Fuck it, you guys. I keep my online presence pretty light: pun-centric tweets, videos of me getting sloshed at my talk show, a slobbery, ever-increasing mass of Frodito pictures. But it feels emotionally negligent to keep my opinion on Dan Harmon's firing internal. Because too often we are quick to forgive people who are rude, who are inconsiderate, who are unkind, by saying, "Yeah, but their show is great. Yeah, but they're pretty. Yeah, but they're good at their job." No. No. No. Enough. In Harmon's own words -- look at his blog right now -- he writes about himself, "I'm a selfish baby and a rude asshole and not a person to trust with your feelings."
This is not good enough for me. It is not enough for you to declare yourself an asshole and then expect me to say "Oh! Okay, that's fine then!" because your product is good. To dismiss a person's rudeness by saying "Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's so funny" is not good enough for me. Somewhere along the line of humanity, we have deemed it acceptable to give rude, mean and inconsiderate people a "pass" on their negativity so long as they are funny or productive. The pacifists amongst us will tell me, "Grace, if some people don't care that a guy is a shithead as long as he produces good work, then let them." Let me be clear: It is as damaging to have this attitude as it is to be the shithead yourself. If you are sitting back and feeling so upset that Dan Harmon got fired because his show is so funny the way it is, you are part of the problem: you are saying it's okay for a person to selfishly mistreat his employees so long as he makes you laugh.
What I'm saying is this: bravo, Sony, for firing Dan Harmon. He is a self-declared unkind person and that is not a person whose product I can support. And further, bravo, NBC, for keeping Community on air without Dan Harmon. I am thrilled that all the talented actors and crew members and composers and writers will get to keep their jobs and their world rather than all be dismissed because of one guy's poor attitude.
I don't care what industry you're in: if you can't treat your employees kindly, fuck you. I hope this is a wake-up call for Harmon to start to realize that it's just not good enough to dismiss himself as an asshole and that's just how it's gonna be. You know what that screams? It screams lazy. If you have enough time and willpower to run your own television show, you have enough time and willpower to make yourself a more humane person.