The 'Neighbors' actor calls Ann Hornaday's article 'horribly insulting and misinformed,' while Apatow says it was 'idiotic thoughts.'
- May 27, 2014
AceShowbiz - Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow blasted Ann Hornaday, a film critic for the Washington Post. Both actors/comedians slammed her for suggesting in an op-ed that one of the reasons the Santa Barbara mass killing happened was their movies.
"@AnnHornaday I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed," Rogen tweeted. "How dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage." Apatow added, "She uses tragedy to promote herself with idiotic thoughts."
Elliot Rodger, the son of "The Hunger Games" assistant director Peter Rodger, went on a killing rampage in Isla Vista near the University of California leaving seven people dead including himself. Before the massacre, the disturbed 22-year-old student ranted about being lonely and rejected by women.
According to reports, Elliot's mother got a call from her son's therapist on Friday night, May 23 about his ranting manifesto to kill people. The mother alerted authorities and frantically searched for him after finding a series of disturbing messages on his YouTube channel. But by the time they arrived in Santa Barbara, it was too late.
In her article, Hornaday said, "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'?"
She continued, "If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger - thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections - no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large."
As opposed to Hornaday's opinion, Apatow said, "Most of Earth can't find a mate-- someone to love. People who commit murder of numerous people have mental health issues of some type."
