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Forums - Movies & TV - Disney fires 'Guardians of the Galaxy' director James Gunn over 'indefensible' old tweets

KManX89 on 24 July 2018
LordLichtenstein said:
You trying to dictate what people can/can't joke about, is you being against freedom of speech.

1st amendment rights aren't protected from private institutions, only from the government. Your employer is free to enforce whatever rules for dress/conduct as they please. For starters, showing up drunk to work isn't (necessarily) a crime, but you'll still get fired for it. They're also free to fire you for making inappropriate comments on Twitter if it hurts their brand and, by extension, their bottom line, in the case of Roseanne and James Gunn.

As for the topic at hand, it's a tough one. While I do believe in statue of limitations for saying dumb things on Twitter in the workforce, the fact that he made 10k+ Tweets on the matter leads me to believe they were more than just sick jokes. And while working for a company primarily aimed at kids? Yeah, a guy poking fun at pedophilia isn't a good look for them, so I get why they fired him. 

Apparently, it all stems from a group of conservative pundits trying to dig up dirt on him to get him fired for taking shots at Trump, which I also have mixed feelings about. While it was petty to try to get the guy fired over political disagreements, there's no excuse for the disgusting Tweets he wrote, joking or not. The guy clearly needs help and I understand why he was let go. 



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o_O.Q on 24 July 2018
Alara317 said:
o_O.Q said:

she said someone looked like a monkey... so?

am i truly supposed to believe you have not insulted someone in a similar fashion at any point?

I have never, ever called a black woman a monkey. Hasn't even occurred to me. In fact, the one time I caught my father calling a black man and his daughter a monkey, I walked out of Tim Hortons and we've not spoken since. That was 2010. 

So no. I am not racist (At least not that way, for sure).

but you have intentionally offended people before haven't you?

are you as upset about other methods of disrespecting people or do you draw the line at just this?



o_O.Q on 24 July 2018
Shadow1980 said:

Mike Cernovich is a scumbag. This guy is nothing short of a trollish provocateur who peddles conspiracies like "Pizzagate" and digs through old tweets to try to get people he doesn't like fired. Sure, Gunn's tweets were vulgar and tasteless, but he shouldn't lose his job over some crass jokes he made long before he ever worked for Disney. Even if it offends me personally, it doesn't affect me personally in any meaningful way. "It doesn't pick my pocket or break my back" to borrow a quote from Thomas Jefferson. I watch movies starring and/or directed by individuals who not only have said things offensive to me, but also have beliefs contrary to mine, and maybe have even done horrible things as individuals. Because at the end of the day, their job is to entertain. I can fully separate a person's art from the person's beliefs and actions.

Now, I do understand that free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, and that social pressure is a very real thing and as a result companies are nervous as hell about any negative PR and treat anyone who isn't squeaky clean as a toxic asset that must dumped. That's understandable, and maybe even reasonable from a business perspective. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with it. Again, his job is to entertain. His sick and offensive sense of "humor" has no bearing on his ability to direct actors and a crew. It's not like he's a politician that's making or passing laws on our behalf. A politician's character, attitudes, beliefs, and actions are extremely important and do matter for their job.

And honestly, this whole thing is one of the times I feel like the invention of the internet, or at the very least social media specifically, might have been a bad idea. Some people do stupid shit, and others exploit that for political reasons. It's just an awful mess all around. I liked the internet better before it went mainstream, when it was mostly a few half-completed pages on GeoCities. Before the dark times, before social media, before "chan culture," before everyone with a keyboard or phone could give us "hot takes" on everything and immediately broadcast every little thought they have, before all the other things that are embarrassments to this whole species. Maybe, just maybe giving everybody a platform wasn't a good idea after all. Sure, we got a lot of great things. Real-time coverage of news on subjects that never get coverage on TV. Lots of excellent independent and fan works that might never exist otherwise. Lots of opportunities to discuss nerdy niche subjects like, say, video game sales or anime. But was it worth all the negatives that came out of it? There are times where I don't think it was. Every time I see something that makes me feel "This totally justifies the internet's existence," something else comes along and makes me think "Worst. Invention. Ever."

Uh, well, uh, okay. Anyway I, I know it's kinda been a roundabout way of saying it, but I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is:

I HATE SAUERKRAUT!

Oh, and Disney better not fuck up GotG 3.

 

"and digs through old tweets to try to get people he doesn't like fired. "

which only works because of the idiocy of the left, they don't get that the more they fight to constrain the space in which people are allowed to operate unreasonably the tighter they draw the noose around their own necks

its like all the male feminists who have recently been outed for sexual abuse against women when they themselves were trying to push the standards for interaction with women into absurd territory and as they say, you make your bed you lie in it



EricHiggin on 24 July 2018
Shadow1980 said:

Mike Cernovich is a scumbag. This guy is nothing short of a trollish provocateur who peddles conspiracies like "Pizzagate" and digs through old tweets to try to get people he doesn't like fired. Sure, Gunn's tweets were vulgar and tasteless, but he shouldn't lose his job over some crass jokes he made long before he ever worked for Disney. Even if it offends me personally, it doesn't affect me personally in any meaningful way. "It doesn't pick my pocket or break my back" to borrow a quote from Thomas Jefferson. I watch movies starring and/or directed by individuals who not only have said things offensive to me, but also have beliefs contrary to mine, and maybe have even done horrible things as individuals. Because at the end of the day, their job is to entertain. I can fully separate a person's art from the person's beliefs and actions.

Now, I do understand that free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, and that social pressure is a very real thing and as a result companies are nervous as hell about any negative PR and treat anyone who isn't squeaky clean as a toxic asset that must dumped. That's understandable, and maybe even reasonable from a business perspective. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with it. Again, his job is to entertain. His sick and offensive sense of "humor" has no bearing on his ability to direct actors and a crew. It's not like he's a politician that's making or passing laws on our behalf. A politician's character, attitudes, beliefs, and actions are extremely important and do matter for their job.

And honestly, this whole thing is one of the times I feel like the invention of the internet, or at the very least social media specifically, might have been a bad idea. Some people do stupid shit, and others exploit that for political reasons. It's just an awful mess all around. I liked the internet better before it went mainstream, when it was mostly a few half-completed pages on GeoCities. Before the dark times, before social media, before "chan culture," before everyone with a keyboard or phone could give us "hot takes" on everything and immediately broadcast every little thought they have, before all the other things that are embarrassments to this whole species. Maybe, just maybe giving everybody a platform wasn't a good idea after all. Sure, we got a lot of great things. Real-time coverage of news on subjects that never get coverage on TV. Lots of excellent independent and fan works that might never exist otherwise. Lots of opportunities to discuss nerdy niche subjects like, say, video game sales or anime. But was it worth all the negatives that came out of it? There are times where I don't think it was. Every time I see something that makes me feel "This totally justifies the internet's existence," something else comes along and makes me think "Worst. Invention. Ever."

Uh, well, uh, okay. Anyway I, I know it's kinda been a roundabout way of saying it, but I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is:

I HATE SAUERKRAUT!

Oh, and Disney better not fuck up GotG 3.

There are groups of Conservatives that are trying something new. Instead of just putting up with the constant backlash from the left, they are trying to fight fire with fire, to see how it goes. The whole Roseanne thing was mostly the left having their way while also sending a message to the right. The right decided they were going to use this against the left to give them a taste of their own medicine, and see how they react. If the left folds, the right will continue to play copycat when it comes to other matters and cause even more headaches for them. If the left continue this, or crank it up a notch or two, the right will most likely give up after a while, but will still see this as a big win because it will make the left look even more outrageous to many who are center or right.

As for the internet, it has opened many doors for people to do their own thing and not be directly tied down to some big corporation. Just look at YouTube and what it has done to the world of big media. The internet has also helped build big mega corps like Google and Amazon, but they aren't exactly trying to take over the world and make people lives worse overall. To me, the internet is like alcohol. Once you've tried it a few times, you learn the limits pretty quickly and after that point in time it's up to you to decide how you want to use this new tool. Do you want to enjoy a beverage every now and then in the comfort and privacy of your own home, or do you want to get smashed at a bar with a bunch of wild people doing outlandish things in public? The public scene is much more risky, but can also be much more rewarding. It's a gamble, and sometimes you lose.



haxxiy on 24 July 2018
LordLichtenstein said:
Majin-Tenshinhan said:

It's subjective. How we as readers interprets his tweets is on us, not him. That is at least my opinion. The reality is that some jokes reads just as while others don't - we all communicate differently. Instead of assuming the worst in people how about we give them a chance to explain themselves and/or apologize? Which is what he did - James did explain himself and he did apologize. What more do people want? 

Many were familiar with his past behaviour before these tweets "resurfaced", and Disney had to have been too. Suggesting they weren't would be ludacris. Back in 2012 Disney vetted James and decided hired him, dispite knowing about his "controversial" background. And not once, at least to what I'm aware, has he made similar jokes while working at Disney. If it wasn't a problem then, it shouldn't be a problem now.

Thankfully, however, in law we have created average standards to judge people who wants to hide behind the blank defense of subjectivity for quite a while already.

To claim the status of a joke does not exempt one from that rule. There are some things people are well within their rights to be offended. To claim you are entitled to express yourself when you are fully aware of that (and it's something the common man or woman would understand and agree on it as an offense) does not make you a defender of freedom of speech, it just makes you someone really obnoxious.

Something worthy of note here. There is a latin phrase that reads "ridendo castigat mores" (laughter punishes customs) which is often misinterpreted as talking about a way to use humor to point out and change conservative rules or morals, but it's far subtler than that. It's more about the fact that making fun and joking may be a way to put perceived deviancy on it's proper place: the opposite of the meaning perceived by some!

That's why I believe jokes targeting women, minorities etc. should not be taken as mere jokes on civilized democracies. Their cultural charge, so to speak, goes much deeper than that.



 

 

 

 

 

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Ganoncrotch on 25 July 2018

could all the people who want to use the logic of

"he wrote about sex with children ergo he must have sex with children"

Please also remember

"he wrote the story of guardians of the galaxy, which must mean he also saved the galaxy"

Because everything you write becomes reality.



Why not check me out on youtube and help me on the way to 2k subs over at www.youtube.com/stormcloudlive

KManX89 on 25 July 2018
mZuzek said:
Shadow1980 said:
Disney better not fuck up GotG 3.

They already have.

Good post, by the way.

Not if they keep his script, they won't. 



Jaicee on 26 July 2018

*sighs*

I hate people like Mike Cernovich. He was arrested for rape in 2003 and settled the case for $50,000 (which, to translate legalities, means he was probably guilty). That seems to be the root of his obsession with the topic of rape: with defending it in principle while claiming that most are "false allegations". But because he cynically leads this crusade to get a Trump opponent fired by Disney for decade-old tweets, somehow the #MeToo movement, which didn't even participate, gets the blame. Of course, that's the whole point. He gets a political opponent fired AND gets sexual violence against girls and women taken less seriously as a subject all at once. I hate him.

Mr. Cernovich has a lot of interesting quotes about rape on social media that are all more recent than James Gunn's. Here are a few of them.

Don't get me wrong, the quotes by Gunn that have been dredged up are pretty disgusting, but I just disdain Mike Cernovich's transparently self-serving, cynical motives here. The Pizzagate guy who thinks that "rape via an alpha male is different from other forms of rape" is NOT a champion of women's lib, sorry.

Last edited by Jaicee - on 26 July 2018

Ganoncrotch on 26 July 2018
Jaicee said:

*sighs*

I hate people like Mike Cernovich. He was arrested for rape in 2003 and settled the case for $50,000 (which, to translate legalities, means he was probably guilty). That seems to be the root of his obsession with the topic of rape: with defending it in principle while claiming that most are "false allegations". But because he cynically leads this crusade to get a Trump opponent fired by Disney for decade-old tweets, somehow the #MeToo movement, which didn't even participate, gets the blame. Of course, that's the whole point. He gets a political opponent fired AND gets sexual violence against girls and women taken less seriously as a subject all at once. I hate him.

Mr. Cernovich has a lot of interesting quotes about rape on social media that are all more recent than James Gunn's. Here are a few of them.

Don't get me wrong, the quotes by Gunn that have been dredged up are pretty disgusting, but I just disdain Mike Cernovich's transparently self-serving, cynical motives here. The Pizzagate guy who thinks that "rape via an alpha male is different from other forms of rape" is NOT a champion of women's lib, sorry.

Aye, the guy is a piece of shit but the thing is, he likes that people hate him, it's all ad revenue and interest in him for just being deplorable as a human being, the best thing people could do is unfollow and stop listening to his horrifying hate speech but they can't, in 2018 people would rather watch a documentary called "this will make you upset and angry about the world" than watch someone like David Attenborough show them the beauty that exists in the world, it's like we are obsessed with the very worst of humanity and now to a degree we champion it.



Why not check me out on youtube and help me on the way to 2k subs over at www.youtube.com/stormcloudlive

CladInShadows on 26 July 2018
shikamaru317 said:
AngryLittleAlchemist said:

To be fair, on the same token, I see a lot people saying that because the jokes weren't funny they automatically count as something overtly offensive. I don't think that's true, or fair. A joke doesn't have to be funny to miss being offensive. Otherwise, comedians would NEVER learn how to get better in their performances. Of course, James Gunn isn't a comedian and he isn't funny in those tweets. But I don't think a joke being unfunny should strip away any leniency, either. 

Also, I think your last sentence is missing the point. 10-11 years ago you REALLY COULD put what you wanted on the internet without consequences. It's hindsight and  that's what people mean I think when they say "it was a different political climate!"

I don't think he shouldn't have been fired, though.

There might not have been consequences for idiocy on the internet back then, but when you post something on the internet there is a chance that it is archived and saved forever before you can delete it. People back then should have had the foresight to see that there might be a future where the "it's just the internet" excuse no longer flies. 

Kinda reminds me of this, which aired like 20 years ago, FWIW: