The Szechuan Riots Prove It
Rick and Morty has failed as a piece of media. Not because it didnât have a good message, not because it espoused abhorrent views or failed at telling its story and developing its characters. It failed because it cultivated an audience that was fundamentally opposed to hearing what it had to say. If youâve baked a cheesecake whose most vocal proponents are people with lactose intolerance who consume your product and then walk around farting loudly and shitting everywhere because of your cheesecake, youâve failed as a baker. If youâve written a show that subverts archetypes of bad ass loner rebels who are withdrawn alcoholics by making them canonically terrible people but your most public fans dress up as that character and stab other people, youâve failed as a writer.
I DONâT think this is the fault of the writers - Rick literally has said multiple times that heâs terrible, that heâs reprehensible and that he shouldnât be looked up to. The writers have done everything to make this point clear to the audience up to literally opening a season by having Rick talk directly into the camera and saying âIâm the villain, Iâm the bad guy and if you knew me I would hate you and would abuse you until you hated me too and then I would destroy you. This does not make me enlightened or cool - it makes me pathetic, and if you look at me with anything short of animosity, disdain and pity, you need help and should call this mental health services line.â Iâm not confident even this would work.
The audience has made Rick and Morty a failure and it has proven to me unequivocally that the archetypes the show works so hard to subvert are themselves unsubvertible. You cannot have a character who is a âcompelling depressed man of tremendous power who is irreparably broken and only grows into a worse person as he finds new opportunities to disappoint those who value himâ because the people who most need the sorts of stories such a character can impart stop paying attention after the word âpower.â The people that understand the message youâre relaying already know it.
Anyway, thatâs my Rick and Morty hot take and I regret it instantly
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