by Beth
As soon as I heard about Disney firing
James Gunn I messaged Dave to see if he thought the topic was too
controversial for me to write about. He said to go for it, and thus
the lengthy process of research and notes began. Because I'm angry, I'm
confused, and I think we need to talk about this. Of course, he then
proceeded to talk about James Gunn in the introduction to his most
recent podcast, but whatever, I had already put too much work into
this thing to toss it all out. I try to treat this site like I treat
my day job. I stay away from sex, politics, and religion.
Unfortunately, a lot of what led up the the scandal is politically
based so I can't not bring it up. Don't worry though, I'm not not
here to push an agenda on you. I don't have any answers here, and I'm
not trying to start a fight, but I do think it's a discussion that
needs to be had. Preferably a rational discussion. And if you're
easily offended consider this fair warning. I found some of the
tweets on Mike Cernovich's website, and am posting screen-caps of them here. I think people deserve to see what
we're really talking about.
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| A rape fantasy, not a joke apparently |
By now you all know that James Gunn was
fired for some fairly off-color jokes he made in old tweets. He had
already apologized for them, and his only mistake was not
deleting them as soon as he started working for Disney. Or before he
started being extremely vocal about his opposition to Trump. Either
one would have been a good idea in hindsight. If you didn't know,
James Gunn got his start with the highly sick and twisted Troma movie
house. Even if you never saw The Toxic Avenger I'm sure you've at
least heard of it. In 1996 he wrote Tromeo and Juliet which is
seriously some bonkers shit. He created the hilariously messed up PG
Porn, and directed Super (which was one of those movies where I
wanted to take a shower after watching). Did anyone really expect that guy
to not have a fucked up sense of humor? And would we even be having
this conversation if he had stayed in the minor leagues doing horror
and weird ass comedies? I don't think Mike Cernovich would have was
wasted his time on the guy who did Slither bad mouthing the president
if that was the peak of Gunn's career. But because he's now famous
and very vocal about his political opinions he put a big ol' target
on his back, and it was only a matter of time before someone decided
to take the shot.
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| He can't even spell, but he's a real journalist? |
And since I've brought up the name we
have to talk about what a waste of life Mike Cernovich truly is. He
helped make “pizzagate” a thing, which nearly ruined a business
and caused a shooting over completely false accusations of a child
sex ring operating from a restaurant. He's now in a Twitter war with
comedian Michael Ian Black over a comment he made years ago about not
wanting to watch iCarly with his kid because there's no one on it he
wanted to molest. While I'm not a huge fan of Michael Ian Black I am
a big fan of Patton Oswalt who also seems to be moving into his scopes.
Why is anyone anywhere in any trouble because of this moron? I get that Disney is a giant family oriented media monster (remember when we only
had to worry about Amazon and Google taking over the world?), but a
man's career is ruined for the foreseeable future because one
incendiary nut job doesn't want people talking shit about the easiest
president to make fun of since Jimmy Carter. I read all the tweets he
posted from James Gunn, and there's nothing on there about rape
(unless you're counting the kid touching jokes as rape jokes. Pick an offense douchebag) so I only see
what amounts to jokes in poor taste about molestation, and most of
them are kind of funny. Cernovich has also gone on record as saying
that there's no such thing as date rape so his idea of what
constitutes rape needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
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| Sorry, this is funny |
Let us now move on to things like
timing and culture. Have you watched the Eddie Murphy stand up movies
Raw or Delirious lately? Or looked at the old Richard Pryor, George
Carlin, Bill Hicks stuff? Is it only because they were comedians that
it was okay or was it because at the time that sort of humor was
okay? If you want to exclude comedians then how about NWA? They
caught a lot of shit at the time they came out because of the way
they talked about bitches and tricks. Did any of them get run out of
show business? Dr. Dre made bagillions of dollars selling headphones,
and Ice Cube went on to do kid and buddy cop movies. Was is the time
or the culture that allowed what they did before to be acceptable?
We've grown and evolved as a culture, but we haven't told anyone
where the line is. I've heard rape jokes that I laughed my ass off
at, recently too. Where is the line being drawn, and why won't anyone tell us? Because one person
or group of people might get upset we're not allowed to even talk about
something anymore? If I were well known (or just known) I could get in big trouble
with women's groups for stuff I've said or written. I'm not going to
stop speaking my mind though. We live in a pretty fucked up world,
but making everyone police themselves over potential “hate speech”
isn't going to make things better. Jokes are jokes, and the things
you dislike weren't put out there to give you a reason to throw a
protest. If people realize that many of those making the comments are just doing so to try and get a reaction then they'd see
the futility of what they're doing.
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| Yeah, that's the point of the joke, Louie Anderson |
All that being said: it's not that I'm
mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. I'm confused as hell,
and I don't know what to think anymore. Or what I'm even allowed to
say anymore. Is this whole thing a hate speech in defense of
pedophile jokes (for the record I think pedophiles are awful, and
that the idea of considering that a sexual orientation is
disgusting)? I don't know! And that's the entire problem. No one
knows what's okay anymore, and we've gone so far off the rails that by
trying to include everyone and everything that you're pissing someone
off no matter what you say. If Disney were to go back into the
histories of everyone that's ever had anything to do with one of
their movies (or even founded the company) something objectionable
would be unearthed for a large number of them. Kudos to the stars
that have stuck up for James Gunn though. Selma Blair quit Twitter (not like that helps anything, but still nice of her),
Chris Pratt threw some bible verses in their faces, and Dave Buatista
went fucking off. Did James Gunn make a mistake? Yes, and he
apologized for it a long time ago. Disney has made the bigger mistake
though by proving that they won't stand behind someone who admits
fault, and wants to move on and grow as a person. By all accounts he's a lovely human being. Mike Cernovich said that “to beat a
person, you lower his or her social status...”. That's exactly what
he did to James Gunn. Way to let the bad guy win Disney.
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| Saved the best for last. Come on, this is fucking funny |
I was surprised he was fired, mostly because this wasn't really a big story when it came to network or cable news. It was being passed around online, and it only became a big story because he was fired.
ReplyDeleteI hate the idea that you can lose your job over jokes. My wife asked me about his firing, and I summed it up by saying he was fired by tweeting a bunch of jokes that would have heard me saying in high school.
I just hate that people can get fired for jokes. If they're not your sense of humor, then so be it, but you don't make it your mission to destroy someone because they used to love raunchy humor, or because they didn't vote the way you did (no matter who they voted for).
Agreed 100%. This sets a troubling precedent. I do hope the rumors of a possible reconciliation turn out to be true.
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