Son of a Gunn: Checking the Urine Content of Your Local Digital Swimming Pool

So, you're a giant megacorporation and you've fired a talented director from one of your most profitable movie franchises based on a targeted campaign of hate from a real-life lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food dude. What do you do? Trick question: If you're Disney, you can do whatever the fuck you want, completely unchecked by law, reason, or decency.

Last July, Disney fired director James Gunn from the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. III film for some off-colour jokes he made on Twitter a decade previous. This was based largely on a malicious and converted effort led by Mike Cernovich, Internet troll, conspiracy theorist, men's rights activist, and all-around despicable human being.

A little less than a month ago, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn seemed to completely reverse course as Disney announced that they had rehired Gunn for the Guardians Vol. III gig. While this seems like a victory for James Gunn, audiences and fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and decency at large, I still can't help but feel like there are no real winners here.

Under the Gunn: Disney and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Decision

By now, you've most likely heard the tragic tale of the firing of James Gunn as Disney decided to go in a different direction with the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. It's a tale as old as time: man begins his film career with low-budget, ultra-violent films and develops fan following, that same man makes some off-colour jokes on Twitter involving paedophilia, years later that man is hired by a giant megacorporation to direct a movie starring a lesser-known pantheon of comic book characters that fits into a larger cinematic universe, after making that megacorporation a shitload of money an angry, belligerent Internet troll digs up those old jokes, the megacorporation - who was already well aware of those jokes - summarily fires that director to get out ahead of a controversy that doesn't even exist. Classic.

What should have been a mere blip in the cultural radar turned into a full-on, foot-long shit sandwich with all the fixings. This whole crazy ride is extremely troubling for several reasons. Not only did a global corporation very publicly summarily dismiss somebody without any pretense of due process or the slightest evidence of forethought or careful consideration, they did it based on off colour remarks he made in his own free time in his private life. Even worse, Disney's decision to fire James Gunn seems to have been entirely based on the campaign of a well-known and admitted shit-disturbing troll who set out with the express purpose to specifically get Mr. Gunn fired, and shows no demonstrable proof that he actually believes that the director's jokes about rape or paedophelia were indicative of any actual real-world wrong-doing.

We're the Guardians of the Galaxy, Bitch: Hearts and Legs Stolen, Ancient Ruins Plundered

It turns out that the largest obstacle that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY had to overcome also turned out to be its saving grace.  What GUARDIANS had going both for and against it was a thick veil of obscurity (outside of a very tight, very virginal cabal of hardcore comic book adherents).  On the one hand, obscurity--anonymity's step-brother--is a barrier to achieving glory.  It's a pit you have to kind of claw your way out of, inch by inch, until you reach the top and start shouting your name at the top of your lungs until people begin to recognize or you get locked up in an insane asylum with an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of electric shock therapy and the drooling faces of doomed souls.  On the other hand, obscurity can act as a shield against preconceived notions, giving you the freedom to create yourself in whatever or whoever's image you are so inclined, even if it's a cybernetic, anthropomorphic raccoon.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be trying to reconcile the fact that not only might GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY be my favourite Marvel movie so far but also one of my favourite movies from 2014, I probably would have punched you in the face, gouged out your eyes and used them as dice, and fucked your sister without so much as a phone call the next morning.  Luckily for those in proximity to me, GUARDIANS turned out to be great.  Which worked out well, because I already have boxes full of eye-dice in my basement I'm still trying to figure out how to store effectively.