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I object to Political Correctness
7 years ago
General
For those unaware, recently the film director James Gunn, probably recently most known for directing the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was fired by Disney for several jokes he wrote on Twitter long ago about raping children. Years ago, the company found out about them, he apologized, but some journalists dug them up again, and this time there was no backing out. Fans of his work like me signed petitions to get him re-hired. Since then there’s been news that it’s not happening, but they might use his script, now some speculation that it could happen… I myself hope for the best, but am prepared for the worst.
A friend of mine said that the firing was deserved, because James Gunn was in high support of the firing of Roseanne for her messages, saying that ABC has every right to fire her if they deem what she said offensive….. And a few weeks later, with Disney deeming something James Gunn wrote offensive and firing her. My friend said it only seems fair, and James should be more than happy to accept that.
I admit that at the time when I heard him say that, I was really was scared of losing the chance to see the third movie in a movie in a franchise that I adore so much, but I have since calmed down. YES, the movie will likely still happen, so… I’ll live.
People are upset at this whole thing, and I hear individuals on the left blame it all on right-wingers or the alt-right specifically. Oh, it’s them, they did it! They are coming after one of our own! Which… ok, let’s assume that’s the case, it’s the right-wingers… Isn’t this them using your own logic? I have seen all the arguments being used… frick, I used some of them myself:
-James Gunn apologized already - Oh really? So when someone apologizes for saying something, you accept it? Forgive and forget? You never dismissed someone’s apology and demanded punishment regardless?
-That was from 10 years ago! - So you promise that you’ve never ever ever hunted someone down for something done in the long distant past? You never ignored the fact that people change?
-He was joking! He wasn’t serious! - Context matters? Once again: can you claim that you’ve never deemed something to be so offensive to where context does not matter?
-He was being vague, he wasn’t talking about an individual, he just said baby for shock value! - Oh really, then I assume you are perfectly ok with jokes about raping women. What? It’s vague! About a WOMAN! Not someone specific
AGAIN, I used some of these myself, but you know why I have a firmer ground to stand on when I use them? I NEVER DEMANDED ANYBODY TO BE FIRED FOR ANYTHING OF THE LIKE! I am not a hypocrite when I say these! I can’t say the same about many of the people signing the petition.
I’m no longer as liberal as I was, because of this new focus on political correctness (amongst other things). I hate the idea of a world where people who don’t meet the moral standards are to be fired immediately with no chance of defending themselves.
Naturally the most hypocritical of the bunch outright say that these new rules were put into place to fight right-wingers and not left-wingers, which is outright admitting that it’s not about protecting the innocent, but rather using them as a means to fire people they don’t like. Just shameful.
If this is indeed the work of some right wingers, then they are just using the same tools that are used against them, which I can’t deny is fair. AND YET, despite all the talk about it being the right, pushing everything towards that side, screaming that its them, them them….. I still did see a few liberal voices say that, even if we feel regret about this, we should take this as a lesson:
We should never write offensive things, if we do, there will be consequences.
Wise words, aren’t they? The rules of what is politically correct and what isn’t, are always the same, right? They never ever change! Now and 100 years ago? Exactly the same! People never change, never say anything dumb accidentally. If you are sorry about something, then you wouldn’t do it in the first place!
Tell you what, I have another proposition: Let’s throw Political Correctness under the bus!
Let us stop with this witch hunt! I do not care about some joke someone wrote ages ago! There are so many people guilty awful actions, but here we are, hunting down people for words. For supposedly hurting someone’s feelings. GEEE, somehow, despite all the talk about sadness, depression and sorrow, all I see, is a bunch of loud angry furious dogs.
I realize this is going into a slightly different direction, but I still want to say it:
I remember how there was a time when I used to be shy…. Well, shy-ER than now. I was so quiet and nervous to where people suspected that I might be mentally handicapped (I’m not kidding). I was so madly nervous of speaking up, and making someone upset.
I did end up talking with a few people over the years who had this whole mindset of political correctness, always explaining how the words that I used are offensive, or that me appreciating something is bad, because it’s “problematic”.I even tried to bring up how uncomfortable I’m starting to feel, but all I got to hear was… that I have to learn! I should just get that certain topics and words are taboo, because they might hurt someone’s feelings, and if I actually want to have friends, I should act this way. It then hit me, that these people would prefer if I became like the old me. Afraid of speaking up, hiding in the corner, avoiding eye contact, afraid of having everybody hate me. That did not give me any friends, happiness or anything good in the end. Besides, I know my real friends, who don’t care about any of that. This is why I choose to keep them close, and those who wish to control me, saying that I have to talk and act in a specific way, or else they won’t like me, as far away from me as I possibly can. Life is too short to waste with such dreadful people.
A friend of mine said that the firing was deserved, because James Gunn was in high support of the firing of Roseanne for her messages, saying that ABC has every right to fire her if they deem what she said offensive….. And a few weeks later, with Disney deeming something James Gunn wrote offensive and firing her. My friend said it only seems fair, and James should be more than happy to accept that.
I admit that at the time when I heard him say that, I was really was scared of losing the chance to see the third movie in a movie in a franchise that I adore so much, but I have since calmed down. YES, the movie will likely still happen, so… I’ll live.
People are upset at this whole thing, and I hear individuals on the left blame it all on right-wingers or the alt-right specifically. Oh, it’s them, they did it! They are coming after one of our own! Which… ok, let’s assume that’s the case, it’s the right-wingers… Isn’t this them using your own logic? I have seen all the arguments being used… frick, I used some of them myself:
-James Gunn apologized already - Oh really? So when someone apologizes for saying something, you accept it? Forgive and forget? You never dismissed someone’s apology and demanded punishment regardless?
-That was from 10 years ago! - So you promise that you’ve never ever ever hunted someone down for something done in the long distant past? You never ignored the fact that people change?
-He was joking! He wasn’t serious! - Context matters? Once again: can you claim that you’ve never deemed something to be so offensive to where context does not matter?
-He was being vague, he wasn’t talking about an individual, he just said baby for shock value! - Oh really, then I assume you are perfectly ok with jokes about raping women. What? It’s vague! About a WOMAN! Not someone specific
AGAIN, I used some of these myself, but you know why I have a firmer ground to stand on when I use them? I NEVER DEMANDED ANYBODY TO BE FIRED FOR ANYTHING OF THE LIKE! I am not a hypocrite when I say these! I can’t say the same about many of the people signing the petition.
I’m no longer as liberal as I was, because of this new focus on political correctness (amongst other things). I hate the idea of a world where people who don’t meet the moral standards are to be fired immediately with no chance of defending themselves.
Naturally the most hypocritical of the bunch outright say that these new rules were put into place to fight right-wingers and not left-wingers, which is outright admitting that it’s not about protecting the innocent, but rather using them as a means to fire people they don’t like. Just shameful.
If this is indeed the work of some right wingers, then they are just using the same tools that are used against them, which I can’t deny is fair. AND YET, despite all the talk about it being the right, pushing everything towards that side, screaming that its them, them them….. I still did see a few liberal voices say that, even if we feel regret about this, we should take this as a lesson:
We should never write offensive things, if we do, there will be consequences.
Wise words, aren’t they? The rules of what is politically correct and what isn’t, are always the same, right? They never ever change! Now and 100 years ago? Exactly the same! People never change, never say anything dumb accidentally. If you are sorry about something, then you wouldn’t do it in the first place!
Tell you what, I have another proposition: Let’s throw Political Correctness under the bus!
Let us stop with this witch hunt! I do not care about some joke someone wrote ages ago! There are so many people guilty awful actions, but here we are, hunting down people for words. For supposedly hurting someone’s feelings. GEEE, somehow, despite all the talk about sadness, depression and sorrow, all I see, is a bunch of loud angry furious dogs.
I realize this is going into a slightly different direction, but I still want to say it:
I remember how there was a time when I used to be shy…. Well, shy-ER than now. I was so quiet and nervous to where people suspected that I might be mentally handicapped (I’m not kidding). I was so madly nervous of speaking up, and making someone upset.
I did end up talking with a few people over the years who had this whole mindset of political correctness, always explaining how the words that I used are offensive, or that me appreciating something is bad, because it’s “problematic”.I even tried to bring up how uncomfortable I’m starting to feel, but all I got to hear was… that I have to learn! I should just get that certain topics and words are taboo, because they might hurt someone’s feelings, and if I actually want to have friends, I should act this way. It then hit me, that these people would prefer if I became like the old me. Afraid of speaking up, hiding in the corner, avoiding eye contact, afraid of having everybody hate me. That did not give me any friends, happiness or anything good in the end. Besides, I know my real friends, who don’t care about any of that. This is why I choose to keep them close, and those who wish to control me, saying that I have to talk and act in a specific way, or else they won’t like me, as far away from me as I possibly can. Life is too short to waste with such dreadful people.
I must say as a big leftist, I agree these people you criticize are very into their side and putting themselves over an unecessary high pedestal, and that is something I don’t approve of. Then again to me liberals are very different from actual leftists, contrary to popular belief (though even then there are leftists who do crap like this and it’s unacceptable).
But never mind all that mess, I just love this rant. ❤️
But forget it I’ll be rambling too much to the point of confusion and I don’t feel like explaining everything I mean 😝
And something a lot of people leave out is that James Gunn was working for Troma at the time he made those jokes. If you don’t know who Troma are they are independent movie maker whose primary claim to fame is The Toxic Avenger. And tasteless shock humor is pretty much their stock in trade, take Poultrygeist that movie opens with a scene of a man getting gruesomely fisted to death by a Native American zombie and has some blatantly non politically correct stereotypes of Muslim, Black, and Native Americans. And a man who likes to screw dead chickens and gets his dick bitten off when one gets possessed by ghosts.
Great movie by the way if you love that kind of humor, you can actually watch it for free on Troma’s YouTube channel along with a lot of their other movies. They just like putting their old movies up for free cause they are awesome like that.
Anyway my point is making those kind of jokes was how James Gunn got jobs back in those days. And he apologized for them years ago, so him being fired for them is just fucking stupid.
I heard about Troma, which... heh, man, it makes even more sense now for him to having been "like that" back then. It's really dumb to get someone like that and be surprised now.
It seems like such flawed logic: I don't like this, so this shouldn't exist, because I do not want anyone to take any joy from it!
And then people are surprised when the masses turn on them.
"Comic book fans are so sexist for hating on these characters just because they're not white straight males!"
Me: Oh yeah, right! Remember when in the Green Lantern comics, the main character, Alan Scott, was replaced with Hal Jordan? When NOBODY objected to it? When all of the fans were accepting that the character they had been with for so many years, just got replaced by some younger, more hip nobody they never heard of? Oh yeah, people were ay'okay with that, no protests or anything!!!!! Cause... it was another white male, that's why they were ok with it! Comic book fans are not a bunch of dedicated nerds who hate changes, they're just sexist racists, yeah, of course! Keep telling yourselves that!
However that's the thing, Hollywood is so liberal , while the masses are so cheap to buy, that we get that risk-free tactic of re-using old properties and turning them into these weird things.
I mean... Steven Universe, that's a very progressive show, and true, there's people who hate it too, but it's an original property, one of few original creations, and because of that, the negative reception is much lesser with those.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ko2hmjLsmo
That right there is deplorable!