DOD183: We Watched Justin Baldoni's TED Talk...

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's feeling lively and not at all in trouble for it. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello Gentlemen.

0:00:33 Thomas: God Oh God

0:00:38 Eli: No, no Don't turn off your podcast player, we're the good ones. We're The Good Ones. Oh no, oh no, every good man who might have possibly tried our podcast for the first time. Oh no, they're gone. It's just us and Andrew Tate now. Hey Andrew, you should kill yourself. No

0:00:52 Tom: That's That's the world now. Don't edit that out, that's actually great advice.

0:01:00 Eli: I, the legal consequences of telling Andrew Tait to kill himself are, I'm willing to accept them with an open heart. Just

0:01:02 Thomas: Yeah Our Our entire podcast project was like a Manchurian Candidate type thing just for that. I don't know if that's the right word but like Yeah We got there, guys. We got them. We can rest now. There's

0:01:12 Eli: For this one moment.

0:01:19 Tom: Done and done, dusting off our hands, on our way to federal prison.

0:01:25 Thomas: No federal prisons anymore. Tom what are you, who's

0:01:27 Tom: Oh Sorry

0:01:26 Eli: There's No Yeah I don't think you can go to jail for

0:01:28 Tom: Sorry

0:01:28 Thomas: Gonna put us there? The sheriff

0:01:29 Eli: Yeah

0:01:29 Tom: I'm At Guantanamo Bay. I get those confused. Sometimes.

0:01:31 Eli: No That's true.

0:01:32 Tom: Yeah Right, yeah. I get those.

0:01:31 Thomas: Yeah Hey

0:01:32 Eli: Yeah, because my great great grandfather did come over here in Ellis Island, and I know that that's not valid anymore. So yeah we can. How many Trumpers are dying.

0:01:34 Tom: Oh God

0:01:38 Thomas: You know what's fun about the, this whole thing is the, like, I was, I was But I was also, uh, into my brother, I was like, oh, I think I need to do a certain thing for my taxes, and they're like, wait, that doesn't matter now. Like, it doesn't, literally, it, they will dismantle the IRS. It's already been dismantled. The, here's my life advice, I'm the Eli of, of the show today: just fucking screw your taxes. Do them, like, fill out the, do some amount of it, but like, don't, don't stress, man. There's is coming after you

0:02:04 Eli: On your taxes So crazy hard. Cheat. Be like, I made six dollars.

0:02:08 Tom: Is weird advice, guys. This Is this, is weird advice right in the beginning of the show?

0:02:13 Eli: Well But Tom, role play with me. Role play with you're the auditor from the IRS. Okay? And you you See that I've put down six

0:02:13 Tom: Okay. Yeah All right, sure. Yeah

0:02:19 Thomas: Fired Done Done End of role play. You don't have a job, Trump is fired.

0:02:22 Eli: That It's already, even, I can't even get to the role play before your role is to be him, but

0:02:26 Thomas: Exactly. Tom do you need work? You, uh, we could maybe pay you a few dollars to help out around the podcast, like I know you've lost your job recently.

0:02:31 Eli: Here's your motivation. You've checked my tax return and I've declared six dollars this year. Okay, ready? So Go ahead, go ahead. I'm holding up a framed picture of Donald Trump as the president is what I'm doing right now. Yeah.

0:02:38 Tom: Yeah So it appears that you've declared six dollars that would all Right, the audit is over. You're right actually

0:02:47 Eli: See this

0:02:48 Thomas: Yeah. I didn't want to be an asshole, but I almost interrupted and said, hi, I'm Elon Musk. I'm really good at path of exile too. And you're fired.

0:02:54 Tom: Have a very good friend of mine that's getting audited right now Like literally this week.

0:02:59 Thomas: Not anymore.

0:02:59 Eli: Is it Oh I got audited twice. It

0:03:00 Tom: Oh Yeah

0:03:03 Thomas: Well, you know, I just, I really hole in my plan. Uh, their state still exists. I forgot about that. Nevermind. I got it.

0:03:09 Eli: Now we got a little delay. You said this show's not coming out till tonight.

0:03:10 Tom: He's getting fed I will

0:03:12 Eli: Right? Thomas

0:03:12 Thomas: Do your, do Do your state tax return correctly? Everybody. Ready, he's

0:03:13 Eli: Yeah Hell

0:03:17 Tom: Say, I will say this though, like, I mean, I love, I love my buddy. He's a, he's a good guy, but like, if anybody should be audited, and Mike, I do, I love you, man, but like, Mike should be audited. Like a hundred percent. Like, I love him. I love them like a brother, but like, if he got like, he's not even upset. You know what I mean? Like, he is just like, he's like, yeah, right.

0:03:27 Eli: Yeah But

0:03:33 Thomas: Like Yeah, they got me finally took you long enough, he says to the auditor that, yeah

0:03:38 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:39 Eli: Gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than being audited by the IRS within the financial hellscape of techno capitalism we all live? Why, it's the auto ads, the techno capitalism of this podcast. Yes, as Elon Musk inserts himself into the Treasury Department, the government, and every other form of American life, our auto ads insert themselves into your podcast enjoyment experience, and you can't kill Elon Musk legally, but you can kill the auto ads over at patreon.com/dearolddads, where for as little as a dollar a show you'll get access to a commercial-free extended version of every single episode. We got a little parenting story at the end of every episode that you can listen to over on Patreon. Just a dollar, all of it there. Check it out and rip into it. That was my old lady I have a list I have a spreadsheet it's

0:04:31 Tom: All right.

0:04:33 Thomas: Oh, that was like a spooky thing. I was like, "Is it October already? Jesus Christ." So, fellas, uh, I'm so glad you indulged my, my this, this week because, uh, little info that no one cares about for Dear Old Dads, I'm working on a thing, working on, on a thing that's going to be a very, very big thing.

0:04:52 Eli: A fourth kid, everybody.

0:04:53 Thomas: And it's perhaps it'll be easy to guess because in order to work on said thing, I was watching Justin Baldoni's TED talk from 2017 or 19, 2008. No, it is 17 from 2017. Or so or 18.

0:04:53 Eli: It's a fourth. That's Right, Thomas is finally coming out in defense of Justin Baldoni.

0:05:12 Tom: This, it took this long.

0:05:12 Thomas: I'm finally going to free.

0:05:14 Eli: Look, he's listened to all of the Adnan defenders over the years, you've convinced him, you've changed his mind. Innocent men are out there being maligned, and he's here, he wants to be at the forefront this time. The shame of, of what he has said about Adnan has finally reached his heart, and he's ready to start afresh and anew with an innocent victim.

0:05:14 Thomas: Yes, my new new podcast.

0:05:33 Thomas: Stop stalling. Stop stalling, Eli. We have to get to it. Eli is so mad to be here right now. No, we're going to do some coverage of the Blake Lively lawsuit stuff. And I had heard some quotes on a podcast of Baldoni from his TED talk. And it was like, oh, I should check that out. And I checked it out and I wanted I just wanted to see, you know, I want to see like, what was this?

How, how sincere does it, it seem then? How sincere does it seem now? And I actually not only checked that out, I actually checked out a whole-ass episode of his, like, I don't know, I think it was like on Facebook Live or something. It was some show, it turned into a podcast, but like at first it was this like live talk show thing about Me Too with, with some guys. And it was, it was so interesting because like, I easy thing that we all do, everybody does, uh, except like me and four other other people maybe on this podcast, maybe rewrites history to be the guy who sucked, always sucked. I hated his stuff forever and he always sucked, and it's like this thing we all, you know, all of society does.

0:05:38 Eli: But I really did hate Jane the Virgin, Thomas. You can't take that away from me. You can'T make me post -hoc like Jane the Virgen.

0:06:29 Thomas: Oh, I've my wife Lydia could come on and confirm that I did not like watching that show, uh, you, um, know, Louis CK or whether it's, uh, you know, what's the fucking rapist we talked about the other day. Um, and I wanted to approach it from that. I'm just curious, like, my own brain, like, oh, would I have felt about this thing then? Like if I thought this guy was totally cool or just didn't know anything about him, I guess, how would I have taken this? And I think it's really interesting. Cause I think it grading on a a curve for Ted talk in 2018, which is, let's be honest, like, is there a Ted talk where Eli's going to be like, Hey, I saw this Ted talk. It was so good.

0:06:53 Tom: Right.

0:07:12 Thomas: I genuinely loved this Ted talk and I'd so earnestly accepted the advice in it. Like there's not going to be that for Eli.

0:07:10 Eli: It was great. Oh, I loved it.

0:07:18 Tom: There ever been a TED talk, Eli, where you were like, "That was pretty worthwhile" that was pretty worthwhile." Okay.

0:07:20 Eli: There's never been a TED Talk.

0:07:21 Thomas: So there's the parody. The guy did in like 2010 or something, or maybe earlier, earlier, a guy like somehow fraudulently got a on a TED Talk thing and did this like, like send-up. Eli, do you know what I'm talking about? It's so good. I watched it a hundred times.

0:07:23 Eli: Yeah.

0:07:36 Eli: That he just never started the TED Talk. Yeah, or

0:07:39 Thomas: Yeah. And he, like, does this, so we looked at the data, like, he says that over and over. So good. Anyway, that's the only good one, but like grading on a curve of TED Talks and of, you question classic masculinity geared toward, you know, fucking your average person. I don't know. I grade that curve. I don't think it's bad. And Lydia was like, yeah, I would have liked this back then. And I was like, yeah, and I'll blame you. And I think it is interesting to talk about, but also to look at, maybe there are signs. Signs. Are the there? What do we think about this in retrospect? Learning that, spoilers if people don't now it, the guy sucks and created a sexually harassing work environment and also now is totally content to lie about it and ruin a woman's, uh, life essentially over it.

0:08:17 Eli: Or he's an innocent man who happened to hire a PR firm specifically for aligning the victims of abusers.

0:08:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

0:08:31 Tom: You only think that's true because it's demonstrably true in his text messages. I mean, that's the only evidence that you have for that is the mountain of evidence that directly proves specifically that thing. And when they said, "I hope nobody finds out we're doing this, winky face, winky fucking face.

0:08:32 Eli: Yeah. It's only exactly, exactly. Yeah.

0:08:34 Thomas: And

0:08:48 Eli: Yeah. Okay, there are emails where he directly says that he's looking to malign someone that he sexually harassed. But

0:08:55 Tom: It doesn't even speak in code about shit.

0:08:58 Thomas: That oh, these idiots on Reddit are so easy to manipulate and I can't believe they're going for all of this. They really do hate women. And then those same people are like, yeah, but she bought it, but she sucks though. Like, here's the thing, like she really, she's so, it's like, how could you be so stupid, but how could you be so predictable?

0:09:17 Eli: Me call out the ladies, okay, because no one's doing it. No one saying it. No ones brave enough. Ladies, if you are in, in the workplace, you have an obligation right then and there to kill everyone one in the room with your bare hands. If you're quote -unquote making it work, then you're making it happen.

0:09:19 Tom: Yeah, that's an important missing element here.

0:09:41 Thomas: You're actually guilty of the sexual harassment against yourself. You should be, remember that guy who was convicted of murdering himself that on citation needed or whatever.

0:09:47 Tom: Yes,

0:09:41 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. The way, if you'd if you like your "making if you make it work, you're make it happen" t -shirt we are sold out of those in all sizes except for the toddler onesie right now, so jump on that, jump on that, because he fucking hates me.

0:09:48 Tom: Yes.

0:09:59 Thomas: I made, I made the dudes watch this Ted talk from 2018 or whatever. And Tom, yeah. And tom is like, Tom Tom, is so ready to talk about an Eli quit the the company several times.

0:10:05 Eli: Oh.

0:10:10 Tom: Said like the poutiest, like, fucking most petulant message, it was amazing. Like, I saw this, look, I knew Jason Baldoni was, I didn't know the name when you first said it, but I knew the Blake Lively thing because I'd listened to a podcast, so I just didn't know his name, so I'd forgotten him. So when you suggested it, I was like, "Oh yeah, sure, I'll watch it." And then I watched it without remembering that he was the Blake Lively guy. I only remembered Blake Lively and

0:10:10 Eli: My god this

0:10:32 Thomas: Right. Tom, can I be honest? I was hoping so badly that you would never know. And we were going to keep you in the dark and you just come on.

0:10:37 Tom: It's a freak it's an, here's how unlikely it is that I would know this, the only reason I know it is I was doing chores around the house with headphones on. I was listening to Spotify, the podcast I was listen to ended and Spotify just automatically put on a different show I'd never heard before, like it just does suggestions like

0:10:41 Eli: Is. Great you guys. Straining

0:10:49 Thomas: Oh, it came on. Forced you to consume pop culture of some kind.

0:10:56 Tom: Yeah and my hands were full and I started the show. I'm not even kidding.

0:11:00 Thomas: He thought about shattering their, their best fucking dishes or whatever. But he's like, yeah,

0:11:01 Tom: Yeah. Shoot

0:11:05 Eli: His ear muscles until the AirPods in his ears crumpled

0:11:09 Tom: Them out and then I was interested. I was like, "Oh, fuck. Now I'm, now I'm invested." But the thing is, like, I think I can't figure out who the target audience for this is, which is a real weird thing for me. But I did send this to Finn because is difficult for, I think, for. Well, I want to talk about this as a separate episode, but like, I think it's difficult for people who are trying to be good men to live in a world surrounded by messages and men who are trying to be shitheads. And that's, that's very isolating. And it makes, it makes people who are trying to be good people, like it's a, it's a tough spot for those people, especially young people to be in. So when I watched this, I was like, "Yeah, I think this is a great message. I don't think, like, the kids these days are watching a lot of TED Talks. So I have no fucking idea

0:11:11 Eli: Crossfire.

0:11:15 Thomas: Sure.

0:11:54 Eli: Oh

0:11:54 Tom: Who the audience is." I don't know about that. I've got a lot of Gen Z-ers in my house. I'm they

0:11:58 Thomas: Really?

0:11:55 Eli: Gen Z loves a TED Talk. And Ohio they're always saying to each other

0:12:04 Tom: Told me it was sigma, but I wasn't sure. So I, I will say, like, for all the things I'm going to criticize this for, I think it overall, it was good enough that I was like, "Hey, this is actually a nice counter message to some of the shit that's out there," like in terms of the content.

0:12:06 Eli: Can I get a Finally,

0:12:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And it only took Tom taking us on a three day road trip to be able to tell us that. Sorry. Reference to the very TED talk.

0:12:26 Tom: That's so fucking weird yeah

0:12:27 Eli: Yeah. I was excited that we got to go to the Grand Canyon, though. That was nice.

0:12:32 Tom: Thanks for holding me back. I, that was, uh, I didn't expect you to do that actually.

0:12:35 Eli: Hey, guys.

0:12:36 Thomas: We Want to hit play on this thing before we're.

0:12:38 Eli: We're jumping out of this helicopter, I want to let you know.

0:12:40 Tom: Jesus.

0:12:43 Eli: Donovan came home late again last night. I will punch him right in his tiny balls.

0:12:46 Thomas: And then we called him a bunch of gay slurs and left him there. Yeah, because men can't talk to each other.

0:12:50 Tom: Christ. Well,

0:12:49 Eli: We did, yeah, yep. But he couldn't hear them because we were flying through the air. It's fine. Fine, it's the last safe place to say slurs is jumping out of a helicopter, all

0:12:52 Thomas: Yeah. OK.

0:13:01 Tom: Let's dig into it for sure.

0:13:02 Thomas: So we looked at the data. Fucking TED Talks.

0:13:03 Eli: Right. You hear that drop, that's the drop of anything that every day all contains the single drop of meaning you're

0:13:15 Tom: So fucking grouchy. Is

0:13:16 Clip: As an actor, I get scripts. And it's my job to stay on script, to say my lines, and bring to life a character that someone else wrote.

0:13:19 Eli: On Jane the Virgin Yeah. Literally.

0:13:27 Clip: Over the course of my career, I've had the great honor of playing some of the greatest male role model ever represented on television.

0:13:27 Eli: Just play yourself. That's

0:13:35 Thomas: Eli's just mad because Justin Baldoni's funnier than him.

0:13:37 Clip: You might recognize me as male escort number one. Photographer, date rapist, shirtless date rapists from the award-winning Spring Break Shark Attack, shirtless medical student, a shirtless steroid-using con man, and in my most well-known role as Raphael, a brooding, reformed playboy who falls for, of all things, a virgin and is only occasionally shirtless.

0:13:38 Tom: That's fucking mean

0:13:39 Eli: Wow, wow. It's

0:13:41 Thomas: Guys, male escort number one. So funny.

0:14:12 Clip: Now these roles don't represent the kind of man I am in my real life, but that's what I love about acting. I get to live inside characters very different than myself. But every time I got one of these roles, I was surprised, because most of the men I play ooze machismo, charisma, and power, and when I look in the mirror, that's just not how I see myself.

0:14:12 Thomas: So funny and relatable. Yeah.

0:14:13 Eli: The sound of only the women in a room laughing Okay.

0:14:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:34 Eli: Pause.

0:14:34 Clip: But it was how Hollywood saw me, and

0:14:35 Tom: Yes,

0:14:34 Eli: It that's fucking insane. Can we talk about how fucking insane it is for this incredibly famous and handsome actor to be like, "But when I looked in the mirror, that's not what I saw." Yes, it is. It's literally what you saw. It's literally what your eyes, you fucking idiot. It's like he was given an ugly man script for this, his TED talk. Like, there was a fat guy waiting backstage with all the pages, and he was like, "One second, sorry, real quick, are those yours?" "Yeah, they're mine now." "I'm giving this TED talk," and he's like, oh, but I studied human sexuality for 11 years, I'm on Jane the Virgin, all right, here I go. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't see a typical McKeesmo man.

0:14:38 Tom: Thank you. Yeah.

0:14:52 Tom: Thank you yeah I had the same, I had the same basic note. Like, here's a guy who's showing pictures of himself shirtless, who is being paid by other people to look good without his clothes on, a guy with a fucking jaw that could cut ice and fucking, like, obviously a physique that he works very hard to create. That doesn't happen by accident. He's getting constant messaging about how attractive he is, and he's gonna stand there and be like, "You know, I don't really see myself that way," although I've literally marketed myself this way I've sold it to everybody. Like, don't get to do that. You would have the the same argument.

0:15:52 Thomas: Yeah, I don't know about all this. If were a woman, I don't think we would have this response. I think you can have body just uh, I

0:16:01 Tom: You don't get to stand in front of people.

0:16:01 Thomas: Would I would not make the edit, Tom, it would not making the edit if we sat here and a woman was saying, "I have self-esteem problems and I don't see my body maybe the way that society sees it, and I have this thing called body dysmorphia."

0:16:13 Tom: A living out of selling people that I'm attractive. But me say, that's fucking insane.

0:16:13 Thomas: Yeah. That's a lot of them. You don't think any women in Hollywood have body image issues? Yeah.

0:16:23 Tom: Not saying that they don't have body image issues, but what I'm saying is that I have a difficult times hearing that somebody in a relatable to the average Joe way is saying, look, I am standing in front of you as somebody who makes their living by being attractive. A That huge part of what I do. I wake up every morning. I hit the gym. I make sure I look a certain way. I get told I look a different way. Everything about all of the messaging that I am receiving inward is directly tied to my good looks. And I'm supposed to, as like a regular Joe, show I'm supposed to connect and be like, yeah, you know, that is really something, boy.

0:16:33 Thomas: Sure. Sure.

0:16:49 Thomas: You re like, right, fellas. Yeah, oh, Yeah, oh,

0:17:05 Tom: He, he seems like he's really struggling with that how about fuck you running

0:17:07 Eli: Yeah,

0:17:06 Thomas: You're right, you're right, you should approach it a different way Like it should be like, hey, despite all the feedback that I get, my, don't feel that way, because that's the perniciousness of

0:17:09 Tom: Right? Yes.

0:17:10 Eli: That's, yes, and that, that would be really interesting right, if he was like, hey, I know I look super hot, but here's what I have struggled with, because this is literally stolen script, right? Because he literally just like scrolled fucking feminism on Tumblr or whatever he did, right? Just stealing human beings' perspective of masculinity the without acknowledging that he is. He's not experiencing that particular one.

0:17:20 Thomas: Yeah. There's no way you wrote this

0:17:26 Tom: Yes.

0:17:38 Tom: That, that's exactly. It, look, he, I've seen a handful of episodes of Jane the Virgin, unfortunately. That shows terrible, but like, there's no way that you can look at the script and be like, "Oh, I'm playing Raphael. Oh, I, I'm playing a sex symbol. I'm paying somebody who is very fucking obviously attractive. That's the role that I'm planning. And they cast me for that role specifically because I look like this." And then I'm going to stand in front of everybody and try relate to other people as if, like, I am not aware that I am trying out for roles called "super attractive guy," right? The fuck on. You're cashing that check. You're marketing yourself as attractive, and at the same time being like, "But not perfectly attractive," right? Guys, I'm like you but

0:18:13 Eli: Yeah. Like, not even that I wish, I wish it was, I see flaws in myself that other people don't see. Right. It is literally just like, but the world doesn't see that in me. Like because he's, it is so stolen. Right. That would be interesting. Right. If he was like, even though everyone else observes me as handsome, I don't observe that here's the body dysmorphia I'm dealing with. Would Right. I would say, oh, that's an interesting perspective. I'm interested in hearing that. But he's just like, but I was told that men are have to be handsome to be manly. But I'm not handsome, except for all the times I get paid to be. So it is it is more hackneyed.

0:18:53 Thomas: It's

0:18:55 Tom: Right yeah and Yeah, and I specifically know that I'm handsome, and that's why I try out for handsome parts, right? He's not trying out for, like, you know, Quasimodo. It's not like he looks in the mirror and doesn't know he's good looking. That's about to launch in, and we'll, we'll play in a second, but this is a, since we're going down this road, like he's about to lunch into the problem the of his vulnerability, right? A problem of him, you know, having a difficult time expressing this vulnerability, and he even has, like, this notion, this, like, where he, like, waves at the idea of, like, how painful it would would be to be rejected and all of this.

And the whole time he's playing on God mode, right? Very, very conventionally attractive man who fucking knows it. And when he talks about vulnerability and emotional vulnerability, he gets to do that because he's coming from a place of intense looks -based privilege. He's already solved for himself the problem of how to be be attractive to other people. So now his value proposition, because we're all trying to create a value proposition to other People. And let's be honest, if we're not as attractive as fucking James Baldoni, we

0:20:07 Tom: Have to find and create and demonstrate more value in other places to make ourselves attractive to Other People. So he's walking around being like, yeah, being vulnerable. And you're like, Yeah, but you skin in the game is lower from the start.

0:20:07 Thomas: Justin, but Yeah.

0:20:20 Tom: Because like, like you're already going to get attention. You're already gonna get sexual attention. You're all ready gonna be treated as an attractive person, and you're gonna be forgiven more sins of bad personality because people want to be around you because you're hot, and the rest of us have to eat shit and have a better personality. So it's like, fuck you, man. Like, you get to be vulnerable because you don't have to be as afraid of being rejected, because you fucking know you're not getting rejected, right?

0:20:20 Eli: Well, and not just that, but like he doesn't actually show any real vulnerability in this talk. Right. Nothing he says in the entire talk is actually vulnerable. Vulnerable, he's giving a speech to people who like him, with a thing they already agree with. How many TED Talk attendees does he think are men's rights activists that need to hear it's okay to cry for the first time, right? And this is why I found this talk, and we'll talk about it more I'm sure but, like

0:20:53 Tom: Oh for sure.

0:21:06 Thomas: Like I harass women online for my whole life, but I want to see what this guy has to say. Yeah.

0:21:12 Eli: Yeah, exactly honestly if you want to be vulnerable, get up in front of a TED Talk audience and be like, "Good man, Blake said that she needed a nutritionist and I was just helping out," right? Like, that's a room that's gonna fucking hate you. That's what I found so unbearable about this talk, is not just that he fails to reflect on his own privilege in a million ways, which I think is what Tom is really gonna take it from, but this is just fucking Dora the Explorer level feminism from someone who's never thought about any of the words he's trained to say. He a script from Drain the Virgin and be like, "I have some thoughts here that I had on my own." "Jane, you're beautiful just the way you are." "I can't believe I thought of that all by myself."

0:21:38 Thomas: I love

0:21:56 Tom: I have less of a problem with that, and I'll tell you why. I agree with you though. I have a problem, less of problem with it for the same reason that I thought the Barbie movie was a good movie. The Barby movie did not raise any interesting points beyond a fucking feminism 096-level conversation, right? Anybody who's had any serious conversations about anybody who's had an, even like five serious conversations and not even academic-level conversations about feminism will not walk out of the Barbie movie. Having learned anything, it's still a good movie. And the reason it's still a good movie is the reason this is still an important talk because most people haven't had one of those conversations.

0:22:04 Thomas: The Barbie movie. Yeah.

0:22:14 Eli: So quit the podcast. Yeah.

0:22:35 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:35 Tom: So I'm okay with like the 096 version, right? Like I'm, I'm OK understanding this is like fucking remedial-level shit because like most people have never been exposed to any of these ideas at all and they've been exposed a lot of like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, and that that shit's super common. That shit is fucking a plague through the high schools right now. So I'm 100 okay with like the 101 level nature and even to some degree the disingenuousness, because it's still like, fuck, like I'm looking for other better messages that Are 18 minutes or 20 minutes long and aren't academic in nature, and those are actually kind of hard to find, so I was all right with that, even though I fucking fully agree with you. I want to return to another quick analogy and then I'll let it go, but it still fucking sticks in my craw with the fucking attractiveness and vulnerability thing, because, like, this feels very much like with the fuckin' advice you hear from rich people all the time when they talk about the value of taking risks

0:22:46 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm.

0:23:35 Eli: This is the avocado toast is the reason you're poor of feminism.

0:23:38 Tom: Like You'll hear entrepreneurs, I just came back from a, from a conference, a two-day conference, and was all these fucking rich people worth, you know, 60, 70, 80 million dollars. Rich, rich, rich people. And they're talking about, you know, how rich people get rich and how we, and it's All about Taking risks and believing in your vision and all of this Stuff And It's like, yeah, right.

0:23:38 Eli: Okay

0:23:52 Thomas: So Stupid They Have To Create An entire Mythology for themselves so that they feel like they've earned it.

0:23:59 Tom: But also like you can take risks when it's not actually risky. When You're rich, you know, investing a few million dollars into a new venture or quitting your job to start a new startup isn't a fucking risk. Not like it is for me with a fucking family of 900 people to support. It's different. So when you're walking around with this incredible looks privilege, you're walking around rich to start with. So if you're vulnerable and you get rejected, the next guy's not rejecting you. You, you are not taking the same risk. And I think, like, he knows he's attractive enough for his first slides to be five slides of him with his fucking shirt off. I'm, I've never given a talk with my pictures of me with my fucking Shirt on For A Reason Do You know what I'm saying, it's it's fucking lying to start with, or at least if not lying, a complete lack of self-reflection.

0:24:02 Thomas: Yeah Yeah

0:24:43 Eli: Well Check Your Privilege, Tom, that's

0:24:43 Thomas: Maybe Shit Yeah Well I guess, but it's, I think it's, it's talking about potentially two different, I mean, I don't think he's saying I was worried about how my success with women because of this. I think he is saying he's worried about other men. Like, no matter what you look like.

0:25:08 Tom: He specifically in A few moments is about going rejection. And I think the rejection he's referring to is very likely to be female. But even if it's not, I guess what I'm saying is everybody likes the is science clear, everybody likes attractive people better. We do. From children on, like kindergartners like a pretty teacher more than they like an average-looking teacher. We just like them better. We think they're smarter. We think their kinder there's a huge body of evidence that says everybody's nicer to you when you're hot, men and women. So every it's easier for you to be vulnerable and to open up to other people because people want to be around you when your hot. Man, that's just like the life you get to live

0:25:33 Eli: Why my students love me so much

0:25:48 Thomas: Well, we're out of time on the episode. I'm glad we got to that one point. Point

0:25:52 Clip: Over time, I noticed a parallel between the roles The roles I would play as a man both on screen and off.

0:26:00 Clip: I've been pretending to be a man that I'm not my entire life. I've pretending to strong when I felt weak. Confident when I feel insecure. And tough when really I was hurting. I think for the most part I've just been kind of putting on a show. But I'm tired of performing.

0:26:20 Eli: Like, I'm an actor on TV, okay?

0:26:22 Clip: And I can tell you right now that it is exhausting disgusting, trying to be man enough for everyone all the time. Right? My brother heard that. And for as long as I can remember, I've been told the kind of man that I should grow up to be. As a boy, all I wanted was to be accepted and liked by the other boys. But that acceptance meant I had to acquire this almost disgusted view of the feminine. And since we were told that feminine is the opposite of masculine, I either had to reject embodying any of these qualities or face rejection myself.

0:27:01 Clip: This is the script that we've been given, right? Girls are weak and boys are strong. This is what's being subconsciously communicated to hundreds of millions of young boys and girls all over the world, just like it was with me. I came here today to say, as a man, that this is wrong, this is toxic, and it has to end.

0:27:26 Eli: Pause. Lovely applause line there. What? So this is why I found this talk so fucking unbearable to watch. Is he just lists, truly, baby's first feminists, and then he's like, "And you know what I realized? Bad things are bad." Clap. Clap, clap, slap, clap, clap. Like, the fact that he pauses there and thinks that he's said anything, and again, I know it's a TED Talk. Like, I knew it was a TED Talk, and I know that it's TED Talk by a famous actor, so we need to look at it through that lens. But just the fact that he thinks he needs to round up that bevy of banalities with, "And guys, that's not okay." Like an anti-smoking group at your local high school would shove him into the dumpster out back is how little content

0:27:44 Tom: I Know

0:28:09 Thomas: Think

0:28:13 Tom: Like

0:28:17 Thomas: Yeah, I think Charitably It's like this idea, I think it is true. Look, he's talking about something though that we all know. Like, we all knows that the attitude among boys and men around women, like when we're only with other ourselves, men, like, we all know that fucking sucks, and I think he's saying that needs to stop, and I, I, I kind of don't quite see it that same way. I, he's referring to just sexism present in just encounters among men, like the casual sexism of it.

0:28:18 Eli: There is. Yeah.

0:28:47 Tom: I will say, like, I don't think he's breaking any new ground here, but that's okay. Like for me that's, that's, and it's, it's okay for the, like I said, for the same reason the Barbie movie movie is okay. Like it's not breaking any new ground, but it's important that these messages go out. And I, I do think that, like, there are a lot of people I look around, man, like, I, know if you guys have experienced this, but my Facebook is completely useless now. Like it now is just full of shit I don'T follow.

And before I had this very like curated version of, of my social media, very few friends on purpose, like people I've had at dinner with are on my social media. So I have a very curated exposure to the sort of general populace. Now, all of a sudden that's changed. And when I click on something, it has like five or 10 ,000 comments. All of a suddenly the amount of like and misogyny and vitriol and ignorance is, is just so much more in my face than it has ever been before that I look at a message like, like this and it's like, yeah, I'm actually not sure, like, that base message that we associate anything feminine with weakness or bad or

0:29:13 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:29:56 Tom: That message, I guarantee to you that 75% of American men have never heard that message, as, as insane as that sounds, Eli. 75 or 80% of American women have never one time considered the idea of why if something is girly or we associate that with weakness. Needs to get out more.

0:30:18 Thomas: I couldn't agree more. And I think it's exactly what's happened to, to a lot of our politics. The insular, just like, super, um, debates that we have in leftist spaces that, like, if you tried to talk to any normal person about are not relevant at all, and it's like, it, I think it's important to have these basics, like

0:30:33 Tom: Yeah. I do too. I sometimes have to remind myself of basic demographic realities like that most people will never go to college. That's just most of America. They're not going to college, they're not having the same kinds of conversations, they're not taking the same kind of liberal arts classes, They're not getting exposed to the same ideas like and I'm not saying college is the only way to get this stuff. I'm just not. I'm Just saying that like we we have we I think that we have a we have a bias toward especially on the left.

We have a bias towards the people we are exposed to and we're exposed to people that are like, "Holy shit, man, I fucking know," and it's like, yeah, but I mean literally like join an "Am I the asshole" group with like a hundred thousand people on Reddit or on Facebook or whatever, and click on the comment section on anything that involves like a gendered issue in any way. And because this is new for me, and I did this specifically to content farm, by the way, for this show, potentially, I joined a bunch of these like advice and "Am I the asshole" like groups on Facebook that I looked for things that had thousands and tens of thousands of people on it. And it is, it's fucking upsetting.

0:31:01 Thomas: There's TED Talks

0:31:03 Eli: No, you can come, just Meldoni's TikTok, get the basics yeah

0:31:11 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah You'd

0:31:46 Tom: It's it's insane. And it doesn't match any of my experience. And that tells me this message matters.

0:31:51 Thomas: Almost think a majority of voters would have voted for Trump or something. Like a space and so yeah and and that's, and That's exactly the thing, like, I, I also think on the left, like, charitably, and I really think this is true as well, we're, we're biased toward interesting ideas, like we, we're bias toward, we want to be, like, at the, you know, we want, want to be arguing with someone, we want to be, like, finding who to, who to correct, who want to do all these things that I think lead us toward a more and more specific world, like, it, like almost like academia or whatever. Like if you look at two experts in a field in academia, they can't talk about things in a way that you or I would understand. Like it's really difficult because it's so hyper-specific, and I think that's part of the issue here. So anyway, I think we can probably move on from that point, but

0:31:54 Tom: Yeah. Uh fuck yeah yeah

0:31:54 Eli: It's like we're outnumbered by two million evil fascists that's

0:32:40 Clip: I'm not here to give a history lesson. Some. We likely all

0:32:43 Thomas: Yeah

0:32:43 Clip: Know how we got here,

0:32:44 Eli: Good because I don't know it

0:32:44 Clip: Okay? But I'm just a guy that woke up after 30 years

0:32:46 Thomas: I like that is funny though we all know how we got here. What really I, how did we get here? I know I know, now I'm right, it'd be like when Michael Scott tries to give that speech at the business thing. He's like, "There's three major industries," and it's like railroads and banks and whatever.

0:32:49 Eli: Really I would love see now, now you win me back, Justin Baldoni trying to do the history of feminism. Hey, so, um, in

0:33:09 Thomas: Yeah what, how did we get, I gun to his head, how did we get here? We all know how we got here. Well, there was Hillary Clinton or something. I don't know.

0:33:07 Eli: Not even once ever. Oh

0:33:22 Thomas: So good. Which

0:33:17 Eli: I love that image

0:33:24 Clip: And realized that I was living in a state of conflict. Conflict with who I feel I am in my court, and conflict with who the world tells me as a man I should be.

0:33:30 Thomas: Is really tight, by the way.

0:33:34 Clip: But I don't have a desire to fit into the current broken definition of masculinity, because I don' t just want to be a good man.

0:33:33 Eli: How I feel I'm an average American this

0:33:43 Clip: I want to become a good human.

0:33:43 Thomas: Poor Eli.

0:33:45 Eli: Makes me feel like country music makes me feel I've

0:33:45 Clip: And I believe the only way that can happen is if men learn to not only embrace the qualities that we were told are feminine in ourselves, but to be willing to stand up, to champion, and learn from the women who embody them. Now, men, I am not saying that everything we've learned is toxic. Okay?

0:33:49 Eli: Learned it so much what What? Oh. Good.

0:34:02 Thomas: Now I'm mad.

0:34:06 Clip: I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with you or me. And, man, I'm not saying we have to stop being men, but we need balance.

0:34:06 Eli: 'Cuz I thought that's what, what he was saying. Okay. Good, because I don't wanna. Yeah.

0:34:14 Clip: Right, we need, need balance. And the only way things will change is if we take a real honest look at the scripts that have been passed down to us from generation to generation, and the roles that, as men, we choose to take on in our everyday lives.

0:34:18 Thomas: Nevermind. This is much more fun. Eli, just do your, you're just watching this character. Script and roles. Cause he's an actor. Oh my God.

0:34:20 Eli: Yeah.

0:34:30 Clip: So speaking of scripts, the first script I ever got came from my dad.

0:34:33 Thomas: Why does he keep talking about script? Oh,

0:34:35 Clip: My dad is awesome. He's loving.

0:34:35 Thomas: He's a actor.

0:34:37 Eli: Oh

0:34:37 Tom: Well, he should have mentioned that at the beginning. Does he ever take his shirt off?

0:34:39 Clip: He're kind. He sensitive. He nurturing.

0:34:43 Thomas: He's not talking about of literal script. Is he actually truth be told, I actually like that moment. I actually think it's good because He says he's here, like, I think that's actually a good line that Someone wrote for him.

0:34:44 Clip: He here.

0:34:47 Tom: When his dad is there. Yeah. It's

0:34:53 Eli: Sorry. We should explain Tom, sometimes your dad comes to the things that you do. Like, you do a thing and then your dad is interested in that.

0:34:56 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They

0:35:01 Tom: Weird. That my dad goes to his things and not mine, though.

0:35:01 Eli: Yeah. I know.

0:35:04 Thomas: They panned to do to Tom's dad in the audience gets. Oh, sorry.

0:35:05 Eli: Tom's Dad has actually been on the podcast the entire time we've been doing it. Everybody, he hands me crumpled yellow pieces of paper that say "I'm not Hitler" every couple of weeks. Well,

0:35:21 Thomas: I mean, ever since he got pardoned for his role role on January 6th, I think he's been a lot happier.

0:35:25 Tom: He is very proud of that, but no, my dad Is it's

0:35:26 Eli: He doesn't say Hitler. He says "Hilter," but that's because of the spelling thing. That's not, yeah.

0:35:31 Tom: An awkward arm movement. It's not, it's fine.

0:35:32 Eli: Fuck.

0:35:34 Clip: He crying. But, sorry dad, as a kid I resented him for it, because I blamed him for making me soft, which wasn't welcomed in this small town in Oregon that we had moved to, because being soft meant that I was big. See, my dad wasn't traditionally masculine, so he didn't teach me how to use my hands. He didn't teaching me how hunt, how to fight, you know, man stuff. Instead, he taught me what he knew, that being a man was about sacrifice, and doing whatever you can to take care of and provide for your family.

0:35:43 Eli: You dad, get

0:36:06 Thomas: Sexual harassment. Yeah.

0:36:13 Clip: But there was another role I learned how

0:36:07 Eli: Him. Fighting

0:36:12 Tom: Pause that shit pause made me fucking crazy. This made, made me fucking crazy. He is trying to draw a contrast here between, like, traditional masculinity and something softer, something he He's like, oh yeah, my dad didn't teach me to, you know, use my hands. Instead, he embodied these other extremely classical tropes of masculinity: sacrifice and being the provider.

0:36:23 Eli: And hunting. He

0:36:25 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:36:36 Eli: Didn't teach me to hunt and fight, he taught me to fish and fuck. I'm one of those those fish and fucking pussies you hear about so much and proudly stand up. Now, Tom, wait a second, the average American is a big piece of shit. Maybe they need that.

0:36:38 Tom: That's exactly what that feels like

0:36:54 Eli: Have you considered the average American is literally a dead animal just being dragged through the highway of history, and we should applaud them when they hit a speed bump.

0:36:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yes.

0:37:01 Tom: Look, Not, look, obviously that's my view, but, but problem I have is, like, if he's trying to draw a contrast between the problem of toxic male stoicism, I agree with that. But then he should use examples of his dad's emotionality and not his engagement with capitalism as a guy.

0:37:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:25 Eli: Yes! Let me do it, let me do it, my dad's here but didn't learn to be a typical man from them. My dad was a coward and sucked dicks like nobody's business couldn't get enough cum in any of his holes, my Dad every Night he was out at the Glory Hall and he pretended there were women behind there, but it was just him. Just him every night, mi amor, mi amor.

0:37:28 Tom: Oh

0:37:29 Thomas: Totally.

0:37:40 Thomas: It's the only way we got through some of the lean years.

0:37:55 Tom: My God. God, like, like, I just, it just makes me fucking nuts, because like, there's something there, like, there's actually important there about, like, the value of father figures and how fathers often set, set a tone and, like, an example for, like, what kinds of masculinity we're going to, like, revere and embody, and so we as fathers should be thoughtful about that and, and demonstrate that in the ways that we want to demonstrate that and be thoughtful about the ways we're not doing that, and instead he skips the whole part, like, instead he's just like, yeah, and he sacrificed and went to work a lot, and you're like, fucking, that's, that's just, that's not even the same example, you're bad at this. Somebody should have edited your speech. You're bad at this part. That made me fucking crazy, because he so fucking missed a really important point. A really important point.

0:38:21 Eli: You can't make me

0:38:46 Clip: Play from my dad, who I discovered learned it from his dad, a state senator who later in life had to work nights as a janitor to support his family, and he never told a soul.

0:38:56 Eli: To be fair he did get fired for raping those

0:38:59 Clip: That role was to suffer in secret. And now three generations later, I find myself playing that role too. So why couldn't my grandfather just reach out to another man and ask

0:38:59 Eli: Ladies really lowered his job prospects, I'm a janitor, please take your popcorn with you when you go. Yeah, yes.

0:39:11 Clip: For help.

0:39:10 Tom: Well, I play a shirtless janitor. Am I attractive?

0:39:12 Clip: Why does my dad to this day still think he's got to do it all on his own? I know men who would rather die than tell another man that they're hurting. But it's not because we're just all strong, silent types. It's not. A lot of us men are really good at making friends and talking, just not about anything real.

0:39:29 Tom: Shut up!

0:39:34 Clip: If it's about work or sports or politics or women, in and we have no problem sharing our opinions. But if it's about our insecurities, or our struggles, or a fear of failure, then it's almost like we've become paralyzed.

0:39:28 Eli: It is I

0:39:30 Thomas: Oh, is this the part? Oh, the road trip.

0:39:41 Eli: Love it.

0:39:50 Clip: At least

0:39:50 Tom: Alright, yeah. Yeah.

0:39:50 Eli: Pause. I have a question. I have a genuine question, because you guys, you're like, "Hey, we gotta let fucking Daniel Tiger of feminism here teach Bubba Gump how the fucking thoughts work." Do they have fears of failure, normies?

0:39:54 Tom: Yeah.

0:40:07 Tom: What?

0:40:07 Thomas: What?

0:40:08 Tom: Like everybody has fears of failure. Yeah, insanity.

0:40:09 Eli: I think I think most normies maybe, I'm about to reveal my own, like, meh bias. I think mostly normies think they're crushing it. I don't think most Americans are walking around, like, worried about failure. I think most of them are like, "Sandwich too small." Like, I don't, here's the thing, if you're if you have the capacity for self-doubt, you didn't vote for Donald Trump, right? What the fuck, that would be like saying, "I have a metal detector, it doesn't pick up the solid iron floor I'm standing on." Like, you can't be like, "Oh no, they got some, they're really worried about their own hearts," when they're also like, "Yay, orange Hitler." Like, there's not, don't, I think we have to pick: either are self-aware or they voted for Donald Trump. Thank

0:40:11 Thomas: Oh, yeah. I

0:40:15 Tom: Yeah no no no I don't think so.

0:40:20 Thomas: Don't think so.

0:40:30 Tom: No you're dead wrong.

0:41:04 Tom: You're saying but I think you're

0:41:05 Eli: You. Hold me in the light. Okay.

0:41:05 Tom: Right. I most Most people, I think most people live with a fear of failure. I think it is an incredibly common fear. I think specifically living in an environment like the U.S. where there are no significant social safety nets and then referring back to what he was talking about before, also living with the of having to provide or at least be seen as a breadwinner in order to have social value. Yeah, I think a lot of people have a tremendous fear of failure. I don't think that that's, like, unique. Look, just watch, like Roseanne. Like, watch old episodes of fucking Roseanne know it's a shit show and I know Roseanne's a fucking total crazy person but, like...

0:41:42 Eli: You can't make me this

0:41:46 Tom: That show was Very, like, important for its time to sort of, like, connect with, like, middle-class America, and Dan's fear of failing his family is a constant refrain for that show, and that show is geared toward, you know, working-class people to identify with. So I, I think it's, I think it's very much part of culture. Yeah.

0:41:46 Thomas: John Goodman's great.

0:42:04 Eli: Reminds Me, you know what happens to me occasionally in my life is, occasionally once in a while, someone will be like, "Eli, you should watch an episode of All in the Family." And for our younger listeners, if you're not aware, All in the Family was a television show about a vicious, open, racist, sexist bigot who hated everyone in his life and treated them all terribly. And I, everyone wants me to watch that show and see something other than the content of that show. They're like, but come on, he

0:42:33 Thomas: Yes. You don't see his heart of gold is a heart of gold, though.

0:42:36 Eli: Doesn't have a heart of gold. He has a heart of shit and a brain of shit. And a voice of shit, he's a shit of shit So my question is, I don't think Archie Bunker, and maybe I haven't watched him in all the family, it's been a couple of years, has moments where he's like, hi, Edith, why are things the way they are? Because of you. Because any amount of thinking about why things theway they are would cause you to self -recognize.

0:43:04 Eli: It's why we can't let the AI have its own computer. Oh,

0:43:09 Thomas: Yeah, I think that there may be differing levels of consciousness of it. First off, a whole bunch of Trump voters are people and a a whole bunch of all voters are people who barely follow it and are like, well, Republicans, the economy. And then secondly, a bunch of vote for Trump is out of fear. How conscious people are of it? I don't know. But like, I think they are. I think it I think the whole anti-immigrant thing is this a lot of it is is this fear that they're going to take their jobs and blah, blah, blah, and it's illegitimate, obviously, but it is like a self-doubt in that way. Um, think also almost all men can relate to not feeling man enough. Like, I I feel like that's something that, like, I think we've talked about. I mean, it doesn't really matter who you are as a dude. There's always that feeling that, like, you're kind of faking it and hoping the other dudes don't figure it out. Like, could say I'm just speaking for me, but I kind of doubt that.

0:43:27 Tom: Right. Yeah. No.

0:44:02 Eli: Right. Well, I'm still not convinced that Trump supporters are sentient, but next week in part two of this episode, perhaps I will be I

0:44:10 Tom: Eli's favorite content.

0:44:11 Thomas: We're just really mad at Eli, guys. We're just like, we can't talk about it, but he did something. He knows what he did. So we're making

0:44:16 Eli: Know what I did. I know what I did. I voted for Trump. What can I say? But don't worry, I've thought about it and somehow not changed. Uh, while we leave folks on that cliffhanger, what do you call a line of men waiting to get haircuts? A barbecue.

0:44:39 Thomas: I love it. Yeah.

0:44:40 Tom: God.

0:44:45 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:45:27 Eli: Get enough cum in any of his holes, my good because I don't wanna yeah sandwich too small like

0:45:30 Tom: Am I attractive?