Walk away? If they signed for three films and pulled some unprofessional, immature crap like that, expect Disney lawyers to drop out the sky hurling contracts at them like a circus knife-thrower.
Disney fires James Gunn from "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"
- Thread starter Lawrence B
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Walk away? If they signed for three films and pulled some unprofessional, immature crap like that, expect Disney lawyers to drop out the sky hurling contracts at them like a circus knife-thrower.
Maybe but if you have to sue people just to stay I am guessing that will make more than a few negative headlines. I am also wondering if any contract they might have signed has a "out" clause in it just in case of a situation like this.
Jason
An out clause specifically for solidarity with someone else being fired? That seems extremely unlikely.
Well they can say that they were lied to. They signed up to work with Gunn and was expected to work with him and by firing him it that was a breach of their contract and what they were expecting. Even if it isn't written it might not matter. Remember when the new Wonder Woman played hardball to make sure Brett Ratner didn't get hired? Even without legal leverage they still have the ability to get what they want. Any penalty they pay might not even be severe enough for them to care.
Jason
Are you sure he just didn't catch/interview James Gunn about those tweets 9+ years ago on "To Catch A Predator"?Disney has found a replacement director for GoTG 3:
The problem here is you are thinking in terms of criminal activities and judicial punishment. That's not the point at stake, it's about what is seen as acceptable behaviour in society and what is seen as offensive to the point of simply being unacceptable. Those things matter to Disney not because they are a judicial body or moral arbiters, but because they sell products within the very society which makes those determinations of acceptability.
The public will now associate Gunn and anything he creates with those tweets and they really are beyond simply being adult humour, they are mocking the victims of some of the most awful crimes possible, crimes against the very children who are Disney's key audience.
A company like Disney will not want to ride their multi million dollar investment on someone whose reputation will tarnish theirs like that by association. Arguably they should have made that decision years ago, but this is a business decision and they've decided the exposure has escalated the risk.
I agree with them.
Whilst I agree Gunn had to go I'd suggest there's a danger in this sort of false equivalency.
Gunn is in the public eye, but in the grand scheme of things he is nowhere near comparable to Trump in terms of the responsibility and influence associated with his role, nor the scale of the potential consequences stemming from any decisions he makes. Gunn makes movies designed as light entertainment, Trump is the most powerful man in America. One makes people laugh, the other makes laws and declares wars. Trump's behaviour should therefore be scrutinised much more thoroughly and with far less sympathy precisely because the consequences of his actions in that position are so much greater and he's capable of doing so much more damage.
This.
Pretty sure all the main cast were signed to a three movie deal (common in Hollywood these days for tent pole franchises). They'd be contractually obligated to return, irregardless of who's the director or producer, etc... If the Studio is going to make a film, they'd have to be there....
Q2
Was Gunn mocking any real victims? From what I saw all his jokes like most jokes were hypothetical situations. You can't mock a person that doesn't exist. You can make light of a situation that you feel is so serious that you can never do that but people really need to seperate the idea of mocking real people from basically just making stuff up. I am always fascinated by how humans have different lines when it comes to comedy in terms of something going to far or not. To me the Fiction part of any storytelling is a very big deal. It's what seperates art from insult. Even then it becomes a little hazzy when dealing with celebrities and politicans.
Jason
Jason
I don't think you have to mock specific individuals for it to be completely unacceptable. The damage done by child sexual abuse is impossible to overstate and laughing at the victims either individually or as a collective group, is simply despicable.
I agree that the jokes I saw were gross. To me though I just see this as something due to my own personal tastes. I don't like lording my opinions over other people. I only want to be responsible for my own views and I don't want to ruin lives just because I disagree with someone. Especially since like most people who do sometimes like edgy humor it means that whatever you find funny at least someone somewhere will find it offensive. I think George Carlin was brilliant but I know some would hate his guts today. I also know alot of this stuff often works on delivery and performance and usually the more sensitive a subject the more nuanced it has to become. It's almost like to go to real dark places you have to find some kind of comfort spot to take the edge away from it to make it feel less real.
Jason
This is the problem with your posts. No one ruined James Gunn life but James Gunn. He made the tweets. No one forced him to make the tweets. No one ruined Roseanne Barr's life but Roseanne Barr.
They took the actions that have them in the place they are in today, of their own accord.
This.
Yes but if people are not allowed mistakes or personal differences then that same logic can be applied to anything. Are you telling me you have lived your whole life with no mistakes or no regrets or even any opinions that other people might not agree with? That you are basically pure and always above petty human failings?
Jason
Nope, I'm sure not. Not even close. But, my actions are my own. If something I've said or done in the past comes back to bite me in my figurative ass, I have no one to blame but myself for making the "mistake(s)" in the first place.
I'm a grown-up. I am responsible for my actions. No one else.
Of course one big difference is we don't have political operatives trying to bring you down for your past mistakes and your not being hounded by people who have made their own mistakes as well. To me the hypocritsy is to much. You got in essence sinners bringing down other sinners because of what? Politics, fun, afraid of people looking at them? I mean sure we can live in this Orwellian world were everyone is watching everyone and wanting to report on it but why would anyone want to live like this? It's better to forgive and maybe ignore things we don't like unless actual crime is happening or people are literally insulting someone. Some things you just got to let slide and if that means biting your tongue once in awhile that is okay because at some point someone else will be doing the same towards you. To me that is what civility often is. Being willing to co-exist with people you don't agree with and even might not like as a person.
Jason
Hang on, that's not what happened to Gunn. Gunn wasn't brought down for his past mistakes. Making an issue of his past mistakes was just the means to the end. Gunn was brought down by Cernovich (Mr. Pizzagate) for saying negative things about Trump from a position that afforded him a substantial audience that he might conceivably influence. The objective here was to take out a prominent and outspoken opponent of Trump, and gain glory from doing so, also arguably in a way that makes others in similar positions hesitant to say negative things about Trump.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/...es-gunn-fired-pedophile-tweets-mike-cernovich
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsal...d-pros-debate-whether-marvel-jumped-the-gunn/
We've always lived like this. People trying to bring down people is as old as civilization.
Gunn/Barr/Fill-in-the-blank can apologize and become upright citizens, but that doesn't change the pain they may have others by their words and actions. It doesn't change the fact an employer has to weigh whether or not the actions could detrimentally affect their business.
I do wonder how often employers fire people for things that happened six years earlier though, barring situations involving money or crimes, especially if the employee apologized for their action at the time and said apology seemed to have sufficed at the time.
"Six years ago you sent a personal email knowing full well we had a zero-tolerance policy about such things. We know you felt bad about it afterward and would never do it again, but...well...zero-tolerance means zero-tolerance. Security will be along momentarily."
"Six years ago you sent a personal email knowing full well we had a zero-tolerance policy about such things. We know you felt bad about it afterward and would never do it again, but...well...zero-tolerance means zero-tolerance. Security will be along momentarily."
These weren't personal emails, this was a person putting derogatory jokes out there for anyone to see publicly.
I'm not sure six years ago makes much of a difference, honestly. If this was a Conservative American, I have no doubt many people who say Gunn deserves a break would be the ones who wanted to string the Conservative up by their nads.
Just so no one gets confused think that I am a Conservative that is delighted a poor liberal is being picked on: I am a very liberal liberal. I just think adults should be treated as adults and held to some kind of standard.
What I wonder though is would Disney fire him even with the jokes being brought back out if they didn't suspect people on the internet would be so outraged they would have no choice. Cernovich basically knew how the internet would react and he could use that as leverage to get him fired. Basically he blackmailed Disney using us as his weapon. Disney didn't just get played but we all did. It also worked so we know it will happen again and the only way to stop is for corporate America to grow a spine and risk loosing money or for us to try and not get so outraged and maybe look at the bigger picture.
Jason
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