This is a touchy subject, so if you want to post about it, if there is anything remotely controversial about your post, PLEASE take a deep breath, count to ten, and think BEFORE you hit the "post" button. This thread is not intended to get too political, or to cause strife. Just to respectfully air thoughts and grapple with the issues, for those who care to discuss them. Hopefully, we can do so without this becoming a thread that has to either be locked or sent to P/R. Maybe that's inevitable, but I hope not.
With that out of the way, I'm struggling to decide how I feel about the whole thing as far as what Marvel should do. My personal feeling is, at present: nothing. The trial has not happened yet. He has not been convicted of anything and all the evidence is not out there yet. I don't want to rush to judgment one way or the other without knowing the whole story, and in situations like these, it is FAR too common to hear one side's story without yet having the full story from the other side and think there is only one correct conclusion, only to then hear the other side's case and then have serious doubts about the earlier position, if not flip positions entirely.
But that all changes once the evidence comes out. Maybe he is convicted and maybe he isn't. But if he isn't, maybe there wasn't enough evidence to convict, but still more than enough for the court of public opinion to rightly conclude that he did a lot of despicable stuff. So the real question is, what should Marvel do then?
I've seen this quote pop up in a couple of articles now, and I just don't think it's a helpful take: "'Marvel is truly f**ked with the whole Kang angle,' one source said. 'And they haven’t had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the WGA strike]. But I don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.'"
Personally, my thought process is complicated, and I'm not sure. If he truly is a bad dude, what is or should be the outcome on his career? I mean, if he sexually assaulted someone in connection with a Marvel project, he's fired, obviously. They have jurisdiction over that as his employer. But that isn't what we're talking about, so the issue is, should they take action for something he may have done outside of Marvel (again, assuming there is sufficient evidence--if there ultimately isn't, I personally feel that "canceling" someone over just public perception is wrong), what should they do? I'm not saying he should get a "pass" and that's it's all "hey, *wink, wink*--he's a good actor, and it's not our problem." But to me, it's really not their problem. And I have a hard time feeling that it's justifiable to punish someone for something they do that has nothing to do with you. But I also acknowledge that it's hard to separate the two when your business is all about public perception, as is the case in the entertainment industry. And if someone's conduct tarnishes your brand image, you get to do what you need to do to fix that. I get that too. I struggle with how I would personally feel if, again, it comes out that he likely did some bad stuff. If that happens and Marvel still uses him as Kang going forward (and from a storytelling perspective, I hope it does work out such that he can continue in that role, because I feel like he is KILLING IT), how will I feel about that? Would I feel compelled to stop watching? Maybe. I'm not sure. In similar situations where a band, or a sports team, or an entertainment franchise has someone who does despicable things, it's a "case-by-case" basis for me in terms of my threshold. It depends on a lot of factors, like what the specific conduct was, how long ago it happened (not that there is a statute of limitations on being despicable, but time changes a person, and maybe they have grown and aren't quite that person anymore if it happened a long time ago), whether they are remorseful, etc. I just don't know how I feel, but thought this is as good a place as any to try to hash it out, where we have enough folks that are thoughtful and level headed enough to try.
Topic: Marvel / Jonathan Majors saga (Read 1202 times)