I do not agree with cancel culture targeted at individuals, for several reasons:

1. It assumes that a person who makes a mistake (even a big mistake) is forever irredeemable, which I disagree with. People can and do change.

2. It shuts down the opportunity for dialogue, which means that neither side involved can learn anything from the other. Very rarely are issues black and white -- there might be one side that is "more correct" but the "incorrect" side might still have valid points, and the "incorrect" side might also be persuaded by the "more correct" side through dialogue.

3. It alienates and upsets the canceled person, causing them to retreat further into the view they held, seeking more sources that match their confirmation bias.

4. As a progressive, I don't like the idea of people losing their entire livelihood just for holding the wrong opinions. I think that just because a person might hold some reprehensible views, that doesn't mean they deserve to be unemployed or homeless. I think "cancel culture" is very classist in that the more you need a job, the less likely you are to express an opinion. The only reason why JK Rowling was able to create such a stir is because she has "fuck you money" -- who knows how many women agreed with her but didn't speak out because they need their jobs.

5. Along those lines, cancel culture has a chilling effect on public discourse in general. I mostly associate with people in the professional white collar class, and basically none of them use social media because the risks to one's career of accidentally saying the wrong thing aren't worth it. Again, this contributes to the siloing effect, as our friends may hold opposing views that we won't be exposed to.

6. Why is the chilling effect so strong? One reason is because the social zeitgeist around what is "politically correct", especially among progressive circles, is always changing rapidly. Some examples of "new words": BIPOC (instead of POC), gender confirmation surgery (instead of SRS or GRS), Latinx (instead of Latino), these are all upgraded "more politically correct" versions of words that were already considered politically correct previously.

Anyway, about the movie itself, above explains why I don't think the director or anyone involved should be "canceled". As for the movie itself, I'm less concerned about whether or not it gets "canceled" because movies aren't humans. I'd take more of a laissez faire approach. Assuming it's a bad movie, it will flop and that will be the end of it. If the movie actually contains pedophilic content then yes it should be illegal to produce. I don't think any sane person would be opposed to laws against child porn. But I don't see the need to prevent a movie from coming out just because the content is in poor taste, that's a bit too much of a slippery view for my liking.