Donald Glover Thinks Fear of Being ‘Canceled’ Is to Blame for Boring Films and TV

To all of the world’s film creatives … Do not take the United States as an example of what is and isn’t allowed to be in a given movie. Don’t be stymied by creative restrictions just for the sake of appeasing the politically correct. That is not how Citizen Kane, Vertigo, The Godfather and many more classics were made. Those films were all rebelling over oppressive ways of thinking, but they resisted that and have now stood the test of time.

“Atlanta” writer-actor Donald Glover knows this and he recently elaborated on the above, claiming the reason for so much “boring stuff” on TV and at the movies is due to fear of being “canceled”. He tweeted “Saw people on here havin a discussion about how tired they were of reviewing boring stuff (tv & film). we’re getting boring stuff and not even experimental mistakes(?) because people are afraid of getting cancelled. so they feel like they can only experiment w/ aesthetic. (also because some of em know theyre not that good)”

Creative and experimental are just not the way you would describe today’s American film and TV landscape. More like, on-the-nose, too obvious, quota’ed … Glover’s comments finally put a serious issue in the spotlight: the fear rummaging throughout the industry that if you don’t adhere to the “woke” criteria set forth in casting, and storytelling then you and your film will be shunned/ridiculed. That’s why you are seeing a dip in the quality of American cinema.

I want you to think about my reasoning here for a second. Think of an American director who had his film debut at the earliest in 2003, who has built a solid reputation and has had a legitimately important impact on cinema in the same vein as those born outside the United States: Dardenne, Glazer, Villeneuve, Joon-Ho, McQueen, Farhadi, Lanthimos, Chan-Wook, Refn, Mungiu, Weerasethakul, Wright, Arnold.

You can’t, right?

The U.S. is promoting its own kind of fascism, a purity test that doesn’t let artists honestly breathe in their creative endeavours. So what's the future of American cinema like? It looks bleak to say the least.