Much like Weinstein's known behavior (or to a lesser extent, John Lasseter), there's this apparent "open secret" that Hollywood is infested with pedophiles. I don't know the full extent of this. If there's anything to be found, the people in charge have been largely successful at keeping the lid on it. The rumor is that there's a huge and extremely organized pedo ring though. If true, that's a far more widespread and bold level of abuse than ordinary predators working ordinary jobs could get away with.
This is a
@WDW1974 topic, and I kind of wish he was hear because I enjoy reading his takes on things. I doubt he'll respond again for a while. I wonder what he thinks about this Gunn situation. I know he's a huge GOTG fan but I don't know if he knows much about Gunn himself. I do know that 74 has been outspoken in the past about Hollywood abuse. Back when Bryan Singer got accused of raping an underage boy, 74 stated that it was true and said it was widespread across Hollywood. Within Disney as well.
Generally, where there's smoke there's fire, but again, Cernovich is making sure the rumor of a huge, pervasive pedophile ring stays in the collective consciousness and he's literally a snake in the grass waiting for someone to give him reason to bite. As I quoted earlier, he enjoys doing that. Which is yet another thing that bothers me about him - he's taking a real issue and twisting it and making false claims just to suit his own sick purposes. I read somewhere (forgive me, but I've done so much reading I can't even begin to remember where) that he e-mailed Disney's PR department directly claiming Gunn is a pedophile.
I'm not sure we'll ever know the extent of pedophelia in Hollywood. I don't know if we'll ever get any proof, but I'm of the opinion that if a guy like Lasseter can openly treat women as if they exist merely for his enjoyment, Weinstein could get away with what he's accused of, and Cosby with what he was actually convicted of, then there very likely is at least some level of child sexual abuse going on.
And as of today, there are still people who either believe 100% that the video of the choir singing that Gunn shared was child ography or who are one of Cernovich's followers and is flat out lying.
She has a point. As I have said since the very beginning, yes, there are differences because of the fact that her tweet was "new" and Gunn's were "resurfaced", it is interesting that a line is being drawn between it's okay to make jokes pedophile jokes but not race jokes (if you don't believe Roseanne that it wasn't intended to be about race, that is).
In any case, I truly feel bad for the woman at this point because clearly she is in a mental tailspin, even if she still is making some sense. The entire show she created and her life's work was destroyed because of a single sentence on Twitter. That is enough to affect the mental state of someone who was perfectly "normal" to begin with, let alone someone who has a long history of mental illness.
She does, but I don't think it's as strong as she thinks it is - both because of the timeline difference and because of her long-standing, often repeated history. It makes me sad for her that she doesn't seem to have anyone in her life to help steer her out of a tail-spin, and that if she does, she doesn't seem to listen to them.
I don't think it was right for them to fire her, either. Disney knew full-well what they were getting into with her, and they fired her for behaving as she always has. Disney needs to stop expecting people to change just because they hired them. Not only is it unrealistic, but it's unfair as well - many people are unable to change without some huge, catalysmic, life-changing, and often tragic, event. And even then, it is sometimes a very long process. It's not like flicking some imaginary switch.
As far as the jokes go - jokes about the taboo need to be made. There's no question about that. Satire is a very important device and we shouldn't "put it on the shelf" just because some people don't understand it. I mean, even nearly 300 years ago they knew Jonathan Swift wasn't really suggesting people cook and eat children, and education wasn't as widespread then as it is now. (Don't get me started on quality of education). Where we seem to have seen evidence of Gunn's childhood abuse, I think he gets even more of a pass on making pedophelia jokes. (Gunn...if you see this...DON'T. You're NOT good at it.) This is yet another case in which nuance and intent are very important.
