James Gunn getting fired for comments he made on Twitter over ten years ago seems positively outrageous to me. He began apologising for his crude and tasteless jokes back in 2012. How many times can someone be tried for the same crime? It seems like social media can make you or break you. At some point, even if it's helped your career, you will one day say the wrong thing (or have said the wrong thing long ago) and it will break you. I think people are expecting way too much out of these guys. We've put celebrities up on such high pedestals that we forget that they're not perfect, even if they look that way on the cover of a magazine.

 

Do you think we're going to continue seeing social media continue to have heavy impacts in a celebrity's career? Do you think that it should affect their career, even if it's something they've said in the past?

I think it's something people should expect to happen. We see it all time, don't we know by now that we're responsible for our words? Even before social media people were stuck with the perception others had of them. That perception didn't usually change over the years either. Social media just made it harder to deny because it's written evidence. I could believe he had changed, if he had twitted something different over the years or mentioned that he changed his mind before he was vilified.

If this is wrong then you're going to have to convince the mob-rule of that, and...........good luck with that. I don't think it's right but if you are a major player in whatever field and you don't know the power of social media, then I suppose you get what you deserve.

I don't think it's right but these people have to accept some of the blame. I'm not saying that they have to blame themselves for the person they were ten years ago (assuming they've grown over that time) but c'mon, guys, be smart! Go through your Twitter every once in a while and delete things.

Everything on Twitter gets saved, either formerly by the library of congress (they stopped archiving every individual tweet a little bit ago though) or by other users. So there's always a chance something old can get dragged up, even if you delete it now.

 

That being said, I go back and forth. I fully agree with the idea that if something was said years and years ago, it's entirely possible that the person has grown and changed since then. But it's also entirely possible that they haven't.

 

I don't know that dropping Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy for something he said in 2012 is the right move, though. But I don't even know what the tweet said. Regardless, I think if we make a habit of looking back to the past to find things to punish people for, we're gonna have a never ending parade of people being made to look awful for something their younger selves said.

 

We all used to suck. I look back at things I wrote when I was in my early 20's and I'm like "Really dude?". Not that I was ever posting homophobic, racist, or sexist things, but they were still embarrassing and stupid.

 

I think a better approach would be to look at the bad thing that was said, and see how the persons actions and statements of the present compare. Does it seem like that comment would still come out of their head today? Or does it seem like they're different than 6 years ago?

I don't know that dropping Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy for something he said in 2012 is the right move, though. But I don't even know what the tweet said. Regardless, I think if we make a habit of looking back to the past to find things to punish people for, we're gonna have a never ending parade of people being made to look awful for something their younger selves said.

 

I saw quite a few of his comments and they all had to do with having sex with children. He was definitely obsessed with having all kinds of sex and doing sexual things with very young kids. I think it's a given that Disney had to fire him after those comments he made were exposed. He's smarter than that. He knew better.

 

@Maya In this day and age, people let a lot of stuff go, but tweets about rampant pedophilia isn't one of them. That subject is still very taboo in today's society. That's what his comments were about, and he wrote about it a lot. A company like Disney is going to have to react to those comments in a certain type of way because after all, it's Disney... for kids.

Edited July 30, 20186 yr by HighlyLogical

@HighlyLogical, I get it but I suppose I have a hard time believing that Disney wasn't aware of this before they hired him as they are very image-conscious.

 

@Evelyn, he has been tweeting different things for many years. This isn't the first time he's apologised for the tweets and blog posts he made back then. He's used his Twitter to promote things that he certainly didn't back then such as the right of the LGBT community and other social issues.

 

@Zack T, that's true. It would probably be less likely to be brought up again though. Unfortunately it wasn't just one tweet. There were several bad jokes about pedophilia which, as @HighlyLogical said, is a pretty taboo subject. It's also unfortunate for people that humour changes over the years. What one person could joke about 10 years ago will be different from today. The fact that several people are getting in trouble for comments/jokes they've made several years ago only now is proof of that in my opinion. I said a lot of embarrassing and stupid stuff too (although nothing like this). I dread clicking on the "Memories" button on Facebook.

 

I think a better approach would be to look at the bad thing that was said, and see how the persons actions and statements of the present compare. Does it seem like that comment would still come out of their head today? Or does it seem like they're different than 6 years ago?

 

I think this is the most important thing.

Yea, I finally read a few of the tweets that James Gunn had posted and it's pretty dark humor. He said he was a provacationalist or something like that, and I understand the idea of what he meant...though I don't get the humor. I mean I like dark humor here and there, but honestly I don't know what the intended point would be of those jokes. To raise awareness? That seems like you'd really be grasping at straws to make that explanation stick. More than anything it seems like they were just said to get a rise out of people.

 

I do still think there's a strong difference between what was intended as humor (as dark/inappropriate as it may have been) and poor moral compasses. That being said, given the content of the tweets and his position at freaking Disney, I do understand why he was fired.

 

That raises another question of if that type of humor/content even has a place in entertainment anywhere, and honestly I think the answer is no. I remember George Carlin said you either can joke about everything or nothing, but I just don't see how those things were funny in any sense.

 

Lesson learned, hopefully. :(

I don't get the humour either, @Zack T, but I guess "provocative" is certainly one way to put it. I think the intended purpose was to try to get laughs solely because of shock value. It's not the best approach by any means. I'm with you. I think there's a difference between trying to be funny and being an awful person.

 

It would be less understandable if we weren't talking about Disney.

 

I don't think there is these days. I do think that sort of humour was more commonplace back then though. It wasn't super prevalent but I think it was more "acceptable".

 

Let's hope so!