Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

The horrifying killing spree that left six people, as well as the 22-year-old alleged perpetrator, dead in California has once again sparked a national conversation about gun control and mental health. Elliot Rodger’s viciously misogynistic online postings have also inspired the Twitter hashtag “YesAllWomen” and a larger conversation about the twisted views shared by some, but #notallmen, including those who call themselves Men’s Rights Activists.

Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday jumped into the fray this weekend with a piece on how Rodgers upbringing in Hollywood “inflated” or perhaps “created” ‘his delusions.” In particular, she points to the new Seth Rogen film Neighbors and to the work of Judd Apatow.

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 pleasure”? 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”?

Both of the men took to Twitter to express their unhappiness with the piece.

During a segment on local radio station WTOP, Hornaday said, “I understand why they would feel defensive, because I did single out Apatow’s movies, in terms of the shlubby guy getting the girl, and I did also mention Neighbors.”

“What I tried to do is raise some questions about the knock-on effects of immersing ourselves in these same narratives and same images, over and over again.”

She also responded to the criticism in a video.

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