i’m not gonna finish reading this post because nothing it could possibly say is going to top this analogy
I’ve commented on this post before, but I’m gonna again. I fundamentally and utterly reject the idea that the existence of people unwilling to hear a message has any reflection on the value of that message.
Rick and Morty has very important things to say about depression, addiction, suicidal ideation, nihilism, and cynicism and irony wielded as maladaptive coping tools against a feeling of powerlessness/meaninglessness in a shitty world. I am really, really glad there is media out there tackling issues that speak so strongly to my generation. It will be important and transformative to some people, and meaningless to others, but I’m glad it exists.
Also there is quite literally no way to share a nuanced, meaningful take on a complex topic that is impossible to misinterpret and we need to stop pretending like there is. That’s how you get shit like 37 different denominations claiming the Bible has a single literal interpretation that is inherently obvious but no not that one. That’s the idea that it is possible to have unproblematic media and unproblematic people if you just keep erasing things. It’s purity culture and it’s a lie.
Readers have agency.
I think not only is it impossible make art about complex things that can’t be misinterpreted, but often the risk of misinterpretation is what makes the art work. I don’t know enough to know about Rick and Morty to know if that’s the case, though I wouldn’t be surprised.
An example would be Revolutionary Girl Utena. Plenty of people have misinterpreted Akio as romantic and charming and a good person. Whether that’s because they took Akio only at face value, or they didn’t have the context to realise that Akio wooing Utena was fucked up, or they failed to parse episode 33, or something else. And in many ways, that’s almost the point of RGU? One of the big themes of RGU is ‘Akio, and the things he represents, look good but are actively terrible,’ and inevitably, some people will miss the last part of that. ‘It looks good’ is an important part of that theme, but some people are only going to see that part.
And Akio entering his first scene shouting ‘Hey! I’m a terrible person! It’s all very symbolic!’… would be bad art. You can’t have the subtlety to present RGU’s themes properly without it flying over some people’s heads. (I mean ‘teenage girls don’t always have the context to realise Akio ain’t romantic, he’s a creep’ is a plot point of the show… and the target audience is also teenage girls.
¯(ツ)/¯.
And I don’t think people should be deprived of the realisation of ‘ohh, what Akio is doing is messed up for xyz reasons,’ because some people aren’t
going to make that realisation.)
(And I realise this is me taking a metaphor waaaaay too literally– but if I was a baker, and I made something that people were willing to brave gastrointestinal distress to eat it– I’d say I was fucking successful.)
This EXACTLY.
And yes, it’s comparable in Rick and Morty, where the whole point is a dissection of maladaptive coping mechanisms/ distorted world views.
It’s couched in dark humor and cynicism and nihilistic intellectualism meets the absurd because this is the language of (much of) our generation. And yeah, that’s a smokescreen that some people don’t see past. Because that’s how people actually use it.
The show is NOT SUBTLE about Rick’s lifestyle and worldview making him miserable and hurting everyone around him.
This includes an on-screen suicide attempt that fails only because he passes out drunk (speaking of maladaptive coping techniques) and entire episode where people blithely cheer on a song that includes lines like “my life’s a lie/ I’m slowly dying in a vat/ stop looking at me like that and actually help me/ help me help me I’m gonna die”
People are not good at recognizing toxicity and pain in others and in themselves.
Random Fandoms Archive 