CSA in Rick and Morty
And because I've seen (and participated in) debate about whether actual CSA is a theme of the show or not, allow me to add this to the pile. And I'm not going to use random speculation, but the creators' actual words and creations.
1. The origins of the show was Justin Roiland's "Doc and Marty". I googled around long enough until I found a description of it, so I didn't have to watch it.
It depicted "Marty" giving "Doc" a b***j**.
Dan Harmon was friends with Roiland and didn't mind this, apparently.
2. Kindly read this:
In case you're wondering what kind of relationship the showrunners have in their minds about Rick and Morty.
For the longest time, I believed their plan was to simulatenously show both the abuser's twisted point of view and the victim's gradual breakthrough (ha). I found this dark but truly creative, the narrative realistic and acceptable.
...But how can you have that if the plan is for the show to "go on forever"?
3. Gosh. Threatened to tell Beth what?
4. Why on earth would loving Morty be considered "sick"?
5. Am I to believe that the writers, one of which was accused for sexually harassing minors, had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING special in mind when they wrote this scene?
...When in real life, a boy strapping other boys down naked and torturing them by repeatedly poking them until it drew blood (and calling that "beautiful") would be a prime suspect for having gone through CSA?
Where did Eyepatch Morty get the idea for this kind of torture? Realistically?
If you try to tell me the writers "didn't think about that" or that I'm supposed to "don't think about it" I'm going to laugh.
(I remember reading a quote that [paraphrasing] pedophiles often imagine their victims both innocent/pure and yet lusting after the pdfile/behaving innapropriately... While in reality any child behaving inappropriately has most likely than not experienced CSA, and therefore is not innocent any more, just traumatized; but the pedophiles don't want to think about that)
6. At this point, I wouldn't believe Eyepatch Morty hasn't experienced CSA even if the writers came out and outright denied it...
...Not any more than I believed this Rick and Morty writer who defended Mr Jellybean, calling him a "misunderstood addict"...!
No, if they deny it I'll assume they chickened out and feared backlash over including something like this in their story.
Which would be fine if they CUT OFF THE INCEST JOKES.
They should either do that, or actually tackle it seriously, by holding accountability over the perpetrator and healing the victim!
Instead of any of that, the writers felt it was appropriate to depict Eyepatch Morty, the single character actually challenging the Rick-is-awesome narrative and the one realistically most likely to have gone through CSA in the worst possible way, into saying these lines:
And Rick C-137 to proudly declare himself irresistible afterwards.
And they want Eyepatch Morty to be the true villain of the show. Great. And for it to go on forever.
Maybe there is some argument that could be made about Eyepatch Morty being so brainwashed that he thinks this is appropriate or expected of him, or that by "choosing" to utter those words himself he tries to "take control" of it (and therefore later his trauma could potentially be properly addressed). I don't know. I haven't experienced SA (thank God).
But I strongly doubt it.
Think of what Daisy did in THE scene in "Girl, Interrupted". Daisy tried to put on a strong facade and claim that she was free and loved (not much unlike Eyepatch Morty trying to convince himself he has control of the situation). Then another character mocked that and claimed that Daisy liked being SAed. Watch to see what happened next. And in Rick and Morty, they instead had Eyepatch Morty happily imply this all by himself. Do you realize how f-ed up that is on behalf of the writers???
And watch this documentary about Clark Fredericks. It's long, but it's worth it. You watching it might save someone's life one day. And it won't really leave any room for debate about whether this is a laughing matter or not.
Besides, if they wanted to take this EXTREMELY DARK "the child is so brainwashed he pretends he wants it to get affection" route they should DEFINITELY not EVER call him a "villain".
I'm done with this show.
Edit: because those are real people's decisions that I'm commenting on right now, I want to say that I fervently hope that they're perfectly aware of all this and fully compassionate and that they have planned a belated heartwrenching "gotcha" of some kind.
I just... can't see that any more. I can only see the opposite. There's no way to meangifully undo making Eyepatch Morty saying the milkshake line unless he literally never said those lines from his own free will.
