Ann Hornaday found herself at the center of some controversy this week after her op-ed piece named Seth Rogen and director Judd Apatow as contributors to the Hollywood fantasy that fascinated mass murderer Elliot Rodger, who went on a shooting spree at the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus and killed six women last Friday. Seven more women were injured.
In the piece, Hornaday says that for Rodger–whose father was a Hollywood director–the fantasy became a huge letdown after he realized that real life is very different from the romanticized stories told by people like Apatow, where the “shlubby guy” always gets the girl. In a 137-page manifesto, Rodgers said that he was tired of being rejected by girls.
“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”? 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”?” Hornaday wrote.
After Rogen and Apatow took to Twitter to express outrage at Hornaday’s comparisons, she gave an interview in which she explained her reasoning and talked about the haunting video Rodgers recorded before he went on a rampage.
.@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
“Blame isn’t the word I would use….It was so startlingly well made. It had these traditional Hollywood production values — good lighting, careful setting and the palm trees in background. Movies are an escapist art form, and they do not reflect real life. I don’t think I’m blaming Hollywood for this,” she said.
Hornaday also added that while there are bigger issues at large here, the question of how much Hollywood comes into play in the mindset of those who do unspeakable things still remains, saying that women made up just 16% of the directors, writers, producers, cinematographers and editors in Hollywood last year.
“Obviously mental illness and guns are the cardinal things we should be talking about, but there’s also this unmistakable sense that this young man was, in a real way, a creation of Hollywood, and the stories that permeate that culture, which are overwhelmingly told from a male perspective.”
Image via Wikimedia Commons
