Sexism has no place in "Rick and Morty," as Dan Harmon, the show's co-creator, denounced the online threats that the show's female writers have received from some fans.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Harmon called the slanderers "disgusting" and expressed that he did not tolerate people who thought like them. Harmon also said, "These knobs, that want to protect the content they think they own — and somehow combine that with their need to be proud of something they have, which is often only their race or gender. It's offensive to me as someone who was born male and white, and still works way harder than them, that there's some white male [fan out there] trying to further some creepy agenda by 'protecting' my work."
Harmon also compelled fans that have problems with the show to not blame an individual element of the production staff, as he thinks it is unfair for them to do so. The show and its creators are proud of their gender-balanced team, which works hard every week to produce a new episode of the hit adult cartoon "Rick and Morty."
The controversy started when a hacker from 4chan published the personal information of Jane Becker and Jessica Gao, the two female writers who were credited in the episodes "Rickmancing the Stone" and "Pickle Rick." Since then, the two have been receiving hate mail and threats, as well as threatening tweets allegedly because of their sex. Apparently, there were also some vague rumors that Becker and Gao replaced previous writers for the sake of "political correctness."
The original poster of the Reddit thread discussing the controversy, "elastical_gomez," stated that he has worked on the show since season 1, and the rumors about Becker and Gao replacing writers for some political reason are false. The two female writers were hired based on the content they submitted and not their gender, as confirmed by a "Rick and Morty" storyboard artist who participated in the said Reddit thread.
Still, Harmon admitted that having a toxic portion of the community is also part of running a popular show like "Rick and Morty." While Harmon acknowledged their existence, he decreed that he would not tolerate misogyny, especially against his writers and staff, and that he would continue to condemn people like them, fans or otherwise.
"Rick and Morty" airs every Sunday night on Adult Swim. The upcoming episode, "The Rickchurian Mortydate," will arrive on Sunday, Oct. 1, at 11:30 p.m. EDT on Adult Swim.
