Another victim of the Joke Police - James Gunn

[dhessel]

This demostrates one thing I realized years ago, which unfortunately many others didn't, that I will absolutely be teaching my daughter when she is old enough. Social media is dangerous,. When you put something out there, its out there. You can never take it back and the wrong thing can destroy your life, reputation and carreer. 

As for Gunn, I a haven't read them all. The ones I have read do appear to be jokes as he has said. I can see how many would find them offensive but the thing is these tweets as far as I know were from many years ago. People do change and it sucks that fact is not even a consideration, I am sure just about everyone here has done ore said something that could be used against them. I also don't know the context for these tweets, I believe they were from a time when he was not well known at all so these could have been tweets for his friends were he was intentially pushing the limits.

 

[dhessel]

7 hours ago, Tone1k said:

Did you actaully ban Damphousse from this forum based on this discussion? 

 

Gunns tweets were completely out of line. Sorry, but 'fucking little boys' is not comedy and talk like that should not be normalised. The number of Paedophilia 'jokes' he makes is also quite alarming.

 

It absolutely can be comedy, I have heard several funny bits thanks to the Catholic church. This is something that comedians run into all the time. Their out there making jokes and everything is fine, then they make a joke that you think crosses the line and now it is no longer jokes they are statements and the person needs to be punished. So where exactly is the line anyway? Who gets to decide? Notice how you said "talk like that" not "jokes like that", see you don't see them as jokes you see them as statements because you have just been offended and now someone needs to pay.

Just because you think something is not funny, that doens't mean the person was not joking.

[webrunner5]

1 hour ago, dhessel said:

This demostrates one thing I realized years ago, which unfortunately many others didn't, that I will absolutely be teaching my daughter when she is old enough. Social media is dangerous,. When you put something out there, its out there. You can never take it back and the wrong thing can destroy your life, reputation and carreer. 

As for Gunn, I a haven't read them all. The ones I have read do appear to be jokes as he has said. I can see how many would find them offensive but the thing is these tweets as far as I know were from many years ago. People do change and it sucks that fact is not even a consideration, I am sure just about everyone here has done ore said something that could be used against them. I also don't know the context for these tweets, I believe they were from a time when he was not well known at all so these could have been tweets for his friends were he was intentially pushing the limits.

 

Here you go. I think this guy is one F ing sick puppy to be honest. He is a creepy bastard, I don't give a crap how long ago it was. Normal people would NEVER think about this kind of stuff, never even say it to a friend, let alone the whole damn world. As a father with both sons and daughters that is some damn upsetting behavior.

And no I don't think that kind of behavior does change. You can't go from some pervert mentality to being the wonderful guy living next door, and have him baby sit your young kids, Yea right. People really never change. You are what you are deep down inside, You can put on an act for a week or so, but you will always be what you are, especially in times of stress and anger. A super kind person is never going to be a cruel jackass, and some cruel person is Never going to be kind day in and day out.

My brother and I are complete opposites. He is laid back as heck, kind, never cusses, doesn't really drink, never smoked, and I am a polar opposite of him, I do ALL the things I said he doesn't and more LoL. And I could Never change to be him, or him be me, Never. I envy him, I really do.

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1020665661486522368/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1020665661486522368&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fyc%2Fhtml%2Fembed-iframe-min.2d7621e2.html

[kidzrevil]

@webrunner5 I posted that image earlier. The fact that people found a way to defend that...is...eye opening. Im questioning if I should even keep contributing here. These opinion based posts have been alarming to say the least. I don’t have any kids but if anyone found any of those tweets remotely funny or even socially acceptable then they aint for me.

I don’t mean any disrespect but If I get banned for this comment like @Damphousse did then so be it. 

[Tone1k]

1 hour ago, dhessel said:

 Who gets to decide? Notice how you said "talk like that" not "jokes like that", see you don't see them as jokes you see them as statements because you have just been offended and now someone needs to pay.

Just because you think something is not funny, that doens't mean the person was not joking.

I completely understand that they were jokes. 'Talk like that' is a figure of speech. 

I don't agree that the tweets should have seen him fired, I'm just against making 'talk like that', joking or not, the norm.

Do we dismiss the 'jokes' as being 'just jokes' because we know Gunn was trying to be funny? What if they came from someone you didn't know, they would be easy to take out of context and at what point do you start to worry if there should be cause for concern. 

I wonder if the 'jokes' would be seen as 'just jokew' if a catholic priest had made them. 

The topic brought up in these 'jokes' is one to be taken seriously, dumbing it down and normalising it then blurs the line for when there should and shouldn't be concern for a person's character. 

[Gregormannschaft]

20 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

@webrunner5 I posted that image earlier. The fact that people found a way to defend that...is...eye opening. Im questioning if I should even keep contributing here. These opinion based posts have been alarming to say the least. I don’t have any kids but if anyone found any of those tweets remotely funny or even socially acceptable aint for me.

I don’t mean any disrespect but If I get banned for this comment like @Damphousse did then so be it. 

That would be a very sad thing, kidzrevil. I always enjoy looking at your work, but I've gotta agree, I'm finding it increasingly uncomfortable to come here and read these opinion pieces.

It's not a one-off either. There have been an increasing amount of posts here (not Andrew's, but on this forum) that I've found pretty reprehensible – there was a topic a few months ago where posters made fun of an initiative to encourage more female filmmakers in pretty vulgar terms. I have learned so much from a lot of very talented posters here over the years but I really think discussion with a more political bent should be taken elsewhere. I think it's important to encourage open discourse wherever possible, and that's a hugely important role that films do very well, but when it quickly turns into ugly insults being thrown around I think it's clear these forums are not the place.

I feel like this is a trend and I hope Andrew finds a way to reverse it.

[kidzrevil]

@Gregormannschaft yeah im here to share and learn. Im not learning anything to help my filmmaking career from opinion posts 

[Bioskop.Inc]

I think its all a conspiracy, as Gardians of the Galaxy 2 was soooo shit & really not funny at all, Disney saw the script for No.3 & just found an excuse to get rid of him, in order to save the 3rd film from turning out to be an absolute turd.

Disney knew exactly who James Gunn was when they hired him - this is the guy who made "Slither" (big phallic penis invasion horror film), a TV series called "PG Porn" (yes you read that right!) & "Movie 43" to name a few. When you hire someone nowadays, the HR department does their due diligence and their first stop is Facebook & Twitter, without exception. I know people who simply haven't hired people for what they've written on Social Media, regardless of whether their posts have been jokes or not - "Hate going to work on Monday mornings or any morning for that matter", "Think I'm going to pull a sickie today", "My boss is a C**T" etc. And that's just for work related things.

So, now do you really think or believe Disney didn't know about these tweets a long time ago? Of course they did & they played their trump card (yeah!!!) now to get rid of him for whatever their real reason/s where.

As far as jokes about peadophilie tendencies are concerned, just not my thing....  

[webrunner5]

58 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I think its all a conspiracy, as Gardians of the Galaxy 2 was soooo shit & really not funny at all, Disney saw the script for No.3 & just found an excuse to get rid of him, in order to save the 3rd film from turning out to be an absolute turd.

 

I was thinking the same thing. I don't care how good a writer, producer, directer, DoP is they get stale doing the same thing over and over. Disney was probably looking for new blood and this was an easy out to get rid of him, and rightfully so..

[Snowfun]

Ok.

Q: ”what do you call a sheep stuck in a fence on Orkney”? (An island off Scotland)

A: “a leisure centre”. 

Is that “funny”? Presumably subjective.

Is that “comedy”? In the context, objectively yes.

Substitute “small boy” for “sheep” and eyebrows will (should) be raised. Different observers will raise eyebrows by different degrees. 

So what?

In private, amongst chums, the limits are different to high profile public statements. But it is all tomorrow’s chip paper when we wake up and realise that it is only a first world problem...

I posted a comedy (Jim Jeffries) video about gun control on h4vuser (Red Hydrogen site)... big mistake!

Let’s get back to discussing the benefits of raw over 422 or FF vs MFT or resolve vs FCP or whatever trivia keeps us engaged and entertained.

Final point - this is Andrew’s site so his rules do apply!

[webrunner5]

6 minutes ago, Snowfun said:

 

Let’s get back to discussing the benefits of raw over 422 or FF vs MFT or resolve vs FCP or whatever trivia keeps us engaged and entertained.

Final point - this is Andrew’s site so his rules do apply!

Yeah we are breaking the rule of "Never talk about Politics and Religion". It is a no win situation that only pisses the other side off.Yeah we need to talk about Video cameras not this subject.

This thread is a time bomb waiting to go off. Not good. I am done with it.

[Andrew Reid]

Clearly this topic is too edgy for some people.

Personally I find it interesting.

The culture and politics around it are interesting.

I have also learnt that compared to the UK and Europe, the US in 2018 is a very politically correct and conservative society with easy to offend sensibilities. Feels like Victorian England out there! What's up with you guys? Lighten up!

[Andrew Reid]

http://collider.com/james-gunns-firing-guardians-of-the-galaxy/

"The jokes about rape and pedophilia that got James Gunn fired from his position as writer and director of Marvel’s hugely successful Guardians of the Galaxyfranchise are largely un-funny, tasteless, and in most cases disgusting. We should probably get that out of the way right up front, because to defend Gunn in the wake of Disney’s decision is—to a lot of reactionaries with itchy @ fingers—is to also defend the content of the tweets.

But a surprisingly often overlooked part of the conversation is the fact that the ringleader of Gunn’s downfall, Mike Cernovich, had to scroll back to 2011 to find the tweets at all. Seven years, conveniently bypassing apologies and mea culpas, overlooking attempts at change, ignoring statements like the one Gunn posted just days before he was fired"

"To deny someone the capacity to change is a dangerous precedent to set, not just in Hollywood where a person’s public life is on display 24/7 but to anyone engaging in the social media age. It sets the bar at, “What’s the point?” It gives the message that concepts like betterment and learning are futile because the sins of your past are an immovable weight that only gets heavier the harder you climb."

"The Guardians of the Galaxymovies are, boiled down, stories about shitty people—rascals, thieves, assassins, criminals—learning through intense trial and error to be less shitty. Not just that, but the literal magic that comes with the realization that your past does not define you. One of the most genuinely insane opinions I’ve seen come out of this situation is, “I still love the Guardians movies, but I can’t support Gunn.” You learned nothing"

[Robert Collins]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Clearly this topic is too edgy for some people.

Personally I find it interesting.

The culture and politics around it are interesting.

I have also learnt that compared to the UK and Europe, the US in 2018 is a very politically correct and conservative society with easy to offend sensibilities. Feels like Victorian England out there! What's up with you guys? Lighten up!

I think this a good point. Brits have a very dry sense of humor and they also consider that 'jokes about pedos sort of makes you a pedo' a very strange and false equivalence.

But it is dangerous territory. I have just been watching Sacha Baron Cohen's 'who is America?' and I laughed so much it bought tears to my eyes. Others, however, think he should be thrown out of the US and are threatening to cancel their Showtime subscription.

So I also feel that Disney is perfectly entitled to sack Gunn if he is damaging their brand. Take Ricky Gervais - who used to insult the audience at the Emmies - even he would say 'well if they find it offensive, they wont invite me back, will they?'

[mercer]

I still believe the problem with the Tweets wasn’t even the subject matter as much as they weren’t funny at all. There have been plenty of jokes about molestation regarding the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson... a lot of which were humorous on a removed level. Gunn’s jokes weren’t funny, even in form, but more importantly because he chose to play the role of the molester. When you take the two ingredients... unfunny joke in the first person... he just should have known better.

With that being said, I still think he had the right to make the jokes, but he also had to deal with the consequences of the jokes. How old they were or how many times he apologized is irrelevant if Disney decided they didn’t want him to be an ambassador of their brand.

The question becomes, would the chorus of support be the same if he made a joke about black people with the voracity he did with the pedophile jokes? Or what if he made first person jokes about raping women? Would Selma Blair and the other members of the #mettoo movement be okay with him then?

[Tone1k]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Clearly this topic is too edgy for some people.

Personally I find it interesting.

The culture and politics around it are interesting.

I have also learnt that compared to the UK and Europe, the US in 2018 is a very politically correct and conservative society with easy to offend sensibilities. Feels like Victorian England out there! What's up with you guys? Lighten up!

Andrew,

 

I'm not American, have lived both in the UK and Australia and from a multicultural background but this is not about people not having a sense of humour. 

Let's say a person you didn't know all that well kept joking about 'fucking young boys', while the jokes aren't all that funny he concluded with 'just joking yeah!'. A few years later it's found that those jokes were based on something more real. Do you look back and think 'well the writing was on the wall'. Could something have been done to prevent the outcome? Are Gunns jokes still jokes if we find out that he himself is a paedophile in a few years time? 

If Gunn's jokes were about a third party like Machael Jackson or the Catholic church, it becomes a different kettle of fish as it's not a direct reflection of a person's character.

Joking about committing disgraceful acts yourself though, should be used to judge character. At what point do we start showing concern if everything is 'just a joke'? 

Is joking about raping women ok in your eyes? Should women just 'lighten up' and accept jokes about rape? 

By making this acceptable 'banter', you you dilute the issue socially and over time, make this behaviour the norm making it hard to decider when concern should be raised. 

There are plenty of comedians who are able to be funny without relying on poor taste punch lines like Gunn's. His reliance is on shock value to get a reaction and it's pretty pathetic to be honest.

 

[Robert Collins]

2 minutes ago, mercer said:

I still believe the problem with the Tweets wasn’t even the subject matter as much as they weren’t funny at all. There have been plenty of jokes about molestation regarding the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson... a lot of which were humorous on a removed level. Gunn’s jokes weren’t funny, even in form, but more importantly because he chose to play the role of the molester. When you take the two ingredients... unfunny joke in the first person... he just should have known better.

With that being said, I still think he had the right to make the jokes, but he also had to deal with the consequences of the jokes. How old they were or how many times he apologized is irrelevant if Disney decided they didn’t want him to be an ambassador of their brand.

The question becomes, would the chorus of support be the same if made a joke about black people with the voracity he did with the pedophile jokes? Or what if he made first person jokes about raping women? Would Selma Blair and the other members of the #mettoo movement be okay with it then?

I dont agree with the first point at all - in fact I havent bothered reading his 'jokes' because whether they are funny or not I think is irrelevant. And I definitely dont think you should sack a film director because his jokes arent funny.

The second point is far more salient. What it comes down to is this.  There are many things we say to our friends - call it pub talk - which can be enjoyed between us because we are friends and we know each other. But it is ill-advised/stupid/problematic to transfer your 'pub talk' to the internet because it is both bound to be taken out of context and likely to cause offense.

Afterall, there are some things that you say to your mates that you dont say to your grandmother. And if your response to that is 'not really, you dont know my grandmother' - I would say 'exactly'.

[Andrew Reid]

I agree with Rob's posts. Well reasoned.

[mercer]

7 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

I dont agree with the first point at all - in fact I havent bothered reading his 'jokes' because whether they are funny or not I think is irrelevant. And I definitely dont think you should sack a film director because his jokes arent funny.

Well, that’s a fair statement. But I didn’t say he should have been fired for telling bad jokes. I merely pointed out that his jokes weren’t funny to begin with and if he chose a different structure for his humor rather than first person recounts of blowing 3 year olds, then his jokes may not have been so easily misconstrued and cringe worthy.

[Robert Collins]