The worst of them-the ones who see Rick as a role model-are missing the point. Nevertheless, he and Roiland insist these people are a small subset. Once the title of your show becomes a way of describing a demographic, that is toxic.” “Do I worry about them ruining everything? Yeah, I do. And sucking all the enjoyment out of the show. Grab whatever you can.Īlong came the think pieces: “Horrible Rick and Morty Fans Demonstrate How Not to Be a Fan.” Google began auto-completing “rick and morty fans” with “are the worst.” A meme mocking a stereotypical fan's condescending tone (“To Be Fair, You Have to Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty”) came to define them: Self-important. You're never supposed to be denied anything.’ ” In other words, we're all just fumbling around in the dark here. So every day should be Rick Day, which is like a million Christmases. “ Rick and Morty says, ‘You're going to be tempted to believe that being human is important, and that is going to cause you to suffer.’ ” The flip side, Harmon says, is that “Rick is constantly saying to an inferior humanity, ‘Look, this is as good as it gets. “ Community was a show that said, ‘Everything human is better than everything that isn't human,’ ” Harmon explains. And at least some of its success can be explained by the way it echoes what so many are feeling right now. “If God is dead, then Rick and Morty is his funeral,” Harmon tells me. On Rick and Morty, that voice is a drunken, nihilistic howl into the abyss. “I think he attracts very like-minded people who have a creative itch or feel socially isolated, and see someone that has a voice that maybe they don't have,” says comedian Patton Oswalt, a frequent Harmon guest star. There's a lot in the show's fans as well. Until then, only his own genius can dictate his happiness. Repeatedly, Harmon tells me his retirement fantasy-some day in the future when he'll be “finished” and can finally be a decent person. There are deeper issues to consider, Harmon says: his clinging to work by way of wresting control over what Campbell calls the “impersonal cosmic force” rip-roaring through existence. (Even with the story circle of his life, he starts over four times.) Harmon cheerfully tells me that one of his favorite methods of self-sabotage is to start at the path again and again, ceaselessly polishing a first scene. He dies.Ī more accurate drawing of Harmon's process might be an endless spiral. He faces down the fact that, although he's very good at TV, it will never make anyone like him. He attains true power with Rick and Morty. Harmon breaks down every script to a “story circle,” a simplified version of Joseph Campbell's “The Hero's Journey.” Here is the story circle for Dan Harmon's life, which he draws for me: Our hero bides his time masturbating in Milwaukee until he is called to adventure in L.A. It's also what causes them to yell at him for taking too long to write it. That obsessiveness is what gives rise to Rick and Morty fans analyzing the show through the prisms of philosophy and quantum physics.
It's likely Harmon spends more time than any other writer-at least those I have met certainly more than I do- thinking about writing. (I will later find this out for myself when I pop up in one of Harmon's Instagram videos, where I'm welcomed with “Who's that bitch?” Harmontown TripAdvisor rating: two stars, would not recommend.) “America, can't you stop fucking commenting on everything?” Harmon shouts to the citizens of Harmontown who come to hear their self-appointed mayor give them shit, doing all this commenting just to get his attention. It spawned a litany of “ Rick and Morty in limbo” headlines this morning-all because, Harmon says, this generation lacks the shame to shut up. “It can be challenging, especially with crippling lazy alcoholism, to write a show that hasn't been ordered by a network,” he snarked back at one of those fans two days ago. At the moment, Harmon is on a stage inside his Burbank studio, taping a new episode of his podcast Harmontown, venting about yet another thing he's said that's caused yet another frenzy. And they are always demanding more Rick and Morty.īut right now, his hit show isn't in production. “I'll go, ‘I ate a cupcake today,’ and they're like, ‘Stop eatin’ cupcakes and write the fuckin’ show, you piece of shit!’ ” Dan Harmon rants, exaggerating only slightly the kinds of tweets he gets from “15-year-olds.” In Harmon's rants, his fans-equal parts acolyte and troll-are always 15.
0 kommentar(er)
