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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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White supremacy has never been niche.
The same is not true about advocates for child sexual abuse.
Furthermore since Gunn was an edgy comedian it's ridiculous to act as if he was one. Do you not know what Dead Baby Comedy is?
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 27th 2018 at 10:57:05 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangIf we were having a national crisis over pedophiles and pedophilia defenders, that would be different.
Edited by NativeJovian on Jul 27th 2018 at 11:03:10 AM
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.To use Tobias' metaphor, it's more like he was arrested for armed robbery, and among the things he stole he grabbed a bunch of magazines, including some pornographic ones.
And then eight years later, after serving his sentence, some people looking to sling mud at him looked at the court transcripts, saw that he stole smut, and tried to label him as a sex offender.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.He has never apologized for those tweets. Never. It's not a thing. It's a myth. There is no apology.
He was hired to direct Guardians in 2011. This resulted in controversy not because of his Tweets but because of a completely separate blog post about the Top 50 Superheroes You'd Want To Have Sex With. People were upset because the blog made him look sexist.
GLAAD reached out to him, where he issued an apology for the blog post.
The pedophilia has never been addressed before. If I'm wrong, then show me the apology. Show me the apology where he apologizes for Tweeting about pedophilia. Not the GLAAD apology about sexism on his blog. The pedophilia one. Show it to me.
Because right now, it seems to me that the narrative that Gunn's apologized for his Twitter is intellectually dishonest. It's a conflation of an apology for a separate offense in the past with the offense people are upset about now. It's a misrepresentation of the facts for the purpose of gaslighting the conversation and making Gunn out to be more benign.
You're suggesting that sexist language is worse than pedophilia? Your metaphor proposes that the 50 Superheroes You Want To Have Sex With blog is a greater offense than endorsing having sex with children.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 27th 2018 at 9:10:08 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.What part of Dead Baby Comedy do you not understand?
Yes sexist language is worse then jokes about pedophilia for the simple fact that sexism has strong undercurrents in our society while pedophilia does not.
Frankly Tobias you seem to be intentionally painting the worst possible picture, it's blatantly obvious given a second of thinking that he wasn't seriously arguing for pedophilia. He was a comedian who indulged in seriously dark comedy, it's farcical to suggest that he was advocating for pedophilia.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 27th 2018 at 11:26:21 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
If I recall he had to apologize several times on his Twitter for offensive comments. One assumes that covers the whole range of offensive comments.
And even disregarding that he did apologize, he still shouldn’t be punished for comments made almost a decade ago when he’s obviously a different person now. Retroactive justice is typically considered immoral for a reason.
They should have sent a poet.Right now? The part where sexist jokes are different from pedophilic jokes. That's the part I don't understand in this particular defense.
- Sexist jokes are bad because people who tell sexist jokes are advocating seriously for sexism.
- Pedophilic jokes are fine because THEY DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. THEY'RE JUST JOKES. GAWD, GROW A SENSE OF HUMOR.
Sexism has a strong undercurrent in our society because we tolerate it and have tolerated it for a long time. Tolerating pedophilic sentiment over a prolonged period will produce the same result. Social mores don't emerge from a vacuum.
I, personally, have managed to make it 31 years without ever endorsing having sex with children. So have many other people. And I've also heard this rhetoric so many times. I've heard it about racism. I've heard it about sexism. I've heard it about rape. There's always someone eager to break out the "They're just jokes, GAWD" argument to exonerate a person for the things they've said.
And I see no reason why pedophilic "jokes" should be given a free pass where all the other harmful "jokes" are not.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 27th 2018 at 9:33:25 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Unless they are counting the prairie dogs as constituents. In which case, that's another example of Trump screwing over his constituents with his environmental policies.
Tobias, have you never in your life made a joke or comment you didn't later regret? Since then, have you made it a habit to apologize for said joke or comment at random intervals years later when no one else has brought it up? Do you apologize for it in the context of apologizing for other, only tangentially related transgressions you've made against someone completely different? "Sorry I stepped on your foot. And while I'm at it, I'm also sorry for running into my neighbor's mailbox last year."
So his earlier apology for making homophobic jokes when called out on his homophobic jokes didn't include an apology for other, unrelated jokes. What a shock. Unless you can dredge me up a tweet or interview from within the last 6 years or so where he's called out on the pedophilia jokes and refuses to apologize, I don't care if he hadn't directly apologized for them until now, because actions speak louder than words, and his actions have been to leave that kind of shock humor in the past.
[[quoteblock]] * Sexist jokes are bad because people who tell sexist jokes are advocating seriously for sexism.
- Pedophilic jokes are fine because THEY DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. THEY'RE JUST JOKES. GAWD, GROW A SENSE OF HUMOR. [[/quotblock]]
There's a big difference. Sexist jokes are built around a central conceit that whatever the teller is saying is true: "Look how irrational women are, lol!" Gunn's pedophilic jokes were built as shock humor, where the central conceit is that the teller is being disgusting: "Look how gross this attitude is, lol!"
Sexist jokes are built around reinforcing sexist beliefs and attitudes. Shock humor is built to rely on the audience finding the comment disgusting.
Edited by Wryte on Jul 27th 2018 at 8:43:06 AM
And I see no reason why pedophilic "jokes" should be given a free pass where all the other harmful "jokes" are not.
The difference is not whether or not they actually believe them, since that's difficult if not impossible to determine it's not really relevant.
The difference is that sexism is common in our society, so if someone makes a sexist joke then it could conceivably make a random person with existing sexist thoughts more sexist.
On the other hand pedophilia is not and thus a joke about raping children (while super inappropriate) is not going to cause people to go rape children.
Thus there is a very real difference to them that matters when comparing the two.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 27th 2018 at 11:43:02 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI've said and done a lot of things that I regret. So, so many. And most of them have had consequences attached to them, which I had to pay.
That's the thing: consequences.
If you were to tell me that Gunn had been arrested under suspicions of child pornography possession and put on the sex offender list over this, I would be right there with you guys calling this an unjust out-of-proportion overreaction. But he hasn't been and, to my knowledge, nobody's calling for him to be.
Maybe the Nazis are. I don't know. But f*ck those guys either way.
But that is not what happened. Gunn raised the question himself as to whether or not he is a pedophile, one that cannot be decisively proven either way. All his defenders have is the benefit of the doubt. "Yes, he made comments endorsing pedophilia, but come on. He's totes not really a pedophile. The jokes were just jokes, which I know because they were told in joke form."
But Disney runs a magical kingdom of children's entertainment. Children who are the primary victims of pedophiles. They have to make a choice as to whether or not they want "By his own admission, may or may not be a pedophile" associated with their brand. They have to decide if they want someone who makes pedophilic jokes working for a children's magical kingdom.
Gunn's consequence for being caught endorsing pedophilia is that he doesn't get to work at Disney. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I think that's fair.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 27th 2018 at 9:46:17 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
Honestly at this point this discussion is going nowhere, Tobias refuses to acknowledge that Gunn was a comedian with a history of shock humor and thus taking his statements as a serious support for pedophilia is ridiculous.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 27th 2018 at 11:50:52 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangLet me approach this from a different angle. Have you ever heard the phrase “The devil may quote scripture for his own ends”?
Yeah Gunn’s jokes were disgusting, but they’re not worth letting the alt-right get a win. If it had been a real crime or seemingly legit hate speech then I’d say punish him no matter who raised the stink. If it’d been from a different source I’d say the outcome is debateable but understandable.
In the situation we actually have ? You’re giving Cernovich a win for not much gain.
Basically “I’m saying something viciously awful, but it’s so over the top it’s meant to be farcical.”
Edited by thatindiantroper on Jul 27th 2018 at 9:25:10 PM
Dead Baby Comedy is a trope for a reason, though, and some comedians thrive on that. Just look at Gilbert Gottfried and his tsunami joke (that cost him a job as the Aflac duck) or the infamous 9/11 joke at the Roast of Bob Saget (which gave us the The Aristocrats joke), a lot of songs in Stephen Lynch's library (including making fun of Special Olympians
, a song from the perspective
of a Pedophile Priest, and a brief one about fucking his own mother
), or Patton Oswalt's style of humor (including "Uncle Touchy's Naked Puzzle Basement", and the Bait-and-Switch gags he had on Twitter about 5 years ago
).
I can understand why those jokes wouldn't appeal to people that don't like that kind of humor, and I can also understand why Disney was so quick to cut ties with Gunn over it while Adult Swim is standing by Dan Harmon over his similar jokes. But to say there's no place for that type of humor rubs me the wrong way, and I'll let Duckman explain why.
Edited by ironballs16 on Jul 27th 2018 at 8:54:43 AM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"I am completely with Tobias Drake (which happens rarely enough).
There are a couple of dishonest claims which made it into the narrative:
1. "The tweets are over ten years old" - No, they are not, the last one is from 2011, around the time he got hired by Disney.
2. "He apologized for it" - No he, didn't, as was already pointed out by Tobias Drake and beforehand by me, what he apologized for was an entirely different offensive event, which wasn't related at all to having sex with little boys.
3. "It was long ago" - the suggestion is here that he had already reformed before Disney hired him, but that is simply not true, he changed his behaviour BECAUSE Disney hired him and the event above could have cost his job.
4. "He deleted the tweets" - I have read more than one comment about him doing that and the wayback machine, but in the article which broke the news there was nothing about someone pulling back old tweets from him this way. If I get the sequence of events correctly, he only started to delete the tweets after the shit had already hit the fan. Which again begs the question: Why didn't he do it earlier, if he was oh to contrite about his past as a so called edgelord?
And, btw, exactly because sexism and racism is such on ongoing problem in our society slightly (slightly!!!!) off-colour or sexist remarks are a little bit more forgivable, because it is really hard to escape those influences completely. I am a feminist, for god's sake, and I have caught myself falling into sexist thought patterns on more than one occasion. But I am completely sure that I have never joked about sex with children or even mentioned the notion outside of a discussion I had once or twice about how German consent laws differ from American ones (what certainly doesn't differ is that children can't consent and shouldn't be subject of any sexual thought whatsoever). It is simply an absolute taboo. The only worse subject to joke about would be about the best way to torture babies.
Funny story about that: years ago, in the 90s, Disney produced a film that featured a romantic relationship between a 12-year-old child and a grown woman. And to my knowledge, Disney has yet to address this to the public in any way. Knowing this, do you think Disney should not be allowed to continue making movies? I mean, making jokes about pedophilia is one thing, but actively promoting it?
Furthermore, if Disney really wants to take the high ground here, maybe they should bring up that one time they made a movie where an adult woman kisses a child on the lips and go "yeah, sorry about that, that really wasn't cool".
Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jul 27th 2018 at 12:02:08 PM
i'm tired, my friendI ask you the same question that I asked Tobias, are you not aware of the existence of Dead Baby Comedy?
Because the idea that a comedian being provocative is some kind of unspeakable evil has got to be the most ridiculous sentiment I have heard in recent memory. Was the joke inappropriate and something that he should apologize for? Of course it was and he has apologized for it.
But the idea that any comedy that isn't carefully sanitized is some permanent black mark on character is frankly repugnant, people can change and your absolutism does not allow for that simple fact.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 27th 2018 at 12:02:48 PM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThis whole thing is making me think of a show I like that could also serve as an example of jokes as and endorsement or blasting of a behavior. It's not strictly relevant to the discussion maybe, but it's the thing that came to mind and I wanted to share.
The Last Podcast on the Left regularly does episodes on the likes of serial killers, cults, conspiracy theories, and so on. Despite this, they are a comedy podcast because they treat the majority of people involved with all the respect they deserve: none. However, they do know where the line is and (usually) what not to joke about.
A clear cut example is their series on the Children of God cult. Throughout their episodes, jokes fly freely about how its founder, David Berg, was a Dirty Old Man Pedophile Priest. However, the number of jokes take a nosedive in their final episode, which focused more on a young man who grew up within the cult, got out, and ultimately committed suicide after murdering one of the people in the cult who raised him.
They thrive on jokes intended to reduce the horrible people they talk about to the schmuck level that they are. To go along with the earlier bit about coping with dark humor, the jokes also help take the edge off of some of the utterly fucked up things they discuss.
When telling people about the show, I'm quick to note that, no, it is not for everyone, but their jokes never strike me as an endorsement of behaviors.
But that's just me.
@LSBK They are jokes, but you have to question why is mind is going there. Ie one joke goes: "The expendables were so manly I f.. the sh... out of the little p-boy next to me" (except that he didn't shorten the words like I did). And I get that the idea is that the movie was so manly that he did something, well, gay, but why didn't he simply write guy instead of p-boy.
And then there is random stuff like "Three man and a baby they had sex with" which...what? I am not sure what the joke is supposed to be there….or what he means with "Eagle snatched kid is what I call it when I get lucky".
Just some of the worse samples...a few of them can be waved away, like comparing the strength of a shower to a three year old peeing, but there is enough that you don't have to be a right winger to be offended.
Just imagine the more tasteless jokes of Got G Vol 2 but ten times worse.

Worth noting that he made these tweets in 2009 and 2010, was called out on them and apologized originally in 2012, and was still hired to direct guardians after his apology.
They should have sent a poet.