Actress Selma Blair has announced that she is leaving Twitter, several days after defending James Gunn and urging Disney to re-hire the Guardians Of The Galaxy director, who was let go after controversial, decade-old Tweets recently resurfaced.
Blair was one of many Hollywood stars who came to Gunn’s defence in the wake of his firing. “I thank you for your talent, your decency and your evolution as a man. You propped me up when I was in a scary place, and guided me towards the decent and right thing to do,” she wrote.
“You have shown strength of character more than most anyone I know. You understood.” Selma Blair is a long-time friend of James Gunn’s, and says he, alongside Doctor Strange‘s Scott Derrickson, helped convince her to come forward with sexual assault allegations against director James Toback.
In a subsequent Tweet, the actress shared a Change.org petition urging Marvel and Disney to re-hire the director. “[If] people are punished despite changing, then what does that teach people about owning mistakes and evolving? This man is one of the good ones,” she wrote.
On Thursday of this week, Blair shared a Guardian article entitled “Was James Gunn the first undeserving victim of Hollywood’s new zero-tolerance policy?”, and asked “does anyone else have feelings about leaving Twitter?”
https://twitter.com/SelmaBlair/status/1022782404228857856
It was one of several similar articles she shared, along with an Irish Times piece entitled “We’re all done for. Delete everything. Live in a cave.”, before a Tweet earlier today when she announced: “So long. You can find me on Instagram.”
https://twitter.com/SelmaBlair/status/1023336813321117696
While it may seem relatively inconsequential that the star of Cruel Intentions has announced her departure from Twitter, Selma Blair’s decision seems indicative of a broader shift in people’s perception of the social media platform, where every idle thought can be preserved in text and screenshot-form for years to come.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson recently deleted 20,000 Tweets from his own account, saying “I don’t think I’ve ever tweeted anything that bad. But it’s nine years of stuff written largely off the cuff as ephemera, if trolls scrutinizing it for ammunition is the new normal, this seems like a ‘why not?’ move.”
Gunn, who directed the first two Guardians movies, was fired by Disney after a series of Tweets containing jokes about child abuse and paedophilia resurfaced. Various stars from the franchise have spoken out, with Chris Pratt tweeting a bible verse saying “let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” and Zoe Saldana declaring her love for her “GOTG family.”
“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters. Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”
JAMES 1:19
🙏♥️— Chris Pratt (@prattprattpratt) July 22, 2018
It’s been a challenging weekend I’m not gonna lie. I’m pausing myself to take everything in before I speak out of term. I just want everyone to know I love ALL members of my GOTG family. Always will.
— Zoe Saldana (@zoesaldana) July 22, 2018
Dave Bautista has been the most outspoken, accusing Disney of empowering fascists by firing Gunn, on the basis that his old Tweets were unearthed and shared by figures from the far-right. “Never ever make a mistake!” he wrote. “Don’t have a sense of humour! Don’t be politically outspoken! Etc fucking etc!!!”
I think today I’ll find a good person who spreads the message of https://t.co/rhZk7pzEsD.Forgiveness.Redemption. Misfit,Child,Female Empowerment and ruin his life. Fuck it! I’ll go ahead and empower some fascists while Im at it! DISCLAIMER FOR MORONS AND FUTURE VIEWS: Im JOKING!
— Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) July 27, 2018
A replacement director for the third Guardians has yet to be announced.
