# James Gunn fired from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2018, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297 "2018-07-20T21:56:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/121 "2018-08-06T01:12:47Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > James Gunn’s situation is unquestionably because of a politically motivated campaign to cause exactly this situation. > > Roseanne Barr’s situation, to be politically motivated, would require that her opponents caused her to tweet, somehow, and/or they then drew attention to it for political reasons. The first possibility is ridiculous and the second would require that no one actually cared about a targetted direct racist comment about a non-celebrity and that they were using the racism as a cover for hurting Donald Trump. > > And somehow that second possibility doesn’t sound ridiculous to some people. :rolleyes: > > It’s fucking ridiculous. Like I specifically said and is obvious, somebody called attention to past Gunn tweets to get at Gunn. Whereas Barr’s tweet gained attention in real time. Yes, that’s different. But no I don’t believe the same people saying it’s ‘fucking ridiculous’ anyone is making an issue of Gunn’s tweets now would think it was ‘fucking ridiculous’ if people made an issue of old tweets by somebody on the ‘right wing’ side of the politico-cultural divide. We can go around and around on that, if you really think a lot of the reaction is not motivated by politics, OK that’s what you think. I think it’s ‘fucking obvious’ the reactions do have to do with politics, or the tribal divide that’s now beyond ‘politics’ in the sense of something that’s separate from everyday life. And that’s IMHO only further illustrated by your response, which seems to assume the only issue is how attention was drawn to the statements, but that’s simply not the only issue. The basic issue is how people evaluate the statements, not how they came to know about them, especially not if they were public to begin with. And, what kind of slack they are willing to cut people for saying the statements were a joke, ironic, etc. That’s illustrated again in the next in the series, l’affaire Jeong. Sympathy for the inappropriate tweeter, or none, is all about the societal divide, for a lot of people. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/122 "2018-08-06T02:02:59Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Snowboarder Bo: > > Why, did some other party _cause_ James Gunn to make offensive tweets? Since you left off the end of the sentence starting with the word “and”, my opinion is that your post deliberately takes my post out of context and as such isn’t really worthy of a response, except to point out why it isn’t worthy of a response. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/123 "2018-08-06T02:07:35Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Like I specifically said and is obvious, somebody called attention to past Gunn tweets to get at Gunn. Whereas Barr’s tweet gained attention in real time. Yes, that’s different. But no I don’t believe the same people saying it’s ‘fucking ridiculous’ anyone is making an issue of Gunn’s tweets now would think it was ‘fucking ridiculous’ if people made an issue of old tweets by somebody on the ‘right wing’ side of the politico-cultural divide. > > We can go around and around on that, if you really think a lot of the reaction is not motivated by politics, OK that’s what you think. I think it’s ‘fucking obvious’ the reactions do have to do with politics, or the tribal divide that’s now beyond ‘politics’ in the sense of something that’s separate from everyday life. > > And that’s IMHO only further illustrated by your response, which seems to assume the only issue is how attention was drawn to the statements, but that’s simply not the only issue. The basic issue is how people evaluate the statements, not how they came to know about them, especially not if they were public to begin with. And, what kind of slack they are willing to cut people for saying the statements were a joke, ironic, etc. That’s illustrated again in the next in the series, l’affaire Jeong. Sympathy for the inappropriate tweeter, or none, is all about the societal divide, for a lot of people. As I indicated previously (I thought), IMO your basic premise is flawed and is not supportable by actual observable facts. Your premise seeks to retcon what happened with both of these situations to draw parallels that do not exist in fact in order to support a conclusion you desire: that somehow this is indicative of hypocrisy on one side. It isn’t. By the way, your argument seems to concede that being against racism is strictly a Democratic or Left thing. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/124 "2018-08-06T04:00:43Z")
Snowboarder Bo: > [@](#): > > Since you left off the end of the sentence starting with the word “and”, my opinion is that your post deliberately takes my post out of context and as such isn’t really worthy of a response, except to point out why it isn’t worthy of a response. My apologies, I overlooked that your “and” was in fact an “and/or”. Had not intentionally taken it out of context. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/125 "2018-08-06T07:28:21Z")
I think the bottom line is, telling racist jokes means you’re probably a racist, but telling pedophile jokes doesn’t mean you’re probably a pedophile. The reason, I think, is that racism has always been considered a legitimate point of view by a significant portion of society, which means that telling a racist joke can be seen as advocating for it. Pedophilia, on the other hand, hasn’t been accepted by society at large for a couple of thousand years, so the immediate assumption is that the person joking about it is doing so for shock purposes, and not because he believes in what he’s saying. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/126 "2018-08-06T08:08:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think the bottom line is, telling racist jokes means you’re probably a racist, but telling pedophile jokes doesn’t mean you’re probably a pedophile. The reason, I think, is that racism has always been considered a legitimate point of view by a significant portion of society, which means that telling a racist joke can be seen as advocating for it. Pedophilia, on the other hand, hasn’t been accepted by society at large for a couple of thousand years, so the immediate assumption is that the person joking about it is doing so for shock purposes, and not because he believes in what he’s saying. That’s a good observation. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/127 "2018-08-06T16:18:11Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > James Gunn’s situation is unquestionably because of a politically motivated campaign to cause exactly this situation. > > Roseanne Barr’s situation, to be politically motivated, would require that her opponents caused her to tweet, somehow, and/or they then drew attention to it for political reasons. The first possibility is ridiculous and the second would require that no one actually cared about a targetted direct racist comment about a non-celebrity and that they were using the racism as a cover for hurting Donald Trump. > > And somehow that second possibility doesn’t sound ridiculous to some people. :rolleyes: > > It’s fucking ridiculous. This is just changing the subject. It doesn’t matter what the motives of the people who publicized the tweets are. The tweets are either offensive or not, there is no category of not offensive because of the motivations of other people. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/128 "2018-08-06T17:07:33Z")
No, what matters is what the tweets say about the people who tweeted them. Gunn’s tweets say that has an occasionally tasteless sense of humor and poor impulse control; Barr’s tweets say that she’s a racist. That’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/129 "2018-08-06T17:21:13Z")
Show of hands: Who here thinks James Gunn is actually a pedophile? Who here thinks Rosanne Barr is actually a racist? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/130 "2018-08-07T06:52:13Z")
No, and yes. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/131 "2018-08-07T11:45:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Show of hands: > > Who here thinks James Gunn is actually a pedophile? > > Who here thinks Rosanne Barr is actually a racist? What does James Gunn think about the Polanski case? The issue isn’t just “Is James Gunn a pedophile” so much as “Does James Gunn think pedophilia is not something to be taken seriously?” We know Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t take it seriously, and she still has her job. As for Roseanne, there’s racism and then there’s racism. Has Roseanne ever been accused of mistreating minorities who worked for her or not wanting to hire them? We need to get past this “saying naughty things about people of color makes you a racist”. IT makes perfect sense to me that if you make racist jokes you aren’t necessarily a racist just as if you make pedophilia jokes you aren’t necessarily a pedophile. ---
**Author:** ![HowSoonIsThen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@HowSoonIsThen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HowSoonIsThen)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/132 "2018-08-07T12:25:03Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think the bottom line is, telling racist jokes means you’re probably a racist, but telling pedophile jokes doesn’t mean you’re probably a pedophile. The reason, I think, is that racism has always been considered a legitimate point of view by a significant portion of society, which means that telling a racist joke can be seen as advocating for it. Pedophilia, on the other hand, hasn’t been accepted by society at large for a couple of thousand years, so the immediate assumption is that the person joking about it is doing so for shock purposes, and not because he believes in what he’s saying. This is an underrated point. Racist jokes are racist. Rape jokes, however offensive, aren’t rape. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/133 "2018-08-07T14:37:36Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We need to get past this “saying naughty things about people of color makes you a racist”. How about “No”? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/134 "2018-08-07T14:44:26Z")
Are you making an exception for standup comedy here? Because that’ll mean a lot of comics losing their livelihood. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/135 "2018-08-07T15:00:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Are you making an exception for standup comedy here? Because that’ll mean a lot of comics losing their livelihood. I’ll make an exception for anyone who is joking about their own ethnicity. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/136 "2018-08-07T15:55:28Z")
Wow, Robin Williams was racist. Glad I didn’t know then! ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/137 "2018-08-07T15:57:18Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Show of hands: > > Who here thinks James Gunn is actually a pedophile? > > Who here thinks Rosanne Barr is actually a racist? Based on my extensive knowledge of both of them, I would say “No idea”. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/138 "2018-08-07T15:59:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’ll make an exception for anyone who is joking about their own ethnicity. That’s it. Is this just your opinion or is it an official pronouncement of the joke police? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/139 "2018-08-07T16:35:27Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Wow, Robin Williams was racist. Glad I didn’t know then! Everyone has always been racist to some degree. These days, we expect people to at least try not to be. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297/140 "2018-08-07T16:39:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Everyone has always been racist to some degree. These days, we expect people to at least try not to be. Perhaps, but I’m not the one who thinks every comedian that ever told a racial joke is a racist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/james-gunn-fired-from-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/818297.md?page=8)