Can a person ever really be “cancelled”? I used to think not. Supposedly radioactive celebrities still manage to land lucrative Netflix specials, sell out stadiums, and win illustrious awards. But what happens when they don’t? You end up with a film like My Son Hunter.
The political satire, released today online, focuses on Hunter Biden, the son of the sitting US president. It stars Laurence Fox as Hunter, John James as Joe Biden, and Gina Carano as the narrator, a secret service agent invented for the purposes of the film. Fox, an actor whose early films include Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age, has become a self-professed “cancelled” person in recent years, thanks to widely criticised remarks on issues such as Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and trans rights. Carano, a former wrestler, is also said to have been “cancelled”; her recurring stint on the hit Star Wars series The Mandalorian came to an acrimonious end last year following a string of social media posts about Jewish people, Covid, gender and election fraud.
