Accountability in Entertainment • Page 25

It’s just disappointing all around and it really highlights the fact that we don’t really know the best way to deal with this specific issue.

Gunn posting that stuff is just brutal. He was spewing toxic bullshit without ever really facing any consequences for years. It’s totally justified to ask him to be accountable for that shit. In that regard, I’m not really sympathetic. He should answer for this.

That said, he does seem like someone who has undergone a shift in his way of thinking. So, how does that factor into what accountability looks like? I don’t know what the answer to that is.

And then, if he did really have a change of heart, why did it never occur to him to remove that shit from the public sphere? Come on. You know you what you wrote. That it never occurred to him to remove that stuff is weird.

And, as was mentioned, what the hell is wrong with the people he pays to manage his career? This is literally your job. This should have been easily avoided.

Disney’s actions are, obviously, disingenuous. They knew who they were hiring. They either didn’t care to check, or just didn’t care, if he had anything like that out there.

Lastly, the weaponization of this shit from MAGA people is disconcerting.

 

Motive is interesting, but I can compartmentalize not liking where it started with what happened I think. I think the motives for a lot of these campaigns may be less than pure, but the result or reasoning behind them still seem needed. I think there's a difference between racist intent from someone like Roseanne and making pedophile 'jokes,' but ultimately I think the later is definitely worthy grounds of firing someone at Disney.

 

Lots of comments like "well, this is what the SJWs wanted and we warned about, here's a taste of your own medicine" — which, for lack of a better phrase, is super fucked up.

 

I think what’s most frustrating is how this precedent absolutely will not be followed on the right.

If those MAGA fucks wanna set this bar, cool. Let’s do it.

Because Hannity says shit this awful every day. James Woods should literally never be employed again.

 

Idk this guy or his deal, but I kinda hate when people search bad keywords to "get" someone. They should still answer for it and demonstrate knowledge of why it's wrong and hopefully their actions show change. Idk about his actions cause idk him. I just hate when these things dont come from a genuine place. I know he wasnt super young when he tweeted those things but I guess the "he was older no excuse!!!" Arguments kinda throw me too idk. I used to spearhead that too, but we all come from and start in different places and we all get to where we need to be or hopefully starting to get there at different times. It sucks we dont all learn this stuff earlier on, but I would hope we dont write someone off completely because they didnt change at a young enough age. We can all learn at any age and should be encouraged to change at "older" ages too. But again to me it's all about actions since the incident and how they handle the incident, and accepting that if a company wants to drop u as a result of pain u caused its valid. If someone was like 40 and is like waaah I was a fetus I didn't knoooow then yeah bye. But if they've demonstrated change legitely I am more forgiving. Idk that's my general accountability thoughts.

 

Sorry if this was already posted, but here are James' comments on twitter (thread):

 

Knowing how much money Marvel were discussing having to pay him for Guardians 3, I feel like this wasn’t such a hard decision for them to make

 

This will never not make me angry. Turning on Fox right now and I'd find actual things being said that are harming actual people. Like, I don't like jokes like this and find this shit, especially posted on Twitter, really gross. I don't get typing any of that and thinking it's funny. But I don't think it's hard to see the difference between this and Rosanne, for example. I also totally get why Disney would need to sever ties, but if he had deleted all this years ago, and it came out now, he'd have more grounds to ask for forgiveness and explain how much he's changed from then to now IMO.

 

Totally agree.

And, as I posted in the other thread, it isn’t as if he didn’t have ample warning this could hurt him.

The sex poll with his commentary that he had on his website resulted in a petition to have him fired before Guardians even started filming.

He had to apologize and remove it. Why he didn’t, right then and there, clean house is beyond me.

 

Not even touching the offensiveness of the jokes, they were plain unfunny in general.

Offensive jokes can be done well and those weren't.

 

Hmmm...I find myself conflicted. If he's truly changed as a person, why would he feel the need to erase those tweets? It's a marker of who he was not who he is now and people can judge him accurately by reading the progression of his character. From a professional standpoint I can understand wanting to delete them, but then if they get uncovered somehow after being deleted so many more people would be like "look at this closeted racist, offensive, monster who tried to hide who he really is from the public," where as keeping them around gives you the ability to say "have you seen anything remotely like that since those comments? Can you not see how much I've grown through my bodies of work, my interviews, my interactions with people on set, and my conversations with the community?"

It's a bit of conflict for me because I understand what his intentions were with the tweets, it was the execution that was poor and leaves a sour taste. Someone commented "the jokes weren't even funny" as if the level of humor derived from such jokes determines how shitty a person is.

For instance Jimmy Carr, British comedian, is well renowned for his offensive jokes. It's his thing. And it poses a few interesting questions, I guess the most important of which that directly relates to this situation is: do we disregard intent for bad execution? Because I'd be willing to argue Jimmy Carr isn't a bad person, he's just better at crafting jokes than James Gunn. It's not like James was actively practicing this mindset through his recent works or when he interacted with others so it leaves a lot of room for argument on either side.

Here's a video of Jimmy Carr and his most offensive jokes: tell me if you laugh. I really want to know. I want to know what makes these jokes acceptable then.

Also, people grow. Do we take that into account? It doesn't matter what age you are, if you realize you were a dick and are constantly and decidedly working toward self-improvement and accomplish that, should you suddenly have all that thrown out because once upon a time you were a shitty person?

 

I am shocked Disney didn't know about any of this ... that part is super weird. They probably did, but, knowing them, the Mouse doesn't like any controversy.

 

(No part of me has any desire to click "play" on a video titled "most offensive jokes." I can think of a billion better things to do with my time.)

 

Jimmy Carr is a funny dude and most of what I've seen of his (can't watch this at work now) is funny. You can also clearly tell the difference between his well-crafted and thought out jokes and Gunn spouting out shitty unfunny "jokes" on Twitter.

 

I mean, that's up to you. I'm not forcing you to do it. But I think not having an open mind and believing I'm not posting that without good reason is a little strange. It's a valid question: why do people who say much more offensive things become famous and get away with it? Is it because it's funny? If he botched the landing of these jokes and suddenly people didn't find them amusing, he's somehow more or less a terrible person? Isn't that hypocritical?

 

That's the thing though, it's shitty because it's unfunny apparently.

 

Yeah, anyone can spout offensive edgy lines for attention like Gunn did. Not everyone can crafts offensive jokes that are actually funny like Carr does.

 

My cynical take: it's not at all about him being a terrible person or not. Disney just doesn't like controversy. They're about to buy Fox, which includes Family Guy. Family Guy has had soooo many really offensive jokes on it. It's not about the offense - Disney just doesn't want negative articles about one of their directors.

 

My desire not to watch a video of someone being "offensive" doesn't have anything to do with an open mind or your reasoning. It has to do with there being a billion ways to spend my time and doing that, or rehashing 'what is comedy' like I'm in a high-school philosophy class again, seems like a poor use of my day. If you're punching up with a joke, by and large, you're fine. If you're punching down, you're not. The issue of the jokes not being funny is combined with how quite a few went after marginalized people. (There were anti-trans jokes, etc.) That's not hypocritical at all. That's being consistent.

No one in this thread has said he's a terrible person that I've seen. He's a rich white guy that doesn't get to be more rich and make a Disney movie. He'll be just fine.

 

I think people from Disney definitely knew about this stuff but it wasn't an issue then and it is now so they're only acting now.

 

I think offensive jokes for the sake of offense isn't that funny. Offensive jokes are best when comedians take you to a place you don't expect to go to and make you laugh at subject you wouldn't normally laugh at. I think there can be offensive jokes that make you wonder why you laugh at something and make you examine your attitudes toward a subject. It's pretty tricky to do though - Jason's comments about punching up instead of down are relevant.

 

Lol holy shit, yes

 

I see. Well, forgive me for being genuinely curious and trying to open up a dialogue.