Just a day after Avengers: Age of Ultron officially nabbed the second-best box office weekend debut in Hollywood history, director Joss Whedon has left Twitter. There is rampant speculation that Whedon may have been bullied off the social network from feminists who complained about the use of Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, in the film.
Whedon’s final tweet read, “Thank you to all the people who’ve been so kind and funny and inspiring up in here,” notes The Guardian. After that, he completely deleted his account.
According to The Verge, Whedon also sent another tweet before deleting the account, which imagined Marvel executives telling him, “don't let Joss tweet anything controversial.”
MoviePilot.com gathered some tweets from Twitter users who called Whedon “mysoginist” and even a hyprocrite due to Black Widow’s role in Ultron. Whedon is known for using female characters in powerful roles, including his beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. He also once called out a scene from Jurassic World for being “sexist.”
Whedon has his defenders. Even Patton Oswalt complained about Whedon getting chased off Twitter.
“I joined six months ago to specifically try to drive business to[ Much Ado About Nothing because I figured Much Ado needs all the help it can get. The moment I joined, oh my God, what a responsibility, this is enormous work—very fun, but it really started to take up a huge amount of my head space,” Whedon said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly when asked about Twitter. “I’m making a movie, I got a responsibility, this job doesn’t pay very well. It’s a fascinating medium, it’s a fascinating social phenomenon. People are like, ‘It’s like a drug.’ Yeah, and it’s like a job. It’s just another art form. Until I have a script I truly believe in or a tweet that’s really remarkable, I can just walk away and get back to the storytelling I need to do.”
Whedon isn’t making the next Avengers movie, so if you have complaints, you will have to direct them to Joe and Anthony Russo (who don’t have an active Twitter account).
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com