I believe that's true. And judging by how the people he works with have come to his defense it seems like he is a good person. But it's a pandora's box, the information is in the public eye, no matter who released it and now Disney has to deal with it.

It's an unfortunate situation because everyone loses.

I don't think so.

But the beautiful thing about living in a free society (This was a German magazine) is that she can do that without fear of legal repercussion. But people seem to be confused and think that freedom of speech means freedom from the court of public opinion. It's great that you can freely say what your beliefs are but that doesn't mean that you are free from the public thinking that you're a douchebag and ruining your own career as a result.

I basically view it that way, too. Disney couldn't just ignore the tidal wave of shock and outrage from a huge percentage of the public (most of whom knew nothing about these tweets and pictures previously, so it was something new to them).

As I said way back - this was a no-win situation for both parties.

One thing I do think kind of made this a bigger issue, though, for a lot of people - he put a lot of sex and penis jokes in the Guardians movies, and it got a little weird at times because of that. It was kind of like he was obsessed with that stuff, so when the pedophilia and rape, "Jokes," came out it really resonated with people who already thought some of those sex jokes were unnecessary in the Guardians movies. It made the situation creepier.

Honestly, I think the mass of Disney consumers (of which I am one, I'm even a Disneyland annual passholder) that would be upset enough if they didn't do anything to Gunn wouldn't be significant enough to affect their business.

Of course, people tend to latch on to however the media reports things and whatever gets a lot of press, so who knows how both the press and social media would have reacted if it went the other way. Us humans are weird like that, and victim to whatever is put in front of our faces before we actually care about it.

For instance, I think more people should be raking someone like John Lasseter over the coals, but he's quietly going to leave the company at the end of the year and doesn't seem to have the massive level of hate and attention that someone like Gunn is getting (from what i've noticed on this forum and in social media).

That could be true we will never know now.

Totally agree. I'm really hating this day and age of "news" reporting. I know the news media has always loved a headline (they are selling a product after all). But in this day and age of instant information more and more stuff is coming out and people are reacting to it before it can be vetted. That's because there are more "news" organizations that don't have a reputation to protect that will take facts and twist them to make a headline to generate clicks. And now even the mainstream big organizations with a reputation have sunk to that same level. And will report on things based on an untrusted twitter feed. So the truth is twisted and just because an article quotes a few twitter users they make it seem like the whole public is outraged just because they want to generate a buzz worthy article. It's really terrible.

John Lasseter really hurts. I really love what he produced at Pixar and the work that he did. And he seemed like a really nice fun loving guy. It's a shame really. But I don't think there is outrage because Disney did deal with him. The thing that's sad is it must be true because no one has come out in defense of him.

Why is everybody giving such a fuck about this?

Unless Gunn's life long dream is to make GOTG3, he doesn't lose anything. He still gets paid, in full, for everything he would have done. He still gets his percentage of the profits from GOTG3, even though he didn't have to do anything. His name will still be in the credits in some form.
Gunn can spend the time he would have been working on the movie enjoying his millions on a beach in Bermuda, or go on to his next project.

The internet stuff is out there. If he were blackballed by the industry it would be for that. Not whether Disney fired him or not.
The only effect this has on Gunn is not getting to work on one specific movie, which he gets paid for anyway.

Disney has an enchanted forest of trees that grow $1,000,000 bills. Paying off Gunn won't have them crawling to Mr. Potter at the bank.

So, whose getting fucked here?

The fans.

Are you suggesting that context matters?

Well, everyone except the right-wing nutjobs who intended to character assasinate James Gunn. They win big time.

I don't think the "tidal wave" from "a huge percentage of the public" you speak about is real. The internet is often a big echo chamber, and news you're interested in can seem more prevalent than it actually is. The majority of the public, if they even know about this story, know only the general outline: he said some bad things a while ago (most major publications aren't including the actual tweets), he apologized for it, Disney fired him, and that the GOTG cast seems to want him back, as do many fans.

I don't really expect the photos to get much traction on many major press sites, since they're feeling like they got "tricked" into reporting on the tweets in the first place, playing the patsy to some right-winged character assassins. Also, "James Gunn did something offensive years ago," is pretty much old news at this point, even if these specific photos weren't previously widely known about.

So, none of this is about who did what to who, and when. It's about not getting a movie you want to see made in a particular way you want it made.

It's also about whether Disney overreacted or not, and whether what Gunn did before being hired at Disney should have any impact on his job there.

And sure, Gunn will be fine financially and will adjust and continue to do other work, but he won't be able to continue a film franchise he started and appears to have a strong investment in.

Sure, the people that care the most about whether Gunn continues are fans of his work on GOTG and want to see that continue, but that doesn't mean they're wrong to think that what Gunn did wasn't worth firing over. Not all fans place their entertainment over what's appropriate. As a fan of Pixar, I was disappointed to learn of John Lasseter's actions and will miss his influence on Disney/Pixar's films, but in light of what he did, Disney made the right call to let him go. I like Kevin Spacey as an actor, but I'm fine with Netflix dropping him from House of Cards, and I enjoyed Christopher Plummer's performance in All the Money in the World.

I'd be willing to see Gunn stay fired if I thought the firing was appropriate for his actions. I don't think making a few offensive jokes years and years ago is worth firing him over. Honestly, if Disney had a problem with those, then they shouldn't have let Marvel hire him in the first place. Frankly, I was personally a bit surprised they did originally hire him, since his public persona at the time wasn't exactly a secret. But he changed his ways, made two fun movies, and made Marvel & Disney a lot of bank along the way. That Disney was so quick to throw him under the bus over a fake "controversy" baked up by some far-right nutjobs was unfair.

I thought there might be a shot that Marvel Studios might convince Disney to bring Gunn back but I’m guessing those pictures have sealed his chances at coming back. Too bad as I’d like him back and I hope this doesn’t screw things up going forward beyond the third Guardians film.

And he sooooo wanted to foreclose on them...

Because Gunn was targeted because of political beliefs and old, tasteless, harmless jokes were used as the way to get him. Now pedophilia is a special kind of gross but dying and hurting yourself is awful too. Whose to say these types of attacks cant be done (again for political reasons) against people who have made jokes about people dying or being hurt? If you include those types of jokes you can pretty much target anyone who has ever made more than 3 jokes online of off in their life.

I get that. As an opinion of the subject in a broad sense I agree. What really matters though is how the person who got fired feels about it in a specific case.

It the person being fired has the attitude of "Fuck it. Give my 20 million and I'll go do something else".
I don't know what Gunn's passion for GOTG was, but otherwise he's the winner and Disney is the loser.

Maybe it's just my attitude. I'd be "Fuck you assholes. Give me my money and good riddance." I wouldn't look back.

That's a factor, but that's not the only factor. Even if Gunn is accepting of it, it doesn't mean Disney wasn't in the wrong.

It's not known exactly how James Gunn feels about this, but since he called the GOTG 3 script "every bit of my heart," it seems likely he's upset he won't be able to direct that script:
https://www.thewrap.com/james-gunn-s...-galaxy-vol-3/

But this is bad regardless of whether the person being targeted is fired or not. If this is the primary beef, than people should be just as upset if he didn't get fired because either way he was unfairly targeted.

Disney's reaction to the targeting is a separate issue to the targeting itself. Primarily if it encourages this type of targeting.

Regardless of what others may think about the situation, it still comes down to how the person who was targeted feels about it.
If in a specific case the person being targeted doesn't give a fuck, I don't either.

Yes

There's nothing people can (or should be able to) do about a disgusting troll misconstruing jokes as something more and using them as a weapon. What "we" can do is not reward them by ruining peoples' lives because of the trolls.

But those, "Jokes," were vile, disgusting, and horribly offensive.

I can't make, "Jokes," like that online and keep my job. That's a fact. We've been told that for years. Why should Gunn be any different?

A lot of people don't find those, "Jokes," to be funny. And it does speak a lot about his own belief system that he thinks that those are topics (pedophilia and rape) that can be funny - especially given the dry, serious tone to those tweets. The fact that he didn't understand just how offensive and repugnant people would find those jokes is disturbing. And, again, his predilection towards sex and penis jokes in the Guardians movies makes those tweets even more disturbing as it's something that is clearly in his personality.

Parents have a right to be disturbed by this guy. A lot of what he says is very disturbing and unsettling - especially given the fact that he was steering the ship of a major FAMILY entertainment franchise.

I don't find the jokes funny but if there's some action I can take so that YOU won't be fired for offensive jokes let me know and I'll do what I can man.

Parents wouldnt even know who the fuck James Gunn is if it wasn't for right wing trolls. What % of the regular moviegoing public even knew the guy's name?

...in your opinion. Other opinions differ.

Jokes you made before you were hired, or after? Can you quote your specific employee rules?

He did understand how offensive some people would find them, that was the point, why he posted them. He was deliberately trying to provoke a reaction. He's said as much, and he's apologized for it, and he hasn't done it since being employed at Disney. His past actions don't reflect on Disney, or the current person he is.

OMG! Sex and penis jokes! My heart is all aflutter! Get me to my fainting couch!

Sure, but there's not much evidence that very many are, or that it would significantly affect GOTG 3's box office. I mean, nobody apparently cares that the director of Shakes the Clown is the voice of a Disney character.

Or that Danny Devito from the same movie is in a show that has made PLENTY of pedophile jokes.

You really don't see why those things are considered - by a very large percentage of parents - to be inappropriate in a family movie that's supposed to be kid friendly?

Gilbert Gottfried also trades in tasteless, offensive jokes, I'm pretty sure I've even heard him do Holocaust jokes on the Howard Stern show at one point, and yet Disney still continues to hire him to reprise the voice of Iago.

Both of the GOTG films are PG-13, which isn't a "kid friendly" rating. That's a rating concerned parents should be investigating before allowing their kids to watch. Just because kids want to watch it doesn't mean it's "kid friendly." I mean, I loved Robocop and Die Hard as a kid, but those were R-rated and not kid friendly at all.

And if your real concern was what was put into the movies, you should've been upset about Gunn heading these films way back in 2014, not just after some unrelated tweets surfaced.

What makes you think GoG is supposed to be a "family" movie?
It's a funny sci-fi movie that can be as coarse as it's PG-13 rating allows.