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Disney severs ties with James Gunn after controversial tweets
- Thread starter Sibersk Esto
- Start date
Can you or a mod edit the OP to include the tweets because I can't find what this thread is talking about.
Makes sense. Any person that makes pedophilia and rape jokes doesn't deserve to be making movies for kids. James Gunn is trash, nothing more. Both Guardians movies were trash too.
I'm saying don't hire reformed edgelords and then act shocked they were once edgelords.
Disney knew who James Gunn was.
Just like they knew who Roseanne is
I wasn't talking about Gunn personally with any of those points, really. I know he isn't a Trump supporter.
I assumed you in your original post, extrapolated and was speaking in general terms about turning enemies (Trump supporters and bigots) into allies.
So, I was talking in general terms about how that isn't the best idea, nor should it be asked of anyone.
In relation to Gunn personally, I wouldn't have fired him (a P.R statement on how he's changed and increased charity work on Gunn's part for visibility) but I understand why Disney did and its really not my hill to die on when it comes to defending him.
EDIT:
My point about forgiveness isn't about what you said. Clearly you can only forgive someone who has done wrong. Its not about how frequently white men do something wrong either, people of all races and gender do something wrong from time to time. Its also not about the fact that white men do more wrong than anyone else. I don't care about the frequency of bad behavior, I care about the reaction to it once it happens. My point is that people constantly trip over themselves to forgive white men for almost anything they do and the further back in time the incident is, the stronger the calls for forgiveness are.
That ferocity and insistence on forgiveness is very rarely if ever extended to minorities for anything, ever. That is a problem
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I'm not, but the way you normalizing deeply offensively jokes shows me you very well could be.
Are you seriously acting like it's normal for 40 year old men to make jokes about raping little boys and girls?
Different climate back then? Doesn't prove Disney knew on time of hiring.
And they're losing elections left and right, can't generate enthusiasm from their base, and are mired in scandal the likes of which we've never seen in modern politics. Everything you listed was a consequence of one election. All of that was in the bag when Trump became president-elect. The Republicans can't build on that despite owning the legislative and the executive branches.
Depends on what you mean by "ok" and "fine". I don't personally like those kinds of jokes; about 5% of the stuff I've heard has seemed funny to me, and I've often encouraged people I know to keep a lid on that kind of thing around others. Some people are just crude at heart though, and they'll joke when they wanna joke.
I don't love it, but I can't justify ruining their lives over it either.
People watched those shows, people complained about these jokes and their fans wrote of the critics as sticks in the mud while shouting "satire" as you if they actually knew what that meant.
Damn. I suppose Disney were in a hard position. The tweets were becoming more and more known beyond the alt-right fucks that first discovered them. It would clash too much with their image.
Personally I didn't think they were that bad, other than being unfunny, but I understand people thinking otherwise.
Personally I didn't think they were that bad, other than being unfunny, but I understand people thinking otherwise.
About where I stand on it. Like, yeah they were gross jokes but they were obviously jokes from someone that has a very dark sense of humor.
Everyone saying stuff like he's repugnant etc...I guess, but you'd better think that of virtually every comedian in the business if you really think that based on these tweets. It's 100% the sense of humor that a lot have.
This isn't a situation like Roseanne. Disney was baited by the alt-right. Here's hoping that he will be indeed re-hired. This is disheartening and an win that I feel geek twitter can't let the alt-right get.
Again dude he was a Troma writer. I know you are tap dancing to pretend like that's different but it's not. Troma is a brand, his tweets were part of that brand.
Again this is why his change in behavior and acknowledgement of his past is important.
But you're acting like Disney didn't know who they were hiring
You keep saying that but it doesn't make it so. Working for Troma doesn't mean you make jokes like those on Twitter. It was work at Troma, from my reading, to be shocking so it was a genre. Any reasonable company would see it just as another genre and that it's foolish to assume he would write those things on Twitter. Troma isn't Twitter.
And yet he hasn't made any such jokes for nearly a decade and has made two of the best family friendly films in the MCU. They're literally all about family and friends and misfits redeeming themselves.
I wonder if those glad to see him gone would have been able to make a movie half way as entertaining themselves?
In 2009? Yeah that was pretty normal, especially among people who made careers out of writing edgy comedy. Absolutely.
I'm sorry, but this isnt something he said when he was a young immature kid, and this isnt just potty, fart and dicks humor. Whenever children are included in the equation, some things shouldnt be joked around with.
Its sad because he was a great mind for cinema, but he fucked up.
Its sad because he was a great mind for cinema, but he fucked up.
Hmmm... Did I mention James Gunn? No. I quoted Bye who quoted Rude saying this;
rude" said:
Maybe you should take your own advice Bye, and read the context of the quote first. The statement made was that pedophile jokes = latent pedophilia, which you agreed was the right assumption to make. Not once did I mention James bloody Gunn.
Yes we have established how culture was much different 10 years ago. We also have established South Park coming under fire for their attempts at humor recently, so they aren't a good example. And we have established how in 2018 we have adopted moral high grounds and realized it's not okay to say things like this, or be professionally affiliated with people whom have said such. Glad we are on the same page.
"Uncle Touchys naked puzzle basement"
It's not "normal", but professional comedians have managed to joke about the subject.
But I have found out Gunn wasn't an actual comedian. I thought he was. As in, doing professional standup like Patton Oswalt.
This reads a lot like the sentiment that we need to extend the olive branch to alt-righters.
Or is it only accepting people that have changed and have demonstrated good behavior since then? How long is long enough in the case? Do they get bonus forgiveness if they denounce Trump publicly and make progressive nerd entertainment for us?
The incentive to changing your ideas or views should be that you get to not be a piece of shit anymore, not that you are forever freed of consequence from your past actions.
I hope people in this thread saying anyone who ever joked about that stuff a decade ago deserves to be fired never posted a pedobear picture, or that photo of Chris Hansen leaning into the frame.
Stop trying to defend the sloppy actions of a big corporation like Disney. Seriously fuck them. This is 100% on them and even if they didn't know, James Gunn apologized and it was everywhere back then, so why should they have turned a blind eye then?
Disney has the resources and the time to do personal background checks of any person they hire, and if they thought it was alright to let him make Guardians movie back then, their decision to fire him for the same actions that they thought were okay back then is an attitude that reeks of hypocrisy. If Gunn was fired for some of his recent action, It would have been 100% justified. Because it would show that he hasn't changed. But in this case, this is not what happened at all.
Ten years ago twitter also wasn't what it is today. It's possible they didn't check that 10 years ago. They knew full well who they hired but probably expected that he respects the Disney image, which he did until some people unearthed those tweet. Now that their image is in jeopardy they are ready to dump him unceremoniously. This is pretty much how Hollywood works. Accepts anyone dark's side to make money and feign ignorance when it's revealed (and we got ton of examples recently). The only sad thing here is that Gunn's a changed person but Disney still doesn't forgive when it implies their image.
Yeah, that's quite the dichotomy, isn't it?
Fellow liberals will shout from the rooftops for employers and lenders to overlook criminal records and give people second(+) chances, when there are criminal charges in many of those cases that should very, very legitimately give those institutions some trepidation about that person's character or reliability.
But someone makes some shitty jokes and provocative statements a decade ago and has clearly disowned that edginess and changed his behavior, and the sentiment from a lot of those same people is "Good, off with his head."
What's the X-factor, you're not entitled to have a change of character if you're marginally famous? You only get that benefit of the doubt if you're someone that your advocates will pat themselves on the back for helping with the understanding that they'll never actually have to see or hear about you again?
Much ado has been made here lately about the term "outrage culture" being some taboo alt-right dogwhistle, but this makes a clear case of it being a real and troubling thing. You want an employer to hire someone that's done something so bad it got them locked up, but some tasteless jokes in someone's past are just a bridge too far. That's wildly inconsistent logic and clear hypocrisy. You can't advocate for rehabilitating bad behavior then go happily dragging old shit out like this and using it to shame someone out of a job.
So people who made jokes in line with social mores of the times should be unemployable if what is acceptable changes, even if they reform their behavior and evolve too.
If we're putting words in eachother's mouths i'm going to assume that is what you mean.
Difference being that those are shows and this was Gunn's personal twitter.
Context matters.
Whats especially stupid about this is that there is no other moral ground for the progressive left to stand on. Do you not call for Gunn to be fired just because it was brought to your attention by right wingers? They've ruined other peoples careers for the same shit so does it just not count since it was brought to their attention by the right?
Disney clearly weren't aware of these old Tweets, like a lot of people weren't aware but he did a fine job with his work on the MCU movies, so I wouldn't go as far to say they shouldn't have hired him.
People do or say stupid things when they are younger, we all do but being in the public eye, there is a certain expectation that people have, so this has clearly come back to haunt him now.
His apologies seems real though, so I have no issue with him going forward.
Yeah. I don't think it's right how someone's stupid stream of consciousness can be dig up 10 years later to derail their career. Tweets should be automatically deleted after 7 years, like bankruptcy on your credit score.
There's going to be a massive social media backlash in the future, and we're seeing the beginning of it now. Imagine all of the future adults who will be fired for jokes they made as kids.
I don't get the fury though.
He wrote these tweets. He did not take them down. He apparently thought they were ok. He was a 40 year old man at the time, so it wasn't stupidity of youth.
In this era, he's got to face the consequences. Many people critique Trump and haven't had their careers ruined. Largely because they haven't done anything to warrant it.
I just don't see the two situations as equivalent. Regardless of whether or not it was a hit job, Al Franken's actions were inexcusable and he only apologised after he was caught. He's trash and so is anyone defending him. James Gunn on the other hand made horrible tweets 10 years ago that he's since apologised for and made good on the apology by not continuing to make those kinds of tweets. Regardless of whether both campaigns were launched by right wing actors acting in bad faith they are not equivalent situations
User banned (1 day): trolling; encouraging other users to break site rules.
Mod edit: text removed.
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I mean, people eqauting this to stand up jokes or jokes written on TV are using a false equalivancy. Or, at least, I think so.
Where you're making a joke for a character you're talking about something detached from the writer. Like when Chappelle talks about Cosby as a superhero who he found out enjoys rape, he's talking about it from afar. If he were talking about himself as a superhero who likes to rape, that going to viewed a lot differently than the former. The former may be uncomfortable or inappropriate for a lot of people, but the latter is going to make people wonder if Chappelle is either a rapist himself or is condoning rape.
Like, in relation to this, it's one thing if Gunn posted out a joke like, 'Expendables was so manly saw a dude get super jacked and fucked a sissy boy he was sitting beside.' Its different when he says, 'Expendables is so manly I got super jacked and fucked a sissy boy I was sitting beside.'
There's arguments to be made that those two aren't different, but I'm sorry, most people are going to look at that interjection of yourself in that totally differently than something third person, especially if there's no direct indication you are channeling some fictional persona or whatever.
Where you're making a joke for a character you're talking about something detached from the writer. Like when Chappelle talks about Cosby as a superhero who he found out enjoys rape, he's talking about it from afar. If he were talking about himself as a superhero who likes to rape, that going to viewed a lot differently than the former. The former may be uncomfortable or inappropriate for a lot of people, but the latter is going to make people wonder if Chappelle is either a rapist himself or is condoning rape.
Like, in relation to this, it's one thing if Gunn posted out a joke like, 'Expendables was so manly saw a dude get super jacked and fucked a sissy boy he was sitting beside.' Its different when he says, 'Expendables is so manly I got super jacked and fucked a sissy boy I was sitting beside.'
There's arguments to be made that those two aren't different, but I'm sorry, most people are going to look at that interjection of yourself in that totally differently than something third person, especially if there's no direct indication you are channeling some fictional persona or whatever.
That's not how it works though. Comedians tend to exagerate and say things they never thought about just to make another joke and be at the center of attention.
Then they could've fired him then months after he was hired afterwards when he was apologizing for his shit back then. Like he was a relative unknown at this point why would they want to keep him if he was under fire for this stuff or even bring him back. Even then a majority of the people that wanted him fired were the alt right idiots and most saw through this and didn't say too much. Even in the other thread people were calling out how this was a hit by the alt right who wanted to fire him and how he made those comments almost 10 years ago, apologize and became a better person since then. People were ready to ignore this and Disney took the alt right bait anyway even though hardly anyone would've cared and would wanted him to be fired.
I think they genuinely did not know about the rape and pedophilia joke stuff. The apologies from 2012 that everyone is bringing up seem to focus on 2011 posts about "super heroes you want to have sex with."
The thread is about Gunn. Why would he assume he isn't the topic of conversation? I think everyone knows making jokes centered around exposing priests and the like doesn't mean you have pedo fantasies.
The topic is Gunn. He talked about raping the boy pussy next to him and making a movie about 3 men and the baby they raped, amongst other things. Seeing continued instances of that kind of content is going to make me think you might engage in pedophilia.
I didn't explain myself well. Refer to the above.