Dan Harmon, Creator Of "Community" And "Rick And Morty," Apologizes To Writer Megan Ganz For Abuse In One Of The Most Fascinating Twitter Exchanges I've Ever Seen
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I’m weary of writing about the sexual misconduct in Hollywood, but this exchange was pretty fascinating due to the quality of writing. Pretty bold move by Harmon to announce that he was part of the problem on Twitter. He had to know that his former staff writer, Megan Ganz, would see his tweet, and then it turned into an open-air apology for a LOT of people to see.
It all starts with an open-ended, vague apology from Harmon. Right off the bat, Megan hits him with “redemption follows allocution.”
This was a little confusing to me. Is she saying that Harmon will redeem himself if he provides a formal speech that warns other men against harassing women?
OR
Did she mean to write… ELOCUTION?
I’ll tell ya, this makes a lot more sense to me. If this was the word she meant to use, her message would read, “be more specific, dick.” I’m 80% sure this was the intended tweet, but it’s super close. Regardless, I can’t imagine too many people would pick up on this nuance. Which makes me feel very good about myself. What I’ve shown you is a grasp of language that very few people possess. It’s also the reason that I’ve produced such hit blogs as “I spent my break becoming best friends with Dave Portnoy.” Let’s move on…
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Harmon goes on to ask Ganz how he should apologize. But she doesn’t let him off the hook. She does manage to throw in a little humble brag about “the first episode of television she wrote,” which I heartily applaud. I’ve written scripts that nobody read, and to write an episode of television that makes it to air is quite a feat. Kudos to Megan.
Then we have this whole “putting up a wall” exchange. I’m not sure exactly where the Mike Pence school of Gender Relations is, but that seems like a ridiculous school for the Vice President to be funding. JK, I know she was kidding, which is pretty crazy. Ganz is testing jokes during a twitter scolding of her old boss for doing some bad shit. Once again, I’m a big fan. There is NEVER a wrong time to vet new material, in my opinion. Megan Ganz understands that, as a comedy writer, you have to take advantage when you have an audience. And “Mike Pence School of Gender Relations” is a solid punchline. Will be interesting to hear how that joke develops over the next few months. And oh, Dan? She doesn’t listen to your podcast.
Her last tweet is poignant but somewhat confusing. “You’re not a king on a hilltop, nor a beast in a labyrinth.” I searched the internet for some parable called “the beast in the labyrinth” and all I could find was a video gamer’s explanation of how to beat some creature in the Maze Runner game. That can’t be the metaphor she was going for. Which leads me to believe she was obfuscating for the purpose of sounding smart. Hand up: I do this too, but I’m trying to do it less in 2018.
Overall, it was a delightful battle between creative minds. Despite the (alleged) elocution/allocution mixup, and the misplaced labyrinth beast metaphor, Megan Ganz wins. Obviously.