Disney Drops James Gunn From ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Franchise After Offensive Tweets

[Mr Person]

It seems Gunn recognizes the reprehensibility of his remarks from back then. He's not even trying to defend them, yet others are. WTF for?

Which "others"? And what counts as defense?

So the short is that Gunn was in 2009 a boor; he didn't then suffer any consequences for being so; now he is having to "pay the piper;" he recognizes that, yet there are people who think he should "get away with it" in perpetuity.

Tell me you are not equating a criticism of Disney for knowing of the remarks and forgiving him for them but only now firing him because of a perceived backlash generated by a white supremacist who has done worth with defending the remarks substantively.

That would be absurd and frankly, it's hard to see how it wouldn't be intellectually dishonest. If the set of entities involved in an event are A & B, criticizing A does not necessarily mean defending B.

Red:

• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of the "years ago" apology for the tweets in question?
• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of something from "years ago" showing Disney's execs knew about the tweet?
• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of something showing that Alan Horn knew of the tweets from 2009 to the present, or from 2012 to the present, and that in all those years, and up until this month, he was indifferent about them?
  
  • Maybe a reprobate of a bearing similar to Gunn's in 2009 was, in 2009 to 2012, running the show at Walt Disney Studios. Alan Horn has been Chairman there since 2012. Did he know about the tweets between then and now?

I see. So you are going to be rude and self-righteous on a subject involving a slightly differing moral judgment, but you don't actually know the subject? This information is readily available, and I'm really not sure why you expect someone you attacked without provocation to produce links at your demands. (That would be post #25).

Matters such as Gunn's dismissal will be handled differently by folks of differing character. IMO, they should be handled the same way all the time, but the reality is that doesn't always happen. That's as obvious by the difference of opinion on the matter here as by the actual fact of Gunn's apparently having, from 2009 until recently, suffered no material consequences for making the remarks.

Why don't you just come out and say who those folks are, then describe in what manner their character differs?

Who are they and how does their belief that it isn't right for A to know of and forgive B's ugly marks, then harm B because because they are afraid of a backlash, mmmm?

Blue:
WTH? I'm sure there was plenty that Walt did wrong. The man is dead. He can no longer be punished. (I guess you thought you were applying reductio; if you did, you applied it inaptly.)

Inaptly? No, inapt would be a better description for acting like criticizing Disney is a defense of the remarks.



Anyway, I've never been rude to you until at earliest post #50, in which I only repeated your own condescending words back to you. I'll bear it in mind. I'd suggest not flailing snotty self-righteous fury at someone based on a misrepresentation of what they actually said, especially if they didn't attack you first.





[Edit: hold on. Are you taking my general comment on overall political correctness to mean I think his comments were fine? I really don't see how that interpretation seems more likely but if so, no, I wasn't. The "political correctness" remark had to do with Disney's action in accepting an apology, then turning around and firing him out of the blue (no less because a white supremacist who said far worse himself dug it up in order to get revenge on Gunn for being anti-Trump).]

 

[Fishking]

actually that was some of their best stuff.
but we were a better nation back then.

Certain things were better but I wouldn't say mainstreamed racism was better, especially for those who were the victims of it.

 

[Xelor]

Part I of III

Which "others"? And what counts as defense?

Red:
Well:

• Tacitly, you:
  

  Firing someone for tweets that weren't a problem 10 years ago is what it means to take PC culture to an idiotic extreme....These were tweets, not some secret about his past he hid from his employer. If they weren't grounds for termination 10 years ago, they're definitely not legitimate grounds now.

• Tacitly, Skeptic Bob:
  

  The bad taste joke from a decade ago apparently didn’t matter when he directed the other movies. But now, after even MORE time has passed since the tweet, it all of a sudden is a problem? Now, if he is harassing people at work or victimizing people I completely get it.

• People who work in entertainment:
  [*=1]GoG Cast:
  • 
    [*=1]Dave Bautista
    [*=1]Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Chris Pratt, and Pom Klementieff
  
  [*=1]James Starlin
  [*=1]Kirsten Powers
  [*=1]Several others
  [*=1]Selma Blair and whoever has signed her petition

Blue:
Statements that assert or imply that Gunn should not have to endure consequences for having had and exhibited publicly the character traits evident in the remarks he posted publicly. What are those character traits?

• Poor judgment at a life stage where exhibiting poor judgment may have material consequences.
  • Lack of self-control -- There's a time and place for everything. He chose both the wrong time and the wrong place to share the ideas he did.
  • An excess of gall/effrontery (tactlessness) -- The man made merry of and using as a foil the occasion of rape and he did so self-aggrandizingly merely to be, as Gun put it, "provocative."

Tell me you are not equating a criticism of Disney for knowing of the remarks and forgiving him for them but only now firing him because of a perceived backlash generated by a white supremacist who has done worth with defending the remarks substantively.

In stating the following...

So the short is that Gunn was in 2009 a boor; he didn't then suffer any consequences for being so; now he is having to "pay the piper;" he recognizes that, yet there are people who think he should "get away with it" in perpetuity.

...I draw no verisimilitude between the nature of Gunn's remarks and those of any others.

I deplore Gunn's remarks and his having made them on account of their own demerits. I'm not a moral relativist of any sort. The bar against which I measure myself and others is existential. My assessment of "guilt" or "innocence" is made relative to that bar, not with regard to what anyone else does or doesn't do.

For example:

Auditors review a firm's accounting records and financial statements. The records/statements are the firm's and auditor opines on whether the firm's assertions in its financial statements "present fairly in all material respects.... [whatever thing the statements represent]." The auditor's opinion letter also identifies the bar against which his/her assessment was made and what methods were used to arrive at the assessment. The assessment has nothing whatsoever to do with any other firm's performance/behavior, be it in terms of operationally as a business or in terms of the qualities of another firm's financial assertions.

Just as there is a bar against which the quality of a firm's financial assertions are measured, so too is there a bar against which one's character is measured. That bar is the same regardless of whether one is a public figure or not. The only difference is that by being a public figure, one's words and deeds are necessarily exposed to greater quantities of scrutiny. More scrutiny or less, the bar remains constant.​

(continued due to character limit)

 

[Xelor]

Part II of III

That would be absurd and frankly, it's hard to see how it wouldn't be intellectually dishonest. If the set of entities involved in an event are A & B, criticizing A does not necessarily mean defending B.

• Let using the occasion of rape as a foil to, in part, advance one's own notice within a community be a reprehensible act (R).
• Let A be one who commits act R.
• Let B be a person who employs A, learns of A committing act R, and, in turn, B levies a penalty against A for having "R'd."
• Let C be a third party opining on A and B's actions.

While all modes by which C chides B do not inherently mean C is also defending A, C's assertion (express or tacit) that A does not deserve to have been penalized as B did is a defense of A. The following remark is thus a defense of A:

• "If [A's actions] weren't grounds for termination 10 years ago, they're definitely not legitimate grounds now."

"R" is every bit as reprehensible now as it was 10 years ago. A committed R and is alive to face judgment and punishment for having "R'd." That it took time for A to be face justice is what it is, and one can have a view on that too, but the passage of time doesn't alter the fact that A was a reprobate and should rightly endure the consequences of having been so. A's "get out jail free" card had a ten year expiration period.

I see. So you are going to be rude and self-righteous on a subject involving a slightly differing moral judgment, but you don't actually know the subject? This information is readily available, and I'm really not sure why you expect someone you attacked without provocation to produce links at your demands. (That would be post #25).

Number One:

What are you talking about? What have the above remarks to do with the questions to which they appear to be a response? The above quoted passage is what you posted just below the following questions I asked.

• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of the "years ago" apology for the tweets in question?
• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of something from "years ago" showing Disney's execs knew about the tweet?
• Perhaps I've missed your or someone else's posting of something showing that Alan Horn knew of the tweets from 2009 to the present, or from 2012 to the present, and that in all those years, and up until this month, he was indifferent about them?
  • Maybe a reprobate of a bearing similar to Gunn's in 2009 was, in 2009 to 2012, running the show at Walt Disney Studios. Alan Horn has been Chairman there since 2012. Did he know about the tweets between then and now?

Number Two:

Did you not comprehend what I wrote in post 25? Post 25, remarks upon the nature of Gunn's tweet and describes part of what makes Gunn's tweet illustrative of his poor character and judgment when he made the remark.​

• There is no rudeness in those remarks.
• There is no self-righteousness in post 25. I do not comment on the nature or extent of any of my own behavior, nor did I compare or contrast my behavior with/to Gunn's.
• The only person lambasted in post 25 is Gunn. Are you Gunn? Is another member here Gunn?

Number Three:

Gunn's "rape" remark and the setting in which he expressed it speaks for itself.​

• 
  [*=1]He wasn't on stage performing as a "shock" comedian.
  [*=1]The remark does not appear in a book of comedy.
  [*=1]Gunn attested to posting the remark to be provocative.
  [*=1]The occasion of rape isn't something about which people of good judgment and character abstractly joke.
  [*=1]Gunn did not concurrently with or immediately following his "rape" tweet, post explanatory remarks so as to inform readers that his character and judgment were something other than what one might infer from the tweet itself.
  [*=1]Gunn attested to his, at the time of the tweet, being of ill sorted character.

The bullet points above are what give rise to my position on this matter. My view has to do with nobody but Gunn.​

(continued due to character limit)

 

[Xelor]

Part III of III

Why don't you just come out and say who those folks are, then describe in what manner their character differs?

Who are they and how does their belief that it isn't right for A to know of and forgive B's ugly marks, then harm B because because they are afraid of a backlash, mmmm?

The above is in response to my having written:

Matters such as Gunn's dismissal will be handled differently by folks of differing character. IMO, they should be handled the same way all the time, but the reality is that doesn't always happen. That's as obvious by the difference of opinion on the matter here as by the actual fact of Gunn's apparently having, from 2009 until recently, suffered no material consequences for making the remarks.

Pink:
Who those folks are, in the context here, is irrelevant. What's relevant is that their character is such that it allows them to ascribe to temporal relativism in determining the probity of an act and whether committers of it should, by dint of having for a long time faced no consequences for his/her espousing the reprobate notions that his/her vulgar words describe, continue to face no repercussions.

I don't care about the words themselves. My assessment is based on the words evincing one's frame of mind and an aspect of one's character. To wit, conceptually:

• If an American five-year-old aspersively utters, say, the "n-word," I won't hold the child accountable for embracing the hateful attitude that word depicts. I won't because I know 5 year-olds don't and cannot be expected to empathetically, sympathetically or merely intellectually comprehend the full meaning that word has. Clearly the child has some awareness that the word is derogatory, but the word is yet, for the child, just a derisive term as is "a-hole" or any other epithet s/he might utter.
• If an American adult aspersively utters the "n-word," I will have wholly different stance toward his/her doing so than I have regardings a 5 year-old's doing so. It is reasonable to expect that an American adult fully comprehends the full meaning of that word -- its connotation and denotation and attendant "baggage." So when that adult uses that term to deride another, it's not, as it would be with the child, merely a derogatory term. It's that and more; it has reflexive implications. An adult's using it aspersively or adjectivally with regard to another person tells listeners about a frame of mind that adult has.

Tan + Teal + Orange:
I don't understand the role of the "orange" clause's association with the "tan and teal" one.

Tan:
The folks having differing character are people whose character is such that it allows them to ascribe to temporal relativism in determining the probity of an act and whether committers of it should, by dint of having for a long time faced no consequences for their having espoused the reprobate notions that his/her vulgar words described, continue to face no repercussions.

[Edit: hold on. Are you taking my general comment on overall political correctness to mean I think his comments were fine? I really don't see how that interpretation seems more likely but if so, no, I wasn't. The "political correctness" remark had to do with Disney's action in accepting an apology, then turning around and firing him out of the blue (no less because a white supremacist who said far worse himself dug it up in order to get revenge on Gunn for being anti-Trump).]

I have not remarked on the political correctness aspects of the rancor over Gunn's tweet or consequences he's enduring as a result of it.

Truly, I haven't remarked on the righteousness (or lack thereof) of Disney's firing Gunn. From where I sit, Disney's managers care about one thing: Disney's profits. That's what they're paid to care about. So in from 2009 until recently, it stands to reason that Disney's management, to the extent they knew of Gunn's "rape" tweet, adjudged that the tweet wouldn't have a material enough impact on Disney's profits for them to have taken punitive action against Gunn for his having tweeted thus. Obviously, Disney's sitting managers think their profits will more so be materially adversely affected if they retain Gunn on their payroll than would be the case if they dismiss him.

End of reply.

 

[PirateMk1]

If all it takes is a bad joke from 20 years ago, although I can't remember any at this point, I'm probably screwed.

You and me both hoss. I just love bad puns.

 

[Xelor]

I think the MSM has it in for social media - virtually every story is about an "offensive" post that gets someone in trouble.

Yep. I WANT artists pushing the envelope. Have I been offended by things entertainers have said before? Absolutely. But so what? Nothing bad happens when I get offended. I honestly don’t understand what the big deal is with being offended. Here is an “offensive” comedian explaining it better than I:



I have laughed at rape jokes, dead baby jokes, holocaust jokes, you name it. Now, it takes a talented comedian to make me laugh at such jokes, and James Gunn is not such a comedian, but I HAVE laughed at such jokes.

Life is absurd and the worst parts of life are the most absurd. Humor is healing. Laughter is cathartic. Don’t walk on egg shells around me. Throw your best at me. Worst case scenario is I will be offended. Best case scenario is I will laugh so hard I cry from joy. I’ll gladly accept daily doses of the former in exchange for the occasional dose of the latter.

That Gunn held/holds the notions his diction indicates is the problem. That he exhibited poor judgment is the problem. That the remark offended someone isn't the problem I have with his tweet, but it probably is among the problems Disney has with it.

There's a time and place for everything, and Gunn picked the wrong time and the wrong place to express a reprobate notion that crossed his mind.

All I expect from a director is that he makes a good movie. I refuse to go down the path of using morality tests for every person I purchase goods and services from, unless morality is important to those goods and services, such as with teachers or cops.

That is all you expect. The managers of a firm, however, have every right to want employees who don't put the firm in the position of having to tacitly appear to accede to and forbearing reprobate notions and personnel. Quite simply, Gunn isn't the only director capable of making a "good movie."

Remember too that "good movie" for a movie studio is (1) a movie that meets the studio's profitability targets and (2) a movie that obtains critical acclaim, be it artistically, as is ostensibly the case with Oscar, Golden Globe, etc. winning productions, or anecdotally as evinced by consumers' buying tickets, DVDs, paraphernalia, etc. For consumers of movies and related "stuff," however, the prioritization is what you've described, and that may or may not have anything to do with whether the studio's goals for the film were/are achieved.

Studios produce content first, foremost and overwhelmingly for one reason: to make money. They're not doing it out of some altruistic desire to entertain you and me. They only want to entertain us because they know we're willing to pay money to be entertained.

Especially arty creative people....how stupid is that to demand from them the same level of purity as the clergy!

You and me though are going to die off before the bus gets to UTOPIA prob...hardly anyone cares what we think.

Material shares of the matter have to do with (1) Gunn's character, (2) his perspicacity re: rape and rape victims, and (3) his judgment. His tweet shows him to have been wanting in all three dimensions. Were he not, when he posted the tweet, wanting in #2 or in #3, he wouldn't have written it as he did and he wouldn't today find his relationship with Disney terminated.

What employer wants to pay any wage to any employee to exhibits poor judgment, and publicly no less? I dare say no employer does.

Funny thing.. the tweets were long before Disney hired him, and he apologized years ago.

I don't know that that is factually true (or that it's not); Disney has many subsidiaries and Gunn's done quite a lot in the entertainment industry.

Several folks have said Gunn apologized years back for the "rape" tweet, yet I can't find it anywhere. Was his "years ago" apology anywhere near as public as was the "rape" tweet itself? I don't know....I just keep hearing about it, but nobody produces it.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Material shares of the matter have to do with (1) Gunn's character, (2) his perspicacity re: rape and rape victims, and (3) his judgment. His tweet shows him to have been wanting in all three dimensions. Were he not, when he posted the tweet, wanting in #2 or in #3, he wouldn't have written it as he did and he wouldn't today find his relationship with Disney terminated.

What employer wants to pay any wage to any employee to exhibits poor judgment, and publicly no less? I dare say no employer does.

1) I dont appreciate you making your posts extra work to respond to because your respond to a many different people in a single post for no good reason I am sure.

2) It should be about the judgement excersized in the work mostly, rarely to never should someone be fired for a tweet especially a very old one... that is what twits do.

 

[Xelor]

It should be about the judgement excersized in the work mostly, rarely to never should someone be fired for a tweet especially a very old one... that is what twits do.

• Managers of businesses that rely to some extent upon public approbation of (1) the firm itself and (2) the performers/producers of the work product must weigh:
  • Qualitative/indirect factors such the impact an employee's words and deeds have on the firm, its reputation, its image, etc.
  • Quantitative/direct factors such as the quality and ROI of the employee's specific work product(s).

The only persons who have a right to evaluate whether any employee deserves to remain on the firm's payroll or remain as a supplier to the firm are the firm's managers and/or owners. Sometimes firms will forbear things "today" that "tomorrow" make a given employee more a liability, in the firm's manager's minds, and so the employee is let go (or a given job seeker is not hired).

That and similar sorts of analysis is driven largely by changes in the firm's customers' preferences, not because the actions and words of the employee (or other associate) are any more or less moral/ethical, sage, etc. The words and deeds themselves are the same "today" as they were "twenty years ago," yet how people respond to them changes. Normatively, I don't like or find acceptable that that is so, but that doesn't mean I don't see that it is so. Many things and related analyses work that way, I observe it and call it for what it is.
​

For example, my slave-owning ancestors were moral reprobates, no matter how well or poorly they treated their slaves. While they didn't live to face my disapprobation of their attitudes about humanity, I have no trouble saying they were morally wrong for embracing that curious institution. Similarly, my Northern ancestors were also morally reprehensible in that while they didn't own slaves and weren't necessarily anit-black, neither were they Abolitionists; moreover, they and their ilk preponderantly weren't of a mind to forbear blacks attending/joining their various social organizations -- clubs (One of my uncles belongs to a club in a major city that admitted its first black member in 2014!), schools (Momma's high school, for instance didn't admit a black girl until 1968! My alma mater didn't until 1951 admit a black student.), universities, churches, etc.

All of my forebears, even my own parents, were moral reprobates, albeit in different ways. About the only thing I can say about my parents is that they, unlike some of their peers, didn't inculcate me and my siblings with their reprehensible notions. That's one thing they did right, but Lord knows they damn sure didn't have the same neutral attitude they allowed us kids to develop. They saw that times were changing and, reading the writing on the wall, had the prudence to act on its message and allow us to develop into adults who would be able to "roll with" the changes, they allowed us to develop without the burden of bias with which they'd been imbued. That was they best they could muster to do -- they certainly didn't have the fortitude to alter their own beings -- so that's what they did.
​

• Consumers of an individual's or firm's labors also have the right to accord or withhold their approbation of a firm and its employees on account of either's actions, but consumers haven't the right to decide whether the firm retains or doesn't retain any given employee. If a consumer finds that a firm' retention of a given employee merits the consumer's not patronizing, so be it. Asserting that the firm should or should not engage a given person is, however, beyond the consumer's scope because the consumer has no way to assess credibly and completely the quantitative and qualitative merits and demerits attendant to the person in question.

 

[VanceMack]

If one is going to comment on this thread, you should read this article first:

On James Gunn, Fake Outrage and Letting The Bad Guys Win
snippet:

This is McCarthyism all over again -- target people you have political disagreements and try to kill their livelihood.

And thats 'wrong'...right? Like...targeting conservative businesses, targeting conservative politicians, targeting people with conservative viewpoints in opposition to yours., targeting conservative guest speakers....


thats all bad....right?

 

[Mach]

too late for that. The group thought police is out i full force.individual expressionism is forbidden at this point.you either comply or have your life and livelihood ruined.one of these days is it going to come back and bite these people.

It was a Republican that hunted him down and drummed up the notoriety off those old posts.
It's going to come back and bite Republicans?

This is an internet phenomenon. It's got roots in internet chats, have you seen gamersgate? It's the big genesis of these types of social moments + online shame campaigns. This is courtesy the digital age, where something you said in jest 10 years ago can be cranked through modern propaganda techniques and out the other end comes your destroyed career. Our population is not really inoculated against it, 40 somethings in their mind still live in a world where this cannot happen...they just don't really understand it. Younger generations may be so screwed, they may do something to stop it...but for now, we're a giant vulnerable population.

This can happen to anyone who has a career. Different groups abuse this for different reasons. This particular one was a Republican attacking Gunn for his political beliefs.

Same thing Trump does every day all day...attack others and the media, for being critical of him politically. It probably will come back to bit you, if you can admit it.

 

[MTAtech]

And thats 'wrong'...right? Like...targeting conservative businesses, targeting conservative politicians, targeting people with conservative viewpoints in opposition to yours., targeting conservative guest speakers....


thats all bad....right?

Ah, the false equivalence. [SARCASM]Targeting politicians who vote in Congress on policies that are against what you believe in is exactly like inventing controversy over a ten year old quite.[/SARCASM]

 

[VanceMack]

Ah, the false equivalence. [SARCASM]Targeting politicians who vote in Congress on policies that are against what you believe in is exactly like inventing controversy over a ten year old quite.[/SARCASM]

RIiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Its 'false equivalency' any time the shoe is on the other foot.

:lamo

Typical.

 

[Xelor]

If one is going to comment on this thread, you should read this article first:

On James Gunn, Fake Outrage and Letting The Bad Guys Win
snippet:

This is McCarthyism all over again -- target people you have political disagreements and try to kill their livelihood.

Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
-- Exodus 23:1

​

Whoa....McCarthyism and what Mike C. did re: Gunn are very different acts, though there may be some overlap in the motives each man had for doing what they did.

• Joe McCarthy was calumnious.
• Mike C. has drawn attention to a remark that Gunn did indeed make.

Though I've got better things to do than go looking for "skeletons" in one's closets, I don't have a problem with holding one accountable for one's unethical, immoral and/or legal "skeletons" that fall out of the closet, as it were, and land right at my feet. How the "skeleton" came to be there doesn't alter the fact that there is a "skeleton" right in front of me, and I must deal with it.

Willful ignorance is when you run around in a pasture ignoring that there're cow pies and gopher holes in it. It's just a matter of time before you step in one, the other or both.
-- Xelor​

​