Woody Harrelson got candid about his “Saturday Night Live” monologue that circulated the internet and sparked a backlash from some viewers in a recent interview with Esquire. He hosted the NBC comedy sketch series in February and stirred controversy after he appeared to poke fun at COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“Well, people told me it was, shall we say, ‘trending.’ No, I don’t look at that s—,” he told after asked if Harrelson saw the controversy his monologue had caused.
“I feel like, ‘I said it on SNL.’ I don’t need to go further with it [pause]…other than to say — well, no, I won’t. Never mind. That’s enough… But it don’t change my life one bit. Not one bit, if the mainstream media wants to have a go at you, right? My life is still wonderful,” Harrelson concluded.
During the March episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Harrelson joked about his frequent use of marijuana, conflicting political views as a “redneck hippie” and division in America. He closed out his monologue by recounting a movie pitch he allegedly read in 2019 that he called the “craziest” he’s ever heard.
“So the movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over,” Harrelson said. “I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.”
Experts Say About Woody Harrelson
Outkick said that If you can withstand 36 hours of mean-spirited blog posts and tweets, you find the mob to be hardly intimidating. Their influence is tied to the fear of their target.
Actor Woody Harrelson is further proof. Harrelson did not apologize, nor atone for the thought crime of criticizing vaccine mandates and lockdowns during an appearance on SNL in February. In his monologue, he cleverly derided the influence Big Pharma obtained during the pandemic.
The corporate press did not appreciate his point. They called him an anti-vaxxer and simp for conspiracy theorists. They had hoped to browbeat him into a change of mind. Yet, unlike the average celeb, Harrelson was unbeknownst to their specific criticisms.
As per a recent column, figures like Dave Chappelle have exposed the vulnerabilities of the woke movement. Woke is a paper tiger that gained unjust influence by controlling the message.
But the influencers who elevated wokeness through their support are beginning to change course — from Chris Rock to Netflix, Russell Brand to Woody Harrelson. Woke influence fades when the target no longer fears or consumes the outrage.
Meanwhile, AVClub wrote that “Cancel Culture” is mostly a state of mind, sometimes related to but mostly separate from real-life consequences. Cancellable offenses, too, range in severity and sometimes depend entirely on the likability of the offender.
In the case of Woody Harrelson, his likability so far outweighs the fact that he is a coronavirus 5G conspiracy theorist that even his joking pejoratively about vaccines on Saturday Night Live blew over fairly quickly. And even if people were still trying to “cancel” him for it, his approach is basically the Arthur meme of DW declaring: “That sign can’t stop me because I can’t read!”