In recent months, we’ve heard from a number of white men of a certain of age (including John Cleese and Entourage creator Doug Ellin) about the problems they have with “wokeness” and “cancel culture” and “PC culture” and other euphemisms for consequences. Now Billy Crystal is the latest to weigh in on the issue in a new interview with the New York Post.
“It’s becoming a minefield and I get it,” Crystal told the publication when asked about the current state of comedy. “I don’t like it, I understand it … I just keep doing what I’m doing and that’s all you can do right now.”
“It’s a totally different world [now] and it doesn’t mean you have to like it,” he added.
Of course, Crystal may be concerned about this so-called comedy minefield because plenty of his past bits — including appearing in blackface to impersonate Sammy Davis Jr. as recently as 2012 when he hosted the Academy Awards — would never fly today.
Still, to Crystal’s credit, he seemed keen to change the subject after answering the Post reporter’s questions about cancel culture, trying to shift the attention back to his new movie with Tiffany Haddish. “You know I’d rather talk about Here Today,” he said, before conceding that, “It’s an interesting time, it’s an interesting time.”
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