AS139: Louis CK, Filters, Mad Max, MRAs…

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 139, and I am your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, so fun week ahead. I'm pretty excited for this week. I am going to lay it out for you. I've got some interesting, kind of fun, different, different for this show things to talk about today. Not entirely different, but commentary. Ooh, I get to play the commentary music, I'm glad I remembered. Anyway, some stuff like that. And then Thursday, I'm going to prepare and finally get to all your best comments from the last few shows. I have some really good thought-out ones, which is why I really need to prepare on it and make sure I'm addressing what you guys have said in a thoughtful way. Because that's the great thing about this show.

0:01:17 Thomas: I get commenters who really are making interesting points, are not just yelling in all caps, and and things that are thought-provoking, so I've already begun that process, but this stuff I want to talk about today is kind of fresh in my mind and I want to start off the week with a bang, so so. So that's going to be it. And then next week I'm planning on getting back to the interview side of things. So that should be that. I like to give a variety because I know there are lots of listeners I hear from who like either, you know, interviews or commentary or vice versa. So, you know, I'm going to do my best to please everybody, but also mainly please myself and use my judgment. You guys have entrusted me with the show and I'm gonna use my my judgment and do what I think is good. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and play that commentary music.

0:02:15 Thomas: So, this has to do with expression and in some ways freedom of expression and the media as it exists today and lots of deeper topics like this, however superficially this has to do SNL and Louis CK's comedy, so I think it's going to be both fun and interesting because something happened and I have a lot to say on it. So, I'll set this up a little bit. But I had heard, I actually didn't know ahead of time. I'm a huge fan of Louis C.K., so I'll start there. I mean, I'll let my bias be known. I very much enjoy Louis CK and his show, Louis, especially. Well, all of it, really.

0:03:00 Thomas: And I saw that he was on SNL, and I was like, oh, that's cool. Because, I don't know, Saturday Night Live is so bad to me. There's just nothing. It's really not funny to me, and not, And I want to emphasize this now, not in an offensive way. I'm not like, this is over the line or anything like that. It's simply not my brand of humor. Whoever wants to watch it, that's totally cool. I have no problem with you watching it. I'm just not trying to take it off the air or anything. Just not something I like. So even despite my favorite comedian being on it, I still couldn't bring myself to watch it. But I did watch the opening, the monologue. And I watched it and I was like, that's pretty good.

0:03:46 Thomas: Not, not Louis CK's best work, but it was fine. And I was, like, it was, I was thinking it was pretty racy for SNL. I was amazed that he was able to do that. Um, and I Was like, oh, okay, not too bad. And then apparently there was some controversy over it. And, I saw a friend post about it. Like, that was, he said something like that was awful. Louis C.K. is not funny or, uh, you know, or insightful or something like that, or not, not as funny or insightful as people give them credit for. So, uh, this is someone on Facebook that I've commented with before, interacted with. And so I just decided to say, you know, I didn't, I don't want to unleash cause I, you know if people don't wanna have the conversation, I understand. So I just said, well, if I, I, to cast my vote, I disagree.

0:04:32 Thomas: I really like Louis CK. Uh, but you know and, and just to see if, uh if he wanted to engage, fine, fine. If he didn't want to engage, no big deal. We both made our opinions known. I'm very much a fan of not, you know, bombarding people on Facebook, but he is someone that, you know, I've talked to before. So he responded, and before I go into that, what he said, I believe, the reason I bring it up is that it really is indicative of what's going on today in our day and age with, well, with, I guess with really progressive people if I were to generalize, but well, let me just play the monologue. I'm not gonna play the whole thing because I don't want to, you know, take up too much time, but I'm gonna play the part of the SNL monologue in question, so let's hear what that was.

0:05:21 Clip: The 70s were very different. In the 70s, there was a child molester that lived in my hometown. And it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like, we caught a child molester. It was just like, yeah, that's the house where the child molester lives. He lives right... Hey, kids, don't be stupid or you'll get molested. Just stay away from the child molester's house. I know because he did something to me when I was your age. So just stay away from the child molester's house.

0:05:43 Clip: We really did. We had a town child molester. His name was Jean-Baptiste. It's a true story.

0:05:50 Clip: And he liked teenage boys. That's when you would find out, because I was a teenage boy. He didn't like me. I felt a little bad.

0:05:58 Clip: Like, no, not you. He wasn't into me. But he would drive up next to teenage boys, and he'd say, hello, would you like to go to McDonald's? And you're like, no. And he's like, what, you don't like McDonald's. And then you're trapped, because of course everybody liked McDonald's, It was the 70s. And then I had one friend who used to get in the car. He'd be like, sure, I'll go. And he'd get in my car. He'd go to McDonald's and eat a burger. And then he'd say, see ya. And he just take off. And Jean-Baptiste was like, I did not get to sex with that child. And he foiled again. But he'd always try. Maybe this time.

0:06:35 Clip: Because child molesters are very tenacious people. They love molesting childs. It's crazy. It's like their favorite thing. I mean, it's so crazy because when you consider the risk in being a child molester, speaking not of even the damage you're doing, but the risk, there is no worse life available to a human than being a caught child molester, and yet they still do it, which from you can only really surmise that it must be really good. I mean from their point of view, not ours, but from their point of view, it must be amazing for them to risk so much beca- How do you think I feel? It's my last show, probably.

0:07:26 Clip: Because- Look, I can't key into it because I love Mounds Bars. I love Mounds Bars. It's my favorite thing, right? But there's a limit. I mean, I- I can even eat a Mounds Bar and do something else at the same time. That's how much I love them. Like, if I'm eating a Mounds Bar I can't read the paper, like I have to just sit there with it in my mouth and go why is this so good, I love this so much, and because they are delicious and yet if somebody said to me if you eat another Mounds Bar you'll go to jail and everybody will hate you, I would stop eating them because they do taste delicious, but they don't taste as good as a young boy does and shouldn't to a child molester, not to me, not to us, because we're all awesome. Alright, we did it we got through it we got it

0:08:24 Thomas: That was definitely played without permission. I just want to emphasize I have no right to play that audio, but I'm a nothing podcast, so who cares? If I get big enough to where someone notices that I've played a few minutes of audio from SNL on my podcast, then that's awesome. So that'll be... go ahead, someone report me. Anyway, yeah, so I don't know. I don't know how other people hear things because, for whatever reason, I just don't... nothing shocks me? Or is that the word? Nothing offends me? I don't know.

0:09:04 Thomas: I'm trying to figure out what it is. Because here's what happened. I talked with a guy on Facebook and I said... I just asked him, starting off, I was like, well, have you ever watched... I'd be curious if you watched Louis, his show, season one, because it's really good. It's got a lot of good stuff in it. I think he'd like it. The person I was talking with, and he said, like, I've seen some of it, I saw the fat girl monologue on some other parts, but, but this is just no good, a lot of it misses the mark, this was just no-good, it was bad, you know, and, and I said, okay, I think the fat girl monologue was in, like season three, so I've established that he doesn't know anything about the show, which is, I mean, I just, I'll get back to that later, anyway, it might have been season— but no, I think it was season three.

0:09:51 Thomas: Anyway, and so we finally got to the heart of the matter. I just said, you know, I thought this monologue wasn't his best work, but it was chuckle worthy. And I thought it was honestly for Saturday Night Live was about as funny as it gets. And I laughed actually early on to before the clip I played. Feel free to check it out. He has a bit about what he calls like benign racism, a case of benign racism. And it's, it's funny. I think it's funny. So we finally got to the heart of the matter because I just asked him, so what, I asked this guy, what was so bad? I mean, what, what was it that, that you really didn't like about this monologue? If it's something where it's like he's just not funny to you, then he's not funny. That's fine. I'll move on. But he said this. I think it's ultimate failing was that the victims of child molesters became a punchline of the joke by having their victimization compared to a Mounds candy bar.

0:10:47 Thomas: So, this is why I thought this was relevant, because this is a smart guy. This is a guy, I mean, he's very much not dumb. I think he's— I think he just completed a graduate degree in biology or something, like I just want to emphasize this is not like, oh, this is my dumb, weird relative. That's like, you know, it's just a friend of mine that I know who's a smart guy, but he's very progressive. And I had to just say, I don't understand what you're saying. No one's no one's victimization was compared to a Mounds candy bar. What does that mean? Is that how people hear things? Things, if there's a joke about a topic, then that means it's at the expense of the victims in that situation.

0:11:34 Thomas: Is that how things are? Because what I heard was the, here's what I heard. I'm going to lay out why I think this monologue was a little more genius than maybe people are giving it credit for. Specifically, the time when Louis said, not us, because we're all fantastic, we're amazing, that would something like that, not us because we're all amazing, I think is what he said. Um, I, I took this monologue as Louis attempting to get people to understand that people have reasons for what they do, not to demonize people, that's that's what I took it as.

Again, it's not to apologize for uh terrible crime like pedophilia, it's nothing to apologize for, child rape, but it's to, for a split second, I think that one of the uses of comedy that makes it so amazing is that it can point out flaws in our thinking, or at least cause us to think about things we might not have otherwise, and obviously it's funny along the way, and again, comedy doesn't have to be that, I mean, comedy can just be funny, it doesn't have tobe social commentary, but this, Ithink this is a bit of interesting social commentary because I think that a lot of people, specifically conservatives, just demonize the hell out of criminals of any kind.

And what Louis is saying that I think was interesting is, yeah, there couldn't be a worse life to choose than the life of a pedophile. It is literally about as bad as it gets in terms of social acceptance, whatever.

0:13:10 Thomas: So whatever their illness is, it must be incredible. I mean, it muss be incredibly powerful. It's a terrible illness, something they, they couldn't control. And the comparison to the candy bar was not, I don't know how you could possibly think this is comparing victims to a candy bar or what, like what, what is the logical step that you're doing there? I don'T understand. I wish someone feel free to comment and let me know if, if you, whatever your opinion is on this, I want want to know because I don't understand how that happens. What I hear is he's trying to get us to think, especially when he says, you know, it's not great for all of us because we're amazing. And I think that line specifically, as I was mentioning earlier, to me, that gets me to think about kind of almost the free will argument.

0:14:02 Thomas: I mean, what did you or I do, assuming my audience is, I hope my audience is 100% non-pedophiles. I mean, I'm hoping for near 100%. I'll settle for like 99.

0:14:15 Thomas: So say hi to the couple of pedophiles, but you know, what he's saying is what did we do to earn that? I mean what did I do to earn not being a pedophile? I'll be honest, I don't work work very hard at not being a pedophile. I expend zero energy of any kind on not being a pedophile. That takes no effort for me. I simply am not. I don't have that. Whatever it is in your brain that's that, I don't have it.

So it's not like some thing that we all, you know, some choice we all make to overcome this thing and we're all great for it. And pedophiles are just weak. I mean, I literally don't have it. Do you think there are a lot, there may be some people out there who are like kind of a pedophile that, that, that resist it, but it seems like you're either deeply damaged in some way to have this desire, or you're for the most part, pretty regular in your sexuality in someway or another, very loosely speaking, by the way, um, in that you're not attracted to young children. Um, And therefore, it's not a hard thing. It's not an accomplishment. And I think that's an interesting thing to point out because you can apply that to other things. One of the things we've talked about on this show a lot is free will and the argument about punishment and all that.

Now, again, you have to quarantine people who are harmful. That's just a fact. I mean, we have to arrest and quarantine, to use the term that I think philosophers use a lot when it comes to free will. We have to rope off those people, you know, from society because for whatever reason, their desires are are in conflict with society's best interest to an extreme degree.

0:16:05 Thomas: And it's going to cause harm or violence or what, you know, so I'm by no means am I saying pedophiles shouldn't be, you know, criminally punished. That's not at all what I'm trying to say, but it makes me think about that, that argument. And it makes me think about how, you know, how much sense does it make to absolutely demonize these people? Yes, what they're doing is horrible and it's very hard not to demonize them. It's incredibly hard not too. But maybe we should think about that. Maybe what they need is quarantine and treatment of some kind, or maybe they can't be fixed. And maybe they don't need the extreme feelings of hatred and violence that we give them. Again, this is just thoughts too.

0:16:51 Thomas: This is not, I'm not telling anyone what to do. It's something to think about because really, how much work do you do to not be a pedophile? I do none. I will go ahead and say zero work. So that's what I found interesting. So I have to ask, where, what happens? Is there anyone who identifies with what my friend is saying on Facebook here, that the victims of child molesters are a punchline? Is that something that resonates with you? Is that something I'm missing? Because I don't hear it. I really don't. I mean, is that what we want out of comedy? Is is that, and now I want to bring up that, that was, this was the more considered case of the two. Um, there was another commenter who I didn't really interact with because it was just nonsense, but I want To bring up nonsense to me.

0:17:42 Thomas: It might not be nonsense to other people. So this is why I bring it up. Uh, there Was someone else on there who was saying some people just have no filter and it's, it's just appalling. He says outrageous things. And I'm actually seeing that a lot in, in other comments when I'm trying to search for it. Something about Louis C.K. just trying to be outrageous. And that's his thing. And the line specifically that someone said that some people have no filter. Is that what is that what comedians are for? Is that Louis's problem? Does he get up there and he's just like, well, I have no Filter. I just have to say whatever comes to mind because that's who I am. Or is it that he thinks of things that are funny? He thinks of things that challenge us, or maybe they're just funny. Again, it doesn't always have to be high brow societal commentary, but I think with Louis, a lot of it is.

0:18:31 Thomas: A lot of the things that Louis C.K. for me is he tries to get us to realize in the grand scheme of things how unimportant we are. I think that would be for me, maybe this is my interpretation. Of course, other people might I interpret things a little differently, but a lot of the theme of his work is how unimportant we are and how, I mean, when I hear things like that, I don't hear, oh, he's trying to be extreme and outrageous and he lacks a filter to talk about pedophilia. You shouldn't, you just not even talk about it. To me, there's not really much that fits that category. If, I means, if it's funny, if its interesting, that's fine. I'll listen to it. What is it? What is it, guys? Does anyone know?

0:19:17 Thomas: Like, are there, is that really how some people operate? They think comedians need to have a filter? That's the exact opposite of what you would want a comedian to have. The filter that he should have is, is this funny? Or is this going to be funny to me? Is it going to be funny to other people? But really, you just have to go with what's funny to you. Because as I pointed out in my show, not to compare myself to Louis C.K. at all, but you could find feedback of any kind. I mean, you can find people who love what you're doing, people who hate what you're doing, and it gets impossible without casting a gigantic vote. So what we should want comedians to do is find what's funny to them, find what's insightful to them. And then we'll decide. I mean you let the market decide if someone's not funny, they're not funny.

0:20:05 Thomas: They're not going to go anywhere. And that's, that's they're just not supposed to be a comedian, but that line just got me going crazy. Some people don't have a filter, this person said. A filter? Really? What would it be like to look at comedy in that way? To look at a stand-up comedian? First off, why are you watching SNL? I mean, there's not much of a filter there. But why do you go through life that way, like someone ought to filter their thoughts because I'm going to get uneasy when when I hear them. I don't know about that. The next thing I want to say is that I find this whole media, what do you call it, I don't know, circus? No, not really circus. The news cycle, I, what do you, call it?

0:20:53 Thomas: There's no journalism here, so I'm, apologies, I can't think of the word, but I had heard from someone, from this guy and from others, I'd seen something, you know, little headlines or whatever, like Louis C.K. Sturr's controversy with his, uh, with his monologue, you know, and and just now to prep for this show I've been googling as much as I can, like Louis CK SNL, all that, to try to see where's the controversy, where's it coming from, did someone write a considered piece, you know, is there someone out there who wrote an opinion piece like this is why you shouldn't make jokes like this or whatever, which is something I will read because I'm open to ideas of all kinds. However, I don't think there should be a limit on jokes you make except for, is it funny?

0:21:40 Thomas: Is it insightful? And maybe there's some sort of line of like extremely offensive that would just be so bad that it would cause no one to laugh, but clear, but that that's covered in the, is it funny? I mean, Louis CK is obviously funny to a lot of people because he's very successful, but anyway, in searching for, for what I figured with this controversy, there ought to be some sort of column or whatever. I'm not finding anything. I keep finding little articles. And all these articles are, they'll say like, did Louis C.K. go too far? Was this monologue too naughty or something? And then what it has is like, here's someone on Twitter who said that it was.

0:22:22 Thomas: That's it. That's journalism, folks. That is journalism in our day and age. Was this, was this monologue too shocking, here's a screenshot of a, of no one on Twitter saying, I can't believe that was awful, like, and there's no analysis, like, that's it, that's all it is. I mean, that's, that's journalism, that's what gets the clicks, I guess. I mean, because we're to blame, I mean, not listeners to my show, because I think we're, I think we're smarter than most people, I'm going to go ahead and say it. I think we are. I think we all are. But humans here are to blame. The market is to blame because if crap articles like this didn't get a billion clicks, they wouldn't exist. I mean, it really is a meme thing.

0:23:10 Thomas: It is a survival of the fittest kind of thing in internet journalism, quote unquote. And I find it just so vacuous. I mean, I can't even find someone, someone point me to something, but I really cannot find any sort of considered opinion piece on this at all. And I would love it either way. I mean one defending it or one going against it, but, but I really don't see anything. Thing. And furthermore, I keep seeing things where they're referring to Louis as just, as I said before, someone who's shocking for no reason. Their whole thing is to try to gross people out or whatever. I don't see it that way.

0:23:55 Thomas: I really don't. I would invite anyone who thinks that to watch Louis season one. I say season one because if you like season one, you'll keep, keep watching it. I've watched every episode. Some of them are like, you know, and some of them are just amazing. So some of them are the greatest things I've seen on TV in a long time. I mean, really, it is great stuff to me. And maybe it has some shocking stuff in it. And his comedy might have some, I don't know what people would say is disgusting stuff talking about, uh, just realities of life.

I think I, I see it as he discusses honestly the realities of his life, and that includes his kids, and little kids are disgusting a lot of the time, and uh, and then that includes him, I mean, human bodies are disgusting, and but he does it, there's always, for me it's always interesting, it's always an interesting observation, um, and his show, so gosh, please watch Louis season one, everyone. There's a specifically relevant to this podcast. There's a really good, God, episode about his experience, or I mean, I guess loosely based on his experience, but he has said it's all, everything in his show is based on something that's happened to him.

But anyway, the it's based on his experiences, a kid having to go to like a religious camp kind of thing, or I guess it would just be maybe it's just Bible study at a church. And it's really fun, it's interesting, it's compelling, it's, here's the number one thing about Louis, unrelated

0:25:31 Thomas: To this show, the actors are amazing, everything, every act, whoever's in charge of casting, I don't know if it's Louis or or some amazing casting director, every peripheral character is absolutely incredible at what they do, with a few exceptions, very few exceptions, Louis is not, he's fine, he's as fine as an actor, he's a little bit better than your typical comedian, comedian actor, I guess. Um, but that's, but every other actor is just brilliant. So I highly recommend people check that out. I would like to hear what people think, uh, if they think of Louis CK as, um, gratuitously gross or whatever, like I just, it doesn't compute to me. And I wonder why that is. I just. What is it like to go through life wanting to be affected by words in that way?

0:26:19 Thomas: That's what, that's that's the theme for today. I, I don't understand it. What is it like wanting to go through life saying, oh, he just offended victims of pedophiles, is that what he was trying to do, is, is that, do you think that's his intent? Also, what does that amount to, what, someone quantify that, what, what is that, he's making an observation about pedophils and their psychology, and it's an interesting one, now where's the part where it's offensive to do. Does he have to, what would he have to do? Does every comedian have to say, first off, apologies to any victims of pedophiles. Before I go into this next, that kills comedy. That's not funny. That will never be funny. No one will ever laugh at that. He's a comedian. He's not a politician. He's no running for, he's not making policy.

0:27:05 Thomas: He's not, what do you, what is it like to go through life wanting that from people? And I also thought it was particularly funny, something I meant to say earlier, that my friend I debated with specifically just reference, like, oh yeah, I saw the fat girl monologue, which I mean, if you don't know what I'm talking about, then that might sound kind of funny. In season three, there was a monologue he wrote for a character that was a girl that was fat, that was kind of hitting on him and wanted to date him. And it was really good. It was really compelling. I think feminists were pretty big fans of it because it expressed a lot of good ideas and about the unfairness between men and women in when it comes to obesity, and it was really good, and I, I found it exactly predictable that that's the only thing my friend could name, and that he could, he said, like, oh, other, other areas of the show, no good, it's like, no examples, of course, and I feel like he's, he's not out to consume comedy.

0:28:00 Thomas: He's, he's not out to, oh, I want to check out this piece of art and see what happens with it. He, he very much seems to be, uh, he probably saw that specific monologue because of some article, some, you know, something on Buzzfeed or whatever the, I don't know, Gawker or whatever, whatever the internet crap is that just says, hey, check out Upworthy, maybe? Check out this comedian's awesome monologue in his show. I mean, if that's the way you consume things, then I feel for you because he couldn't name anything else. It's very clear that he had no actual experience with the show and that saddens me. So in the end, I want to say, please check out Louis season one. And if you like it, check out every other season and just in general, checkout Louis CK.

0:28:49 Thomas: And let me know, to conclude this part of the commentary, let me now what you think about this. And if you can identify or relate to the idea that this comedy is offensive, because I don't see it, and I would be happy to hear the arguments.

0:29:20 Thomas: Next bit of commentary I wanted to do, again, this is a change of pace, meant to be a fun episode, and I have to say, along that theme, along those lines, I just saw the Mad Max movie, and wow, that was a movie, holy, holy moly. Now, I go to, I really enjoy going to the movie theater, I enjoy it so much I never go. No, I hate seeing bad movies, I can't do it. So what I do is I wait around until a movie has incredible reviews or at least good enough or a really good recommendation, and then I get excited. I'm really excited to go to the movie theater because I absolutely love it. I think it has to do with, I don't know, just really being able to focus on the movie.

0:30:11 Thomas: I just love going to the theater and I'm really able to just get into it and kind of forget everything else that's going on, which I really love. So anyway, I was very excited to see this, but I don't know if you guys have seen. I'm not going to go too much into it, but apparently, you know, men's rights people were really upset about the movie, or at least some sort of misogynists were, because of several things. I am very anti-spoiler, so I won't spoil anything except to say that Charlize Theron is, I think that's how you pronounce it, I'm going to go with that. She's probably the biggest part of the movie. And I thinkthat that's already generally known based on the trailer. But I won't say too much more than that.

0:30:56 Thomas: But, yeah, it's not really about Max at all. And this apparently is just so offensive to some people, um, and there's another thing they also talk about, how it's just, it's, I was thinking about this the other day, and this is the point I want to make, sometimes it does bug me that in some shows or movies they'll have women who just are like 125 pounds who like punch a guy, you know, a six foot 200 pound guy, and then somehow it does something very unrealistic, um, and it, it is weird, especially, especially someone who knows a little bit about fighting in some form, it's just not how it works.

But then I was thinking about it the other day, I had somewhat of a breakthrough, I think, is it really any more unrealistic than what you see the men in movies do? I mean, depending on the movie, if it's trying to be like a realistic, a very gritty and realistic movie or a drama or whatever, then they should probably stick to physics.

Or if a woman is going to beat up a guy, that's fine, but at least she better be decent, you know, muscular, or or look like what a woman actually would look like who could be, or maybe just be a really small guy, that's cool too, that works just as well. But I was thinking about if it's an action movie, you know, who cares?

Because every single man in an action move is a freaking superhero, even if it is not a superhero movie, even if it's like a regular action movie. I don't watch a lot of them admittedly, but I see the previews, they are able to do all this spinning and like backflip kind of kick, whatever, punching

0:32:37 Thomas: Super duper, it's just, it's so unrealistic. Now, every action movie is the most unrealistic thing, the, the men especially, and and and women, because that, you know, people put women in action movies now, and that's cool. Um, they do all kinds of stuff. So does it really matter if you have a woman beat up a guy? Maybe she can beat up that guy, I don't know, is it really, is it really that much more, more unrealistic than the, you know, car that you flew over the thing and jumped into a building and drove, drove through the building and then jumped, you know, crash the car out the other end. And then like the guy jumped out of the car and held onto a rope with one hand. Is it any more unrealistic than all that crap? I mean, it's the same thing, which makes me think that, you know, when, when people get mad about that, maybe there's a little more behind it, you, you know, I mean, maybe it makes you more mad than when a man does something unrealistic in an action movie.

0:33:33 Thomas: When a woman does, maybe, I don't know, maybe if that makes you mad, I was, I was amazed by this thought I had and maybe it was an obvious one. And I thought, you know what, why would, should that upset me anymore? Again, if it's trying to be totally realistic, then it is a little weird because it takes very exceptional women to be able to beat up very strong men. It just does. I mean they, they exist. But oftentimes in some movies or shows, it'll be like some tiny model of a, of a woman beating up guys. And if you're going for realism, that's, unfortunately that's not it. But if it's an action movie, eh, who gives a shit? There's, I mean, there's so many unrealistic things already that who cares? Why are you, why are you fixating on that?

0:34:18 Thomas: Maybe, uh, maybe think about it. I don't know. It was something I thought about and I found interesting, but I have to say that Mad Max was was probably the, my favorite action movie I've maybe ever seen. Like it was so interesting. It was so, I really cared about the characters. I didn't care about Max at first because he's like a terrible character in this movie. Um, it's really not, not, it'S really not about Max, to be honest. So that's my only spoiler. And I apologize if that's a spoiler to anyone because I am very anti-spoilers, but yeah, I mean, I cared about The characters a lot. I cared about what was going to happen. There wasn't a lot of writing. It was very much an action movie. I mean, it was extended action sequences.

0:35:04 Thomas: But what was so good about it was that the things that would happen in the action sequences were just good. I mean, it's hard to explain and I don't want to do any spoilers, but it's like little details that were like, oh, that's awesome. That makes sense what just happened. That's interesting for this reason. Well thought out, I would say. There wasn't a lot of dialogue. There wasn't a lot of writing.

So I wouldn't say like the script writer was a genius, but there was some good stuff in this movie and just things that just they were really cool. So I would highly recommend the movie. I would, if I would disregard the, you know, misogynists who think that it's terrible that Charlize is the focus of the movie because her character is great. It's interesting and I'll have you know, tiny spoiler, but not really, she doesn't do anything too unrealistic in this movie. She doesn't do any like severe amazing ass kicking for a tiny, you know, woman, like it's really not that bad. So I don't know what people are complaining about, and I, I'm gonna have to go ahead and write it off as, um, kind of just a bit of, uh, complaining about nothing, to be honest with you. So see it, see the movie.

Another, when you're done watching Louis season one, go see Mad Max. Highly interesting movie, I thought, and I really liked it. Now I'm sure terrible sequel, even though this was already technically a sequel, uh, but, uh, you know, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, and I probably won't end up seeing that. But there you go, two recommendations. Um, I hope you enjoyed this, uh, bit of a diversion in this episode, but I think there are issues that are relevant because the

0:36:45 Thomas: Louis C.K. thing really has a lot to do with what we've talked about before in terms of expression and censorship and and that sort of thing, and the, the Mad Max thing I did see around a lot of the atheist kind of feminist circles, so it was odd. I don't normally comment on this kind of stuff, but I thought there'd be a change of pace. And then on Thursday, I've got some really great and lengthy comments to go through because there was all kinds of stuff that people had, I had comments on, and I had a lot of interesting things that I've covered lately, so I want to get to those interesting comments. So, thank you so much for this fun episode. Rarely, occasionally, I do one of these, and, uh, I think it was fun. So, I will see you guys on Thursday, and thank you to all my patrons as usual.

0:37:34 Thomas: I will thank you in more detail on Thursday. But the bonus content was amazing last week. I posted it late. I'm kind of thinking it's better to post it on the weekend because you guys already have two episodes to listen to during the week, so I'm thinking maybe I'll post bonus content as like a weekend thing. So if you're ever hanging around stuck with no Thomas to listen to, or Jake, I think that's when I'm going to do it. So don't be alarmed, this next Jake and Thomas will probably be released on Friday or Saturday as well. So it was really good, two in a row we did that were long and thoughtful. So check those out. Become a patron at patreon.com/atheist. And I will see you all on Thursday.