Also, I think attitudes around jokes of certain kinds have changed dramatically in very recent years, and if Gunn isn’t an asshole (which I don’t know) then he’s actually listened and changed his ways. Which I actually believe is possible for an adult man of any age, but then I’m an optimist.
Pedo jokes have never been cool and his tweets were edgelord junk I’d expect to hear during Xbox Live chat.
If his tweets were racist, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Nobody would believe that he’s a better person now.
Well I think pedo jokes have gotten considerably less cool in recent years (though honestly you can still find lots of professional comedic content that still has jokes like that now, not just on Xbox live).
Also, the comparison to racist jokes is more complicated, because not all “racist” jokes are necessarily racist or rooted in racism (with some the target of the joke being racism itself). If they were jokes that displayed that he was racist, then obviously we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But making pedo jokes doesn’t make you a pedo.
So if someone unearths 10,000 race-based jokes on some other entertainer’s social media account tomorrow, you’ll be reviewing those jokes on their own merit and potentially defending them because the jokes weren’t actually “rooted in racism”?
As I’ve stated before, I don’t actually work for Disney.
Nobody said you did. I presented a hypothetical situation and wanted to know how you’d respond in order to see if you’d be logically consistent with the argument you’re making.
It was a joke.
Anyway, my point was that racist jokes are on a spectrum that includes “this person is racist” on one end (and no shit making a large number of them probably indicates that). No amount of pedo jokes makes you a pedo though.
(I’m also skeptical of the 10,000 number, not that it matters of course, it’s gross either way).
The 10,000 number is how many tweets he deleted. I’m sure there was some spray-and-pray involved given how quickly he wiped them out.
Yeah, somehow I doubt he carefully went through and found the exact 10,000 inappropriate tweets and deleted only those.
Did Barr’s joke prove her to be a racist? If you believe her story about not knowing the target of her joke was black (and why wouldn’t you…you’re an optimist), then her joke wouldn’t be inherently racist, her apology would have been sincere, and her firing wouldn’t have been justified. Correct?
If that was an isolated incident for Barr, I’d be on a different side of that particular debate.
Was it an isolated incident for Gunn? He tweeted that garbage for years. How is it that he can post trash well into his 40s and it’s not a pattern of behavior?
Do I need to explain again the difference between pedo jokes vs. racist jokes? (in Barr’s case, there’s a history of absolute lunacy on top of it all)
As for my “optimism” statement, I would think it obvious what I meant, but I guess I need to explain it to you. As an optimist I believe in general that people can grow and mature. I ultimately don’t really know if Gunn has, but his apology at the very least would seem to indicate so. Barr’s, on the other hand… saying “I thought the bitch was white” months later doesn’t exactly seem remorseful to me.
I wasn’t aware that optimists tended to compartmentalize their optimism into specific areas; you sound more like a realist since you apply your optimism selectively.
Optimism does not necessarily equal blind optimism. Though maybe you’re right to some extent, I was once called a optimistic realist once.
Regardless, you’re enough of an optimist to believe Gunn, who posted pedo jokes well into his 40s, can finally grow up, but not enough to believe Barr when she says she didn’t know the target of her joke was black. She made that claim immediately after she got in trouble, not months later, and then issued a more formal and (presumably) heartfelt apology soon after. I haven’t watched the new video.
I never said I believe Gunn. I just said his apology is a lot more believable.
Maybe I’m misremembering but I don’t think the “I thought she wasn’t black” apology came “immediately” after (not to mention that’s not actually an apology, but an excuse). Either way, again there’s a key matter of time. It’s a lot more likely that someone has truly understood the error of their ways when there’s years of perspective in-between. Not saying it’s impossible to realize and comprehend right away, just seems doubtful that’s been the case for Barr.
I don’t really care either way. They both said dumb shit and got fired. I don’t think either should have been, but that’s the world we live in at the moment.
I guess my only question is, do you think there’s ever a case where someone should be fired for dumb shit they said?
Anyway, I got burned out on all the comic book movies right around Iron Man 2 (or was it 3?) and I have a lot of catching up to do. Do I need to watch everything in order to understand Avengers or are there any movies I can safely skip?
You could probably safely skip all but the Avengers films and Captain America: Civil War with only a few minor confusing things. Though then you’d be skipping the best ones.