WaPo Film Critic Defends Herself: I Wasn’t ‘Casting Blame’ on Apatow Films

Washington Post columnist Ann Hornaday came under fire today for a column she wrote about a psychological link between the UCSB shooting at Judd Apatow movies, a link that came under fire both from Apatow and frequent collaborator Seth Rogen for being completely unfounded and unfair. In case you need a reminder, Hornaday talked about what kind of culture the UCSB shooter could have been influenced by, and asked, “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’?”

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After the controversy took off, Hornaday responded with a new column today. Hornaday argues Apatow, Rogen, and others “misunderstood” her point, insisting she wasn’t “casting blame” on Apatow’s films at all; she just wanted to look at how “Hollywood movies – specifically wish-fulfillment fantasies and revenge-driven vigilante thrillers – might have informed an unstable young man’s ideas about what his college years and life in general were supposed to look like.”

Hornaday adds, “At a time when women account for less than 20 percent of filmmakers behind the camera and protagonists in front of it, I suggested that it’s long past time to expand and diversify the stories we tell ourselves.”

Watch Hornaday’s PostTV video explaining the column below:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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