I Am Cancel Culture and I'm Coming for Dakota Johnson

Besides Jamie Lee Curtis and Stormi Webster, Dakota Johnson is the one good example I have of nepotism done well. The creative instincts behind her line readings are baffling, but her dryness works and those dead eyes sell it every time. Oh, and the Ellen thing. The limes! That Tippi Hendren is her grandmother, Melanie Griffith is her mother, and Don Johnson is her father are the least interesting things about her.

In a profile of Johnson The Hollywood Reporter that dropped yesterday, she uses her signature deadpan wit to defend her many, many past male co-stars who have been silenced by the Me Too movement. Oh classic, Claire, blaming a woman for her coworker’s tendencies to harass and assault? Yeah. That’s Hollywood, baby.

Johnson has worked with Johnny Depp, Shia LaBeouf, and Armie Hammer in the past, all three of whom have been accused of domestic or sexual violence by a partner. Johnson said she never experienced any bad behavior firsthand and that she feels sad for “the loss of great artists.” Johnny Depp’s next job after appearing in Black Mass with Johnson in 2015 was in a Kevin Smith art film called Yoga Hosers starring his daughter Lily-Rose Depp, in which “two teenage yoga enthusiasts must do battle with an evil presence that is threatening to rise from its underground lair and endanger their major party plans.”

“I do believe that people can change. I want to believe in the power of a human being to change and evolve and get help and help other people. I think there’s definitely a major overcorrection happening,” Johnson said. “But yeah, cancel culture is such a fucking downer. I hate that term.” This hurts to hear because when she canceled Ellen we all had so much fun with that.

I agree with Dakota that people can change. These things are ancient history! Let’s recap. Less than a year ago, FKA Twigs sued Shia LaBeouf for physical, mental, and emotional abuse including knowingly giving her an STI. In March 2021, a twenty-four-year-old woman accused Armie Hammer of violent rape, two years after they made a movie called Wounds together. Amber Heard wrote about her allegedly abusive relationship with Johnny Depp in a Washington Post op-ed (now the subject of an ongoing legal battle) in 2018, one year after their divorce and three years after Black Mass was released.

So it seems these men have indeed had growth since working with Johnson, even if it’s in the wrong direction. People can change.