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ZattMurdock

ZattMurdock

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,333
Earth 616
It also came through in Gunn's art that he either was the victim of some sort of abuse or was in some way intimately familiar with what people that have gone through it feel like.

Lindsay Ellis' video essay on GotG vol. 2 does a good breakdown of how the film deals with those sorts of themes.



In light of Gunn's own statements about his past experience with abuse, it really drives home for me how wrong this situation was handled and the fucked up irony of it all; whether it's people trying to assassinate his character through baseless accusations of behavior that he himself was a victim of, or whether it's the story of the Guardians who have all come from some sort of abuse and are trying to heal and find love as adults, to break the chain of abuse and find redemption for the hurtful things they may have done in the past.

If this was about a fallout over creative differences or Gunn was accused of really vile and hurtful behavior or many other valid reasons why someone would be fired or abruptly leave a position directing a movie like that, I would have accepted it. I really like the GotG films, but even I think of what it would be like if someone else was able to take the reigns on that universe. This story is like the opposite of a scandal where every rock you overturn brings up more ugliness about a person's past; here it's like the more I learn about Gunn as a person, the more I realize that Disney really made a mistake.


Extremely well said post. And this Lindsay's video never gets old, truly recommend it to anyone that haven't watched yet.
 

Koo

Member
Dec 10, 2017
1,863
Doesn't that make it even worse he joked about raping kids then? Not sure how this puts him in a better light.
 

MrKlaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,038
This gives much needed context that does not need to be buried several 100 posts in for most users to not see.

The context is huge. Makes the selective retweets/out of context quotes look pretty bad and makes any knee jerk decision made on the basis of those look very bad
 

DarkLordMalik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,626
Guardians of the Galaxy films are the only ones in the MCU that have connected to me in a different way.

This thread makes it even more sad.
 

TheCthultist

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,442
New York
Doesn't that make it even worse he joked about raping kids then? Not sure how this puts him in a better light.
It doesn't. But people want that movie ^^ So add another boulder to the 'bring him back' mound.
The context makes a huge difference here, which I thought was explained pretty well in the OP. May want to give it another read yourselves just to be sure. As someone who didn't care much for either Guardians movie and couldn't give less of a fuck about a third, I've got no horse in the race you're bringing up and still find this information to make a big difference in how what he said should be taken.

Dark humor's an easy way to deal with trauma, particularly trauma that's too far in the past to do anything about but still haunts you in spite of it. You can see examples of this sort of thing being used as a coping mechanism all over the place. So maybe put a little more effort into your argument than none at all and then come back and try again...
 

NO!R

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,742
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

Like, I find the firing and the tweets "outrage" ridiculous to begin with, but the spectacle here is fascinating.

He's a veritable victim now, and fuck you if you dare victim blame.
 

Khanimus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
40,170
Greater Vancouver
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

Like, I find the firing and the tweets "outrage" ridiculous to begin with, but the spectacle here is fascinating.

He's a veritable victim now, and fuck you if you dare victim blame.
There's a distinct difference between condemning behavior that goes unacknowledged vs. Something Gunn has commented on multiple times whilst trying to be a positive voice via his platform over the last few years.

Maybe, just maybe, people believe in demonstrable change.
 

Avitus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,906
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

Reformation and being remorseful matter. They are old tweets, already apologized for, and don't represent his behavior or who he is today. It's not similar to, say, the Roseanne situation.

If you condemn Gunn in this situation you are in favor of:
1.) weaponized outrage, no matter the context
2.) never growing or changing
 

bye

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,419
Phoenix, AZ
User Banned (3 Days): Inflammatory Drive-by Post
That's quite the essay typed out just because we are upset nerd culture guy got fired after joking about rape and pedophilia.
 

Avitus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,906
That's quite the essay typed out just because we are upset nerd culture guy got fired after joking about rape and pedophilia.

It would be more accurate to say that he was fired because an alt-right group dredged up old tweets that Disney was already aware of because Gunn had the audacity to criticize Trump.
 

airjoca

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
805
Portugal
People make up their minds about something.

New shit comes to light.

People dismiss it because their mind is made up.


People...
 

NO!R

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,742
There's a distinct difference between condemning behavior that goes unacknowledged vs. Something Gunn has commented on multiple times whilst trying to be a positive voice via his platform over the last few years.

Maybe, just maybe, people believe in demonstrable change.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if he was fired or not, and could care less who blew the whistle and who fell for it. You can totally call me out on an inflammatory drive-by, but I really think we should take a look a which public figures get a good second look, and why they do. That's all.
 

Deleted member 15326

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,219
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

Like, I find the firing and the tweets "outrage" ridiculous to begin with, but the spectacle here is fascinating.

He's a veritable victim now, and fuck you if you dare victim blame.

What are you talking about

The prevailing feeling here is that people defending Gunn are fanboys, closeted pedophiles, defenders of white supremacy or a mix of the three. Mods are cool with people insulting others about it freely as long as it's funny.
 

Alexandros

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,800
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

It's not because of that. It's because Gunn was a vocal Trump critic and the alt-right started this whole thing.
 

Alice

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,867
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if he was fired or not, and could care less who blew the whistle and who fell for it. You can totally call me out on an inflammatory drive-by, but I really think we should take a look a which public figures get a good second look, and why they do. That's all.

"I don't care if this is a campaign built by Nazis using faked and out of context things to get someone fired who has repeatedly apologized and made up for the things he said" Is what you're saying right now.

You failed to elaborate on the double standards bit, though.
 
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Khanimus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
40,170
Greater Vancouver
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if he was fired or not, and could care less who blew the whistle and who fell for it. You can totally call me out on an inflammatory drive-by, but I really think we should take a look a which public figures get a good second look, and why they do. That's all.
You don't give a shit that a Pizzagate conspirator targets people who criticize Trump, or the precedent this sets against progressive voices everywhere? Shit like this validates this method of character assassination by alt-right harassers.
 

TheCthultist

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,442
New York
A guy who very well was a victim of it himself. Watch it bro
And in an OP written up by someone who was directly effected by such things themselves. It's not hard to follow the thread of why this story MIGHT, just might have an impact on people beyond it just being some "nerd culture" stuff... but maybe we're just expecting too much out of people...
 

Serif

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
3,789
It's kind of embarrassing to behold the double standards on this forum, which loves to condemn political incorrectness, when going to bat for this guy just because he's nerd culture darling.

Like, I find the firing and the tweets "outrage" ridiculous to begin with, but the spectacle here is fascinating.

He's a veritable victim now, and fuck you if you dare victim blame.
That's quite the essay typed out just because we are upset nerd culture guy got fired after joking about rape and pedophilia.

Reading comprehension and empathy are in short supply.
 

Scrooge McDuck

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
3,038
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if he was fired or not, and could care less who blew the whistle and who fell for it. You can totally call me out on an inflammatory drive-by, but I really think we should take a look a which public figures get a good second look, and why they do. That's all.
I think that your assumption about the which and the why is off the mark.

Your accusation of double standards could be more understandable if you actually offer an example of another case that's exactly like Gunn's, yet treated differently by people in this forum.
 

Koo

Member
Dec 10, 2017
1,863
The context makes a huge difference here, which I thought was explained pretty well in the OP. May want to give it another read yourselves just to be sure. As someone who didn't care much for either Guardians movie and couldn't give less of a fuck about a third, I've got no horse in the race you're bringing up and still find this information to make a big difference in how what he said should be taken.

Dark humor's an easy way to deal with trauma, particularly trauma that's too far in the past to do anything about but still haunts you in spite of it. You can see examples of this sort of thing being used as a coping mechanism all over the place. So maybe put a little more effort into your argument than none at all and then come back and try again...
I don't think it makes a difference at all. I don't have an argument except having friends who were molested when you were kids doesn't give you some free pass to make jokes about raping kids when you're 40 years old. How this article is supposed to put things in a better light, I don't know because I think it makes his tweets worse considering the history of him growing up around this.

It's like people are saying; 'Oh well he's a victim of molestation (which is only inferred) so of course he'd make jokes about raping kids. How tragic for him this inevitability that sprung from his childhood and manifested itself 30 years later.' The logic doesn't follow and seems like a desperate attempt to shame people who weren't fully on Gunn's side.
 

Cuburger

Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,975
You'd think that the context would stop people from acting like all the tweets that he got fired for were "jokes about raping kids".

You'd think we wouldn't get the same people saying this is just about fanboys defending someone that makes their favorite movies and other disingenuous arguments.
 

Riversands

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
5,669
edit: a dissenting opinion that isn't worth leaving up for the arguments it would drag me into.
Such an irony. You deleted your whole post to rewrite a new one. Im afraid you are using strawman fallacy, we never defended him for throwing a kid to the street.

My question is: did he even do that? Did he even have an allegation about paedophilia? If you think he had, show us the proof. This one is called "Burden of Proof" fallacy. When you have an accusation, you are the one to prove it to us, not the other way around. So far he has no any allegation towards that except those "jokes" with the context taken out.

Before you do another strawman fallacy, i will point out that i do not say he is right, but sometimes there is middle ground, not everything is A or Z
 
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Alexandros

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,800
As someone who doesn't really care if Gunn gets rehired or not, I think I should clarify my own opinion on the matter so that people know where I stand on this since I post very frequently in MCU threads.

When I say that I don't really care if Gunn is rehired or not, I mean on the political side of things. As an MCU fan, I didn't enjoy the second Guardians movie as much as the first one, so I would like to see a different writer and director handle the third movie. This is just a personal preference and it doesn't influence my opinion on the moral and political side of the argument.

On the moral side of things, Gunn's tweets were absolutely awful. Truly disgusting stuff for a 40-year-old non-comedian to say, and on the edge of being completely unacceptable even if he was a comedian doing an edgy and provocative stand-up routine. Now, me saying that doesn't mean that people should be forbidden from making those kinds of jokes, I'm not a fan of censorship in comedy, but I still do have the right to listen to someone's material and decide that it's horrible and that I never want to listen to it again. I'm not a native english speaker so I hope that I managed to adequately explain my position on the matter of whether or not certain jokes should be banned from comedy.

I am unconvinced that Gunn really changed as a person. As far as I can understand from the timeline of events, Gunn was still making those jokes until right before he was hired by Disney. Someone please correct me if that isn't the case. His apology for the tweets and his changed behavior came after he landed the gig at Disney. So in my opinion there is no way to know for sure if Gunn actually changed and grew as a person or if he simply stopped making these jokes because his new job demanded it. It is possible of course that the job itself gave him the chance to change and improve himself, however if we want to be honest we have to also acknowledge the possibility that Gunn is still the same person. This is why I have no strong opinion on the matter of whether or not he should be rehired.

On the political side of things, it's clear that Gunn was targeted by the alt-right. I don't care. I have a set of moral principles and I judge people according to them. It doesn't matter how this issue was unearthed. The only thing that matters is whether or not Gunn is a decent person or not. If I was certain that Gunn was a changed man I would be on the "rehire him" side. If I was certain he's still the same person I would be on the "let him stay fired" side. In any case it wouldn't matter who started the issue. Getting Gunn fired is a minor victory for the alt-right. Had they forced people to compromise on their morals in order to support "one of their own", that would have been a major victory for the alt-right. I don't bend my morals like that for anyone.
 

Riversands

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
5,669
You'd think we wouldn't get the same people saying this is just about fanboys defending someone that makes their favorite movies and other disingenuous arguments.

This doesnt make any sense. I dont enjoy gotg 2 that much but it doesnt have anything to do with this.
I am unconvinced that Gunn really changed as a person.

Interesting. So it is pretty clear you didnt read the article. The tweets were contextual, but i dont think you will even care. You say the possibility he may not be as good as people say he is..... maybe. But i will optimistic until there is a another proof.

Btw, if i apply your logic in resetera.. can i say all people in this forum are bad since they cannot convince me they are good people?
 

Psittacus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,932
I am unconvinced that Gunn really changed as a person. As far as I can understand from the timeline of events, Gunn was still making those jokes until right before he was hired by Disney. Someone please correct me if that isn't the case. His apology for the tweets and his changed behavior came after he landed the gig at Disney. So in my opinion there is no way to know for sure if Gunn actually changed and grew as a person or if he simply stopped making these jokes because his new job demanded it. It is possible of course that the job itself gave him the chance to change and improve himself, however if we want to be honest we have to also acknowledge the possibility that Gunn is still the same person. This is why I have no strong opinion on the matter of whether or not he should be rehired.
I don't hugely care about the difference between genuine changes and a clever facade that is never lifted since the outcome is the same in the end. Now if he were to go back to being an edgy shitheel now that he's been fired we'd have something to talk about.
 

Alexandros

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,800
Btw, if i apply your logic in resetera.. can i say all people in this forum are bad since they cannot convince me they are good people?

That's a strange way to interpret what I said. Of course all people are decent until proven otherwise. Gunn's tweets made him a not-great person in my eyes and I don't know if he still is a not-great person now.
 

Koo

Member
Dec 10, 2017
1,863
Interesting. So it is pretty clear you didnt read the article. The tweets were contextual, but i dont think you will even care. You say the possibility he may not be as good as people say he is..... maybe. But i will optimistic until there is a another proof.

Btw, if i apply your logic in resetera.. can i say all people in this forum are bad since they cannot convince me they are good people?
Why do you keep asking if someone has read the article. Just because they have a different opinion than you doesn't mean they haven't read the same thing you've read.

Also it would be more like you knowing a resetera member has made a bunch of horribly offensive jokes. You would probably always wonder if they still thought that way years later even if they hadn't made a similar joke since then because you said you didn't like it.
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,731
It certainly puts some context around the man. I wonder if it will make some Resetters rethink or just doubledown.

Disney should completely backtrack on this shit. They won't but they should.
 

EarthPainting

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,875
Town adjacent to Silent Hill
While this additional background information is welcome and helps contextualise things, I don't think it changes much. We're ultimately still talking about a decade old "jokes" that the man already publicly apologised for years ago. I don't like the idea that people can be permanently ruined by their past, even if they regret it and tried to own it and move on. We need to give them the room to grow and better themselves, similarly to how prisons should be about rehabilitation, rather than punishment.

Disney was wrong to let the dude go, and double wrong for caving into pressure of bad-faith concern trolls with ulterior motives.
 

Alice

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,867
Also it would be more like you knowing a resetera member has made a bunch of horribly offensive jokes. You would probably always wonder if they still thought that way years later even if they hadn't made a similar joke since then because you said you didn't like it.

I, too, think a lot about the jokes people on the other board used to make back in 2009.

... actually, no, I really don't.
 

Deleted member 15326

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,219
That's a strange way to interpret what I said. Of course all people are decent until proven otherwise. Gunn's tweets made him a not-great person in my eyes and I don't know if he still is a not-great person now.

It seems pointless to hint at the possibility of redemption in your eyes since it will never be possible for you to know unequivocally whether he's changed and you've already decided that none of his actions thus far are convincing.

You don't like Gunn's work, you've written him off as a person, and you think poorly of anyone else who hasn't. Nothing has really changed from your previous posts.
 

Riversands

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
5,669
That's a strange way to interpret what I said. Of course all people are decent until proven otherwise. Gunn's tweets made him a not-great person in my eyes and I don't know if he still is a not-great person now.
But you are literally using that logic. Anyhow, it doesnt matter anymore since this is more like a personal opinion which i dont think i can interfere. There is a truth in you, I admit even though i do not agree. But someday i wish you understand that words can be manipulated over the context, I can relate to gunn because I have already witnessed a good guy got jailed for saying a statement stripped out of context. It is kinda sad to see it happening again to another person even though he started ot first which of course is also part of his fault nonetheless
 
Oct 25, 2017
23,202
I love how you still have people running into these threads and calling everyone on this board hypocrites despite how many times it's been explained that this isn't the same as other situations. I get it's the internet, and it's real fun to be on some "It's all or nothing" shit, but understanding that nuance is a thing typically makes for better discussion
 

Cort

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,352
As someone who doesn't really care if Gunn gets rehired or not, I think I should clarify my own opinion on the matter so that people know where I stand on this since I post very frequently in MCU threads.

When I say that I don't really care if Gunn is rehired or not, I mean on the political side of things. As an MCU fan, I didn't enjoy the second Guardians movie as much as the first one, so I would like to see a different writer and director handle the third movie. This is just a personal preference and it doesn't influence my opinion on the moral and political side of the argument.

On the moral side of things, Gunn's tweets were absolutely awful. Truly disgusting stuff for a 40-year-old non-comedian to say, and on the edge of being completely unacceptable even if he was a comedian doing an edgy and provocative stand-up routine. Now, me saying that doesn't mean that people should be forbidden from making those kinds of jokes, I'm not a fan of censorship in comedy, but I still do have the right to listen to someone's material and decide that it's horrible and that I never want to listen to it again. I'm not a native english speaker so I hope that I managed to adequately explain my position on the matter of whether or not certain jokes should be banned from comedy.

I am unconvinced that Gunn really changed as a person. As far as I can understand from the timeline of events, Gunn was still making those jokes until right before he was hired by Disney. Someone please correct me if that isn't the case. His apology for the tweets and his changed behavior came after he landed the gig at Disney. So in my opinion there is no way to know for sure if Gunn actually changed and grew as a person or if he simply stopped making these jokes because his new job demanded it. It is possible of course that the job itself gave him the chance to change and improve himself, however if we want to be honest we have to also acknowledge the possibility that Gunn is still the same person. This is why I have no strong opinion on the matter of whether or not he should be rehired.

On the political side of things, it's clear that Gunn was targeted by the alt-right. I don't care. I have a set of moral principles and I judge people according to them. It doesn't matter how this issue was unearthed. The only thing that matters is whether or not Gunn is a decent person or not. If I was certain that Gunn was a changed man I would be on the "rehire him" side. If I was certain he's still the same person I would be on the "let him stay fired" side. In any case it wouldn't matter who started the issue. Getting Gunn fired is a minor victory for the alt-right. Had they forced people to compromise on their morals in order to support "one of their own", that would have been a major victory for the alt-right. I don't bend my morals like that for anyone.

It's okay to share that opinion. I find those jokes to be pretty terrible and pretty not funny. However, the issue for me on this whole thing is that James Gunn presented his portfolio to Disney, and Disney assigned him to be a director on one of their flagship movies. And this was after movies like Tromeo and Juliette and Slither. Literally the last movie he directed before Guardians of the Galaxy was Super. A movie where Ellen Page rapes a man(this isn't the scene but a funny video reflecting on this Disney situation, so it's SFW).

It's why I can't take Disney's statement regarding the situation seriously at all. Gunn "Not fitting our family-friendly image" is a joke; he was fired because of those jokes he was hired for.
 

Riversands

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
5,669
Also it would be more like you knowing a resetera member has made a bunch of horribly offensive jokes. You would probably always wonder if they still thought that way years later even if they hadn't made a similar joke since then because you said you didn't like it.

Im okay with that. I will assume they are good enough depending on they have been posting recently. Their own personal opinion will not be a disturbance to me since there is no way i can know what they are really having in mind. It's their own personal space, and im not a clairvoyance. There is nothing i can do in that case

Why do you keep asking if someone has read the article. Just because they have a different opinion than you doesn't mean they haven't read the same thing you've read.

Because you are judging it unfairly. Let's say you are a judge. Will you be a judge who only hear the prosecutor's side of story or both sides of story?
 

AlexFlame116

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
23,177
Utah
I really don't understand why some people try to use the quality of the second GOTG movie to justify Gunn's firing. Like, if you don't like the movie then that's fine. But to suddenly want another person in charge just because you found the second movie to not be as good as the first is odd to me. If it was the second or third attempt and it still wasn't good then you have more grounds to say that.

But only after one attempt?
 

Buran

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
365
I don't like the GotG movies and wasn't aware of all this thing about this twits, but after reading this thread I have a feeling like after seing Mystic River: that a victim got lynched. It also reminds me Jagten (The Hunt) in the way in which group behaviour are oftenly prone to prejudgement.
 

Protome

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,677
I really don't understand why some people try to use the quality of the second GOTG movie to justify Gunn's firing. Like, if you don't like the movie then that's fine. But to suddenly want another person in charge just because you found the second movie to not be as good as the first is odd to me. If it was the second or third attempt and it still wasn't good then you have more grounds to say that.

But only after one attempt?
Regardless, the quality of his films is completely irrelevant to the whole conversation and people only keep bringing it up to divert away from the fact that they're happy to side with a literal Nazi's smear campaign of Gunn.

GOTG 1 and 2 could be the worst movies in the world and that still wouldn't justify what happened.
 

AlexFlame116

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
23,177
Utah
Regardless, the quality of his films is completely irrelevant to the whole conversation and people only keep bringing it up to divert away from the fact that they're happy to side with a literal Nazi's smear campaign of Gunn.

GOTG 1 and 2 could be the worst movies in the world and that still wouldn't justify what happened.
I totally agree on the quality of the movies being completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. It just boggles me as to why anyone would try to approach this issue with that in mind.
 

Alice

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,867
It just fits into the narrative of "Y'all just defending because y'all fanboys" - His films only have so much to do with it, that he wouldn't be famous without them, and if he wasn't famous, they wouldn't even have bothered to try and take him down.
 

Koo

Member
Dec 10, 2017
1,863
Because you are judging it unfairly. Let's say you are a judge. Will you be a judge who only hear the prosecutor's side of story or both sides of story?
No, it's more like I'm a judge who has in fact heard both sides of the case, but then you are saying I haven't for no reason.
 
Oct 27, 2017
11,506
Bandung Indonesia
While this additional background information is welcome and helps contextualise things, I don't think it changes much. We're ultimately still talking about a decade old "jokes" that the man already publicly apologised for years ago. I don't like the idea that people can be permanently ruined by their past, even if they regret it and tried to own it and move on. We need to give them the room to grow and better themselves, similarly to how prisons should be about rehabilitation, rather than punishment.

Disney was wrong to let the dude go, and double wrong for caving into pressure of bad-faith concern trolls with ulterior motives.

In the context of Gunn's relationship with Disney, does the fact that Disney cut ties with him truly makes him 'permanently ruined'? Does the fact that he no longer work with Disney muffled his ability to direct another movie? He's not allowed to create another piece of art? Maybe this can be viewed as consequence catching up to him due to what he did in the past, and not something that is 'permanently ruining' his life. He can move on to new things after this.
 
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