Death Threats: the shocking cost of playing a hero

[Techwright]

Watching a reaction video, I was just clued in by the comments to a dreadful cost of actors taking on a superhero role: death threats.

 

Wyatt Russell, who currently plays John Walker, designated the second Captain America, has apparently received death threats from multiple parties because he "dared" to take up the shield.  And these came out before episode 4 of The Falcon & the Winter Soldier, where things go to a very dark place for John Walker.   I can only imagine what Mr. Russell must go through now.

 

Going even deeper into darkness, apparently several of the MCU actors have received messages of violence and death threats for their roles in the MCU:

 

Brie Larson

Hayley Atwell

Emily VanCamp

Robert Downey Jr.

Don Cheadle

Anthony Mackie

(per a list from one commenter on Twitter)

 

I also understand that quite a bit of hate was stirred at the discovery within The Falcon & The Winter Soldier that apparently Tony Stark didn't pay the Avengers.  That they had to eek a living from others' generosity.    Think of that: a real world rage because of a fictional scenario that someone decided would be in the script.

 

This world has always had the one-off kooks, at least as far back as the burning of the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders) by Herostratus, who did so for infamy.  I'm never fine with these one-shot maniacs, but to hear there are many of them threatening actors over fictional material?   Madness.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Techwright

[Glacier Peak]

The disturbed seeing fiction as reality. This is pretty disheartening nonetheless. 

[BjorJlen]

   I totally agree with you @Techwright, but unfortunately these are the times we live in. So sad. 😞 Everyone in the public eye (and private too) suffer from threats (death ones or otherwise), disrespect, and even hate at times. Which is why I always think we should all be good for goodness sake, and show everyone (by example, not just in words), the best a person can be given any situation. But madness still rears it's ugly head, and some people just want to watch the world burn. Sad but true...

[Ulysses Dare]

What boggles my mind, aside from the general stupidity of death threats themselves, is that the MCU version of John Walker is much less of a d-bag than his comic book counterpart. And the circumstances by which he picked up the shield are much less controversial. Nevermind that the show is called "Falcon and Winter Soldier", we know darn well who's eventually going to wind up with the shield. This is about the journey where Sam proves to himself, and everyone else, that he deserves it.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ulysses Dare

[PeregrineFalcon]

Sadly this isn't anything new. Celebrities have always gotten death threats, and they've always had their crazies and stalkers.

 

We're pretty stable as a species, but it's a matter of percentages. If just .1% of the population has mental health issues, and you're living in a small town of 1,000 people, then you have 1 guy who's known as the village crazy. But, if you have a world population of 7 billion, that .1% is 7 million people who are hearing voices. And now days many of them are on Twitter having arguments about what the voices really want.

 

Sad? Yes. New or unusual? Unfortunately not. The world is harsher than most people realize.

[TemporalVileTerror]

 . . . is now a bad time to bring up the death threats that get bandied around against game devs?  Frequently for things completely outside of the control or input of said devs.

And then there are the threats of an arguably worse nature which tend to get flung at devs who also happen to be "different people."

 

None of it is okay or acceptable, and we should't make excuses for it.  I'm glad you brought this up @Techwright, as it helps to address the problem if we ever want to find real solutions.  These are important topics to discuss, however . . . given the code of conduct for this forum, this thread might be operating on borrowed time.  Just something to be mindful of.

[DougGraves]

On 4/10/2021 at 11:34 AM, BjorJlen said:

   I totally agree with you @Techwright, but unfortunately these are the times we live in.

 

Conan Doyle received death threats in the 1890's for killing off Sherlock Holmes.  This is not a modern phenomenon.

[PeregrineFalcon]

23 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Conan Doyle received death threats in the 1890's for killing off Sherlock Holmes.  This is not a modern phenomenon.

Yeah. Something most people don't realize is that we're cavemen who were born in the modern era. Our minds and bodies are the same as humans who lived in 10,000 BC.

 

We're better educated and less violent than we were in 10,000 BC, but our basic nature hasn't changed one bit. We're still the same people we were back then.