Hey Wisecrack, Jared again.
With a new Rick and Morty season supposedly just around the corner we thought that it
would be a great time to revisit one of our favorite episodes: "Get Schwifty."
"Get Schwifty" was a jam.
One of the show's essential features is that it trivializes everything people hold dear,
and for billions of people, nothing is more sacred than religion.
While religion is, rather overtly, a regular victim of Rick's contempt,
there's something to be said about the complexity of the Schwifty episode.
While Rick and Morty often reduces religion to superstition,
"There is no god Summer. Gotta rip that bandaid off now, you'll thank me later."
"Get Schwifty" complicates this outlook, exploring the way we rationalize such thinking.
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on the philosophy of "Get Schwifty".
When a giant floating head shows up and insists to humanity,
"SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT! I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU GOT!"
the Earth is plagued with earthquakes, sink holes, fires, and massive flooding.
The show uses this opportunity to quickly roast the opportunistic nature of organized religion.
Giant heads are destroying the world, but the church needs more faith, more money, and a new church organ.
"If sanity has been restored to this assembly, I'd like to talk about the cost of repairing our new organ."
But it doesn't dwell there.
The episode follows two groups. There are those that know the Cromulons are actually there to film a reality show,
"This head won't go away until Earth shows them it's got, a hit song!"
and those that have no clue what's going on.
"Is it God? If it's God, do we get out of school?"
Headism is a cult that pops up because of a cosmic problem in point of view.
There's no peak behind the curtain.
People don't know what the hell a Cromulon is or what "show me what you've got" refers to,
"SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!"
so naturally, they form a cult.
The episode could be read as just a scathing indictment of religion, about the arbitrary
nature of faith and its ceremonies.
Like on "Ascension Day" the Headists send "unwantables"to the gods,
which bears a striking resemblance to the crucifixion of Christ.
Instead, what is presented is something much more complex.
The episode takes aim at the reasoning behind belief structures themselves, not just religious practices,
it exposes the fallacies behind all kinds of shit people believe.
"Get Schwifty" makes fun of two common logical fallacies,
both of which conflate correlation with causation.
The Headist religion is started because Principal Vagina prays to the Head at the same time
that the cataclysmic events begin to subside:
"Whaddaya know? He was right!"
That's the Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy: the mistaken belief that one thing occurring
at the same time as another unrelated thing has anything to do with each other.
The reality is the Heads stop because they are pleased with Rick's impromptu performance of "Get Schwifty."
A song about dropping your panties, and a deuce, on the floor.
"Take off your pants and your panties. Sh*t on the floor. Time to get schwifty in here!"
"I LIKE WHAT YOU GOT. GOOD JOB!"
The person to create the first list of logical fallacies was Aristotle.
Tired of arguing with dumb people, he created a giant list of arguments that sounded great
but are actually pure ass-clownery.
The episode plays with all sorts of these fallacies.
The President thinks that The Dream, Billy Corgan, Randy Newman, and Pharrell are all dead because:
"They're all dead."
"What? How is that possible? Do people just die when I name them?"
That's the Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc fallacy: the idea that because something
comes prior to something else it is naturally the cause.
Principal Vagina tries to ascend Beth and Jerry, and everybody assumes that this angers the heads.
"Looks like the heads are getting angry!"
*Heads start booing*
"The heads are displeased!"
That's the Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy again.
In reality the heads are actually pissed off because Rick's performance without Morty is terrible.
"Ugh, tough crowd."
That and a nuclear strike.
"BOO, NOT COOL. DISQUALIFIED!"
So the Headists try to ascend Principal Vagina to ease the heads anger
but truth is, the heads don't give a rat's ass about what they're up to.
In each instance, the characters with a limited point of view,
the people who don't know that all of this is just a giant reality TV show,
believe that their mundane ceremonies actually influence the Heads.
Beth and Jerry actually point out this logical fallacy a couple times.
"It's possible that we may have been correlating some things that weren't actually related at all."
"I'm just saying, we don't know there's a cause-effect relationship—"
While ruthlessly satirizing the magical thinking of the faithful, the episode also makes a greater point.
People don't just fall into silly beliefs out of pure irrationality —
rather, they over rationalize their thinking to the point of absurdity.
Some cognitive psychologists argue that pseudo-scientific belief systems are far from fragile.
Doomsday cults, psychics, and conspiracy theorists are all so resilient in their beliefs because
they are sustained by the structure of the human brain.
The belief systems persist and spread via appeals to rationality,
not through tricking people or the stupidity of the masses.
The human brain is hard-wired to search for logical conclusions and easy explanations.
"How is praying going to help?"
"Ma'am, a giant head in the sky is controlling the weather. Did you wanna play checkers?"
"Let's be rational! I'll see you at God's house!"
People tend to believe what they want to believe — what lines up with their world view.
People like consuming and sharing news that aligns with their political beliefs or creating
elaborate justifications for supporting the sportsball team they were raised to root for..
Its called confirmation bias: the propensity to seek out and interpret information that
proves your own beliefs.
Confirmation bias explains why people are willing to overcome glaring flaws in their belief
system for the sake of personal benefit.
"Summer is doing really well here. She's not getting pregnant, or doing drugs, or missing curfew..."
"Please help me. you can reach me if you try! PLEASE HELP ME!"
"That's not our business as long as Summer is thriving."
All of these fallacies and biases aren't unique to religion though.
While Rick and Morty has a great time shitting on religion, the reality is that
post hoc rationalization is an inevitability of our cause and effect thought process.
Even the audience is fooled by the brain's tendency to accept logical fallacies as seen in Rick's snake and wristwatch trick.
"Stay back! This watch turns people into snakes!"
"Stand down! Everybody, stand down!"
It Plays on the brains desire to attribute event A as the cause of event B. When in reality:
"Why didn't he turn into a snake?"
"Trade secret Mr. President. Particle beam in the wristwatch, snake holster on the leg."
Sure, Rick and Morty delivers the tasty irony that the cosmic events that help build a religion
can be woefully inaccurate, that the reality of belief structures can be built on the most
inane of all things — a f**king reality TV show.
But they take things a step further.
The ability to make predictions and understand the complexity of existence as a whole is taken to task.
And that's what separates Rick and Morty from contemporary satire.
Nothing is safe.
Not even belief.
Take it easy, Wisecrack.
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