Things were going all too well in the superhero-verse
leading to multiple posts about things that bother me in everyday life rather
than good old superficial interests. But then Disney decided to go and stir it
up a bit by firing the man that shaped the MCU’s cheery, fun and popular style.
Good job Disney! Next step is hiring Zack Snyder so we can see how many shades
of grey can fit in a single frame.
You may have noticed that none of the above address the
reason he was fired or are legitimate counter-arguments to why his was fired.
What if he beat up a cameraman? What if he groped Zoe Saldana? What if he is
just using these movies for money laundering? The last one could still be
true... Anyway, James Gunn was fired because ten years ago he posted some
shocking tweets. Let me repeat that. He was fired in 2018, for tweeting some
shocking tweets around 2008 with comedic intension. Let me give you some
examples;
‘The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and
it’s like, “whew this feels great, not being raped!’ and
‘ RT @peteralton I
like it when little boys touch me on my silly place. Shhh!’.
Regarding the second one, it is a fake retweet from someone
else, ‘framing’ them for paedophilia. I will be honest, some of them were a bit
hard to read, partly because of the shock factor, mostly because of the unfunny
factor. But how can we distinguish the fact that they were written out for
comedic purposes rather than actual paedophilic tendencies? Simple! Those were
publicly available for ten years and no one is investigating or even suspecting
James Gunn of being a paedophile. That means that regardless of how these were
portrayed by the questionable, conservative news sites, somehow, our brains do
not flounder with feelings of caution. No one fired Gunn because they suspect him
of behaving in this disgusting manner; there is no lawsuit, there are no #MeToo
accusations. Is Disney serious? Have they not heard of Frankie Boyle? Jokes are
limitless; these were just not funny but I never heard anything about Jimmy Fallon being
fired for not being funny. Although I would love to.
But what about Roseanne Barr? She was fired from her show
after some offensive tweets she made. Why are we fighting back for liberal
James when we were behind the decision for this Trump supporter to be fired?
Let me just paste the tweet here:
‘@MARS0411
@385parkplace and @SGTreport Muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes had a
baby=vj’
VJ refers to
former Obama advisor, Valerie Jarrett. She was fired from her show after
this tweet and people are now drawing a parallel between these two situations.
Let me explain why these two are oblique rather than parallel. While one could argue
that Roseanne is a comedienne and therefore her intention could have also been
comedic, this is a racist tweet by a racist person. If Kevin Spacey posted a
tweet about lying on top of a fourteen year-old while he was unconscious, that
would justifiably make guts turn. Moreover, Roseanne Barr attacked an
individual with this racist comment, while Peter Alton (second tweet) has worked with James
Gunn and was pseudo-attacked, again, for comedic purposes. How do we know he
did not mind? IT HAS BEEN 10 FUCKING YEARS; if he minded he would have seen the
tweet and replied, complained, trashed Gunn’s car. This is an assumption, but I
think Alton minded Gunn’s tweet less than Jarrett minded Roseanne’s. Lastly,
and this is my second weakest argument, Gunn’s tweets were 10 years ago, when
we were not aware creeps freely wandered around Hollywood, whereas we are now perfectly
aware that the US is currently suffering from a right-wing, racist, extremist
outburst. In other words, I do not think Disney worried that Gunn was giving paedophiles
ground; I cannot say the same for ABC.
Do you want to
hear my weakest argument? I think James Gunn is a decent human being that has
created something wonderful and I believe he would again; underlining the decent
human being part. When serious, he is speaking out for things completely
opposite to his poor, but still comedic-intended statements and if we judge him
for his years working for the company that fired him, he has displayed nothing
but appropriateness. So he is well fitted for this zero-tolerance era, he wasn’t
then, but it also wasn’t that sort of era. It is like people complaining that
Friends was homophobic because Chandler judged his father for being trans, in
the year 2000.
Lastly, I
realise that there is a distinction between offensive jokes and work-appropriate
ones, and once you decide to make these public you are up for related
ramifications; someone could be fired from a corporate position from ever being
associated with such statements regardless of their comedic intent. But this is
a writer. This is a comedic writer (let’s be honest, the Guardians of the
Galaxy instalments have been more comedy than action). Do the same rules apply?
Because I then want E. L. James banned from bookshops for sexually
inappropriate commentary. I am actually ok with that.
