James Gunn fired from Guardians 3
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/07/20/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-3
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. Homie should have been more mindful of the tweets.
Do we think this will hurt Guardians 3?
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. Homie should have been more mindful of the tweets.
Do we think this will hurt Guardians 3?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
SOME of the people defending him wouldn't be doing so if he were of a different political persuasion, I'm doubting, but that's the world we live in now. Everyone's doing mental gymnastics.
Anyhow, does anyone have the tweets?
A. Even as a joke, rape and pedophelia are touchy subjects that shouldn’t be discussed on a social media platform, I don’t know Jame Gunn and seemingly this was something he said a while ago that he himself knows was wrong but it was still inappropriate to say in the first place and Disney is a public company with a public image to uphold so I can’t really fault them for firing the guy.
B. It’s real fucking hypocritical for people like Mike “there’s no such thing as date rape” Cernovich to be all holier than thou about this shit.
We found these tweets below in a report by Fox News, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that it came from that outlet. Fox News got its ammo from The Daily Caller, One America News Network correspondent Jack Posobiec and right wing commentator Mike Cernovich, and apparently these conservative outlets pounced on old social media after Gunn mocked conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, as he defended liberal actor Mark Duplass after he came under fire and apologized for encouraging his followers to give Shapiro a chance, in the name of hearing views from the other side of the aisle.
Here is Gunn defending the prior tweets, which were captured by Fox News before his Twitter feed was taken down.
Don't get me wrong, they're fucking shitty and offensive tweets, but he made them 10 years ago, and apologized for them 6 years ago. Anyone trying to conflate this with, say, Roseanne Barr directing a racist insult at someone *in 2018* and getting fired for it is being willfully disingenuous.
Maybe the ephemeral nature of services like Twitch or Snapchat is the antidote for this kind of thing. If your statements evaporate 2 weeks after you make them you can't be held accountable for who you were a decade ago and you have the opportunity to evolve as a human being.
I think we all know here what “political persuasion” I am; I have no issue with this dude getting fired. Disney is a huge company that doesn’t want any of their potential income associated with scandal. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be outraged if he weren’t fired either. It’s a shithead man saying shithead man things and then trying to explain it away with “BUT HUMOUR!”. Same old, same old.
I'm not talking about people who have shown a history of abusive or predatory behavior - they eventually must pay the piper. I'm talking about reasonably normal people like anyone on this forum who, in a moment of weakness, frustration, or bad judgement, has lashed out or not handled a situation in the most mature manner. If you just so happen to be on a cell phone video that gets posted to Twitter or Facebook, you are fucked.
I wonder if we're all overly-sensitive these days and just need to tamp down our righteous indignation a bit. Is society changing for the worse in this regard, or have we always been like this and now we just have a better set of tools with which to mete out our wrath, fury, and judgement?
1. Drudging up minor offenses from people's far distant past and demanding retribution. Especially when there are clear political motives and the person in question has not shown a pattern of this type of behavior. Obviously this is a judgement call. Someone should not get away with a horrible deed just because it was in the distant past but I feel the pendulum has swung very far to one side here.
2. Companies buckling to social media / rule of the mob pressure and firing people without any sense of due process. This can have a profound impact on someone's life and family. I feel like there should be a law requiring companies to wait 30 days before firing an employee due to a social media disturbance. If the offense is still deemed fireable after the mob has moved on to the next shiny object, then fine, go ahead and fire them.
I guess I would have thought of myself as a provocateur or a straight shooter at the time. I argued passionately against gay marriage, but "had nothing against gay people". I thought trans people were legitimately insane. I was sexist, mostly in benevolent ways, but there was a streak in me that could have led to "incel" places if a few balls had bounced differently. I wasn't ever a hateful racist, but easily half my hometown was. I would certainly call old me racist as I now understand the term, in that I advocated for and supported policies that benefited me at the expense of minorities and didn't care to really listen to other perspectives or when I did was dismissive and patronizing. I was a shit lord. Fuck old me.
When I say I am embarrassed about that, I'm talking deep, self loathing shame.
As I understand it, James Gunn was called out for these statements back in 2012 by GLAAD. He apologized and repudiated his past statements. Disney did not fire him then, when he was attached to the original GotG. As far as I know, he's had a clean record since then. Now a real fucking asshole reports him in bad faith for the exact same thing years later and he gets canned and people feel good about it? I don't get it.
People aren't born educated. People can get welllllllll into their adult life and still be ignorant. This has nothing to do with being on the right or wrong political spectrum, by the way. There is a big difference between someone who is actively, unrepentantly hurting other people and someone who formerly said things that hurt people's feelings and has apologized for it and tried to move on. I'm not worried about James Gunn. He's a rich talented man and he'll be fine. I just don't like the situation. Assholes on the right love to talk about weaponized compassion, but like many other things I feel like they are projecting, because this seem to me the textbook definition.
I recognize it's easier for me with my past experience and privilege to be more circumspect about things like this. I'm not judging anyone's reaction and feelings on the topic. These are mine. Perhaps like so many times before, I'm missing something.
Due process is for the courts. If he sues for wrongful dismissal, then you’ll see your due process. As it is now, you have an employer who wants to disassociate themselves from egregious things an employee has said online. Nothing new there.
Obviously it's because it's Disney, and they only *really* care about money and PR, which is why they still haven't canned Johnny Depp - he makes them too much money and the backlash against him isn't big enough yet. I bet they wouldn't have fired, say, Chris Pratt if he'd made the tweets in question - as someone behind the camera, Gunn is more easily replaceable to them. From their point of view, Guardians 3 will gross millions no matter who directs it, so who cares? Cut him loose.
So while I feel bad for Gunn, it's hard for me not to roll my eyes at the defenses for him.
I feel even worse knowing that this isn't going to de-escalate the grandstanding and morality wars of 2018 before my eyes eventually roll all the way out of the back of my head.
Where’s my alt right bingo card gone?
Honestly, though, I can’t stand James Gunn (mainly because he’s been giving off douche vibes for years) and I don’t like the Guardian movies, so this is about as much as I care to say on this subject. I’m gonna go watch my stories now.
I'm not interested in childishly insulting you like you have by inferring that I'm "alt-right" based on a relatively innocuous reply that revealed little or nothing in regards to where I stand on political issues.
Anyhow, this reminds me why I rarely discuss anything political on here. I'll let this thread devolve nto another echo chamber. That's seems to be the bubble that most people prefer to live in.
Also not sure how you could call out "grandstanding" and then pull the whole "oh, everyone here is so childish, I'm so above it all, and I shan't be commenting on this any further" move. It's the same kind of lazy righteous indignation and intellectual posturing you're supposedly against, so why post it? No one cares about your mic drop.
Or if we do, we're smart enough to know it's not a mic drop it's an insult to people who weren't even involved.