Edwards, Perlstein 8/1/24
Click here to listen to the interview.
One of the most important points that XCLD: THE STORY OF CANCEL CULTURE makes is that the phenomenon isn’t new. It’s just had many names over the years. Think being called a Commie during the McCarthy Witch Hunts, or what happened to Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Why that is comes from something deeply rooted in human nature is one of the many topics covered when I spoke to director Ferne Perlstein and story producer Robert Edwards via Zoom on August 1, 2024.
The duo, partners in life as well as filmmaking when on to talk about who gets cancelled, who stays cancelled, and the industry that has grown up around rehabilitating cancelees.
We also talked about something that gave me pause, the so-called Safe Space, a box where ordinary citizens could give voice to possibly unpopular opinions about people who have been cancelled; and then was talked about something gave all three of us hope, a budding post-cancel culture springing up in the same social media world that gave rise to cancel culture as we now know it.
We finished up with Perlstein, who was a cinematographer on Ramona S. Diaz’s documentary, IMELDA, humoring me by describing what it was like to visit the infamous shoe closet of the former First Lady of the Philippines.
We started off, though, what audience reactions surprised them both.
Fernstein and Edwards previous work includes SUMO EAST AND WEST, and THE LAST LAUGH, about Holocaust humor and where to draw the line.
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