Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has called out a group of online commenters for harassing and even doxxing female writers on the show’s writing staff.
The events Harmon is referring to take place over the course of the show’s third season, with a heavy focus on the first few. A Reddit thread posted in the Rick and Morty subreddit singled out various female writers on the show’s staff for some fans’ lack of enjoyment of the third season. That same thread was later used for doxxing members of the writing team, forcing moderators to step in.
Harmon, who told Entertainment Weekly he’s been on a Twitter sabbatical for the past few weeks, admitted he was aware of the thread. Harmon said he also knew going into the third season that high-profile women were often the subjects of online abuse and attacks.
I was familiar going into the third season, having talked to Felicia Day, that any high-profile women get doxxed, they get harassed, they get threatened, they get slandered. And part of it is a testosterone-based subculture patting themselves on the back for trolling these women. Because to the extent that you get can get a girl to shriek about a frog you’ve proven girls are girly and there’s no crime in assaulting her with a frog because it’s all in the name of proving something. I think it’s all disgusting.
In a statement to the magazine, Harmon said he hasn’t made it a secret how much he loathes these types of viewers. Harmon added that going after a single writer shows ignorance toward how TV series and writing rooms work, explaining that audiences shouldn’t be able to tell who was credited with writing an episode as it’s a team effort.
In the Reddit thread where this all began, moderator elastical_gomez updated the thread to address the situation. Elastical_gomez made it clear that smear campaigns will be removed and multiple offenders will receive a temporary ban.
Plenty of women have been involved with the creation and production since the beginning of the show. Women work on R&M as producers, coordinators, assistants, voice actors, production managers, storyboard artists, designers, colorists, editors & animators not to mention all the people who work at the network, marketing, etc. The whole process is highly collaborative and everyone contributes to the end product. Whatever issues you have with the showpast [sic] 2 episodes, it has nothing to do with the writers' genders. The fact that this is even getting brought up is absurd. Interdimensional Cable 2, Needful Things and Raising Gazorpazorp didn't get crazy stellar fan reactions, and no one brought up the writers' dicks as being a factor (when in reality those episodes didn't do as well because of the writers' dicks /s)
The harassment wasn’t just contained to the subreddit. Writers like Jane Becker and Jessica Gao, two high-profile writers who earned writing credit for the episodes being moaned about, received vulgar comments from people on Twitter and Facebook. Another writer on the series, Sarah Carbiener, told The Hollywood Reporter that when female writers were brought on board for the show’s third season — the first time the show ever had female writers on staff — they were interested in focusing more on Beth and Summer. The two characters, while popular among fans, were largely there to help progress Rick and Morty’s arcs. Carbiener said they wanted to bring Beth and Summer forward and get into more nuanced storytelling.
“I don’t think they ever didn’t give Summer and Beth their due," Carbiener told the magazine. "I think a lot of guys in the room were driving those conversations because they realized we need to tell more of these stories, and now that there are women in the room we can vet them and make them better. It wasn’t like we showed up and said, 'Where are all the Beth episodes?’”
It was the deeper storytelling, emotional arcs and focus on Beth and Summer that resulted in the abuse the female writers were served. Despite Rick and Morty’s third season being one of its most critically acclaimed and bringing in some of its most popular characters — Pickle Rick was created by Jessica Gao — there was a group of fans who retaliated for the direction the show was going in.
Other fans have reached out to Carbiener, Gao, Becker and the fourth female writer, Erica Rosbe, on Twitter to offer their support. Harmon told Entertainment Weekly that he wishes he could yell at “these idiots” and inform them that all the writers work on episodes together; it’s not just one individual writer’s standpoint coming across.
“These knobs, that want to protect the content they think they own — and somehow combine that with their need to be proud of something they have, which is often only their race or gender,” Harmon said.
After two seasons of not having female staff writers on the show, Harmon and co-creator finally brought on Gao, Becker, Cabiener and Rosbe for the third season. Harmon told The Daily Beast having female writers on the show meant that there was an opportunity for more voices to be heard and storylines to make it into the show — including exploring Summer and Beth.
“We had that for this season and I thought the results were really good because it meant that both the men and the women could increase their attention on Beth and Summer,” Harmon said. “Nobody represents any gender because if nobody outnumbers anybody else, then nobody’s an ambassador to anything.”
Despite the push forward, fans started complaining about the upcoming changes as early as last year, creating Reddit threads to talk about their unease with the changing staff. The Rick and Morty subreddit moderators have made it their goal to ensure that writers aren’t targeted and sexist or derogatory language isn’t used, but with more than 635,000 active subscribers, that can be difficult.
“Some people have been threatening and harassing the female writers of R&M all because they didn't particularly care for the past few episodes,” elastical_gomez wrote. “It goes without saying that regardless of what you think about the show, that sort of behavior is shitty and inciting more harassment of these people is not allowed on the subreddit. It's beyond shitty that these people have worked hard for so long only to be treated this way over a fucking cartoon. For the record, I worked on Rick and Morty during season one and have been affiliated with the show ever since.
“If you set aside the sexism, the rest of this is rooted in ignorance about how animated shows are produced.”
Polygon has reached out to Adult Swim for comment on the story.
Update: In response to a request from Polygon, a representative from Adult Swim did not offer any additional information about how it was handling the situation, but said, “We wholeheartedly support Dan and the entire team of talented female writers and crew on Rick and Morty.”
Comments
I just hope it doesn’t turn into a Simpsons Season 11 to present debacle. Too many cooks can make a show turn bad and loose focus…
By eatdogs on 09.21.17 3:31pm
The concept of the singular "show runner" didn’t exist back then.
By SunAraw on 09.21.17 3:49pm
What does this have to do with the article?
By OmfgWtfZergd on 09.21.17 4:34pm
Nothing. It’s an attempt to mask a sexist concern of writers’ genders with concern for the show’s direction.
By jarrod williams on 09.22.17 8:52am
aww geeze man, you know.
By Polygas on 09.21.17 7:54pm
I hate it when my focus gets loose, I have to run around the neighborhood looking for it.
By DisgruntledGoat on 09.22.17 1:37pm
I remember Dan Harmon talking about their trepidation prior to writing for this season, in worrying that they were falling into comfortable habits and effectively recycling their own material.
A few episodes this season have unfortunately felt like that, particularly Vindicators 3, where the main thrust of the plot is "whoa dang rick is basically his own supervillain and does some messed up stuff" which is territory we’ve already gone over.
The new season has been at its peak when the writing is exploring the show’s own moral core. ‘Pickle Rick’ (ironically) being about Rick retreating into high-concept sci-fi situations to escape his own inability to handle the frustrating mundanity of modern life.
‘Tales from the Citadel’ takes the severely unhealthy narcissist/co-dependent dynamic between the two main characters, stretching it out to a city level to highlight the level of self-abuse that goes on in their relationship.
I don’t think we’d have had those sorts of more engaging episodes if it wasn’t for the unique ideas the new writers have brought to the table. If the show’s mindless superfans had their way, virtually every episode would be a Rick ego trip while Morty says "oh geez gosh rick" for 20 minutes straight.
By miscu~ on 09.21.17 3:41pm
It’s gonna be real delight when they inevitably explore Summer gradually becoming an alcoholic like her mom and grandfather.
By Shockrates on 09.21.17 4:54pm
I disagree about vindicators, but that’s probably because I dig way too much into rick and morty conversations and lore
By Bigpikachu1 on 09.22.17 12:22am
At least, in Vindicators 3, we see Morty has grown a bit.
He’s no longer completly passive, he exercises his agency in the face of Rick’s BS in a lot of ways.
Even though this season has been very exploratory and probing, I can’t help but notice how the show’s cast is growing.
Season 3 has been amazing so far, IMO
By UltraBrain on 09.22.17 12:47am
can we have a nice thing? please? just one?
By acme64 on 09.21.17 4:11pm
CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
By axemtitanium on 09.21.17 4:13pm
The only nice thing we can have is ourself.
And even then, sometimes that doesn’t pan out.
By _Smiles on 09.21.17 4:54pm
I think the Silverhawks fandom never went to shit, because nobody remembers it. Does that count?
By leatherfoot on 09.22.17 5:01am
jesus christ i googled it and a grey hair popped out. I remember
By acme64 on 09.22.17 9:16am
My bad – I’ll have to see if I get any extra white whiskers if I don’t shave this weekend. Mentioning it already got the song stuck in my head, so 50/50 chance…
By leatherfoot on 09.23.17 6:28pm
Pickle Rick was an amazing episode!
People doing this kind of thing need to get a life. Diversity of input into popular entertainment is only going to become more commonplace and lead to better shows for everyone, not just insecure white dudes. Fighting against it is pointless and the sooner you accept that the happier you’ll be.
By JeremyODwyer on 09.21.17 4:15pm
I think Harmon’s most important point here is that making a show is a hugely collaborative process. Adding women to a writing staff just means there are more diverse voices in the writer’s room. A writer’s room isn’t one person taking charge (aside from the showrunners making executive decisions), it’s many voices workshopping every detail of every episode together. Then it goes to production, which is even more people. Then it goes to post-production, which is even MORE people. Nobody can say one person is responsible for any episode of any piece of mass media.
I just can’t grasp why anyone would have a problem with a broader range of characters given accurate perspectives and character development. Do these misogynist armchair critics expect all female characters in media to be one-note and one-dimensional? That makes for extremely boring TV. Maybe the Big Bang Theory is more their speed.
By gutsdozer on 09.21.17 5:38pm
I’ve wondered this forever. Do they just hate art? What if all music was just a guitar and nothing else was allowed? A variety of brilliant minds working on a project is a good thing!
By James Elliott on 09.22.17 1:40am
this is where so-called "biology realists" come into play
to them it’s weird that we’re trying to force women into jobs where they just don’t belong. we’re the weirdos here
By Jigabachi on 09.22.17 12:54pm
Oof. Don’t they understand that even according to their own rules, there are always exceptions to those rules? I guess they hold those beliefs for a very specific and insincere (even nefarious) reason. None of them are throwing a fit at the idea of male nurses.
By James Elliott on 09.22.17 10:22pm
I don’t care who or what it takes to make more (and different) Rick and Morty. Just give it too us in timely manner!
By SpaceAdventureColin on 09.21.17 6:59pm
It’s completely shitty that there was any backlash over this. Season 3’s been great.
By TomMartinArt on 09.21.17 11:08pm
I doubt the awesomeness of the new season has a damn to do with the writers’ genders and everything to do with being good writers working on a great franchise.
This talk of censoring Reddit against hate speech (for the thousandth time) just made me realize it’s the brainchild of Aaron Swartz. If course he’d be disgusted with comments like these, and Reddit is definitely in the right for policing their boards.
However, I bet a decentralized unregulated Tor-darknet message board is going to pop-up pretty soon and be a major contributor to public debate pretty soon (< five years?). What does everyone else think? Likely or unlikely?
By Greendogo on 09.21.17 11:50pm
It sounds like the awesomeness of the new season does have to do with the writers’ gender, in that bringing more diverse viewpoints into a decision-making process almost always makes the work better. Both the male and female writers on Rick & Morty realize this.
By graybones on 09.22.17 11:51am