#blanket erasing the role that an indigenous man had in creating your favourite show and refusing to credit him for it is not a good look

[queerly-autistic]

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.

[tillychmo]

Seeing this, honestly, makes me really sad. People are such dicks.

I don’t even care if you like him or not – nobody has to like everybody – but could people for the love of shit STOP going out of their way to be outright bullying dicks to him?

Seriously. DO BETTER.

He is a PERSON.

If we're talking from the heart, when I saw it for the first time I felt a little sad. And I'm not surprised that Taika Waititi didn't post anything about Our Flag Means Death. Whatever he does, comments are predictable. And even in the (wonderful) OFMD fandom you can find terrible people. This is normal. But how many times can you read the same insults? This must be boring.

Anyway #SaveOFMD #AdoptOurCrew 💖

[tillychmo]

Thank you, OP!

I’m getting increasingly bothered by the way in which people seem to be OK with actively hating him – esp. considering that the other hundreds of signers on that letter are *not* met with the same vitriol.

I wish that people had better knowledge of how these petition-letters come about in the business, because a lot of people seem to have massively misunderstood how these things work.

For instance – there’s a very real possibility that Taika never actually *read* that letter himself, but rather had the general meaning relayed to him by someone else (like an assistant) before putting his name on it – and for that matter Taika may not have been the one to ‘actively sign’ the letter either.

These things are passed around within the social circles of the business – meaning that if someone within your circle knows about it, then you’ll probably hear about it too. BUT if they’re existing outside of your circle, you may not even hear about them before they’re public.

(In that regard, if your circle only heard about the “Save the hostages”-letter and not the “Ceasefire”-letter that followed a few weeks later, then you wouldn’t have been able to sign that as well, because you literally didn’t know it existed, before it was already published without your name on it.)

The chance that Taika never saw that letter, but was just relayed the content by an assistant – and then told the assistant that it was ok to put his name on it – is huge. The man has a BONKERS schedule. He is producing, directing, writing, and acting in things all at the same time — and yet people seem to expect him to also be flawless? That’s some bananas-high expectations to have for anyone – but especially someone you don’t know. None of us knows what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Some people are acting as though he provided the Israeli army with weapons, ffs.

He signed a f*ckin’ letter.

Along with hundreds of others BTW. Hundreds of others who are in no way being met with the kind of vitriol that he is – do you see Helen Mirren, Jon Hamm, Jason Segel, Will Farrell, or Kristin Chenoweth (to name a FEW others from that list) being met with the same kind of vitriol?

The list of names on that letter is SO long that Taika’s name doesn’t even appear on the first page – and yet, the brown indigenous man (who at the time of the letter being published already had to deal with a ton of hatred on the back of ‘Love & Thunder’) is the one person people seem to hone in on.

And people need to take a seriously hard look inwardly and ask themselves why they seem to be so much more willing to sh*t on one of the only indigenous people on that list, more than any other name on there. Because it sure smells like racism (with a dash of antisemitism) …

And HEY. Let me be quite clear:

You’re absolutely allowed to not like Taika Waititi. You do not have to like everybody.

But there’s a massive difference between disliking someone and then the outright vitriol and hatred that Taika is being met with whenever he dares to breathe a single word online (including a post made for his wife’s birthday) – which is probably why he has decided (or his publicist has ordered him) to steer clear of SoMe the past few months.

Dislike Taika as much as you want – but stop being bullies. The sheer level of hatred towards him has *massively* surpassed any ’crime’ here.

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.

[yourftmfriend]

EXACTLY

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.

[buildmybaby]

People need to chill with the hate like he’s human.

Taika was so amazing in the role and I hate how recently no one gives him credit or when they talk about how amazing Ed’s eyes are or how beautifully ed talked they never thank Taika for providing such a beautiful and human view to HIS CHARACTER. No one would play Ed like Taika did. The fandom should understand that.

You don’t have to like him but at least give him the credit he deserves

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.