Ray Fisher shares new details of "racially discriminatory conversations" on Justice League set
Film Features Ray Fisher
Last year, Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg in Justice League, called out Joss Whedon on Twitter for “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behavior on set. Now that audiences will finally see the Snyder Cut on March 18, Fisher has shared a new statement, detailing the racism he experienced on the Justice League set at the hands of the executive producers.
“Prior to the Justice League reshoots of 2017, racially discriminatory conversations were had and entertained—on multiple occasions—by Warner Bros. Pictures executives: Toby Emmerich, Geoff Johns, and Jon Berg,” he began his statement. “Had I been aware of those conversations in realtime, I would have addressed them in realtime. However—it wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that individuals who were in those meetings felt comfortable sharing with me what they had witnessed firsthand.”
He continued, “When it comes to matters involving race, I always try to give the benefit of the doubt to those who may be ignorant of their own biases. But when you have studio executives (particularly Geoff Johns) saying, ‘We can’t have an angry Black man at the center of the movie’—and then those executives use their power to reduce and remove ALL Black people from that movie—they are no longer entitled to any belief associated with doubt.”
The executive producers have not commented on Fisher’s latest allegations yet.
Fisher’s statement comes nearly a week after he took to Twitter to criticize how Warner Bros. ignored his complaints while still approaching a Black Superman movie written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, despite allegedly not valuing the studio’s Black stars. He tweeted, “Do ya’ll remember that time Walter Hamada and @wbpictures tried to destroy a Black man’s credibility, and publicly delegitimize a very serious investigation, with lies in the press? But hey, Black Superman…”
Deadline reported that DC Films president Walter Hamada reportedly heard Fisher out and launched an investigation, but the investigation was taken over by Warner Media, ultimately finding “no issues worthy of pursuit.”
In a statement given to Deadline, WarnerMedia responded to Fisher’s criticism of the recent news: “Once again there are false statements being made about our executives and our company surrounding the recent Justice League investigation. As we have stated before, an extensive and thorough third-party investigation was conducted. Our executives, including Walter Hamada, fully cooperated, no evidence was found of any interference whatsoever, and Warner Bros. did not lie in the press. It’s time to stop saying otherwise and move forward productively.”
Read Fisher’s full statement below:
392 Comments
Well, we got A detail, anyway. That apparently Geoff Johns said “We can’t have an angry black man as the center of the film.” At least that’s something.
Allegedly. Via Fisher’s unnamed second- or third-hand anonymous sources.
But when you have studio executives (particularly Geoff Johns) saying, ‘We can have an angry Black man at the center of the movie’ – and then those executives use their power to reduce and remove ALL Black people from that movie – they are no longer entitled to any belief associated with doubt.”Minor Typo: Fisher said that Johns said that they “can’t have an angry black man at the center of the movie”.
Quite right. It’s been fixed.
CHANGE IT BACK
Ahh…that old bigot canard: “I can’t be racist! I just green-lit a movie about a black Superman!”
“Some of my best[-performing movies] are Black!”
“Jon Stewart Green Lantern? He’s one of the good ones!”
Well… when the augment is “they didn’t want a black man at the center of their movie” and they go and (potentially) make their second biggest character a black man and the center of that movie, it does kinda undercut that argument.
Related to the narc canard of “I can’t be a square! I just black-lit a poster of Green Lantern!”
So did he say anything about whedon?
Just that he wants to protect Whedon
Ssorry He = fisher
Yeah, that’s all Fisher said about Whedon in this article. That he, Fisher, wanted to protect Whedon from getting too much blame.
Yeah, ok, that’s what I understood when I read it, but fisher has been very critical of Whedon so far, very against Whedon, that i thought i must be missing something. But that’s what you saw too….ok. thanks.
There is a somewhat amusing typo in the article as the instagram post quotes Johns stating ‘we can’t have a angry Black man at the center of the movie’ while the article changes it to can. Which in turn alters the context of the statement to a weird direction.The Johns situation, looking from it from this perspective, is awkward for me. Not because I am a big fan of his, but just rethinking certain aspects of his impact on DC comics themselves. And, before moving in to that, I do think when discussing the released Justice League film, more than a Snyder or a Whedon film it always felt most like a Geoff Johns film to me. Like if you had read his crossovers, there was a lot of familiar stuff there.In the comics, though, I think there’s a defense to be made that Johns did introduce a certain degree of diversity in his supporting casts. However, it is difficult to argue that he didn’t spearhead a massive reduction of minority visibility in those big superhero roles as he was a driving force in reverting a lot of character to their Silver Age iterations. Who were all white and, in almost all cases, male. How that reflects on his personal views on storytelling is always difficult to know for certain, but at the same time, it does indicate at least blindspots.
It makes him sound like almost every other comic book writer. He wants to write the comics he read when he was a kid.
I don’t recall anyone’s arms being torn off in JL, though.
I was reading John’s Green Lantern run last year, and I definitely picked up some blue lives matter vibes from his writing. Nothing specifically racist, it’s just something about Hal Jordan clearly being his favorite character, and overall he seems prone to military and authority worship.I feel like he’s a guy who thinks that good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and the biggest problem in policing is red tape and bureaucracy getting in the way of these cops doing what they need to do to get the bad guys. Everything about how Fisher is handling this is bad. Every social media post is “I’ve finally proved it” followed by vague details which definitely do not prove it. From what I’ve seen, victims of racism who make their pain public usually prefer to describe their treatment instead going with a tease and reveal strategy.But both parties can be bad, Hollywood makes everyone monsters. Fisher can be cynically trying to connect the anti-racist movement to his own career to equate financially supporting him with fighting racism, and DC and Geoff Johns can still be guilty of traditional Hollywood racism that plagues casting across the board. Perhaps everyone is the asshole here.
The release of the Snyder Cut and the end of Fisher’s publicity tour for it cannot arrive soon enough.
I feel like Fisher should have brought these specifics up months ago and this would have had a bigger impact.
After his last allegation of racism turned out to be an effort to match the lighting from the Snyder production with that of the Whedon production, I just don’t find him credible on this topic any more. And if “individuals who were in those meetings” are willing to tell Fisher about these things they overheard, why aren’t they willing to tell anyone else on the record?
I also think a very valid conversation is getting lost in this being argued over Instagram and Twitter. The fact that many filmmakers don’t know how to properly light darker skintones is a legitimate concern and criticism.But I think Fisher is missing the chance to discuss the problem in favor of saying it was malicious. I do think there’s a possibility that this is racial bias from the filmmakers rather than the filmmakers trying to purposely harm him. I would hope WB would work toward correcting that, but I’m not sure what Fisher wants at this point.
I’m guessing that Whedon’s general snarky abusiveness turned what could have been a decent teachable moment about just such an issue into some assholery. If it had been a less jerkhole director, maybe… But who knows?
“LOUD NOISES!”
Ray Fisher
I feel like blaming the victim of racism instead of the people perpetrating racism isn’t worthy of the title of coolmanguy
I’m not blaming him for anything, but he made a ton of extremely vague statements when this all started and it made a lot of people confused and more likely to never believe him
Protip: when you find yourself saying “I’m not blaming him, but” you are in fact blaming him
Now look… You’ve got troll all over your thread. Dismiss recognitions.
Yeah, but we all feel like you, the guy who spent three years making up lies about me, don’t have any moral high ground here
Nobody lied but you sure made up false rape accusations in an attempt to defend a serial sexual harassser
It’s adorable how you keep repeating lies you already publicly admitted to making up.
Actually, it’s adorable how you popped up mad in the newest Ray Fisher post after acting like a dismissive dick in the last one and getting roundly dogpiled for it. Is it possible that there’s something about this particular issue that causes you to react badly?
Nope. Whatever happened to Fisher clearly sucks, and it’s obvious there’s major problems in WB/DC’s higher ups. Abuse (physical, verbal, sexual, mental) and racial/gender discrimination are still rampant in Hollywood, despite recent progress.The person who clearly “reacts badly” to these issues is you, the guy who believes that anyone who doesn’t immediately fellate everyone who comes forward with an abuse claim is Hitler. Also, let’s not forget, you’re the guy who made up lies about me for three years and admitted to doing it. And is still doing it now. 🙂
Wow, Godwin’ed already? I thought you had more imagination than that. Pity. But you know, maybe someday you’ll sit down and ask yourself why a black man demanding justice for racist treatment upsets you so.
It doesn’t upset me. See? You just keep making up lie after lie.
Sure thing bruh, you’re totes not mad
I mean, I’m mad that you’re such an insufferable pile of shit and that you waste everyone’s time by continuing to exist. And I’m mad that people in positions of power continue to use that power to abuse and discriminate, like Johns/Hamada/Whedon/etc. But I’m not mad that people come forward with abuse allegations. What makes you think I am?
Oh I don’t know, possibly that:1) Your response to the accusations about Louis CK was to make up a false rape accusation about someone who dared to suggest that harassment victims should be believed2) Your response to Charisma Carpenter’s accusations about Joss Whedon was to victim-blame Ray Fisher3) Your response to Ray Fisher bringing up more details about his allegations was to dredge up a 3-year-old grudge about something you did yourself and scream nonsensically about HitlerReally, it’s an impressive track record you’ve got going for yourself. I’m sure if you continue this way, you’ll be a ripe candidate for emigrating to Facebook where you can complain to other bitter white men about “SJWs” who are too “woke” and “PC”.
Lie after lie after lie. Are you a lawyer? You’d make a pretty good lawyer.
I mean if you didn’t want to get hamstrung by your own deeds thrown back at you, maybe you should have sat this one out?
*looks around for evidence of being hamstrung, sees none*Being wrong on top of making up lie after lie! Is there no end to your capacity for embarrassing failure?
See, let me clue you in how this works. You saying something is a lie when we’re all perfectly capable of seeing it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Nobody’s gonna believe you over their own eyes.
Okay Ray
Aaaaaaand the mask comes off. Because you literally can’t conceive of anyone else who isn’t Ray Fisher caring about Ray Fisher being the victim of racism, can you? Keep going, it’s very refreshing to see you being honest about how you really think.
Haha, no, it’s hysterical that you didn’t recognize* the exact thing you do, where you accuse people of being the person they’re defending. Man, you get so mad over the littlest things.
*It’s extra funny because your username is “recognitions”
Said the person who literally posted an “Okay Ray” comment two seconds ago and didn’t realize how racist it made him sound
Says the guy who pretends to be woke on the Internet, but who has never actually done anything to fight racism in the real world
Again, the level of projection here is fascinating. You clearly have zero interest in combating racism and are totally insincere in your posturings on the internet so you assume anyone you disagree with is the same way
“clearly have zero interest in combating racism” yeah, must be why I marched in all those BLM protests
Here’s a cookie. Please do go tell BLM protesters that Ray Fisher is to blame for not responding to racist treatment in the way you, specifically, approve of. Report back on your findings.
hang on, busy sending my weekly email to my elected officials demanding removing racist barriers to immigration, laws to make it easier for minorities to vote (to stop the likes of the Arizona GOP from making it harder for minorities to vote), to increase government spending on infrastructure especially in underserved minority areas, and similar initiativesalso it’s unclear to me why you think Ray Fisher is to blame for receiving racist treatment
Wow, a whole email, so woke! With all those good intentions you’d think you’d know better than to victim-blame someone for the racism they’d received. Oh well, maybe in another three years or so.
I don’t think you know what victim-blaming is.
Hear that, everyone? Believe dirtside, not your lying eyes!
Straw poll:Best way to describe recognitions:Glenn Greenwald stanNice Guy who harasses every woman who fails to understand that his niceness coins merit sex.All of the above.
“Glenn Greenwald stan”I’ve never been so insulted in my life
Deranged Asylum escapee(yes, Asylum is capitalized on purpose)
Waitwaitwait. GLENN GREENWALD STAN?? AHAHAHAWHAHAHAHAWHAAHAHAHA
Fighting racism in the real world might force his rich, white, cishet ass to compromise, rather than sit smugly on the sidelines and complain that other people are failing his purity tests.
Hi Carlos!
Wait, how did that make him sound racist? It made him sound like he thinks you are Ray because you keep on defending him so hard.
LOL
Holy shit… how do you somehow, against all odds, keep getting even dumber with each successive comment? Holy fuck, this is hilariously stupid… “okay Ray” was racist….LOL
You’re the hero we need but don’t deserve. Godspeed. And yes, I will star every single comment you’ve made in this thread.
I appreciate it 😉
You ever consider that Ray Fischer is full of shit. Or do you foolishly think 100% of what anybody says is true? You still think that Jussie Smollett guy was telling the truth? I wonder what your thoughts were on that ordeal.
Don’t insult Fisher (who does seem like a clown) by comparing him to recognitions.
Very fair point. I hereby rescind my comparison of Fisher and recognitions. While I think Fisher’s PR approach is lacking, he’s definitely been the target of at least some kind of abuse here.recognitions, on the other hand, is a turdokay sorry that’s unfair to turds
Don’t compare lawyers to a punk like recognitions.
Not even Rudy Giuliani, who is literally leaking the kind of evil black sludge you only see in the cold open of an episode of Supernatural?
They’d make a godawful lawyer. They lack even the basic concept of debate and fall into logical fallacy after logical fallacy, any judge worth their damn would laugh them out of the court regardless of what position they were taking.
I would pay good money to watch that happen.
As a final aside, you of all people leveling “bitter white man” as an insult is really the pot colliding head-first with the kettle.
I like that you can read that comment and your reaction is to find it bitter. Keep telling me how “comfortable” you are with your feelings on abuse.
Very comfortable! I make real spaces safer for women. You make nonexistent spaces safer for yourself. Smooches!
Ugh, I hope that’s not true. If it is, I feel sorry for the women you work with.
You do make a sport of pitying women, after all.
Yes, I enjoy seeing them as actual human beings instead of adjuncts to fantasy. You should try it sometime!
Seriously though reccy, for someone who’s always on the attack in favor of generally progressive or left-ish causes, why do you keep using such an exclusive-to-righty-scum tactic as “u mad, bro?” as such a standard go-to in your disputes?
Why are you directing this at me and not the guy who derailed this thread to complain about a 3-year-old grudge? I should have time for every bad faith commenter and personal attack for what reason?
I should have timeit’s weird that you’re claiming you don’t have time to do the thing you are currently doing and spend tons of time doing
What I don’t have time for is to engage your bullshit in anything like good faith
Ha ha, you never engage in anything in good faith. You’re a disingenuous troll and everyone knows it, which is why every time you post your posturing bullshit, tons of people call you out by name, while I get tons of upvotes.
It’s funny that you can’t respond to specific critiques with anything but ad hominem attacks and yet your only response is to call someone else a disingenous troll. More projecting, n’est ce pas? And tons of upvotes! Tons! More upvotes than anyone’s gotten in history! Yuge! Except, oh wait, it looks like my first comment in this thread has more upvotes than any of yours in this entire post. So, even by that petty standard, you’re a failure. Too bad, so sad.
Looking at the first 12 posts by each of us in this thread, I have 39 total upvotes and you have 17. (Neither of us have any upvotes on posts after the 12th as of right now.) Since you’ve clearly indicated that you agree that the number of upvotes are relevant, I clearly win here. Your first post only has a significant number because it’s the first response in the thread.It’s funny that you can’t respond to specific critiques with anything but ad hominem attacksYou appear to be talking about yourself here.
Wow, so you have double-digit upvotes altogether out of like 20 comments! That totally qualifies as “tons”! I’m glad you sat down and did all that math and I hope it did whatever it could to soothe your ego.
Hey, you engaged with the numbers stuff. You don’t get to pretend it doesn’t hurt you when nobody upvotes your garbage.
I can’t believe you’re still on this. Is this the only way you can make yourself feel good?
Nah, it’s just a way to kill time while I’m waiting for DB queries to finish. But anything that wastes your time is A+ in my book.
Oh also“I can’t believe you’re still on this,” says guy in his 27th post in thread
Said the guy who just had to reply twice to make his 28th and 29th posts
…what? Now you’re making even less sense than usual.
Well you just go have a think about it, chief
I’m too busy thinking about how in threads like this you always say “I don’t have time to find evidence for my claims” yet clearly you have tons of free time to waste in threads like this
And here you are making a claim without evidence. You ok there, son? Because right now you’re starting to look like Sonny Liston around the two-minute mark.
I don’t know which of my comments you’re replying to, so I don’t know which claim you’re talking about.
See what I mean? Too many shots to the head. Better go lie down.
These boxing metaphors of yours really go over well with the kids. You’ve got the pulse of today’s youth!Remember, no one here likes you.
I get it, you’re having trouble with the references. Too limited in your own knowledge, perhaps?Ah, classic line of a bully.
lol learn not to double post, noob
I get it, you’re having trouble with the references. Too limited in your own knowledge, perhaps?Ah, classic line of a bully.
having trouble with the referenceslolwut? This is the best you can do? Be mad that your sportsball reference went over like a lead balloon?
Ah, classic line of a bully.Classic projection. Bullying is what you do, by posting nothing here except insults and lies against everyone. You’ve never engaged in any meaningful discussion here.
Lol now you’re mad about sports metaphors you didn’t get. Is there no direction you won’t fling your unreasoning rage?Nah. “Nobody likes you” is a classic abuser tactic. It’s beginning to become pretty clear why you have such a hard time empathizing with victims.
Why do you think I didn’t get the metaphor? I know who Sonny Liston is. You just keep making shit up with no evidence, over and over. It’s probably due to all the head trauma you’ve suffered. You should go lie down.Nah. “Nobody likes you” is a classic abuser tactic.Nah. It’s simple fact here. I have no power over you, I’m just stating the unarguable truth.
So you’re just as “out of touch” as I allegedly am after all, huh? Looks like you fucked up again. And borrowing my lines because you can’t think of your own? Talk about punch-drunk.
I mean… where are you even going with this? You know none of the things you say is true. I know they’re not true, so they don’t stick; you know I don’t believe them; and you know no one else reading them (if anyone ever even reads down this far) is going to believe them! Are you practicing for some kind of asshole-off at the annual asshole convention? What’s your goal, here? Do you even have one, aside from being a bitter shell of a man with nothing to contribute?
I could just as easily ask you the same question. You jumped into this thread, boo. It seems like you really have something to prove after you shat the bed last time. Unfortunately none of your bully tactics are proving very effective, so I guess you’ll have to remain unfulfilled. Sorry you didn’t get enough of those precious upvotes, boo.
The difference between us is that I actually contribute to substantive discussions on a regular basis here on the A.V. Club, and all you do is insult everyone who dares to violate your purity tests, and make up lies about people. (Remember? You spent three years making up lies about me, and then admitted to doing so.)It’s funny you calling people bullies, when bullying is literally the only thing you ever do here.
You know, it’s funny. I’m listening to this podcast right now in between taking a few seconds here and there to deal with your inane potshots, and this woman is talking about her history of abuse, and she’s saying that all most victims want is to be heard and believed. And she’s talking about how rare that is, to the point that it feels like fantasy for most women. And it’s kind of funny because this whole thing started because you were asked simply to believe victims. That was all you had to do. But instead you had a meltdown that’s been going on for three years now. How small of a man you must be. How toxic you must be to the people around you if this is how you act in public. I don’t feel sorry for you at all. But I have immense pity for the people who can’t just turn off the computer and walk away from you. I hope they find peace someday.
you were asked simply to believe victims. That was all you had to do.Which victims? At the time of the original kerfluffle, all there was was speculation that CK was the person that the rumors referred to. Nobody had publicly accused anyone of anything, and there were no victims yet to believe. I don’t mean this at all sarcastically: Are you really saying that you think that at that time it was appropriate to publicly censure CK based solely on speculative rumors?
I really wonder how many victims of abuse opened up to you at some point in your life because they thought you were someone they could trust. And how badly they were hurt by your response.
Why won’t you answer the question? Did you really think it was appropriate to publicly censure someone based on only rumor, when no actual accusations had been made?
You weren’t even talking about actual victims. You were literally reacting to the very idea that victims should be believed. That was enough for you to make a mockery of the idea of rape accusations. That was enough for you to hold a grudge that’s continued through this 30-odd comment temper tantrum you’re having now. That’s who you are, and that’s the person you’re going to have to live with being for the rest of your life.
You were literally reacting to the very idea that victims should be believed.This is incorrect, and you know it, because you are an admitted liar.That was enough for you to make a mockery of the idea of rape accusations.This never happened.
That was enough for you to hold a grudge that’s continued through this 30-odd comment temper tantrum you’re having now.It’s not a grudge; it’s practice for more substantial arguments. It’s also a fun way to waste your time, which reduces the amount of time other people need to spend on your dumb ass.That’s who you are, and that’s the person you’re going to have to live with being for the rest of your life. It’s like… you keep saying mean things, and you think they’re going to hurt, but they never do.Why are you totally incapable of participating in any conversations in a meaningful, substantive way? Why are all of your comments nothing but badgering, insults, bullying, and abuse? It’s kind of funny how much you go on about abuse, because 100% of your comments here are abusive.You know, they say there’s no zealot like a convert. Makes me wonder about your past behavior, in a decidedly non-satirical way.
You absolutely did. You’ve said the same things in this very post. “anyone who doesn’t immediately fellate everyone who comes forward with an abuse claim is Hitler.” “anyone who came forward with an abuse claim should be believed in full and could not be criticized in any way, and aone who dared criticize such a person was an evil monster from hell.” You have a fundamental problem believing abuse victims. And I don’t at all doubt that you’re beyond being hurt. It is funny that you want to accuse me of bullying and abuse when your go-to tactic are things like “nobody likes you.” Ineffective, but funny.
You have a fundamental problem believing abuse victims.Nope. I just have a fundamental problem with your nonsensical rhetoric on the topic. Look at any of your comments on any of these topics, and every time it’s the same thing: anyone who delivers anything less than a full-throated condemnation of the accused is, in your eyes, an irredeemable monster, regardless of the context or circumstances. Every. Single. Time. You never offer anything positive, thoughtful, or interesting. If someone was trying to hurt the cause of believing victims, they couldn’t do more damage than you do. You never admit to making a mistake—although you did admit to making up lies, but you just didn’t think it was a mistake to make up lies, which tells us all we need to know about your ethics: you don’t have any. You never participate in conversations in any way except to insult people for not meeting your standard. You contribute nothing to the A.V. Club.It is funny that you want to accuse me of bullying and abuse when your
go-to tactic are things like “nobody likes you.” Ineffective, but funny.It’s equally funny that you contribute nothing except hatred and anger to the world. Why do you even post on the A.V. Club? Clearly you hate being here.
See what I mean? The mere suggestion that you be asked to believe victims triggers paragraphs of baseless bile. At this point you’re not even arguing with me anymore; you’re just desperately trying to prove to yourself that you’re not the bad guy here. Won’t work.
There’s no point in actually arguing with you, because you routinely ignore most of what people say in favor of twisting their words, making baseless accusations, and generally being a dipshit. So, let’s try this, and see if you’re actually capable of answering a question:
Have you ever posted a single comment on the A.V. Club that isn’t part of insulting or criticizing someone for not meeting your standards of moral purity?I guarantee you won’t answer the above question.
This is hilarious in that it reveals you need to cling to your preconception of me to preserve your own self-image rather than, I dunno, click on my comment history if you’re so curious? I posted about the Flash yesterday, dude.
Oh. My mistake then. Somehow I’d never seen anything you post except for bilious vitriol.(See? That’s called “admitting you made a mistake.” You should try it some time. Maybe you could admit you made a mistake when you spent three years lying about me?)
Well, you see what you look for, I guess.
So, you’re not going to apologize or admit you made a mistake for spending three years lying about me?
Are you going to apologize for trivializing abuse?
Are you saying your apology would be contingent upon such an act from me?
Actually, I’m saying you should apologize because your comments and behavior were shitty. But then if you were any kind of decent human being you would have realized that for yourself long ago.
Okay, two questions then:1) You’re saying that you’re never going to apologize for spending three years making up lies about me?2) Who exactly would I be apologizing to?
Nobody made up lies about you for three years, that’s a fiction you’ve invented to justify your two-day tantrum. And quite honestly I wouldn’t believe any apology you gave at this point so it’s pretty much a moot question.
Nobody made up lies about you for three yearsUh… you did. You repeatedly said I “followed you around” after the original post and harassed you. That never happened, you know it, and you’ve never apologized for it.As usual, you didn’t answer the question: Let’s assume for the moment that it would be a sincere apology and that you would believe me. Who would I be apologizing to? You? Ray Fisher in particular? The general public?
Why would I assume it would be sincere? Nothing about anything you’ve ever said and done would give me pause to even consider that hypothetical. Especially since I just saw you confess to someone else that this is your idea of fun.
You don’t have to. I’m just saying, for the sake of argument, if I did give an apology, even an insincere one, who would it be addressed toward?
Why in the world would I entertain a hypothetical about an insincere apology?
You asked if I was going to apologize, so clearly you at least entertained the possibility that it might happen. I’m asking who I should apologize to. You refuse to answer.Also you still haven’t denied making up the “followed me around” claim. You definitely maid that claim, multiple times, and it definitely never happened. Can you explain that?
I have no answers for you because I don’t want anything from you.
Then why do you keep replying? You clearly want something or you would never have engaged in the first place.It’s telling that you have still yet to deny that you made up the “follow me around” claim, or provide any evidence that it happened. Every time I ask why you made it up, you’re silent.
You engaged with me first, broheim. I could guess what you’re getting out of this but I don’t really care enough to bother.
You’ve got only yourself to blame for it by making up false rape accusations. Especially when I see your buddy up there carrying on your tradition in this very post.
Well, now we know you’re only capable of the “nuh uh, YOU started it” rhetoric characteristic of five-year-olds. I liked earlier when you said “you came into this thread,” showing that you’re so arrogant you think you own the thread because you replied first. “I was here first! You started it!” Yeah, you really do have the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. And you want anyone to take you seriously?
The “rape accusation” was not bona fide, but a rhetorical point; but given how you can’t let it go, I’m beginning to think that maybe I wasn’t off by much.
I mean I’m not surprised that you’re abrogating any responsibility when five seconds ago you were mad at me for replying to your comments. And there you go again, thinking it remotely matters to me whether you take me seriously or what you think at all.Oh look, here you are making another false accusation three years later! Congratulations, you just belied every claim you made about me lying about you for three years. Nice job torpedoing your own argument, Einstein.
If it didn’t matter to you, you would have stopped replying long ago. So that’s another lie of yours. It’s funny how you keep telling me I’m mad, when every word you spill proves over and over just how furious you are that anyone dares question you.
I made no accusation, just an insinuation. I could be entirely wrong! You could have no history of abuse at all. It’s just pretty obvious that you keep pretending a rhetorical device is a bona fide accusation, and that the only plausible reason is that the truth (even accidental truth) hurts. Obviously at the time of the original comment there was no evidence you’d ever done such a thing. Nobody believed the accusation to be true or (except for you) even a real accusation.But, go ahead. Tell me you’ve never abused anyone, and I will believe you. That’s no joke; I will take you at your word on that point. (You won’t, of course. You’ll ignore this entire section because you’ll never reveal anything about yourself and never answer direct questions that might imply you ever made a mistake.)
You misunderstand. I said I don’t care what you think of me. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let your bullshit go unchallenged.Oh, heavens. Hiding behind the satire defense again, the province of right-wing provocateurs and bottom-feeder trolls everywhere? I shouldn’t be surprised, because you are exactly the kind of entitled personality who says what he thinks and then hides behind “iTs JuSt SaTiRe” when called out on it.Why in the world would I ever divulge personal information to someone who’s made it clear that they’ll use any tactic in the world as party of their bullying efforts?
You’re not “challenging” anything. All you do is lob insults at people and belittle them. It’s funny, I’ve never seen you actually express sympathy for any of the victims you claim to support. I suppose it’s possible you’ve done so and I’ve just never seen it. Somehow. After five years. No, you just yell at people who do anything that isn’t total unequivocal support.
Let me get this straight, about the original comment: Did you at the time think I actually believed you committed rape? Or did you think I was making up an accusation in order to slander you? Or did you think I was saying it as a rhetorical point? What did you think then that my motivation was, and what do you now think it was?
You still haven’t denied making up the “follow me around” lies. Because you can’t. Because you know you made them up.
I don’t know where you get the nerve to lecture me about how to support victims. Talk about glass houses.What part of “I don’t care what you think” don’t you get? Your intent means nothing. You chose to say what you did. And you did it again just now.Except you literally just proved my point. Here you are, following me around, making up false accusations three years later. Again, congrats on completely undermining your own argument.
If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t still be here. You’ve already said you won’t change my mind. You can’t be playing to the peanut gallery; nobody will see this except you and me. So that means you’re only doing this to satify your own urges. But you refuse to admit that.Hey, remember when you lost any moral authority because you spent three years repeating a lie you made up about me following you around?
You keep flattering yourself thinking that I’m replying out of some remote interest in you as a person rather than not letting you off the hook. What are you trying to accomplish, huh? Other than a failed attempt to bully someone off a website you think you’re entitled to?Remember when you proved me right by doing exactly the same thing you accused me of lying about you doing? You should, you did it about five minutes ago.
Uh huh.Hey, remember when you lost any moral authority because you admitted to spending three years repeating a lie you made up about me following you around, and refused to apologize?
Remember when you proved me right by doing exactly the same thing you
accused me of lying about you doing? You should, you did it about five
minutes ago.
Also, I notice you didn’t answer my question. Not that it matters; it’d just be more bullshit anyway. But it’s just a measure of how precarious your position is.
Remember when you proved me right by doing exactly the same thing you
accused me of lying about you doing? You should, you did it about five
minutes ago. That’s an incorrect representation of what happened. You are deliberately lying here. Again.
Hey, remember when you lost any moral authority because you admitted to spending three years repeating a lie you made up about me following you around, and refused to apologize?
Nope, anyone can scroll up and see for themselves. Funny how every time you get caught, you ask people to disbelieve their lying eyes.
Remember when you proved me right by doing exactly the same thing you
accused me of lying about you doing? You should, you did it about five
minutes ago. And feel free to keep using the same failed tactics over and over again. Not only does it demonstrate your total bankruptcy of imagination, it saves me work.
Nope, you’re just deliberately misrepresenting what things mean. Nobody’s fooled by your BS.Hey, remember when you lost any moral authority because you admitted to
spending three years repeating a lie you made up about me following you
around, and refused to apologize?
Nope,
anyone can scroll up and see for themselves. Funny how every time you
get caught, you ask people to disbelieve their lying eyes.
Remember when you proved me right by doing exactly the same thing you
accused me of lying about you doing? You should, you did it about five
minutes ago. Well, I guess it’s more like ten minutes now.
I tricked you into doing exactly what I intended. I win. Bye! 🙂
That whole business was… Really something.Really something.
Without evidence? Youre literally doing it right now, lol. And i hate to burst your incredibly stupid bubble, but you are definitely on the losing side of this argument, and it’s not even close. You got your ass handed to you and made to look a fool. Which, once again, makes your dumbass Sonny Liston comment even more embarrassing, and makes you look even more pathetic, stupid, and oblivious. Do you have any self-awareness whatsoever?
Again: YOU brought it up, dumbfuck. Ypu dont get to pretend like you dont care and the other person is lame for mentioning it once it backfires in your stupid face.What a thoroughly pathetic buffoon..
I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you’ve finally teased out that recognitions actually cares about upvotes. It makes his entire presence on this website an exercise in masochism.
The best thing about recognitions is that once you reveal one of his weak spots, he won’t try to deny it, he’ll just ignore anything that mentions it. He’s extremely good at changing the topic and twisting people’s words.
oh man if you actually care about upvotes you must come to this website as some sort of self-flagellation
I’m not the one who brought them up, so you may have replied to the wrong comment.
I’m not the one who brought them up, so you may have replied to the wrong comment.
The operative detail is that you’re the one with less. Every single time.
Probably has something to do with this site being filled with entitled men who get uncomfortable when abuse is brought up. You know, like you.
The reason it’s so easy for me to pity you is that I’m comfortable with my personal morality in relation to abuse and abusers, and don’t feel the need to prove it to strangers on the internet. It must hurt that you’ve been trying for so long and can’t even seem to prove that much to yourself.
I’m certain you are. You’ve demonstrated your apathy about the issue on enough occasions.
Lol. Youre the one who made the dumbfuck claim that nobody cares what he has to say. Then when presented with evidence that people clearly care more about and agree with what he says far more than you, you turn around and pull some pathetic, and pathetically transparent, “i dont actually care anyways/u mad bro” bullshit. It’s legitimately embarrassing reading your posts at this point.
And the rest of yours have… ZERO. The first comment was before people read further and realized you were an amazingly ignorant or disingenupus dipshit. This really shouldnt be hard to understand, but saying he should have been more specific from the jump, is in no way even remotely similar to blaming him for being the victim of racism. That is an amazingly stupid and disingenuous argument.
You would think. You would really think. That at some point. Some of it would get through his thick fucking skull. Just the barest little sliver of awareness of how hard it is to be so universally hated in one of the web’s most milquetoast comment sections. I know he’s a troll and it shouldn’t get to me, but it really does feel sincere, and it’s hard not to see it as a fascinating psychological enigma.
The real fascinating part is that he’s kept it up for almost FIVE YEARS. He never contributes anything except to badger people for not meeting his purity tests.
My favorite part of all this is that we know he’s a straight white man despite him never giving us any of that information explicitly.
You’re right, that’s staggering to think about. I’ve always seen him as existing in the most petulant year of his life and figured he’d grow out of it, but that stamina is what really makes him a special case. Has anything we’ve said ever hit home? Hell, I still remember the smallest criticisms people have leveled at me, let alone the big ones. I’d say there’s no way he isn’t a ball of self-hatred at this point, but at least then he’d show some humility.
Has anything we’ve said ever hit home?Not that I can tell. Any legitimate critical point anyone levels at him, he just straight-up ignores and won’t respond to. Like I said before, he’s extraordinarily good at twisting words and changing the subject, or just resorting to belittling and insults when there’s nothing more substantial to say.It’s unfathomable to me that Kinja hasn’t added a Block User feature. I know I should just ignore him, but I’m allergic to his particular brand of disingenuousness. I tried messing around with GreaseMonkey a while ago to automatically hide any of his comments, but it wasn’t working very well.
That’s a good idea. It’s kind of triggering, honestly — like every guy I knew in college who tried to perform advocacy but ended up coming full circle to abuse. The most frustrating part is that I have a feeling he genuinely contorts everything he reads to minimize its impact on him.
Because I don’t even know what you guys (btw get a room, you two!) are talking about as far as that “3-year-old grudge” goes. I missed that initial spat somehow, so I wasn’t really even paying attention to that part. I did notice your use of a “u mad, bro?” line of attack, though, which as I said is an online argument tactic I almost completely associate with rightie types, and which I’ve seen you use several times, which seems at odds with the values you speak up for, so I thought I’d ask.
Believe me, I would love nothing more than to never see another comment from that person again. And what…do you really think only right-wingers use “u mad bro?” Like, have you been on the internet at all in the last five, ten years?
Yes, I do, and yes I have; that’s why I do.
Oh dear lord…guy, do you even know who coined the phrase “u mad bro”? Come on now.
Irrelevant, considering who it’s been almost exclusively used by online for easily the past decade. Maybe I’m not the one ignorant of online behavior in recent years.
Or it’s just a common phrase used by lots of people in all walks of the internet?
That dumbass punk recognitions once threw a tantrum about my being racist, because I shat on Blue Lives Matter.
Settle in for a fun little trip down memory lane:
In Nov 2017 there was a thread here arguing about whether to believe the anonymous speculation that Louis CK was indeed the comic who had been exposing himself in front of women. (At the time, there was no public evidence to this effect and no specific person had come forth to make the claim that it was CK; all we had was some stories speculating that it might be CK.) recognitions was naturally repeating his belief—by that time, it was something he’d already been ranting about for months—that anyone who came forward with an abuse claim should be believed in full and could not be criticized in any way, and anyone who dared criticize such a person was an evil monster from hell. He still does this, in every single one of these stories: if you question anything at all about an abuse claim, or even make a joke about the situation, even one that doesn’t have anything to do with blaming the victim, you are defending rapists and are probably a rapist too.
In response, I made a satirical comment saying that I heard recognitions raped a bunch of women, and even though there was no evidence, we should all probably believe it anyway. He’s so stupid that to this day he continually repeats his claim that I meant it as a legitimate accusation. (In retrospect I should have accused him of, like, being a bank robber, because even a satirical reference to being accused of a sex crime evidently drove him insane.)However, he spent the next three years periodically claiming that, after this one single satirical post, I then followed him around, posting that he was a sex pervert in numerous other unrelated threads. This was total bullshit, which I proved by going back through my comments from the era. He as much as admitted making up those lies about me.So this is why we all love recognitions. The end.
It’s interesting because I believe that was around the time I myself came to appreciate ol’ recognitions. I was vehemently against spreading the rumors about CK because at the time the Gawker articles about it all referred to a third party post on Jezebel. Referring to your own rumors as a “source” felt very shitty to me. (It still does. The Gawker sites were/are too often onanistic self-righteous dickery.) But those rumors were fucking TRUE. It made me reconsider how resistant I was to accept the idea of problematic faves. And it supported a feeling I’d had for a long time, which is that oppressed voices need to be heard and echoed even in doubt. recognitions can be a self-righteous prick, true. And sometimes I think there’s a performative element of their outrage. But you know what? Better that than making some stupid fucking “satirical” rape joke. Cuz ha ha not all accusations are true ha ha. Or whatever your point was at the time.
But those rumors were fucking TRUE. It made me reconsider how resistant I was to accept the idea of problematic faves.Same here. It’s been tough, seeing person after person get accused of awful stuff; and it’s virtually always turned out to be true. (For obvious reasons, people rarely make dire public accusations that don’t have anything behind them.)
But I thought then (and think now) there’s a pretty clear distinction between totally unsubstantiated rumors (the pre-evidential CK situation), and a specific claim (or even a vague claim) made by a specific person about a specific person (e.g. the Fisher situation).recognitions can be a self-righteous prick, true. And sometimes I think there’s a performative element of their outrage.You’re a lot more charitable toward them than I am. (“can be”? “sometimes”?)Better that than making some stupid fucking “satirical” rape joke. Cuz
ha ha not all accusations are true ha ha. Or whatever your point was at
the time.Yeah, it may not have been in the best taste (I could easily have used something less triggery like… bank robbery or ocelot smuggling) but the point remains the same: we were more than justified in questioning Gawker’s raw speculation, and recognitions’s pompous finger-wagging was unsupportable.
What an epic thread!
Right? recognitions always makes for a good time.
That’s debatable…
There’s fairness in there.I think that because of the CK situation there’s an element *for me* of not wanting to cast doubt on someone in a position of vastly lower power/influence who is also a member of an oppressed group. Because in the end the accused, regardless of whatever pearl-clutching bullshit they and their stans spout about “derp cancel culture derp”, don’t really suffer. And the accusers almost always disappear into obscurity, either because of blacklisting or because their own trauma fucks them up too badly to continue pursuing their field. And soooo fuck guys like Dave Chappelle who want to give that shit a pass because “if that stops your dreams maybe you didn’t really want it”. Really, Dave? Develop a hit sketch show then run off because white people liked it? But no, those women comedians couldn’t hack it. Fucking hypocrite. (But still very funny! It sucks when assholes are good at what they do.) (Also, don’t get me started on how fucking easy it is to say that shit when you’re *already* a millionaire success story. Fucking transphobe.)The thing with CK too is that we can *call it* unsubstantiated but those rumors were around for years. We might not have heard them, but comics did. And the idiot all but confessed in both his stand-up and his TV show. I don’t fully buy into the idea of “Believe people when they tell you who they are.” I think that’s paranoid and ignorant of how much influence narrative has on our lives. But. When you hear that someone has a real life issue and then you see them fictionalizing that issue, it should give you pause. Carpenter has talked about Joss for years. That stunt guy too. Jonah Ray. Joss’ ex-wife. Rumors abound about him. But an unknown black actor says Joss is an asshole and what’s the response? Suddenly nobody has heard anything. And who is this nobody kid? And he should get specific because I, Ronald J Internet, demand it!Again, do I love ol’ recognitions jumping in with guns blazing? No. But I’ll take it over siding with rich and powerful assholes with nothing to lose.(And also fuck anybody claiming that Fisher is doing this for publicity and money. Dude is burning the bridge he’s standing on. Stupid? Maybe. Brave? A little. Not something to give him shit for, ya fucking cowards.)
First, I just want to say, thanks for actually engaging and being willing to have a discussion. I spent all day trying to teach basic language comprehension skills to recognitions, who never actually engages in anything resembling a real discussion; he just calls people names and accuses them of being monsters. You, for one, prove that there are better ways to approach these kinds of situations than “siding with rich and powerful assholes” and “screaming incoherently (like recognitions).”Because in the end the accused, regardless of whatever pearl-clutching
bullshit they and their stans spout about “derp cancel culture derp”, don’t really suffer.Yeah. Millions of dollars make a nice cushion to fall onto in tough times. It’s the sad truth that public accusations of abuse end up with both sides trying to marshal public support; statistically, if the last four years are anything to go by, it seems that the accused almost always did what they were accused of, if not worse. Occasionally it’s not quite as bad as the accusation, and very rarely it’s entirely made up (usually the journalists/lawyers involved detect this before the allegations go public, and nip it in the bud, so we end up seeing very few public accusations that turn out to be false). On the depressing flipside, a lot of legitimate accusations never go public because the accusers are threatened to keep quiet, or NDA/settlements happen, or they just can’t get enough support to make the trauma of going public worth it.
When you hear that someone has a real life issue and then you see them fictionalizing that issue, it should give you pause.If it’s in that order, sure. CK made lots of jokes about sexuality and the like, but in advance it’s not reasonable to assume that someone who makes jokes about masturbating has been cornering women and masturbating in front of them. The initial reporting that revealed the rumors to the public was shoddy, and while I thought “well damn, I hope that’s not true” there were no victims yet to support and not nearly enough to censure CK over. Even all the way back in 2017 most of us already knew that our job as Random Internet Bozos Who Don’t Know Any Of These People was to express support and comfort for those who publicly claimed they’d been abused by the rich and famous, not to litigate the situation. But as soon as CK’s behavior became clear, woof, that was it for him as far as I’m concerned.
It’s funny… you mention “recognitions jumping in with guns blazing,” but I can’t recall ever seeing him express support or comfort toward victims of abuse. All he ever does is yell at people who dare raise any questions at all. As has been pointed out, it’s entirely possible for someone to be an abuse victim and also be an asshole.And yeah, I agree, the idea that Fisher is doing this for money/publicity is ludicrous on its face. He’d have been in a much better position financialy if he’d stayed quiet. Going up against a billion-dollar corporation, especially in a situation like this, takes guts.
Alternate reading: a broken clock is right twice a day.
Not if it’s a digital clock
And if I was incapable of my own pithy thoughts about the subject I’d be grateful to you. Thankfully I had that kind of thought and moved past it.
You’re right, deserves so much more consideration.I’m sure he’s used to being congratulated for the bare minimum, but it doesn’t make it any less cringeworthy to watch.
I mean…. Do you like fighting a catherine wheel? Tilting at windmills? It’s your nickel, I guess.
I got into a long argument with this guy once and I’m glad this thread is here to show me how stupid and pointless it was to ever engage him.
So what you’re telling me is that recognitions raped a bunch of women, is that right? Because that’s what I’m getting.
Look, I don’t know where you heard that accusation, but there’s no evidence to support it. So you better not repeat it a bunch of times just to piss him off. That would be wrong.
I agree with ol’ recognitions a lot, but you ain’t wrong…
You commented before he did, dumbass. Holy shit…. unreal.
I think you may have been ratio’d more than any other individual on the internet.
I don’t think you understand how being ratioed works. Or how to spell it, for that matter.
He’s a rich white boy playing dressup. Don’t feed the trolls.
Whiney, bourgeois, cishet white boys desperate for clout say whaaa?
Wait, Carlos, are you telling me you’re not cishet? Is this your big coming out moment? Because I support you, bro. Regardless of our differences, I absolutely respect you for having the courage to live your best life. Unless of course, you actually are cishet and just tacked on a description of the same group you’re in because you didn’t have any actual point to make.
Somehow, every time I see you tangled up in a new fight, I pity you even more. It’s really sad to watch.
And yet here you are replying to multiple comments of mine. Apparently you’re getting enjoyment from it after all?
Fascination, as ever. This is one of the more thorough hidings you’ve gotten, so I’m rubbernecking.
That’s a funny way to characterize someone demonstrating how little they care about abuse survivors in a 40+ comment temper tantrum
Just to make sure we’re being clear, are you going on record calling Ray Fisher a survivor?
LOL
I know, but it’s such a fun trap!
Considering how many people have gotten COVID because of their own carelessness, I don’t buy the idea that blaming the victim is always wrong.
I didn’t realize victims of racism all contracted COVID as a side effect!
I have no idea why you interpreted my comment that way.
Probably because my comment specifically referred to victims of racism, bright eyes.
And I was referring to victim-blaming in general, not racism specifically.
And my comment was, again, referring to victims of racism specifically. So your reply was irrelevant in addition to being nonsensical.
As far as I know nobody in this thread was blaming Fisher for being a victim of racism. The blame was for him not being more specific previously in his allegations of racism.
Well, at least now you’re attempting to minimize the issue in a way that’s not a total non sequitur. However, blaming someone for not reacting a specific way to racist treatment is, in fact, victim blaming.
That’s why I brought up an example of why victim-blaming isn’t always wrong. So I’d like to hear you explain why it’s fine to blame people’s own carelessness on their getting COVID but bad to blame someone being insufficiently specific in making allegations of racism for other people being skeptical.
It’s a good thing nobody’s interested in what you’d like to hear then
At least you’re being consistent with the idea that it’s the other person’s fault for not believing you, not yours for not sufficiently explaining your position.
And you’re being consistent in desperately finding the most convoluted ways to downplay racism!
Do you think Fisher was entitled to have people believe him no matter how unspecific his allegations were?
How about this: do I think you’re the slightest bit interested in discussing this issue in good faith considering you’ve spent literally years being a racist shithead up in here? Nope.
Now I’m wondering what this long record of racism I supposedly have is.
It’s this
You mean this thread? You said I’ve “spent literally years being a racist shithead up in here.” I know the lockdowns have warped people’s sense of time, but has this thread really lasted for years?
Learn how to click links, big guy
The link didn’t show up in your post. I found it by clicking on your username and then Discussions and found that you linked to my Discussions page. So you didn’t actually say how anything I’ve said is racist, you just linked to my posting history and expected me to know somehow.
“you just linked to my posting history”Bingo.
Do you expect me or anyone else to look through my entire posting history?
I mean they can throw a rock at any given post you’ve commented in and it’ll get the same result
If someone actually wants to look through my posting history, be my guest.
I wouldn’t wish that on a dead man
Every thread recognitions participates in feels like it drags on forever.
It’s funny you think you’re not the most hated person on here. I’ve never commented before but this is too hilarious no to comment to. It seems like most people think you have dog shit for brains.
You should… maybe compare the stars on your comments to the stars on his before claiming that nobody cares what HE says, making yourself look somehow even more fucking idiotic.
“The blame was for him not being more specific previously in his allegations of racism”Thanks for saying it out loud.
… (To the other 3, actually) Wow. Best not say anything? Absolute Morality (tm.) is a mess.
I’ve argued this before and will continue to do so.While you are not wrong that specifics would have gotten more people on his side, he did not/does not owe anyone anything. Blame? Are you fucking serious? What, you want him to individually issue a personal diary of “shit I was made to eat daily” to every fucking nobody whiner online who thinks they have a right to it?Who are you? Who is anyone to make those demands? Unless you’re the investigator or his agent or working for Warner’s, stay the fuck out if it.
If he doesn’t owe us evidence, then I don’t think we owe it to him to believe him.
True.Did he ask you, Dino Ironbody, personally, to believe him?Then sit down.
I think the point is that when you enlist the public in your PR campaign, you can’t reasonably expect everyone to magically be on your side just because you claim abuse happened. I wish we did live in a world where everyone took abuse claims seriously, and we’re all trying to move toward that world, but the unarguable fact right now is that we don’t live in that world yet. To that end, someone who wants to rally the public to their side is going to get better results if they provide details rather than vagueness.This of course doesn’t mean that Fisher has any moral (or legal) duty to provide such details, but no one should be surprised that his extreme vagueness up until this point has hurt his case. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I *think* this is the first time he’s provided specific details of abusive behavior.)
I don’t believe at all that Fisher is lying or making any of it up. I’m certain he perceived abuse, and definitely some of it was what any of us would consider abuse. Some of it was probably the standard power struggles of the Hollywood machinery, but it’s difficult at best to say how much. The “investigation” by DC/WB feels like a whitewash. Our duty as the non-law-enforcement public is to at the very least make noise at the Hollywood hierarchy and demand answers and transparency, and vote with our wallets if we don’t like the way they’re behaving (and make sure they know it), because that’s the only way businesses learn: hit ‘em in the pocketbook.
I mean, when youre waging a very public campaign against someone and accusing them very publicly of racism and possibly affecting their career, you dont get to turn around and say that you dont owe it to anyone to provide any semblance of evidence or explanation. That’s a moronic argument.
His reply was completely relevant. Just because you completely lack reading comprehension and are too fucking dense to follow a leap in conversation, does not mean it’s irrelevant. How do you not realize that YOU are the dumbass here?
You cant actually be THIS fucking stupid, which makes me think youre just a disingenuous fucking clown. Although, re-reading your comments… it’s probably both. Incredibly stupid, AND an obnoxious fucking clown
It’s because he’s a bundle of disingenuousness that has taken human form.
Because he’s recognitions.
I feel like completely misrepresenting what OP actually said makes you an obnoxious dipshit.
Dismiss recognitions.
Dismiss recognitions.
“Specifics”
The issue with this continues to be hearsay. Fisher didn’t hear these conversations and had them reported to him by a second party, and all kinds of context could have been lost. It becomes a game of telephone, where you’re uncertain of the exact words and intent.For example, it seems pretty reasonable not to want an angry black man at the center of the movie, when that can be argued to be a very stereotypical and negative portrayal of African Americans. It’s right up there with having a Magical Negro. That’s not an unreasonable concern, and you want to continue to portray VPoC respectfully.
“… and then those executives use their power to reduce and remove ALL Black people from that movie – they are no longer entitled to any belief associated with doubt.”They did cut out a lot of PoC. But they also cut out a lot of white people, reducing their scenes to brief cameos, such as Deathstroke, Luthor, and Commissioner Gordon. And removing Ray Portor’s Darkseid, Peter Guinness’ Desaad, Vulko, and potentially the Joker.
When you go from 4 hours to 2 hours, yeah, a lot of side plots and content is going to be lost.
This article is very odd in the way it introduces that hearsay: “Fisher has shared a new statement, detailing the racism he experienced on the Justice League set at the hands of the executive producers….” It then goes on to describe potentially racist things that Fischer did not personally experience, but rather heard that other people heard? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that can create a toxic environment sometimes, but here it’s introduced as though racism was specifically directed toward him personally.
Yes, I thought awareness of stereotypes and being mindful of depictions that play into said stereotypes was a good thing. I’ve never seen the movie, though, so maybe it’s not a reasonable concern for the character?
Yeah, this is where context matters so much.Was it the “angry” part that was the issue or the “black man” part? Was it “angry” because of the stereotype or because they wanted a more positive and less angsty film?
Or perhaps was it just because they wanted Cyborg to be more like he is in the very well known cartoon(s) where he’s actually cool with being a cyborg rather than having this physically challenged character upset at not being “normal” (which is insulting to the disabled community). We don’t know. And Fisher doesn’t either because he heard about this secondhand and is just assuming racism and looking for proof.
What’s this guy angling for here?
Relevance and a job.
This is all just publicity for the Snyder Cut. After all, no one is going to book any interviews with anyone involved to talk about it at this point.
By reading his message you can see he is angling for an apology from Walter Hamada, and to promote ZS’s JL coming soon to HBOMax
He’s going to fail at both of those endeavors.
Well this article is one of a thousand others published about it all over the internet so he has definitely succeeded in promoting the film. I won’t be too surprised when Walt finally caves as well
Hamada probably won’t cave. He has nothing to gain from even addressing this, much less admitting fault.
Scorched Earth. He wants Johns and Hamada to never work again. I find it kind of amusing how sloppy this is though, “I heard from a guy who relayed to me a conversation HE heard about some executives where they said this thing, and the conversation was basically this line about angry black guys, and I think the person who said this line the MOST was Geoff Johns!”
This is too little too late. Plus I don’t remember him playing a hunchback in the Joss cut. But then it wasn’t a very memorable film.
I highly doubt that conversation happened, and if the executives did push to have the movie be less centered on Cyborg and more on the other characters, it might be because those characters were played by Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill. Gal Gadot, and Jason Momoa, and Ezra Miller, all of whom are known actors and Ray Fisher is not whatsoever. And Cyborg is the least known of the six super heroes as well.
Focusing on the relatively unknown cyborg could make sense… if it was the first film in the series and he’s sort of an audience surrogate introducing us to the rest of the world. It’s odder when your movie is already with crowded with people who’ve been in previous movies of that “universe”.
If you have Batman and the one hit they had Wonder Woman, not really?The Flash didn’t get a big part either.
Eh I can totally believe studio execs using the “angry black man” phrase. Granted if called on it they’d probably claim “Well I’m thinking of the international market…” and say it’s nothing to do with their personal beliefs, etc. I dunno, sometimes it’s dog whistles, sometimes it’s sirens.
Oh, I could very much believe studio execs using that phrase and being racist, but in this instance, there is the much easier “Wait, why would we center this movie around the least known actor and character when we have some legit A listers here?”
I can definitely see execs using that phrase too, but to me I’d imagine it more coming across as “can we let our main black character be this this oft criticized token stereotype of the angry black male?”
I am black and the thing is a lot of us complain about that stereotype the angry black man/woman. So this is all confusing, because Mr Fisher keeps letting details out fucking piece meal.
Yeah, is this a case where they thought they might be leaning into the stereotype of “angry black man” and were worried about criticism from the left, or was it like American Gods where Orlando Jones said that the people behind the scenes worried that his “angry black man” was too uncomfortable for white audiences to watch/enjoy?
But what’s weird about it is that Cyborg should be an angry black man, his dad turned him into a half man half robot, LOL. It’s not like they did the typical stereotype and he was just angry black man for no reason. All this shit is weird to me because I want to be on his side but it’s hard to get to the real issue.
Yeah, I thought that too – his whole vibe is that he’s legitimately angry, him being black isn’t really part of that.
Also…you know…teenager. A teenager who went through something really really traumatic, did not ask to be turned in to a cyborg, did not ask to be made (in most versions) permanently teenaged, never able to really grow up.
On what basis are you “highly doubting” that the conversation happened?
On the basis of what I said in the rest of my comment after that first sentence. And on the basis of it being Ray Fisher that is telling us it happened, who previously told us that standard color grading to match images shot on film and digital was racism.
So just to be clear, you “highly doubt” one meeting happened based on your subsequent speculation that if it did happen it was different? That doesn’t make sense. “I doubt the meeting happened because if it happened it would have been different” is not an argument that the meeting didn’t happen. And your subsequent argument is that the meeting didn’t happen because of his opinion elsewhere on a different issue? He’s making a false statement here as evidenced by his stupid opinion over there?Ay ay ay.
I don’t trust Ray Fisher because he has not done anything to make me believe that he is trustworthy and instead seems to be a guy who either doesn’t understand what’s happening or is making things up. Or maybe is mentally ill. In the end, he could be right, but so far, I don’t have reason to believe him.
You may be right, and you may be wrong, but you’re saying exactly the sorts of things that enable systems of oppression like racism either way.
Things that must be true:1. What Ray Fisher chooses to share publicly cannot be assumed to be the entirety of what has transpired in this matter – we can’t know either way and we don’t really have access to anything that might allow us to assess on the balance of probabilities (unless one claims, as you have done, that his opinions on other matters are somehow evidence of his statements here being non-factual, which is untenable).
2. Ray Fisher’s motivations for saying these things are unknown to us – either they are true, or they are not true, and either Ray Fisher believes them to be true or he knows them to be untrue – also unknown to us.3. Ray Fisher may or may not be concerned with his believability to you, and it’s unknown to us whether any of his statements are intended to convince you.
What I would suggest is that a major American studio, when faced with the decision between doing something racist but profitable, and just-but-less-profitable, they’re most likely going to go with the former, purely because the fundamental function of a corporate entity in capitalism is to make money. What I would also suggest is that as a black American, Ray Fisher is probably better placed than me (I’m not white but i’m not American either) to detect racism in his workplace – either explicit or implicit – and to that end I suppose I’m not done believing him yet. You are making distinctions about which hearsay you choose to believe and your basis for that distinction is not wholly convincing.
I have said everything I have to say about this. Anything further would be a circular argument.
Thank you for conceding that your argument is unsound.
…and those actors played Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Flash, characters who the public knows about and cares about more than Cyborg, a character who only became part of the Justice League when Geoff Johns decided that he didn’t want John Stewart to be his Justice League’s Green Lantern, but he also didn’t want his Justice League to be all-white.
…and those actors played Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and
the Flash, characters who the public knows about and cares about more
than Cyborg, a character who only became part of the Justice League when
Geoff Johns decided that he didn’t want John Stewart to be his Justice
League’s Green Lantern, but he also didn’t want his Justice League to be
all-white.
There in lies my main issue with Cyborg being a member of the Justice League, he doesn’t need to be there. Why Geoff John couldn’t let John Stewart be GL in this is beyond me? I don’t care that the previous Green Lantern film flopped, that’s not on whichever potential non white actor that could have been cast in this. Instead we end up with a Teen Titan refugee who seems very out of place.
From what I understand, Johns really, really, loves Hal Jordan. The New 52 JL happened the same year Johns was a co-producer on the Ryan Reynolds GL movie, so they were investing in Jordan with the hope of him being a centerpiece of a future DCEU, which would mean he needed a spot on the Justice League. The retcon (and I think this was Johns’s retcon) that tied Cyborg to Darkseid’s technology shoehorned him into the team’s origin story with a minimum of fuss (but it sucked for the Titans, who lost a central figure).
Part of it was the weird push putting Cyborg in the JL in New 52, but I think the bigger issue was WB wanted their own Iron Man. Maybe because of the 90s movie they were too scared to use Steel, or maybe they really wanted to use Cyborg because they thought it’d help merchandising to have a youth angle. But yeah, the only good reason to not go with Stewart (or J’onn) for a founding member is they wanted an Iron Man. Cyborg’s abilities onscreen pretty much confirms it.
As TGGP noted in this thread, it’s common to use a minor character or lesser known actor as an audience surrogate in action and adventure movies of all kinds including the superhero genre. Anna Paquin’s Rogue was the audience surrogate for the first X-men movie, even though Famke Jannsen (Jean Grey) and Halle Berry (Storm) were better known actors (even though Paquin had been in an Oscar winner, they had been in bigger commercial films) playing arguably more popular characters. The audience surrogate in Hellboy is a young BPRD agent invented by the filmmakers and played by an actor whose name I can’t remember without looking it up.
That’s an excellent point. If you only read the first part of his comment. As you note, Anna Paquin’s Rogue was the audience surrogate in the first X-Men movie. This was not the first movie with these characters. When Justice League was released, we had already had Man of Steel, BvS, and Wonder Woman.
The reason Paquin’s young Rogue is used is that Xavier’s School is a refuge for mutants. She is not just introducing the audience to the X-men, her narrative is explaining why they exist as a team. The motif of less prominent characters as a narrative viewpoint was used frequently in the X-men franchise.Even though Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and the Hulk all had solo films before the Avengers movie, it is the SHIELD characters that actually provide the narrative impetus for the film, the reason they get together and why the team is important. No one needed to be introduced to Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman. But Cyborg could have been used to represent what it means when they band together. There are many ways to tell a story, so using Cyborg was not mandatory (the Flash could have probably fulfilled a similar role) but it was certainly valid.
No one would ever say that The Avengers is centered on the SHIELD agents though.
Would anyone say that the X-men movie is “centered” on Rogue, as opposed to Xavier, Magneto or Logan? Was Hellboy centered on the young agent character whose name and actor I no longer remember? More to the point, do you think anyone believes that Cyborg is going to be the main character in a Justice League movie?To be fair, “centered” can be interpreted several ways. And I wouldn’t ever claim that the only way to make a good Justice League movie was to feature Cyborg. But it could have been vital to the way Snyder was telling his story. The audience is watching Avengers primarily for Hulk, Stark, Cap and Thor, but the SHIELD agents — which include Hawkeye and Black Widow — are instigating many themes and plot points. They are important to the story.
Well Ray Fisher seems to think that Cyborg was supposed to be the main character in the Justice League movie.
Do you really think that Ray Fisher believes he is the main character of the Justice League or do you simply have problems with the way he is expressing his issues with the production? Which, by the way, is entirely your right. But to me its inaccurate to claim Fisher believes he was the main character. He believes his character served a more pivotal role in Snyder’s story and that this role would a special significance for black audiences (which I think is possible but certainly debatable). I don’t think Cuba Gooding Jr. thought that he was the main character in Jerry Maguire (though let’s acknowledge that its a risk to ascribe rational thinking to Gooding)? But I do think he thought it was a major role, one that was important to the story and (perhaps) resonant with a black audience. And I don’t think it’s uncommon for actors to have high estimations of the significance of the roles they are playing, as inflated or unearned as that view might seem to us. Still not the same as believing that they are main character or the sole reason a movie exists.
I believe Ray Fisher has some serious mental problems and someone in his life should be getting him help instead of watching him continue this self destructive tale spin.
Tail spin. Maybe, I’m not making any claims for his stability. But Hollywood is also replete with actors who have been crazy, self-destructive and largely correct on facts. At the very least the downfall of Johns and Whedon wasn’t dependent on him alone.
God dammit, the animated series TaleSpin strikes again.My point is that I do not find him to be trustworthy and this story sounds unlikely to me.
As I said, the condemnation of Whedon and Johns doesn’t seem to depend on Fisher alone. Even Patty Jenkins and Chris Nolan have weighed in on how problematic they found the JL project, a rare rebuke from fellow filmmakers. I also don’t think Warner Studio would have disciplined Whedon and Johns so severely simply because of Fisher. So, there’s at minimum some credibility to Fisher’s complaints. Which is not to say he is handling this matter in the best way possible for his career, only that the problems do appear to have been significant.As for the “angry black man” comment, it’s second hand, so it’s hearsay. But I would not be surprised if it is true, it’s not out of line with Hollywood’s cynical conventional wisdom about race. Fisher is far from the only black actor or filmmaker to call that out. Feige was considered to be taking a big risk in 2018 with Black Panther. There’s exactly one major black character in the entire DC cinematic universe since Catwoman bombed in 2004, played by the decidedly non angry Morgan Freeman. One could make the case that it was a surprising sentiment for Hamada to be caught saying out loud, but that was the only thing surprising about it.
OK. I am done with this.
Do you say this about everyone who isn’t entirely publicly forthcoming with every detail required to convince you?
You’re ascribing motives to Ray Fisher that you have no way of knowing, and even as speculation you have minimal means of substantiating.
Honestly, this is just awkward right now. I don’t want to be the guy who nitpicks and parses a statement like this and if it had come out months ago (when Fisher claims he had heard these claims in the first place) I’d have believed him (admittedly maybe with a bit of reluctance). His decision to tease out these accusations in bits and pieces whenever the Snydercut was in the news, his constantly expanding accusations to include every Snydercut enemy even if they weren’t there at the time, his comments about defending Whedon, the way the only concrete accusation he made earlier fell apart within minutes, etc. I don’t really find him credible anymore. Even if these comments are accurate it would be extremely easy for WB to spin them. It’s not like there aren’t already plenty of articles about the angry black man stereotype and the implications of having the biggest black superhero be a literal eunuch surrounded by physically perfect white people.
I feel like this lays bare a lot of the foolishness with this whole fiasco on Fisher’s part: Second hand information that he has no way to personally verify, yet being treated as fact.
Seeing studio bullshit as some crime against humanity and not…you know…fairly standard studio bullshit.
Assuming that a fairly unknown character played by no one being cut from a movie being reassembled in panic is evidence of said racism.
And finally, literally turning the whole case in to a commerical for the Snyder cut, even going so far to suggest to supporting the Snyder cut is a resistance to racism.
That last one kills me. Absolutely kills me.
And finally, literally turning the whole case in to a commerical for the Snyder cut, even going so far to suggest to supporting the Snyder cut is a resistance to racism.Yeah, that part seems a little fucked up.
Some of what you’re saying? Fair enough. But studio bullshit IS a crime against humanity. They need to stop being excused and coddled by the same people whose pockets they’re fucking picking. Don’t let the bastards off the hook just because Ray Fisher is taking the shotgun approach to accusations.
The irony is that Warner Brothers owns all that IP. All of it. Batman, Superman, Cyborg and the entire gang. They own the stuff. That’s reality. If one of his big issues is “the studio recut a 250 million dollar movie because they didn’t want another critical and commerical bomb and also they wanted some of that sweet marvel money” then that is not any relevant issue at all.
Studios have been pulling bullshit since the dawn of time. Since movies begun. Even more so now that these things cost so much, and even more when the studio owns every character a filmmaker is using.
It is not a relevant issue. Not even slightly. If a studio pays quarter of a billion dollars for a movie and then the movie also uses 80 year old intellectual property, then sorry, the studio can do what they damn well please there. Ideally it’s lovely when the studio works with the filmmaker, but at the end of the day the studio makes whatever call they want when the stakes are that high. I tune out completely when some of Fisher’s issues have been “the studio lied about Whedon coming on to reshoot the movie and they conspired to recut the movie” because that is literally nothing. Literally nothing. If Fisher doesn’t like that, then he and Snyder can make their own self-financed movie with characters they make from scratch, And then we’ll see how many people bother to see it.
I don’t think you know the meaning of the word “literally”.
I have been watching parks and rec again, but I try to save the word for when it matters, which I feel I have here. Kinja doesn’t allow for editing past 15 minutes.
While I think you’re letting media corporations off the asshole hook WAY too easily, I’m too amused by a fellow chameleon to get fighty. I’m rewatching The Sopranos and boy howdy is it hard to not make every other word a curse.
SJW Alert!
Yeah, I think we need to demand that Fisher #releasetheJohnsconversations, because the one quote that’s making all the news and seems like actual evidence of racism doesn’t seem to be a quote at all. I mean, it’s attributed to several “executives (but particularly Johns)“ which means it’s probably a paraphrase or characterization of these alleged conversations, either by Fisher or his unnamed source, not an actual quote that any of them said. Was there an actual racist thing said by an actual person to whom it can be attributed, witnessed by a person with actual knowledge of it? Because it matters if any of those execs actually called Cyborg an “angry black man” or if that’s something Fisher or his source read into the conversation. I suspect that unless Fisher can produce an email or a recording (or his source’s first-hand account) that actually supports the quote he’s now put into “particularly Johns’s” mouth, this long-delayed announcement—almost a year in coming—is a giant bust. Also—did we see Cyborg’s penis “highlighted” in Justice League? It wasn’t a very memorable film, but I think I would’ve remembered that.
I’m half-suspecting the “angry black man” conversation was actually more like:“Hey, Cyborg seems really angry and pissed off all the time in the Snyder footage. We really need to make him, you know, someone that people may actually enjoy watching. Also every other character seems angry and pissed off all the time and basically every character needs to be made more fun and people audiences will like. Oh, and why is this rough cut 4 hours long? Can we just write this thing off completely? No? Okay, let’s grab lunch and start, I don’t know, figuring out how much we need to reshoot here”.
“Because it matters if any of those execs actually called Cyborg an “angry black man” or if that’s something Fisher or his source read into the conversation.”Very late reply, sorry. I remember when the New Teen Titans were introduced in 1980 or so, first as a special add-in story in a “DC Comics Presents”, and then the NTT comic. And I remember the letter columns a few issues later. Even one of the readers noticed how, in the initial add-in story, Cyborg was portrayed as an “angry black man”, but as of NTT #1 they started fleshing out his background so that we could see the root of some of his frustrations.“Angry black man” is an old stereotype in entertainment, and not a positive one. I can totally imagine Geoff Johns referring to the stereotype by name, and wanting to steer clear of it. This is not to say that black men can’t be angry, but as with anyone else, give them specific reasons to be angry.
Good pull! I can imagine Johns referencing the trope, too—it wasn’t that I thought anyone saying the words “angry black man” was intrinsically racist. It’s more that that’s the closest Fisher came to actually making a case that he’d suffered from racial animus (there are definitely contexts where people could use the phrase problematically) and it was flimsy as hell.
If “fairly standard studio bullshit” is racism then that is a giant problem that needs to be addressed.
100% agreed – the issue is that all of Fisher’s knowledge of these conversations is second hand and involves people who have either been removed or given reduced responsibility. Johns is still there, but he is no longer fully in charge and his influence has been curbed. Whedon is out. Berg is out. Johns is in a reduced role. That seems like a studio taking some allegations pretty seriously and making changes.The things Fisher has mentioned also could be malicious racism or they could be situations where a lack of education and biases could be corrected – The lighting allegation for example. It could be Joss Whedon, who is known to be many bad things, truly trying to erase people of color. It could also be a reminder that Hollywood is uneducated in how to properly light dark skin tones and studios like WB should use this as an opportunity to invest in correcting that. Johns comments could be blatant racism or they could be someone worrying that the sole Black character in the film is going to seem like a stereotype and trying to correct that.These things are still bad no matter the intention, but there’s opportunity to correct some of these problems through education. I’m not sure if that’s what Fisher wants or if he just wants someone to say Cyborg should have been the lead of the movie.
Having seen Justice League, I can confirm Cyborg was black through the whole movie.
The executive shake-up at WB regarding DC films had nothing to do with the investigation though. That happened long before Fisher’s accusations and was solely because their core films kept underperforming, with JL being the final straw. Johns role hasn’t been reduced really. WB has given him more direct creative control as the main writer on many of their upcoming films and he’ll be on set far more. The only thing that seems to have come out of the investigation is WB cutting ties with Whedon.
I’m not saying they did, but it makes it harder to ascertain what an effective outcome from Fisher’s perspective would be. Walter Hamada did not work on JL and the investigation did not uncover wrongdoing on his part. Berg and Whedon are no longer there so they can’t really be disciplined or punished. Johns has more creative control on his own projects, but not over the larger production slate.So what is the outcome we’re working toward? Or does he just want everyone to say JL is bad? I mean, we have.Does he want Snyder put back in charge to rectify this wrong? That also happened.Does he want WB to collaborate with more BIPOC filmmakers? Recent announcements suggest they are.
The bullshit I was referring to is the whole bringing in another director for reshoots thing, since that alone Fisher has held up as evidence of their supposed evil, and that by itself doesn’t even merit a mention, since that sort of thing is the standard issue studio thing. The possible racism is a whole other matter.
Bringing in a second director on a troubled movie without consulting the original director is standard issue bullshit here.
Fair enough. You gotta admit though that Fisher probably has a greater insight into what went down and why than we do.
This whole thing is like a tutorial of “how not to f*&^ up your career”. This is the hill he is dying on? A mediocre film that he was fifth billed on and probably could have skated right past this? I could see if he headlined some fiasco that he was afraid would end his career over battling over who was to blame (even that would b a panic move)..but he is doing all of this for Justice League? He needs to quit digging
To be fair, if things had gone according to Snyder’s plan, Fisher would have a movie in his own Cyborg franchise under his belt by now, as well as at least one Justice League sequel. Instead, he’s barely worked since then. It’s hard to deal with your big break being pulled out from under you like that, even though it’s something that happens all the time. But I doubt the campaign he’s waged against WB is going to lead to a Fisherenaissance. I mean, you gotta be born the first time to get reborn.
If he was genuinely believing he would get a cyborg solo movie, then he was a little naive there. Cyborg has barely been able to anchor a solo comic book, so I don’t know how a solo movie would even work.
It’s also only been a couple of years since he was in justice league and covid obviously destroyed a whole year there. He was in true detective and while be had a thankless role there, be seemed fairly solid as an actor. A lot of actors toil for a while before their breakout, and you can count on one hand the number of actors who get plucked from total obscurity, given a central blockbuster role and then get a mega career after just a couple of years.
I think Fisher, Snyder and all of WB really thought they were going the right way with making Cyborg DC’s Iron Man. Iron Man was massively popular with younger audiences, the merchandising associated with it did incredibly well, and they knew that RDJ wouldn’t be doing the role for too much longer and Marvel didn’t seem to have a direct successor in the pipeline (in terms of the whole power armor hero gimmick). Meanwhile, going with Fisher’s Cyborg would give them a much younger actor that would hopefully grab younger and teen audiences even better and they’d be able to get a lot more shelf life out of him. It looked like storywise they were going to steal from Jaime Blue Beetle, too, so you’d even have even more of a twist on the Jarvis AI companion.
Who knows, in better hands maybe they could have pulled it off, but I feel like Cyborg had just enough name recognition from the CN cartoon that they were never going to have the freedom they needed to make Cyborg that type of character, and his own source material is strongest when you put him as a team member.
The issue is that Fisher vocally despises even the idea of saying the “boo yeah” catchphrase, which really highlights how he was never going to be able to anchor any sort of franchise that would appeal to general audiences. As far back as MOS audiences were clear they weren’t interested in gritty depressing DC heroes, so building a franchise around gritty depressing Cyborg was going to be a fools errand.
Oh absolutely, it was never going to work. At some point along the line half the people involved thought they were creating the next big blockbuster franchise and the other half thought they were subverting all the tropes and going to be heralded as geniuses for it.
Warner Bros. did have a Cyborg movie on their proposed slate (initially planned to be released last year), so Fisher wouldn’t have been the only one thinking it would happen.
Movies put things on the slate all the time that never get made. That’s just the business. They never announced a director or even a writer. They were announcing movie titles and even when they announced the cyborg movie, they announced it directly to their shareholders, not an actual fan convention, which tells us how serious they were about a cyborg movie.
Regardless of whether or not it would work, DC had it on the schedule, and other actors in JL’s Cyborg storyline (like Joe Morton) were expecting it to happen. And it’s not that crazy to think that a lead in a successful Justice League movie might imitate Chris Hemsworth’s career trajectory, where he went from an obscure Aussie TV actor who’d had a memorable (but small) role in Abrams’ Star Trek, to starring in a bunch of Marvel films and being given repeated chances to anchor franchises of his own.
well, that assumes the movie was good and everything went daisy and JL was a huge hit. You could easily say the cast of the New Mutants hoped for a huge springboard from that disaster too. You have big stars now doing commercials because of COVID and everyone has not been in anything for a year and a half. Sometimes it does not work out. Actually, if he had an agent (who he listened to) they would probably tell him to just stay silent, you have it on your resume and look for the next thing.
It’s doubly dumb because he didn’t quit while he was ahead. He’s already taken down Whedon, who apparently lots of other people have similar beefs with, and Fisher got legitimate credit for starting that. I don’t see dozens of other people coming out of the woodwork to denounce Hamada or Johns or whoever else he’s calling out, and now he just looks like a guy with a bunch of grudges based on stuff he heard. What studio doesn’t want to work with that kind of guy?
The entire story has seemed pretty dubious from the start. Fisher just has constantly been either cryptic or mentioned hearsay, and bloggers have just run with it.
I hate that I’m supposed to somehow pass judgement on Warner or this Hamada guy based on some actors I’ve heard of say they were treated badly without putting forth very many specifics. So far, all I’ve actually read in terms of specifics are the “angry black man” bit. There’s the “Joss Whedon isn’t allowed in a room alone with Michell Trachtenburg”, but I’m still supposed to fill in the blanks as to what specifically lead to that – I’d assume he’d previously assaulted her before, but hell, for all I know, it could just be Pence-ism.
But when you have studio executives (particularly Geoff Johns) saying,
‘We can’t have an angry Black man at the center of the movie’—and then those executives use their power to reduce and remove ALL Black people from that movie—they are no longer entitled to any belief associated with doubt.”
1) Hearsay.
2) Cyborg was never going to be the centre of a Justice League movie.
Can’t judge about 1). But disagree about 2). The fact that Cyborg could not be central is a thing, and not a problem in itself, but the fact that “angry Black man” is given as a reason is, if true, a genuine problem, that makes this centrality itself irrelevant.
But there’s a difference between saying “cant have a black man” and cant have an “angry black man”. Generically “angry black man” is a damaging stereotype. Wouldn’t someone arguing against having that be arguing for a more racially sensitive and just representation of a black person?
Not sure. For a same attitude, a person may be described as either “white” or “angry” (neutral, contextual qualifiers, a punctual state), and another as “angry black” (an essence, an identity and a loaded one). Like an man’s accepted attitude on a given moment can be “typically” “hysterical”, “bossy” or “arrogant” when it’s a woman’s (she should smile more). The implication being that having a central “angry white man” would be okay (which action movie hasn’t?), or wouldn’t be qualified as such, but the same trope would be disturbing from a person with a darker skin. Or in other terms, it takes less for a black person to be labelled “an angry person”. And it’s more damning.It echoes police qualification of public reactions. A same attitude from a black or a white person gets perceived and qualified differently, and elicits different responses (physical and legal). In front of law enforcement, an “angry black man” and an “angry white man” are defined and described differently. So it’s essentially the same distinction imported to movies.Also when not central, the Cyborg character (that I assume to represent angry+black) is deemed okay, but not as the central hero ? If the issue was truly avoiding stereotypes (which would be, here, a clumsy move, because that distinction means reaffirming them more than anything), then it would not have been judged okay whether “central” or not.
Wouldn’t someone arguing against having that be arguing for a more racially sensitive and just representation of a black person?Not necessarily. Envision these two scenarios:A group of black film executives are listening to a pitch. Afterward they’re discussing it, and one of them says, “I don’t want us to make a film about an angry black man,” because he doesn’t want to perpetuate that stereotype.A group of white film executives are listening to a pitch. Afterward they’re discussing it, and one of them says, “I don’t want us to make a film about an angry black man,” because he thinks their target audience of mainly white people will be turned off by a movie with a black protagonist who isn’t deferential to white people.
Again, the “angry black man” thing is hearsay, and after Fisher being so cagey for so long, I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.This all comes down to Fisher being unhappy about his role being reduced, when he was never going to be the star of the movie anyway.
Cyborg was actually at the center of the founding of the league in Justice League: Origin, which also gave his Cyborg suit the origin of coming from a New Gods tech. The writer of that run? Geoff Johns.
Cyborg was actually at the center of the founding of the league in Justice League: Origin, which also gave his Cyborg suit the origin of coming from a New Gods tech.
Doesn’t mean he’d be a central character in a group that includes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
The writer of that run? Geoff Johns.
So what? That doesn’t mean the movie was going to follow that story. Geoff Johns has written a ton of stuff. Doesn’t mean it’ll make it into the movies.
My point more is it would be weird for Johns to be the guy to axe Cuborg as he clearly didn’t mind making him a central part of the Justice League in past work.
“We can’t have the Angry Black Person trope in our movie” sounds like something an antiracist would say.
For all the fuss about Joss Whedon concerning this whole SNAFU (and, well, the fact that he’s clearly a massive dick at the very least), it really does seem like most of Ray Fisher’s problems are actually with execs behind the scenes rather than Whedon himself. At least, most of the specifics we’ve had regarding that particular situation seem to revolve around them rather than anything Whedon himself has supposedly done.(Which, as an aside, makes it slightly weird when Fisher goes on about “attempts to shift the blame to” Whedon when he’s the one who started blaming Whedon in the first place.)
In practical terms, Whedon has been dealt with. His official relationship with every major movie or TV studio has been severed, which is all Warner Bros. can do. It’s not unreasonable to turn your attention on the people who were complicit but have experienced no consequences at that point.
My only main question for Ray Fisher is that I’m not sure what outcome he wants. I get that he feels Hamada shoulders the blame. I don’t know what his responsibility is since it seems that Hamada was not with the studio when the incidences happened, listened to Fisher when it was brought up and then also did an investigation. Whedon and Berg are also out. And at a minimum, Johns has been substantially sidelined compared to where he was.He doesn’t seem to want damages himself. Does he want WB to right wrongs? Black Superman seems like a step in that direction potentially. They have at least spoken about correcting their behaviors (Covid makes it hard to tell where that actually is).I just don’t know what Fisher wants to see done other than I guess fire Walter Hamada?
I think he wants all racism and sexism to go away, which is not a bad goal, but what a mess he has made of it.
lol yeah that’s it, not relevance and money.
Ray Fisher : his allegations :: Geraldo Rivera : Al Capone’s vault
I have opinions about this, but honestly, at this point I just can’t. Just can’t with this whole fucking thing anymore.At the end of the day, the most important thing is to put people of color in decision making and creative management positions. Part of why Black Panther was so great was because Ryan Coogler (KOOGLER!) was given broad latitude to make decisions about many aspects of the film. Black filmmakers overseen by black executives will prevent a lot of *gestures broadly*.
This is the best take. Even if you hold the WB completely blameless, surely they can understand the optics of their entirely non-black financial and creative team leaders telling the only black person with a major role in the movie that nothing racist happened over his repeated objections.
I do think WB Media seems to be trying to do the right thing. I’m sure it’s not for the right reasons lol. I’m sure it’s all being born out of wanting to control the public perception of this, but they did bring in a third party to investigate. They do seem to be investing in Black talent to a point – You have the Ta-Nehisi Coates Superman project at DC, but also some other high profile deals being inked elsewhere.If Ray Fisher is going to say more on this, I hope that he makes a list of “demands” beyond Johns and Hamada. What would he ideally like to see the studio do moving forward? What’s a measurable that would help WB Media to right this wrong?
I got a Community notification for this?
Play Cyborg like QuasimodoWell, this sounds like something DC would do, actually.
…and forcing a scene to be reshot so they could highlight the existence of Cyborg’s penisWell, this sounds like something Zack Snyder would do, actually.
It says a lot that for the past fucking year posters here have diminished Ray Fisher, citing lack of evidence and at every step he’s proven to have been right, he wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt as a black man. Instead despite numerous others backing up his claims, he’s still not given any credibility.He said what he needed to and he had the receipts because the Warner investigation confirmed the fact that some wrongdoing took place, and this was months ago.He doesn’t need to prove anything you.This is how you people treat every person making allegations? Or is it a special case because he starred in a movie you irrationally hated so much it dehumanizes him for you? Or is it simply because he’s a black man?I’m fucking glad seeing the positive reaction Fisher’s posts have gotten on social media and other sites, and that a lot of you being gross here are not reflective of the majority.
I disagree. I find it nice and relaxing to see, for once, people not jumping screaming at conclusions on the basis of one keyword and a pre-existing narrative, not reacting with the usual internet “I know everything like I was there, I know it even better than the protagonists”, and actually showing instead some caution, nuance and perplexity for a remote story.This doesn’t mean having no opinion, no assumptions or no values, but it means, with the distance, weighting them with the unknowable (of facts and minds). Adding some “if…then” and some “rather” to one’s thoughts or declaration, despite the glorious thrill of grandiose posturing, or the enthusiasm of seeing mere mirrors or symbols everywhere.If the internet general public could play it less often “omniscient judge and jury” (a role that somehow we’re all being pressured to incarnate) and accept more often how many unknown variables they deal with, we’d already live in a much, much less toxic and polarized sociopolitical environment.
Interesting that you used this exact same argument to defend Gina Carano (https://news.avclub.com/1846119079)…
How “interesting” ? It’s a point I make in all instances of twitteric mob wraths. Of course I keep repeating the same thing.
This is a shockingly reasonable take from you, who does everything they can to keep the shrieking outrage of the AV Club cranked to 11. I guess because this goes along with your weird hatred of Zack Snyder?
Or maybe it’s that his accusations about Johns have been either incredibly vague or secondhand information? He’s not obligated to prove anything but information he learned secondhand isn’t really evidence because he has no way to personally verify it.I’m not saying he has a right to not be upset or that it didn’t happen or even that he needs to present actual evidence, just that I feel the evidence he’s presented is flimsy at best.
A lot of people here can’t reconcile the irrational level of hate for all things Zack Snyder related having out-weighed their general willingness to believe victims. As we’ve seen with Trumpistas, hate is often a more powerful motivator than compassion.
This. 100%. If Snyder were a beloved, critically-acclaimed filmmaker, then folks would be siding with Fisher instead of twisting themselves into knots trying to justify why their contemptuous dismissals of his allegations are “woke.”
at every step he’s proven to have been rightLike the step where he alleged racism based on a conversation for which he wasn’t present and it turned out it was just color-matching between film and digital? That kind of “proven right?”
I think Fisher has a legitimate greivance but “play cyborg like Quasimodo” is not problematic. The character should be played like that, a tragic hero who thinks his phyiscal appearence is what matters when instead it’s what’s inside that counts, and people can see that under the metal and machine [hunchback] he is a real person still.It makes me worry that he has misinterpreted that note so badly.
Has such an inconsequential film(s) ever previously generated such a large volume of internet comments?
Yes.
If there’s one good thing about 2020, it made me forget all about that silliness.
I remember this one Snyder Tribalist who had posting privileges over on Observation Deck, one of the User-run blogs that got purged last year, who threw this massive hissy fit over people saying Ghostbusters (2016) was just ok. He ended up dismissing the mod of ODeck after people told him to chill out. After the whole debacle he ended up losing his posting privileges. (You can read the post itself but not the comment threads here https://web.archive.org/web/20191104170822/https://observationdeck.kinja.com/early-ghostbusters-reviews-are-in-the-greatest-movie-e-1783418747).What makes this ironic is that he literally posted and article months prior to his hissy fit about how people needed to respect his taste in Snyder movies. (https://web.archive.org/web/20191105002132/https://observationdeck.kinja.com/why-every-work-of-art-is-the-greatest-thing-and-the-wor-1783098744). He also blew up at someone else for not being interested in Game of Thrones.
I wish Kinja would let me star this… let’s say 47 times.
At this point, I just can’t help but click on this specific clickbait.
At least this time something was actually said by fisher.
Snakes On A Plane?
My God! This is shocking, damning, and almost certainly 100% true!
Cover up. Really no surprise.
How anyone could watch ‘Firefly’ and not know that Whedon is racist is beyond me. That thing just screamed Confederate sympathiser.
Wait. WAIT. So the hill Fisher is dying on doesn’t concern discrimination he himself experienced, but is instead based on hearsay from other people involved in production? This man really doesn’t want to work in Hollywood again, does he?
“But when you have studio executives (particularly Geoff Johns) saying,
‘We can’t have an angry Black man at the center of the movie’…”Wait. So, originally, Cyborg was supposed to be at the center of “Justice League”? Like the whole film was going to revolve around him?Were the rest of the Superfriends “Just us, don’t tell Cyborg” League going to be off on a secret adventure or something and he was mad because they didn’t wake him up? Because that would make me angry too – and I’m white.
Seriously though, I’d watch the shit out of a Home Alone movie with Cyborg protecting the Hall of Justice from the Penguin and the Riddler. There’s no way it could have been worse than the one they made.
Allegedly, Snyder’s vision for Justice League was to use Cyborg as the audience surrogate who had just become Cyborg and was joining/meeting the other people for the first time. There was a substantial flashback that was cut. Snyder has said as recently as a few days ago that Cyborg is the character everything turns on in his film.
The weirdest thing about John supposedly cutting out all the Cyborg stuff is that the Justice League movie pulls heavily from Justice League: Origin, which was written by Johns and added Cyborg as a member of the Justice League.Personally I’m not exactly a fan of Johns, but it seems hard to believe he’d be arguing for the changes to the script that came directly from his books.
I’ve also seen enough stuff to think that like Joss Whedon, I have no desire to be buddies, coworkers or anything else with Johns, but I think part of the exhaustion with this particular conversation from those following it is that it almost feels this is what Ray Fisher wanted (and perhaps was promised by Snyder):
While Johns is a creator himself, he’s still an executive and a producer, and the ultimate goal is for the movie to make as much money as possible. Because of that, it wouldn’t surprise me if his colleagues and others on that level basically leaned on him to shy away from using Cyborg as the centerpiece (or audience surrogate) for the film.
Also, when you’re talking about a movie with a ballooning budget nearing $300m on just production (not including marketing and advertising), last minute script changes and reshoots become incredibly expensive. Therefore, it’s easier to hash all of the shit out prior to shooting, than to spend millions of dollars and days/week/months on filming scenes that will be left on the cutting room floor and will effectively be a money pit, since no one aside from the production team will ever see them.
Given that Snyder left midway through, you could assume that the stuff that was cut is essentially a sunk cost, but what would be financially disastrous is if the stuff that was cut was integral to the flow of the plot, and then Whedon had to come in and shoot scenes that essentially filled in those blanks while still making (somewhat) narrative sense.
Plot wise, it makes a great deal of sense that you’d focus more on Cyborg than some of the other characters, for the simple fact that the character would be the least known to the wider audience, his actor would be the least know to the audience, and his character (in the movie) knows where the last Mother Box is hidden. It would be narratively odd for this complete unknown to have both a little bit of screentime and also know where the last Mother Box is hidden, because his father used said Mother Box to build his body.
Honestly, if there’s one character who wasn’t at all necessary to the plot, it was The Flash. One of the Motherboxes was in Atlantis, necessitating Aquaman. One was hidden by Cyborg, necessitating Cyborg. The other was in Themyscira, necessitating Wonder Woman. Batman and Superman were a given. The Flash was the odd one out, narratively, and I get the sense that by shoehorning him in, that took a lot of time away from Cyborg who was more narratively integral. Further, given all the chaos with actually getting The Flash movie made, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Flash became more important when Snyder left and Joss came in, at the diminution of Cyborg.
The “We can’t have an angry black man at the center of the movie” comment raises some thoughts. Let’s presume, for the sake of argument, it does reflect the sentiment of the studio:* Cyborg, while very aware of racism, is not angry primarily because of it. Vic Stone is angry because he feels he’s been turned into a monster and has major father issues. Similar anger animates The Thing and Orion. While its understandable, if not excusable, that the studio might have been trying to avoid association with black political anger in that particular period (it was the Obama era but also the time that saw the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement), that seems to presume that audiences can’t differentiate one type of anger from another.* Geoff Johns chose Cyborg to replace Green Lantern John Stewart, the previous major black hero in the Justice League. Stewart started as an angry black man stereotype, but by the time Johns removed him Stewart had evolved to be a more complicated, nuanced character defined by a qualities like a strong sense of duty. Cyborg, meanwhile, is always defined by some level of anger, whether directed at his father or condition or both.* The Justice League movie that resulted featured not only an angry Superman, and an angry Aquaman, but was anchored by Batman, one of the angriest superheroes of all, at its center.
Executives discussing concerns about opening in China.
does this clear the way for a 4 hour Cyborg movie? (Snyder Cut)
I’m sure that’ll be the inevitable Justice League 2 that the huge cliffhanger will create so much demand for.
I have a crazy idea — how about nobody does a Black Superman? How about giving a Black lead their own superhero character that isn’t piggy-backing off of a known property and allow a Black person to establish their own brand? It’s not like Black Panther was one of the biggest films of all time…(RIP Chadwick)Also, this kind of thing gives more dogwhistle bait to the idiot right-wingers who are already wound up about Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss, and The Muppets. While these people are stupid, they still vote, and big-C conservatism is based on reactionary responses to stuff like this. No one is asking for Black Superman. Coates is a wonderful, talented writer, but we don’t need this.
Might say these are not additional details, but the only real details he has ever released. At all. From a second hand source.
“Ray Fisher Gives More Vague Descriptions Of Things That Were Possibly Said That He Heard From Someone About Other People”
Ask yourself this – would Fisher quoting an anonymous person who is recounting a meeting with a bunch of people hold up in court? Or even come close to it?I mean I think Whedon is a pretty clear piece of shit, Charisma’s story and the reactions from other actors since makes that likely. I’ll generally believe anyone who has a firsthand experience about someone sucking. But Fisher doesn’t have that yet.Also what exactly is the gripe with Walter Hamada? Is it that the guy didn’t take action on a secondhand account of what happened? It seems strange that Hamada is who Fisher seemingly hates the most.
This is the part I keep coming back to and wondering on.
It’s not even just an apology. He’s made it clear he wants Hamada gone and was willing to throw and poorly calculated ‘He goes or I go’ ultimatum behind it (which, again, I question the logic on – he had NO leverage behind making a demand like that, what did he think was going to be gained?.)
Can someone inform me of what happened to professionalism in the workplace? Normal studio behavior? What does that even mean?Professionalism is the building block to evolving all fashioned and out-of-touch beliefs held by individuals. I believed that Hollywood had a workforce that strives to evolve what it means to be a human by striving to reinforce the value of team Dynamics to improve the relationship between all, no matter your age, gender, or belief of outdated tribal-based identities. I truly believed they are a gateway to reconciling challenging interpersonal relationships between individuals. However, it appears we still have a long ways to go.