Should art be excused from consequences?
Our culture is good at gathering the energy to act on moral panic, but I think that energy is misdirected.
Recently, a video by Dan Harmon, creator of the shows “Community” and “Rick and Morty,” resurfaced nine years later. The video was a satire of the show “Dexter.” The premise relied heavily on jokes involving pedophilia and rape. It featured very graphic and disturbing scenes and those are all the details I’m going to divulge.
I expected others to share my sentiment; that Harmon expressed disgusting and deplorable ideas within the video. I figured our moral panic would be directed against pedophilia, and that Harmon would lose his job and face exile.
Instead, the opposite happened. Adult Swim, the channel that shows “Rick and Morty,” defended Harmon and didn’t boot him because he apologized.
A similar case occured with Disney director James Gunn. It was discovered he made pedophilic tweets on Twitter years ago.
Though he was fired, Gunn is being defended by some, and petitions are being made to get him back to directing “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” At Hollywood Reporter, an article states Disney’s move to fire him “hurts all of Hollywood” and how we need artists who “didn’t always say things we want to hear.”
I find the radio silence against these pedophilic ideas to be harmful to our society. To me, it shows how terrible jokes involving rape and pedophilia can be excused if the person mentioning them are considered artists.
And then I think about where the energy of our collective moral panic is directed at instead.
Paula Deen lost her endorsements and contracts after she admitted to using the n-word years ago, and John Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s Pizza, stepped down from the company after being caught saying the n-word on a conference call. Roseanne Barr lost her show “Roseanne” after posting racist jokes on Twitter.
They all lost their jobs because the moral panic was directed at them. Though the intentions are good, I think we expend too much of our energy on them and let other offenders slip through the cracks.
While I don’t condone their actions, I observed society has vociferously voiced its objection to their actions and shamed them into exile.
So why does it seem pedophilia and rape jokes haven’t caught up? Why haven’t we driven people like Harmon or Gunn into exile like we did Deen, Schnatter and Barr?
I believe it’s because they’re considered artists, which is a dangerously subjective line to tow. That distinction blurs the line of what’s acceptable and what’s not.
We need to take a stand against this inconsistent way of thinking, and by re-adjusting what we deem is bad for society. I think the more we apologize for dangerous thinking in the name of art, the more we grow to accept it.
Call it a slippery slope, but I don’t want to live in a world where pedophilia is accepted or considered artistic expression. And that is a dangerous future.
-Jacob Runnels is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.