SEXISM IS OVER, and James Gunn

[sincere]

Oh, and I assume that by now everyone knows about the epic that is The Hawkeye Initiative? Excellent. Good.

Today while fumbling around on Dreamwidth I've seen a few angry posts about James Gunn's thoroughly gross comments about sluts and fags, but I haven't seen anyone who also posted or commented on the apology, in which he says that the post was intended to be satirical and it obviously failed, and he'll do better in the future, because he can't stand that sort of thing.

Now, there's no doubt that it failed. The kind of commentary that he was offering was not satirical, it was just reinforcing. If your commentary leaves good people going "DISGUSTING" and bad people going "YEAH, WHAT HE SAID" instead of [in the majority] good people smug and bad people uncomfortable, your satire-fu is weak, and you have failed.

But I respect the fact that he turned around and said, "Even though I didn't mean it seriously and would never mean it seriously, I completely understand your anger, and I am completely sorry."

I just wanted to put that out there, in case anyone hadn't seen it, and in case it eases any of the justified anger. I know it made me feel better about this guy being in charge of an MCU movie.

(Also, I love that blog, btw.)

Comments

[rainfall]

/attempts to reblog

/retweet

/re.......

:( Dammit.

[sincere]

It is a dilemma, trying to use this wacky typing-not-clicking-based media. :(

[sunnysummoner]

I'm really, really relieved he was being satirical, even if he failed at it spectacularly (to say the least). And bravo for at least saying "My attempt at humor failed and I'm sorry." He owned up to his mistake, which is so rarely seen on the Internet in general.

(But I'm trying not to think of all the people who agreed with his "opinion." That's just depressing.)

[sincere]

I agree. It would have been so easy for him to say "I'm sorry you were offended!" the least apologetic apology ever. But because he said, "I totally see what you're getting at and I regret my choices," I actually believe him.

(Yeah, let's just... not think about it.)

[sunnysummoner]

I can't even count how many "I'm sorry you were offended" bs apologies I've heard from people in the same situation he's in. It's sad that it's refreshing that at least he out and out said he was wrong, but at least he did.

[slayerofgod]

Lesser men would not have apologized.

And I'm sadly not surprised to hear about the number of people agreeing with the satire for real. There is a disgusting subculture of men present on the internet. I recall a couple months back a lady was trying to drum up interest in a video series she was doing about bad archetypes for female characters in games, and the comment section was full of rape threats and such.

Way to make men look bad, guys.