Dawn French says cancel culture has “forced people into a corner”, where they are “circumspect” about the views they will or will not express “in case it causes trouble”.
The Vicar of Dibley star also questioned how the situation has evolved so quickly, given that so many people had “given their lives so we could vote, done so many things to push forward and now we’re in this place”.
Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, she said: “I am a massive advocate of robust debate that might change your mind – that’s the best thing in the world,” French said. “But it’s impossible if what we’ve got to do is hunker back into our positions, defend them by spitting and being furious and then blaming and cancelling.”
“We’re all talking about inclusivity and favouring difference and all the rest of it. And that’s all great, I love the idea of that, but that’s not how we’re living.
“We’re living the opposite of that – we’re massively intolerant, quick to blame, litigation, trolling and all of this dreadful stuff, which has got nothing to do with understanding how other human beings operate,” she continued.
“We are people who know we make mistakes, we know we have shortcomings, we know we have all this stuff, but because we are expected to present ourselves as perfect and only celebrate all the perfect things, it just wiped out any margin for error.”
“I genuinely think we’re being forced into corners where I can smell my own cowardice.
“I don’t like that – I’ve never been cowardly, I hope – but I’m starting to be that, because I’m being circumspect about what I will support or not, in case it causes trouble.
“You know, and even thinking about the timing of when I might say such a thing, or what might be cherry-picked out of this and lambasted against me.”
She added: “As women, especially, that’s the last thing we should do is shut up.”
French also questioned how the situation had evolved, adding: “How have people given their lives so we could vote, done so many things to push forward and now we’re in this place. It’s ludicrous. I don’t know how to unpick it.”
Dawn French has previously criticised cancel culture among comedians. Last year, she warned it was a “slippery slope to nowhere good” if comics were censored simply because some people were offended by their material.
In an interview with Mariella Frostrup in 2020, she said that “in the world of stand-up comedy where the edges are is where it’s most interesting.”
“I want those edgy people there challenging us all the time and making us laugh,” she continued. “The kind of laughs you have when you think that’s one of the naughtiest things I’ve ever heard, or there’s a person inventing a character who is everything awful.
“But now I just don’t know if you’d ever be able to do that because you’d just have so many haters on your back and I don’t know how we explore it anymore. I’m quite glad to be my age, in a way.”
