Disney severs ties with James Gunn

[NileQT87]

There's even more to it than this. He also was posting about how he orgasmed to "100 Pubescent Girls Touch Themselves" and embedded the child porn video on his personal website! He panicked and took down his personal website just in the last few days, but not before it was discovered. He also is on record bragging that he got the video from a now-convicted pedophile who is his friend.

He's an actual pedophile. Those NAMBLA Tweets weren't a joke. His personal website had an actual child porn video.

He should be getting visits from the police, not just fired.

 

[thetopher]

But if you put aside the timing which was odd, can you really say you wouldn't have done what Disney have done. Its not as if it was just one or two tweets, it was a whole bunch of them. I think its a little too easy to just dismiss it as "PC gone mad".

I didn't 'dismiss it as PC gone mad'; PC is leftist but there are screeching reactionaries on BOTH sides; if you give into one then you give into the other to make all the screechers happy, and then nobody else is.
At the end of the day his words were horrible and tactless, but they didn't hurt anybody. But the joke police from one side or the other will jump on them and say they're the worst thing ever because that's the world that has now been created; where opinions are no accepted but are seen as a form of 'emotional violence' or some crap.

People- especially people with odd sense of humor- can no longer express themselves because somebody will take offense and then they'll get fired. The people who cheered that Rosanne Barr was fired should now cheer now or they're hypocrites; the rest of us just lament that the quality of the work they were involved with might now be diminished.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

TBH I think if he sat down with his PR team at some point in the last couple years and said hey, I want to make sure my past doesn't come back to haunt me, they could have made this go away. Or put a good enough spin on him maturing enough to stop talking about molesting little boys so much, that some nasty Fox news conservative couldn't have used it against him.

But there was, when Disney first hired him, a change.org petition to get him removed from the film based upon his previous comments. Thousands of people were 'outraged' in 2011 and complained to Disney. Gunn spoke, in 2012 about how Disney was aware of his past comments and how both of them would be mindful of how words and phrases could be interpreted and agreed for Gunn to be more careful moving forward. (Which seemingly he was)

For Disney to suddenly be morally outraged and act as though they were unaware of his past (just because there is a bigger focus on it now) is a bit disingenuous.

 

[brinkster130]

But there was, when Disney first hired him, a change.org petition to get him removed from the film based upon his previous comments. Thousands of people were 'outraged' in 2011 and complained to Disney. Gunn spoke, in 2012 about how Disney was aware of his past comments and how both of them would be mindful of how words and phrases could be interpreted and agreed for Gunn to be more careful moving forward. (Which seemingly he was)

For Disney to suddenly be morally outraged and act as though they were unaware of his past (just because there is a bigger focus on it now) is a bit disingenuous.

Oh I absolutely agree that Disney is being disingenuous and this is all about perception, and the possibility of that being bad and hurting their precious money is whats driving this.

I just dont think what was said in 2011/2012 was enough to make this go away currently. In the last couple years Gunn or someone from his team could have called a meeting and acknowledged that people are being held accountable for what they say on sm is a different way, and gone on the offensive with him. Had they gone in and deleted everything that could be bad, made a statement similar to what he tweeted and released since this happened, and made a small donation to some organization that helps fight the stigma boy who are molested face, that would have appeased the moral outrage so much more. Going through a little PR nonsense probably would have been preferable to removing Gunn from his role.

 

[Mr Trick]

I didn't 'dismiss it as PC gone mad'; PC is leftist but there are screeching reactionaries on BOTH sides; if you give into one then you give into the other to make all the screechers happy, and then nobody else is.
At the end of the day his words were horrible and tactless, but they didn't hurt anybody. But the joke police from one side or the other will jump on them and say they're the worst thing ever because that's the world that has now been created; where opinions are no accepted but are seen as a form of 'emotional violence' or some crap.

People- especially people with odd sense of humor- can no longer express themselves because somebody will take offense and then they'll get fired. The people who cheered that Rosanne Barr was fired should now cheer now or they're hypocrites; the rest of us just lament that the quality of the work they were involved with might now be diminished.

I agree with most of your post accept this. You can never dismiss this sort of thing as just words. That's a bit like saying anyone can say whatever they want at any time. And I do think such things can be hurtful. Having said that, this was a long time ago, Gunn has acted in the right way and seems to have cleaned up his act. I think Disney were wrong to fire him because of the timing partly. If they knew about these tweets all along (not sure they did, because this is dirt that has been dug up), that makes them look even worse.

I also disagree that PC is only leftest. Its a common thing which has become part of our culture and has been used by both sides. But that's a different matter.

 

[thetopher]

I agree with most of your post accept this. You can never dismiss this sort of thing as just words. That's a bit like saying anyone can say whatever they want at any time.

...But that's exactly what I think. Apart from the classic 'a call to action' ('Fire!' 'Go kill that guy! 'Riot!') then words are not harmful but suppressing them and the thoughts that go with them ARE very harmful if left unchecked. Which often happens because if you can repress one idea/joke/philosophy that you don;'t like then why not all the ones you don't like? Where does it stop.
That's liberal philosophy in the classical sense; ideas are ideas and cannot be suppressed once they've been voiced. Nor should they, ever.

I also disagree that PC is only leftest.

Didn't used to be, the morality/outrage police used to be almost exclusively on the right. But the authoritarian left has pretty much supplanted them in the mainstream.

 

[MarieVampSlayer]

🙄 Again another exemple of why stupid people should not be on twitter. Comedy is a talent and there is a way to say something provocative and it being funny but theses really weren't.

 

[Bluebird]

I really despise Disney as a company. Don't take business advice from trolls, especially self proclaimed trolls who are doing it for an agenda. Read up on this troll's views on woman and rape and see what validity his 'outrage' at James Gunn has.

 

[NileQT87]

It looks like the video, while still creepy in the way it's done and still given to him by a convicted pedophile (this part is still concerning), the video most people didn't want to push play on is actually young girls singing the Divinyls song (which is about masturbation). However, he makes a gross comment directly to it saying that he came all over his face while watching it. So, basically, he's either honest or joking about coming to underage girls.

The rest of his bad tweets are often equally graphic or gross with a rather specific theme.

At the very least, this guy needs to have the police look around his place, probably for real child porn like his pedophile buddy was convicted of.

Granted, this is Hollywood and you only have to look at Corey Feldman's 1993 report that named names of his and Corey Haim's abusers to the Santa Barbara Police Department, which still hasn't been acted on. It was not past the statute of limitations back then and it was covered up. A tabloid proved the tape's existence some years ago. The police didn't want anything but to get Michael Jackson and Feldman defended him.

For one thing, famous gay producer David Geffen (with his famous yacht parties) was openly named on the guest lists of the DEN parties with the underage, drugged boys swimming naked in pools (groomed to live there with their parents thinking they're going to be big stars) run by convicted pedophiles who are on the run. This stuff does go *very* high up. Bryan Singer and his pedophile buddy who did an X-Men commentary with him are also exposed in that documentary. And producer Dan Schneider (who has many notorious allegations of preying on child stars following him) of Nickelodeon has long been subject of rumors of being the real father of teenage Jamie Lynn Spears' kid (note that the pregnancy coincided with Britney shaving her head). Nickelodeon just let go of Dan Schneider this year (very quietly) because how much he's under a cloud of suspicion (funny how that wasn't published too widely).

An Open Secret:

 

[Athena]

The whole point of Guardians of the Galaxy is that a ragtag team of really shady people who've not been good in their pasts actually have the opportunity to do good and find the family they all crave. James Gunn has always said the Guardians was a very personal project for him and to take him away from that for, what is at the end of the day, really stupidly misjudged tweets..... well that goes against everything the Guardians of the Galaxy actually stand for. That these bunch of a-holes (or an a-hole) can be redeemed by doing good. I don't think he's a perfect person, and I think everyone.... yes EVERYONE (and by that I mean me, you, Dave across the street... everyone) is guilty of saying/tweeting/texting/writing in their diary stupid stuff in their youth that they thought was controversial or they didn't mean.... but everyone deserves a chance for redemption. To be that better person. James Gunn did it with these movies, which are nothing like anything else in the MCU for a reason.

Doing stuff.... well that's a different matter and there is no evidence the guy is a paedophile or a rapist. Saying stupid stuff is stupid and thoughtless, but that doesn't make him a paedophile or a rapist.

Disney knew about his past, they chose him specifically to make these projects because of his past..... they didn't not know about all of this. They knew about his Troma movies, and the fact he wrote those tweets all those years ago. Their legal teams would be all over it before he signed with them. And being honest. Disney as a company have done some awful things in their past too. Are they going to go back in time and fire the writers and director of Song of the South? Or the people who decided having racists characters in movies like The Aristocats or Dumbo? Are they going to go and reshoot all those movies? This is hypocrisy of the highest order really.

No-one is completely innocent. Especially not the people who dug these tweets up. I hardly think they're all sweetness and light. I bet they've said stupid stuff in their past too.....

 

[Athena]

The main Guardians cast have written an open letter supporting James Gunn....

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

I think that proves the strength of Gunn's character, that his cast are standing by him, while also not condoning his past tweets.

 

[thetopher]

Coming from Chris Pratt (plus the rest of the cast), I think this a significant development.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Coming from Chris Pratt (plus the rest of the cast), I think this a significant development.

Significant indeed. They don't want the third movie to either tank or be dropped. This could be incredibly bad for Disney to reverse it. The reasons they cited for getting rid of Gunn then to turn around and cave. In the "court of public opinion" it could set precedent that others follow. I think Disney is now in a no win situation. Good.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Coming from Chris Pratt (plus the rest of the cast), I think this a significant development.

What do you think would happen if they said "we're not doing Guardians Volume 3 without Gunn"?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

What do you think would happen if they said "we're not doing Guardians Volume 3 without Gunn"?

I think Disney would probably sue for breach of contract as I believe they are contractually obligated to do the movie. That being said, they don't have to do it well. And without their guy, they could just phone in the performances. So what they said could, in a sense, be construed as "we're not doing Guardians Volume 3 (well) without Gunn"

 

[thetopher]

This could be incredibly bad for Disney to reverse it. The reasons they cited for getting rid of Gunn then to turn around and cave. In the "court of public opinion" it could set precedent that others follow. I think Disney is now in a no win situation. Good.

The only thing I can think of is getting James Gunn to do stuff behind the scenes in secret lol. Like they can get some other workman-like director for the nuts and bolts and bring Gunn in for the good stuff and to work closely with the cast.
This is the textbook reason why PR consultants sometimes get paid huge bucks, because any way you slice it Disney is gonna hurt over this.

And that's good, 'cause they ruined Star Wars.

What do you think would happen if they said "we're not doing Guardians Volume 3 without Gunn"?

That's looking like a distinct possibility at the moment; Pratt alone has proven himself to be a huge box office draw and certainly has enough clout to apply leverage. Also David and Zoe are damn bankable. And given that its all linked in with other movies in the franchise.
Disney has to find some clever way to backtrack; anything at this point.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

And that's good, 'cause they ruined Star Wars.

Oh, I didn't think about that. I was just thinking it's good because Disney owns the whole flipping world. Would be good to know they aren't all powerful.

 

[Athena]

Coming from Chris Pratt (plus the rest of the cast), I think this a significant development.

Dave Bautista and Michael Rooker were both very supportive from day one. The fact the whole main cast are now supporting him says more than anything else could. I feel like Disney has no choice but to respond positively. They are contractually obligated to do a third movie but I think it's clear the cast only see James at the helm.

I don't know of any instance like this where a main cast has overwhelmingly backed a sacked director. It feels unprecedented.

Saying this, I do feel also like Disney is big enough to stick with their decision, knowing their cast is contracted and they'll have their pick of replacements. I wouldn't want to be that director in that situation though.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Saying this, I do feel also like Disney is big enough to stick with their decision and they'll have their pick of replacements.

But on the flip side would you really want to be the director? Knowing the movie is already tainted in some eyes (including eyes of the cast) and fearing fan "boycotts" would you really want to spend years of your life on something that might be considered a huge flop? The same thing goes to Disney too. Would they really want to finance the movie fearing fan reprocussions?

I can't wait to see how this plays out.

 

[The Bronze]

Well assuming the guy isn't an actual paedophile then I stand by my earlier assessment that some of the tweets were amusing, others just a bit lame.

If the cast really want to show some support they could just retweet them every day until Disney have to fire them all or get over it.