Maybe it will take someone like me, a person who couldn’t care less about the sanctity of comic-book film franchises, to cut through the crap of this issue. Am I the one? I think I might be. I have no strong feelings for or against Guardians of the Galaxy as a (hugely successful) franchise. Before now, I had no strong feelings for or against Guardians’ writer-director James Gunn. He was just there, and he had a big hand in creating a successful Marvel franchise, so good for him or whatever. Well, Gunn was just fired from the Guardians franchise. He had been writing Guardians 3, and word is that they were planning to start production this fall. And now he’s been sh-tcanned. And I completely understand why.
The crux of the issue is some tweets from 2008-2012. Some people are like “this happened so long ago!” Nah. I still remember 2012 like it was yesterday. 2012 wasn’t so different than 2018. What is offensive and dumb in 2018 was still pretty dumb and offensive in 2012. Trust me, I was there. In those years – 2008-2012 – Gunn liked to tweet. He liked to tweet out “jokes” about rape and child molestation. If you look at just some of the tweets all compiled together – you can see some of the NSFW archived tweets here – they are a portrait of a man who has some really gross obsessions. His explanation is that he was just being a provocateur, a ribald jokester. But he seems like a man who spent too much time trying to punch down and make “jokes” about some pretty heinous subjects.
So, a white dude made some huge mistakes several years back and he was *actually* punished for it by his employer. Why is this is a story? Because I only gave you the fundamentals. The details are what many people are focusing on. Apparently, Gunn’s old tweets were dug up by right-wing bloggers and Twitter conservatives. Why did they decide to go after him? Because he’s currently “outspoken” on social media about how much he hates Donald Trump. The right-wingers found a way to discredit him, thus discrediting his political views. And yes, that sucks. It sucks that Ted Cruz is gleefully tweeting about how James Gunn sucks. It sucks that bridge troll MRAs are now performing their pearl clutching over Gunn’s old tweets. It sucks that any Trump supporter thinks they have ANY kind of moral high ground on anything. But again: after reading those tweets, I still completely understand why Disney/Marvel fired him.
Here’s Gunn’s statement, which was issued Friday afternoon:
“My words of nearly a decade ago were, at the time, totally failed and unfortunate efforts to be provocative. I have regretted them for many years since — not just because they were stupid, not at all funny, wildly insensitive, and certainly not provocative like I had hoped, but also because they don’t reflect the person I am today or have been for some time.”
“Regardless of how much time has passed, I understand and accept the business decisions taken today. Even these many years later, I take full responsibility for the way I conducted myself then. All I can do now, beyond offering my sincere and heartfelt regret, is to be the best human being I can be: accepting, understanding, committed to equality, and far more thoughtful about my public statements and my obligations to our public discourse. To everyone inside my industry and beyond, I again offer my deepest apologies. Love to all.”
Meh. Gunn is currently 51 years old. The earliest problematic tweets were from 2008/09, when he was 41 and 42. It’s not like he was some dumb kid who was saying dumb sh-t for attention. He was a grown-ass man who repeatedly made some really screwed up jokes about children and rape. And all of the Hollywood bros who are coming out to have Gunn’s back: leave it, dudes. As I said, Disney had every right to fire him. Don’t engage in Whataboutism. Of course the people who trashed Gunn are dumpster fire right-wingers. That doesn’t mean that Gunn should still be employed by Marvel.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Why on EARTH would anyone think that stuff was funny or provocative in any way? Is child rape hilariously fun? What was he attempting to provoke? Disgust and nausea? I can’t wrap my head around why he thought it was ok to tweet that stuff. I can’t wrap my head around a lot of thing these days, though… ☹
This! And some of those jokes were not “10 years ago”. 2012 was not that long ago pal. He’s disgusting.
Exactly!
What kind of mind even comes up with this sort of garbage, much less tweets it? If you can even THINK this way, that says something, and if you blithely tweet it under the guise of being “edgy” or “provocative” you are a thousand times more wedded to it.
Honestly, I think someone needs to go back and see how many children he had access to in the past twenty years and find out if any of them have any horror stories.
Also, Sarah Silverman had a really odd tweet yesterday (I think she took it down) in which she made a “joke” similar to this guy’s “humor” to–I think–demonstrate that this was supposed to be *cough* “edgy comedy” and she got dragged for it. I didn’t get the reference yesterday but now I know what was going on and am disgusted by her, too.
Some things you don’t joke about. Child abuse? Naw, dog. There’s nothing funny about child abuse.
@Frida_K Thank you for writing everything I was thinking and the fact that Dave Bautista is actually defending him makes me want to see him fired too. The only thing that should be happening now is an investigation into any dealings Gunn may have had with children not helping Gunn with his defense. Twitter had me nauseated at the number of folks trying to excuse away the inexcusable, the new mansplaining is pedosplaining, just sick!
👍 Exactly. And the Gunn apologists won’t change that.
@Amide I know right? I was going back and forth on Twitter with Pedosplainers before I had to log off after being accused of Judging and Not Understanding the Context…Ummm WHAT??!!! I loved the First GOTG, one of the best-directed films IMO, but GUNN does NOT get a pass for his sick-twisted behavior because of that. It’s crazy what people will protect for someone they admire, artistic talents especially, see Woody Allen, R. Kelley, and countless others.
@Cali I didn’t write on the Ben Stiller story the other day, who I don’t care for, or usually on Matthew McConaughey stories, because of the same exhaustion of explaining why the Washington Team should change their name. Which McConaughey thinks is fine, or use the s*uaw word which Ben Stiller did, but it’s a joke y’all and I’m just oversensitive. Their fans, many bros, tell me why it’s okay, It’s not okay and just because you have a Native friend (supposedly) or you find some tired old explanation why the “s” word is not offensive, I dare you to use your “okay” word in a room of Native women. So it is with this, just don’t write it James Gunn.
I honestly couldn’t even read all of the tweets because they made me sick. He’s a grown-ass man, not a guy in his late teens.
I must admit I first rolled my eyes when I heard he was fired due to tweets, because I guess I try too hard to see the best in people, but damn was I shocked when I started to read them.
This was exactly my reaction, too, Phil. I rolled my eyes …. but had not/ have not read his tweets, because … my blood pressure cannot take it! I trust a couple of sources, and once they said the tweets were awful, I believed.
My son is a full grown adult man; he gets pissed off when I call him on his stupid stuff. You’re done raising me, Mom…..not if your brain still allows you to say stupid stuff, son of my heart. But I was joking, Mom…..in every joke there is a kernel of truth, my son, and thus it cannot be considered a joke. This was our conversation last night and we both saw each other’s point of view, and we both were stymied as to how to close the conversation…..the construction industry culture seems to be slowly erasing the sweetness and gentleness and understanding he used to show and anger he used to express when someone did someone wrong. Now he struggles to understand why a ‘joke’ is so wrong. He’s right about one thing…I’ve taken him as far as I can. I need God and the rest of the clan to step up and teach him it is never, ever okay.
Comedians talk about what’s on their mind. Sometimes they try to shock, but when it’s this obsessive, this focused, then he’s got it on his mind a lot. Maybe he was abused and is trying to work it out in his own head.
@Charo, he definitely has it on his mind to write SO MUCH about it! Reading his tweets made me sick.
AND from Jegede below:
“That Gunn was 41 while doing this and exchanging tweets with a confirmed child pornographer, Huddleston, makes this all levels of yuck.” On his mind…Yeah, me thinks so!
Thats the thing! There may have been some “jokes” that I would have found funny in 2011 that I would NOT find funny now, because I have evolved as a person. But pedophilia?! Never! I was talking to my husband’s friend the other day who said Disney over reacted and I just said, “the guy made a pedo joke! You don’t do that ever!” The fact that he didn’t just say one joke about it but many is very worrisome.
These tweets are simply disgusting, especially the one with the monkey. What a sick soul.
Really. I feel like taking a shower after reading them, just disgusting.
Good.
Those tweets sounds like leakage…like when Woody Allen has ‘edgy’ jokes about paedophilia in his stand up and movies.
Also, why did he never go back and delete those tweets?!?
In order to make a joke the “comedian” has to have the subject matter in his or her mind in the first place. For him to make repeated jokes is like leakage. He couldn’t keep his obsessions inside so he “joked” about it repeatedly.
That’s the thing that bothers me. We have seen people like Louis CK and Woody Allen reveal who they really are in their jokes and “art” and it makes me skeptical about everyone now. Hopefully he’s not, but why make THAT MANY jokes of that nature? It is bizarre.
I love the GOTG movies, but I can see why parents wouldn’t want to take their kids to a movie directed by the guy now. They should give the job to Taika.
After Josh Hader and now this, everyone should be scrubbing their social media accounts once they take on big jobs. If I were a publicist to a white guy, I’d make it a prerequisite.
Edited my comment because apparently, he did delete the tweets.
From what I understand, he did delete those tweets but someone managed to recover them back.
Those tweets are grotesque and unfunny.
To have 1. or 2 off-colour jokes is one thing.
To have thousands of ‘jokes’ focusing on violating children and pedophilia is pathological and indicates a disturbed mindset.
That Gunn was 41 while doing this and exchanging tweets with a confirmed child pornographer, Huddleston, makes this all levels of yuck.
And you would hope a creep kike Huddlestone – who’s actually been charged with CP – would never be allowed to get near a computer again and yet………makes me so angry.😠 😠
I meant *like* Huddlestone. Damn phone
I’m not a Guardians fan and didn’t bother with Gunn’s prior films which looked utterly juvenile. The tweets were disgusting and Disney/Marvel absolutely did the right thing.
*BUT* Interesting that the tweets are being compiled by an alt-right troll and likely Russian asset (Posobiec) , using a hashtag promoted by known Russian bots.
This is part of a larger effort that Cernovich and the alt right have been working on for a while. They got Sam Seder fired from MSNBC for an out of context, sarcastic, Polanski tweet. MSNBC later rehired him, but the damage was done. I’m not defending Gunn’s tweets, I understand Disney’s position in firing him (and thrill at the prospect of a Taika Waititi helmed cosmic phase at Marvel), but Cernovich is an actual rapist who is trying to bring down high profile liberals who are vocal in their criticism of the alt right using old out of context tweets and blog posts. Patton Oswalt and Michael Ian Black are his newest targets, as of today. It’s worth noting that Russian bots amplified the James Gunn story to get it trending on Twitter before he was fired.
I guess I don’t understand exactly why the right, including Cruz, is going after Gunn so hard — yes his tweets are despicable and he seems like a creep — but he’s not in office or running for office. I get that they want to target anyone who is critical of Trump but what do they think they are accomplishing, exactly?
@esmom, It’s all part and parcel of Pizzagate. They’re “proving” that there is a vast liberal network of Hollywood and Washington pedophiles that the mainstream media is protecting and covering up for.
From the Southern Poverty Law Center Page on Cernovich:
“Cernovich has accused members of the liberal establishment (from liberal politicians to prominent media personalities) of being pedophiles or running child sex rings in short Twitter blasts. As compiled by Jesse Singal in NY Mag, Cernovich’s accusations of pedophilia have targeted everyone from the Clintons to Hillary Clinton’s presidential running mate Tim Kaine (renamed by Cernovich “Creepy Kaine”), to video producer Vic Berger, IV. He even hinted that Salon or the BBC might be covering up for pedophilia. Part troll-fest, part genuine outrage, these campaigns flood social media, created or pushed by Cernovich, and succeed in making concepts that are conjured out of thin air topics of conversation.”
No, this is nonsense. Gunn is not someone I would hang out with but he addressed all this before when he was first hired. This only happened because Cernovich and bros made it look like a crisis and like there was outrage. Meanwhile Disney keeps paying Depp and Brolin and all sorts of gross motherfuckers, so they don’t get any high ground either. If they want to clean house and get rid of all of them, fine. Until then, this was a bad move. I don’t like the GotG films. I think they’re boring. But regardless, this only gives those dudes legitimacy.
Surely Wolfbeak, thanks. With so much going on 24/7, Pizzagate is one thing I haven’t delved into and I’d dismissed it as pure conspiracy. Sounds like they are determined to make it a reality. Seems like the GOP is a much more target rich environment for outrage about deviant, predatory sexual behavior, but that’s just me. The hypocrisy.
@Esmon, right now, they’re trying to distract from the Jim Jordan mess. Jordan, a mandatory reporter, failed to report what seems to be a growing number of sexual assaults on kids that he knew about. So, they’re looking for anyone or anything they can use as a target and then they swarm. This all happened really quickly Friday in a short time with Posobiec, Ben Shapiro, Kyle Kashuv, Cruz screaming that something had to be done and all their followers screaming he should be prosecuted despite the fact that, as disturbing as the tweets are, there’s no evidence of any crime.
LP, that makes sense, I see the connection now. It enrages me that Jordan hasn’t resigned. He is shady af and I know the Freedom Caucus especially is pulling out all the stops to protect him. If he remains in office I will be beside myself with rage, honestly.
They want Jordan as Speaker after Ryan. We MUST take the House.
Cruz is calling for Gunn to be prosecuted for his old tweets. Funny how Cruz didn’t do the same for Milo Yiannopoulos.
God, I hate that man so much. I cannot wait to vote for Beto. What does he want him prosecuted for exactly? Making bad jokes? What laws did he break? Didn’t that dipshit go to law school?
This is why I don’t pay attention to right wing accusations about any liberals without using my critical thinking skills and doing some research. Social media is full of bots and trolls. When we react to them it is like encouragement.
This guy DID write disgusting things so he doesn’t get a pass but I think it is worth noting how the story came to light.
And for the people defending him saying ‘We are really going to ruin his career over this?’ One, behavior and actions have consequences, regardless of who you are. Two, I’m certain his career isn’t ruined. He got fired from one job at one point in time.
This isn’t an injustice, it’s a consequence.
His career will be fine. There is always so much overreaction when a white man gets fired.
Word. It is exhausting the coddling and babying they get.
Wish Johnny Depp and a slew of Disney payroll pedos would also see consequences.
The tweets are vile. It’s absolutely ludicrous that he would defend himself by saying that the year 2008 was the old days when we all walked to school through the snow. What a stupid move! Reminds me of the Brewer’s baseball player Josh Hader, who is trying to make us believe that his sickeningly racist tweets were written when he was a mere lad of 17 or 18, unable to tell right from wrong. What?? I fail to understand how white men who are “just kids” for seemingly forever–free from any true responsibility for impulse control and their actions–mysteriously end up holding every leadership role in every industry in this country. Why are they the bosses of everything when they can’t even meet the most basic standards? Why do they get the fat salaries and lord it over us? I’m fed up with them.
ITA. And if you don’t want Russian trolls exposing you for making jobs about child sexual abuse the maybe just don’t make jokes about it. It’s not that hard NOT to come off as a paedophile on Twitter…the rest of us manage to do it just fine.
Yes!!! This, exactly! The alt-right can only draw attention to your disgusting, pedophile tweets AFTER you wrote them. So, DON’T WRITE THEM and, more importantly, if you are a pedophile stop tweeting and go bury yourself in a hole.
Speaking of Hader, this is a tweet from Tariq Nasheed about Hader’s game Saturday:
“Baseball player Josh Hader was exposed for making a series of racist, anti-Black tweets, and when he stepped on the field today, he received a standing ovation from thousands of suspected white supremacists in the audience.
Anti-Black hatred is a completely normalized culture”
I saw that and it made me want to scream.
He could have paid a PR service to go back and scrub those. And I am OVER these high and mighty “I’m just being edgy and you don’t get it” types.
Marvel is owned by Disney and the last thing they need is giving the impression they are co-signing someone who “jokes” about rape and pedophilia.
Here’s some important background and perspective on Cernovich and what he is doing.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b5265cce4b0fd5c73c570ac/amp
Disney/Marvel did the right thing. There’s no excuse for those tweets.
I read that article about Mike “pizzagate” Cernovich and his alt right trolls. They’ve launched a social media campaign to bring down any and everyone they can. It’s sickening how disgusting our society has become that people like Cernovich and his ilk even exist and flourish.
I know right. They are disgusting. I don’t know what the solution is but social media companies needs to start behaving with some common sense. They are privately held companies and don’t owe the hatemongers anything.
I knew two grown men brothers that behaved exactly this way. So inappropriate. If you didn’t get it you weren’t cool, etc.
They had both been molested by a babysitter as children. They made light of that too. I think this guy could have been a victim of something like that as well. Not an excuse! But if it is true he may be able to speak out about it which would help other people, hopefully.
During #Metoo he talked about being a witness to friends being molested by priests and how helpless he felt. Which, in my eyes, make his jokes even more disgusting.
He’s actually spoken about his first sexual experience (I believe) being a non-consensual one (as in a girl forced herself on him).
I’m not gonna defend him here, he’s a major douche-canoe and has said so much dumb sh*t in these past few years, but I do see the jokes in the light of his Troma past. They’re all about exaggeration and not only pushing but criss-crossing the borders of good taste. It’s supposed to shock and gross you out. Now, one can think about that whatever they want and yes, there’s so much white male entitlement and stupidity in this, but it’s a small subgenre. A small subgenre that does have a female fanbase too, a lot of them who, in my experience, have gone through all different kinds of abuse and who also use super f*cked up humour to cope.
That doesn’t excuse him from not acknowledging this and/or deleting this when he went mainstream. But I think it’s important to see this as a form of expression that’s common in a subculture, not as a psychological profile of him. As far as I can tell he hasn’t assaulted anyone in real life nor used his power to coerce women into sleeping with him. And I’m sorry if I swerve into whataboutism here, but that speaks of an incredible hypocrisy on the Disney side for me. Because they have no problems protecting people who are proven abusers, yet they fire Gunn over (gross, unnecessary, adolescently edge-lordy) jokes.
Thank you for pointing this out because me and my friends who have been through sexual trauma, etc do similar dark humor. I sure as hell don’t tweet it.
Hey! You listen to “True Crime Garage”?
My issue is why didn’t Disney address this before they even thought about hiring him initially? Why did it take an alt right POS Cernovich for them to sever ties? He apologised back in 2012, GOTG was released 2014 and from what I’ve read Disney knew about this. Came to the point it was bridge under water and that he had apologised about it.
Same Disney who still hires Johnny Depp who puts his hands on his ex wife. Same Disney who has kept on John Lasseter til the end of the year instead of severing ties. There were reports of execs wanting to bring him back in a managerial role. If Disney are going to act all bothered about their studio’s values then they need to start by acting on it properly. Otherwise they are hypocrites.
Cernovich only smears those or blasts those with past tweets that don’t align with his supposed thoughts. Otherwise, he was supportive of Roy Moore & denied the encounters Moore had with minors.
Gave legal advice to a Gamergate & 8 chan founder by the name of Frederick Brennan who had funding pulled by Patreon after it was found that they were unapologetically hosting indecent content. Cernovich cooked up a conspiracy theory that the reporter who uncovered this had uploaded the disgusting imagery to ‘frame’ his friend.
You can read more about it here: https://medium.com/@ManfredVonKarma/mike-cernovich-based-lawyer-of-gamergate-419d0617f259
Let’s not empower and legitimise these alt-right POS’s too.
James Gunn shouldn’t have been hired in the first place over his really f’ed jokes. Disney would have known his back ground w/ Troma and the work he has done.
Here’s the Southern Poverty Law Center Page on Cernovich
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/mike-cernovich
God, that man is a waste. He’s such a complete tool that one would *almost* hope that the violence he condones be used against him.
I am glad you linked SPLC. They do a great job of keeping an eye on hate.
Thank you! Why does Disney keep hiring these people with problematic pasts, then clutch their pearls when those issues come to the forefront? It’s ridiculous.
And not for nothing, but Gunn had a DISTURBING amount of pedophilia jokes that makes me think he wasn’t just ‘joking’.
Oh, FFS. He made several jokes over the course of four years about the most taboo thing he could think of. Gunn has made numerous jokes in two hours about incest and people being cows. That doesn’t mean he bangs his sister or cows.
Y’all are pretty sheltered and oblivious if you think that “means anything.”
Girl, step back. I’m not the one to be cursing at on here and Gunn is not the man for you to be getting this hyped over. Chill.
Disney is a foul cesspool of child exploitation. Of course, they hired him anyway and turned a blind eye. They do it all the time. When I look at an out of control former child actor I am never surprised to find they were linked to Disney.
Yes, but you see…They’re not hypocrites because something something. And if you claim that it IS hypocritical, you obviously are okay with pedophile jokes! You’re probably a pedo yourself , in fact! Or you just “don’t understand” why pedophilia jokes are wrong. PEOPLE WHO MAKE PEDOPHILIA JOKES ARE THE REAL PEDOPHILES BECAUSE REAL PEDOPHILES LOVE TO MAKE CATCHING THEM THAT EASY.
I see what you did there. They are raging hypocrites. ONLY when someone notices do they care.
It is like the fake outrage about Harvey W. The further away we get from his outing the less patience I have with a lot of the “shocked” reactions.
I could have told you years ago that something like this would happen with Gunn. Because I, like the executives at Disney, have seen his work. Why don’t they hire Mike Stoklasa to helm the next Guardians movie while they’re at it! Or Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna! Or cut out the middle man and just bring on Lloyd Kaufman outright! Then we can manufacture MORE outrage.
As long as they don’t hire any women to direct, we’re okay.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right” isn’t that how the saying goes?
I don’t care if right-wings feel empowered by outing someone, they are still terrible people, and the president will embarass them this week again anyways and people will still rightly call them out for being racist ass*oles.
But if they want to create a list of garbage people and hand the proof for the whole world to see, I am going to see that list and cancel whoever is on it. Human decency is not attached to any political or economical power. I’m glad this director was fired, and many others should be like Depp on Fantastic Beasts.
We have the power now to show them that it is not ok, it won’t be swept under the rug just because you are rich or famous. People make mistakes, yes, but they also own up to them, apologize for them to the people the hurt and truly try to become better people. But assault and pedophilia are not mistakes, they are CRIMES and no apology should be accepted without years of prison time and mandatory therapy.
Gunn did the crime and now he’s going to do the time, so to speak.
I’m okay with that. Saying that shiz and spinning it as “I was trying to be provacative” is peak white boy and I’m tired of this excuse.
But what pisses me off is the hypocrisy with which the right and their base treat these incidents. The f*cking PRESIDENT is handing over power to an enemy agent and blaming their election interference on his own country. He’s tearing children away from their parents and putting them in cages. He routinely props up actual pedophiles. But the right and his base are fine with all of it. I can’t even get excited about what Mueller is netting on his investigation because 45 is going to pardon everyone and no one is going to spend a day in jail, including him.
What I find most disturbing in this day and age is the fact that we are constantly talking about human rights, we are globally aware that children are the most vulnerable and most deserving of protection, we know the damage trauma can have on our FUTURE (how children are treated and raised is directly related to how our future will be shaped), we know how cycle of abuse works…
AND WE STILL RELATIVIZE CHILD ABUSE!!!
we still find a way to comment “but alt-right trolls found this”, “…but but the mother was a drug addict and that’s a disease and she should never be condemned for breastfeeding her baby while so high on meth that the baby died from OD(I actually read that on Jez a few days ago-it was an overwhelming majority)…
I have to admit that this new liberalization and compassion towards everything (he raped a child, but he had a hard life; she made racist jokes but she donated to Hillary so she’s ok…-paraphrasing)… it seems like we, as a society are just sinking lower and lower and lower. Normal, liberal people with moral compass are constantly derailed by loud, obnoxious people whose moral compass is totaly off bc they think and feel just for themselves, no matter if they are alt-right, GOP, hipster left/liberals who haven’t read one book or study or anything about subject of the conversation.
I’m just…tired and worn down and particularly because I hear so much nonsense and stupidity in my generation, which always describes itself as liberal, openminded and smart, but it turns out that a large number of people my age are actually just hipsters, talking about things they know and don’t want to educate themselves about.
This, this kind of “oh, child molestation is funny”, “oh, but he’s antiTrump so it’s okay…” is exactly that. I just can’t. I just can’t.
Right. Because making a joke is totally the same as actual rape and child abuse. *eyeroll*
Wendy you seem to not understand that if someone makes such sickening jokes, then it really could be reflecting what’s constantly in his mind and maybe even some actions he does in private. Now I was honestly ready to defend him also until I actually read the tweets (and then I couldn’t even finish reading them). Read them again a few times and truly ask yourself if you’d be ok if you found out your uncle or father was was saying the same things.
I actually hate the whole “let’s cancel someone because of jokes”, etc. BUT man I agree with this one. He’s a grown man, he wasn’t 16 when he tweeted those.
“if someone makes such sickening jokes, then it really could be reflecting what’s constantly in his mind”
Sorry, but that’s bullshit. Sure, it COULD be reflecting someone’s psyche, but that does not mean it IS and it is FAR more likely that it reflects the culture and environment that person occupies. IE exploitation cinema. and everything else he has ever said addressing this doesn’t exist or reflect anything about him at all, right?
Claiming anyone who makes jokes about something is a sexual predator is dangerous witch hunt bullshit.
I’ve read them. What makes you think I’m okay with them. If my uncle or father made those jokes, I wouldn’t be okay with it. BUT I WOULD NOT assume that they were pedophiles for it. Because I’m not an idiot.
Here’s a tip: ACTUAL pedos and predators are not going to talk like this in public. Because they don’t want to be caught. Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, and Gary Glitter didn’t make jokes in public about this.
I’m sorry you think the world operates so easily where predators announce themselves. But, uh… they don’t. Sorry!
You seem to not understand how moronic and dangerous that line of thinking is. Do you think Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris are pedophiles? They literally made an entire spoof news special about this sort of mass idiocy. It’s called Paedogeddon and it is on youtube.
Do you think the writers, director and stars of Deadpool are pedos too? Because that movie has a meet cute revolving around pedophilia jokes.
There have been people who were attacked, smeared, and have had their homes vandalized because of your line of thinking. Full stop. Glad you want to perpetuate that and play into the hands of actual rape advocates and russian bots.
I didn’t say it IS. I said it COULD be. Believe me, I’m a big believer of innocent until proven guilty. I’m not accusing him of being an actual molester and sorry if my previous comment suggested that. But it’s concerning that someone would joke about it more than just a few times. You can’t joke about sh*t like that and not expect consequences.
Well that’s awesome that you’re such a supporter of child molestation and child rape jokes Wendy.
Interesting hill you’re choosing to die on.
@CairinaCat
I’m not. I never implied such a thing. Never justified or said child rape or molestation jokes were okay. In fact what was said was “What makes you think I’m okay with them. If my uncle or father made those jokes, I wouldn’t be okay with it.” That’s literally the opposite of justifying something. I just said that making said jokes is not the same thing as actual abuse. But thank you for proving my point with the exact sort of baseless ad hominem BS I was actually talking about. Glad to know I can always count on your assistance and poor reading comprehension.
@Phil
I actually pointed out what you said. And that’s already enough of a slippery slope. In fact, look at what CarinaCat just said to me. Apparently she wanted to prove my point.
And I never claimed Gunn should be free of consequences. Ever. In fact, if you actually read what I wrote since the beginning, you’ll notice I’ve said he never should have been handed this multi-million dollar franchise since the beginning. The CONSEQUENCES should have been greater, and sooner.
Thanks Wendy for making sense.
To empower and legitimise the alt-right is a dangerous precedent to set.
I can’t believe the likes of Cernovich, Posebiac (sp?), Alex Jones are allowed to flourish with the BS they peddle to those who rely too much on the likes of them instead of critically thinking for themselves.
The likes of Cernovich don’t do this as a public service to us all rather out of spite. If one of their ‘friends’ did it, they wouldn’t blast them at all.
Exactly. I’m very annoyed at this point. Cernovich has more repulsive tweets..says you can’t rape..date rape a woman & people seem to be applauding his take down of Gunn. This is the same guy who almost created a mass hysteria at a pizzeria with his Twitter followers on lies. I’m exhausted and angry by the alt-right. No one should be okay with this. He’s been trying to take down journalists for a long time. Cernovich is a disgusting piece of garbage & far worse than Gunn. And Gunn? Disney knew about those tweets, they knew who they were hiring. Give me a break…what did they think he was doing at Troma? Writing kids films? Now it’s a problem? Did everyone miss the first reference in the Guardian of Galaxy films…the ship covered in semen?
THANK YOU. At least someone is talking sense.
“Did everyone miss the first reference in the Guardian of Galaxy films…the ship covered in semen?”
I like the Guardian’s films but it’s lines like this that still floor me that it made it out of the writers rooms.
Cernovich defended Roy Moore.
Exactly, these monsters shouldn’t be encouraged in their (COMPLETELY HYPOCRITICAL) actions.
@purplehazeforever Thank you for mentioning Troma. I remember hearing about him being hired for the first Guardian movie and thinking: “seriously? You’ve seen the stuff he’s done before, right? I mean, I grew up with it and I like it in this nostalgic way that reminds of what a pretentious/EDGY little screw-up I was at 16/17, but for a major Disney movie? Ok, it’s your money!” And people dug that (toned down) humour too! I remember everyone raving over how fresh Guardians felt. Ugh man.
Seriously, guys like that belong in the Grindhouse. For specifically this reason.
I second anyone and everyone who say that Taika Waititi needs to helm this one, too.
That’s fine I guess but don’t be surprised if Waititi tells them to f**k off. He has been vocal about wanting to do his own thing and was also vocal about Lord and Miller being removed from “their” Solo movie and not able to finish it. I think no matter what the circumstances he may have a problem being the journeyman director on “someone else’s” film.
This is a huge mess for Marvel as Gunn was being set up to over see the “cosmic” side of the universe. He was to have a much bigger role. They are no doubt livid right now…and scrambling.
Don’t forget James Gunn’s brother plays Rocket (CGI) and his BFF Michael Rosenblum (Smallville) is in Guardians.
Between Gunn’s management, Disney and Marvel, I don’t understand how his old tweets weren’t scrubbed. Not that it would make the situation better and he absolutely deserved to be fired but it’s kind of crazy that NO ONE thought to go through old tweets and delete when he signed on to be the director and a major film series.
But, again, he deserved to be fired. Those aren’t funny. They are gross and inappropriate and it’s not funny.
He did delete them years ago, but the internet is forever.
You can’t really scrub anything completely. That is a myth. A determined person can find all kinds of stuff on anyone.
Yeah before we hold a “Disney did the right thing!” parade might I point out that these tweets came out years ago when they hired him and …..he apologized and kept his job. Much like the Roseanne situation Disney knew about this all along, was happy to make money and only reacted now because the winds changed. There are no angels here. No heroes.
The tweets were disgusting and who cares if this is because right wingers hate him; it doesn’t mean we should white wash vile people. Yes, they were right to fire him but they willingly hired him when they knew about these tweets. Only now did they did him, to save face just like ABC knew Roseanne was racist when they hired her.
“The tweets were disgusting and who cares if this is because right wingers hate him; it doesn’t mean we should white wash vile people. ”
Exactly. I don’t care who outed him.
Normalising pedophilia via humor continues apace it seems.
Gunn was 41-42 year old obsessed with violating children in tweet, after tweet, for years and apparently made a similar tweet just a few months age.
Gunn is a ******.
Disney knew though…Gunn apologized years ago for those tweets. Just like with Roseanne, they knew. They knew exactly who they were hiring when they hired James Gunn. However, I doubt many of Celebitchy readers know about Mike Cernovich. It’s not whataboutism…the guy is just garbage. He basically says you can’t rape a woman. He’s separate from the issue of Disney hiring problematic people. And yes, I have a problem with Mike Cernovich & people on the alt-right more than I do with Gunn. Why? Because they actively target people for take downs, create mass hysteria in public places, like pizzagate and engage in political violence. A woman lost her life last year in Charlottesville at one of these rallies because of the alt-right & Cernovich & people like him are the reason why. I’m tired of it. It’s not whataboutism.
Not for this, he didn’t. He made some Misogynistic and Homophobic jokes on his blogpost About superheroes and apology gized for that. Yes, this asshole has made more shitty jokes. http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/07/20/guardians-of-the-galaxy-director-james-gunn-fired-offensive-comments-previously-apologized/
Okay. He has a history of being an asshole…it still doesn’t excuse Disney from hiring him which was part of my point. The other point I was making is which many are missing is that Cernovich, the person who took him down, is far worse. He’s actually been charged with rape. He’s been known to incite riots, he’s engaging in take down of journalists & Hollywood figures who are anti Trump..when he’s guilty of the same stuff. He tweets you can’t rape a woman. He’s no better than the person he’s lodging accusations at, he’s actually worse. I don’t care about Gunn. Gunn was fired. I care about Cernovich because of the hate he stirs up online.
THANK YOU.
Gunn’s never actually hurt anyone. Or tried to spread hate. The guy is a boner peddler. FFS.
Seriously. Disney better this guy. They knew about it before they hired him. At that time it was considered water under the bridge; he admitted it, apologized it, and didn’t do it again. I’m not giving them a pat on the back for firing him down the road. In fact, I’ll be the first one to say he shouldn’t have been fired. People do and say dumb shit on social media. I’d rather action be taken against those that are actually causing harm to others; you know the rapists, wife beaters, actual pedos, those who yield their paper to take what they want from others,etc. At this stage, I legit could care less about some idiotic tweets. The real problem with those tweets by the way is that no one over the 16 would find any of that funny. It’s exactly the kind of jokes a certain type of teenage boy or frat boy finds funny because they think they are so edgy and provocative. I’ve heard far worse at the local Funny Bone.
These tweets sound to me like someone who was maybe a victim of this kind of abuse when he was a child and makes light of it as a way to minimize it in his own mind. They do not, to my ears, have the tone of someone who plays the role of abuser. Yeah, he was in his 40s, and maybe he should have known better. But men take a long time to grow up, and some people don’t work through their issues until later in life. Also, the tide has changed a lot in the past couple of years on what is acceptable to say. This has the feel of a witch hunt to me. And, apparently, it was.
Or maybe he was just making the most off-color jokes he could think of because he’s the writer of Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.
Wendy, your comments don’t make it any better. I don’t think he’s a pedophile, but what he tweeted weren’t jokes. Jokes are funny, but there are no circumstances in which child abuse is funny.
Sorry, but a joke being bad doesn’t make it not a joke.
Apparently he was abused as previous commenters have mentioned
And kevin spacey was abused and beaten by his literal nazi father, that doesn’t make it okay what you do to others and in james gunn’s case his friend was abused as a child. This thing should have made him more sensitive than being crass.
I don’t understand how someone would think that was a funny joke.
Disney was right about firing him, but the same Disney that employed Roseanne ( with a history of racism) and keeps supporting and kissing ass with Johnny Depp it is not a company that has moral ground to say anything.
Anyone who obsesses and tweets about rape and child molestation has some serious issues. Age is no excuse for normalizing that. It’s not normal. Period.
That said, and separate from his pathology, I think Gunn is a creative genius.
Also separate is the Trump hate. I am fully on board with that. The man is a dangerous sociopath and so are his supporters.
But in the end, it doesn’t matter who outed Gunn.
I don’t see what the color of his skin has to do with it, however. Anyone of any gender/race/ color tweeting stuff like that has got huge problems that need to be addressed.
He co-wrote and directed Tromeo and Juliet, which was totally vile. What did they think they were getting when they hired him?
They knew what they were getting, it was the public who didn’t know. Disney is constantly throwing money at awful people who they think will make them money. They fired him because of public backlash, basically for getting caught.
“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”-HST
See: Johnny Depp.
The tweets were disgusting. I understand having a dirty sense of humor but who jokes about kids and sex? Disney had every right to fire him. Gunn got gunn fired. His tweets and there were many of them were beyond awful. pedophilia is not a joke, and all his defenders that think it was innocent fun arent helping the matter any. People that support the metoo movement and the turn around and think his jokes were ok are hypocrites. Hollywood has a long history with rumors about pedophilia and it should be treated just as harshly as the rumors and allegations of the ones who were involved with all the allegations of sexual assault.
Maybe that would be true if he’d made those jokes after being hired and Disney had no knowledge of it. Except they did and they hired him anyways. And he apologized years ago too.
No one thinks those jokes are okay. However, claiming it’s actual abuse is BS.
Conflating jokes (and, yes, they are reprehensible) with actual abuse and criminal behavior is falling right into the trap that Cernovich has set.
@Surely Wolfbeak
Thank you! I feel like people who have lost their damn minds.
By that logic, the writers, director, and stars of Deadpool are pedos too since there’s an entire meet cute revolving around child molestation jokes. And anyone who enjoyed that movie is also a pedophile. Cheers!
I have mixed feelings. On one hand if you do/say crappy things you are not free of the consequences. And also Disney is a brand and they want to protect their image (as they should). However, not only were the tweets 10 years old, he has apologized in the past as well as now. And he’s owning up to the mistake instead of trying to make excuses about how he was on ambien or whatever (*cough Roseanne*). I dont know. Yes, the tweets were in VERY poor taste but if hes truly moved on from that phase of his life then shouldnt we forgive? I dont know. *shrugs*
Those tweets are deeply disturbing. I think this man is dangerous and scary because what kind of person would say or even think those things.
Disney has every “right” to fire him, yeah, but they’re huge hypocrites for it.
Does anyone else KNOW Gunn’s work prior to Guardians? Guess what his movies featured when Disney hired him:
Ellen Page raping Rainn Wilson
A deranged father locking his dThiaughter in a soundproofed box calling her his Crenshaw Melon
A woman impregnated with slugs
A woman transforming herself into a mutant cow creature with a four foot dick
“Tito, the R*****ed Rebel”
This: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2VkMzQ0MzYtZWM2Yi00NjJmLWIxZGYtOTM2MjBjODQ4OWQ4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_CR0,45,480,270_AL_UX477_CR0,0,477,268_AL_.jpg
That’s what annoys me. Gunn wasn’t fired because he’s offensive (oh, and people stop pretending that he has “sick obsessions”:. The guy liked to say and write the most offensive and taboo shit. And, yes, MOLESTING KIDS IS BASICALLY THE BIGGEST TABOO THERE IS. Before Michael Jackson died, for instance, everyone was making jokes about him rushing to Wal-Mart because he heard boys’ pants were half off. If you know ANYTHING about his work, it becomes very clear that this guy said the most foul things he could think of… in a certain context. Gunn never harassed anyone or attacked individuals unlike SOME “provocateurs”). He’s fired because some right wing troll who earnestly tweets about how “date rape is a myth” brought it up again.
You know what we haven’t seen Gunn do, unlike people like Milo Yiannopoulos, Roseanne, Mike C, etc? Actually target actual people.
Disney hired him with his full history in mind. They knew it all. They hired him anyways. This has nothing to do with principles and everything to do with image and bottom line. It’s BS THEY NEVER SHOULD HAVE HIRED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. GUYS LIKE HIM BELONG IN THE GRINDHOUSE.
And if you’re going to take someone like that on, you stand by your decision. If he’d attacked someone like Roseanne did, that would be one thing. But he didn’t. He’s done nothing that Disney didn’t agree to sign their name to when they hired him.
PS: if you’re condemning Gunn and enjoyed Deadpool, you’re a giant hypocrite. Remember how that film had a slew of jokes about child rape? BECAUSE IT DID.
Who on earth would find this funny except fellow pedophiles?! I mean, REALLY. There are some things we never joke about, let alone never joking about them so specifically that you are describing random rape & molestation situations. Honestly after these statements I would question this guy’s tendencies. Fire him AND keep an eye on him. I think there’s more to this story.
Joan rivers had some jokes and no one fired her.
Its to radical this situation
We could spend all day comparing him with people who didn’t get fired for such and such, and people who did for such and such. I think we should just look at his tweets specifically for what they are for a moment and forget about who revealed them and such. His tweets are gross, pedo joking is pretty universally agreed upon to be gross, he was over 40 years old when he tweeted them, this there are consequences for his actions. No matter how sorry he is and no matter how much he has changed and no matter who else has said things and didn’t get fired…there are still consequences and he got them.
I’ll go against the grain. This idea that people cannot change is frightening. I work with a man who used to have disgusting and discpicable tattoos. He has turned his life around and changed the ideals he had.
I’m with you on the changing part, but there are still consequences. He very well could be the most amazing man ever who has done a turn around in his life. But there are consequences.
I’m a teacher. A fellow teacher has a criminal record due to stealing when she was 17 (over 30 years ago). Yes, she’s changed so much and is amazing, but she is STILL suffering consequences due to it. Parents ask for a class change if they find out, she’s been turned down jobs due to it, etc. it’s part of life, BUT she’s still doing well because she really is a changed person. If Gunn really has changed, then he’ll survive this just fine…it’ll just be harder for him due to consequences.
She has lost jobs i.e. discrimated against because of something she did 30 years ago when she was 17 but it’s okay because she is surviving it? That’s horrible.
I didn’t say it was ok, please actually read my comment. I said it’s consequences due to her actions, but she’s doing well because she’s a truly changed person. I don’t think it’s right that some people don’t give her a second chance, but many are giving her a second chance because of how she’s proved to be a very different person than she was when she was a teen.
Consequences are part of life whether we agree with them or not. If he has truly changed, he’ll get jobs, they just may not be as glamorous as Marvel but that’s his consequence for tweeting something so damn gross.
I don’t care who this story came from and what their purpose was. Creeps like him deserve to be outed and discredited. I don’t care who does it and for what purpose they do it. So gross anyone doesn’t see it as a pedo being outed and are trying to defend in a way. Get off your political high horse for once.
Spot in. 👊
The sheer volume of them indicates a pathology. But that’s ‘edgy’ humour I guess.
It’s excused, then justified, then finally normalized.😡
Right, because pedophiles announce themselves all the time and anyone who has ever made more than one pedophile joke is a pedophile themselves. And people who point out the hypocrisy and don’t think everyone who makes jokes about has a “pathology” must want to normalize pedophilia.
Right.
Your strident defence of Gunn not withstanding there’s no one size fits all in this pathology.
Some hide it, some place ir in pain view, daring to be called out on it. Safe in the knowledge that they can dress it in humour and their supporters will defend them to the hilt.
Any grown man who tweets obsessively about violating small boys and befriends a known criminally charged CP like Huddlsdtone deserves everything negative.
Amide:
My strident defense that doesn’t actually exist? Because I’ve stated multiple times on this comment board that he never should have been hired, belongs in the grindhouse, and that his jokes are bad.
Sorry for pointing out that dangerous witch hunt rhetoric is dangerous witch hunt rhetoric.
And 15 tweets outs of 20k tweets (over the course of years) is not “obsessively tweeting”
Absolutely. This stuff is anything but freaking normal.
@AMIDE – – Very well said.
Sounds like he’s saying what he really wants to do in those tweets. None of them are funny and provocative. I was starting to believe the things he was saying about Jared Leto. I didn’t know he had this background. Gross.
He’s far from the only person saying things about JL. There have been groupie stories about him online for years, he goes after sex with underage girls. There are tons of anon stories out there from women who were very young when they were with him, he actually has his attorney threatened to sue blogs that talk about it.
Why don’t we see more stories about Leto’s behavior? How has he managed to cover it up for so long?
Agreed. He needs a #metoo moment ASAP. He is one of the worst offenders in HW.
Now granted, if it turns out he’s a pedo, then I take it all back, but right now I’m thinking purity culture might be going a little far. Not to mention if anyone’s read The Giving Tree, the “kid” is an old man by the time the book is over.
I totally understand why Disney and Marvel had to make the decision, but it sucks. Troma was a different world. Tromeo and Juliet was full of shock and schlock, rape and incest and bestiality. That was the creative environment Gunn was working in back then. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. But it’s context. It’s not like the tweets were in a void. Like he was just tweeting out shocking things out of nowhere. It may not to be to your taste. It isn’t to mine. But it doesn’t mean he’s a pedophile.
Shhhhhhh….. Stop saying things that actually make sense! EVERYONE WHO DOESN’T THINK GUNN IS A PEDOPHILE MUST BE A PEDOPHILE OR PEDOPHILE APOLOGIST.
Wendy you keep commenting stuff like this but I’m not really seeing comments that actually say he’s a pedophile. They’re saying things more along the lines of “it’s sick to joke about this as a grown man and there are consequences for doing that”. He may be a great guy who has never hurt anyone, good for him, but I don’t blame his employer giving him consequences as they see fit.
Go back and read the comments. Plenty of people, including you, have suggested that this is about “what he wants to do” and how this is “a fixation” or a “pathology”. Clementine, for instance, said his jokes would only be funny to “fellow pedophiles.” Or Rebecca. “Sounds like he’s saying what he really wants to do in those tweets.”
Show me a comment where I said Gunn shouldn’t face consequences. Go ahead. I will wait. If anything, my first comment called for more consequences, in that I think he never should have been given the opportunity to make millions from the Guardians franchise in the first place. IE, his bullshit should have cost him the chance to ever have this lucrative job. The consequences should have been years ago.
Being fired now means he will still be profiting off those first two films for years to come.
As a fan of Guarduans, I’m disappointed because I liked what he added to the genra, but not upset they fired him. I think he sometimes has a case if headuphisownassitis judging from what I’ve seen of him on IG. But really, it’s not like someone else can’t do his job. You’d think with him being in the business long enough he’d have known that and kept the not so suitable for anyone humor to himself.
No, you are not the one.
*sigh* Off color humor can work within context, and I think it’s important to check for context before jumping on that bandwagon, but Twitter is a particularly poor platform for this kind of stuff because it’s literally just sentence posting. You can’t provide a decent framework around it, even if it was meant well – and this isn’t even GOOD dark comedy, at that. I don’t know why these people, who work in a business where image is everything, think this kind of stuff is smart.
This being said, the alt-right can get f*cked. The audacity of calling somebody a pedophile when they actively supported Roy Moore.
Slither is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. He’s someone who demonstrated growth and change……so I don’t think he should have been fired. He apologized profusely for those very same tweets a few years ago and Disney knew about them when they hired the guy. I don’t know his firing makes me a tad uncomfortable because where does it stop? When does it end? Are we going to scour the internet for every tweet, etc that every famous person has ever made no matter how long ago so that we can punish them? People do shitty things, people say shitty things; but people can also change and evolve and to my knowledge James Gunn has never had any allegations levied against him for any type of inappropriate behavior / action toward another man, woman, or child. Yeah, so I’m torn.
He apologized for some shitty blog posts back then when he was hired, but it wasn’t for this stuff.
This old tweet thing is about arse covering by Marvel and the Studio because something way worse is probably due to drop and they want to be well distanced from him when it does.
A no win scenario. Gunn apologized twice, which was good of him.
I doubt we’ll ever hear any sort of thing from that cancer Cernovich. He is vile and unrepentant.
These tweets aren’t funny or edgy. They are dark and disturbing. Written by a 40+ yr old makes them even worse..
I’m completely in the middle on this. For one, I liked James Gunn and I liked Guardians. It was a touching movie about friendship. It wasn’t intrinsicly feminist and was male centric, but I didn’t mind taking my kid to it. I also liked James Gunn before because I did have an outdated sense of humor and taste in entertainment – a view I have also drastically changed over the last decade. I am younger than him by 15 years so maybe that contributes to it – but as someone who was sexually abused as a child and who had zero support, what developed was a very obscene and dark “humour”. I have since learned how inappropriate it is to share that in public because it puts others at risk of harm, but to be honest, it’s something I do in private to help me cope with my own pain. So when I see others doing it, I’m and not saying it’s okay or should be tolerated, I’m suggesting that often it results from their own unresolved traumas and if he has learned and changed, I look forward to what he does next during this new chapter. I support his firing, I’m glad he’s accepted it, and I hope a woman gets his job.