Actor Seth Rogen and director Judd Apatow were up in arms Monday about a Washington Post column that linked their work to Elliot Rodger, the shooter who recently killed six people before taking his own life near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The movie-making duo slammed Post film critic Ann Hornaday on Twitter for a column she wrote about the YouTube video posted by Rodger, the son of a Hollywood filmmaker, before his shooting spree. Hornaday argued that aside from Rodger’s reported mental illness, “frat-boy fantasies” depicted in Hollywood movies like Apatow and Rogen’s new film “Neighbors” also contributed to his warped worldview.
Rogen was the first to go off on Hornaday for implying that his movies partially motivated Rodger’s “rampage.” Apatow then criticized Hornaday for “using tragedy to promote herself” and for writing for shock value.
.@AnnHornaday I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 26, 2014
.@AnnHornaday how dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 26, 2014
“@Sethrogen: .@AnnHornaday I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed.”She uses tragedy to promote herself with idiotic thoughts
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 27, 2014
“@melissa5001: @Sethrogen @marshallsheldon @AnnHornaday why is it always everything but mental illness?” Because that doesn’t sell papers.
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 27, 2014
“Indeed, as important as it is to understand Rodger’s actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, it’s just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in,” Hornaday wrote in her column.
“How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like ‘Neighbors’ and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of ‘sex and fun and pleasure’?” she added. “How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, ‘It’s not fair’?”
Apatow later went on to criticize Hornaday and the Washington Post for profiting off the column about the shooting, which was still in the early stages of investigation.
.@AwardsDaily with every view her paper makes money from discussing a story no one yet knows anything about.Now it is a media profit center.
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 27, 2014
Remember everyone – ads next to articles generate money. They say something shocking and uninformed & get you to click on it to profit.
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 27, 2014
Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, methinks you protest too much.
Ahhh the ol’ stand-by — movies and music are the problem.
Yeah it’s entertainment’s fault.
If it weren’t such a tragic story, that would be funny.
What an idiot.
To me, art represents society and culture, it doesn’t create it.
Man, action movies cause people to go on shooting rampages, comedies make people go on shooting rampages. Before long the only movie allowed to be made will be Jane Eyre, produced every year by the last remaining movie studio, BBC Films.
Oh, and in answer to your question, Mr. Apatow, about why is it never just mental illness? Because if they admitted that it was mental illness than they would have to find a way to deal with mental illness in our country. And that is expensive and hard. Much easier to blame Hollywood.
Isn’t the inability to separate fantasy from reality indicative of mental illness? Should there be no fantasy because some people are unable to recognize it as such?