The Year in Woke Censorship




Ifyou read this column on a regular basis, then I assume that you, like myself, are a woke censor — one of the countless identity-politics-maddened Maenads who cavort across the media landscape, ripping powerful celebrities to shreds for the slightest offense. If someone says something racist in your presence? Censored. Misogynistic? Censored. Transphobic? Definitely censored, so hard that you’ll literally never have to hear from them ever again. Yes, it’s great to ruin lives in the pursuit of woke censorship. Yet I find we often have trouble celebrating the wins in this business. We can become so consumed with thoughts of all the people we will censor that we don’t pause to check in with all the people we have censored, and witness the powerless, tormented wasteland of poverty and silence their lives have invariably become.

Nothing instills a healthy sense of pride like taking stock of one’s own accomplishments. Here, then, is a timeline of some of the most famously censored people of 2022.Staged a surprise guest appearance at a Patton Oswalt show; then a surprise guest appearance at a John Mulaney show; then a surprise guest appearance at a Foo Fighters show, causing fans of live entertainment to fear that Dave Chappelle could show up at literally any event for which they purchase tickets. Terra Field and B. Pagels-Minor, the trans Netflix workers most associated with the walkout, no longer work at Netflix. In February of 2022, Netflix greenlit four more comedy specials by Dave Chappelle.