"Shrek" and "Pirates Of The Caribbean" writer Terry Rossio took to his Twitter account to express his stance on vaccinations this past week.Rossio responded to a tweet urging people to participate and advance vaccination efforts by his peer Julie Benson, a writer for the successful television series, “The 100,” using a problematic argument. “My heart goes out to all the parents of vaccine damaged children, who have to not only endure the sadness of their loss, but also the vitriol of ill-informed and insensitive people (such as those here)," he wrote. He went on to add, "Anti-Vax is equivalent to calling someone a n—-r and makes as little sense.”
Rossio's decision to use the racial slur in its full form to illustrate his point has unsurprisingly caused controversy and has sparked discussion on Twitter. "In today's silly news, outrage culture targets Shrek writer [Terry Rossio] for using the n-word, even though the context was clearly that he was criticizing people who randomly call others the n-word," one Twitter user wrote. In response to Rossio's tweet and to those defending it, another user wittingly observed, "God, this is such a good point. I remember how American founders and citizens enslaved vaccine skeptics for decades. And then, even after freeing them, the government enshrined laws to marginalize vaccine deniers and to deny them wealth and opportunity. That's just history."
Rossio’s agency, WME, reportedly could not be reached for comment.