Rick and Morty Just Destroyed the Modern Man

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In their triumphant return to television recently, the creators of Rick and Morty decided to defecate all over modern masculinity. 

Too harsh?

I don’t think so.

“Rick and Morty” participates in the proud tradition of television over the past 35 years that sees fathers and dads as useless layabouts interested only in sports, sex, and beer. Television has reduced men to a trope at best and in many cases has removed all intelligence from fathers. This is not a new critique and many think pieces have already been written about how Dads are portrayed on television.

People see Rick as a tragic character. I would argue that from a masculine perspective, the true tragic character is Jerry. When has Jerry ever had a chance to be a man in the old-fashion toxic masculine sense? Jerry just seems weak and inept as if he has never lived in any real environment.

As the shows see it, the only way to be a “man” is to make hard decisions that often disregard the feelings of others, your own feelings, or your own beliefs. While the show would not hold forth Rick as a male ideal, it certainly seems to use him as a contrast to Jerry who is constantly put in humiliating situations. The show seems to take delight in finding new ways to emasculate him in such a way that his wife can’t see him as a man and an important part of their home and family. In season 2 he becomes the worm personified in Kafkaesque fashion in one of Rick’s adventures in the universe of the program. 

Rick is held up as some sort of male ideal. Far from perfect and far from responsible but someone who is “making decisions” and “doing things.” The opposite of stay-at-home dad Jerry. Rick drinks; Jerry doesn’t or does so in moderation. Rick represents a masculinity of a bygone era where a man could leave his family behind and not face nearly the consequences that come with that now. Rick represents the toxicity and instability that was true for many people growing up in a certain time period. Jerry is the opposite. Faced with fatherhood he marries his wife (although she resents him for it) and while she is able to make money as a vet, he is left to being a stay-at-home dad and a failed freelancer who is unable to bring home the bacon. Indeed, that is one of Jerry’s central failings. In the show, Jerry is a foil for the failed man reduced to being merely male. He can’t control his environment, his wife, his children, or his own career. In competition with the world, Jerry loses out badly. Contrast that with Rick, master of the universe and never without a solution to any problem that might come up ranging from alien invasions of Earth to the shallow banality of home life. 

Jerry represents something very modern about being a man. In an economy where men have sidelined in many fields, the chance to go out in the world and be a bread winner is something that is increasingly difficult to do. Plenty of books like Boyhood have been written about men and their failure to launch in the way that we anticipate. The existence of The Good Men Project is a testimony to the need for a conversation about masculinity as it is, as it was, and hopefully as it can be in the future.

Masculinity and manhood is in crisis. One need not look far for examples of young men, sometimes fathers themselves, still living in their home of origin and under-employed with few opportunities for advancement. In another day and age, a young man of 24, faced with impending fatherhood could go out and seek our steady and gainful employment that would allow him to support his family. The work might be difficult but it was there. Often, the work isn’t even there anymore and what’s left often can only support him as an individual. 

Jerry will continue to live on in his reduced role on the show. Victim of another humiliation committed by the weapon of the keyboard in a California writer’s room. In the real world, a man like Jerry will struggle along for awhile and often sink into addiction or simply commit suicide. This is a crisis that is as bad as the crack epidemic and no one cares. Instead, we’re making fun of it on television. The disregard for male life is toxic and deadly and it is hard to win over any sympathy for the very real men who are suffering because our world views male lives as disposable. Even in the show. It’s women and children first. Rick saves himself as a “maverick” and Jerry is consigned to the dust heap.

For those that watched the episode, they will know that in the end, Morty goes to hug his Dad at his new cesspool of an apartment across town. Morty is caught in the crossfire of wanting to love his father but also enjoying the exhilaration of Rick. Morty is the living dichotomy between Rick and Jerry. On the one hand, Morty tries to do the “right thing” and tries to be a force for morality in a world that is seemingly devoid of it. Rick represents a “chaotic, neutral”  character of a world that has lost everything leaving every Rick, Jerry, Summer, and Morty out for themselves. Morty wants to be his noble and good like his Dad but can’t yet articulate an argument against Rick’s evidence of a chaotic and directionless universe dominated by chaos and an existential ability to exert control via self-interest and a disregard for a law and order that is painted as unjust and stifling. 

Jerry is a normal, sober, white guy trying to get through life as best he can. He is fearful, emotional, and raw in a way that Rick simply can’t access. We will find out over the next several episodes if those qualities come of any use to either Rick or Morty. What is so wrong or bad about Jerry? Why should someone like Rick be extolled as good or noble? Why should a manhood dominated only by “taking what you want” and exploitation rather than collaboration and emotional availability be held out as an ideal?

Our culture talks a good game about getting rid of toxic masculinity and how we must reform men to end rape culture but isn’t really invested in doing positive things for men or portraying them in a positive light.

If we want men to change, we need to embrace the Jerrys of the world and give the Ricks a chance to change. Because the reality is that in our modern world, we need more Jerrys and less Ricks.

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Photo credit: IMDb