Joss Whedon, the director of current Marvel superhero smash hit Avengers: Age of Ultron, has quit Twitter and deleted his account.
In a final message he wrote: “Thank you to all the people who’ve been so kind and funny and inspiring up in here.” It comes as the Avengers sequel hits cinemas, and viewers have gone on to Twitter to vent frustrations with the film’s plotlines – from perceived sexism in its handling of Scarlett Johansson’s character Black Widow, to the depiction of lightning-fast superhero Quicksilver.
The comedian and actor Patton Oswalt subsequently attacked Whedon’s critics:
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 also retweeted another message, which read: “There’s an ugly strain of social progressives that like to attack others for not being the ‘right’ kind of progressives.”
Whedon has expressed his frustration at Twitter before, telling Entertainment Weekly that using it was “enormous work – very fun, but it really started to take up a huge amount of my head space ... It’s a fascinating medium, it’s a fascinating social phenomenon. People are like, ‘It’s like a drug.’ Yeah, and it’s like a job. It’s just another art form. Until I have a script I truly believe in or a tweet that’s really remarkable, I can just walk away and get back to the storytelling I need to do.”
Whedon was sometimes outspoken on the social network, recently writing about a clip from 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 later apologised, saying: “it’s uncouth of me to attack somebody else’s material.”
Avengers: Age of Ultron has already been the expected huge success for Marvel, netting the second-largest opening weekend ever in the US, and $630m so far globally.
