[ofou]

They've removed comedians mostly because they talk about "sensitive" issues openly and without taboos, oftentimes politically incorrect and careless: ex. transgender and alike themes. Isn't this what comedy should be like? [1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UHr5baraKo

[sascha_sl]

Comedy is not equal to being offensive. Being offensive is not itself comedy.

Some comedy is offensively misinformed and still legitimately funny at the same time (e.g. Chapelle had some parts that made me chuckle, and some parts where I dreaded stereotypes about me being reinforced). But some is just bad. Look at Steven Crowder doing "comedy" for instance.

That aside, I'd rather they had removed Abigail Shrier, who is not a comedian but an author of a book full of falsehoods and anecdotes that contributes to a hateful environment that has measurably increased violence against LGBT+ people (up ~100% in the past 5 years in the UK). Or at least for the JRE to have ANY trans person providing different context. Chelsea Manning would be amazing, but I'm not sure if she'd be interested either.

[ofou]

You're right it's not the same, but the same thing with Gervais's presentation, for some it's offensive, for some hilarious. I support comedy in general, not cancel culture though.

[sascha_sl]

There needs to be a balance of interests. I don't know where the line is and I don't want to set it, but misrepresenting minorities to the point you're furthering their marginalization is beyond the line.

There's a lot of nuance lost upon invoking "cancel culture" ("So you've been publicly shamed" is the one piece of media that seems to successfully avoid doing so), and I generally dislike the term because it is often used either in offhand comments by people who don't see the issue or by free speech absolutists that disagree the paradox of tolerance even exists.

That aside, invoking false stereotypes doesn't generally make for exceptional comedy.