Guardians Of The Galaxy Director Gives A Mea Cupla Over Saucy Superhero Survey
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s hard out there for a movie director. You can work for years to get your work seen, to get your name known, and to slowly climb the ladder — if you’re very lucky — up to the A-list, where a studio might entrust you with a multi-million-dollar movie. But even if you do make it that far, your newfound fame means you’ve got a lot of eyeballs on you…so you’d better hope your history doesn’t include anything embarrassing. Director James Gunn, recently announced as the director of Marvel’s upcoming “superheroes in space” movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, learned that lesson earlier this week thanks to a racy blog post from 2011 entitled “The 50 Superheroes You Most Want to Have Sex With.” Gunn’s commentary contained language that some would consider sexist and/or homophobic, and although Gunn had since deleted the post, this week some offended parties resurrected the post via the Google cache and shoved it out into the limelight. Now Gunn has come forward for the next inevitable step in this time-honored game of saving face: the public apology.
Gunn took to his Facebook page just a half hour ago as I write this and posted the following mea culpa:
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was meant to be satirical and funny. In rereading it over the past day I don’t think it’s funny. The attempted humor in the blog does not represent my actual feelings. However, I can see where statements were poorly worded and offensive to many. I’m sorry and regret making them at all.
People who are familiar with me as evidenced by my Facebook page and other mediums know that I’m an outspoken proponent for the rights of the gay and lesbian community, women and anyone who feels disenfranchised, and it kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said. We’re all in the same camp, and I want to do my best to make this world a better place for all of us. I’m learning all the time. I promise to be more careful with my words in the future. And I will do my best to be funnier as well. Much love to all – James
I genuinely don’t think Gunn was being malicious or hateful. He was just being a smartass, for an audience of his fans who were unlikely to take offense or take the comments at face value. Ultimately, however, it doesn’t really matter what Gunn’s intentions were; he’s now been smacked in the face with one of the most important lessons of internet use: if you do it, say it, or post it online, go ahead and assume it’s going to be out there forever. And it will most likely come back to bite you in the ass when it can do the most possible damage.
You can read the post that caused all the controversy right here.
