Op-Ed:Rick and Morty: You Are Fucking Delusional If You Think This Show Is Better W/O Justin Roiland
We’ve written quite a bit concerning Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland’s upcoming court case against a former flame for domestic violence allegations happening in April. What we haven’t commented about are a number of unsubstantiated reports concerning Instagram DM’s sent by Roiland to women that were deemed inappropriate…not illegal…inappropriate. Also, the reason why I’m using the term unsubstantiated, the majority of reported accounts associated with some of those inappropriate DM’s aren’t verified accounts. As a result, I always am hesitant to refer to those accounts as legit due to the fact that bot accounts are real and they are randomly generated all of the time, and with the advent of AI, this process is getting easier to do so.
With that said, even if I were to believe all of those DM’s were real, 100%, as lewd as some of Justin’s comments may have been perceived, I do not see anything that’s illegal. Moreover, I think the term “grooming”(which I’ve seen more than a few times) is subjective mainly because in all of the reports featuring the DM’s, nobody has the entirety of the message history between both parties. You also don’t get to see anybody’s age in social bios, so there’s that. But if that shit is going on, it’s wrong, and personally I’ve always been a fan of putting age restrictions on social media profiles and this is a good reason why. The age of legal consent to sexual activities in countries all over the world, is different, and that creates a problem. For the USA, the age of consent is 16, but in countries like Mexico (12), Europe (14-16), and elsewhere, it varies, and there’s no way to tell. Personally, I’ve never been much of a DM’er as it pertains to dating, preferring to work with social dating apps like Hinge (how I met my current Boo), Bumble, etc., which seem to do a better job at looking out for that kind of thing. I actually think all social media networks should adopt an 18 and older sign-up restrictions because it has been documented that foreign interests have used social media as weapons to infiltrate groups comprising of kids and causing distress in the areas of mental health which has led to an increase in gender/body dysphoria and even suicide. If the public school system had classes to teach kids better social media literacy, I may feel differently, but today, with censorship on the rise in public schools coming from both liberal and conservative viewpoints, we are too far behind. By the way, everyone that is claiming to be NOT gross, literally, right now, as I’m writing this. #Cumtown and #MySexTapeIsNamed are both trending on Twitter. So don’t give me this shit that all of you social media types are all angels.
Speaking of failure in school systems, let’s get back to this article written by THR’s Lacey Rose and Katie Kilkenny talking about the fall of Justin Roiland’s animation empire. Even in their report, most of what is reported is hearsay, and there wasn’t even an attempt to get Justin’s side of any of the stories, so it’s lazy writing. Recall, there were unsubstantiated claims made against Seth MacFarlane a few months ago that were similar in stature to what Roiland’s going through now. NONE of those claims against Seth came from verified social media accounts, and as such, were dismissed just as quickly due to lack of veracity. Moreover, there are times when actors and actresses and writers and producers, do their best to make a living in Hollywood and fail. As a result, they get vindictive against the industry and start making shit up. As the old-saying goes, “the best way to get attention, is to go after an attention-getter”, and that’s what happened with Seth. And I believe this has also happened to Justin Roiland in most respects.
Likewise, Justin Roiland will eventually get his day in court and will get his story told. His lawyer has even stated that the original story concerning the ex-girlfriend has been blown way out of proportion and that Justin has evidence that will eventually clear his name. This is America, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
In the meantime, the aforementioned THR report continues to decry the fact that Justin and co-creator Dan Harmon haven’t spoken to each other in years and that Justin was largely absent from the writer’s room(they even mention Justin driving around an RC car all over the office…a bit that Adult Swim filmed). This has led to speculation that, hey, without Justin, Rick and Morty will be fine. The opposite is true. Except for the fact that it’s fairly common for TV show creators to not always be in the writer’s room. The aforementioned Seth MacFarlane has also not been in the writer’s room for Family Guy since the show’s ninth season, and has never been in the American Dad’s writer’s room, yes those shows still thrive without him there, but would be nothing without Seth’s voices. NOTHING. Just the same, taking Justin Roiland out of the voice booth for Rick and Morty(and Solar Opposites for that matter) is the worst idea heard in the long sad history of worst ideas. As Elon Musk even pointed out, he’s the heart of the show.
Working relationships are different for anybody, and I know deep down Dan and Justin have respect for each other. They built a Rick and Morty empire. But, taking Justin out of the show is going to sink the franchise into nothingness much in the same way Charlie Sheen’s departing of Two and a Half Men quickly sank that show or when Steve Carell’s “Michael Scott” was written out. Those guys were the “voices” of those shows, and that’s why whenever reruns play of the Ashton Kutcher episodes of Two and a Half Men or the non-Scott episodes of The Office, typically, the ratings are quite a bit lower, and saved for the daytime/weekend hours. Hell, we all saw Adult Swim’s failure attempt at replacing Squidbillies’ Unknown Hinson with Tracy Morgan following equally as silly allegations. Likewise, Sean Dorrough is not the guy for the open Rick and Morty jobs. Neither are any of you knuckleheads trying.
The ONLY thing I’ll accept…is AI-produced voices for Rick and Morty. That’s right, we have the technology now where Justin Roiland can sign off to have an AI program recreate his famous voices from all of his shows and have them used in production. I get that some voice actors don’t like the idea, and most might not even have a choice really, but if I’m Justin, I’m dropping this bomb and taking a couple of years off.
The biggest issue here is when companies like 20th Television Animation and WB Discovery do things like fire Justin Roiland without Justin getting his day in court. Those types of actions should be illegal, and if I were Justin, and I were to win in court, I would sue every one of those fuckers until they gave me my job back. In the meantime, if Justin can’t do Rick and Morty or Solar Opposites, just cancel the fucking shows and get it over with.
