"Cancel Culture isn't real": Why We Don't Come Forward

Melody Nicolette

Editor’s Note: The following piece includes some intense and potentially triggering material, including discussions of sexual assault, childhood abuse, exploitation, abuses of power and abusers who are public figures. Please consult the Rape Abuse Incest National Network or National Center for PTSD if needed. You are not alone and there is someone out there to help you. Please proceed reading with discretion.

You are heard. We believe you.

One of the many things I do to take care of my mental health as a victim of abuse is to block websites and social media accounts for all of the major theatre websites.

For whatever reason, this industry loves to welcome back its abusers with open arms.

If you’re a victim or survivor of any kind of abuse, it’s a lot.

Imagine if something that you loved just refused to fall out of love with those who abuse others.

The corporate theatre websites sure do love their abusers.

Imagine marketing yourself as “different” from other corners of the arts because you’re a “safe space” or a haven for creativity and expression (or whatever other lofty bullshit lie it’s telling itself now), when all they’re really doing most of the time is creating safe spaces for abuse to fester.

This morning, this piece by BroadwayWorld came across my Facebook feed. Sometimes even blocking the websites themselves or their Facebook pages doesn’t always prevent you from seeing one of these wastes of space when the biggest PIPPIN fan on the face of the planet shares a link.

For the record, this person knows why it’s bad to share the link. They just don’t care. For whatever reason, their personal emotional attachment to something, and someone they don’t know, never met, and would not give a shit that they exist, matters more to them than having at least the decency or common sense to filter some people out from seeing it--people who have asked to not see it.

Imagine the living nightmare of someone’s personal attachment or producers’ lust for money superseding the need to make other people feel safe. I can’t tell you what it’s like to know people who hurt others in ways that are irreversible, unspeakable, continue to “win” all of the time. Even those who remind you of those who have hurt you, because they’ve hurt others in the same way, is enough to send you other the edge.

It’s a painful reminder to anyone who has ever been abused that those who abuse us get to parade on as nothing happened, and our entire lives are ruined.

Sure, it doesn’t just happen in theatre. It happens everywhere. It happens all of the time, with no recourse, no consequences. You’d just expect more from theatre since it makes such a big deal about being “inclusive.”

The worst part is this stuff is everywhere. You can delete every app and social media account and it’s still everywhere you turn. It’s disgustingly ubiquitous, especially when you consider how hard it is to block ads (and impossible to block ones you see in real life). You’d swear some of these shows have more money in advertising than Shen Yun.

We all know this industry is about money and who can bring them the most money. We can lie and pretend it’s anything but a morally bankrupt multi-billion dollar endeavor like everything else that would rather protect abusers than the people they hurt. Even their unions protect them.

I understand as well as anyone that accusations are not convictions. Some of them might not even be true, but I assure you, most of them are. When victims come out against an abuser, they know that they are risking their livelihoods, their sanity, their safety, and their lives so that others might not be hurt by the person who hurt them anymore. We know as victims that we are more likely to receive retaliation and punishment for speaking out than the people who hurt us. We will face more repercussions for speaking out more than they ever will.

In the event that, by some slim chance, abusers do face the music, it’s almost never enough. Does anyone really think that Brock Turner “did his time?” I wonder how many people who shared links about Brock Turner were the same ones who made excuses for James Barbour. OnStage Blog was perhaps the only outlet to speak out against Barbour in 2015, and when #MeToo made its way into the public consciousness, OnStage Blog also refused to back down from its stance. Does anyone really, truly believe that a few weeks behind bars is enough to atone or undo the damage Barbour did to the 15-year-old’s life? Or do you just tell yourself that because you enjoy his mediocre voice that you just don’t care?

“I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it. This isn’t kindergarten. And, more often than not, these apologies are to support their supporters and to make their victims seem unreasonable for refusing to accept them.

With the rise of the #MeToo movement, there has been a lot of push back accusing it of being a “witch hunt,” mostly by men that, I am sure, have abuse histories in their past. This comes hand in hand with the decrying of the so-called “cancel culture.”

Anyone who has ever been abused can tell you one thing: Cancel Culture is not real. These people never stay canceled. Nothing ever really happens to them. They are continuously rewarded for their bad behavior.

We all know it’s about money. It’s why they waited years to take down Weinstein until he was no longer as lucrative as he had been in his heyday. How long did RCA protect Dr. Luke? How long did it take PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on Broadway to get rid of James Barbour?

The answer to all of these is too long.

In my heart of hearts, I wish that Cancel Culture was real. I wish it were the boogeyman it’s made out to be. I wish that people, especially abusive men, faced real consequences for their actions, and never worked again.

Abusers are not victims. No one “did this” to them. No one “takes away” their career. When they commit abusive acts, many of which are crimes, against others, they did that to themselves.

People wonder why victims of rape, sexual assault, and other abuses don’t come forward. I can tell you why. I can’t speak for everyone, to be honest, but I can tell you, to some degree why:

We don’t come forward because there is often no point in coming forward.

We don’t come forward, because it’s not worth making our lives or the lives of our loved ones unsafe to fight someone we know is never going to face any real justice.

We don’t come forward because we shouldn’t have to parade every last nitty-gritty detail of the absolute worst moments of our lives to be believed or not in the court of public opinion.

We don’t come forward because we know that alumni associations, casting directors, producers and other flavors of nepotism will keep them employed until they are no longer lucrative. Why would we want to retraumatize ourselves when we know that, more likely than not, we will bear a scarlet letter for the abuse we’ve suffered, and they’ll continue like nothing ever happened?

As someone who was not only sexually abused by their biological father but assaulted by two close friends, I know what it’s like to come forward. While the abuse at the hands my father was small-town gossip and a “joke” that’s haunted me for most of my life, the two assaults committed by two of my most treasured friends remain, for the most part, my secret shame. Both of them have gone on to live entirely normal lives. Nothing happened to them. They get to pretend like it never happened.

When I watched the Brett Kavanaugh dog and pony show, I couldn’t help but think: how are other people not seeing exactly what I am seeing? I see a grown-ass man having a complete meltdown on television because there’s a possibility he might not get his way. How can someone be watching this, and not make the connection that, if this is who he is sober, imagine how he is, drunk, with a woman who isn’t giving him his way? All I could see in Kavanaugh, in the painful futility of these hearings, was one of my friends who assaulted me--who got drunk, asked me to marry them, and became violent when I said no. We could all see exactly who he was, and he’s been rewarded for it. As it turns out, when people show you who they are, believe them. Crying tantrums about loving beer and all.

It’s a shame that Cancel Culture has no real consequences. Even incredibly well-documented cases of abuse and abusers seem to be able to stage effortless comebacks. The bad things people do very rarely if ever, catch up to them. If nothing else, at the very least, you can protect people you know who have been abused, but people in the theatre industry and beyond. Everyone knows someone who has been abused.

And if you don’t, or you think you don’t, it’s probably because you’ve stood up for these abusive people, and you’ve made those in your life who have suffered from abuse feel unsafe.

We might not say anything, but we remember. If nothing else, we can silently cancel you from our lives.

Further Reading (in no particular order):

Cancel Culture Is Not Real—At Least Not in the Way People Think

These women survived abuse and assault. Now they’re behind bars. Should they be?

A Man Who's Bad or Good: The Complexities of CAROUSEL, Abuse, Trauma and Darling Mister Snow

Sick & Tired of Forgiving and Forgetting When it Comes to Sexual Misconduct

Abuse and a Survival Guide to Healing

What Do To If #MeToo Is Triggering For You

WHY SO MANY ABUSERS SEEM LIKE ‘NICE GUYS’ TO EVERYONE ELSE

The Downside of Suing Your Abuser

Should You Name Your Abuser?

To name or not to name your abuser?