Mayim Bialik Slams Cancel Culture in Bill Maher Interview

Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik has spoken out against cancel culture while discussing her parenting style in an interview with comedian Bill Maher.

Bialik co-parents two sons—Miles, 18, and Frederick, 15—with her ex-husband, Michael Stone. During an appearance on the latest episode of Maher's podcast, Club Random, Bialik was asked by the host if she was a strict parent.

The Big Bang Theory star Bialik responded by saying that "most people would consider me strict," adding that she's "pretty old fashioned" in her approach to parenting her sons. Bialik then touched on how she wants them to tackle disagreement.

"What I'd like to teach my children is they don't have to agree with every single thing that someone says. And that also doesn't mean that that person is bad, wrong, should be canceled, should never be spoken about or to. But it's really hard," she told Maher in the episode, which will be released on Thursday.

Maher brought up the challenges of raising children while "fighting all of society" potentially influencing them, prompting Bialik to share that her sons were until recently homeschooled in small classes of "five or 10" students.

"I did enjoy knowing what specifically what they were learning, how it was being taught," Bialik continued. "And, you know, also my kids have lived through a very interesting time where, you know, the [former President Donald] Trump of it all.

"I don't need to talk about Trump specifically, but it did bring up a lot of really important topics that I could talk about with my children in terms of how and when we decide to make judgments about people, how we organize our entire thought systems around what a group of people say, or do you know that that's true?

"And they also have a sense of levity about them, because this is culture poking fun at everything and everyone and there's memes and GIFs."

Maher then honed in on Bialik's statement that people don't have to agree on everything, which he said: "That's what I'm always preaching... Why is that a heavy lift today with kids? It seems like the default setting on them is judgmental and 'I know everything,' especially with generational stuff."

Bialik shared how her father would often "shoot down" her ideas. She said that her older son told her that he'd had similar experiences with her in the past, prompting her to have a candid discussion with the teen.

Turning the conversation back to the way in which people form opinions on certain subjects, Bialik, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience, pointed to the use of the internet as a source of education.

"When you have people who want to believe that what they googled is true, the information is so instantaneous, you don't have to do any research," she said. "You don't have to think about it. I think it comes with a sense of entitlement and an arrogance that I find problematic.

"You know, I see it a lot, also as a scientist, the things that people think and believe that they google about any number of scientific concepts is astounding."

Soon after landing her Jeopardy! co-hosting role, Bialik faced accusations of being a vaccine skeptic. The scrutiny stemmed from comments she had made in her book, Beyond the Sling, published in 2012.

"We made an informed decision not to vaccinate our children, but this is a very personal decision that should be made only after sufficient research, which today is within reach of every parent who seeks to learn about their child's health regardless of their medical knowledge or educational status," she wrote at the time.

Mother-of-two Bialik has since clarified that she is not anti-vaccines, tweeting back in February 2015: "dispelling rumors abt my stance on vaccines. i'm not anti. my kids are vaccinated. so much anger and hysteria. i hope this clears things up."

In October 2020, Bialik shared a YouTube video in which she revealed that she and her children would be receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and seasonal flu shots.

However, the unrelenting criticism continued over her perceived point of view on the matter, which the TV personality sought to put to rest once and for all.

When asked in September 2021 about the controversy in an interview with the Associated Press, Bialik said: "I don't regret that at the time I wrote a book about parenting, my kids were young, they hadn't received all their vaccines.

"Now I've been very public and declared that I am a vaccinated person, we're a vaccinated family, we're all vaccinated for COVID. That's part of the challenge of being a public person, and the court of public opinion is extremely significant.

"I'm grateful to Sony and to Jeopardy! for believing in me as a host right now, with the ability to do my job with all the other things aside."