Joss Whedon, the director of Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” abruptly deleted his Twitter account on Monday. And although Whedon hasn’t divulged his reasons, he had been receiving some pretty biting criticism recently from feminists outraged by Black Widow’s supposedly “sexist” portrayal in his movie.
Some were distressed by, among other things, Black Widow’s sorrow over her inability to have children. Others were upset by a reference to “Prima Nocta,” a term for lords claiming the right to peasant girls’ virginity on their wedding nights.
Patton Oswalt accused the “‘Tea Party’ equivalent of progressivism/liberalism” of driving Whedon away:
Yep. There is a “Tea Party” equivalent of progressivism/liberalism. And they just chased Joss Whedon off Twitter. Good job, guys. Ugh.
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) May 4, 2015
He then retweeted this:
@SaraJBenincasa There’s an ugly strain of social progressives that like to attack others for not being the “right” kind of progressives.
— Matt Baldwin (@thisbrokenwheel) May 4, 2015
Fellow Marvel director James Gunn also seemed to blame Whedon’s departure on internet bullying:
Most of you are aware of this, but anyone who urges a filmmaker to kill himself over a movie plot point needs to seriously examine his life.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 5, 2015
As fans it’s our duty to take what we don’t love with what we do & accept not everything will play out onscreen as we imagined.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 5, 2015
Here’s one collage of some of the hateful messages Whedon had been receiving, calling him a “sexist a–hole” and “master of misogyny”:
This is the real reason why @josswhedon left twitter.
I don’t blame him. pic.twitter.com/Xfk7n0XvGS
— John Galt (@atlasnodded) May 4, 2015
Before deleting his account, Wheedon tweeted “Thank you to all the people who’ve been so kind and funny and inspiring up in here.”
The director had complained about the platform in the past, telling Entertainment Weekly, “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 himself, however, was not above making the same accusations of “sexism” that may have driven him off–he once tweeted about Jurassic World, “I’m too busy wishing this clip wasn’t 70s era sexist. She’s a stiff, he’s a life-force – really? Still?” He eventually apologized for the remark.
