Media pundits, journalists, and academics, including MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd, have also been fired or targeted over their comments about Kirk. Executives from Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, sent out an email to employees seemingly referencing Dowd’s dismissal over an “unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event. That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue.” In response to a request for comment, Comcast redirected WIRED to the aforementioned letter.
Red Hood is also not the only cultural product being disappeared in light of Kirk’s death. Comedy Central has decided not to rerun the South Park episode “Got a Nut,” which satirized the right-wing activist. But Kirk himself had said the episode was “hilarious” and an example of the “cultural domination” of his Prove Me Wrong college campus debates; he even changed his show’s TikTok profile picture to an image of the South Park character Cartman parodying him. (The episode will still be available to stream on Paramount+.)
Kirk was one of the most influential conservative activists in the US. He cofounded Turning Point when he was just 18 and turned it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. But his political views were frequently inflammatory, racist, and transphobic, and he had many critics, including people like Felker-Martin, who belonged to one of the groups he derided. In his final exchange before he was shot, Kirk was asked about transgender mass shooters. He responded that there were “too many,” repeating a myth that has been used to attack trans people.
Author Roxane Gay, who has spoken out in Felker-Martin’s defense, says that whether she agrees with Felker-Martin’s views “doesn’t matter.”
“Either you believe in free speech or you don’t,” she tells WIRED, describing DC Comics’ decision to pull Red Hood as the “overreaction of the century.”
From Trump’s plan to wipe “race-centered ideology” and trans people from the Smithsonian to the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the campaign against Kirk’s critics and its impact on pop culture isn’t happening in a vacuum. Humor and satire are particularly triggering for authoritarian figures, according to curator and culture critic Hrag Vartanian, editor in chief of the arts publication Hyperallergic.
“Authoritarians can deal with violence. They can deal with everything except being laughed at,” Vartanian says.
Vartanian tells WIRED he has spoken with many artists who have delayed showing works about topics like the war in Gaza or queerness due to the current political environment, in a form of self-censorship.
Gay says because she has a family, she too has to take fewer risks. But she says she is still “shocked” that more writers aren’t openly backing Felker-Martin. “If it’s her today, it’s going to be someone else tomorrow,” she says.
For her part, Felker-Martin, who has also been outspoken in her support of Palestine, says that once she’s back on Bluesky, she’ll likely keep a lower profile.
Asked if there’s anything that’s making her feel positive right now, she recalls a recent baby shower for a queer family member.
“We had this huge crowd of trans and queer people, into which we dropped my very kind and normal parents. And it was just this really pleasant day with all of our lives kind of mixed together and kids running around,” she says. “I think that living in that is the best thing we can do for ourselves right now. Having and making community by being with each other.”