Seth Rogen would prefer you keep your criticism of progressive feminist censorship to yourself.
Last month, Rogen premiered his film Sausage Party, which was loved by critics — and even a freelance writer at a “progressively feminist online community'” called Autostraddle. But when readers of Autostraddle felt triggered by the movie’s “damaging portrayal” of a lesbian taco, they forced the site to remove the review and, eventually, to apologize.
John Stossel used the Sausage Party lesbian taco incident as an example of how some liberals (and conservatives) seek to silence speech rather than simply disagree with it, telling his audience in a Tweet that “The attack on free speech even extends to silly movies like @SethRogen’s Sausage Party.”
Seth Rogen clearly did not appreciate Stossel’s defense, re-Tweeted Stossel to his 4 million followers and raked Stossel over the coals for his “ignorance,” telling his followers that, Stossel’s Tweet was an example of “(w)hen idiots use your movie to pretend that free speech is being attacked when it isn’t at all.” And “People tweeting that they hate your sh– isn’t an ‘attack on free speech.’ It’s people using free speech to tell you they hate your sh-.”
Somehow Rogen missed Stossel’s point — likely because Rogen thought Stossel, who works for Fox News, was using his movie to prove a political point Rogen disagreed with. Rogen, after all, has a history of injecting personal politics into his social media feed, from appearing to compare the film American Sniper to “Nazi propaganda” to his casual thoughts on Dr. Ben Carson.
But Stossel’s point was simpler than that: freedom of speech is fantastic, and both creators and critics should be able to express their opinions free from government censorship (the thing the First Amendment protects us from). But, increasingly, private citizens are using their speech to censor others, even using arms of the government to keep their critics quiet.
Stossel explained that both Presidential candidates — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — have expressed a clear desire to silence people they disagree with: movie-makers, organizations, even the press.
In other words, Stossel thought it was great that people disagreed as to whether a talking lesbian taco’s graphic sex scene with a taco bun was, in fact, offensive to lesbians, taco-lovers, and hot dog buns. It’s when people start demanding others be silenced that things go awry.
Hell, Rogen even proved his point: that people should always be free to call other people idiots and tools using the vast selection of available media and technology at hand. That is, after all, the American way.
