Anything Goes - Barbican / U.K.Tour

This is why I just hate living in the UK in 2021. Woke cultural nonsense. Of COURSE she’s not being racist signing a famous Broadway belting song which had a signature theme and tone. Exactly the same way Somewhere Thats Green has a signature sound. For people to go back to social media messages and recordings from over a decade ago is also foolish - go back far enough and you can see homophobic AND racist comments from every leader on the planet. She was singing a song not in the KKK. I despair......

I’m not black so I obviously can’t speak for the black community and am not trying to - of course seeing videos like Sutton’s are triggering, and I understand their hurt. But the issue I have is that most of the ~condemnation~ I’ve seen seems to have come from the young white British theatre twitter crowd who have just become this woke baying twitter mob over everything, and it’s exhausting to see. It’s almost like they need to be following the crowd and be seen to be on the ~right~ side, and the way they do that is by demanding instant cancellation without any attempt to find context or listen to explanations etc. It’s like every day they need to tick their “been an ally” box and are always on the hunt for new victims, today’s being Sutton!

I’m not saying what Sutton did wasn’t a micro aggression in really bad taste, especially when looked at through today’s lens, but it’s obvious her intent was not malicious - there just doesn’t seem to be any grace these days!

I don't think it's for white people to say this isn't a conversation that should be had. That in itself is potentially demeaning the feelings of those who have a right to feel offended by this.

And that is the key for me - how to react to this should be driven by those to whom it relates, not anyone else. Those of us who can never understand that but can be allies need to take our cue from them, not become a baying mob on Twitter like so many have without asking what those who are actually affected by it want us to do.

Does this render impressionists and tribute artists cancelled then?

The term "cancelled" should be cancelled...

It should render any impressionist or tribute act that is inappropriate unacceptable - e.g. a white woman as a Tina Turner impersonator, for example. That is no different to the reason we don't have minstrel shows any more...

A lot of people hating her on twitter at the moment seem to be almost gleeful in their hatred, and many are London-based (unknown) actors. I sure hope they've all led perfect lives themselves because one day the mob might come for them...

Absolutely pathetic. I despair for what social media has done to people's persecution complexes, I really do. Twitter has caused so much harm to vulnerable people's mental health.

It used to be a healthy dose of schadenfreude was shared by all. Seeing that a killer or rapist was jailed in the news is something everyone can get behind.

But now we have bitter, entitled and frankly awful professional victims whose sole purpose in life is to trawl through social media and live their own lives, desperately trying to find things to be offended by.

This is the first generation of young people being raised by the internet, specifically taking their social cues from social media. It's only going to get worse.

I don't think Sutton Foster did anything wrong. She chose to apologise (probably in fear for her career, hoping this whole nightmare will go away), but I know I wouldn't. If I was ever in that situation and I knew I had no ill intentions, I'd certainly not apologise to the circling piranhas.

What’s so scary is that there are seemingly no grey areas, or room for nuance.

Context means a lot and from what I’ve heard, this song was performed during a sequence about certain Diva’s voices and performances.

I hope it all blows over and these people have something else to be outraged over very soon without Foster having to release a grand apology video.

I do love all these people saying how they won’t be seeing Anything Goes out of protest. Like they probably would anyway. Their loss.

Interesting that there’s no discussion of this topic on Broadwayworld
Message board. I wonder if someone did post about it and it was removed

I agree with this. Shirley Bassey tribute acts aren't mimicking a mixed race style of singing — they're mimicking Shirley Bassey.

I couldn't agree more that micro-agressions should be called out. When they happen.

But not 10 years later. People saying, hey, I was offended by what you did 10 years ago, is nonsense. Complete nonsense. You're presuming that they haven't already learnt from the past, that they are doing the same thing today. There is really only 1 person in this world who has a real reason to call Sutton Foster out, and that is Jennifer Holiday. There's no reason for anyone else to be offended by it, unless they're jumping on the bandwagon.

That's all it takes these days, and they've been tagging the Barbican and the Anything Goes production in their tweets.

And she has a reputation for being such a nice, down-to-earth person too. People have too much time on their hands, if there was a lot going on in their own lives they wouldn't be worrying about this video.

If Sutton drops out, the Barbican will pay me my money back. End of non-story. So glad I'm not on social media.