Former ’80s “Brat Pack” star Molly Ringwald knocked cancel culture as an “unsustainable” way of living that has turned America into Puritans.
Speaking to the Guardian, the Sixteen Candles star addressed the #MeToo movement and how it led to some unfair cancelations.
“I don’t think a Harvey Weinstein situation could exist now. But, again, a lot of people have gotten swept up in ‘cancelation,’ and I worry about that,” she said. “It’s unsustainable, in a way. Some people have been unfairly canceled, and they don’t belong in the same category as somebody like Harvey Weinstein.”
“What it ends up doing is make people roll their eyes,” she continued. “That’s my worry. I do want things to change, for real. Workplaces should be places where everyone can feel safe – not just in Hollywood, but everywhere. Particularly Americans. We can never do things incrementally; we’re so binary, so all or nothing. We’re basically a bunch of puritans.”
Ringwald also talked about the fame she experienced in the 1980s with the John Hughes classics like The Breakfast Club and how she did not feel “cut out” for it at the time.
The Breakfast Club with Molly Ringwald seen as a crying Claire Standish (Universal)
“It’s hard to grow up under that. I don’t want to overdo this – and boohoo, I fully recognize my privilege – but I needed to get out from under all that scrutiny,” Ringwald said. “I just wasn’t cut out for it in a way that certain other people are.”
“Some people are really good at it. Taylor Swift is amazing! But I didn’t feel comfortable with that level of stardom,” she added.
Ringwald also said she did not agree with the image she projected at the time.
“I was projected as this perfect, sweet American girl next door. Which wasn’t me, but I was figuring out who I was, too,” she said. “I was pretty young.”
File/Molly Ringwald arrives at the LA Kings Holiday Ice Benefit for Starlight Children’s Foundation at LA Live on December 15, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Dr. Billy Ingram/WireImage)
As Breitbart News profiled in the past, Ringwald has been critical of her work in films like The Breakfast Club. John Nolte previously delivered a rebuttal against some of her arguments. He wrote:
The Whole Point Of The Movie is that beneath these off-putting archetypes there is a whole person, someone worth knowing, maybe even someone you could get close to.
For example, we learn that deep down inside, Claire is not a prissy, uptight snob. She is merely behaving in the way her friends and parents expect her to behave.
Ringwald has also criticized some of the situations in Sixteen Candles.
“Back then I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John’s writing was, given my limited experience and what was considered normal at the time. I was well into my thirties before I stopped considering verbally abusive men more interesting than the nice ones,” she said.