Humor Is Dead
Screenwriter/director James Gunn, in his younger days, was a provocateur -- tweeting outrageous things for humorous effect and surely for attention. I've been there -- though not with anything as "chase you down the streets with pitchforks" as Gunn's tweets, which led to his firing by Disney as director of the "Guardians Of The Galaxy."
There's a context for some of these pedo tweets, per Mike Fleming, Jr., at Deadline:
Gunn's Twitter feed was down for a bit, but it's back up and it's easy to see he is unsparing in his language. For instance: asked why he was taking part in a reading with a convicted pedophile, he answered: "Yeah, that was the point of the tweets, dummy. I left. I showed up to the reading and there was a convicted pedophile there - Victor Salva, the director of Jeepers Creepers, and I was fucking horrified." Salva had served time for molesting a cast member on an early film of his. That was revealed in the run up to the release of Jeepers Creepers, which ironically was released by Disney....Among the tweets that forced Disney and Marvel's hand were: "I like when little boys touch me in my silly place."
Another: "The best thing about being raped is when you're done being raped and it's like 'whew this feels great, not being raped!'" There were others that made satirical comments about the 9/11 attack, AIDS and the Holocaust. Yet another described a monkey masturbating on a young child, and his commentary that it made him "extremely happy."
There seems to be no reason to believe he meant these things.
Here is Gunn defending the prior tweets, which were captured by Fox News before his Twitter feed was taken down.1. Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I've developed as a person, so has my work and my humor.
-- James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
2. It's not to say I'm better, but I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger. My days saying something just because it's shocking and trying to get a reaction are over.-- James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
4. For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn't living them out. I know this is a weird statement to make, and seems obvious, but, still, here I am, saying it.-- James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
5. Anyway, that's the completely honest truth: I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don't anymore. I don't blame my past self for this, but I like myself more and feel like a more full human being and creator today. Love you to you all.-- James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
Here's Robby Soave -- with whom I agree.
Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn fired after the far-right dredged up some gross tweets. In the age of internet outrage, make one misstep and you're done. Such a shame. The future is going to be a very dull place.
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) July 20, 2018
UPDATE -- well-put by Kat Rosenfield and John Squires:
the absurdity of the Gunn situation is most perfectly encapsulated by this tweet https://t.co/1mzCTpTDUZ
— Kat Rosenfield (@katrosenfield) July 21, 2018
Having a warped sense of humor is what makes the unendurable to become bearable. We joke about the perverse and the catastrophic because without the ability to find the humor in the very worst of circumstances, most of us probably would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge or done something similarly self-destructive.
I'm trying to think of the expression we use to describe those who are devoid of a sense of humor, and I can't rememeber... oh, yes: college student.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 12:12 AM
So... it's "the far right" that's at fault?
How come it isn't someone else's fault when it's Papa John's or Chik-Fil-A in the news?
Radwaste at July 21, 2018 3:13 AM
Here's a sampling of the tweets in question -
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dilp6r3W0AAmsxd.jpg:large
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 4:17 AM
Here's what James Gunn said about Roseanne's controversial comment -
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dill5eqW0AA0WUW.jpg
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 4:20 AM
Live by the sword, die by the sword -
James Gunn supported Roseanne being fired over a single tweet that was an off-color joke.
James Gunn also backed the boycott against Laura Ingraham for teasing someone.
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 4:28 AM
Read this thread about James Gunn and then decide whether you would want him around your children -
https://twitter.com/AnOpenSecret/status/1020307005754544128
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 4:30 AM
It wasn't just jokes...
All IGNORE the "100 Prepubescent Girls Touch Themselves" vid he apparently embedded on his site that he says gave him an orgasm that that he received from a man later convicted of pedophilia.
https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/1020412741432086532
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 4:36 AM
Yes Gunn is a hypocrite ..
"I wish some of these so-called defenders of liberty would start to understand what freedom of speech is AND isn’t. Roseanne is allowed to say whatever she wants. It doesn’t mean ABCNetwork needs to continue funding her TV show if her words are considered abhorrent.”
he wasn't unfairly targeted by the 'far right', he was outed because he's a vicious ideologue who likes picking fights with people. People fought back.
James Done at July 21, 2018 5:02 AM
Radwaste: So... it's "the far right" that's at fault?
The tweets in question were unearthed by Mike Cernovich, and he's pretty far right.
Papa John's founder and CEO, John Schnatter, didn't need someone to go rooting around in his old tweets. He pretty much did it to himself.
Although I think Schnatter was demonized unfairly. He didn't call anyone "niggers"; he simply pointed out that Colonel Sanders did. There's a huge difference, which should be obvious to anyone with an IQ over seventy, between pointing out that someone else used an offensive term and calling someone else that term.
But, of course, that's now how the left operates. If a white person so much as sings along with a popular rap tune that uses the word "nigga" (which is supposedly different from "nigger"), then said white person must be made to apologize, then have their entire life ruined, despite having apologized.
And as for Chik-Fil-A, again, this was not a prominent leftist going rooting around in their old tweets looking for dirt. This was COO's Daniel Truett Kathy's own public statements opposing same-sex marriage following reports that his foundation donated millions to anti-LGBT groups.
So, unlike James Gunn (who had apologized for his edgy joke tweets in 2012), Schnatterly didn't need a hypocrite like Cernovich to rat him out (see next tweet); nor did he double-down on his objectionable (the left) behavior.
So, not at all valid comparisons. Which you would have known, Raddy, had you done even a shred of research, instead of your usual shriek-first-and-ask-questions-later brand of indigation.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 5:22 AM
Mike Cernovich's tweets on women, which he has since deleted, but thanks to the magic of screen caps, will live forever.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 5:27 AM
I think the important thing here is if this prevents another Guardians of the Galaxy movie or anything even analogous then the world is a better place.
Ben at July 21, 2018 5:37 AM
> The tweets in question were unearthed by Mike
> Cernovich, and he's pretty far right.
Don't attack the messenger - if the tweets had been unearthed by someone else, would that change your opinion of the situation?
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 6:02 AM
The first was a fun film, the second was inexcusably bad and probably killed the franchise for good.
mark at July 21, 2018 6:16 AM
far-right dredged up some gross tweets
We didn't make the rule "if you say something offensive you should be fired". But as Alinsky rightly pointed out, make your opponent live according to their rules.
Otherwise, ask Roseanne, or Brendan Eich, or the anonymous fellow who wrote his story on Quillette not too long ago about how they felt to be pilloried and then driven out.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 21, 2018 6:31 AM
"make them eat it" indeed.
https://twitter.com/hradzka/status/1020394012656537600
I R A Darth Aggie at July 21, 2018 6:49 AM
Snoopy: Don't attack the messenger - if the tweets had been unearthed by someone else, would that change your opinion of the situation?
And that went so far over your head, you didn't even hear the whoosh. If you're going to be that careless when it comes to reading someone's very clearly stated comments on the subject, I would prefer that you didn't reply to me at all, if you don't mind.
I dislike immensely having to explain what I already explained.
I was responding a post that complained about the supposed double-standard that the "far right" had done this to James Gunn but no one complains about the "far left" doing this to Papa John's or Chick-Fil-A.
That's because the far left was not involved in unearthing statements made by Schnatterly and Chick-Fil-A. Mike Cernovich brought James Gunn's tweets to light, but Papa John's and Chick-Fil-A don't have a far leftist who unearthed incriminating tweets about them. That's because Schnatterly's (who is the founder and former CEO of Papa John's) comments weren't made on Twitter and weren't nine years old. They were recent and were made publicly. Ditto for the Chick-Fil-A controversy. Dan Cathy made his comments against gay marriage quite publicly and recently. (And Dan Cathy still has his job.)
Also interesting to note is that Mike Cernovich has made a hobby/secondary career out of rooting around in the Twitter feeds of prominent leftists in an effort to get them fired from their jobs. And he's had some success with it. MSNBC refused to renew their contract with Sam Seder after Cernovich found a tweet in which Seder mocked Roman Polanski apologists.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 7:28 AM
Also interesting to note is that Mike Cernovich has made a hobby/secondary career out of rooting around in the Twitter feeds of prominent leftists in an effort to get them fired from their jobs. And he's had some success with it. MSNBC refused to renew their contract with Sam Seder after Cernovich found a tweet in which Seder mocked Roman Polanski apologists.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 7:28 AM
Good for him. Punch back twice as hard. I love seeing the progressives eat their young.
Isab at July 21, 2018 8:15 AM
"Which you would have known, Raddy, had you done even a shred of research, instead of your usual shriek-first-and-ask-questions-later brand of indigation(sic)."
And not once did you make the case that the cause was being, "far right".
So now you're a champion of research? How refreshing compared to your old self!
Search through this entire blog, and count the times someone has posted, "Raddy is right" or some such. Then look for yours. I have.
Radwaste at July 21, 2018 8:23 AM
Whether he was serious or not, Gunn should have known better than to make pedophile jokes. It's more acceptable to make jokes about Hitler, IMO, than it is to make jokes about molesting kids, no matter how they were intended. Hopefully, Disney will realize that he apologized six years ago and offer him some work, but the outlook is probably not that good for him.
mpetrie98 at July 21, 2018 8:53 AM
Apparently, you need validation from other posters on this to reassure yourself that you can make worthwhile contributions. I don't ever recall anyone saying "Raddy is right." But I'll take your word for it that this happens often. (I'm sure you print them all out and have them framed and they're decorating your living room wall, even as we speak.)
The day I start needing that, I hope someone shoots me.
Someone pointed out that the far-right dredged up some tweets on James Gunn. Yes, specifically Mike Cernovich. He's far right.
Then you boo-hoo-hoo that no one ever blames the far-left for things like Papa John's (presumably, you're referring to the fall of the CEO Schnatterly) or Chick-Fil-A (again, I presume you're referring to Daniel Cathy for his statements opposing gay marriage).
That's because there were no far-leftists involved, duh! Schnatterly made his own statements very recently. No one had to go back nine years into his Twitter feed to find them.
Although, again, the whole business is grossly unfair to Schnatterly. (I have to say that because certain morons on this board insist that merely reporting on an incident means that you 100% unequivocally agree with it.) Schnatterly merely pointed out that Colonel Sanders used to call black people "niggers." Schnatterly never called anyone "niggers," nor did he even imply he endorsed such a thing.
Merely saying a pejorative in a rhetorical context should not ruin someone's life! Come to think of it, even if he had called someone that, I don't think that should ruin his life. A sincere apology should allow him to be forgiven.
But then again, he is retiring a multi-millionaire, much as the leftist would love to hear that he's living in a homeless shelter, disease-ridden and panhandling in the street, apologizing every day for the rest of his life and still never being forgiven. I wish him the best. I hope he uses his fortune to pursue new interests and live a good, happy life.
And again, when Dan Cathy was called out for groups supported by his own foundation, he came right out and unapologetically stated his opposition to gay marriage. No left-wingers needed. And I will also point out (again), he still has his job.
If you want to point out a supposed double-standard that calls out right-wingers for exposing James Gunn (again, Mike Cernovich is far right; he would agree), but no one blames someone else for Papa John's and Chick-Fil-A, that's because no one is to blame. Their statements were made publicly.
Isab: Good for him. Punch back twice as hard. I love seeing the progressives eat their young.
Yes, I agree. The left has adopted a policy of being completely unforgiving of any transgression, no matter how trivial and no matter how often or sincerely the offender apologizes. They kind of remind me of the Furies in an episode of "Charmed," called "Hell Hath No Fury." The Furies punish evil doers, but their problem is they do so without perspective. They would just as soon torture for all eternity a five-year-old kid who stole a Snickers bar as they would a mass-murderer.
I would have thought that the left would learn something when their unrealistic standards start ensnaring their own (e.g., Melissa Click or "Rose," the obese college student who fell victim to Title IX after her drunken tryst led to her expulsion when the hot college guy she had sex with was ragged on by his buddies), they might have realized that there's something to be said for forgiveness.
But they haven't. So, unless the growing body count alerts them to the danger, they will simply annihilate themselves.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 9:15 AM
> I was responding a post that complained about the
> supposed double-standard that the "far right" had
> done this
I'm not sure that I'd characterize him as far right. In his own words:
I'm a populist.
This means:
- Student loan debt reform
- Break up monopolies
- No bail outs for Wall Street
- Marijuana decriminalization
- Beautiful national parks
- No wars for the plutocracy
- Decentralized power and bitcoin
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/991537656977801217
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 9:22 AM
Popcorn's ready!
Just in time for the show.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 21, 2018 10:01 AM
> Popcorn's ready!
Popcorn is racist and a tool of the patriarchy!
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 10:54 AM
Know what else is absurd? @FreddyInSpace is blocking everyone who points out that Gunn as little as a few months ago was supportive of firing people over tweets they had apologized for
I have no sympathy when the mob turns on one of its own.
I dont think he should have been fired for jokes no matter hwo found them offensive, but Gunn himself openly supported other people being fired
And I have NO problem holding hypocited to the stnadard they hold other to
lujlp at July 21, 2018 11:49 AM
Popcorn is racist and a tool of the patriarchy!
Which is why woke people eat Momcorn.
JD at July 21, 2018 11:58 AM
he wasn't unfairly targeted by the 'far right', he was outed because he's a vicious ideologue who likes picking fights with people. People fought back.
_______________________________________
That sounds correct. As I said in effect elsewhere, since when is crude, insulting hyperbole not rude, at the least? Why shouldn't people take it at face value - or not get angry?
Even if the other side was engaging in hyperbole first, we all know that "two wrongs..."
_______________________________________
I don't ever recall anyone saying "Raddy is right."
__________________________________________
I'm sure I have, though not in those exact words. (Not always, mind you. But you knew that, maybe.)
lenona at July 21, 2018 12:30 PM
Mpetrie, I have no idea how many Hitler jokes make it into Disney creations of any kind, but outside of Disney, at least some comedians get away with child molestation jokes. George Carlin, for one. But one could almost always tell when he was just being a comedian.
Then again...(ha ha):
"I, myself, have killed six people. All random, all undetected, no way to trace them to me. And, let me tell you, there's nothin' like it. It's a great feeling. Yeah, I know, you're thinking. 'Aw, he's a comedian. He's just sayin' that stuff.' Good. That's exactly what I want you to think."
(From "Legal Murder Once a Month.")
lenona at July 21, 2018 12:42 PM
Useless trivia:
I had never heard of the James Gunn discussed here. He's about to turn 52, I found out, but when I read "in his younger days," I thought we were talking about the 95-year-old sci-fi writer/scholar/English professor, James E. Gunn.
lenona at July 21, 2018 12:46 PM
"Taken in the best possible context, all a joke and the wrong Huston Huddleston, this is still beyond bad words. Just as calling for violence is an act, so too is publishing and sexualizing a video of pubescent girls as whacking material, so too is making light of and by extension normalizing the idea of masturbating to a video of pubescent girls singing suggestive lyrics about touching themselves."
https://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/07/21/nolte-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-director-james-gunn-has-bigger-problems-than-old-tweets/
Snoopy at July 21, 2018 2:01 PM
I love "Curb Your Enthusiasm"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd4b059yNNo
JD at July 21, 2018 2:06 PM
I did say previously that I feel that James Gunn should be forgiven, but in light of his own calls for people losing their jobs for imprudent tweets (as a poster or two has pointed out on this blog), I'm quite content to let him be hoisted on his own petard.
Patrick at July 21, 2018 5:10 PM
Don't be sorry and don't regret it, we've all said tasteless things sometimes.
This is messed up
NicoleK at July 21, 2018 5:49 PM
A lady friend of mine just tweeted, "I told my boyfriend about James Gunn's pedophile jokes. He said they were reprehensible.
"That's a big word for a nine-year-old."
Patrick at July 21, 2018 7:04 PM
As Vox Day says, once you apologize, you are toast.
No topic should be off limits to jokes.
jdgalt at July 21, 2018 8:09 PM
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/615984850516836352
Sixclaws at July 21, 2018 9:18 PM
Idiots make rules which they would hate to see applied to them.
See Roseanne Tweets, #MeToo, 'Rape Culture', the Reid Rule, and reigning by Executive Order.
I wonder how many ass whoopings the Left needs to experience to decide to re-start to embrace ideas like 'free speech', tolerance, rule of law, and innocent before proven guilty FOR EVERYONE, not just them.
So far, that number is more than a 1000.
FIDO at July 22, 2018 2:23 AM
Part of the price one pays to be in the 'outrageous' set, that 'norm violating' crowd, is that one frequently pays a social price.
To wit: I am not defending a jackass who delighted in the destruction of a Roseanne but suddenly wants to keep his job for the EXACT SAME THING!
You want to make 'tolerance' a norm, you do it by defending your enemies because it is the principled thing to do.
Hollywood has gone out of their way to silence Conservative voices for inappropriate comments. See Mel Gibson.
If it happens to a Lefty, I am shedding no tears. And this is mostly a Left made problem.
Petard....HOIST!
FIDO at July 22, 2018 2:37 AM
FIDO: To wit: I am not defending a jackass who delighted in the destruction of a Roseanne but suddenly wants to keep his job for the EXACT SAME THING!
But is it really the exact same thing?
This were tweets made nine years ago, for which he apologized six years ago.
Roseanne's comments were made and apologized for on practically when she saw that her career was threatened.
Under the circumstances, I would sooner believe in the sincerity of his apology over hers. Not only did he make his apologies years ago for comments he made years prior to that, but he has apparently not said anything like that since then.
Roseanne, on the other hand, has not had the benefit of years to rethink her position and made her apologies under duress.
FIDO: Hollywood has gone out of their way to silence Conservative voices for inappropriate comments. See Mel Gibson.
Gibson is a special case. He made his comments about Jews while being arrested, and has apologized for them. Then, years later, he revealed sadistic glee at the thought of his girlfriend being raped by a "pack of niggers."
To say nothing of his homophobic comments that he quite openly made in less politically correct times. Women, jews, blacks, gays...I think the list of whom Gibson doesn't hate would be shorter than the list of those he does.
FIDO: If it happens to a Lefty, I am shedding no tears. And this is mostly a Left made problem.
And regardless of the reasons I gave above for not considering the situations to be equal, I agree with this. I'm quite content to watch the left being destroyed by the standards that they created.
Say something that is even perceived as prejudicial (whether it actually is or not), then the left wants your life ruined. Even if you render the sincerest apology in the world, they still want your life ruined.
The left has devolved to a point where consummate unforgiveness is seen as the only moral position. Which, I suppose, is a traditional Christian position. Christians believe (or most do), that once you're in hell, there's no amount of repentance that will even mitigate your sentence, much less commute it. You're in hell to stay.
Patrick at July 22, 2018 5:16 AM
That a supposedly "merciful" God might actually be a sadist for permanently punishing sinners has been questioned by many Catholic philosophers, from Thomas Aquinas to Dante Alighieri to CS Lewis. Both Dante (Divine Comedy) and Lewis (The Great Divorce) postulated that what keeps sinners in Hell is not God, but their refusal to admit and repent their sins.
Works by Dante and Lewis heavily influenced Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in their third collaboration, Inferno, a re-imagining of Dante's The Inferno. In Niven and Pournelle's version the protagonist comes to realize that he is, in some way, guilty of each of the anthropomorphized sins he sees being punished and must repent each of them to escape Hell.
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress contains similar themes along with the then popular Protestant English antipathy toward the Catholic Church - one of the monsters with which Christian must contend is a giant named, Pope. In addition, the seven-headed beast terrorizing Vanity is controlled by a woman who is believed to represent the Antichrist, the Church of Rome.
On the other hand, in Matthew, the Bible does describe Hell as "eternal." Still, it's difficult to reconcile the "loving and merciful" God with the sadistic judge condemning souls to "eternal" damnation.
Conan the Grammarian at July 22, 2018 7:24 AM
Yet more proof that Twitter is inherently harmful.
Cousin Dave at July 22, 2018 8:57 PM
What bothers me is people are now saying tasteless jokes and vulgar comments are comparable to raping people or demanding sex from your subordinates.
NicoleK at July 23, 2018 8:13 AM
Sugar, I don't need validation from other commenters... I'm just setting us apart. Done!
"The day I start needing that, I hope someone shoots me."
No need for you to remember anything. That would interfere with new outrage.
I thought you'd at least know as many basics of this blog as Crid, considering you've been here over 13 years...
It remains also that I agree with you often - but I don't comment then, for there is nothing extra to say. So, take heart. You're not always disagreeing with me, so clarity doesn't have to make you angry!
Radwaste at July 23, 2018 7:33 PM
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