'Mr. Bean' star Rowan Atkinson hits back at cancel culture: 'The job of comedy is to offend'



Rowan Atkinson – the creator and star of the British sitcom "Mr. Bean" that first aired in 1990 – slammed cancel culture, especially when it comes to comedy.

"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 in a new interview for the Irish Times. "Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.”

The interviewer asked Atkinson if comedy should only lampoon those in a position of authority and not punch down.

Atkinson responded, "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, self-satisfied, who happens to be below in society? They’re not all in houses of parliament or in monarchies," the "Mr. Bean" actor explained. "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."

Atkinson points out that the outrage mob often takes jokes out of their original context in order to provoke anger on social media and to get a person canceled.

Atkinson remarked that social media is "terribly young," and people are just learning how to use it.

"In terms of the history of man, it’s been around for a very, very short time and we’re still adjusting," he noted.

Atkinson blasted cancel culture last year – comparing the toxic movement as a "medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn."

"It's important that we're exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn," he said. "So it is scary for anyone who's a victim of that mob, and it fills me with fear about the future."

Atkinson said of social media, "The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society. It becomes a case of either you're with us or against us. And if you're against us, you deserve to be 'canceled.'"

There are numerous comedians who have hit back at cancel culture.

Chris Rock cautioned that cancel culture breeds boring entertainment. Billy Crystal proclaimed that canceling people over words has made comedy a "minefield." Dave Chappelle declared that "no one can be woke enough." Stand-up comedian Bill Burr quipped that the outrage mob has run out of people to cancel and has resorted to canceling dead people.

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‘Mr. Bean’ Decries Cancel Culture As ‘Digital Equivalent Of The Medieval Mob Roaming The Streets’

'The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society.'

'Mr. Bean' star Rowan Atkinson blasts cancel culture: 'Medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn'



"Mr. Bean" star Rowan Atkinson blasted cancel culture in an an interview with the Radio Times, likening the left-wing movement to a "medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn," Deadline reported.

What are the details?

The U.K. comic actor said social media has been responsible for increased sociopolitical polarization, which Atkinson said makes him nervous about the future of freedom of speech, the outlet noted.

"The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society," he observed, according to Deadline. "It becomes a case of either you're with us or against us. And if you're against us, you deserve to be 'cancelled.'"

Atkinson added: "It's important that we're exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. So it is scary for anyone who's a victim of that mob, and it fills me with fear about the future," the outlet reported.

Not the first time

This was far from the first time Atkinson has spoken up about free expression. In 2009 he decried U.K. hate speech legislation, which is much harsher than in the United States — at least so far.

"The last thing that any academic, or cleric, or practitioner in creative writing wants to hear is of police officers walking round with a tool box bulging with sanctions against speech and expression that 'could be useful one day.' I do not believe that legislation of such a censorious nature as that of Hate Speech, carrying as it does the risk of a seven-year jail sentence for saying the wrong thing in the wrong way, can ever by justified merely by the desire to 'send the right message,'" he said.

In 2012, Atkinson urged a repeal of part of the U.K.'s Public Order Act that outlaws "insulting words and behavior" in order to stop the "creeping culture of censoriousness" which saw the arrest of a Christian preacher, a critic of Scientology, and even a student making a joke, the Daily Mail reported.

Saying the law was having a "chilling effect on free expression and free protest," he noted to the outlet that "the clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult."

And earlier this year Atkinson joined more than 20 prominent cultural figures in signing a letter against the Scottish government's proposed Hate Crime Bill over fears it could limit freedom of expression.

Check out his recent words on these issues:

In full: Rowan Atkinson on free speechyoutu.be