I care because I find judging people's morality based on a baker's dozen of gross jokes to be offensive. And I would have felt the same if this were Snyder, Scorsese or Uwe Boll.
Out of curiosity, were you defending Roseanne? I ask because when the shoe was on the other foot, Gunn himself had no problem participating in the Twitter mob attacking her, and declaring that ABC had the right to fire her for her Tweets, even if they were intended as a joke. Gunn helped create and perpetuate the atmosphere which got him fired, so it's pretty hypocritical to lament the politically charged atmosphere which he was in favor of when it was someone he disagreed with politically who was on the receiving end of the witch hunt.
And IMO, who cares who dug up the tweets? Nobody made him write them over a span of years, and nobody made him make pedophilia the primary focus of a large chunk of those tweets. Those were all his choices, and he would've suffered the same fate regardless of who dug up his tweets for whatever reason. The bigger concern is what they say about him, and why he kept returning to that topic over and over again. People focus on their interests. We write a lot here because we're interested in comic movies. So why does he write a lot about pedophilia if it isnt because hes preoccupied with the idea?
Given the things coming out of Hollywood the past few years, its not at all unreasonable to worry that a director who made numerous very public statements about acts of pedophilia over a number of years may not only be a pedophile, but may have acted on those urges. How many years did Bill Cosby get away with committing countless rapes before someone stepped forward to accuse him? How long did Bryan Singer get away with committing sexual abuse and assault? How long did Kevin Spacey get away with it? Harvey Weinsteins behavior was an open secret in Hollywood, but nobody wanted to speak up about what he was doing, allowing him to victimize more women and ruin the lives of others.
They got away with all of that for years because of their celebrity (Partly because the victims were afraid of stepping forward and being crucified by fans like these, who put more value on the movies they watch than the lives destroyed by sex abusers). So when we start defending James Gunn on the basis of wanting to see him do another Guardians of the Galaxy movie, its sickening. The question shouldnt be whether we get to see him do a Guardians movie again. It should be whos looking into him to make sure that he hasnt, in fact, been engaging in child sex abuse? That he doesnt, in fact, have his home computer riddled with child porn?
One bad joke, two bad jokes, while disgusting, can be excusable. Everybody makes a bad off-hand joke from time to time. But he made these kinds of jokes for years on end. That is an unhealthy amount of preoccupation with the subject of pedophilia. And if hes comfortable enough with the idea of pedophilia that he can make numerous very public tweets about the topic, then who knows what hes comfortable with doing in his personal life?
Whether ABC was justified in firing Roseanne or not doesnt really matter to me. But look at it this way: in the absolute worst case scenario, Roseanne is a racist who says mean things on tweets. Thats it. She doesnt paint swastikas on synagogues, she doesnt burn crosses in front of black churches, and she doesnt engage in lynchings. But worst case scenario when it comes to Gunn? Hes the latest Roman Polanski who smartened up about six years ago and stopped pointing neon signs which blatantly identified himself as a pedophile.
If ABC was right to fire Roseanne, then Disney is definitely right to fire James Gunn. Particularly if, worst comes to worst, those tweets are an inside look into who the real James Gunn really is, and he does turn out to have sex abuse scandals hiding in his closet, waiting to come out. Can you imagine how disastrous itd be for Disney if they were to hire him back, only for a sex abuse victim to step forward and accuse Gunn? For Disney to ignore highly probably indicators that Gunn has a disturbing degree of interest in rape and child sex abuse, only to ignore that in the name of profit?
As for everything else, the degree to which people will defend and justify this sort of behavior is downright disgusting. I loved the first two Guardians, too, but I also liked the Polanski Macbeth movie. That doesnt mean, though, that I want Polanski to get a pardon and start making movies again. I loved The Usual Suspects, but that doesnt mean Singer and Spacey should get off Scott free. I loved The Cosby Show, but that doesnt mean that Bill Cosby should skate. I love Tarantinos movies, but that doesnt mean Weinstein should get a pass. At a bare minimum, Gunn spent years making jokes which helped normalize pedophilia and child sex abuse, and hes got a bunch of people making excuses for that sort of thing and saying its okay. Go tell a kid that its okay for someone to joke about a grown person sexually abusing them and raping them. Go tell that to a parent. You wont because you know that its not okay. And on that basis alone he deserves firing. He spent years normalizing pedophilia and now hes got a bunch of people trying to selfishly justify normalizing it in the name of a movie.
And thats at a minimum. Once again, were talking about someone who took a perverse satisfaction from making pedophiliac comments for years in public. For someone to be that focused on the topic, it has to be something theyre into. And if Gunn is a pedophile, then hes acted on those urges in some way over the years, whether its being in possession of child porn or going to the lengths of a Bryan Singer or Roman Polanski. So yeah, Ill reiterate my prior statement that the concern shouldnt be what his next movie will be. The concern should be wheres law enforcement checking him out?
