Cancel Culture Is At It Again! Ballet Director Fired After Smearing Dog Sh*t On Critic’s Face

Hello, I’m a writer for the New York Times.

You know, The New York Times. Also known as The Gray Lady. The People’s Paper. The Most Trusted Voice In Journalism. I’m certain that you’re familiar with our work.

We’re known for hard hitting journalism that breaks down both sides of every issue. Just look at our coverage of the controversy surrounding JK Rowling. After being accused of transphobic bias in our articles, we made sure to highlight both sides of the issue by publishing a one-sided op-ed defending J.K. Rowling as a modern feminist hero and martyr to the cause. And when people weren’t happy with that, we made absolutely certain to continue our both sides brand of journalism by publishing a reader-response piece to the aforementioned article that doesn’t include the opinions of any trans people whatsoever, because that would be biased. Instead, we opted to include the opinions of self-described “lesbian feminist” TERFs as well a slew of cis people who have “supported trans rights for ages,” but who also claim that “acknowledging a distinction” between the way we view cis and trans women “shouldn’t be viewed as fearful, unfair or hateful,” especially when that distinction ensures that trans women are barred from spaces reserved for “biological women,” because again, that is the absence of bias.

Listen, when my father paid half a million dollars for my tuition at Columbia University upfront, I started to realize that I might actually be privileged. That’s why it’s so important to me and the rest of my Ivy League colleagues to see issues from other points of view in order to protect people from our internal biases.

And I can’t think of a person more worthy of unbiased treatment than this choreographer who smeared dog shit on a critic’s face.

Meet Marco Goecke. He smeared dogshit on a woman he disagreed with. Now, he wants to tell his story.

Marco Goecke, 50, is a colorful character to say the least. He is a renowned German choreographer, and up until recently served as the ballet director in Hanover’s main opera house. He was recently fired for his behavior. His crime? Wiping his aging dachshund’s doo-doo all over a woman who didn’t like his work.

Now, he’s in danger of being cancel culture’s next victim.

Despite the Hanover State Ballet’s repeated assurances that they will continue to perform Mr. Goecke’s work, his career is in jeopardy. Indeed, even though the opera house’s artistic director told the press that she “doesn’t believe” in cancel culture and that Goecke’s “incomparable” body of work should be viewed separately from the artist himself, Goecke may very well be ruined. Mr. Goecke will also keep his associate choreographer position with the Nederlands Dans Theater, but again, his life is over. The company is even scheduled to perform his work “In The Dutch Mountains” in the next week few weeks. A career in tatters. How will he ever recover?

Mr. Goecke is taking the situation hard. He has reportedly “apologized deeply” for the fecal assault, but also claims that he is still “not free of [his] anger”. He claims that newspaper critics should not write in such “a personal and hateful way,” especially not in a post-pandemic world where theaters are trying to draw crowds. And what more of an apology could we ask for? Hasn’t this man suffered enough? Mr. Goecke is essentially saying I’m sorry that you didn’t like the way I smeared you with shit, but you’re still in the wrong for doing your job by criticizing my work. If that’s not a heartfelt apology, then we at The New York Times don’t know what is.

Mr. Goecke goes on to say that gender bias may have played a role in his treatment. “If I’d been a woman and the critic a man, this would be seen differently,” said Goecke. It’s true, women in society are allowed to rub dog crap on the faces of powerful men without fear of recompense. That’s just the way society works. Can you, the reader, give me one single example where a woman standing up against a powerful man has brought her misfortune? We at The New York Times surely can’t.

Mr. Goecke is going through a very hard time right now, and we at The New York Times think that everyone should cut him a break. Critics have been horrible to him in the past. One critic reportedly ripped him to shreds by saying that one of his pieces went on for “12 minutes longer than was necessary.” Mr. Goecke reacting by repeatedly calling and emailing the man, saying that he was a “coward” for not responding. Nevertheless, Mr. Goecke claims to be a man who “welcomes constructive criticism” and believes in freedom of speech where “no one gets hurt.” Goecke is also having a tough time in his personal life. His mother is ill, and his aforementioned dachshund is coming to the end of its life. In light of this, it’s understandable why he flew off the handle. If anything were ever to happen to my purebred bichon frisé, I don’t think any of the interns at The Times would be safe from my wrath. That’s why when dance critic Wiebke Hüster smeared Goecke’s work as boring, I empathize as to why Goecke responded with a smear of his own: by smearing dogshit all over her face in the lobby of the opera house.

Mr. Goecke has been charged with assault, and he is awaiting his fate. Meanwhile, Ms. Hüster claims that she will “never attend any Goecke show again”. It’s unfortunate that Ms. Hüster is unable to separate the art from the artist despite the time she spent separating the artist’s dog’s shit from her face. Her reasoning however goes beyond the assault, claiming that Mr. Goecke’s work is “not that relevant.” We at The Times beg to differ, that’s why we decided to publish this piece about Mr. Goecke (an artist that 99% of our readers have never heard of) because we believe in making irrelevant artists relevant again solely because of the controversies they generate. That’s what we’re doing with J.K. Rowling, after all.

(featured image: Matthew Henry from Burst)