Submerged Signifiers and the (Sub)Cultural Politics of Signification in Rick and Morty
Fig. 1 - Rick and Morty (Dan Harman and Justin Roiland, 2013–).
For those among you who have miraculously managed to avoid the pop cultural behemoth that is Rick and Morty (Dan Harman and Justin Roiland, 2013–), it is an ongoing American animated sitcom that follows the often-calamitous adventures through space of mad scientist Rick and his anxious grandson Morty (Fig. 1). Despite many commentators commending Rick and Morty as one of the smartest shows on television, the truth is that you don’t need to be a semiotician to navigate its reference-heavy diegesis. Any viewer will quickly find that as well as being a science-fiction sitcom, Rick and Morty is dramatically structured around a litany of identifiable pop culture citations that inform its reception as a ‘smart’ show among fans (Falvey 2020, 116-29). While not without precedent, the fact that pop cultural literacy constitutes a currency of sorts among fans is evidence that part of the show’s appeal depends on a specific measure of ‘smartness’, convey here as citations to a range of nostalgic and often cult texts. Incorporated within the show’s allusive style is a system of signification that reveals much about how the show imagines its audience as self-identifying pop culture aficionados. As this blog post argues, within the aesthetic of allusion that the show fosters, Rick and Morty illustrates not only how intertextuality serves to reinforce notions of ‘smartness’, but also how such credentials discursively position it for a specific target audience who structure and determine its reception.
Rick and Morty’s particular brand of ‘smartness’ is largely born out of a deluge of nostalgic references to both popular and obscure objects of cultural significance. From episode titles to visual allusions to throwaway gags, Rick and Morty’s intertextuality – that is, referential correspondence between texts – manifests most often as ‘clever’ nods towards a larger pop culture canon. As early as the pilot episode, Rick and Morty travel through an inter-dimensional customs station in a sequence that demonstrates the show’s allusive method. Speaking as a viewer who is not always observant enough to take in all the references on display, in this sequence alone a (most) discerning spectator will find nods to cult films including Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) and Airplane (Jim Abrahams, 1980), television shows such as Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (Joel Hodgson, 1988-96), Sesame Street (Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, 1969-) and Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro, 2000-15), and even vintage Atari video game Space Invaders (1978). The rapid-fire reference/gag rate of this sequence quickly reaches unmanageable levels, leaving eager viewers no choice but to rewind and pause the show to appreciate each gesture, varying in size and obscurity, and which intimate towards a universe of pop cultural capital.
Hyperawareness of broader cultural and subcultural politics is hardly a new tactic in television. Jeffrey Weinstock has observed how gags in South Park (Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 1997–) knowingly criticise the sort of toilet humour the show so regularly depends on, “self-referentially foreground[ing] similar attacks on the program” (Weinstock 2008, 3). Both South Park and Rick and Morty demonstrate a hyperawareness of their audience, which manifests in the gestures each programme makes towards the fourth wall. In their book Reading Television, John Fiske and John Hartley similarly discuss televisual signs. In this research, they observe that viewers engage with television in various ways, with access to and interest in different levels and degrees of referentiality. They state that:
reality is itself a complex system of signs interpreted by members of the culture in exactly the same way as are films or television programmers. Perception of this reality is always mediated through the codes with which our culture organizes it, categorizes its significant elements or semes into paradigms, and relates them significantly into syntagms (Fiske and Hartley 2003, 47).
Fiske and Hartley’s reading of television suggests that the medium speaks in a distinct language formed out of the cultural “reality” from which it emerged. The heavy flow of references might even suggest that the universe that Rick and Morty takes place in is, ultimately, a fantastic simulacrum of pop culture itself and, as such, pop cultural literacy in viewers affords a privileged capacity to read the show. Various websites including Buzzfeed (Pepe 2017), Vice (Mufson 2017) and Time (Eadicicco 2017) have each published online articles devoted to episode-by-episode hunts for such references, which playfully shame casual viewers for any they might have missed.
While cult followings for television shows emerge for a variety of different reasons, one recurring incentive for cultists is the chance to interrogate a text’s depth and/or inscrutability (for the classic example, see Twin Peaks [David Lynch, 1990-91; 2017]). Therefore, it is not uncommon that cult texts often invite substantial work on the viewer’s part, as evidenced by such disparate practices as reference hunts in Rick and Morty as well the obsessive readings of generated by cult fans. Sara Gwenllian-Jones has identified the readers’ agentic role in the process of a show’s reception and, having “extend[ed] themselves beyond the bounds of their primary texts”, cultification (2004, 85). Gwenllian-Jones expresses the expansionist ways in which fans work through revered texts, revealing how cult communities are not only born out of degrees of dedication, but out of modes of dedication. Correspondingly, one might locate the cult of Rick and Morty within the context of the viewing cultures it inspires, a culture extricable from the data exhibited in the various online articles intent on its deconstruction.
Fan-generated fanfares declaring the show’s ‘smartness’ reveal the (sub)cultural politics of signification that operates at the level of televisual literacy, a process which differentiates viewers on their ability to recognise all the references playfully if tactically submerged beneath the show’s chaotic surface. By employing ‘smartness’ as a structuring principle that encourages positive self-identification in its viewers, Rick and Morty sets itself up for a particular type of audience whose appraisal predicates the show’s success discursively and therefore economically (the burgeoning ancillary markets of Rick and Morty tie-ins and merchandise are a thing to behold). A viewer’s ‘smartness’ manifests in their aptitude for ‘getting’ the references; for watching the inter-dimensional customs sequence and listing off the citations as and when they occur. The cultural reality in which Rick and Morty exists is evidently dependent upon overlapping (and pointedly fannish) subcultures whose capital is observed and established through intertextual recognition, where televisual literacy flows as currency for measuring its audience’s pedigree as readers of pop culture citations. That Rick and Morty establishes ‘smartness’ on principally pop cultural terms speaks to its ironic displacement of established institutions, cultural, educational, and governmental. This philosophy is in keeping with the show’s nihilistic tone towards everything: school is not for smart people, Rick tell us, while a fluency in pop culture is the surest means of ‘getting’ the show’s subterranean elements. By way of overt metatheatrics, the show appears to be telling the viewer to pick their poison: if nothing means anything, then why not be a pop culture aficionado?
Fig. 2 - Still from 'The Old Man and the Seat' (S4E2) of Rick and Morty.
Interestingly, ideas about ‘smartness’ is something that the show seems willing to scrutinise. One of Rick’s prevailing beliefs is that accepted measures of intelligence are either insufficient or entirely redundant: “it’s not a place for smart people, Jerry”, he declares in response to the suggestion that Morty should be prioritising school. Despite its clear irony, Rick’s claim predicates his nihilistic ways of thinking: existence is temporary, nothing means anything, and that all we hold dear (including, and especially, tie-in condiments) is nonsense. The adoption of irony and nihilism as primary thematic currency, one of the established legacies of ‘smart cinema’, are philosophical elements that Rick utilises ad absurdum. Arguably, more interesting than his actual philosophy — existentialism by way of nihilism — are the ideas Rick has about what constitutes ‘smartness’ in a hypermedial cultural climate saturated with an abundance of stuff.
There is nothing to be gained from disputing Rick’s ‘genius’ — on the show’s terms, he is a conqueror of space (if not time) after all — yet there is much to be gleaned from scrutinising his conceptualisation of ‘smartness’. As a nihilist, Rick is understandably anti-institutional, so of course it makes sense that he objects to school and government; nevertheless, when considering his ideation of what is ‘smart’, one should also bear in mind Rick’s megalomania and fantasy of himself as a space-conquering hero with his problems in check. Indeed, the overt fantasy elements of the show only serve to amplify the importance of family, of emotional self-care and, for Rick, accountability. In season 4 episode ‘The Old Man and the Seat’, Rick has constructed an entire universe in which he is able to finally shit in peace (Fig. 2). Having accidentally set off his own booby-trap, placed to prevent intruders from invading his utopic throne, Rick resorts to sitting in solitude as a giant projection of himself rains abuse down on him. As general loathing reveals itself to be self-loathing, the show tellingly intimates that Rick’s flights of fancy into other dimensions are in fact flights into fantasy where he might escape from his myriad failures as a father and as a human being.
This scrutiny of Rick is even encouraged by the show at times, especially evident in a sequence in which Rick is rebuked by a family therapist (played by Susan Sarandon). She notes: “Rick, the only connection between your unquestionable intelligence and the sickness destroying your family is that everyone in your family, you included, use intelligence to justify sickness” (the full scene is available here). In this sequence, the writers of the show are far from legitimating Rick’s self-aggrandising, demagogical worldview. While he frequently posits that people should think for themselves, the show appears critical of the “sickness” that he has inflicted upon his family. At risk of sounding like “the Rickiest Rick of the them all”, perhaps Rick, a charismatic ideologue, is intended as bait for the portions of the audience who have failed to recognise the irony of it all and champion Rick in spite of his villainy. Perhaps it is here, in such large-scale goading, that Rick and Morty’s real ‘smartness’ manifests? Or maybe we should all just stop worrying and enjoy the show? Who knows.
**Article published: May 21, 2021**
References
Falvey, Eddie. 2020. “Situating Netflix’s Original Adult Animation: Observing Taste Cultures and the Legacies of ‘Quality’ Television through BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth.” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15, no. 2: 116-29.
Eadicicco, Lisa. 2017. “All the Rick and Morty Easter Eggs You Missed in Seasons One and Two”, Time, 27 Jul 2017, https://time.com/4868184/rick-morty-easter-eggs/.
Fiske, John., Hartley, John. 2003. Reading Television. New York: Routledge.
Gwenllian-Jones, Sara. 2004. “Virtual Reality and Cult Television.” In Cult Television, edited by Sara Gwenllian-Jones. 83-98. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Mufson, Beckett. 2017. “Every Pop-Culture Reference (So Far) in Season Three of 'Rick and Morty’", Vice, viewed 26 Sep 2017, https://www.vice.com/en/article/yw3bbv/every-pop-culture-reference-so-far-in-season-three-of-rick-and-morty.
Pepe, H. (2017) “25 References You May Have Missed While Watching Rick and Morty.” Buzzfeed, 6 Aug 2017, https://www.buzzfeed.com/josehernandez/rick-and-morty-references.
Weinstock, Jefferey Andrew. 2008. “Taking South Park Seriously.” In Taking South Park Seriously, edited by Jefferey Andrew Weinstock. 1-23. New York: State University of New York Press.
Biography
Dr Eddie Falvey completed his AHRC-funded PhD project on the early films of New York at the University of Exeter, where he taught in the Department of English. Since finishing his PhD, Eddie has been Lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at Plymouth College of Art. Eddie has published widely on film and associated media and is the author of an upcoming monograph on Re-Animator (University of Liverpool Press, 2021) and co-editor of the recently released volume New Blood: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Horror (University of Wales Press, 2020). He is now in the process of developing his thesis into a monograph for Amsterdam University Press. For more information on Falvey, see his personal website https://www.eddiefalveycloseencounters.com/.