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Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

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Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#41

Post by allturtles »

dTal wrote: post #15
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a very subversive show Very subversive. We're talking Million Dollar Extreme levels! (Wait, no; then it'd be canceled already.)

I'm not sure if this is meant to be sarcastic (I'm not familiar with Million Dollar Extreme ), but in any case I want to draw attention to a particular piece of subversion that encapsulates everything good and bad about Rick and Morty. (Spoilers) In the very first season, there's an episode where Rick reluctantly helps Morty attract his crush with a "love potion". Now this is obviously messed up, but it's a classic t…

Sounds repulsive, really. And this is supposed to be a comedy? I guess I don't get it for the same reason I don't get the love for "Breaking Bad." I'm a cynic but not a nihilist.

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#42

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

jjulius wrote: post #32
spywaregorilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it's more a deconstruction of fiction, generally, rather than subversion of sitcoms. Most plots are decidedly non-sitcommy. 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 belief…

>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. I wouldn't say they're praiseworthy, but - and forgive me for any ignorance here - it's often felt like a strong, vocal portion of the show's/Rick's fanbase comes from this type of person.

Oh totally. There is a large segment of Rick and Morty fans who have not internalised that Rick Sanchez is _not_ a role model.

They lay out that he is not a role model pretty clearly here: https://www.themarysue.com/pickle-rick-therapy/

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#43

Post by notch656c »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #13
hobbitstan wrote: post #4

What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Are mere allegations enough to lose your job?

You're conflating law enforcement with regular life. Regular people and employers don't have the investigative authority of law enforcement. Law enforcement has a higher standard of proof because it comes with higher penalties. The rest of us who don't have the authority to conduct formal investigations have no choice but to make decisions based on the best knowledge we have and the benefit of our life experience. Th…

What on earth "best knowledge" could an employer know about domestic disputes? America has a deep deep well of benefits offered to people who claim domestic violence. They can get a TRO and have the children and gun rights taken from the person, they can get assistance from a battered women's shelter, they can get the upper hand in family court, they can get the house/custody because after the TRO the person is kicked out of the house and can be argued as having left the family. If the person is foreign, they get massive massive incentive to claim domestic abuse as that's the magic words they need to invoke VAWA and get that golden residency visa. Not saying any of this is the case here, but a mere charge or allegation of domestic violence is difficult for an employer to investigate in any meaningful way.

And even more dystopian : "The woman was not identified in court documents." Yeah lets fire someone when we can't even find out who made the accusation, and don't know whether they're guilty or not. How do you even investigate the accuser's claims as an employer if you have no idea who they even are. It's dystopian to have court cases where you can't even find out who an adult accuser is.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. IMO employers should stay the fuck out of domestic disputes until the person is actually found guilty.

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#44

Post by clolege »

I learned about Flanderization [0] on HN recently and was surprised to read that Rick and Morty is a show that consciously tries to avoid it.

Honestly, I think they’ve done a pretty good job and as a result the show still feels fresh and entertaining in the 6th season. But I imagine that’ll be quite a bit harder without Justin.

Whatever they were doing they had a formula for making some dang good tv. R&M is far better than any other adult cartoon I’ve seen, to the point that I think it might be one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen.

Here’s to hoping that Justin gets in a better spot, and the next few seasons of R&M don’t pull a Game of Thrones.

[0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanderization

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#45

Post by dTal »

sneak wrote: post #34
dTal wrote: post #5

The 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…

> It's not exactly a surprise that someone with so little regard for social convention turned out to have untenable personal attributes, Did he, though? Accusations are not evidence. I think it is universally a mistake to read accusations by the criminal justice system uncritically, given what we know about their incentives.

It's not just that, I'm afraid:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/10cum8n/comme...

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#46

Post by arp242 »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #8

I 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…

> I don't think he's replaceable.

Rick & Morty started out as a Back to the Future parody where the joke was that Morty had to repeatedly lick Doc's balls. It's so bizarre it's kind of funny, for about a minute anyway (not an entire episode). The other shorts aren't really all that funny, IMO. You can watch it here if you want, but you will proabbly regret the time you spend on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngN7eJUQyXk

It seems to me that Roiland always needed other people to actually make his weird shit funny. Is he replaceable? Who knows; I'm not in the writer's room. Star Trek TNG got significantly better after Roddenberry left, and I think it's fair to say that a significant part of the brilliance of the original series mostly came from other people, and not Roddenberry himself.

Who knows what will happen. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion either way.

(No comment on whether it's fair that he's let go, as I don't really know all the details)

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#47

Post by mindslight »

dTal wrote: post #40
spywaregorilla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it's more a deconstruction of fiction, generally, rather than subversion of sitcoms. Most plots are decidedly non-sitcommy. 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 belief…

Super depressed and toxic and always right . He's shown as being that way because he understands the world better. The show might not praise him directly, but until the most recent seasons (where they appear to be trying to undo some damage) it consistently showed that he is a more effective person because of it. Another example of the subversion that reinforces this "truth = negativity" moral: (Spoilers) The episode…

Being right does generally lead to being depressed and "toxic", because people (one's self and others) aren't happy thinking in terms of cold hard truths. At least that is my experience.

The constructive analysis is the show isn't meant to be an example for fully formed adults to emulate. Rather it's a coping mechanism. Have you ever had to spend weeks of your life dealing with bureaucrats, while they drown you with their sea of forms and policies? cf. "They're just robots, Morty!". That does not inspire me to go out and start shooting bureaucrats as they do in the show. Rather I just appreciate someone else casually cutting through to the ugly dynamic of the social mire.

The main difference between Rick and real-world intelligence is that Rick just blurts things out while those of us in the real world learn to tone it down and be highly selective about attacking social consensuses. But Rick blurting things out is the only way for the viewer to know them - the show isn't based around his internal monologue.

Additionally there are a lot of kids figuring out their place in the world, and looking for truths they can trust. Being technically correct is one of those truths. That some kids end up emulating the whole character is just stupid youthful experimentation that we all look back on and cringe. The fact they're expressing it on web forums and you're reading it and can't see that it was written by a prepubescent noob has more to do with the vanishing spaces of childhood than anything else.

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#48

Post by bungeonsBaggins »

sneak wrote: post #34
dTal wrote: post #5

The 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…

> It's not exactly a surprise that someone with so little regard for social convention turned out to have untenable personal attributes, Did he, though? Accusations are not evidence. I think it is universally a mistake to read accusations by the criminal justice system uncritically, given what we know about their incentives.

He's also been exposed as having sent sexually explicit DMs to minors, which started to come to light after the lawsuit was filed. It was probably that, more than/in addition to the lawsuit, that led to Adult Swim dropping him.

I looked into it because I had the same initial reaction you did. It's pretty terrible stuff, dude's got some issues

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#49

Post by [deleted] »

notch656c wrote: post #43
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating law enforcement with regular life. Regular people and employers don't have the investigative authority of law enforcement. Law enforcement has a higher standard of proof because it comes with higher penalties. The rest of us who don't have the authority to conduct formal investigations have no choice but to make decisions based on the best knowledge we have and the benefit of our life experience. Th…

What on earth "best knowledge" could an employer know about domestic disputes? America has a deep deep well of benefits offered to people who claim domestic violence. They can get a TRO and have the children and gun rights taken from the person, they can get assistance from a battered women's shelter, they can get the upper hand in family court, they can get the house/custody because after the TRO the person is kicke…

[deleted]

Re: Justin Roiland dropped from Rick and Morty after domestic abuse charges

#50

Post by Forgeties79 »

dTal wrote: post #5

The 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…

>It's not exactly a surprise that someone with so little regard for social convention turned out to have untenable personal attributes, but I wonder if Rick and Morty will continue to have "bite" without him.

See I used to go back and forth on this, until I realized something: Will Arnett is absolutely nothing like Bojack Horseman, one of the single most vile characters I've ever had on my tv screen. I think people (not necessarily you!) have this implicit acceptance that "in order to make disturbing/serious/dramatic/[insert intense or dark adjective] art the person has to be broken or embody it in some way." I really don't accept this, nor do I think the character one plays is a reflection on who they are for the vast majority of actors out there.

Sure in hindsight Roiland's brand of humor makes sense given who he is, but frankly plenty of horrific characters have been depicted - or written - by people who are 0% like them.

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