The Oscar-winner had some wise words on the topic
It seems we don’t hear about cancel culture as much as we used to, and that’s a great thing. However, actor Denzel Washington made a compelling case as to why it should never have been a concern in the first place.
The Oscar-winning actor sat down for an interview with Complex, alongside Spike Lee, who directed his latest film, Highest 2 Lowest, a modernized retelling of the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low.
During the interview, the reporter from Complex asked the two Hollywood stars what they thought of cancel culture and if they had “considered getting canceled.”
These two fellas have been around Hollywood long enough and have done enough not to have to worry about getting canceled unless they mess up. But Washington sure didn’t seem to like the question and fired back at the reporter, asking what that even meant.
She said that it meant to “lose public support,” to which Washington simply told it like it is.
“Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?” he asked.
She responded by saying that “followers now are currency,” and if that answer made your skin crawl like it did to me, you’re not alone.
In fact, Denzel Washington is right there with you.
“I don’t care who’s following who,” he began, per Fox News Digital. “You can’t lead and follow at the same time, and you can’t follow and lead at the same time.”
I mean… he’s right.
“I don’t follow anybody. I follow the heavenly spirit. I follow God, I don’t follow man. I have faith in God. I have hope in man, but look around, it ain’t working out so well.”
So, what is the way to not get canceled, according to Denzel Washington?
“You can’t be canceled if you haven’t signed up. Don’t sign up,” he said.
It was pretty clear that Washington has had this discussion before, and he joked with Lee that his chest was starting to hurt.
For his part, Lee — whose documentary series on Colin Kaepernick recently got the axe — said pretty much the same thing, albeit in much fewer words.
“I could care less,” he said.
You may want to take a second to go back and re-read or re-watch what Washington said in that clip, because it’s a refreshing take in an age where people are increasingly caught up in being a follower in all the wrong ways.
