Los Angeles - Seth Rogen has slammed a film critic for claiming movies like Neighbors motivated shooting suspect Elliot Rodger.
The actor, who appeared in the movie alongside Zac Efron, has hit out at Washington Post writer Ann Hornaday, who suggested in a recent article that "outsized frat-boy fantasies" like the film encouraged the Santa Barbara suspect, who left six people dead and 13 injured last week in a deadly rampage, after he revealed he was tired of being ignored by girls at college.
Rogen took to Twitter to call out the writer:
.@AnnHornaday I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 26, 2014
.@AnnHornaday how dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 26, 2014
Hornada wrote in her article: "How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like Neighbors' and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of 'sex and fun and please?' 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'?
"Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it."
Hornaday went on to write: "If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger - thanks to make studio executives - who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections - no-one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large."
According to the Hollywood Reporter, director and producer Apatow, who worked on Bridesmaids and Knocked Up, has also responded to the article, calling it "self promotional" and "idiotic."
He added: "Why is it always everything else but mental illness?"
Elliot, 22, who is the son of Hunger Games second unit director Peter Rodger, detailed his chilling plans to murder women in a 141-page manifesto and committed suicide after the killings.