Navigating social media with grace can be a tricky thing. A knee jerk reaction tweet (see: Donald Trump’s entire feed) can haunt you long after you’ve sent it out, thought better of it, and deleted it, and often you can find yourself digging your own online grave with just a few characters. That happened over the weekend for Finn Jones, of Game of Thrones and soon-to-be Iron Fist fame, when he learned that sometimes, listening to voices other than your own will serve you well.
On Sunday, just a couple of weeks out from the release of Iron Fist, Jones tweeted out a link to Rogue One star Riz Ahmed’s speech on diversity in culture and how representation matters. Now, this in and of itself is not a bad thing at all. However, there has certainly been some backlash to him playing Danny Rand (who is canonically white in the Iron Fist comics) when the character, who leans heavily on Asian influences, could have instead been played by a person of Asian descent.
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838391182380122113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Asyi Kinney, the creative director of Geeks of Color, responded to the tweet with “………… Are you for real?,” sending Jones off on a tirade in defense of his new show. While Jones is entitled to defending his show, a white guy lecturing a woman of color about how to do diversity correctly is not a good look.
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838533828654346242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838534011022639104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838534067289264129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838539262987489280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838540179384193024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Kinney, who has made her Twitter account private since the exchange, also tweeted “I don’t doubt it. I’m just saying an Asian Danny Rand could’ve made an even bigger impact but sure. Do you.” Jones took that as an opportunity to lecture further.
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838547818012884992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/FinnJones/status/838548231583842305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Following the exchange, Jones deleted his Twitter account for less than a day before once again joining the fray. He told Deadline on Monday, “I’m currently in the middle of filming and I need to stay focused on bringing to life this character without judgment, so I decided to remove myself from Twitter for the time being.” Well, good luck with that. In the meantime, maybe think before you tweet.
(Via Deadline)
