Most comedians that have actually made money had racial jokes about other races as part of their repertoire. I’ve seen white comedians tell jokes about black people on BET and had the audience in stitches. L
Well, if that’s how it’s always been, that’s OK, then…
Whether or not it’s okay is up to the people who buy tickets to their shows, buy their albums, watch their TV shows and movies. See, that’s something a lot of liberals have failed to understand about how calling for economic sanctions against “bad people” works. You’re asking the public to punish speech you don’t like, but since we are talking about the public here, it’s a democratized process. And if the public isn’t only offended by racism, and maybe even more offended by pedophilia jokes, or lack of patriotism, or wishing bad things to happen to your political opponents, then that’s what gets punished. And even on racism, the public doesn’t like anti-white racism anymore than any other kind. But liberals seem to think that kind of racism is okay, as if they get to choose who is allowed in polite society and who isn’t. That conceit needs to go away, and seeing their own go down seems to be helping with that.
Gee, in 2005 you could have made exactly the same argument for a Prussian Blue show…
No, no one has stated that position. I never said they did. What I did was use it as an example of where a lack of nuance takes us. It is the trend I am seeing. People are ignoring whether something was actually harmful or not, and arguing that either everyone should be punished in some zero tolerance way, or no one should be.
You actually start out well, describing the difference between James Gunn’s firing and the firing of these other people. It was, indeed, just a joke from his past. The joke did not actually cause anyone any harm. It wasn’t racist or sexist or any other form of bigotry, and, in context, did not promote pedophilia.
To add to this, he also apologized at the time. And Disney hired him, even knowing what he had said. He has not said anything new to agree with that. Instead, some political enemies went after him and brought up a past situation that had already been dealt with. To use an old stereotype, it’s like when the “nagging wife” would bring up everything you’ve ever done wrong. I don’t agree that stereotype is of women, but it is still a completely illegitimate way of arguing. Once something is dealt with, it is over.
What conservatives tend to omit is that racism is not harmless. Racism causes harm. Same with sexism. Same with harassment. Just because it is expressed in speech does not mean that is it harmless.
No one has argued that James Gunn should be accepted because he’s on “the right side.” If he was an asshole who refused to apologize and said something about believing that pedophilia was okay, then it would not matter one bit whether he was on the left or the right. We liberals have shown this repeated, as we have no problem jettisoning our own if they are bad.
The examples people bring up of conservatives who lost their job are Roseanne Barr, who lost her job because of a long term pattern of racism, to the point that people didn’t believe her apologies, and Milo Yiannopoulos, who lost his job due to his claims that pederasty was okay, and wouldn’t repudiate them, all the while being a garbage human being to everyone.
None of these are like the James Gunn situation. They weren’t old tweets that made obviously absurd jokes that they had already apologized for and proven that they no longer support them.
The actual conversation we need to have is one around when forgiveness is okay and when it is not, rather than this black-and-white thinking that conflates these three people into the same situation.
That problem with this is that it doesn’t match the situation we actually have.
No one involved was offended by pedophilia jokes. This was an attack by the alt-right. You know, those for whom 4chan is too tame. They have no fucking problems whatsoever with pedophilia jokes. Hell, actual child porn happens on 8chan.
The idea was just to go after liberals and find whatever they had in their past and create performative outrage about the situation. And then, before Disney even had a chance to see what the rest of the public thought, they fired Gunn.
If they’d have waited, they’d see the consensus that what Gunn did was not a valid reason to fire him. The public is almost entirely on his side. His audience supports him.
So what you are describing is not something that actually happened. Maybe there is a further discussion about that topic, but it doesn’t apply to this situation.
I would gladly debate that topic in, say, GD. I have both agreements and disagreements.
Update. Wow, looks like needlessly rushed snap judgments, grossly disproportionate punishments, an inability to see the big picture that borders on infantile, an ignorance of modern social media that borders on brain-dead, and catering to the most vile, worthless scumbags in the goddam history of the universe might have negative consequences. Who knew? :rolleyes::mad:
Aside: I work for the State government. Yes, it is difficult to fire a government employee. That is because it is difficult to replace a government employee. See, unlike the private sector, qualifications are ironclad, and we can’t just pluck another investigator or legal secretary or chief procurement officer off the street. It can take years to find the right person. There have been instances where a position remained unfilled because none of the applicants met the minimum requirements. So do you know what happens when one of us has a problem? We fix it. I must have gone to like five supplementary training sessions in my early years, and all because I wasn’t prepared to deal with stupid clients. No, really, that was it, just that one problem. And I’m barely a step above a clerk typist. When an arc welder or a computer technician or a contract negotiator, someone with highly technical skills who’s been a part of the system for many years, cracks a bunch of offensive jokes, you we’re going to fire him? You think anyone will even entertain the idea? No, we’re going to get him help. Counseling, sensitivity training, channeling his creativity in a positive direction. Only if he absolutely refuses to get better, or does something EXTREMELY out of line, do we drop the ax. And that is how we have a government that is stable and can get things done.
Dang. This is what derails the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut. I’m reminded of Tiger Woods.
So, um, what is the update?
They’ve stopped pre-production on GotG 3. Presumably they’re having trouble finding a director, though there could be other problems.
The cast is not happy. Dave Bautista in particular is pissed.
Okay…doesn’t look like there will be any more big developments for a while. I don’t have a huge dog in this fight, but it’s a long weekend and speculation can be fun in reasonable quantities, so I’ll just say my final piece and leave it at that.
All right. Terrible overreaction, and politics preventing any easy correction. What does Disney do now?
Rehire Gunn (and maybe make him do some small contrition like contributing to a cause that benefits children or whatnot)
This is the simple, commonsense solution. We’re not going to allow one bad apple (Alan Horn) to spoil the bunch, pencils have erasers, you know the drill. As a practical matter, this makes the most sense for ensuring that production of GOTG3 goes smoothly, the direction remains consistent with the previous movies, and everyone is on board and motivated. Disney has more money and power than several deities, and they’re more than equipped to deal with any backlash from internet slimeballs. In fact, there’s no better opportunity for them to really put forward that they’re the good guys and they won’t let Nazis and other evil scum get the best of them.
And that last part is the hard one.
Overwhelmingly, Americans of power despise doing the right thing. They’re terrified of making any positive change whatsoever. Why do you think not one message board in a hundred gives the option of blocking individual users? YouTube’s has this limp-wristed option of preventing users from commenting on videos you yourself uploaded while keeping their slime 100% visible on each and every other video. Like, what the hell is that?? And even that’s more than most places offer. How long did it take to get the ball rolling on not allowing gutter-crawling sleazeball perverts to harass and abuse DOZENS of women with utter impunity?
If Disney wanted to be on the side of the angels, they’d be on the side of the angels. I’ve seen no evidence that there’s any real effort at any level of the corporation to do that.
Hire a new director and just brazen out the backlash
I actually thought this was what was going to happen. From a cynical greedbag perspective (and what other perspective is there for an entertainment giant? :D), it makes the most sense. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a cornucopia right now. It’s pretty much impossible to screw up. Any sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy is going to be profitable no matter what. Let the critics squawk, let Gunn’s many friends protest, let the fans of GotG and the MCU fume on social media. We’re Disney, beehiottchichiesses (or however you spell that :))! Nothing bad happens to us! Like Kanye West, except with a lot more money!
Just one teensy little problem…who? Who is willing to be the scab who flips off a small army of Gunn’s supporters and burn all kinds of bridges? Connections are EVERYTHING in Hollywood. The most likely candidate is a hardcore screw-the-world right wing Trump supporter, and believe me, right wingers know about as much about entertainment as the Taliban knows about lawn care. (Look up “Liberality”. Or just take my word for it and spare yourself the migraine.)
And the big problem is that this gives Mike Cernovich a victory which is horrible for two reasons: 1. The obvious one, and 2. it makes everyone under the Disney umbrella a potential target. There’s a reason you’re not supposed to give in to terrorist demands, and it has nothing to do with listening to mocking clucking noises the next day.
Wait it out, then hire based on how the winds seem to be blowing
This seems to be the direction Disney is headed. Horn is immovable for whatever reason, rehiring Gunn is really, really hard for whatever reason, hiring a replacement right now is unfeasible because gee, I dunno, giving a slimeball right wing Trump supporter a win maybe isn’t the smartest idea? Just cool it for now. The public has the attention span of goldfish. Eventually everyone will forget or decide it’s not that big a deal, and with luck Cernovich will get his head trapped in a washing machine and drown, and they can relax decide who to hire, and get on with filming.
Unfortunately, tensions are running really high, and if you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of folks who are on Gunn’s side, many of them power brokers in the industry themselves. Gunn is not the kind of person you can just casually toss under the bus without blowback. Sure, the common schlubs will forget in a few weeks, but should Disney buck him and hire someone else, Gunn’s friends will be very happy to remind them.
On top of that, time is money. Licenses don’t come cheap, and every week, every month, every year that Disney isn’t producing something is more cash out the window. Also, the last thing any shareholder wants to hear is “postponed indefinitely”. This is Guardians of the Galaxy, not Howard The Duck; this is a hot property, and the shareholders expect Disney to do something with it.
Hire a no-name director, but secretly bring Gunn back in and pay him under the table
Make no mistake, Disney can be very good at hiding secrets when they want to be…remember how they prevented anyone from learning of their acquisition of Star Wars until literally the day the deal was finalized? This, though, might be just a bit too much to ask…too many moving parts, and it’s become so high-profile that it’s difficult to imagine keeping it completely under wraps. And the moment Cernovich finds out, there will be hell to pay. It would require a ton of courage to even consider this, and in that case it’d be simpler just to rehire Gunn.
Cancel the movie
This isn’t quite the non-starter it sounds like at first blush. Remember that the cast was “killed” at the end of the second movie, and the MCU is this big, big world with all kinds of divisions and storylines and characters. It wouldn’t be too hard to reference the characters and/or plot of GotG in an unrelated project; heck, it’s the perfect excuse to green-light something the fans have been clamoring for. The downside…well, it’s going to make a lot of people, shareholders and fans alike, angry. Really angry. Really, really, really angry. Corporations may be cold-blooded, but as a rule they’re not suicidal.
Sell the movie to another studio
If all else fails, make it someone else’s problem. A last result, obviously, but if waiting doesn’t work and replacing is going to cause too much bad blood, this may be their best chance for cutting their losses. The obvious drawback, of course, is that once you sell something it’s not yours to use anymore, and, again, this isn’t Electra, this is one of the SUCCESSFUL properties.
We’ll find out eventually.
That seems a reasonable assessment. What a clusterfuck, all down the the stubbornness of one old man with more power than he deserves*.
*a common problem in many other places too
What happened to them anyway?
DKW:
You know, it’s entirely possible that the decision-makers at Disney are themselves “slimeball right wing Trump supports” and do not thing giving a fellow one a win is a bad idea. It may bother you to acknowledge it, but those guys make up 40% of America. Surely a much lower percentage in Hollywood, but I’ll bet there’s a big disconnect between the corporate officers and the creative class in that regard.
Not sure if this is a serious question or you making a point but they got older, joined a public school, saw more of the real world, realized that their parents racism was bullshit and renounced their previous white supremacist songs/concerts.
Marvel Studios can’t really afford to “wait it out”; to hit the 2020 release date they’ll have to start preproduction no later than early next year (was supposed to start in November). This isn’t just a problem in terms of adhering to their release schedule; with such a large cast and in-demand actors like Pratt, Bautista, and Saldana, altering the production scheule can have major impacts or make production infeasible. And if they push it out they’ll have to backfill with soemthing else that is not already in development, and while I’d love to see a ‘Sixties era “Origins of SHIELD” with Peggy Carter and a young upstart agent with the oddly appropriate name of Fury, no second-tier property is going to have the same guaranteed draw as Guardians.
As for Disney cancelling the movie or selling the property to another studio like Fox, there is just no chance of that whatsoever. It is not only an unexpected cash cow for Marvel, which developed it when nobody thought it would have any real sequel potential and cast it with a bunch of non-headliners, but it is also now tightly integrated into the MCU. Cleving it off into a separated property doesn’t make sense from a narrative perspective, but also would eliminate the crossover opportunities to build other, post-Avengers properties upon. Pratt and the other stars would likely abandon the roles, especially if this delays production, and there is no real incentive for anyone to buy an abandoned property that lacks inherent value. They might as well just try to make another Fantastic 4 movie which has about an equal chance of turning a profit.
One of two things will happen; Marvel will rehire Gunn and he’ll have to perform some public act of notional contrition for having been an insenitive jackass on a social media site years before he became famous; or they’ll use Gunn’s script and hire another director to complete the project. They may shift the post-Avengers focus somewhere else like Captain Marvel but for now Guardians is an anchor property for the MCU and its avenue into the larger universe.
Stranger
I would be very, very doubtful of this. Disney is on the record as supporting many left wing causes such as same-sex marriage, gay rights and others.
In the 2016 cycle - according to OpenSecrets - they gave about $670,000 to congressional candidates and 75%+ ($490,941) went to democratic candidates. Hell, they gave more to NON-INCUMBENTS than they gave to all candidates with an R next to their name. They also gave more than $8MM in soft money contributions.
Now, as a corporation, head’s up. They directly spent a bit under $4MM on lobbying in 2016. A lot of that went to bills aimed at maintaining copyright issues for the firm - no one gets Mickey, God dammit - but oddly also the Marrakesh Treaty Implementation Act and a number of sex trafficking acts.
Ah, the sex trafficking stuff contained a side track concerning the Disney, 21th Century Fox merger.
Ah, mark two. The Marrakesh thing contained language dealing with overseas copyright issues. My world is no longer spinning wildly.
In short, outside of issues about protecting the firm’s ability to do business, Disney is solidly in the D category in terms of lobbying and candidate contributions.
Dear God can one just ask a question without being jumped upon? Was curious since they have been out of the news for a long time.
Good to know they got out and learnt the error of their ways.
They got into the Reefer…or not.
Stranger on a Train - Good analysis. In light of the deadline, that makes “wait it out” pretty much completely unfeasible, since Gunn’s supporters only need to keep the pressure on for a few more months. As the clock winds down, Gunn’s chances of getting rehired get better…IF the Disney brain trust realizes just what a complete clusterfrag “hiring someone else” is going to be. To recap: 1. having to find someone with no sense of ethics and willing to burn a lot of bridges 2. giving Cernovich a victory, which is going to make Disney look really bad for reasons Jonathan Chance mentioned 3. making everyone at Disney a potential target, possibly permanently 4. taking a bazooka to the morale of the actors involved 5. really getting hosed long-term in regards to finding quality directors for future projects. We’ve seen a lot of really stupid corporate decisions get made because an exec couldn’t see the big picture…New Coke, anyone? Hopefully history doesn’t repeat itself here.