You may or may not have heard of Hartley Sawyer. He played Ralph Dibny aka The Elongated Man on The Flash until a couple of days ago.He was fired from the DC TV series after several Tweets that have been deemed to contain misogynist and racist references recently resurfaced.
Sawyer posted the controversial Tweets before signing on to play Dibny on The Flash, and even though he has since deleted his account, screenshots of the offending posts have been circulating online over the past week or so. WB released the following statement:
“Hartley Sawyer will not be returning for season seven of The Flash,” reads a statement from The CW, producers Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions and executive producer Eric Wallace (via THR). “In regards to Mr. Sawyer’s posts on social media, we do not tolerate derogatory remarks that target any race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Such remarks are antithetical to our values and polices, which strive and evolve to promote a safe, inclusive and productive environment for our workforce.”
Sawyer issued an apology on Instagram, pointing out that the Tweets were made in jest while adding that they were “really horrible attempts to get attention at that time,” and that he is deeply sorry if his words caused any harm.
In this case, he probably did deserve to lose his job, but should that be the case for everyone? Should you lose your job over things you did or said 5-10 years ago? I am just asking. I don’t know the answer. I just think people can change a lot in that time frame.
You can check out a thread of the Tweets in question below along with Sawyer’s Instagram post.
a collection of @HartleySawyer‘s misogynistic, racist, fatphobic, etc. tweets (sorry if there’s duplicates) pic.twitter.com/Kv0afDbiP1
— steph (@themirrorin6x17) May 30, 2020
