Jump to content

Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best says media backlash was so bad, he considered suicide


Recommended Posts

34 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Goddamn, if your skin is that thin, you're probably not ready to be in movies. If you star in a fucking commercial for a toothpaste you'd better be ready for death threats. That's just how some shitty and/or crazy people are.

This is goddamned bullshit and you should be ashamed of yourself for writing it.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

If you do anything, the expectation shouldn't be death threats. We can't continue to tell people to suck it up and just brush off bad people.

The expectation shouldn't be death threats. Obviously. But that's how it is. That's how it has been, and that's how it's going to continue to be. It's not that he should just "suck it up," it's that someone should've prepped him that this is exactly the kind of bullshit you can expect in the industry.

 

Unless someone has a good fucking plan to deal with anonymous crazy people.

 

3 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

This is goddamned bullshit and you should be ashamed of yourself for writing it.

If you say so. Again, if anyone ever comes up with a fucking solution, lemme know. You're not going to talk sense into crazy people, and crazy people are the ones who are obsessed enough to give death threats most of the time. Ergo, this is an expected part of the business and no amount of "It shouldn't be like this!" is going to fucking fix it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

The expectation shouldn't be death threats. Obviously. But that's how it is. That's how it has been, and that's how it's going to continue to be. It's not that he should just "suck it up," it's that someone should've prepped him that this is exactly the kind of bullshit you can expect in the industry.

 

Unless someone has a good fucking plan to deal with anonymous crazy people.

 

If you say so. Again, if anyone ever comes up with a fucking solution, lemme know. You're not going to talk sense into crazy people, and crazy people are the ones who are obsessed enough to give death threats most of the time. Ergo, this is an expected part of the business and no amount of "It shouldn't be like this!" is going to fucking fix it.

There's a very easy solution. Just start banning these shitty people from social media. There's a difference between shitting in a character in a movie and shitting on the movie. If Facebook and Twitter made it easy to just report and get these people off the, this wouldn't be such a problem. The issue is that neither company really wants to do anything about it and will normally just play lip service to the toxicity. Twitter is, by far, the worst in this aspect.

 

If you can't dislike something without harassing people and making death threats, maybe you just shouldn't be allowed to interact with your fellow humans online.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

The expectation shouldn't be death threats. Obviously. But that's how it is. That's how it has been, and that's how it's going to continue to be. It's not that he should just "suck it up," it's that someone should've prepped him that this is exactly the kind of bullshit you can expect in the industry.

 

Unless someone has a good fucking plan to deal with anonymous crazy people.

 

If you say so. Again, if anyone ever comes up with a fucking solution, lemme know. You're not going to talk sense into crazy people, and crazy people are the ones who are obsessed enough to give death threats most of the time. Ergo, this is an expected part of the business and no amount of "It shouldn't be like this!" is going to fucking fix it.

 

Well a start would be not having a defeatist attitude because that is part of the problem.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, DPCyric said:

 

Well a start would be not having a defeatist attitude because that is part of the problem.

Good, that's step 0, what's step 1?

 

Banning people from social media would solve a portion of this... sort of. You can just make more accounts. But even if you had an effective, 100% ban, the death threats that really get to people are the more serious shit, likely what this guy got. 20 years ago he wasn't getting harassed via Twitter or Facebook. He was likely getting death threat calls and physical mail. Possibly people showing up at his house.

 

You will never stop all crazy people. The idea that that's a defeatist attitude is silly. Obviously you can curb it to an extent, but I consider it highly irresponsible for anyone letting another star in a gig like this where you're going to be featured very prominently to not prep and train the person in question on how people can be fucking lunatics.

 

That's not "it's the victim's fault" -- that's a bullshit, dismissive argument. There's the way the world should be, and the way the world is. You can be aware of how the world should be, but you should still live your life based on how the world is. Because all the justice and after-the-fact handling of any situation can't undo what actually happens. We can't un-kill people. So black people train their kids on how to interact with cops, even though they shouldn't have to. Parents teach their daughters to be careful what they wear in certain areas and where to avoid at night, even though they shouldn't have to. It's good to want to make reality better, but reality will steamroll you whether you think it should be better or not.

 

I mean, I don't literally think this will never cease to be an issue. If we can work on our mental health issues in this nation, if we can make sure people understand respect and how to not be a deranged lunatic, if we can get exceptional protections against this kind of behavior, you could make a real dent in it. But right now? If you're any kind of famous at all, you need to learn how to deal with it or you could end up actually killing yourself rather than almost doing it like this guy did. Although I think specifically agencies/individual agents should always be keeping their clients informed. Studios, too. I can see this easily blindsiding people like Ahmed here. 


Of course it would be wonderful if he never had to deal with that. No sane person thinks harassment or threats to people is some kind of acceptable behavior. But I'd rather have these people prepped for reality than living in an ideal world that doesn't yet exist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's also reductionist to blame this all on "crazy people," as if these kinds of issues arise only from some tiny population of clinically insane people. I would guess that most of it comes from otherwise "normal" people.

 

I think the problems are the result of people basing their identity on media properties. When someone makes a bad movie (or even a good one that makes choices you disagree with), it feels like a personal attack on these people because they've decided that these media properties define them. Some companies work hard to make people feel that way, but somehow as a culture we need to be better at preventing that.

 

The other part of it is an unnecessary and destructive differentiation in empathy when using different modes of communication. No one should feel comfortable harassing or threatening people just because it's done over the phone or the mail or the internet. I'm sure that there's a plethora of reasons that these kinds of interactions are so different than "normal" conversations, but I think we need to do better at bringing more civility into our online discourse. It shouldn't be any more acceptable to berate someone on twitter or facebook or in freaking twitch chat than it would be to do it in person. As so much more of our everyday conversations migrate to these public platforms, we need to do better at framing all those conversations as normal and have similar expectations of what conduct is acceptable.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Good, that's step 0, what's step 1?

 

Banning people from social media would solve a portion of this... sort of. You can just make more accounts. But even if you had an effective, 100% ban, the death threats that really get to people are the more serious shit, likely what this guy got. 20 years ago he wasn't getting harassed via Twitter or Facebook. He was likely getting death threat calls and physical mail. Possibly people showing up at his house.

 

You will never stop all crazy people. The idea that that's a defeatist attitude is silly. Obviously you can curb it to an extent, but I consider it highly irresponsible for anyone letting another star in a gig like this where you're going to be featured very prominently to not prep and train the person in question on how people can be fucking lunatics.

 

That's not "it's the victim's fault" -- that's a bullshit, dismissive argument. There's the way the world should be, and the way the world is. You can be aware of how the world should be, but you should still live your life based on how the world is. Because all the justice and after-the-fact handling of any situation can't undo what actually happens. We can't un-kill people. So black people train their kids on how to interact with cops, even though they shouldn't have to. Parents teach their daughters to be careful what they wear in certain areas and where to avoid at night, even though they shouldn't have to. It's good to want to make reality better, but reality will steamroll you whether you think it should be better or not.

 

I mean, I don't literally think this will never cease to be an issue. If we can work on our mental health issues in this nation, if we can make sure people understand respect and how to not be a deranged lunatic, if we can get exceptional protections against this kind of behavior, you could make a real dent in it. But right now? If you're any kind of famous at all, you need to learn how to deal with it or you could end up actually killing yourself rather than almost doing it like this guy did. Although I think specifically agencies/individual agents should always be keeping their clients informed. Studios, too. I can see this easily blindsiding people like Ahmed here. 


Of course it would be wonderful if he never had to deal with that. No sane person thinks harassment or threats to people is some kind of acceptable behavior. But I'd rather have these people prepped for reality than living in an ideal world that doesn't yet exist.

 

Maybe we should strip away more of the anonymity the internet provides? There definitely should be harsher punishments for bullying and people being abusive in general. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phantom Menace released in 99.  Facebook launched in 2004.  Social media as we know it now did not exist so you can't blame this guys torture on social media.  

 

I think the first part of this conversation - We all here agree that anyone who makes death threats or anything of the kind is a bad person.

 

That being said, I think most of us would also agree that Jar Jar is a historically bad film character and anyone involved deserved the bad reviews and bad press that naturally comes with the job of actors.   This is where I would agree with Xbob in part.  If you create something and put it out for consumption - you need to expect feedback.  Some will love it and some will hate it.  Your life can be changed for good or bad by either fans or haters.  If you aren't ready for fame then you should avoid Star Wars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well when did MySpace exsist.

 

I get it we all hated Jar Jar and how racist a charactor he was. However the charactor was cg the whole time in the movie and his live action performances where painted out. I'm glad he didn't kill himself many other actors have killed themselves over as much or less. An example of one is Jonathan Brandis in 2003.

Jonathan_Brandis.jpg?as=1&w=400

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Rodimus said:

Well when did MySpace exsist.

 

I get it we all hated Jar Jar and how racist a charactor he was. However the charactor was cg the whole time in the movie and his live action performances where painted out. I'm glad he didn't kill himself many other actors have killed themselves over as much or less. An example of one is Jonathan Brandis in 2003.

Jonathan_Brandis.jpg?as=1&w=400

Social media was not then what it is now.  There may have been something in some form out there - but it wasn't the same as today.

 

I think everyone is glad the dude didn't kill himself.  No one wants anyone to commit suicide.  

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, number305 said:

Social media was not then what it is now.  There may have been something in some form out there - but it wasn't the same as today.

 

I think everyone is glad the dude didn't kill himself.  No one wants anyone to commit suicide.  

 

 

It seems Jar Jar was having issues with the media not social media attacking him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On July 4, 2018 at 7:21 AM, Remarkableriots said:

What happened with Kelly Marie Tran shouldn't have happened either just because some people didn't like her character.

What situation? Where she left social media for no apparent reason and some dipshit sock account user claimed it was because of harassment blowing it out of proportion? She left apparently for no reason. Nobody knows because nobody fucking asked her. Instead someone pulled up a reason from their asshole and the Star Wars shill media ran with it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ALIEN-gunner said:

What situation? Where she left social media for no apparent reason and some dipshit sock account user claimed it was because of harassment blowing it out of proportion? She left apparently for no reason. Nobody knows because nobody fucking asked her. Instead someone pulled up a reason from their asshole and the Star Wars shill media ran with it. 

 

Rian Johnson’s tweets about the situation make it pretty clear why she deleted her Instagram presence. Bury your head in the sand if wish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This isn't quite the same thing, but it's been kinda funny to watch. 

After Rian Johnson tweeted that out, thousands of people started following Chis McQuarrie (who had nothing to do with TLK or Star Wars) and they've been bringing him into fights about TLJ and doing a lot of arguing about their right to yell at content creators.

You can see a bunch of it in his feed, and it's almost entertaining, but also quite sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ALIEN-gunner said:

Rian "Round-Head" Johnson's tweets are based on the same fabricated lie. Keep up please. 

And one more to the ignore list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...