The James Gunn Situation

I've been putting off writing about this one, but now that Disney has decided not to rehire James Gunn for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," it's time to tackle the bear.  To recap, a few weeks ago an alt-right nogoodnik dug up some of James Gunn's old tweets from years ago, full of off-color shock humor including rape and pedophilia jokes. Disney fired him from "Guardians," and he's stayed fired, in spite of a vigorous campaign by many of the MCU luminaries for the Mouse House to reconsider.  The case has been made that Gunn showed poor judgment making those tweets, but he's considerably matured since then, to the point that he's become an important ally in the #Metoo movement. He's also been a vocal critic of Donald Trump.

And that's exactly why the alt-right targeted him.  His dismissal was meant to be a retaliatory shot back against the firing of Roseanne Barr over the Valerie Jarrett tweet.  Dan Harmon, who has also been a critic of the alt-right, was also targeted. In his case, an old comedy sketch involving pedophilia was unearthed.  It was distasteful, but clearly scripted humor, and Harmon apologized for it. Nonetheless, Harmon quit Twitter, and other prominent celebs like Rian Johnson have deleted years worth of social media activity.  Emboldened, the alt-right has since gone after reporters and other media figures, trying to provoke witch hunts or get them fired. There was that recent kerfuffle over the New York Times hiring Sarah Jeong, a tech writer who made controversial tweets disparaging white people - or was it disparaging white hegemony?  Meanwhile, notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been kicked off of several sites for hate speech - but notably not Twitter.

I shouldn't be surprised that Twitter continues to generate drama left and right, given how President Trump has been using it.  I've watched its gradual weaponization these past few months with dismay, and the continued fumblings of the Twitter management itself with annoyance.  All the major social networking sites like Facebook and Youtube have been struggling to keep their platforms from being abused by the trolls and propagandists.  Twitter's efforts, however, seem to have been the most ineffectual. I mean, I can understand their dilemma to some extent - it's hard to draw hard lines about content when the President is lying and threatening people through Twitter every day with total impunity.  However, it's also telling that celebrities are now regularly quitting Twitter over bullying by an endless flood of reprobates who seem to see no consequences for their bad behavior.

I've always been a little paranoid about the Internet, and recent events have mostly been proving me right.  Social media often feels like a private arena, where you can let down your guard and converse casually with people.  Of course it's not, and context often gets lost, and sarcasm and irony don't come across well. It's easy to read bad intentions into flippant, snarky communications.  I don't think that anything about those old shock tweets that James Gunn made were funny, but I don't believe for a minute that he actually believes or advocates for those things either.  I'm sure the alt-right doesn't believe it either - but the outrage sure is easy to feign. Remember when "fake news" was originally a criticism directed at conservative astroturfers?

However, as much as I detest the alt-right hooligans who spearheaded this witch hunt, and the sympathize with James Gunn, I think that Disney made the right call.  Their firing of Gunn is consistent with how they handled the Roseanne Barr situation, and minimizes collateral damage to the rest of their Marvel projects. And it should be emphasized that this is Disney we're talking about.  Their family-friendly brand is everything. Even though Gunn was joking, the tweets were heinous enough that Disney couldn't take the risk of being even peripherally associated with them. The rules about social media have changed since Gunn was initially hired for the first "Guardians of the Galaxy," and frankly so has his status as a public figure.  

In the end, James Gunn not getting to direct "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" isn't a great loss.  Gunn is a talented director who is already being courted for other projects. The "Guardians" franchise will be perfectly fine in other hands.  And if this is what it takes for people to realize that what they post on the internet is always going to be in the public for everyone to see, and Twitter is nobody's friend, that may end up being a small price to pay.  

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