Guardians 3: Why firing James Gunn was a big mistake

SDCC may have debuted loads of exciting new trailers for upcoming films, but it wasn’t all laughs and smiles as there was a notable absence in James Gunn. He is now going through one of the most questionable firings to ever occur at Disney.

The world-famous event known as San Diego Comic-Con has now begun wrapping up after an eventful past several days. There was plenty to cheer about during those several days, as they saw the debut of multiple exciting trailers for promising new blockbusters, from the comedic offerings of Shazam to the underwater epic Aquaman to the potential Best of the Year superhero thriller Glass. Prior to Friday, James Gunn was looking to add himself to that stellar lineup with the promise of announcing a new project. It was sure to make waves through the news given Gunn’s popularity as the writer-director for the two films in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

But come Friday, James Gunn was nowhere to be found at SDCC. No, he wasn’t missing. But the end result was bitter nonetheless.

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Late Thursday night, filmmaker and noted #PizzaGate enforcer, Mike Cernovich, went through James Gunn’s Twitter feed, digging up loads of old tweets from James dating from the late 2000s to the early 2010s. The tweets, which are confirmed to be real, were filled with nasty, expletive-ridden jokes from James that made light of several sensitive topics ranging from rape to pedophilia. Though the tweets are now deleted, the internet blew up anyway, as it tends to do, leading James Gunn to issue a formal apology on his Twitter.

Despite the apology and the quick removal of the offensive tweets, Disney ultimately decided to sever ties with James Gunn, firing him on Friday afternoon, in the midst of the media storm that Disney was under. But the quick firing of Gunn has now led to an even bigger backlash against Disney, as fans are now outraged that Gunn was canned. But why the backlash? Why have fans flocked to defend a filmmaker who has made some disgusting and tasteless jokes on real and prevalent issues like rape, pedophilia and violence?

The answer to that is much more complex than it seems.

Beating a dead horse

Despite the varied opinions on the bold and outspoken director, there hasn’t been a strong defense for the tweets he made years earlier from either side and that is because the tweets themselves truly are impossible to properly defend. They are tasteless and poor attempts at dark and edgy humor, which Gunn himself acknowledged in his apology on Thursday. But it is not the first time he has apologized for his dark jokes.

In 2012, Gunn caught fire from GLAAD for these very tweets, as well as a blog where Gunn also spent his time typing out these disgusting things. Just like he did Thursday, Gunn saw fit to issue a formal apology, where he promised that he was a vastly different person than the one who wrote those posts. Since then, Gunn’s online presence has been radically changed to a more appropriate (but still heavily outspoken) one and it’s been that way for more than six years now.

What makes this situation even more perplexing is the fact that this happened two years before the first Guardians film came out, so Disney had all the motivation to fire this small-time director and replace him with someone more Disney-friendly. They did it with Edgar Wright, so why not with James Gunn, who not only made legitimately tasteless jokes that were still fresh in everyone’s minds, but whom also had a long and storied history with the notoriously shocking film production company, Troma? Troma films corner the market in terms of offensive and obscene content, so Disney would’ve been understandable in their motivation to fire him then.

But they didn’t. They took a chance on Gunn’s apology and let him make the Guardians film, which has now not only spawned a successful sequel in 2017 but the characters have become beloved among fans of the MCU, so much so that they joined the star-studded cast of Infinity War to inject their charm into the otherwise bleak Avengers sequel. Disney let the tweets slide, but now, he is being fired for those same tweets that he has already apologized for and has repeated that notion as well. He did not make any new tweets on those topics. He simply didn’t delete the tweets, which is arguably his only mistake this time around. For that mistake, Gunn was fired.

An attack on words

The most frustrating aspect of this entire ordeal is not simply that James Gunn was so hastly fired from Disney, but it was how his exit was set up. As I mentioned earlier, the person who dug up the old tweets and posted them was Mike Cernovich, a noted right-wing commentator who may have taken issue with Gunn’s incredibly liberal stance on politics. Cernovich, who has had a history of making tasteless comments on sexuality and consent, has seemingly only had an issue with liberal personalities making edgy jokes, as evidenced by his next move after going after Gunn, which was targeting comedian and noted liberal, Patton Oswalt.

But why does this matter? Why does Cernovich’s attitude towards James and the others matter in a situation where, on the surface, only Gunn is the one to blame? As noted before, Gunn has not only apologized for the tweets back in 2012, but he has since shown that he meant what he said in those statements. He has not tweeted anything even remotely offensive on the level of the jokes he was making (unless one considers themselves offended by his political tweets), leading by example that he is indeed a changed man.

James Gunn, if we are to follow his online personality since 2012, has not made it his mission to offend as many people as possible with crass jokes anymore. There’s no doubting that at one time, that was what Gunn was all about.

Coming from a background like Troma, the need to offend just felt natural for Gunn. But under Disney, Gunn has refrained from adopting that same attitude, using his platform to instead tweet random things about everyday life and spread his political tweets to the world. Whether you agree with his politics or not, it is essential to realize that James Gunn is not the same man that tweeted tasteless jokes to shock the world. Yet, he remains fired from Disney.

No justice done

It feels cold and bitter to constantly go on about a touchy situation dealing with tender topics. But the lack of real justice here is too much to simply ignore. Before anyone gets their pitchforks out, let me clarify something. There is no need to start hunting people out or sending death threats to anybody involved. The solution to such an issue is actually quite simple: rehire James Gunn.

Why would rehiring him solve the issue? To that I answer: it won’t even completely solve it. But it will be a start. It would be a start in not letting past demons affect the positive nature of one’s current self. That sounds cryptic, I know, but it’s simple.

James Gunn is a man who has made some rather nasty mistakes in the past concerning his words. This article does not seek to defend the tweets that James shared all those years ago. Instead, it is a defense of James Gunn’s change as a person, who has comfortably led one of Disney Marvel’s most popular franchise with heart and passion in addition to being a changed man. It is the defense of a man that still got fired from his job for old tweets that he has already been shamed for and has apologized for.

If James Gunn were to remain fired from Disney, who knows how far this could go in terms of a domino effect? Patton Oswalt and Michael Ian Black have already been called out for making edgy jokes on their Twitter accounts (though with them being comedians, there is less of a chance for outrage). But the sudden need to call out so-called “pedophiles” for darkly humorous tweets from a long time ago can be stronger than ever, prompting call-outs of otherwise good-natured people for some immature jokes they may have made in the past.

The firing of Gunn makes grasping at straws to be a legitimate case for someone being wrongfully fired. Many of us have made dark and edgy jokes in an effort to look cool and/or make our friends laugh. Immature? Yes. Worth getting fired for? The conversation turns incredibly grim at that point, because now that is a possibility.

That is not to say that Disney wasn’t completely in the wrong in this case. By that, I mean that Disney was right to have that momentary freak-out when the news “broke” (quotation marks because this is old news). Disney prides itself as a brand that appeals to families and people of all ages with their content. Having a director that has made tasteless jokes in the past would be a questionable look for the global company. But Disney was willing to give James a chance even in the midst of his 2012 skewering for those same comments, so it stands to reason that Disney should be willing to look at the details involving this case and realize that James is not a man that deserves to be fired for comments he has since learned from. Context added, it equates to James Gunn being anything but a “Hollywood pedophile.”

At this point, all I can hope for is this article showing that once you look into the finer details of a situation, it can add a new perspective that may not have been shown before. Here, I encourage Disney to take a step back, realize the disgusting nature behind the so-called “reveal” of the tweets, and rectify the situation by rehiring James Gunn.

Gunn has proven himself to not only be a man of his word, but also a filmmaker with a genuine passion for his craft and one that certainly doesn’t deserve to be punished for old tweets that showcased that he used to be a man that had a gross sense of humor. It is perfectly okay to be offended by what he said, but Gunn’s change in attitude is more than enough evidence that he is not the man that Disney thinks they have fired.

After all, changing one’s self is just a part of life, right?

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Do you think James Gunn should be rehired or not? Please be respectful and sound off in the comments below!