Rowan Atkinson Speaks out on Cancel Culture: “Every Joke Has a Victim”

Mr. Bean has no problem spilling the beans, as British comedian Rowan Atkinson revealed he believes it is “comedy’s job to offend” in an interview with the Irish Times.

“It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential,” Atkinson said of cancel culture. “Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.”

The Johnny English Strikes Again star continued, “I think you’ve got to be very, very careful about saying what you’re allowed to make jokes about. You’ve always got to kick up? Really? What if there’s Someone extremely smug, arrogant, aggressive, and self-satisfied who happens to be below in society? They’re not all in houses of parliament or in monarchies.”

He added, “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”

This conversation isn’t as odd as you may think. Many comedians have expressed how cancel culture is a bunch of hocus pocus and shouldn’t be applied to comedy. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Kevin Hart said he doesn’t “give a shit” about cancel culture, respectfully. “If somebody has done something truly damaging, then, absolutely, a consequence should be attached,” Hart said. “But when you’re talking, ‘Someone said! They need to be taken [down]!’ Shut the fuck up! What are you talking about?”

In a roundtable discussion with the Hollywood Reporter Jerrod Carmichael said that the social phenom is “made up” for political and financial purposes.

“If you make art and it causes some contention, or it causes some whatever, I mean, that’s part of it, but the cancellation thing, I think that’s just to give boring people something interesting to talk about, like a ghost villain,” the Rothaniel star said.

Carmichael later shared, “The comedians that are forging this self-created war, I get it. It’s good for ticket sales, and it’s good to have an opponent. [But] at some point, it becomes petulant. It’s like children like, ‘Why are you mad at me?’ A lot of it is self-created.”

You can see more of Atkinson in his new series on Netflix, Man vs. Bee, which will premiere on June 24.