“Guardians of the Galaxy” writer-director James Gunn was fired by Walt Disney on June 22, when some controversial tweets he made about pedophilia surfaced. His old tweets came to attention after conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich began digging up Gunn’s tweets going as far back as 2009 and 2010.
The tweets were no more than crude jokes; however, Hollywood has shown recently that it has no tolerance for these kinds of comments. This recent hypersensitivity to these sort of topics is most likely due to the dark history of sexual harassment unveiled in the Harvey Weinstein controversy, and subsequent pressure from the #MeToo movement.
Gunn, who directed the box office smash original “Guardian” in 2014 and the sequel “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2” in 2017, wrote most of his offensive comments from 2009 to 2012.
Before Gunn landed his first big role in directing a Marvel film, he started out in creating low-budget satirical films such as “Tromeo and Juliet.” His trademark lay in creating controversies, as stated by his apology tweets.
“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,” Gunn wrote. “As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so have my work and my humor.”
And although his tweets about pedophilia were by no means appropriate, they were written nearly eight years ago and were clearly meant for comical purposes. There is also no evidence Gunn took part in any of the activities he joked about, as he stated in his apology.
“For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn’t living them out,” he added. “I know this is a weird statement to make, and seems obvious, but, still, here I am, saying it.”
Even so, Disney fired Gunn. Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, released a statement saying, “The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him.”
A week after the firing, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and other cast members in the the “Guardians” movies released a statement in full support for Gunn.
In the meantime, Gunn tweeted out another apology, saying, “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.”
The two “Guardians” movies grossed nearly $1.6 billion worldwide. A replacement for the director may be hard to find. And Gunn has recently been hired to direct DC Comic’s “Suicide Squad 2,”
