Red Scare - Pod Things
Episode Date: March 18, 2024The ladies weigh in on tomboy discourse and review Poor Things....
Transcript
Discussion (0)
["All the Things You Said"]
Hervé. Hervé. We're back. Ramadan Mubarak.
Oh Ramadan Mubarak.
Dasha.
Is that to you and Samira Khan only?
How long is the Ramadan fast do you know?
Guessing give or take about a month.
It's always about a month, right?
Did you see Sean King aka Talcom X converted to Islam?
No.
Right on cue in support of Samira,
not because that's like the final step in attaining ultimate
Wigardom. 29 to 30 days.
It's a month.
Yeah, like a menstrual cycle. 29 to 30 days. It's a month. Yeah.
Like a menstrual cycle.
Yeah, Lent's 40, someone knows more,
but it's not a contest.
Whatever.
I had a Muslim guy tell me recently
who was like driving me to the airport. I should stop
drinking and read the Quran. And he said that he doesn't have to evangelize as a Muslim because
it's a privilege actually to be Muslim. And I was like, okay.
I was like, well, and then I kind of was like, well, what about gambling?
But we had a good dialogue, honestly, it was some good, it was very, yeah,
ecumenical of us. We had, we made some bridges. I'm not gonna read the Quran.
You guys were coexisting.
We were coexisting Quran like crazy yeah you
don't need to read the Quran just read the Bible read those really definitely
makes way more sorry it's like confusing yeah I don't know. I mean, I'm just not going to read the...
I should reread the Quran.
You should read the Quran again. It's short.
Ish. Yeah.
It's shorter. Whatever. I feel like we've done this before.
It's like a Wellbeck novel. We're like doing the same bit over and over again.
I got laser hair removal today.
Oh, nice.
On my legs. Great. I'm finally doing it. I'm so hair removal today. Oh, nice.
Great.
I'm finally, I'm so happy for you.
I'm finally committing to the full leg.
I had an incredible laser technician who was a Bella Russian woman from Grodno, where I
spent a lot of time as a child and was also baptized and she was so sweet.
Yeah. she was so sweet. She was so thin, so beautiful. I thought, damn, you're 19 years old. She
was so nice. And yeah, it took about an hour and we had an amazing... I love Russian people
so much. They're so like good. When they're good, you know, you're like, oh, you're an
amazing woman. Thank God. thank god we're in america i know
they are pretty nice in america even in russia they can you know when they're like duchovny you
know she was just so she was so like proud of me because like i told her
Like, yeah, she was just like happy, you know, she was like, your parents must be so proud of you that you like live by yourself in New York.
They're stoked. I saw my dermatologist today who is awesome and rules.
I highly recommend him.
Do you wanna?
His name is Daniel Belkin, your dermatology group.
All right.
He revealed to me that he was on my Instagram
and saw that I was hanging out with some conservative figure and I was like
racking my brain trying to get ahead of it.
Yeah, I'm a journalist.
I'm like Taylor Lorenz.
I'm actually doing an anti-fob reporting.
And then I was like, I really can't ever do anything involving needles with this guy because
he's going to hurt me.
He didn't receive it formally. No, I think he was cool or at least agnostic about it.
Yeah.
He's just a doctor.
He's a doctor.
But I hope if I shamelessly flatter him.
Here we go.
Yeah, I'll check.
I mean, he promised to listen to the podcast and I said, no, please don't.
I know.
Sometimes people are like, what Ben Stiller told me once he would check it out.
I was like, don't do it, dude.
The podcast called.
I'm like, uh's the podcast called? I'm like, uh, The Red Wave?
Whatever Taylor Lorenz's podcast is called.
Pod Save America? I'd like to shout out Raquel Medina Claghorn.
She's my esthetician.
Not to blow up her spot, because I
do love going to her very much.
She's wonderful.
We'll see. And I've never, because I do love going to her very much. She's wonderful. We'll see.
And I've never, because I was told at Biologique Research in Paris, HQ got a facial there.
Incredible. They told me never do extraction. It traumatizes your skin. Raquel does the gentlest,
nicest extractions.
Yeah, I think that's fake news. I mean no. I want to believe it.
Every other time I've gotten extractions randomly because some esthetician was
like no you really should. I've broken out. Really? Because I'm not that
hydronic. You know like I do be putting my hot phone on my face and stuff and like
don't wash my hands and it's just I don't I should not
be inflaming my pores but Raquel really does it real good. Yeah I think if you
have a good extractor it goes well I've only had one bad extraction like yeah
10 12 years ago when my sister bought me like a package from some Polish lady in
Williamsburg and I just broke the fuck out.
Yeah, sometimes it just makes it worse.
It was horrible, I didn't do it again for so long
because I was shook, but I had extractions done recently
and it was fine.
Well, you're not very acne prone.
Yeah, but I have congested pores.
Yeah.
I do extractions myself sometimes. Yeah, but I have congested pores. Damn.
I do extractions myself sometimes.
I do, but I take too much out or all.
And it's never a good decision.
Just like staring at the mirror like, should I pluck my eyebrows?
I don't know if you notice I bleached my eyebrows.
Yeah, I noticed.
Did you notice?
They're kind of back to normal., I bleached my eyebrows recently. Yeah, yeah, I noticed, yeah. Did you notice? Okay.
They're kind of back to, oh, oh, oh.
They're back to normal.
And I started biting my nails again.
Damn.
Pfft.
Had a good run.
I'm obese.
I'm fugly.
I did see an, I did see a Reddit thread recently
that someone made where it was like,
why doesn't Dasha have more mainstream success?
And then everyone was like, oh, she's fucking stupid
and racist and ugly and not talented and all that stuff.
And I was like, I thought I did have mainstream success.
I was like, what?
What did you want?
I thought I was doing good.
Jennifer love Hewitt and I know what you did last summer.
What do you want from me?
But besides that, yeah, I'm still off X.
Though I did catch wind of some tomboy discourse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We mercifully bypassed the latest round of Sydney's Sweeney discourse,
which really made me want to sell them.
Whether she's hot or not. Whether she's a white savior or something.
Yeah, it was like whether her canons are single-handedly saving Western civilization.
Come on. her canons are single-handedly saving Western civilization.
Come on. Because she really like wiped out
the Aaron Bushnell discourse.
And I was like, guys, guys, guys,
like there's gonna be another discourse next week
and the week after.
And sure enough, there was, there's a revolution in Haiti.
Oh yeah, they're eating people on TikTok.
They're cannibalizing themselves.
Oh, fuck.
people on TikTok. You think the hunting and fishing girl is bad, try it. There should be like a cannibalism influencer. Yeah, like a Houtti pirate but for Hades he eats people
but he's gorgeous. Hear me out. Okay. He's gorgeous. He's a cannibal. Eating people's soul.
Oh, god.
We missed the Oscars. I did not know the Oscars were happening.
We'll talk about the Oscars, which neither of us watched.
I saw a photo of that dog from Zone of Interest with some guy laying under the seat holding a prop pause,
which I thought was very insulting
into me because of the dog and the man.
Which is very topical.
Because I have a theory about poor things,
which we're gonna review later, but we'll get to that. Tomboy discourse.
Yeah.
So Samira Khan, who is a former Miss New Jersey turned freelance journalist.
She's the one who said it's a mental illness.
She really started World War Three because she came for this TikTok influencer girl called Hannah Brown.
Who's like a good old girl working in the yard,
wearing overalls.
Like an aw shucks.
Yeah, like getting the done.
Still like wearing make like not some dyke.
Larry the cable girl.
Like has makeup on is very fam
presenting there. She's yeah doing some boyish tasks.
She's doing around the farm.
And Samira's take was basically death to tomboy supremacy.
What's supremacy? Tomboy's don't have no supremacy.
Wait, let me pull up the original tweet if I can. I don't even know if I have it. The one I saw was from this woman Megha.
Oh.
Who's like some, I don't know. She said,
Being a tomboy is a mental illness resulting from a girl being raised as a son by a misogynistic feminist culture that believes femininity is inferior or useless.
The career-obsessed female corporate is the same as the country girl who hunts and does manual labor.
If you're wondering where gender confusion began in American culture, this is one of the roots.
It's really funny the brown and or Muslim girls are opining on cultures where femininity is useless.
This is a Samira tweet. This accent needs to be legal and women should be banned
from doing manual labor like this.
There's nothing feminine about American women.
American women are literally men.
She really never stood a chance.
She like flew too close to the sun
and overestimated her powers.
It's like basic suns too.
You have to know thy enemy
and where you stand in relation to them.
Absolutely. I mean, I identify vaguely as a tomboy. I think I'm me too, I guess. But let's be real,
I'm just a tranny. But I know what you're talking about. Like I am wearing like track pants a lot and I'm not like glaming it up so much.
And I definitely don't do manual labor like I am useless in that regard.
I am feminine in some very conventional ways, but I love like a rowdy fraternal
atmosphere. I love like hooting and hollering with the boys. You're into chess. You like
reading obscure religious PDFs. Well that's okay. So that's where I wanted to
ask about the you about the tomboy pick-me distinction. Because I think the
tomboy kind of comes about it
more naturally and can even have a negative disposition towards men.
Yeah, it's like a guy's girl, one of the guys. But is that not a pick-me?
It may or may not be. There's some overlap.
It may or may not be. There's some overlap.
But on the other hand, these super dolled up,
overfilled girls who are lashing out at tomboy's
are also easily accused of being pick me's.
Yeah, that's what she's trying.
She's trying to pick me about the tomboy question
and it's backfiring.
Yeah. Cause men like tomboy's and it's backfiring. Yeah.
Cause men like tomboy, cause men are gay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The thing about men is they're gay.
So they like masculine qualities.
I think men like a bubbly disposition in a warm hole.
Yeah.
Amen. And they don't like anything too high maintenance. Yeah. That's basically that's why when they post those like aesthetic uh
return images that are like men only want one thing and it's like a clearly very high maintenance
but that's doing like a photo shoot.
Who knows, men want different things and half the time
they don't know what they want.
Some men like a high maintenance broad.
Yeah, but I think first things first,
it's important to acknowledge that Samira
is totally bat shit crazy in the way that only
a Pakistani girl from New Jersey can be.
Before you guys call me racist, I grew up with them. in the way that only a Pakistani girl from New Jersey can be.
Before you guys call me racist, I grew up with them. Those girls are not playing around.
They be placing curses on people, doing black magic.
If you think white women are catty and competitive.
Yeah, I believe that.
I've got news for you.
When I was dating my Paki high school sweetheart, his mother
was embroiled in a blood feud with the father's side of the family. And I remember she told
him not to eat any candies or nuts from the decorative bowl that they had in their living
room because they were trying to poison him. Wow. It's that like level of magic carpet ride.
Kind of high of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she was clearly triggered by this
carefree overall wearing country bumpkin.
I think like the kind of obvious read on it
is that off white and brown girls
are jealous of like girl next door, all American girls
who they don't really hold in high esteem
in terms of their looks or tastes
because they get the guys and attention that they want.
Like that's what, you know know everyone's obviously saying.
Yeah, it's all sexual pathology and jealousy all the way down.
Yeah, and I agree with like the right wingers who said it was like a fundamentally like anti white position.
Because whites are kind of like salt of the earth rural types who I don't follow the
just like that they hate white women because they're in
competition with them for the same pool of men.
Mm hmm. Right. There was that take which is not inaccurate.
The other thing to point out is like, you know, South Asian and Middle Eastern
girls have a different beauty standard than all American girls.
They like a more dolled up high maintenance aesthetic.
Americans like Jennifer Connolly and Jennifer Aniston
and Sydney Sweeney and they prefer, you know,
like Angelina Jolie or Adriana Lima.
They have Bollywood.
It's just much more glam.
Yeah, it's more high maintenance is a good word for it for sure.
So there's like that kind of conflict.
But where does that come from in America?
What do you mean?
Like, how does that come to be the standard of kind of like feminine
heterosexual attractiveness? Which one? Like the what's-her-face. Hannah Brown? No
no no like silver linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence,
Sydney Sweeney, these kind of like corn fed guys,
I don't know.
Yeah, just like an all American girl next door vibes.
Yeah, but when did that start?
And like why wouldn't American men defend American women?
I mean, I'm sure it started with the founding of America.
No, that was like pilgrims and shit.
It was like these, these tough party women that were doing manual labor
in the course of like building a new civilization.
Or they, I mean,
Yeah, I'm sure.
But that also, it's such a, to bring up fucking Gone with the Wind again,
like we've done it for Amazon or the Antebellum South.
But like those modes of femininity were very different.
Yeah, they were much more in line with what like immigrant women would relate to.
And so it's interesting that like, you know, Gone With The Wind is very popular in Russia
where they also like the 10 pounds of makeup,
bimbofied look.
Though of course, whatever, these categories are porous.
It's very hard to make any kind of like hard jobs.
But it's just when you think about,
when you say like all America,
we're really talking about like the Midwest and South.
Yeah.
Cause the West Coast has its own thing, the coastal thing.
Yeah. But like the Midland and the South. I guess it makes sense. The Midland. Look, I can sympathize
with like off-white and brown girls who feel kind of like slighted by what they perceive
to be like American beauty standards.
I get it.
I don't know.
When you have like dark hair and severe features,
when they call you ugly, it very quickly becomes existential
because your ugliness is like a reflection
of like your rotten inner core.
And fundamental villainy.
Right, or like inferiority, like the eye chart thing.
Yeah, totally.
I just don't buy it.
Yeah, I just don't buy it.
But I'm less off, I'm more white passing than you are.
So I've always enjoyed white privilege.
I think, okay, if you're a woman on the internet who shares her image,
you will be called ugly at some point in time without fail.
Of course.
They say really horrible things about every woman.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It just depends.
You know what I'm saying?
Totally, totally, totally.
It's like really hideous and vicious.
And I feel...
It's a toxic hideous and vicious and I feel like environment.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, it makes me just feel bad and depressed.
I know.
And some are like really overshot with that attack.
I just don't think we're there. Like the whole thing about Tomboys is that
it was an acceptable
it was sort of this like
It was actually like the last line of defense we had against like
Tranny tyranny, you know, it was like that there was an acceptable space in which
Girls could be kind of boyish and still be girls.
And now like if a girl shows boyish tendencies,
it becomes a slippery slope into transom, but that's not like,
that's not the tomboy's fault. The tomboy was like a sanctioned category.
Well, yeah.
I mean Steve Saylor had a good point about this where he said like, you know,
back in the day girls with boyish hobbies were simply called tomboy's
and now they're like encouraged to chop their teeth off.
But by the way, I'm not siding with Samira here
because I think her attack was very ugly and unprovoked.
Yeah, no, no, all of that was really dirty.
I mean, that was one of the reasons
I felt compelled to leave X was this whole like downstream of
TikTok kind of like discourse generation that was happening where they were just
find like these tick like there's so many people are on TikTok of course
you'll find you know like this like cherry picking. Yeah. And this girl was no mere like TikTok account.
She was extremely popular and had like millions of followers.
My take that I saw her jumping up on those ex was like that, you know, all the female
intersexual competition aside, this is really like a war between the Islamic aesthetic of
horror vacui and their hatred of nature and the elements versus the American aesthetic
of simplicity and their love of the great outdoors.
Exactly. I have a deeper, more analytical take on this, which is that, what did Hannah Brown do immediately
after she was attacked?
It was within her rights, but she issued that response video with her adorable accent where
she was just like, peace and love.
I don't remember this girl's name and immediately went on Twitter,
exposed herself to an audience and leverage the opportunity.
And so she was unfairly attacked,
but she ran with it and used it to her advantage.
And it was good for business
because all these people like rallied around her.
Of course.
I mean, that's the same thing that's kinda happened to us.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Taylor Lorenz came at me on Instagram.
I saw that.
I was like, get me away from this fascist bitch.
I was like, you're on my page.
And I was like, and you're being such a censorious,
I'm literally posting a picture of my tits here.
I'm literally not doing fascism, I'm doing posting like a picture of my tits here. I'm literally not doing fascism.
I'm doing like degeneracy.
Don't leave my degenerate art page alone, you fascist.
Some people were saying that the stunt was astroturfed
and that Samira and Hannah were potentially in cahoots.
I don't think that's true.
I just think that Hannah is like anti-fragile.
Yeah, definitely, no, no, no.
And the other funny thing is that,
this opportunity fell in her lap and she took it,
but she's also apparently like a spokesperson
for this conservatard brand
called Black Rifle Coffee Company.
And it was funny because people were calling Samira a female to female transsexual,
but the guys who run that brand are like male to male transsexuals.
Right. Hard gender.
Yeah, gender roles. Yeah. But
I don't know anything about Hannah Brown. I don't get that.
No, no, I don't. I don't Brown. I don't get that.
No, no, I don't either.
She just came out of nowhere, which like good for her.
And I think her personality like basically comes off as more
likeable and authentic than Samira's, which Samira didn't
get when she launched her attack.
It's not for me.
I wouldn't personally, but like I did. Well, remember Yeah, I wouldn't personally. But I did.
Well, remember Abby, the van influencer girl?
No.
Oh, yes.
That all these guys got mad at because she made a video
about how her and her boyfriend Dante were taking some space.
Yeah, we talked about it.
We talked about this very show.
Everyone blew it out of fucking proportion.
But I felt very like, you know, I was like, leave Abby's just a fucking wandering soul.
Like let her do her thing.
But now she's on fucking OnlyFans and shit.
Of course.
I mean, that's how it goes.
It's like, don't hate the player, hate the game.
In a way, my hot take is that even though
Samira looks more fake, she's actually more real because
she's not necessarily trying to sell or peddle anything, she's just being mentally
ill on the line. Yeah, she's laying bare her darkest thoughts that she should tell
like a therapist about instead, for sure. But Hannah Brown or whatever, she's too busy fucking chopping up the lumber and jumping up and down on the bricks and all whatever she's up to.
A point I want to make that I already made on Twitter too is that when women make TikToks and sell some promise of sexual availability or sexual accessibility
through these like proxy identities or activities
like I'm a trad wife or I bake or I go hunting and fishing.
That is a form of pornography.
Yeah, I agree.
And it's kind of like pornography light,
but in a way it's more harmful than the real thing
because it's more ubiquitous and insidious and it more easily passes for something authentic.
And again, I'm not judging this girl or how she makes her money because God knows we make
our money in a similar way.
We've also leveraged our looks and sexuality
to build the brand, essentially.
Yeah, and have a parasocial relationship
that we have.
Yeah, that's the essence of the podcast.
Not to show you how the sausage is made,
but what you have is a parasocial attachment to me.
And Anna, we are not your friends.
We lose a bunch of subscribers.
We're your enemies.
Like y'all don't really know us,
but we appreciate it.
A buddy of mine said that like basically at this point,
90% of social media is women selling this parasocial promise
of an accessibility or availability that never materializes.
And if you point that out as a man, you get called an in-cellar misogynist.
If you point it out as a woman, you're just jealous or a pick-me.
But that really is how the sausage is made.
I wouldn't say 90%. I would say like...
I mean, yeah, he's being dramatic.
Yeah, like a very visible majority
but I think 90 percent of people online are doing something even more kind of insidious and like
soul calcifying and that they're not even being like creative. You, they're just participating kind of in this like group think meme identity,
like they're just basically like parroting these phrases and like aesthetics and like they're just
like kind of a culture mashing into these distinct like subcultures and like they're not even doing
anything. I can't even make the TikTok video, you know? Yeah, that's true. They're too busy. They're all in soul bras replies.
Like those people are way more pathetic.
I realized who he looks like.
Who?
The scream mask.
So that is so true.
If the scream mask wasn't screaming.
That is so true.
Yeah. But okay, but what I'm saying is that like Hannah Brown, who again, I think is probably a perfectly doing this are pornographers.
Yeah, nice young woman.
She's just getting her bag.
She is not a real person.
She is a persona.
She's an influencer.
Yeah, 1000%.
Yeah, it's really crazy to me how
conservatards always take the bait like hook line and sinker and they treat these meme
discourses at face value like a war between well that's two real people one of whom totally
looks real and the other one looks fake and so like that that becomes the premise of the
argument and it's really not well that's because they're literally culture warriors.
They're wrapped up entirely in signifiers
as the soldiers of the culture war.
They can't, they're no one's like penetrated.
It's like, that's the level that they're at
is fighting this culture war.
Yeah, and like, of course I felt too like cowardly
and cucked to say anything
because I didn't want to be accused of being jealous or pick me but like I clocked that shit
from the minute it popped off that this girl was like selling a product that was partly herself
and partly like black rifle coffee or whatever. Well, a conservative coded product.
Yeah.
That then conservatards could rally around as like a,
she herself is a commodity as well.
They might as well be rallying for fucking the coffee.
Her first like Twitter missive is like,
oh shucks, I just started my new Twitter.
I appreciate you guys.
Totally, it's exactly the same as that Kevin Costner meme.
That red haired, that man with the red beard who sang that song about the
coal or whatever it was about.
Like it's that's it's exactly the same thing except he was a little more libtard, but he same thing.
He like was astroturfed into people's consciousness, came on Twitter, was like, I don't know much about much, but I know about singing this song.
And people are like, see, he's so real.
And people are like, see, he's so real.
But it's sad that people are so thirsty for something real when they could have it if they, sorry,
touched a fucking grass.
They just logged off.
They could be having-
If they built their own house.
Have you ever heard of an A-frame?
Like you could have some real experience.
I'm gonna just start talking in this accent.
And those right wingers are gonna be like,
wait a second, you're a Pakistani.
That's the thing is it feels just feels right.
I saw a lot of this genre of take.
What's more naturally feminine ridiculing other women
while wearing polypropylene plastic on your eyes
and synthetic hyaluronic acid in your lips
for learning to build a home that will hold a family's memories and embracing your ancestral
accent. Now that you put it that way, being catty to other women online is objectively way more
feminine than like preserving your way of life, which just seems like a general universal trait that applies to both men and women.
But also the like...
so much psychological, shattered projection happening to you where like a home for your family where you could all be together again.
It's like that person's also fucking mentally ill and preoccupied with this idea of mommy is going to make them a house that they'll
finally be safe in.
They're living like in an Airbnb with a mini fridge.
Yeah.
And this like packie woman's threatening their like safety, but all this is happening completely
in an unreal virtual realm.
It's twisted. In my mind, I picture Samira living in like a McMansion with one of those chairs that
shape like a stiletto.
What's more feminine sitting in your stiletto chair or my dad finally accepting me for who
I am and giving me his unconditional love.
And the whole debate comes down to like, are you gay for liking Tomboys or are you gay
for liking F2Fs or whatever?
I mean, an interesting question to be sure.
I think a wormhole is a wormhole.
Hey, aw shucks. You know, a wormhole's a wormhole. Hey, aw shucks.
A wormhole's a wormhole.
I do think a lot of men do find the ideal is a hot girl
who acts like, is like a Jennifer Lawrence,
a hot, extremely hot girl who's like,
I'll eat a hot dog, whatever, drink a beer.
You know, like that's what men want.
They don't want.
That was like the premise of poor things where it's like,
there's nothing sexier than a hot retard with a baby brain who acts like a
violent, anti-social sociopath and shovels food in her mouth.
Cause everyone's so anorexic now, which is like fundamentally unattractive to
men. Well, the OZEM, it's the ozempic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was literally Jennifer Lawrence's appeal.
I remember reading, I was very, I remember it because I was so kind of unsettled by it.
It was when Chris Martin, the former husband of Gwyneth Paltrow, was rumored to have started
dating Jennifer Lawrence.
And it was like a really catty tabloid magazine, like side by side. And it was like Gwyneth
Paltrow like only eats like a handful of nuts and a smoothie. And like Jennifer Lawrence
loves to choke, choke, choke down a hot dog while watching a football game.
And it was this really-
She likes tater tots.
Exactly, and I was like, this is really ugly
the way they're pitting these women against each other
in this fake way, because that's always a persona
on some level.
It seems like there are different types of women that
appeal to different types of men and if you're just a fucking decent person
somebody will love you or maybe not. Or maybe not. Actually if you're a decent
person you'll probably just eat shit the rest of your life. I mean it's something
I guess if you really want
someone to love you you have to like prioritize it. Let's face it Slavic
supremacy Russian women are the best. They're the best. They're mean. They've got
it all. They're mean. A cold withholding bitch who knows how to do manual labor can assemble Ikea furniture
has erratic mood swings also yeah it has all the worst qualities of both masculine and feminine
that's why men can't resist that she's's BPD but knows how to balance a checkbook.
I don't know how to balance a checkbook.
Me neither.
I don't even know what that means.
I just thought it's nice.
I don't think it's something people do anymore.
No.
I think it's an instant.
There's algorithms for that.
I just think we're way past that.
That's like an old timey thing, right?
I hope so, because I haven't done it once.
Yeah, I had to make some phone calls today.
I used my most learned, helpless voice, you know?
Kind of making like sound, just stress.
I was like, maybe make some distressed sounds.
So they know you're like really in a jam.
And that's the Slavic mind right there.
Yeah.
Slavic mindset.
Yeah.
A woman who is so compelling, you'll let her get away with all sorts of ruinous, horrible behavior.
That's really what men want,
is to have their lives ruined.
Slavic women are like a good middle ground
between Islamic women and American women.
So true, East meets West.
Exactly.
Because we're like carpets on walls,
but also- materialistic.
And yeah the materialism just to be you know stereotypical.
Um uh should we talk about Poor Things? Yeah.
You watched it recently.
I saw it kind of a while ago.
Yeah.
I did write a review of it on Letterboxd.
I know I loved your review.
I thought it was good.
Taken down.
I'll reiterate some of those points and say, yeah, sadly.
Why did they take it down?
I think because I said the word retard.
OK, so the film, but they say, but exactly.
He says, what a pretty little retard.
Yeah, I think but I think there's just, you know, there's shooters out for me.
My first impression of Poor Things was that it was like a movies movie
that was mainly concerned with cinematic effects, which was only slightly annoying.
with cinematic effects, which was only slightly annoying. Like, you know, the technicolor grading,
the black and white opening sequence,
the fishbowl ends, et cetera, et cetera.
And then I realized it was trying to do something else
in this like kind of quirky pseudo ideological way.
Well, yeah.
It's very unclear whether he was sincere or trolling. But that's sort of
to kind of merely create a discourse around it. Yeah, which he I mean, I like your ghost land
times a lot. I've liked a lot of I loved the favorite. I loved dog tooth.
I like killing of a sacred deer.
The favorite was good, yeah.
I loved sir.
Like the favorite was much was more grounded
in a way that was good for him.
I like, oh, here's my review.
Just read your review.
I get immortalize it now that it's down.
I guess I did sort of like it.
Even though I found the steampunk steampunk trappings pretty offensive to my sensibilities
Just not to my taste that whole gay French whimsical thing as we all know I'm eager to be cast in the film adaptation of my year of rest and relaxation
Which your goes is attached to direct as I'm an avid prescription pill user
So don't want to get too down on the director
But your ghost needs to really it in a little bit.
Like I said, I did enjoy it.
Emma Stone is lovely and Mark Ruffalo is charming.
It's nice it did something different.
I shouldn't get so down on it.
I just can't stand the blimps and all that kooky crap.
Can't get past it.
I wish I could.
It was basically good.
And it's about a female retard having tons of sex.
So what's not to like really. That's good and it's about a female retard having tons of sex. So what's not to like really?
That's good. That's basically but for me the steampunk stuff. Yeah, the steam from the job
The the costumes which look like they're from that awful brand Gani
One I think for the costumes by the title cards
Which will place the like CGI The CGI stuff was landing really badly.
The performances frankly were a little too mannered
for my taste, though they did suit the tone of the film.
Overall, the casting I thought was very solid,
especially Emma Stone.
And Willem Dafoe.
The Oscar is well-deserved.
I love it, I can't say, truly zero haters that girl.
I think Emma Stone is really perfect
for the role physiognomy wise,
because that boggle-eyed look
is associated with hyperthyroidism
and therefore hypersexuality.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay, good to know.
And also she's like a real kind of Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge girl.
I really loved all the art, her historical references, and I particularly loved how they
develop in a chronological order.
So you have like the scene where they finally let her go outside, which was Manet's luncheon
on the Grass.
Then you have the scenes in the brothel.
I thought all the brothel stuff was really fantastic.
Which is, yeah, and that's like very Degas bar scenes
meets Toulouse-Lautrec brothel and Moulin Rouge scenes.
I think if you Google Toulouse-Lautrec,
you can see like the direct influence,
like that pantless thing with the booties.
I was literally standing around pantless taking down notes,
wearing my Victor Tsui sweatshirt with my pussy fully out in the dark of my bedroom at 3 a.m.
Good. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was. It was really getting into character.
I will say that like the aesthetic being as
something about it.
Not maybe narcissism of small differences
because I'm like nearly steampunk.
But I just.
That's really.
That's what grinded your gears.
It really, it rubs me the wrong way so much.
But in spite of that, I still thought it was a good movie,
which I think is a testament to it actually being a pretty good movie,
even though so much of it I was so annoyed and agitated by.
Well, I don't know if it's a good movie.
On just like a visceral level.
I initially really hated it, and more because I was bored rather than scandalized and then I tried to watch
I watched like a quarter of Zone of Interest which we were supposed to
review but I didn't want to watch and you know a lot of people felt very strongly about that movie one way or
another some people thought it was pretentious and twee other people
thought it was like a great obscenity and psycho drama.
And I realized I didn't really want to talk about it because I had nothing profound to say.
I went into Poor Things really wanting to like it, and I can't say I did. And then I went into Zone
of Interest expecting to hate it and was pleasantly surprised, but that's like all there is to it.
I went into Poor Things. Luke had heard mixed things, basically wanted to like it but felt
already from everything I had seen the trailers and whatnot that I already could sense that like Amelie has like, uh, like blimp stuff,
just so bad to me. I know, I know. I mean, I guess we should spoiler it. So like Emma Stone
plays Bella Baxter, who's basically this genie wily feral girl with the bunny hop walk who becomes kind of a drunk and dissolute
de-gob bar wench and then transforms into a liberated girl boss in charge of her own destiny.
She basically speed runs the civilizing process. Yeah. Yeah, cuz she Spoiled against spoiler you discover that she was a woman that was had committed suicide while pregnant and was found by this mad doctor
Who is like kind of like her father who she calls God and it was all a little on the nose
whatever
He's some twisted doctor he performs an experimental procedure where he puts the
baby's brain in her unborn baby. Yeah, he saves her by putting the baby's brain into
her body and reanimating her. And so she is like, yeah, like in a early on in like the
media cycle around it, there was some annoying woke discourse
about how the movie was sanctioning like pedophilia
because she has a baby brain.
I have some takes on that, yeah.
Every man's ultimate fantasy.
This is actually an Ayala biopic.
It's a documentary.
It even has that extended birthday gangbang sequence
when she goes to work in the brothel.
Totally.
Yeah.
Her only needs are sex and money.
And in her spare time, she studies anatomy
and reads up on progressive reformist theories
on how to make the world a better place.
Yeah.
It reminds me of this really funny tweet I saw
reading about 19th century progressives be like,
he preached social justice, labor reforms, antitrust activity, desegregation, modern medicine.
He also donated his life savings to the National Institute of Sterilizing the Mentally Retarded, Lame and Colored.
This movie is pretty good at making light of the folly of progressivism, but can also be read as a homage or celebration of it.
I had some insult friends really seething about it being like,
it's a movie about how when they're liberated, they all become whores.
They have to ride the cock carousel to become enlightened or whatever.
And I was like, I don't think that's,
that's the same level of kind of like poor media literacy as being like, this is a movie about pedophilia.
Yeah. And I think the point is that it's a movie that really lends itself to many readings, which is kind of frustrating and evasive, frankly.
Again, valid again, like, I mean, the most interesting read, I think, is the kind of like an apolitical purely like Freudian one about like child development sort of.
Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, so basically, Bella is Godwin's kind of experiment in human engineering.
Yeah.
And there's all these like, yeah, like obvious like sexual and Freudian interpretations.
And I, you know, it plays to the typical male fantasy of finding a hot girl who's baby brained and down to fuck.
And it plays to the classic female fantasy of being like a damsel in distress plucked from obscurity by a great man.
Well, also like so in chanting that you can kind of like drift through your life.
Yeah.
By the brain damage.
Yeah, by the kindness of strangers that like you'll always be sort of like Okay, even if you're
Because you're so everyone's so like taken with your like charms. Yeah, someone on Twitter called it feminist Frankenstein
Which sounds nice. I like it. Yeah, but okay, so I have a theory on the origins of the film
The minute I started watching it
I instantly was reminded of Bulgakov's Heart
of a Dog, which was adapted into a very popular late Soviet film from 1988 by this guy called
Vladimir Borko. And it's about the making of the new Soviet man. The story centers on
this maverick surgeon who lives in an eccentric flat, and he picks up a stray dog who he calls Shadik,
and he implants him with the brain and pituitary gland
of an alcoholic and petty criminal who's recently deceased.
Wikipedia has a good description of it,
which I gently copy-edited because the person who wrote it
was clearly a Russian ESL person.
But I'll read it.
Shadik proceeds to become more and more human
during the following days after his transition is complete.
It turns out that he has inherited
all the negative traits of the donor,
bad manners, aggression, use of profanity, heavy drinking,
but he also still hates cats.
He picks for himself the absurd name
Poligraf, Poligrafovich Shadikov,
starts working at the Moscow Department of Animal Control and associates himself with
the new Bolshevist building administration who want to expropriate part of the doctor's
large flat, an ongoing subplot of both the book and the film. Shadikov turns the doctor's
life into a nightmare, stealing money, destroying his furniture, flooding the apartment during
a cat chase, etc. Eventually he proceeds to denounce the doctor to the Soviet secret
police, at which point the doctor and his apprentice subdue him and reverse the effects
of the experiment.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the direct inspiration for the film.
Yorgos is obviously like a very cultured guy and a film buff who knows his movie history.
That movie was notable because they used black and white
instead of color film to create an appropriately
old timey look.
So I really think that this is like a direct inspiration.
And it's a really good piece of art because it kind of
a satire of how leftists
elevate lump and proles into positions of power
to intimidate and brutalize and dispossess normal people
and like stomp out excellence.
The Daily Wire could make this film today in America
with like kind of a Floydian black character
crossed with a pit bull.
That would be.
That's not a, not a no.
Shriek.
And poor things feels like that,
but with like a more jumbled and incoherent
political allegory.
I mean, I am very lenient, I guess,
on the coherency of politics in a film.
Yeah, I don't think that a film
or any work of art necessarily
has to carry a political or moral message.
I mean, I think it's actually possibly bad.
Yeah, like I think the movie's made better by it being kind of...
Yeah, I'm not making the case that the movie fails
because it doesn't have like a overt political or moral point of view.
It's overtly pro-retarded, just implicitly. But no, it's like the similarities are striking.
Yeah, I had no idea.
And yeah, so in Poor Things, I guess it turns out
that the surgeon lies to his apprentice
about how he got his hands on the girl.
He claims that she had a brain injury and he repaired it,
but in reality, she was like a suicide case that he fished out of the water and like
Implanted with the brain of her unborn baby. Yeah, which he justifies by saying well, like she didn't want to live
She hated her life so much. So
This is better
One thing I liked about that part of the movie is that the opening scene of her killing herself
by jumping off the bridge is not like a fast forward as you would expect it to be.
It's part of a linear chronology.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought that was very smart.
I like that everybody in the movie looks kind of smelly, like they have a personal odor,
a strong personal odor.
But she's basically like placed under the tutelage of this young apprentice called Max McCandles, who's like this kind of timid and scruffy
new male who I think is deliberately made to look like a young Marx.
Like he resembles one of these new Brooklynite leftist intellectuals
like John Ganz or Noah Colwin.
That's interesting. It's a, that's what that actor's name.
I don't know, but I thought he was also really good.
Um, he's like a comedian.
Okay.
He looks like a comedian.
Yeah.
And he's like immediately infatuated with her.
What a very famous creature. Okay.
I was wondering if he was like Jewish or a Muslim.
He's Egyptian from New Jersey.
Oh, nice.
He's like the cousin of Samurakhan.
And he is doing this like millennial Muslim comedian thing that served him very well.
And I didn't recognize him honestly in the movie, but also thought he was very good.
I thought Mark Ruffalo was really good and really sucked.
Yeah, so basically she's like a toddler and she like spits out food and breaks plates and acts shy and or violent.
And then she enters the genital stage where she starts to discovers masturbation she throws tantrums to get what she wants
like when she wants to go outside she's a baby yeah so she's in an oral stage in
the first part of the movie then she's like advancing yeah and all these like
sophisticated evolved minds are really like no match for her single-minded
tyranny which is so true. So true when
you're dealing with a Todd. And then Mark Ruffalo appears, he's like a catish and rakish lawyer,
Duncan Lebron, who they hired to draw up the marriage contract between her and Max
on the urging of Godwin, but actually they run off together,
blah, blah, blah.
You know who Mark Ruffalo reminded me of?
Who?
Vish.
Totally, 100%.
Yeah, and I was so actually impressed
by Mark Ruffalo's performance because it was so like,
kind of one note and this archetypal,
yeah, like, rakish character, right?
But he really, like he made me laugh so much.
Even though like-
Our friend Mark Ruffalo.
Our friend Mark Ruffalo who we flew on an airplane with.
Stayed in the same hotel.
Yeah, who we encountered many times.
When we went to LA to talk to Brian Johnson.
The kind of a devious and conniving capitalist huckster
cucks the leftist new male, and then the leftist new male
is cucked again when Bella and he reunite,
and he accepts her horrid, horrid ways.
Her past.
She's a roastie with a complicated,
she comes back as a Roasty with a complicated past
and he says, that's fine, I'm a cuck.
When she runs off with Duncan,
she goes on this like journey of self discovery
and meets this random cast of characters
who sort of aid her in her quest.
There's like Martha, who's like the suffragette old lady.
She liberates Bella from her mere biological urges and sort of
infects her with intellectual curiosity. Right. Harry, the
gay black guy who exposes her to the injustice of the world and
also to social justice. There's Madam Swiney, who's like this
Amy Winehouse core brothel owner who initiatives her out paying her body without like well Becky and
first client. Tontine was that her name, the black lesbian prostitute who introduces her to
socialism and also to the joys of sapphic love. She becomes she joins the DSA. I like that when
she goes like full Aaron Bushnell when they land in Alexandria and
she sees all the dead and beheaded babies and she immediately puts like 50k in a shoe
box and hands it over to scammers.
Totally, yeah she fucks Mark Ruffalo over real bad.
And like the film ends on a happy note because she finally like embraces her passion and
goes into STEM and then possibly also embraces polyamory.
Oh, because she has her girlfriend and her husband.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, pretty good.
I like the thing is, is just I had a good time like in spite of the film itself
It really ticks all the boxes of the meme discourses like feminism socialism polyamory
Yeah, only fans in cells
But it was probably made mad long ago well he apparently has been dreaming of adapting the book.
Both Poor Things and Zone of Interest are based on books that I would really like to
read.
So I had no interest really in watching Zone of Interest because I felt, aesthetically I thought it would be austere in a way that I wasn't drawn to at the moment.
So maybe in a different mood.
It's really like the banality of evil.
Yeah, and then I was like, oh, it's about, when I was like, oh, it's about people living next to a concentration camp.
Yeah, it's like, let's reframe the story of the Holocaust from like the negative space of the other people involved.
I'm like, oh yeah.
I mean, this is like a subjective taste thing,
but I'm really a sucker for that spare and bare
like Hanukki-esque Bernardian psycho drama.
I can be in the mood for it for sure.
This was like, once I knew kind of the punch line
and that it was so, that it was kind of like,
would probably hit that note many times.
I lost a lot of interest in seeing it.
Maybe I will watch it at some point.
I actually did, I had movie tickets to go see it in theaters
and then like Zalome came over. And he was like, I was like, I movie tickets to go see it in theaters and then like Zalome came over.
I was like, I'm not going to go see it.
I'd rather think it was Zalome.
I'm going to skip it.
But yeah, the banality of evil.
I got it.
I don't need it.
I guess at least this movie, as I said in my review, I was like, I wish I wasn't so
down on it.
Because at least it did something different.
At least it like tried to do something.
And at least it had a ton of sex, which is increasingly very rare in movies.
That's true.
And it had like frontal and like back shots.
She fucked a lot and it was awesome.
And like that I love to see tons of sex in a movie.
I have like kind of a contrarian take on that,
but I'll get into that.
But you know, I like the bit about her basically testing
social norms and violating boundaries,
which makes like other people in her orbit
rethink their slavish devotion
to their participation in society
Blah blah blah. I'm here for it. Maddie texted me before I came over. She said, did you like poor things?
I said, eh, she said, should I remind you of you too much?
Retarded nympho
to the retarded nympho.
Some of the dialogue I found to be like tedious and oppressive like when she spits her food out at dinner.
Totally.
And says why keep it in my mouth if it's revolting
and they like proceed to over explain
the oral sex metaphor and there's like the tongue play
and furious jumping which I found to be.
There was a lot of moments like that
and I actually, one's one of your ghosts.
Your ghost has always been very playful with language.
Yeah.
In his first film in dog too, he's a Greek.
They like basically invented the language.
Yeah.
Like dog tooth is about like a family.
It's a very like scaled down version of a lot of the themes.
Yeah.
He's explores and poor things because it's about like a family where they have these like adult kids
that they have like who are feral essentially that they've like kind of like warped
them by like teaching them language in the wrong way. I mean he's a compulsive and overactive
Mediterranean. But that is interesting to me like the way way that, but in I agree and poor things, there were many points where it felt kind of it.
False and wrong. And once again, sorry.
I will say I was not attracted to Mark Ruffalo when I saw him in person,
which disappointed me, but is a testament to his.
Talents as an actor, because I've been attracted to him
many times on the silver screen, including in this film.
In person I was like, I didn't even, he had like a flat brim hat on and neither of us
just said, I didn't say shit to him.
I kind of imagined maybe I would have said something to him at some point, but I like
it.
Like as an actor, I really, really like him and I wasn't drawn to him in person.
I felt like my most cynical take on this film is that it's a very cynical film.
I think that's because it, it kind of leverages and participates in the discourse to sell itself, much like a TikTok influencer.
And so on one hand, I'm very like sympathetic
to the fact that Yorgos wanted to adapt this film
for a long time.
He clearly had a very singular creative vision,
but it's sort of...
Do you think he made consolidations
ideologically as a director like yeah
I think I think like when I feel like a little sneaky and shady to make like the woke art forum like Jeremy
O'Hara's ass black guy into the black-pilled nihilist when he's like a polite society will destroy you
Philosophy is a waste that character. We're all cruel beasts born that way, die that way. Don't accept the lies of religion, socialism, that character.
But it's like one of these is not like the other.
It was so random. It's so, yeah.
And he was so like not fully fleshed out and was kind of this like
bizarre like mouthpiece. Yeah. And you, and ditto honestly, like
Diddy, but the lesbian black prostitute from the brothel as well.
They were both these kind of like very morally
unambiguous characters where like everyone else
is kind of like trying to exploit her
has complicated feelings about her is like wants to like
fuck her or trap her is like she has way more tension
with almost every other character in the
film except the black people who are just like who are like virtuous and good and like want to
take her to a dsa meeting and tell her some like truths about the world but that's like the the
future aka the present of um diversity casting it's like black people in this day and age can
only be virtuous and morally unambiguous. That's so racist.
And he rubs the diversity casting in our faces while also being kind of ironically self-aware
about it. Overall, my problem with the film was that it was a collection of memes that
were there for the extremely online and desensitized. There was a lot of violence and gore a lot of smug libtard one-liners
The gratuitous sex scenes which feel kind of try hard and like filler
They say clitoris a lot hate that there's hate the animal cruelty and dead babies
That was like the most annoying and irritating part for me that I like
But it's unclear whether the film is like sincere or satire.
I think in that regard it's like the liberty of I respect the auteur. The
thing with making movies these days is that and throughout history but
especially now is that there's a trade-off between what you want
and what sells.
Of course.
And so you have to be like creative
with making compromises, but I think like a lot of directors,
your ghosts included, get very resentful and contemptuous
about that and take it out on the audience.
It felt like a movie that was very contemptuous
of the audience to me, even though it was supposed
to be like a joyous and pleasurable like romp,
picaresque.
I know what you mean.
I don't expect it again to have like a political
or moral message, but I think incidentally,
the lack thereof speaks to his inability
or unwillingness to actually tell a story.
He did tell a story.
Sort of, but he was kind of like
a false and evasive the whole time. I thought especially the third act right where her husband from
her former life interrupts the wedding and she decides again to leave and go
with him and then is sort of was elegantly done and like a nice like
chapter in the storytelling. I think your ghostos is in a tough position. Yeah, as a director
where he has made, you know, he has humble indie roots from the Greek New Wave. Yeah. And then
found like prominence in Hollywood. And now he's at a state it's like, I think, Hollywood forces you
to kind of scale at this rate.
Yeah. Where whatever it says fifth, sixth movie, whatever.
You're impotent, you're powerless to take it out on Hollywood because they're
more powerful than you. So you take it out on the audience.
But in a way that's the same thing.
Like he's in the board circuit at the movie is like functioning as it should as
an object
within the film system. And I think it's like kind of both. I think there's
like hostility towards the audience but there's also like hostility towards like
maybe the system in which she was like had to make it this way.
Yeah maybe that's like a fair critique that it was kind of like an esoteric inside baseball
critique of the system.
Maybe that's giving it too much credit.
And there was of course like the whole discourse
over whether the film was feminist or anti-feminist.
Is it promoting like patriarchy and pedophilia and grooming
or is it promoting female narcissism in the guise of like progress and liberation or is it promoting female narcissism
in the guise of like progress and liberation or whatever?
I think like mainly again,
it's frothing up a discourse to sell itself,
to create its own viral marketing kind of like Barbie did
where everybody was like,
what did Greta Gerwig mean by that?
Barbie did where everybody was like, what did Greta Gerwig mean by that?
Well, this is already like.
Where, you know, we just finished the Oscars.
So you having I think, had you seen it like at a film festival, right?
We're like before you knew the trajectory would have that it would would become like massive awards fodder. That's always the idea
Right. That's like why there's movie stars in it. That's why there's all this
Like it is I think that's all true
But it's way it's easy to have clarity about it in hindsight
and I think like when you're making it you're kind of you don't quite know yet it might just be like a movie that
even at Yorgos's level like plays at a festival that is like has a some PR around it but it's
hard to tell if it'll like ignite the memes here or whatever so it's all wrapped up in like the
experience of watching the film which is part of the contemporary condition of cinema, which we've talked about, which is that they
become like, it's also parasocial.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And actually when she smashes the frog in the palms of her fiance, that's an
allegory for smashing the right way.
Frog friendly.
I really hated that part because the frog was so cute.
I know it frog friendly. I really hated that part because the frog was so cute.
I know it shocked me.
I get that she's a baby brain and children are pure
narcissists and sociopaths who are like slowly civilized.
Which is yeah, what happens to her.
She goes through these phases of development.
But what does she do that's so wrong?
Well, she starts out as like kind of an unbridled anti-social freak
and becomes a sensitive young woman.
But that's because if she wasn't a toddler's body,
it wouldn't be anti-social.
It's so abrasive because she seems like a grown woman
who acts like a child.
Oh, somebody on Twitter said to me, look, I'm no Puritan,
but there was this obvious pedophilia angle.
I don't know if that's true.
I just don't think that's so stupid.
Obvious, maybe to the degree that that's a fantasy that all men harbor,
but have to suppress as part of their participation or membership in polite society,
if febophilia not pedophilia.
But she's not a teen.
Yeah.
She's a full grown adult.
She has the mind of a baby, which is not a febophilic would be to make the case, Pettifield, but I think the biological sexual component,
and they do make the point early on
that she's developing very quickly.
Yeah, I don't think this is an ode to grooming,
but it's certainly like Sydney Sweeney's popularity
would attest to the fact that men like a woman who's busty and lusty
but sort of bonked on the head.
Yeah, a little retarded, but not a child.
I mean, but also the thing about,
I'm gonna go a little deeper here
and say that like sex, the carnal act, fornicating.
Coitus.
Coitus, like if you're doing it right,
like you are kind of,
you're doing an adult thing obviously,
but like mentally, psychologically,
you are completely regressing to these like preverbal
Freudian fucked up states
that are like, that's not pedophilia,
that's just what sex like sex.
You wanna fuck a girl who's like,
who's like enjoying sex so much she's like a retard.
Yeah, like she's like a chimping out.
Yeah, that's the thing.
It's not like you're like, ooh, she's just like a baby
when I fuck her so good. It's like, oh, it's like. Well, I, that's the thing. It's not like you're like, Oh, she's just like a baby when I fuck her so good
it's like, oh, it's a positive reading of all the gratuitous sex scenes that like
Actually, if you zoom out of like your like horny erotic fantasies sex is kind of absurd and slapstick
It's comical. Yeah, and if you're really enjoying it, if you're not self-conscious
Yeah, you forget yourself you forget yourself. You forget yourself and you lose yourself.
And you are like behaving and like kind of like absurd,
like I'm not gonna say childish,
but like pre-verbal kind of like primordial early,
you're tapping into a state.
That's like why people say like daddy and stuff.
And like, you know, it's like, it's your,
it's that's why those tropes exist.
I mean.
When you have a kid, daddy takes on a whole nother meaning
and you can never look at it the same again.
I mean, I get it.
You're like, ugh.
But sometimes it just is, it slips out in some like,
cause you're tapping into some...
Yeah, like primordial urge.
Yeah. And the way that the sex is depicted in the film, it's like her enjoyment of it is very
innocent. And then the loss of that innocence through her vocation as a prostitute.
Through her being a whore, but more importantly, learning about socialism and training the
DSA.
But the gradual disillusionment, I think, with sex is an interesting thread in the film
too.
That's maturity.
Well, I mean, this is foreshadowed by the old lady on the cruise liner who's like,
oh, I don't really care about getting tickled between my legs anymore. That's not at the
foreground of my thoughts or desires. I like to read Rosa Luxemburg.
I like to read Rosa Luxemburg.
But when you're young or when you're like getting fucked right.
You're getting your backbone out. You're getting your backbone out.
You're like regressing.
Dirty French guys.
You're like regressing.
Yeah.
like regressing into like a, yeah, like Laconian realm
of Jouissance or whatever. It's like, that's not that I reject that.
Yeah, that it's-
That that's like a pedophilic, like, yeah,
that that's somehow pedophilic or wrong
that seems to me to be like the most like natural and healthy sexual impulse
Well, the thing that like you like absolutely cannot say which I think maybe camille paulia tried to get at is that like children
Do have like pure and innocent sexual urges
That it is I think the role of society and socialization to protect them from.
Same thing about women.
Women are basically children. That's the theme of the film. That's my thing, though. Yorgos,
I don't think is a libtard. I think he's too smart to be a libtard.
I don't think he's a libtard at all.
And I think he does the whole libtard charade well,
which I get because we do that too.
We are not doing it well.
I can relate.
No one's buying it.
I do it in my personal private life.
Like when people like,
Well, I am a libtard in my personal private life.
When my dermatologist or aesthetician is like,
oh, so I saw you palling around
with that conservative character.
And I'm like, no, it's just like mine. It's my job.
How I pay the bills and I try to like wriggle out of it and act like indifferent and agnostic.
Oh, and it's like that thing.
Like every time you have to do an interview, they ask you how you square your politics with the liberal milieu that you run in.
I'm just like, dude, I don't ever talk about politics with normal people that I know because
it's unpleasant and off-putting.
I literally said that when I was doing my succession press cycle, they were like, how
do you integrate on a set where, you know...
I don't know any liberals.
I said it's not polite to talk about politics.
Yeah.
I'm not out here like,
well, all McSavs on my very popular radio show.
But.
And on your popular like social media.
But in my like.
Where you're like, protester should die.
Is they maybe late to.iscilla. But I would never inflict any of my views that I don't even hold sincerely on some
person in my life.
That's something libs really do.
They're really eager to talk, you know, talk about
the bad orange man and isn't Trump bad and isn't, you know, they're like, they so take for granted
that you are like of the same mind as them. Yeah, that was a funny moment during the Oscar ceremony
where Jimmy Kimmel did like a little detour, a little aside and read the Trump truth social post about how he was a shitty politically
correct Oscar host and how the Oscars in general were shitty and politically
correct and and the Libs were like rip roaringly laughing along.
Of course.
I mean, pretending that they hate Trump.
Yeah.
He's not hilarious.
Yeah. He's not hilarious.
What I gathered from my Yahoo News article
I read about the Oscars was that,
yeah, of course it's gonna be like Lib-tarded,
but it seems it's relatively even,
even Jimmy Kimmel is a host, it's nice.
Like he is, I don't even really think of him
as that much of like a
Random Libby's like very like establishment centrist kind of normie. It felt very
Normie, which I was pleased with that. It was kind of like a nice
return to
Though it had like some flash points of like political commentary. It wasn't some like overt like yeah, uh a suffering
session or whatever.
What are they called?
Trattle session?
Yeah.
Spot the Dev.
Yeah, it didn't seem that, though it may have been,
because neither of us watched. It didn't feel that though it may have been because neither much watch.
I didn't feel that way. It seemed kind of like normal, very normal Oscars. I kind of drown out
all the discourse about the controversial political moments because I'm only there for the looks,
which I can get by Googling. Yeah, I like to watch the Oscars. I didn't this year. I was busy.
I'm doing some spiritual work right now.
It doesn't matter.
But usually I like to watch the Oscars the same way.
I like to watch like SNL is like a kind of like temp check,
whatever.
The Golden Globes, I feel like are more.
Golden Globes.
The Golden Globes.
I noticed that at the Oscars,
a lot of people were wearing like ceasefire pins,
which is like that thing that I told you about
when you got here, how I was in Woodstock this weekend
and like pulled up to that like little parish church
and there was a bunch of boomer libs protesting
in the cold and rain for Gaza.
It made me like burst out and like joyous.
Yeah.
Emma Stone ass laughter.
Because okay, it's one thing to again,
like do like a large protest at the UN
because maybe it'll be televised or
broadcast on social media. You have some goals you've organized. But these were a bunch of
like cute little rich Jewish libs protesting for a cause that everybody in their little
village agrees with and it was so funny and random. Well, that was in 2017, the first pussy march
I told you was, I was at Sundance
and they had their own little women's march at Sundance,
which was so ridiculous.
Yeah, I'm like, don't you want to like,
where'd you even get this pussy at?
Go to Sylvia and some ass to mouth artisanal fair.
Why are you doing this to yourself? They can't help it.
But yeah, it's like mad funny to wear like Gaza ceasefire pins to the Oscars.
Where was Zelensky? I don't know. These people are getting too big for their britches.
I don't know. These people are getting too big for their britches.
But I guess like my hottest take about the Yorgos film is that it permits
libtards to enjoy controversial, intitulating, vaguely anti-woke content.
It's like Jimmy Kimmel reading Donald Trump's statement on stage.
Right. They can can enjoy transgression
without being complicit in it.
Because they know they like it, but they can't admit it.
They get to toe the kind of bourgeois party line.
And if we were all just out with it,
the world would actually be a better place.
Movies would definitely be better.
Yeah.
Like that whole scene where the dad shows up with his sons at the brothel to give them
a sexual education.
Or like what was the guy from Girls, the husband, who I guess was like the most right wing character
in the movie.
Right, because he's like, kills people.
Because he's into duels or whatever.
And he was like threatening to shoot her in the fucking back of the head. kills people. Because he's into duels or whatever.
He was like threatening to shoot her in the fucking back of the head.
She didn't let him. Life is dedicated to taking her territory.
Yeah, or like that.
Yeah, the FGM scene, which is like the ultimate like Handmaid's Tale
feminist fantasy. The man will like restrain you.
So gross.
I would impregnate you.
I would love nothing more than to never hear anyone talk.
The word.
Like I'm just like that's private.
That's.
Don't, I don't, don't talk about that.
I hate that though.
Actually, when you think about it,
the portrayal of Alfie, the original husband, the most right-wing
character is sort of accurate because he's like this guy who talks a big game about conquering
ancient cities by sword and fire, but then gets shot in the foot and bleeds out.
He's like soul bra for real.
How many of these guys would actually survive if there was a real civil war?
None of these. They all have scoliosis. They can't go to war.
It would be like a bunch of women like us like gouging their eyeballs out.
I mean so true. Elena Velas dinner, yes.
Salon number two.
Let me see.
Do you have any other comments?
I mean, I think Yorgos should,
he should just cast me in my ear press realization.
Give the people what they want.
I would do a good job. I know I'm not that famous, I guess, news to me,
but I know Tessa Moschfuch pretended not to know who I was
on the deeper to movies podcast,
even though we know she posts on the rest of herself.
Wait, what?
Sure, she has.
Wait, what?
Someone like triangulated the, or whatever,
it might not be her, it might be someone else, but.
Doesn't matter.
Just do it, come on, grow up.
I wanna know that about our literary darlings.
Yeah.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm-
I hope it's fake.
But-
For her sake and ours.
I know.
Definitely.
Autessa mosh-fag.
I won't counter signal her again
because we want you to get cast.
We're trying to get me cast.
I mean, it's also I
mean it makes sense that your ghosts and on Tessa are working together because
they're the same sort of figures who have like mold of contempt for lib
tardation but instead of taking it out on the left take it out on the right
they veil it yeah it Yeah. It's encrypted.
They're like sneaky and evasive about their true feelings.
Yeah, nice.
Because they're angry that they can't be open and honest
about how they really feel.
Maybe, who are we to say?
I don't know.
Again, that's my armchair psychoanalysis.
I think that they're like, he's Greek and she's Iranian.
They come from fundamentally conservative societies. psychoanalysis, I think that they're like, he's Greek and she's Iranian.
They come from fundamentally conservative societies.
No, for sure.
They're not leftoids, folks.
Well, not in the. Yeah.
Maybe in Greece.
You know, but it just means something else.
Greece does seem like a hotbed for leftist activity. It seems like Spain where they have a lot of like Viva la
Revolucion, Viva Stalin.
Exactly.
There's like big antifa stuff and because they're also their
economy after the EU bankrupted them became very like
cross-punk, antifa, welcoming.
What's worse, cross- punk or steampunk? Steampunk. I think steampunk. Yeah, for me, it's just of no starter.
Do you think that steampunk will ever become cool again?
No. I mean, no.
I'm going to reclaim steampunk. reclaim I'm gonna become a steampunk in
full.
God, monocle on top.
You started talking about different types of goggles on the podcast. You have
like secret brand sponsorships. I don't know.
For gears and grandfather clocks.
for gears and grandfather clocks and shit. It's also, I don't know what it is, it's so gay to me. But it's because I do like like 19th century Edward, like so many times I've gotten dressed
and looked in the mirror and been like fuck, steampunk. Like you gotta switch it up, you gotta
introduce a different element. Yeah like damn this Edwardian blouse. You can't wear with these like pirate
Yeah, it's
It's too adjacent and it's too for some reason so gross to me. I don't know
I would like I said, I wish I could get past it
so gross to me. I don't know. I would like I said, I wish I could get past it. But something happened to me. I think I have like childhood trauma from like the circus. I think like, well, also circus aesthetics. I have that's it. I mean, I think it's like your, your proximity. Yeah, the taste and also your proximity to the life. Yeah. Because I live in a blimp and my stuff is powered by steam.
But like I haven't even seen like La Strada.
Like there's some Fellini movies I can't even watch because I don't like that circus.
That's like a steampunk ass movie. Yeah. Like, there's some Fellini movies I can't even watch because I don't like that circus crap.
That's like a steampunk ass movie.
Yeah.
They have like a covered wagon and the donkey.
Carnival circus, steampunk.
It's all kind of like Las Vegas is very like, it's like Southwest Burning Man Las Vegas
have all kind of like embraced these vibes and being reared in that environment has caused me to have
a like visceral like antagonism towards it.
Yeah.
But probably something bad happened to me in the circus as a child.
That's why I don't yeah, I start hearing carnival music and going insane.
You're like chariotarian curb your enthusiasm when she hears the Looney Tunes theme.
Exactly.
I'm like, do do do do do do do do do do.
I'm like, ah, no, honk honk.
A clown molested me and now I can't enjoy poor things to the full extent.
But nobody enjoyed poor things to the full extent.
Even people who liked it, they all had the same aversion.
Some people think it's whimsical and fine.
Some people really are like, ooh, what if the future was old timey?
This is so cool. It's so cool in the future, but it's old time.
I wonder what Olivier Zahm thinks of poor things.
I know I'd love to know.
things. I know I'd love to know. For me yeah the gratuitous sex, the performances, the cinematography that I thought was like cool at first and then got less
experimental as the film went on. It looks like a Russian parkour reel. Which is cool. Which is dope.
But he was doing fish eye and stuff and the anamorphic stuff in the favorite.
But because the favorite was very tempered by the period, it didn't do any wacky.
I have not seen the favorite.
Yeah, you have.
You just said earlier. Oh, wait. Yeah, I have not seen the favorite. Yeah you have you just said earlier. Oh wait yeah I have oh wait that's the Olivia yeah we reviewed it I'm so
I'm so wet brain oh my god I have not seen the lobster or dog tooth. Oh okay you should watch
dog tooth. I will I will I will. It's cool it's his first movie I'm pretty sure and or like the
first one he was came to prominence through.
And it's like-
I mean, my favorite thing about like-
Cool indie Greek-
The life cycle of a director is the kind of conflict
of how far they stray from their original vision
because they're cucked by the industry.
But again, like you said, it's a compromise.
Well, versus the original themes
that they compulsively have to explore.
You should really watch dog tooth.
Cause that's the thing that I love the most about artists
because people think of creativity as like innovation
and progress and growth.
And I think creativity is really like the Morty Feldman quote
about endlessly rearranging the same furniture in
the same room with slightly different effect.
I think that's true about artists.
Like everybody is compulsively dogged by their obsessions.
Yeah, but they have like, um, Schrader is someone who I think has taken a lot of like weird risks, made a lot of, he's made some flops, he's made some random movies, he clearly, but like, he also keeps coming back to like the alien alien.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Schrader because he makes the same movie over and over again.
He does, but he's also made, he's made different ones.
Yeah, but that's not like, I saw-
That word is successful. Yeah, but I saw that clip on the Adam Friedland show
where he talks about pivoting from taxi driver to Mishima.
And he's like very self-aware.
And he's like, I was basically making the same film
in a different setting.
But then he made like cat people.
He directed The Comfort of Strangers,
which wasn't even a screenplay he wrote.
He like has made movies that like aren't as well known for his schtick that he does.
But he has done different variations and taken risks.
And some directors do, but basically they do what you're describing.
And Yorgos, I think definitely does.
The Lobster also was very verbal.
He's a very like verbal.
But I think also like right wingers, for instance, have this idea that if you remove the constraints,
the guardrails, the sensoriousness, whatever, that art will become better. I don't necessarily
think that's true. Like you saw what happened to Twitter, now known as X.
Yeah.
Okay, when Elon came to power, he made it cool again,
because you could say like gay and retarded
and abuse people with impunity.
Yeah.
Which was fun for a while.
But also lately it's been feeling sad and like a drag.
Well, that was, we've said this, but I think largely due to like the monetizing and like other things that were unrelated to the free speech absolutism.
But I think constraints are always good for an artist.
And I think, yeah, part of negotiating the studio system is what makes an artist career interesting. Someone like Verhoeven,
who really like tried to operate within the system while maintaining like his
vision. But then sometimes, yeah, sometimes people like sell out or, you
know, whatever the equivalent of that word, they like overly compromise. It's Yeah, sometimes people like sell out or whatever,
the equivalent of that word,
they like overly compromise.
It's like it's a balance.
Creativity is a balancing act.
It's a balancing act.
And yeah, and like constraints are different.
And it's like the thing is like,
Yorgos couldn't have maintained
the same artistic vision he had
when he made say Dog Tooth, for example,
which was a very low budget movie.
Well, yeah, but the constraints change.
Make something at a larger scale,
you have to make compromises on Forge.
When you're starting out, your main constraints are-
Money.
Poverty, yeah, it's like poverty, lack of resources.
When you make it, your main constraints are like,
censoriousness and the political correctness
of the industry.
And like, yeah, maintaining access to resources
that you've gained or like, yeah, for sure.
So the constraints changed as you get bigger
and more exposed, which is a beautiful thing.
And then you become a spokesperson
for like Black Rifle Coffee Company.
And then you've achieved the pinnacle of the artist.
Black rifle coffee company into sponsoring us.
We're definitely going to mispronounce that weird racist
way.
On the pod a year from now being like, Hey Dasha, do you drink coffee?
Anna, Anna, I'm pretty tired. You don't have a cup of coffee. Yeah. Anna, I'm pretty tired.
You don't have a cup of coffee to give me to you.
Sure. Oh, shucks.
We would stop drinking wine and put this coffee.
Oh, shucks. Are you tired?
Let me pour you a hot cup of black raffle coffee.
I built this trailer with my own hands.
I'm catfishing, but not in that way.
Yeah, I'm happy for anyone that has a bag in this day and age.
It is kind of like low-key symbolic how she's
known as the catfish girl. Is that what she's she catfishes? Yeah, that's the thing. I didn't know.
I only know about that any of this because I only go on Twitter. Literally it's like a like Marth's post
on my like incel alt. He had a really good one the other day that was like,
my parents are scared of me because they think I'm a bisexual sociopath.
Yeah.
So I saw him talking about it and then I kind of like scrolled the feed briefly to
ascertain that there was some tomboy discourse,
but I did not know that the totally deep lore.
But I will probably-
Yorgos Lanthimos casts you in the adaptation of Tom.
I get cast as Samira and you get cast as Anna.
That would be fun.
That would be a good time.
Oh my God.
Anyway, he's never going to cast me.
Your relaxation.
It's over for me.
Whatever.
Anyway, I think we did a great job.
Yeah, I think we did a great job yeah i think we did really good
we'll see you now you