What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#22What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
There is a difference between community justice and law enforcement justice. It used to be that most people understood your life should not be taken away without a trial. Courts are the best place we have to determine truth and guilt.
Over the past decade or more there has been a change where people stopped caring about due process. It's like a digital form of burning witches at the stake. Because let's be honest, almost anyone can be cancelled without even being arrested and there is a good chance that person doesn't have the resources to survive without employment.
This probably doesn't apply to someone like Justin Roiland who will probably be fine eventually... But they should wait for a conviction before taking his ability to earn money and live freely away.
TLDR; being cancelled is in effect a death penalty for many.
EDIT: In this case, atleast they waited until he was charged. That should be the standard in many cases.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#23The key to the success of Rick and Morty is that it's a very subversive show, sometimes to the point of being disturbing. Its embrace of comedic nihilism undermines classic sitcom tropes in much the way The Simpsons did when it was new. I always got the impression that this stemmed in no small part from Justin Roiland. It's not exactly a surprise that someone with so little regard for social convention turned out to…
I would also say Dan Harmon's previous work on Community is so filled to the brim with meta-analyses, parodies, homages, and self reflection that it's probably more him than Justin on the writing side.
I'd ALSO say that I don't think Rick and Morty suggests Rick's behaviors or beliefs are praiseworthy. The dude is super depressed and toxic. Including of course the episode in which his toxicity become manifest.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#24What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
It applies to criminal punishment, and nothing else.
> Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
That depends (here, where the “job” is almost certainly an explicit contract, not at-will employment) on terms of the contractual relationship, but its very common for contracts to have termination clauses that don't require a criminal conviction. (They may or may not require some payment.)
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my thought. I’m really out of the loop on this story, but it’s going to be awkward if he’s proven innocent.
I am open to taking a bet with you. How about 1-2k?
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I don't think he's replaceable. He hasn't been writing for the show these past few seasons, so his only contribution is his voice. Voices are usually replaceable. > I'm all in favor of him both losing most of his money to compensate his victims and continuing to work on Rick and Morty. But society can't handle nuance, and the mob judges people instead of actions. Literally nothing good happened as a result of this c…
It was already getting worse, at this point it's not really going to be Rick and Morty anymore. Ship of Thaddeus except different ship entirely.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#27I don't think he's replaceable. It's like house of cards without Kevin Spacey. Actually even worse, one of the best episodes was an episode completely voiced by Justin, of an entire society, and he managed to play so many different personalities of the same character. Never seen this level of voice acting. It was pretty obvious that he's got issues. Had a scene where a writer literally confesses that he has bad tende…
People are complex yes, and everyone's life is composed of both good actions and bad ones, sure. But there are connections and pattern that emerge, specifically and for example domestic abuse is closely related to other forms of violence and abuse. This position is one of relative power, and removing him from it is likely to make people working around that position safer.
And we don't like to admit it but role models are a thing! What message does this send? "You too, young abuser, can also run a highly acclaimed and culturally significant show regardless of your transgressions!" We have a ton of that, that sort of thing is more or less the norm in entertainment, business, and politics. To the extent cancel culture even exists it is a backlash to exactly that dynamic!
It's not like he's permanently blacklisted either come on. We see this over and over again in entertainment. He'll quietly disappear for a year or two then launch a new thing and get free press coverage of his "comeback" with virtually zero long-term consequences. Sorry about your show but Roiland will be fine.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It was making a very clear statement that in the RIck and Morty universe, normal dramatic tropes don't apply. How does it not apply when Morty is traumatised by the experience? The show doesn't hide the fact that Rick is traumatised (by all of the experiences they had been to) either, he's just better at hiding it.
It's out of proportion. They permanently destroy the world, and the only consequence is that Morty feels bad about it. Rick is annoyed, but at a level more consistent with Morty breaking a vase - a valuable, beautiful, but ultimately replaceable object. It's implied that Rick has done this sort of thing many times before.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#29What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
Yes. Allegations without even a crime to charge are enough to take your career away and all of your Constitutional rights. If the accusation is bad enough, the Government can use it as justification to conduct a summary execution against you. There is a difference between community justice and law enforcement justice. It used to be that most people understood your life should not be taken away without a trial. Courts…
There are definitely unsettling cases more in line with what you're getting rattled about here, but I don't see anything indicating this is one.
Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges
#30What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?
>What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? We don't know what internal conversations looked like at Adult Swim. We don't know if, or of not, they are aware of anything else that may have happened that encouraged them to make this decision. I'm not saying anything did - the point is, we don't know their reasoning, but we should assume that the decision wasn't made lightly.