James Gunn fired from "Guardians of The Galaxy" for offensive tweets

https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-g...ts-1202430392/

"James Gunn has been removed as director of the Guardians Of The Galaxy series after a batch of old social media dispatches were unearthed that touched on areas like pedophilia and rape. In the latest shocking #metoo development in the entertainment industry, Gunn was severed from the Marvel Comics Universe after a slew of social media posts he wrote before getting Guardians of the Galaxy surfaced. According to Fox News, they were posted because Gunn is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and the effort was to knock him down a few pegs.

Mission accomplished. Gunn has long been a provocateur who has drawn ire in the past for his unusual humor. Among the tweets that forced Disney and Marvel’s hand were: “I like when little boys touch me in my silly place.”

Another: “The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!’” There were others that made satirical comments about the 9/11 attack, AIDS and the Holocaust.

Disney responded quickly and decisively: “The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” said Alan Horn, Walt Disney Studios chairman, in a statement just released.

Disney and Marvel had never announced that Gunn would direct the third installment of Guardians of the Galaxy, but Gunn certainly declared it on social media. And after Guardians of the Galaxy 2 last summer grossed $863 million worldwide, to the original’s $773 million, there was every expectation he would remain at the helm. After all, the sly humor and tone that just crushed his career trajectory helped fuel the irreverently humorous tone of the Guardians franchise."

Is it too soon for a snap joke?

We live in a no joke society now by the look of it.


Next Tarantino will be out of work, no studio will touch him, because his movies dating back to the mid 1990s have the N word in them. And that's racist that is.

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damn.

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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear

Dammit. I hadn't seen this and posted the same thread.

Seems these days that if anyone has done anything, at any time, ever, then that's their career over and done with.


"We cannot justify hiring said actor ever again, because in 1984 they went to a fancy dress party dressed in a gorilla suit, and supporters of Harambe have discovered photos of this party, and they are offended that any actor could be so unsympathetic"

If you consider those tweets “jokes.”

This is the guy who started his career writing freaking Tromeo and Juliet. He had pretty obviously been a provocateur up until Guardians. How did Marvel/Disney not know this?

People say stupid sh*t all the time.
Firing someone for something they once said years ago is just SJW Witch-Hunting going to a new level.

"Mr. Feige, I don't feel so good... I don't want to leave, Mr. Feige!"

Nice to see that Trump supporters have hire standards for action comedy directors than they do presidents.

Also nice to see that Disney will capitulate to manufactured right-wing outrage (led by the guy who was peddling the pizza-gate conspiracy no less) within 24 hours but domestic abusers and sexual assaulters like Johnny Depp and Casey Affleck get work at major studios without much issue.

It's all about context...Without knowing the chain of events that led to those seemingly offensive tweets, no one can know how they were meant to be viewed. Still it's stupid for someone in the public's eye to say such stuff.

I’m not siding with Disney here. As Swan just said, Gunn made a name for himself in a... particular style. This all seems like something we and they probably should have seen coming. I do have to wonder why Gunn didn’t do something about those tweets earlier, though. I mean, there’s moral/ethical clauses that come with directing Disney movies, right?

Oh, and, as Braeden pointed out, the resurfacing of the tweets come from a source not at all interested in the offensive nature of the posts or any other issue of decency. I think Gunn went after Ben Shapiro and this is the retaliation.

What gets me is that people of his ilk are getting caught at and punished for these kinds of comments all the time. Literally, it's like every other day, we're hearing about some new celebrity who said something crazy is now blacklisted, no one will touch them, because they made some needless comment. Who cares how you really feel. Nobody cares, no matter how famous you are. Companies of ALL kinds are checking out what employees are saying, not just Hollywood! But you've got mothers who are looking and watching TV and seeing and hearing things they don't like ... and they're not dismissive about it. No. They're looking to see what commercials are paying for that which they find offensive and they start rallying others to boycott these companies.


Nobody can get offended anymore, whether it's by a joke, or a personal opinion, someone exercising their free speech. You can say it ... but you can't escape the consequences which, in these times, are immediate. And this all makes the news, this all gets discussed, it's no secret. So when people put their foot in their mouth to feel big for a moment, or two, I hope they're happy with themselves when, guess what? the very thing they've been hearing about all this time suddenly applies to them, too. They deserve whatever they get, just for that reason: they SEE the collateral damage happening around them and shoot off, anyway. It's very hard to feel sorry for somebody like that ...

In all seriousness about this situation, James Gunn's situation isn't one I'd compare to the one that led to Rosanne Barr's firing by ABC. Her tweets were a direct attack on someone else, whereas James Gunn's remarks were jokes (whether they're funny or not is neither here nor there), the same exact type of humor exhibited by plenty of different comedians over the years like Ricky Gervais ("I almost ran over an old lady while drunk-driving, but, in the end, I didn't hit her. In the end, I just raped her," said Ricky Gervais, a lead-character of Disney's Muppets Most Wanted). The fact the comments were made ten years ago and he had already apologized for them, also opens up a can-of-worms.

Exactly. This.


Comedian Sean Locke once said "I hear voices. Voices in my head. I just ignore them, and carry on murdering"


Maybe he too should be removed from all TV and media.


I mean, joking about murder and mental health at the same time, in one joke?
Offensive that is


Society needs to gives its collective head a wobble.

There's a friend of mine, who's actually more or less an actual Communist. So we disagree on tons of stuff. But he's a smart, thoughtful guy and I like him a lot. And he said something once that I really liked, and which I'm reminded of constantly: "I hate it when someone says the wrong thing and has to go away."

He was actually talking about Bill Maher, I think, at the time. But I think it ends up applying to people with lots of different views. I don't think we're very good, collectively, at separating bad statements or ideas from the people who express them. And while I'm not exactly sure where the line is, and certainly agree that in some cases even mere words or jokes, even old ones, are reasonable grounds for replacing someone, I'm pretty sure we're not striking a very good balance right now.

No rights issue at all, though. Disney has every right to wash their hands of this, if only for expediency.

This has nothing to do with the offensiveness of the tweets. It has everything to do with a prominent trump-supporting conspiracy theorist using offensive tweets to damage the career of a vocal critic of Trump. Mike Cernovich and co. don't care about offensive jokes, they care that they come from a guy who they dislike.

I don't like the jokes, I'm glad James Gunn has publicly apologized for them and that it's clear in his more current work that he has matured, at least a little bit, and moved past that style of humor. My issue still comes down to the fact that this was a clear and calculated move by a right wing source to go after the career of someone who spoke out against their president. The fact that they co-opted and manufactured false outrage about offensiveness while supporting Trump, who says far worse pretty much daily, just makes it more obvious.

But hey, this is America, where known abusers keep getting work, but not liking the known abuser that is our president can get you fired.

What the actual **** does this have to do with Trump?

I can understand Disney's perspective on wanting to distance themselves from the whole deal. They're a business, and business itself reacts and changes callously. That's why even though I highlight the double-standard of Ricky Gervais, I'm highlighting it with individuals in mind and not the business itself. Disney likely knew about the comments when he apologized for them a few years back, but they weren't an issue then, the only reason they're an issue now is that they were brought to light in a time they're most combustible, and from there, as a business, Disney reacted in the way that would distance themselves and present themselves in the best light.

I simply hope that James Gunn doesn't experience himself "blacklisted" for making bad jokes a decade ago that have been echoed countless times (especially in the time the comments were made) on television and in film. If his consequence is that he loses his job at Disney for it, (while harsh) that is their decision, but I hope he can avoid being painted as a bad person, or a pedophile enthusiast, or something that doesn't fit what he's actually guilty of (making an offensive joke).