Politics and outrage culture will ruin entertainment.
There’s a way to conduct matters without either completely ignoring things or going overboard.
Where exactly is that line and who defines it?
No two cases are the same and so the idea that everything must be a firable offense or nothing is is stupid. It’s not a matter of there being a definite line with a definite definition, because the definition won’t necessarily apply in every case. This isn’t a math problem.
And just because some people get fired with insufficient reason doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up and saw no one should be fired for anything ever. It just means people in charge have to actually show some care, rather than just pretending they do (and instead being reckless about it).
Who says Disney didn’t exercise care in this case?
Seems to me it’s “justified” when someone agrees with the decision and “reckless” when they don’t. It’s sort of like speeding: everyone driving slower than you is an idiot and everyone driving faster is crazy.
Despite the differences between Roseanne’s circumstances and Gunn’s, their firings are both tied to politically-driven outrage and social media mobs. There are just different politics driving the mobs.
First of all, whether or not I personally agree with this is besides the point I was making, which was in general terms.
Now, as for whether or not I do agree with this firing, my whole point was that each case is different and should be treated differently. So I don’t get the logic of trying to prove my point wrong by saying “you’re only mad when you don’t agree with it!” What I’m saying is it shouldn’t be a binary everyone should be fired or no one should be. So of course I’ll disagree if it just seems like they’re blindly “firing everyone.”
Gunn’s tweets have been in the world for a while, what’s “reckless” is that only now they are firing him. Despite the fact that he’s apologized already, and supposedly has had a fine working relationship with the company. If we are to take Gunn at his word, that his poor taste in jokes are something that are many years behind him now, than this is something Disney should have considered.
You can’t just ignore the differences between this and Barr. Again, my whole point is that everything can’t be treated the same way. The differences are the most important part. If Gunn tweeted a child rape joke yesterday, this would be a completely different story. Part of the reason Roseanne was canceled were that crew members were jumping ship and didn’t want to work with her anymore.
If there are additional factors at play here, it would be nice to know them. As I said before, Disney is sending a confusing message, because on the surface of it they’re essentially suggesting that people aren’t allowed to mature, change, or put any past mistakes behind them (which isn’t to say that every kind of past mistake is forgivable, but again this is where considering each case individually is important).
Where in my first response to you did I suggest it was binary? That it was all or nothing? I didn’t. I suggested, via the question I posed, that if there’s a decision to be made, then there must be a line, and if there’s a line, then it’s up to someone to draw that line.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to believe that there’s a line that Barr crossed and Gunn didn’t, and that line relates to who that person is today versus who they were in the past. Barr tweeted something offensive recently, whereas Gunn last tweeted something offensive about 6 years ago. That’s a perfectly okay line to draw, and it’s perfectly okay to believe Barr deserved to be fired and Gunn didn’t.
I don’t feel either should have been fired. My line is farther out than your line. I also think that’s okay.
Disney fired both. Apparently, they drew their line more conservatively than you or I would have. It’s their money to make or lose and both Barr’s and Gunn’s employment are at Disney’s discretion. Firing Gunn is only “reckless” if his continued employment wouldn’t have been harmful to their brand. In their judgment, it would have been.
Sure, maybe the guy has changed. He was in his 40s when he made all these tweets, though. He’s a grown-ass man. I think it’s far more likely that he learned to shut his mouth on social media than his sense of humor changed.
I’m not ignoring the differences between Barr and Gunn. However, what they have in common is that their employer decided it would be easier to disassociate themselves from their problematic (there’s that word again) employee and make them go away than it would be to deal with any fallout. That’s the trend that concerns me, and it’s not a politically left or right thing. I don’t want creative people to feel like they have to act as an official representative of their employer at all times.