‘SKumm Rants’ - OLD WOUNDS

‘SKumm Rants’

OLD WOUNDS

Dear Current Disney Regime:

I wonder about the sanity of your board at times.  I mean, you’ve made some pretty silly (and I use that word quite loosely) decisions in your time, but firing James Gunn over tweets he made several years ago?  And even better, some of those tweets were made when he was already employed by you.

Speaking of silly decisions, by the way, thanks for JOHN CARTER.  Boy, was that a stupid one!  Honestly, when they say that a film is before its time, that isn’t complimentary when the indication is that the film was made before the special effects had yet been perfected to make the ideas look believable.  That movie looked like a giant grass stain on an ugly K-Mart rug!

But I digress; we were talking about James Gunn’s firing.  Which, you should understand, could be considered The Most Asinine Decision yet.  Not only were his tweets about rape and pedophilia (which were somewhat offensive, I’ll admit) made over seven years ago, but he also apologized for them.  SEVEN YEARS AGO.  You reacting to them now is the absolute worst case of a knee-jerk reaction in the history of mankind.  It’s like if a mechanic crushed his fingers while pulling out an engine and then, SEVEN YEARS LATER and totally out of the blue, screams out “oh Sweet Baby Hey-Zeus, that FREAKING HURTS!”.

Why that knee-jerk reaction?  Because some idiot that likes to break things dug them up and decided to say “no more”.  As in, “no more shall I stand by and allow things said nearly a decade ago go forgotten”.  Because hey, sometimes an a-hole finds his niche, and he’s got to stand by it.  I get it.  The dude (whom, you will notice, goes unmentioned here because there is no way in hell I am giving him any more publicity) (even though only thirteen people read my drivel on a regular basis…) needs attention.  Most bullies do.  Which, essentially, is what this boils down to: online bullying.  Only this guy takes it one step further and uses people’s own words and lives against them.  Yes, Mr. Gunn said those things.  Yes, some of them were over the line as far as humor and offensiveness goes.

But that didn’t stop you from hiring Eddie Murphy, did it?  The same controversial comedian that joked about women having gay friends and “bringing the AIDs home on their lips”, and imitated famous Hollywood stars having gay sex.  Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t offended by any of Mr. Murphy’s jokes.  Those examples are from his HBO special “Delirious”, and I encourage everyone to watch it, as it still stands as one of the greatest stand-up specials of all time.  My point is that you took a man that was sparking controversy on stage and hired him to star in a whole slew of films—in case you forgot, he was THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, DOCTOR DOLITTLE, and the voice of “Donkey” in SHREK.  Great casting, by the way, and I say that with the utmost sincerity. 

Oh, but wait—it gets even better!  I need to remind you of someone, and let me know if this strikes a chord or not.  You remember Victor Salva?  The director that was convicted of molesting the twelve-year-old star of his film CLOWNHOUSE in 1988?  Who also, when he was arrested, had actual videotapes and magazines clearly depicting child pornography in his possession?  Yeah, that a-hole.  You hired him in 1995 to direct POWDER.  Wow, look at that—you hired him seven years after he was convicted of pedophilia.

And you fired James Gunn for joking about pedophilia seven years ago.

Contradict much?  Hold on, let’s look at your actual statement regarding the firing: “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.”   That’s your own Disney chairman Alan Horn, who you hired in 2013.  He used to produce TV shows that, for their day, handled controversial topics like bigotry, interracial relationships, and child abuse in ways that were topical and dramatically effective.  “All in the Family”, “Good Times”, “The Jeffersons”—all good shows.  Not really anything wrong there, other than the fact that Mr. Horn states that Mr. Gunn’s tweets (from SEVEN YEARS AGO) are inconsistent with the studio’s values.

The same values which led them to distribute a film about a teenage boy, directed by a convicted child molester. 

Re-hire James Gunn.  Again, I’m not defending his tweets.  But the auteur has made you a ton of cash, and he has apologized more than once for the things he said nearly ten years ago.  He admitted they were, perhaps, not so politically correct.   But he also stated that while making the films he has for your studio, he has become a better person.  It shows in his films. 

Salva still makes horror movies starring kids.

Get your shit together, Disney.

-- T.S. Kummelman