Comedian and actor David Cross slammed fellow comedians who are worried about being canceled, saying they “b— and moan.”
During a recent interview with MSNBC contributor and liberal pundit Dean Obeidallah for the liberal outlet Salon, Cross complained about certain comedians who are trying to brand themselves as heroes of “free speech” by railing against cancel culture.
He specifically mentioned comedians who make jokes about “trans people,” a dig that seem directed at comedians Dave Chappelle and Bill Maher, who have courted controversy for not pulling their comedic punches against the LGBTQ community.
Cross stated they should just drop their cancel culture fight and stop with the jokes that hurt “hundreds of thousands of people.”
During the latest episode of “Salon Talks,” the “Arrested Development” star and anti-Trump stand-up comic took aim at his colleagues, saying, “All the comics b—- and moan about, you know, ‘they’re trying to cancel me for this joke I made.’ Most of the time it’s a nothing joke and it doesn’t matter.”
Further belittling comedians’ fight against cancel culture, Cross stated, “And now you are positioning yourself as this bulls— voice of ‘They’re not going to cancel me. You can’t silence me.’ For what? Your dumb joke that about trans people? Who gives a s—?”
He continued, asking, “I mean, is it that important to you? Just move on and not hurt, you know, hundreds of thousands of people.”
Cross’ dismissive account of certain comedians dealing with cancel culture seemed to overlook the consequences stemming from Dave Chappelle’s anti-trans jokes for instance.
Chappelle’s jokes have prompted venues to cancel his stand up shows last minute and resulted in Netflix employees striking at company headquarters to get the streaming platform to remove his specials.
Chappelle was even attacked during one of his L.A. shows in 2022. The attack happened amidst the campaign to cancel Chappelle, though no official connection between the attacker and aggrieved LGBTQ supporters was made.
Obeidallah then asked Cross whether fans had ever come up to Cross after a show complaining about jokes, to which he replied, “Yeah.”
He said, “Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It was something where it was like the talking about the phrase ‘the N-word’ or something. And this woman was Black. She explained why that upset her, and I explained why I thought it was I was kind of defending it and the idea behind it.”
Cross claimed the two of them came to an agreement after a “longer conversation,” but insisted he has no problem just dropping those kinds of jokes to appease sensitive crowds. He said, “And it doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t affect me in any way to not do that line.”
Elsewhere, he added, “Now that I have that information, and I can see her point of view, why would I continue to do it? Just to be some hero of free speech?”