I seem to recall seeing this in the thread a couple of times, and I disagree.
James Gunn made GotG; it’s his baby. Frankly, without him on board, I’m a lot less likely to see this. Like, I was 100% before and I’m maybe 20% interested without him at the helm.
I’ve encountered a lot of fans saying the same thing–including fans who were against Scarlet Johanssen being cast in a trans role. I actually haven’t found many discussions that have people agreeing with his firing. This type of comedy was apparently what Gunn was known for when Disney hired him.
Roseanne wasn’t fired because of what fans demanded. She was fired because no one wanted to work with her, and ABC didn’t want to be known as the channel where racism is okay. The line of not continuing when your head writer quits due to racism is a pretty decent one.
Blowing up on social media again today.
Getting fired from Disney is hardly a death sentence. Tim Burton went on to make Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, and Edward Scissorhands, eventually being re-hired by Disney to make a bunch of movies including a metaphorical re-telling of his firing incident and a full-length version of the one he was originally fired for. Pretty much refuted the theory Disney knows its ass from its elbow.
The Russo Brothers even had him help them write and direct the Guardians’ scenes in Infinity War, because they knew he was the only one who could capture the right tone.
This is the culture right now. Eventually everyone will be fired and so everyone will have to be rehired again. But it is insanity and it really should stop, with laws if necessary.
If I was a billionaire, I think I’d dedicate a significant amount of money to creating an organization whose sole purpose is to dredge up shit about people and make big news out of it. All people. Start with those that do it to others first - anyone who calls for someone to be fired and things like that. But also include a random sampling of literally everyone. Make it so that everyone is a potential target of having everything they’ve done that’s even a tiny bit socially frowned upon plastered all over the news. I figure once this kind of thing hits enough people, it’ll lose its bite, so let’s accelerate that. Let’s make sure everything everyone ever says or does is available for public scrutiny and given lots of attention. Give nobody at all a moment when they can relax about the outrage machine turning its gaze upon them. Set up a website where you can punch in someone’s name and see everyone with that name, narrowing it down by various bits of information like places they’ve lived and so on, and then have it bring up a profile with all the dirt my organization has dug up on them.
I get the feeling it wouldn’t be long before society turns away from that kind of behavior and just shrugs and goes ‘meh’ when someone tries to harness the outrage and such.
I’d settle for people behaving themselves on social media in the first place. As the letter from the cast wrote, your words are etched in digital stone.
Turning the consequences on those who created this nutty culture probably works better. Boycott the boycotters. Fire the ones who call for people to be fired. Dox the doxxers.
And how do you define “behaving themselves”?
I’m sure you realize that you can’t avoid offending some people as long as you participate at all in online communication and don’t just choose the blandest subjects, points of view and words.
Thus the only way to avoid any potential backlash reaching your real you is anonymity.
Yet, anonymity won’t be a recourse for very much longer.
Software that identifies people by their particular writing style is getting awfully good; if there are at least a few documents that are linked to your real name, other written comments, post, reviews, messages, emails etc. will be traceable back to you at some point in the next five to ten years. Interested parties in such a service won’t be hard to find: potential employers, lawyers, the media, and everyone not fond of you.
The solution that I found, is simple and boring: I don’t say anything online that I’d not say to your face - and if that’s what you mean by behaving oneself, then this is a viable guideline. And one that doesn’t lead to self-censorship beyond the kind you do to be able to socialise.
But it’s not a strategy for conflict avoidance. You simply have to accept that you will offend or hurt some people (apparently, I just did while discussing a conservative psychologist’s view of World War II and the Holocaust [he is wrong]); and given the leverage effect that coordinated outrage can achieve via the net, such a guideline won’t help anyone to stay out of trouble.
But you can go into battle with a clear conscience.
Barkis is Willin’ - Don’t see how those two are mutually exclusive.
Anyway, yeah, this is complicated, and it may come down to taking the least unspeakable option. Another possibility is rehiring Gunn on the condition that he deletes all the offending tweets and never makes another one again. It’s excessive! It’s draconian! Tough…Disney has an image to protect, and they have every right to err on the side of caution. Sometimes you just have to be the bigger man if you want to keep something good in your life good. I’ve certainly learned that lesson.
The usual standard reference for internet interactions is “would you say that in person?” It’s not perfect, but it seems to result in more civilized (and circumspect) exchanges between all but the rudest people.
I’m not sure who this comment is directed at. One of the main reasons this uproar over James Gunn happened is because some conservatives and members of the alt right were upset over their perceived blacklisting and boycotting of conservatives in the entertainment industry (i.e. the Roseanne Barr firing, the reaction to Kanye West supporting Trump among others) and they wanted to take down a left-wing entertainer as payback. So they were basically doing exactly as you said.
My question is: Do they care enough to not be in the sequel? As in, someone else will have to be Star-Lord, or Gamora?
If so, then this letter actually means something. One or two of them, would be taking a risk. More than two of them would be forcing the companies’ hands. Then again, backlash. Don’t want to be known as “uncooperative.”
There is a saying that the best way to get rid of bad laws is to enforce them. What happened to James Gunn is causing a backlash in a way that what happened to Barr did not. The only way the scolds and censors don’t win is if those in power have something to lose as well.
Well, the two cases aren’t entirely parallel. Roseanne’s bit is recent and she’s doubled down on it. Even if ABC - also owned by Disney, for the record - wanted to keep Roseanne in the stable, her reinforcing her actions would prevent that.
In this case, Gunn tweeted stuff years ago and has been contrite, both in the past and during the current trouble. He’s playing it the best he can. He’s prepared to present his own redemption arc with humility instead of Roseanne’s approach of outrage and excuses.
No one likes excuses. They like redemption.
Another way they are different is that Barr was calling a woman funny looking and Gunn was talking about raping children.
The standard should not be that it is okay to tell offensive jokes if you kowtow enough to the scolds when called upon, but that they telling of harmless jokes is no big deal and the scolds need to get a life.
Such selective language! I’d word it differently, tho; more like “another way they are different is that Barr was calling a woman funny looking because she’s black and Gunn [del]was talking[/del] had written jokes that involved child rape.”
What do you think would have happened to a Disney director in the 1950s who said that gay people were fine? How about a black disney director married to a white woman? You know, back in the good 'ol days before modern ‘offended’ culture took hold.
Claiming that being able to make public offensive statements while working for Disney is the foundation of modern open society seems… rather suspect. The level of speech that offended people in the older times you’re idolizing was much less back in the days when just saying that maybe it’s no big deal for a black person to use the same water fountain as a white person could get you arrested.
Side note: Calling anti-scientific nonsense ‘undisputed science’ doesn’t make it so.
You should also add…“written jokes that involved child rape…and apologized for them years ago and worked for the company for sometime before suddenly they had an issue with them.”
