The Cast of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Isn’t Falling for the Alt-Right’s Scheme to Remove James Gunn
Alt-right troll Mike Cernovich — popularizer of the idiotic Pizzagate conspiracy theory — has set his sights on Hollywood‘s most vocal anti-Trump figures. Cernovich recently got James Gunn, director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, fired for some joke tweets Gunn made nearly a decade ago. Today, the entire cast of Guardians wrote an open letter decrying James Gunn’s firing by Disney.
Chris Pratt, who plays Star-Lord in the films, posted the open letter to his Instagram account. The letter, which opens “We fully support James Gunn,” is signed by all the film’s starring actors: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Pom Klementieff and Michael Rooker. The letter is also signed by Sean Gunn, James Gunn’s brother.
The letter decries the “outlandish conspiracy theories surrounding him” and points out that Gunn apologized for the offending tweets, both at the time and, again, as they resurfaced.
James Gunn’s firing is particularly galling, given that before directing the Guardians of the Galaxy films, he worked for Troma Entertainment — a low-budget horror studio known for their over-the-top gore and offensive sense of humor. Whether or not you enjoy Troma’s output, it’s ridiculous to think that the Disney executives didn’t already know about his past.
The fact that Mike Cernovich is behind James Gunn’s firing is ironic. Not just because Cernovich is the untrustworthy conservative troll who propegated the anti-gay Pizzagate the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was involved in a pedophile ring operating out of the basement of a gay-owned pizza parlor (that doesn’t have a basement, by the way), which resulted in a man attempting to shoot the place up.
But Cernovich himself has some skeletons in his own closet. He was arrested for rape in 2003, though the charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery. But he’s also made several (now-deleted) tweets as a rape apologist.
He’s written “Have you guys ever tried ‘raping’ a girl without using force? Try it. It’s basically impossible. Date rape does not exist,” “A whore will let her friend ruin your life with a false rape case. So why should I care when women are raped?” and “The hotter the sex, the more closely it resembles rape,” among other similar tweets.
Other victims of the Mike Cernovich campaign that resulted in James Gunn’s firing include comedian Sarah Silverman, criticized for a joke she made in 2010 and Dan Harmon, co-creator of Rick and Morty, for a 2009 short film parodying the TV series Dexter.
Last year, Cernovich briefly got Sam Seder fired from MSNBC for a joke about accused rapist Roman Polanski. So far, James Gunn’s firing is the only one to stick; Seder was quickly reinstated and Adult Swim has stood by Dan Harmon despite Cernovich’s efforts.
