'Rick and Morty' News: Show Creator Hits Back at Trolls Attacking the Series' Female Writers
"Rick and Morty" co-creator Dan Harmon has recently called out a number of online commenters for harassing the show's female writers.
When the animated series finally came back for its third season after a long wait, many of its fans were ecstatic about getting to watch the new episodes. However, there have been several complaints about the different dynamic of the current season. And some fans blame it on the new female writers.
Despite the team behind "Rick and Morty" making an effort to make their writing staff more gender-balanced in season 3, the new female writers, Jane Becker and Jessica Gao, have become the targets of a number of mean comments on social media from the show's fans.
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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Harmon condemned these trolls, expressing his disappointment about the struggle that women in the entertainment industry have to go through.
Claiming that he has read the mean tweets sent to his female writers by white male viewers, he told the news outlet: "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."
Gao and Becker were part of the new group of writers hired earlier this year, together with Erica Rosbe and Sarah Carbiener. They were the first female writers hired on the show after two successful seasons.
However, they quickly became the subject of harassment by fans after the season 3 episodes titled "Rickmancing the Stone" and "Pickle Rick," which had their names credited, drew criticism for various reasons.
Harmon went to further explain his disgust towards people who are trying to assimilate "Rick and Morty" as a form of fortification of the identity of white men.
"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," the show co-creator continued.
"It's offensive to me as someone who was born male and white, and still works way harder than them, that there's some white male [fan out there] trying to further some creepy agenda by 'protecting' my work," he added.
Harmon also noted that he faced a similar issue with his female writers back when he was the showrunner of "Community" on NBC.
"Rick and Morty" season 3 airs Sundays at 11:30 p.m. ET on Adult Swim.
