'Thor' Director Taika Waititi Slammed For Resurfaced Tweets About Trans People
Korg would be so disappointed.
Loredana Sangiuliano / Shutterstock.com / Twitter Taika Waititi, director of the widely successful "Jojo Rabbit" and more recently, T"hor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder," has been trending this week for what most would assume is because of his secret marriage to British singer-songwriter, Rita Ora.
Fans, however, had something else in mind when they brought up Waititi’s name on Twitter — his controversial past from nearly a decade ago.
Taika Waititi is being criticized for resurfaced anti-trans tweets.
During a rant about beauty pageants and the Miss Universe competition, Waititi ended up bashing trans people and pageant contestants and made his views on both abundantly clear.
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“No disrespect to men who want to be/dress as women,” Waititi tweeted on January 16, 2013. “I should have just said their makeup looks manly. Also no disrespect to meth users.”
The “meth users” remark was seemingly about a moment earlier in the rant in which he wrote, “Combining heels and bikini whilst plastering your face in orange so you resemble a leather pudding is totes empowering.”
Despite his offenses towards the pageant and its contestants, most people took issue with the transphobic part of the tweet where he said he should’ve called their makeup “manly.”
Trans women aren’t “men who want to be/dress as women,” they are simply women and should be treated as such.
After this series of tweets, Waititi was called out by a Twitter user that went by “@carocreature,” who said “Slut-shaming, transphobia, and immense misogyny all in one tweet. But dude, not cool.”
Twitter
Instead of admitting his faults and offensive and harmful beliefs, Waititi doubled down and responded by saying “no, it is cool.”
After they responded back by informing Waititi of just how problematic his comments are, he said “My trans friends can walk in heels. but you’re right, actual kathoey are better looking.”
“Kathoey” is a word used to describe trans women in Thailand.
Fast forward a couple of years later, and Waititi was writing a tweet that references Caitlyn Jenner by her dead name and compares her to a popular hashtag that was coined after a terrorist attack.
“We'll all be wearing #JeSuis[Caitlyn]Jenner badges by Monday,” he tweeted on April 26, 2015.
The hashtag is a reference to the popular hashtag “#JeSuisCharlie” that circulated after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris that was orchestrated by Al-Qaeda terrorists.
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The hashtag circulated to support the victims of the terrorist attack, but Waititi seems to be mocking the hashtag and comparing Jenner coming out as trans to the attack.
Many people thought Waititi had deadnamed Jenner, but this was tweeted before she announced her new name.
Despite that, Waititi was still mocking the support Jenner for coming out as trans.
Many people are defending Waititi, claiming that he has changed since then.
Recently, in July, Waititi did an interview with Out Magazine where he talks about his LGBTQ+ storytelling in movies like "Thor: Love and Thunder" and HBO Max series "Our Flag Means Death."
“We’re all queer,” he tells the magazine. “Just to varying degrees of where we are on the [sexuality] spectrum I think. I think, innately, humans have all got some degree of queerness in them.”
In movies three and four of Marvel’s Thor series, Waititi voices a gay character named Korg, labeling him somewhat of a gay icon for the LGBTQ+ community.
“I love it. I mean, I'm just amazed to hear what my friends think of me,” he told the magazine. “I'll be like, ‘Hey guys, you're looking at a little gay icon over here,’ and it feels really amazing.”
Waititi has yet to respond to the resurfaced tweets on social media.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing Quadball. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.