Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 26 | The Oscars, the Manosphere, and the Boys Nobody Came For

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Ep 26 | The Oscars, the Manosphere, and the Boys Nobody Came For · Color Commentary

• Charles Cole: Welcome to Color Commentary, a podcast where the stories shaping our world are told in black and white first, and then we dig into the deeper meaning in full color. Each week, I'll be bringing you the news like this. First, we'll start with what I like to call the black and white section, a clear, straight-shooting rundown of the facts and the tradition of grace like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section, where I add my own personal opinion and insights. Sometimes it'll just be me, sometimes we'll have guests. but let's figure out together exactly what the show can be and what your feedback shaping that journey. So let's get into it. So we got two things today. First, the Oscars happened on Sunday and I have to close it out. We've been talking about it. We've been invested. So I got to say a few words on it. ⁓ And I'm, you know, and for the record, for the people that have been loving the movie stuff, please let me know. I will say that content. gets a lot more views and it was just really cool that have something that I usually don't talk about a lot like my love for movies and the way that I like it. I didn't expect it to be ⁓ a hit with you all. So thank you for that. So I'll close out the conversation on the Oscars today. And then I wanted to go deep on something that I watched recently. It just came out, but I haven't stopped thinking about it since. ⁓ Louis Thoreau just dropped his documentary on Netflix called Inside the Manosphere, I watched it, I have thoughts. I think you need to watch it too. Especially if you have a son, a nephew, a brother, a student. It's just really interesting. I have some interesting psychology around it ⁓ that I wanna get into. But first, the Oscars, right? Segment one. The 98th Academy Awards airs Sunday, March 15th, and it was hosted by Cohn O'Brien at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for Sinners, his first Academy Award, in his speech he invoked the full lineage, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Holly Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forrest Whitaker, Will Smith, and then Coogler, before that, won Best Original Screenplay for Sinners, ⁓ which was a huge, huge win. Even though I think he did, well, let me not get into my thoughts yet just to steal the black and white section. ⁓ loved his speech as well. And Autumn won for Best Cinematography for Sinners, becoming the first woman in Oscar history to ever win that award. Ludwig, ⁓ I love Ludwig, he won Best Original Score for Sinners, marking his third career Oscar. Sinner finished with four wins total. One battle after another, won Best Picture, along with five other awards, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Paul. Thomas Anderson, that's the news. Now let's talk about it. You are listening to Color Commentary with Dr. Cole. As always, have a few thoughts. Michael B. Jordan won and the speech he gave where he brought up those legends, I think that that man really understands what he's standing on. It was such a heartfelt moment for him and he seemed genuinely surprised like a lot of the crowd was. It was truly, I think it was a surprise to a lot of people, but you could tell that that room wanted him to win and if they didn't, they, well, it is a room full of actors, but the man knows his lineage and I just want to sit with that for a little bit before we move on. And then Autumn, like the cinematography award, one, I didn't know that it was, we're still in a time where no women have won that. ⁓ She gave an incredible speech and I think making all of the women stand up was really classy and talking directly to them. I think it was a big moment for her. You know, it was cool being there for her. Like, she wanted... I'm just happy for them, man. I just truly am. One battle after another, one best picture. It kind of is what it is. Before I go into this and my thoughts, I do have my producer here and Tommy, wanted to bring you in because you've been on this journey with me. You've heard my rants and my musings about the Oscars. So just what is your overall takeaway from the Oscars? Like what surprised you? Just your thoughts. I'd say the most surprising thing was obviously Michael B. Jordan winning. He wasn't even in the conversation for the top two for most of the award season. was Leo and Timmy with Timmy running away with it because Leo had already won. But when Michael won the SAG award, that was a big surprise. And then he sort of became the favorite. But I was pretty surprised by that because he was really not talked about it as a potential winner until that. Yeah, I mean, for me, think he's been in the conversation in the circles that I'm in, like just, you know, because it's kind of been more of a campaign and push for centers. But yeah, man, think one, think Timothy Chalamet and God bless him, man, because he actively was campaigning. And again, that's what you're supposed to do. We didn't even talk about the funniest thing, which everybody has to campaign for these awards. And Sean Penn is not only is he not campaigning, He's not showing up. Like he's one of these things. He does not care. I the rumor was he's Ukraine. Yeah. He's in Ukraine. That's the rumor. I haven't I don't know if anybody's confirmed it, but it's on it's on code for him. You know, I think that one flaw in Timmy's game is that he kind of campaigns in character. So in last year, he was Bob Dylan. He was kind of moving around like Bob Dylan being mumbling and being vague and So this year he was a frenetic, looked like a coke head this year. This year he's a jerk because the character is a jerk and super cocky. And I think that might have rubbed people the wrong way. Something that I'm curious about, which I don't know and I do follow this kind of thing, is when people vote and when the votes get in and get locked. Because Timmy said that thing about ballet versus opera. They said it was already locked in. They said it was already locked in at that time. But nothing can convince me that that's like. not changeable if you really want to change it. You know, like it's just, doesn't seem, I mean, listen, I don't like the concept that you have to, that you even have to campaign. I think it shouldn't have anything to do with how well of a campaign it should be like your performance, you know, but it is such as life. kind of is what it is, but I'm just, I don't love that. But. Well, I'm curious where like when the like momentum shifted to Michael B. Jordan, cause Winning the SAG Award, the momentum would have had to shifted within the Actors Guild weeks or months ahead of that. Was there always a quietly a bunch of support for him that the publications were generally missing? I'm curious. I don't know. think Michael B. Jordan has hailed. Him and Ryan have been so great in this Oscar season. Since that movie has come out, they've been so great. The way in which they've talked to... Humbly about everybody. mean, could Martin, Martin, ⁓ I'm sorry, Timothy and Michael B. Jordan are friends, friends, or at least very friendly. So I think people saw those interactions and them genuinely being happy for each other in different stops. I just think Timothy Chalamet is a young guy and he presents a lot younger on this, on this last piece. I think a lot of times with men, and this is an interesting stat. that the amount of men under 35 that won is like really, really low, if anything, versus women I think it's like one. think it's like just Adrienne Yeah, and I think women were like in the 30s, right? Like it was like 30 plus. and then never again. Right. they handed to the Anthony and they usher her out of the industry. Right, and which is crazy, right? Like it's crazy that these things are happening. So if you're a woman, it's like, You better get it early, but you can still, you still can win it later if you are seeing his royalty. If your name is Meryl Streep. Right, right, right. If you're a man, it's this thing of like, you're not ready yet. Like Leo had to wait, know, Pacino and, or De Niro had to wait. Denzel Washington had to wait. And I think there's this thing that people are looking at with Timothee Chalamet of like, we're gonna hand you. Denzel got it early. I the first one, first one. The glory. Yes, yes, yes. But best. But that was supported. You got it. Best male, like best, best, best actor he had to wait. Right. Like he didn't win it for spite. He didn't win it for Malcolm X. Like he didn't win it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and that's the other thing. Right. Like it seems very often that the winner is usually a makeup. So it's like, you know. Does dog day afternoon deserve it? You know what I'm saying? At that time or send up a woman or whatever, right? Like, does it deserve it in the year that they won or do we kind of miss the boat on these guys from before? ⁓ So I think with Timothy though, I think some of the thought in the voting could have been he's gonna be here for a while and let's see if he could sustain it. We don't wanna give it to him too early. But some might argue that Michael B. Jordan's not an old guy. He's over, I mean, he's like. pushing 40s in his ⁓ 30s. I just think the work that they've done, him and Ryan and their synergy and like the humility of it, and you could clearly see Michael B. Jordan's growth in this movie, because he does get criticized on his acting a lot. And I think his growth in this movie, I thought he had a chance from the beginning, but I did think it was an outside shot. I thought it was going to be more of the Leo, like Tommy thing. And so it was really interesting. I'm Tommy. Timmy. I'm sorry. This is the thing. ⁓ I watched it for, I wanted to see that upset. I thought that'd be interesting. And then I thought there might've been also a quiet ground swell. I feel like it might, it's one of those things where if the Oscars were held in three weeks and the voting was three weeks, sinners would have won. It was like quietly building. I was surprised and I just turned the broadcast right off when one battle won. It just would have been more fun. to see centers win. And the audience was going much wilder for centers, whenever Google or centers. Yeah. And I live in two different worlds, right? I live in a world of black people and just my black friends. And then I live in this like kind of broader education academic world where it's kind of much more mixed. And I will say this one did cut across lines in a very different way because it is this is what I'm hearing in both of those worlds. in that larger mainstream world, where it's mostly white people and it's mixed. One battle after another is the greatest shit they've ever seen. And they don't want to sound racist, but they really don't see what the big deal is with the center's move. And then in my black world, which I'm in more, which I'm just, live in constantly. I'm not a visitor in. It was the complete opposite. And I'll tell you, and you've, you've heard my, my take on I don't think one bad after another. I don't think it's a bad movie. It just ain't that great to me. I just don't love it. And I don't love that. I love that Teyana Taylor's in it. I love that Regina Hall is in it. Wood Harris. I love these black characters. And I love all. like these characters. I don't like what the character represents. don't. You can't. When she gets this break, her role is this sex craze like traitor that's in love with that. That is. has this perverse relationship with this one white, this older white man and leaves her husband and abandons his baby and snitches on a revolution. Like black people are not fucking with this movie in a lot of different ways. It's like, that's what you think of us. And then you kind of look at Paul Anderson Thomas is like, his family and like, know, he's married to Maya Rudolph and there's a story he's trying to tell. There's a, and you should do this as a filmmaker. Coogler does this too, right? Where he puts his, elements of his life for those that don't know. And it's a podcast, so I'm going to veer left and right, you guys. But like for those that don't know, in Creed, the girlfriend who becomes the wife, she has a debilitating hearing loss. In real life, Coogler's wife has the same debilitating hearing loss, right? Like, and his daughter has hearing loss. So, you know, Coogler has a family where this is like a real thing. So I'm not mad at PTA for bringing in elements of his family. But it's also like, feel like I'm in a fever dream of his black sex dream, like when I'm watching it at times. And again, it's a movie, it's cinema, it is up to interpretation, but the movie just didn't, I don't think it's one of, like, I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't think it's one of his best performances. I thought he was just a little schleppy and kind of got carried by the movie in some ways. Whereas, But I'm just, let me get back to that original point, cause I'm droning. But in my, and a lot of times in my community, it's the opposite reaction than the other one. Sinners was incredible. Sinners is like something that has been talked about with no drop off since it came out. There are still watch parties for Sinners. In Oakland, where we're both from, you know, like they're showing it tonight at Grand Lake theater, cause it's one of like less than 10 places in the country with 70 millimeter, you know. where you can watch in a 70 millimeter and he's probably going to be there for it. You know what I'm saying? It is such a cultural. Tip point for us in that way, so I have friends that are also in my like. They're like center should have won everything and I'm like, OK, we gotta stop this like it's not. We're not winning for visual when avatar is in there and you're not winning for sound when F1 is in there like I watched both of those movies and like. I don't know if they Oscar worthy in other ways, but. What Avatar does with visuals and putting you in that world, nobody's doing that, nobody. And then sound, F1, honestly, I think the sound in F1 might be even the best feature of it. Like I've watched it in theaters and I've watched it, I have a theater in my house, like have like a theater speakers in my house. It's a fun watch, man. Like your house rumbles like in that movie and it's really cool. So I'm not, I'm not mad and I'm also not mad that K-pop Demon Hunter's won for song. I love, ⁓ man, that was one of my favorite moments was the performance ⁓ from both songs at the Oscars. And I think Sinners had the best performance at the Oscars. I thought it was a great scene thing, but that damn Golden song was the biggest song in the universe. Like it was, it was the, you can't, that song can't not win. We can talk about other issues with the song. We can talk, mean, just if you got an issue with K-pop and want to, you know, have an issue around like, you know, Koreans cosplaying as like, you know, black hip hop girls, you know what I'm saying? That is, can, we can, if we want to racialize it in that way, there's an argument to be made, but it was just interesting. I enjoyed it as you can tell. Like I, but Tommy, the big point as I, as I hog up the mic is ⁓ I had fun with it. I had a fun time with it. This is a really good class of movies. Even the movies that didn't win. If you haven't, I would say go watch Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a fun adaptation and I enjoyed watching a big time director like Del Toro. Cause I'm like, why the fuck is he doing this? And then you hear him talk. ⁓ Pinocchio and Frankenstein shaped me as a person. ⁓ shit. Okay. Well these are passion projects. I like people doing passion projects. So I had, overall I had a good time. Don't need to elaborate, but. Frankenstein was not for me. I hear you. And listen, and my thing is, and I'm okay with that. What I'm saying is, like, for me, it did what a movie is supposed to do. Like it definitely took some liberties. know, the movie definitely sniffs its own ass. ⁓ It definitely does. It's prestigious in that way. Like not prestigious. I would say it's in between prestigious and pretentious. And right in the middle, you would see Frankenstein. Like it is, you could try to elevate it. I have to give Mary Shelley some props for writing that shit at what, 17, 18, 19 years old. But I mean, but no, but seriously, man, I had a good time with the Oscars. There's some movies that I still am trying to watch. Hamnet, I'm trying, I'm just not through it yet. I have to see this Jesse Buckley performance and I get it. I just don't really feel it. It's so depressing. I walked out. It is so depressing. I walked out. I walked out. I walked out knowing that it was going to be on what? H.O. Max in a few weeks. And that makes sense. That's how I did with ⁓ with I did not finish the movie with The Rock and the other Safdie brother. Like I saw early screening. It was so I'm listen, I get I'm the rock was going for it. I applaud the effort. I don't think he particularly did a bad job, but I just don't want to live in that world for longer than I have to. It wasn't even that long. was just, don't know. I'm sure there was a, I'm sure there was a more interesting part of that guy's life, but like we just saw like 50 of the most boring moments from his life. Right. Yeah. Did you hear they went to the MMA community, right? Who all respect this guy? Like they all are loving. He's still alive. Like he's not some tragic figure. He just, lives in Arizona, he's chilling. But they were like, his friends and the people, they were like, well, he's a great guy, but that's who you picked to do the movie. yeah, yeah. The other Safdie brother, Marty Mauser, the guy from Marty Supreme was a real ish guy. Well, that movie has way more violence than it has ping pong. They just figured out a way to tell it in a kinetic, interesting way. And they did not figure that out with the smashing machine. Well, the brothers, I don't know if the brothers were talking at the time that both these movies came, right? They kind of, you know, they want to kind of spread their wings. It's like, well, we can, I think we know who the more talented brother is ⁓ at this point. But here's the thing. I don't hate Marty Supreme. It's a frenetic. It's like Uncut Gems was just such a revelation because Adam Sandler was so fucking good. Like he was so, he's like, when him and Eddie Murphy, Let me just say this to the acting world. You're lucky that Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler like to be funny. Like, it's something about these top tier comedians that when you give them drama, Jamie Foxx too, they're so much better. They're just really good at it. They're really, really good at it. When you look at Eddie Murphy and Dreamgirls, or you look at Adam Sandler when he decides to do this. The other movie, Spanglish, he was really good in Spanglish. ⁓ Punch, like he can act. He just likes to do comedy. I, I, you know, but Marty Supreme, it just, it's a movie that's just, you just go from caper to caper and I don't know if you ever, I don't ever really root for him. I don't really, just, don't like him. think that's why he lost. Cause it's just, it's do we ever really award maybe for supporting actors, but lead actor. to terrible people you hate and don't root for? Well, think, I mean, Denzel Washington, and this is the thing, right? Even in Denzel Washington playing that role, but he was super, but you hated him, but you hated him because you like him in the, like you like him in parts of the movie. Like he's so charismatic. He's so good in that movie. I don't think Denzel's ever played an unlikable person even when he is. The villain, worst person in the world to gladiator to he's a villain. He was great. He's the only good thing in gladiator to I'm sorry. Yeah, great. Like I don't why do we do gladiator to I'm not mad he did it. I mean he let me tell you what I gladiator to to be just him. Give me that story. Like how does this how did this black dude in this time rise to this type of power with all these other people around him? How is How is when he comes in a room and he can will and deal and like these people is tighten up and straighten up and he gets what he wants. Like show me his rise to power. And then maybe on the back end, you can have this, you know, the kid from the first one come and kind of slay him out. But the other kid just, he couldn't, because he couldn't carry the story. He's not Russell Crowe. He's not like Russell Crowe, man. You're like, listen, this is very nerdy, but When Russell Crowe was picking up the dirt and rubbing it in his hands and looking to the gods, something happens. You're like, oh shit, like what is going on? When this fucking dude does it, you're like, why are you playing in dirt? Why are you playing in dirt? And then you put him opposite of Denzel Washington? Like, it's a motherfucking choose scenery, bruh. He walks in, he ain't said nothing. He just got his shawl over his shoulder and you're like. Yeah, bro, I'm not even interested in you no more. Hey, what's Mr. Washington? What are we talking about right now? That's the movie? That's what you decided to do? I'm with you. All right. Okay. All right. But back to this. Let me also say this about Timmy, because everybody is kind of cool to hate Timothy Chalamet right now. And I get it. I hate this though, man. I love what Doja Cat said. Doja Cat came out. Did you hear about this? But basically the statement was, I just dog-powed on him because the internet dog-powed on him. Like, I don't care. Like, I don't really care. I don't, listen, man, this is what I think Timothy is going through both in the character and in real life. And it makes sense because you connected that he campaigns as whoever he's acting as. That's a good theory. And I hope that that's the prevailing truth because it's hard rooting for a movie and a character that gets away with so much shit when like you feel unlucky as a person throughout life. It's hard to watch somebody be terrible and make these mistakes and be this selfish. ⁓ And it just continue to work out for them, even at everybody's peril. Now I will tell you the surprise of it, and I'm surprised that they didn't go with her and push her harder, was the girlfriend. I think the girlfriend was the most interesting revelation in the movie. When you found out in that movie that she was also playing him like about this getting that was. I was like, ⁓ this is that's when it became a good movie for me. I was just like, ⁓ like and again, I don't dislike Marty Supreme either. I was excited to watch it. I enjoyed it. I knew it would get a lot of attention, but I didn't really necessarily I didn't leave me and like this is the best movie. But again, movies are subjective. I liked it ⁓ as a white guy about Timmy's age. It's like geared for me to just be like, This is so good. Chase your dreams. But I have two hot takes that I might cut. But one is I agree with Timmy about the Ballet and Opera thing. In that Timmy was saying he doesn't he wasn't saying I guess he might have said no one cares about Ballet and Opera. But what he was saying was he doesn't want his medium to go the way of Ballet and Opera in that very few people realistically see those things and pursue them and pay for them. And they're largely philanthropically supported. Whereas everyone every third person in America has seen the Avengers movies. And like, if you pulled how many people have gone to a ballet recital? Right. It's not very many. Decades. It's nothing. So he doesn't want to limit his medium to just being in theaters if that's not the way it's going. He wants it to remain commercially viable. to dig myself He doesn't want to be niche. Doesn't want to be niche. And to dig myself in deeper, I'd say the same thing about Colbert's show. Love Colbert. Don't want him to get cut, but the show is losing like- a hundred million dollars a year, so billion dollars over a decade. I like the show. I haven't watched it on linear TV in about a decade. ⁓ I'm not voting with my wallet. If these things are commercially viable, it makes sense that they fade out. And don't you dare cut this, because I think that's a great insight. that's the thing. I didn't care enough either way. Like, I didn't care enough that even if that was his opinion and he did mean it in some other kind of way, which I don't think he did. ⁓ and I have my own high take on it. I don't like that as a tactic. don't like that as a, let's just make him unlikable and nuclear so he does not win things. I don't like it. I don't think it does stuff any favors. And I've made the comparison to Timmy Chalamet and Leo. And I see it, right? Cause I've made it. But I actually think he's following somebody else. And I think you just crystallized it. I think He reminds me in Marty Supreme of Tom Cruise and the color of money. I don't know if you've seen the color of money before. Yeah. Paul, that was Paul Newman's only Oscar. And that was his career retrospective Oscar that you're talking about. Exactly. And Tom Cruise was the frenetic young up and coming star. Everybody knew he was going to be a star. That movie was very close. Even though this is the treatment of the movie, it's also very close to real life of of Redford handing it over to Cruise. And what does Cruise do now, right? Cruise fights for cinema. Just like his ex-wife Nicole Kidman. I don't even think Nicole Kidman was supposed to be presenting that. think that somebody, something happened because it just felt very out of place the way that they introduced Movie of the Year. But Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, they fight for cinema. They fight for theaters. They're asking you to go to the theaters. They're fighting. Tom Cruise is on camera and a hot mic. yelling at people during Mission Impossible in a very valiant way of like, listen, our movie, like, we have to do this well and keep you all safe so nobody gets sick so we can open up the movies again. Like, I think he believes it, right? I think Timothee Chalamet is trying to be, you know, he's in that mode of his career of color of money where Tom Cruise was. He wants to be Tom Cruise. And not be Tom Cruise is like, want to steal his style or Leo. He wants to be a star. He wants it. And I don't know if I have a problem with somebody wanting it. don't, I think I don't like the cynical world where everybody has to be too cool for school, which brings me back to center to my point around why I love Michael B Jordan getting it. He was clearly overwhelmed. He was taking it in. He, he, he didn't have a script cause I don't think he was gonna, I don't think he thought he was going to win. ⁓ we had to have known he was, I don't know man. Crazy for me. Just won the sag. it would be irresponsible not to prepare. I you sometimes feel like you jinx it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe you go through the motions, right? And you, and you, and you have some written down. mean, maybe F1 has some written down, but you know what I'm saying? Like, but whether he knew or not, again, these are actors. got to, we got to keep reminding the audience. These are actors. They're, this is what their train vocation is. I just thought it was a beautiful speech. I thought it was really good and really earnest and everybody there was happy for him and you could feel it. And that's, it's interesting. Like it makes you wonder about the behind, you know, behind closed doors, like politics that's being played there, maybe the things that they've heard or seen, like even Viola Davis, when she gave him the SAG award, the actor award, like she broke character. Like she like screamed. Like, yeah. I mean, even this year when they announced it, like you could tell, like they were like, When he read it, he was like, ⁓ Michael B Jordan. say that Michael B doesn't have this vibe, but Coogler gives off this like shine of everyone who works with him feels so gracious toward him and so like loving toward him. And he is so invested in everyone. to be in his universe kind of gives off that aura, if you know what I'm saying. And maybe it's him and Michael, because they are a team. Yeah, I think so. I think also I have to give it up to our our hometown, our shared hometown of Oakland, and just the Bay Area, I think there's something, and I think I can say this because I wasn't born in the Bay, but I grew up there, and I lived in multiple places before I got there. It is different. You are kind of raised different in the backdrop of the Black Panthers and these elders and like this gentrification, this active gentrification and pushing out of not just Black people, but Black culture and bringing in these sanitized versions because there's still Black people moving. into Oakland, into the Bay Area, but they're not Bay Area black people. They're new and they're bringing something different to it. And Kugler, like Marshawn Lynch, like Dame Lillard, think about stars from Oakland or the Bay Area. All of them have a Jenna Sequa that's just very authentic and very different. Really think about it. If we have Marshawn right now beat a third bubble, you know he's gonna authentically be him in a way that nobody else can be. You know, when you have, think about Gary Payton in basketball and Jason Kidd. Like really think about the stars from Oakland. Tupac, think about Tupac Shakur, who like me, he was born somewhere else, but he grew up in Oakland and in that backdrop, even as a rapper, he has so many dimensions and layers to him. And I think that when you think of Kugler, when you think of... And I don't want to put myself in there. I don't, I don't want to do any grandiose thing, but even when we've talked before, even offline, you've been like, you just have a different way that you tackle some of these topics. It's a consciousness there, an awareness that's there that I think just like people from Brooklyn or just like white people from Boston or just like people from the heart of Texas, like I'm not putting a good or bad shine on it. It's just some parts of the country that people come from. It shines through in almost everything they do. I also have an unformed thought here. When I watched the Taylor's, did you watch the Taylor Swift era's documentary tour? I absolutely did not watch that shit. It's very interesting. I just like to see the creative process. Greatness. I would probably go watch because I like seeing greatness in action. So even if I don't love the medium or the person like that, I do. I do like seeing. I think you'd enjoy it from just the how does this sort of big apparatus come together and so successful. because it's interesting because they make her and I know it's. Propaganda, but they make it that she's a super benevolent super thoughtful so engaged person and I she's a control freak that controls every aspect of everything because she has to because she's great reason but in a way that's very human centric but if was a documentary about a guy he could be cold and ruthless and calculating and not care and people would still revere him and I think about that with Greta Gerwig with the Barbie movie and margot ropy when when they do these things it has to be so thoughtful and personable and whereas like specifically white men can be more domineering and you know, Quentin, whatever Quentin Tarantino is. And I'm, I thought I think about that for women, but for Ryan Cooler to be a black man in this position, I wonder if that's the only way someone like that can rise to the top. They can't be a problematic domineering ⁓ or tour in that way. He both is and has to be so benevolent and thoughtful and collaborative and all these things in order to make it. I mean, think about why I built this podcast, right? Like I've built, I've been a part of whether on both in front of camera or behind and some pretty, you know, I think some culture shifting moments. Like I think A Black Hands was that, like as far as education and podcasts and talking about it in a way that wasn't super boring. And obviously I'm on there with an eclectic group of fellas who's also all just incredible in their own right. ⁓ But it did start to feel constricted, right? Because there's this expectation of you to always be this benevolent or like, you know, you can't have your takes have to be pristine and you have to be very well versed in everything. And it's just like, I really just want to talk about shit I want to talk about. And sometimes I want to talk about movies, man. And sometimes I want to talk about comics from the way that I come from it. But I have to have a level of thoughtfulness. And, you know, I check in with you after certain things to see how I went. But you just there's a few times unsolicited. You've just been like, that's an interesting way of thinking about it, but I think living in Oakland, I was constantly made aware of just certain things and like the way that you're authentic, like you have to remain in that, whereas other people have the luxury of not always having to be that. And I think, and I also just think Coogler like me, I'm just so grateful to be where the fuck I'm at from where I started. you don't believe you belong there. You have to, and people call it, You know, fucking, ⁓ what is it? The one when you don't believe good shit about yourself? ⁓ Imposter syndrome. People call it imposter syndrome. don't think it's that. I don't call it that. think I grew up, my grandmother raised me till she died, right? I was nine when she died. But she always was talking to me about humility. You can't get into the gates of heaven if you're not humble. Like I remember hearing that stuff. Like those are the people that raised me. And then I'm in the backdrop of Panthers who are like, love yourself and Black pride and take care of us as a people. Like you are not, like you're not, there's people that you have to take care of along your way. So when I hear, when you think about Marshawn and you hear him talk, when you hear about Dame Lillard, anytime you talk about Dame Lillard, Oakland is gonna make its way in the conversation. He might build something in Portland and he's making sure that something's being built in Oakland at the exact same time. Or Tupac that can talk about killing and robbing people and being a gangster and these beefs, but then he's gonna make a dear mama in the middle of it. Like who the fucking make dear mama? Like even though you was a crack fiend mama, I always thought of you as a black queen mama. Like things like that in moments like that level. It's just something special about these people. I've spent a lot of time on it, but I think, you know, I don't know if people get to see the psyche breakdown and this, and this, this, this kind of stripped nakedness of it. And, and, and I, and I think it's important because if I'm having this conversation with another black person, there's things that don't necessarily need to be said, especially if it's another black person that's adjacent to the Bay area or one of these like hotspot black zones. Like if I was talking to somebody from Atlanta or Brooklyn or Detroit. There's a lot that goes unsaid, but I think having this conversation and this teardown with you, I think there's a lot of people that's gonna get to hear this and hear insights in ways that they probably hadn't seen it. So that's my take on the Oscars, man. And I don't think a better guy could have won it. I hope that his career continues to do this. Cause the other thing about when black people get these awards, that's a little different, especially when it's black women, their career don't always do this. Sometimes it's just this and this. because they still not getting those jobs ⁓ that they're being offered. mean, Viola Davis should have probably been in like two or three, like Oscar prestige films since she had those killer years. And ⁓ how was it difficult for that woman to get top tier jobs? It's really crazy. But it speaks to what we're talking about with Michael B. Jordan. These guys are carrying a little more. Well, we're talking about blackness and benevolence. Do you want to switch over to whiteness in the Manosphere? I do. Thank you for transitioning to me because we were going to. This was supposed to be a quick 10 minute hit, but it obviously was not. Yes. Let's get into the next piece of this because I think that that's also pretty interesting as well. So I watched this documentary like I finished it this morning. Lewis the road, the British documentarian, and just dropped. Inside the Manosphere. ⁓ I wanna be upfront with you, I went in pretty conflicted and came out still pretty conflicted because, know, I saw some stuff that was disturbing. I wasn't surprised by it, but I also saw some things that I recognized and I think that recognition is what we should talk about. So Inside the Manosphere is a 90 minute Netflix documentary that was released on March 11th. ⁓ It was directed by Adrian Choa. The Manosphere refers to a network of online male influencers whose audiences are built basically around content that's about fitness and business and relationships and self-improvement, but at its extreme edge, right? So like, there's like content that's made for young men and from all walks of life, but everything has an extreme edge. And the extreme edge is wild. It's very misogynistic. about dominance over women and your environment and has a lot of anti-gay ideology. And Thoreau, ⁓ he gained like some really rare access and he had four primary figures. And in that it was H.S. Tiki Taki, whose real name was Harrison Sullivan. He's 24 years old. He's a British influencer based in Spain. And so he co-founded a lifestyle brand called Head Fitness. He has a telegram channel over 500,000 followers and he profits from promoting OnlyFans creators while publicly calling those same women disgusting. He takes a cut off everything they do. Said he would disown his own daughter if she ever did OnlyFans. ⁓ And then after the documentary aired, he deleted a lot of his Instagram posts. Ed Matthews is 23 years old. He's a British YouTuber and kick streamer. He co-founded Head Fitness with HS. and he films women without their consent at public events for rating content. Myron Gaines, whose real name is Amru Fudi, and he's the only one that I was pretty, that I knew before this for the most part. I knew of Sneeko, but I've seen Myron Gaines a bit more. He's a Sudanese American podcaster, the host of Fresh and Fit podcast. He's written a book titled, Women Deserve Less. Jesus, guy. ⁓ He claims he's not misogynistic and during... He attempted to control what his girlfriend said to Thoreau by texting her mid conversation. And then we got Sneko, whose real name is Nicholas Ken Day Balentze. He's 27 years old of Haitian and Filipino descent. He was banned from YouTube and Instagram and TikTok for hate speech. Says women should not have the right to vote. He claims Baron Trump watches his content, which I totally believe was present at Trump's inauguration and celebratory ball and his surrounded by young fans on the streets in New York who defend him as non-controversial. And he started making YouTubes at 15 years old, initially philosophical content about loneliness and meaning and purpose before a traumatic personal experience redirected his life into the Manosphere. And then you got Justin Waller. He was a little older. He was a founder of Red Iron Construction. grew up in a trailer park in Baton Rouge. He practices one-way monogamy, meaning he can date other women when his wife can't. He's been to Mar-a-Lago five or six times. He promotes Andrew Tate's online courses and all that stuff were commissioned. And then Andrew Tate, who declined to participate, but he did respond to Thoreau's interview request by sending a screenshot of his Google search rankings. ⁓ The gift that keeps on giving, man. Jesus, God bless you, Tate. This is just wild. So it's trending globally on Netflix and it sparked significant debate with critics arguing that Thoreau gave these men too large a platform and the Manosphere followers calling it liberal propaganda. That's the news. Now let's talk about it. You're listening to color commentary with Dr. Cole. Let me just start where I landed on this. Again, I was definitely conflicted and you know what, Tommy, we had a good cross point in our relationship, man. Just come on now. Just do the whole segment with me because I like where we are and what would... You said you haven't watched it, but what is your take on the Manosphere as a whole? And I'll give you my thoughts on it on the documentary. You can ask me about it ⁓ being something that you haven't watched it yet. Here's why I like the documentary and why I think you should watch it. I think if people are going in looking for a hit piece, I don't think you're going to get that. think, and honestly, they were all super paranoid of Thoreau. Super paranoid, right? Like Thoreau is trying to interview like the girlfriend or the mom. different people, they're like, text them and them in the middle. Like they're like, stop talking to him now because they couldn't control what they were going to say. But you could just tell it speaks to this extreme paranoia that these guys have. I think a lot of that stuff is vile. And I think that when when loneliness and this sense of less meets the internet and how you get views as being the most vile on the outer rings that you can. and it just pushes you to be more and more of that, I think you get these guys. think when you have, look, you can laugh at this loneliness epidemic and all this shit that you want. I've worked with young boys for a long time and I think young black boys, and again, I'm not just, I don't just care about my people and young black, I can only talk about what I know, right? So there's a dope guy in Appalachia that's probably been working with white boys for a long time too, right? But I saw this. this level of everything about you is toxic. You roughhousing and playing and just being a boy is toxic. You're getting this messaging to you. Your education is lowering. ⁓ College is less attainable. ⁓ And now, and especially with black people, where there's such a gap between women's education and men's education and these women are becoming more independent, ⁓ these men, some of them were feeling worthless and they didn't have Where did they go? Where did they turn to? Thoreau pointed out that many of these men that he'd looked at, there was no father in that crib. There was no man. And there was nobody to kind of stabilize these yearnings of what these things are, to kind of put them back in check and in place in this running rim shot. So these are men teaching you about manhood that learned it off the internet. Well, I do have one thing to say about this. I've actually never heard this opinion voice anywhere, but it's something I'm, it's a not fully formed thought, but white male privilege is definitely, definitely, definitely a thing, but it is top heavy. like the, uh, we don't all share it equally. So I made it to a point in my career before I would say late stage Obama definitely by the administration stuff. Wokeness was the rigor and, and things like that. So I can just happily be a part of the thing. Diversity is good and gender equity is good because it is good. it does adversely affect me. I'm in already. I'm good. So when companies diversify in a lot of ways, I'm good. But a young guy hearing, you suck. have all this privilege. Yes, they do. Yes, they have education. Yes, they but they're just like 17 and they don't feel privileged. They feel equal to everyone else, but everyone's getting a leg up. ⁓ Yeah, it's just the fact that they don't get all the benefits. We slurp it up at the top and they have it, but they don't feel like they have privilege. they're everywhere. Listen, we've talked about the places that I've lived in the country, right? We talked about me being born in Chicago and living in Oakland. The place that I grew up, where I live with my grandmother in the middle of that was Paducah, Kentucky. We are knocking at Appalachia. Even in how the politics there worked, a lot of black people lived in the projects and right outside of those projects was the trailer parks. So I grew up with a lot of really, really poor white people, like, you know, and they got their own levels of issue and their own levels of what they call it. Tell them about their white privilege. Exactly. doesn't hurt a rich white man to talk about his own privilege, but it is offensive to a... ⁓ poor guy without any resources, especially a young guy, to hear about his privilege because he does not feel it. Exactly. I mean, listen, and I know these things, right? I know these things to be true. I believe, I believe in that there's absolutely privilege. I believe that there's privilege in a lot of different ways. And in some ways I haven't, in some ways I don't at different times, right? Like getting pulled over, as we saw, not very privileged, right? But being able to own my home and, and, being able to not be super affected when the price of milk changes. That's a huge privilege to somebody who grew up living in shelters. Like the fact that I can go to the grocery store and I don't have to do the rigmarole that we had to do when I was a child. I'm talking about it was a two hour event before, because we clipped every single coupon. We had every little thing, the stuff that you need to take back, the rebates, all that stuff. Like it was a, it was real work. So I recognize where I'm at now. But yes, this is what I'm saying, right? Like it's hard to tell those people in those moments. nah. And I can, I can listen, I can do the intellectual thing. I can tell you why there's still some privilege there or whatever. And the joke was, right? There was a joke in Kentucky about, from the black people, about those poor white people. And they would say, old folks would say, look at them wasting all that, that pure white skin. Meaning like, The world is set up for you to succeed and you still fucking up, right? Like, so I get it. I understand it. And I think that when I was trying to talk about boys 10 years ago, black boys 10 or 15 years ago, nobody wanted to hear it. No one wanted to hear it. There was no, there's no money for you there. There's no like extra resources. I remember when Obama came and then my brother's keeper and things, it was such a big deal. And it was super controversial because nobody believed that that group. deserved any type of attention. And now those kids are growing up and there is no, if everything you look at, if all your favorite TV shows, if everything in the mainstream makes you feel like, even if they're not saying it directly to you, that you not shit, you start to form some other things. And then you got these guys, you got Andrew fucking take that comes. Muscular dude, you see girls, you see Lambos like. You see a visa, you see all these things and it's like, and he's saying, fuck what they said to you. That's gospel to somebody. The joke, when like I'm a white man and when I hear all white men suck, it doesn't hurt me. I'm all set, ha ha, I can laugh it off. When a guy hears all men suck and they are confident and they're good and they have all the privilege and they feel it, they're like, yeah, that's cool. That doesn't affect me at all. When a young guy hears it, it hurts. It's annoying. It hurts. And then conversely, when he hears not only do not men suck, men are fucking great. You're you're even better than they're like that. That guy is speaking my language. You have untapped potential. You you nobody's tapped into you. Go to the gym. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, because here's the other thing that you left out. When girls feelings get hurt, they get to cry. They get to say my feelings are hurt. These are. Boys, many of them without fathers, and I'm not talking about black, I'm talking about boys in general. Just believe it or not, other races, there's a lot of races with dads are not there. ⁓ And there's no, they haven't even been talked to process. Yo, my feelings, you just hurt my feelings. Like if we just deal with that and kind of somebody gives me something that's rational to cling onto, then maybe I'll be okay, but it's unregulated. ⁓ And that's why one of the stories was really interesting because the boys, didn't have a father, but his mother. And she did the interview and she sounds somewhat sane. She's like checking him on certain things. But then the cameras roll when we're not like, when Thurow isn't like fucking interviewing. And you're like, this is a really weird dynamic. It's almost like a married couple. And like the mom is like this older, like girlfriend kind of like to this guy. So she's babying him on one end. But also like he takes care of her even though he's like, I would never date anybody like my mom. I don't respect X, Y, and Z. And ⁓ it's just a really interesting dynamic. Listen, I do the work that I do so boys don't have to grow up like that, right? Like in my world, it wasn't as much as the manuscript as it was the streets. Like when the boys that I grew up with, I had a father at home, even though he was on drugs, even though both my parents were on drugs until they weren't and got clean. There's still, my dad is a Marine. He's a big fucking dude. There's just still things that I would never do or think to do because my pops was there and he didn't have all the language. He didn't have the tools that me and you have right now, right? And I'm sure he was much nicer to me than his father was before him and his father before him. That's a whole different thing. But the presence alone kept me in check. Like, hey, do your fucking homework before you do anything else. Hey, your mom told you to do this. We're not having a conversation like you just kind of did it. These guys, there's no offset of energy that could kind of match them in these ways. And I think that Thoreau did a good job with the documentary. listen, I'm not the person that takes documentary as gospel. People can manipulate documentaries and make them do whatever. It's just a long thesis. But I think that the documentary is probably going to win some awards because he interrogates these things and he pushes back in the moment. He's not He's not afraid of these guys. But even when they kick him out of things, like he goes to like these guys' original towns. Like the one who was like a construction worker. And I think he's the most fascinating one because he's lived in the real world. He's obviously older than these people. you know, he has a ⁓ wife or a wife figure and they have kids together. But he's actually built something. And you can see like, there are moments where you can tell he knows that this is like not the thing, but fuck that. I'm making this money and this isn't really about helping those younger guys. This is my path to getting rich beyond my fucking wiles. Like his thing is like, yo, shouldn't be watching it. He said, Thoreau was like, very clearly, 13 year olds is your biggest audience. Them kids got fucking parents with a straight face. Like they got parents. That's not my job. And if they're gonna buy everything that we sell because they think this, that, and the third, I think part of their logic is why should I feel bad when PepsiCo doesn't have to feel bad? McDonald's doesn't have to feel bad. That's like everybody gets to make choices and it puts you into a weird conundrum. And then I would say what else was interesting is the mom figure who's older, smarter, and you could tell her son had good sense. She was like, don't want you, you shouldn't think like that about women. And that's dumb. But she even pushed back on the director and said, what's different with what my son is doing with what you're doing? You're here because this is sensational. You want a piece of this. You're going to make money off of this. You're going to raise your profile off of this. Like, so who gets to call out who in this cycle? And I just thought about this show. I was thinking about this show the entire time I was watching it, because that's what I want our show to do. ask those difficult questions and kind of ponder on it. Like there's a conventional wisdom to this stuff. I don't, I'm not absolving these people. don't necessarily even feel sympathy for these people per se. I feel really bad though for the millions and millions of boys who are taking this in with no counter programming that think this is like, like, yo, I'm going do this. I'm going go to the gym. I'm going to learn crypto. I'm going to get me three girlfriends and I'm going to be happy. And it just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way. But without guidance and now with who our president is, who was effectively the manuscript was so huge for him. And he is the perfect leader for that type of ideology. Something, the rubber is going to meet the road somewhere. And I think we're, I think we're not at the bubble yet. I think it's going to get a lot worse. I think it's going to, this bubble is going to burst because You talk about being top heavy, right? We talked about top heavy earlier. It doesn't get more top heavy than the fucking Man-O-Sphere. There's a handful of people that's making money at that time. It is the new version of pyramid scheme. And it's a potent version. But like, just like Bernie Madoff, this shit can't last. It's a pyramid scheme. Like it can't last forever because the resources will eventually run out. At some point, Bernie. people gonna ask for their money at the same time and you can't fake it. I just thought it was so interesting. But thank you for that though, Tommy. Again, I just wanted to talk about it because again, you're closer in age to these guys. You're coming up in the same, I mean, it's kind of targeting your demographic and a demographic that's coming right after you and the demographic right after that. It's like three generations and you're at the, you're soon would be geriatric to this group, but you're still in it. How do you, How do you take in that content when you do see it? what is it? I'm just, you can see how it's impactful. I'm just curious. I've never listened to a Joe Rogan. I don't even, I really haven't indulged in even listened in curiosity. I'm such a Democrat that when I see all this, I see it through the lens of not being open to it, but seeing it skeptically. I'm like impervious to ⁓ being influenced, but I get why. I can see a Trump ad and get why Trump people like it, or I see a Trump joke and get why it's funny, but it's not funny to me. It's not influential to me, but I can see why a young guy would go, ⁓ instead of someone saying so many white dudes, it's them going so many white dudes. Yeah, like, I can see why that would be appealing to a young guy who is otherwise. ⁓ made to feel bad. And I know you're leaving. I would say this from the black perspective. I know you have to drop. So, you know, do it when you have to. like, I would say it's from a black perspective. And you're still not going to be one of the main guys in that world if you're black. You have to almost full on hate yourself. Right. Myron Gaines gets the gets the stuff that he does because he's so anti-black in doing it. He's so he is an avatar. that white people get to use him to say the things about black people that they want to say. And once it's over, it's gonna be over for him. And again, It's not a very crowded lane, right? There's so many black progressive, no offense, you're a dime a dozen, like a progressive Democrat, I think, black man, but a self-loathing, Manosphere black guy has a pretty open lane, right? I mean, he does, it just, the cost is your fucking soul. Now I will say this, I do think that more conversations is about, and my friend Torren Walker does these really well, right? Where it's like, look, for so long, black men had to go along to get along and couldn't speak up and say their thing. And I love his content in a sense because it's very uplifting and powerful and saying, I have one of the shirts. I think I've worn it on an episode where it says, you know, black men speak freely. And I get it. anyway, I want to do this again, Tommy, and I want to get Chris on this show. And the reason I want to get Chris on that episode and help me book it is because Chris has spent time in that world and like actively fighting it. And I think that there are some people that's getting smart. Like I think Gavin Newsom saw that world and is like they needed them. the only way I'm going to get to them is I got to go in there and I got to do my thing. Now he's doing it for selfish reasons. Right. But like and he'll convince himself because he's a great politician that he's really doing it for the greater good of what he's he's he's he's very so he's he's a politician. Right.