trigger warning, or getting publishers to stop working with writers who are accused of racism, are seen as important steps in cleaning up the art world, which has often been considered out of step with contemporary sensibilities.

Cancel culture has come for the arts – but can the arts survive it? Do bans and cancellations wound artistic expression, or act as a means for audiences and art lovers to hold artists to account? Will a climate of sensitivity readers and diversity box-ticking allow more socially conscious art to grow, or kill off the more unorthodox works that have always pushed at the boundaries of artistic freedom? And why, of all areas of life, does the arts seem to be the focal point in which these culture wars keep playing out?

SPEAKERS
Dr Tiffany Jenkins
writer and broadcaster; author, Strangers and Intimates: the rise and fall of private life and Keeping Their Marbles: how treasures of the past ended up in museums and why they should stay there

Rosie Kay
dancer; choreographer; CEO and artistic director, K2CO LTD

Winston Marshall
musician; writer; podcast host, Marshall Matters; founding member, Mumford & Sons

Emma Webb
director, Common Sense Society, UK branch; host, Newspeak; commentator; writer; co-founder, Save Our Statues

CHAIR
Claire Fox
director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!