Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Entertainment Series 11: Marc DiPaolo / Superheroes and Politics / Spider-Man’s Evolving Politics

Transcript

Entertainment Series 11: Marc DiPaolo / Superheroes and Politics / Spider-Man’s Evolving Politics · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together
0:15
and we're live. Mark, I'm so happy to have you
0:18
on the show. Welcome.
0:20
Oh, thank you. It's good to be here.
0:21
Yeah, so I I came across your name, like I mentioned in my
0:25
e-mail when I reached out reading superheroes movies in
0:29
the state, which has been a lot of fun for me to read.
0:32
And honestly, I was reading and it felt like a book long college
0:38
essay that I could have written, you know, like it was written a
0:40
very scholarly and very formal manner, but it was really,
0:46
really cool. And I saw some of your work site
0:48
and I googled you and I and I saw some of some of your, some
0:51
of your work. And I, and I figured that we'd
0:53
have a fun time talking. And I wanted to kind of dive
0:56
more into, you know, the research that you've done and
0:58
how you ended up pursuing this. Because this looks like
1:01
honestly, like a pat, like like a nerd's dream come true, is
1:08
honestly what it what it, what it feels like from one nerd to
1:10
the next. I feel like I'm really lucky and
1:14
that I am one of the few people who've made his hobby his job,
1:18
and that I just enjoy everything I do because I'm lucky.
1:22
And that I finally matched with very good students and the like,
1:26
the kinds of interest in ethics, exploration through fiction and
1:31
music and art and things like that.
1:33
And so I help the students with finding out their identities and
1:37
understanding American culture and, and I get to write about my
1:41
favorite topics and I'm even beginning to dabble and not just
1:45
commenting on other people's stuff, but producing my own
1:48
stuff. So I wrote like a memoir and I'm
1:49
trying to write a witches versus Nazis novel.
1:53
So I just get to play and be a dad.
1:57
And so I feel like one of the luckiest people I know.
1:59
And I just, I only feel bad and that I want everybody else to be
2:02
as happy as me. I love that, I love that, and I
2:05
appreciate that because I have a similar sentiment, especially,
2:09
you know, with the podcast or I teach high school English and I
2:13
do a lot of things just because I love it and like, I can't
2:17
imagine not doing it. And then, and I'm hoping and,
2:19
and really, I've interviewed, thankfully, a lot of really
2:22
interesting creatives and authors and researchers and a
2:26
lot of them have all say the same story that like we just had
2:28
a passion and we just, we, we didn't even mean to kind of turn
2:32
into a job or a career. You just kept on trying to
2:34
pursue your passion to the best that you could just whatever in
2:37
to the extent that it interested you in the way that you could
2:39
really learn to creatively manifest something, you know,
2:43
whether it's a class or a book or, or, or, or, or a lab or
2:46
whatever. And you do, and like and like
2:49
and like. All of a sudden, like you just
2:50
wake up and 20 years have gone by and you're a professional,
2:52
you know, and like you've been, you've done right.
2:56
Well, you know, when you're growing up and you want to do
2:57
something sort of impractical or artistic, your family members
3:01
like, why don't you do something practical and do it on the side?
3:04
And your fear is that like, no, I'm never going to find the time
3:07
to do it on the side. But the nice thing if you're
3:10
involved in education or journalism, you know, there's
3:15
this. You can sneeringly say, you
3:16
know, every reporter's got a novel manuscript in their drawer
3:20
that isn't published or, and you could be negative about it, but
3:25
I mean, to go to get a doctorate and teach college, you have to
3:28
write a book. And that was the thing of the OK
3:31
Sure. Oh, and I need to pick a topic.
3:34
And I was scared to do Jane Austen even though my field was
3:38
British lit because I'm like, oh, I'm some New York Italian
3:41
guy. I don't know anything about
3:43
being a British woman in the Regency period.
3:46
I better do Spider Man because I understand Spider Man.
3:49
He's a New Yorker. He's got my sense of humor.
3:51
He's got my taste in redheads. But my, my brother, some of the
3:56
best advice he ever gave me was he was like, you're surrounded
3:59
by these professors. You're in a college environment.
4:01
Do your best writing about Jane Austen.
4:04
And I did. But once I felt the authority to
4:07
write about something I was nervous to write about just by
4:09
doing the research, then I was like, even with all my teaching
4:13
responsibilities, like, OK, well, I wrote about Jane Austen.
4:16
It should be easy to write about Spider Man now.
4:18
And I and then I then it became fun, you know?
4:23
So I just needed to be shown the process and dragged through it.
4:28
I feel that too. I feel, I mean, you know, and
4:30
it's interesting, even with this podcast and I really, and it's
4:35
something that I've, that I've felt I really truly want to be
4:38
my own. And I don't want it to be, you
4:40
know, like I, I'm a professional, a lot of other
4:43
aspects of my life and I want this to be my creation.
4:46
I want this really to be my done my way.
4:48
And I still find myself holding myself back from different tones
4:53
or different jokes or even different guests that I would
4:56
have pursued hypothetically. And, and it's because I, I, I,
5:00
I've got something in my head as to like, Oh, what's this going
5:03
to sound like? And I have, and there are times
5:06
where I free myself from it, but it takes a lot of courage, it
5:08
takes a lot of work. Oh, and I can only be totally
5:13
free under certain circumstances and I have had consequences for
5:16
it. Like I I saw Die Hard an
5:20
impressionable age. And the moral I got from Die
5:22
Hard is if your wife gets a job out of state, you follow her.
5:26
So my wife's got a job out of state and I followed her and I
5:29
was unemployed for a while, even though I was on the road to get
5:32
tenure at a Catholic college. And I was like, OK, I'm
5:35
unemployed. Let me finish that book on
5:38
superhero politics that I've been meaning to write that I
5:40
didn't have time to cause of all my teaching because I'm
5:42
unemployed. And it wasn't my fault.
5:45
So I didn't have that depression of the fired person.
5:48
So I just was able to do in four months what was taking me years
5:52
as a teacher between jobs. And part of me thought I'd never
5:56
get another teaching job. Like I shot myself in the foot.
5:59
They're rare, and I also was sort of recovering from 911, and
6:06
superhero comic books did a better job explaining to me
6:10
about why 911 happened than the news, which was interesting.
6:14
What would you ask me? Your experience?
6:16
What? How old were you at that point
6:18
or what was going on in your life?
6:19
Yeah, let's see. Well, I was born in 76 and so
6:22
whatever the math is for 2001, I was still a few months.
6:28
I wouldn't meet my wife for another like, year.
6:30
And but basically I was living in Staten Island.
6:35
I was working on my PhD. And I just like, I don't want to
6:38
write about politics. I'm sort of a centrist.
6:40
I'm confused. I don't understand it.
6:44
I like Jane Austen because she was funny.
6:46
And I didn't want to read about the British Empire because I'm
6:50
like, no, I just like funny people, you know?
6:53
And then 9/11 happened. I was like, OK, I kind of can't
6:57
avoid learning about colonialism.
6:59
Like this is a whole thing. And what was interesting was
7:03
Spider Man. I always relate to him in so
7:06
many levels. And one what thing I noticed
7:07
only after 911 is he's got these two streaks. 1 is really
7:13
conservative in some ways and really liberal in other ways.
7:15
And he's confused. And I think it's because he was
7:18
bullied in high school. Like I was Sue's genius STEM
7:23
major was bullied. And so when he gets superpowers,
7:26
he's got this first instinct is to be a bigger bully.
7:30
He's like, I'm going to go beat up those bullies and I'm going
7:32
to become a professional wrestler.
7:33
And he's like a jerk. And he loves like Ann Rand and
7:36
he's really right wing. And then his uncle dies and his
7:40
uncle's like with great power comes great responsibility.
7:43
And he's one of those old working class white union guys
7:47
who's like an FDR type first and foremost.
7:52
And so he's got this ghost of FDR, Uncle Ben on his shoulder
7:55
saying be nice to vulnerable people.
7:58
So his first instincts to be a jerk.
8:00
But the ghost makes him keeps him honest and he winds up
8:03
rescuing all the people he hates the most, like Jonah Jameson.
8:07
I'm like, what a great character.
8:09
Like he's sort of in hell. Like he's got to act against his
8:12
nature. And because he's like that, he
8:15
really wants respectability. So in the comics, Iron Man at
8:19
when he's like 30-40, he's been broke for decades, he gets an
8:24
opportunity to work for Iron Man, who's a scientist and
8:26
become wealthy and popular like Robert.
8:30
Yeah, he takes it. And he's like, and Iron Man's
8:34
like, oh, there's been some superhero disasters.
8:37
I want to force everybody to unmask on TV and work for SHIELD
8:41
because we can't have Unreal like regulated superheroes.
8:45
And Spider Man does it for the respectability, unmasks, he
8:48
tells everybody. I'm Peter Parker.
8:50
That's the that's, that's civil war, right?
8:51
That's the root of civil war. That's the Civil War story in
8:53
the comic books. That's the version there.
8:55
And all the superheroes hate Spider Man because he caved.
9:00
And so it's Captain America's like, this is going to lead to
9:03
some weird stuff. And he refused to do it.
9:05
Even though everybody knows who Steve Rogers is.
9:07
He's like, I want to protect people's right to be anonymous.
9:11
And what starts to happen is super villains who don't mind
9:13
outing themselves start working for SHIELD and superheroes who
9:18
do like some get arrested, not tried and put in a prison in
9:23
another dimension. And they also accidentally kill
9:26
Ant Man. So Spider Man sees all this and
9:29
he's like, am I on the wrong side?
9:31
And he flips and he goes to Captain America's side and
9:34
everybody hates him on both sides because he changed his
9:37
mind. And the only person because
9:41
because for Iron Man, he betrayed him and Iron Man was
9:44
protecting him and he took his hand of protection off.
9:47
And the first thing that happens is the Kingpin shoots Aunt May,
9:51
you know, And so he takes pays a big price.
9:53
And my favorite line, like in any comic ever is Falcon says to
9:58
Spider Man, wow, you joined our side.
10:02
You've done things that nobody in America does.
10:05
You've you've said I was wrong politically and you changed your
10:07
mind. He's like, I'm sorry, I was
10:10
wrong as the hardest sentence in the English language.
10:13
And Spider Man's like, no, no, no, the hardest sentence in the
10:17
English languages. What are you doing with my wife?
10:22
And I was just like, and so I read that, and I was like, after
10:26
911, I was like, oh, national security, maybe we should let
10:29
the Patriot Act go through, which is what's the Civil War
10:32
was about. It was the Patriot Act.
10:34
And I was like, or maybe not. Maybe, maybe we should risk
10:40
another terrorist attack but still have freedom in this
10:42
country. Yeah.
10:43
And so I was confused. And watching Spider Man change
10:46
his mind made me change my mind. And that was the inspiration for
10:50
the book. I love that.
10:52
I love that. I love that whole story.
10:54
Can you explain real quickly just the Patriot Act and what
10:56
the consequences, the subsequent consequences were an R to today
11:01
and I didn't even know. The truth is I'm I'm I just
11:05
turned 30 a couple months ago. So I was 7 or 8 when 911
11:09
happened. I don't know much and I am
11:12
certain I've only really really become aware of the modern pub
11:19
history, political, regional, as far as military, whatever it is
11:22
within the last year or two. And I think that a lot of
11:25
people, especially my age and younger, don't know a lot about
11:28
it. So if you want to actually, do
11:30
you want to like maybe provide a little bit of context to fill in
11:32
a little bit of the, of the details there to kind of explain
11:36
how the, because the superheroes have been for the last 2530
11:41
years or more really for the last 100 years since they
11:43
started writing them, been a reflection of, of the, of the
11:46
times and the, and the, and the conflicts that are going on in
11:48
society, like you mentioned. So, you know, maybe just we
11:52
could start with the Patriot Act and, and what you were, what
11:55
were your thoughts at the time politically and, and, and, and
11:59
with with, with regarding the Patriot Act and war?
12:03
I want to help people out here by talking briefly quick about
12:08
the Civil War movie that was made more recently, because
12:10
that's what people are going to know.
12:12
And for them, Spider Man never defected from Iron Man to
12:15
Captain America. That's something that Black
12:17
Widow did. So but they basically just gave
12:21
Spider Man's role from the comic to Black Widow in the movie.
12:24
But enough time passed from the comic and then making Civil War
12:29
into a movie put it in a different political context and
12:31
nobody knew what the heck the Patriot Act was.
12:35
To the point where in the comic it's pretty clear Iron Man's the
12:38
Republican and Captain America is the guy who's too liberal to
12:42
be an establishment Democrat, right?
12:44
Whereas a lot of folks will watch Civil War and say Captain
12:48
America is a libertarian and Iron Man's a Democrat who
12:51
believes in regulation and superheroes are guns and it's a
12:55
gun control story. Oh, interesting.
12:57
And I was like, oh, that's a legit reading.
13:00
And I think part of what opens that up is this sort of idea
13:03
that he rejects the UN watching, which I have a harder time with.
13:10
I don't have a hard time with him being skeptical of authority
13:13
after he found out Hydra infiltrated SHIELD.
13:16
Yeah. I have a little bit of a hard
13:17
time with him being against the UN in general.
13:20
So yeah, that's the. Well, yeah, they like, at least
13:25
their hearts in the right place. They just never managed to stop
13:27
a genocide, you know? But.
13:28
But yeah, like, in theory, they're better than like,
13:31
SHIELD, you know, or George W Bush.
13:35
So like, yeah, that's what people know.
13:38
And what was funny was when Obama was president, people
13:40
thought the civil war was about Obama forcing people to buy
13:43
private healthcare. Really.
13:45
And I was like, I was like, that's a weird interpret that
13:48
never worked for me. Like that's.
13:50
How they explain how did how? What's the relationship there?
13:54
Because if it's a law that forces everybody to behave the
13:58
same way, you know, that's something the when the
14:02
Republicans talk about being the party of freedom, they'll say
14:06
all the Democrat laws and want a nationalized election to make
14:09
sure everybody has the right to vote, but that's interfering.
14:12
Or they want to nationalize reproductive rights, but that's
14:14
interfering with religious people.
14:15
Or they want to, you know, so for them, the party of freedom
14:19
is the ability to say no. So which means Captain America
14:22
saying no, which means he's Republican and that Iron Man's
14:26
Obama and he's pushing healthcare.
14:29
I get it. But it it didn't, it didn't
14:31
work. It was weird.
14:32
And that just tells you that every 10 years people going to
14:34
have a different take on it. But it's very much the law that
14:38
you usually see in the X-Men comics where they want to track
14:41
mutants, write their powers down, get their addresses.
14:45
And that all starts to feel a lot like, you know, ICE
14:48
cataloging immigrants and things like that.
14:51
And I think that's more what this Civil War superhero
14:55
registration act was like, this fear that once you make a list,
14:59
it can become an enemies list that can become people who are
15:02
jailed. That could become a purge, you
15:05
know, and there's not going to be trials because they're not
15:07
real citizens. Or which the new Superman movie
15:11
did too. So like but.
15:14
Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, please.
15:16
I haven't answered your question about the Patriot Act, but you
15:18
but we can go back to that if you want to follow that thread
15:20
for a minute, but. Yeah, sure.
15:22
Let's follow that thread. Go for it.
15:23
OK, so like the pay track was weird because 911 happened and I
15:28
knew it was going to happen because I was a reporter and we
15:31
had been attacked once, maybe twice before.
15:34
Then a battleship, I think called the coal was sank.
15:38
And Osama bin Laden said Osama bin Laden and LED this sort of
15:43
terrorist organization, and he was angry at U.S. policy in the
15:46
Middle East, and so he would attack us.
15:48
He sank the ship. And he said that my next target
15:50
is on mainland America. And I was a reporter for a
15:54
little newspaper in Staten Island.
15:56
So I called the Secret Service, and I said, what are you guys
15:58
doing to prevent the mainland attack?
16:01
And they said your newspaper is a little newspaper, so we don't
16:04
have to talk to you. So I was like, OK, Oh, well.
16:08
So when the planes flew into the World Trade Center, I thought,
16:11
oh, this was the thing I, in my small way, tried to prevent by
16:16
calling the Secret Service, and I didn't get anywhere.
16:19
So we kind of knew it was coming.
16:22
Bill Clinton know it was coming. He tried to kill bin Laden with
16:25
a strike in Afghanistan. And the Republicans said he's
16:29
not a threat. You're just doing this to get
16:32
people to stop thinking about the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.
16:35
Well, he had. He had a history of working with
16:38
America prior to that, during the Cold War, against Afghan,
16:42
against the Russians, against the USSR, I guess.
16:44
Right, there's all these kind of people we armed wind up using
16:49
the guns against us. Two years later, yeah.
16:51
Yeah, one of the main. Moral ambiguity.
16:53
But I certainly Bill Clinton was definitely banging the drum of
16:57
this guy's a threat. He tried to kill him.
16:58
And when George W Bush took over, his first thing he did was
17:01
disregard anything Clinton said just because he was a Democrat.
17:04
So they said keep your eyes on bin Laden and WS.
17:07
Like, so when 911 happens, it was like, how did this happen?
17:12
I'm like, that's easy. Republican arrogance that they
17:15
don't believe anything Democrats say when there's a problem.
17:19
But the the Republicans like Dick Cheney were like, you know
17:22
what'll prevent this in the future?
17:23
If US security agencies get to merge And they have one really
17:28
big Uber agency, Department of Homeland Security, which has no
17:31
oversight and can do whatever it wants.
17:33
It can barge in anywhere and it can spy on anyone and it doesn't
17:37
need warrants. And and I was like, OK.
17:41
Or anything. It's crazy.
17:42
And I was sort of like, OK, there.
17:45
You're saying that the intelligence didn't make it all
17:48
the way through because the FBI doesn't talk to the CIA, doesn't
17:51
talk to the cops. And that's what happened.
17:53
Maybe, maybe we need this department or maybe George W
17:57
Bush should have listened to frickin Clinton, right?
18:00
So that was kind of the question.
18:02
And The thing is that. Hasn't been repealed, has it?
18:05
How come no one has repealed it? A lot of what's going on with
18:10
ICE is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security,
18:13
and that's why ICE has been so hard to deal with.
18:15
So. And honestly, the ICE is sort of
18:18
what Captain America was complaining about, you know?
18:21
So like, you know, ICE is like sort of an unhinged shield or,
18:25
you know, and I think you. So at the time, I didn't want
18:30
there to be another 911, right? I mean, I didn't know anyone who
18:33
died. I flirted with going to World
18:36
Trade Center to get Broadway tickets the same week it
18:38
happened, but I was in no danger of having been killed.
18:41
So but, you know, it's scary. And you're like, OK, I guess we
18:44
need this. And they're like, we have this
18:46
law, but that law was written a draft of it years before.
18:51
And they were just waiting for a crisis to push it because they
18:54
just wanted more power. And so they're like, it wasn't
18:58
tailored to that event. It was handy.
19:02
And so they pushed it through and.
19:03
And they also said, OK, we're going to attack Afghanistan.
19:06
I was like, OK, well, if he's there, cool.
19:08
And then they said we're going to attack Iraq.
19:09
Yeah. I was like, what does Iraq have
19:11
to do with anything? And that's when I started to get
19:13
really confused. I tried to.
19:15
Marvel got pretty. Marvel got bold.
19:18
I wanted to marvel complain. I I, I'm teaching this to my
19:22
class right now and they're like, but why?
19:27
And I was like, I don't know why?
19:29
And they're like, and everyone was just like, cool with it.
19:32
And I'm like, I guess so I'm like, I wasn't really very
19:35
politically conscious. I was like, I was like 10.
19:38
I was like, they're like, it doesn't seem to.
19:40
I was like, how do you know he was there?
19:41
I was like, we don't know. I was like, so why did you
19:43
attack it? I was like, I don't know.
19:44
And then you went to another place and I'm like, yeah, I'm
19:46
like, why did you attack it? I'm like, I don't know, like,
19:49
OK. And I'm like, but this was
19:51
actual foreign policy. This is this is like American
19:53
history. Like we, we spent a lot of money
19:54
on this and we sent a lot of troops there and we, we killed a
19:58
lot of people there and for what?
20:01
You know, I think at the time you only have the information
20:05
that, you know, is available. And I think that was the
20:09
beginning of the like official real feeling of like state
20:12
propaganda because Fox News was kicking in high gear after 911
20:17
and they got to be the patriotic channel and the newspapers got
20:22
timid. They got scared because they
20:24
didn't want to be seen as traitors by questioning W.
20:26
So anytime anybody said Boo, they got hammered to the point
20:31
where like the Dixie Chicks complained about him and they
20:33
were boycotted and only like Michael Moore and the Pope
20:36
complained. Like so a lot of people said
20:40
there's like the, there's the Democratic Party's giving non
20:42
existent resistance so that it's just the Republicans and that's
20:46
it. And even NPR, which is supposed
20:49
to be the liberal media, they were inviting all these Iraqis
20:52
on saying please conquer the country.
20:55
I got kicked out by Hussein and he sucks anyway.
20:57
So who cares if he's responsible for 911 like and they sort of
21:02
float this idea that even if he wasn't, we can conquer the
21:05
country in a week, put up a democracy and make it better
21:08
because that's what we did with the Marshall Plan on World War
21:10
2. And there was all this stuff
21:12
about how America is the country of the Marshall Plan and we're
21:15
going to rebuild. But the the other, the flip side
21:19
of that argument was, well, W is dismantling American Society
21:22
domestically. How is he going to build a
21:24
society overseas? You know, because Republicans
21:27
are not. They dismantle things to cut
21:29
taxes. They don't build things.
21:31
That's right. So, you know, so part of me was
21:35
like, oh, I'm a World War 2 movie fan.
21:37
I like the Marshall Plan, you know, so I was a little
21:41
susceptible to this baloney, even though I didn't trust WI
21:45
mean he got in through a weird tied election with Gore.
21:49
I didn't trust the recount. So like the everything about W
21:54
was weird and sleazy. So but part of me wanted to
21:57
trust him. He's standing on the rubble of
21:59
911 and he says the people who did this are going to hear from
22:02
us and I'm cheering for this guy I didn't like or vote for.
22:07
But Spider Man was like, Oh, I don't know if I make munitions
22:11
like Tony, but he's cool and he's given me a whole, you know,
22:15
apartment building and he's protecting my aunt and and then
22:19
he's like, but he's weird. I don't know why I invested in
22:21
this guy and he defects. And when I watch Spider Man do
22:24
it, I'm like, why am I supporting W, you know?
22:28
And so it was a big moment for me.
22:30
And it was sort of like pop culture can.
22:32
Change. You went from being a little bit
22:34
more conservative minded to more liberal minded.
22:37
Yeah, I mean, it's it was a herky jerky journey for me.
22:40
But like I was one of those suburban sci-fi fans who was a
22:44
bit like modern suburban sci-fi fans where like modern people be
22:48
like everything's woke now and everything sucks and I'm just
22:52
going to play Call of Duty. But for me at the time, I was
22:57
able to deal with it by going, it's fun when Kirk beats up
23:01
Klingons on Star Trek and shoot ships and you get to watch his
23:04
tactics. But once he talks about how I
23:07
hope one day we're friends of the Klingons, just Fast forward
23:10
that or plug your ears, you know?
23:12
And that's how you get to be a Republican Star Trek fan.
23:15
And that was a little bit like that.
23:17
Like I'd watch Doctor Who and then when they'd say stuff like
23:21
Buddhism is great, socialism is great.
23:24
You know, I don't know if religion is true.
23:26
God might have just been an alien, You know, I would be
23:29
like, I'm not listening. I'm I just show me the cool
23:32
Cybermen, you know? But over time, that stuff pushed
23:37
me gradually to the left in a way that I didn't think was
23:39
indoctrinating. I think it opened my heart and
23:41
my mind. I don't, I wasn't hypnotized,
23:45
but I think this Civil War was the end of that process where I
23:48
was like, all right, all the stuff that I thought was like
23:53
pro-life and stuff. Good Catholics support that.
23:56
Good suburban men would support the John Wayne values.
24:03
None of that's accurate that these Democrats who I thought of
24:06
as sleazy, weed smoking hippies who get themselves shot like
24:10
John Lennon, they might actually be the good guys after all, even
24:14
though I was taught by my neighborhood priests to hate
24:17
them. And so and Civil War really got
24:20
me to that point. And so when I was unemployed,
24:23
I'm like, you know, I want to tell the story and but I'm not
24:26
going to my my voice will be behind it.
24:28
Like I'll be analyzing the more liberal superhero stories, but
24:33
leaving myself kind of out of it kind of not.
24:37
And the reason I did it was I felt like if you go online, the
24:42
fans are like, why are all these liberals writing superhero
24:45
stories is so liberal? And if you read an academic
24:48
book, feminist academics will say every superhero story is far
24:53
right wing because it's in a male power fantasy.
24:56
And I'd look at both of those. And I'd be like, these are
24:59
cartooning stories. Like there's hundreds and
25:04
hundreds of comic books in my basement, hundreds by different
25:07
writers, different ears, different characters.
25:10
The Punisher is not Wonder Woman, right?
25:13
Is not the Hulk is not Spider Man.
25:15
They represent different values at different writers, different
25:18
decades, and they all influence my morality.
25:21
And I want to look at that and see what that means.
25:23
And I'm going to do case studies.
25:24
I'm do a chapter on Wonder Woman, chapter on the Hulk, you
25:28
know, chapter on the Punisher, that Fantastic Four, that kind
25:30
of stuff. And it felt like a good way of
25:33
dealing with my trauma from 911 and talking about my lifelong
25:36
hobby and finally writing a book.
25:39
I was excited about that. I felt like, I know this topic
25:43
and my goal was to write the best superhero scholarly book
25:46
ever written, which is kind of arrogant, but I did win a award
25:51
from the American Library Association for like an academic
25:54
book of the year. So I was like, oh, right, you
25:56
know, there you go, man. So when it was a heck of a thing
25:58
to have happen when you were between jobs?
26:01
That's awesome. That's awesome.
26:02
And I, and I again, I think it's a really cool example of, of
26:06
ways to like when you really, really feel that and connected
26:11
it so strongly. It's something that is magnetic
26:13
and it's something that people just get attached to.
26:17
There's nothing that we that, that people love more than
26:20
authentic passion. And it's very, very, it's, it's,
26:24
I want to say impossible, but close to it to fake, to fake
26:27
authenticity. And whether it's a musician
26:31
playing a song or a writer talking about something or a
26:33
podcast where like they're just going back and forth and you
26:35
could see they're really, really enjoying the moment.
26:37
You like, you really, really get caught up in that.
26:40
And, and people want to share that and spread with it and
26:44
really and participate with it, you know.
26:46
And so, I mean, there's no doubt that that's, I'm sure that that,
26:49
that that's a huge component as to what that what made the work
26:52
so much fun and I'm sure so attracted to so many people.
26:56
Yeah, it was scary to write because, you know, there's a
26:58
chapter I knew I had to write about torture because that was a
27:01
big theme post 911, because Dick Cheney's like, we're going to
27:04
have to start torturing our prisoners.
27:06
Yeah, I was like, yeah, that's what the s s does.
27:09
This is weird. You know 24.
27:14
The only person that got arrested for that was the
27:17
whistleblower, that John Kariaku.
27:19
I blew the whistle. I blew the whistle on the
27:21
torture program. He's the only one that got
27:22
arrested in association with it. Oh well, and you know, like so
27:26
24 that have the storyline where like Jack Bauer the hero, if you
27:30
didn't torture somebody, then California's naked.
27:33
And so I felt like this pressure like, do I have to decide in my
27:38
heart that I'm pro torture now? And I just felt this pressure
27:41
like like the idea of having empathy or or standards or
27:46
because became treasonous at that time, like decency became
27:50
treasonous. And I was like, how did we get
27:52
from New Yorkers or the real America to oh, you voted for
27:57
John Kerry instead of Bush for re election.
27:59
Fuck New York. You're not the real American.
28:01
You know, you're you're too kind heart.
28:03
You're hippie. So yeah, I was worried.
28:07
We're doing the research. I was like, so I had to decide
28:09
if I was pro torture or not. And I knew that.
28:12
You train of thought going back and forth about it.
28:16
Well, like, like I wanted it to be the right thing, but I also
28:21
wanted to make the case that it was tactically sound.
28:24
And I don't know that I needed to do that, but I wanted to do
28:26
that right. So and I knew that the fantastic
28:30
form will be rise of the Silver Surfer.
28:32
The idea is that the Invisible Woman says the Silver Surfer
28:36
scary. He works for a guy who wants to
28:38
eat our planet. The government wants to torture
28:42
him. He's captured.
28:44
I understand why I'm going to frame and be nice to him.
28:48
And she does that, and then he turns on Galactus and saves
28:51
humans because of her kindness. And I was like, OK, that fits
28:55
with my morality. I'm going to compare Marvel's
28:58
big heart to 24's torture those people.
29:02
And so that was a torture chapter.
29:04
So I knew narratively, I like the Fantastic Four, but I was
29:07
like, all right, time to research, like John McCain's
29:10
torturing or what is, you know, the head of national security,
29:15
say. And what's interesting is I
29:17
found out John McCain said he just kept lying when they
29:20
tortured him and making up fake stuff.
29:22
And then they interviewed like I think the head of the FBI.
29:24
And he said actually given being given the right to torture
29:27
people has ruined everything because we just now spend all
29:30
our time chasing imaginary leads.
29:33
Like we'll be torturing an innocent person and they'll make
29:36
up something, anything to make us stop.
29:38
And the time we're wasting is putting people in danger.
29:41
And I was like, oh, good, 'cause I sort of imagine writing about
29:46
something this dangerous that I was going to be punished by God
29:49
for writing about torture. Like if I said I'm pro torture
29:54
that I'd wake up in somebody's basement the next day with a bag
29:57
over my head. Or if they say I'm anti torture,
30:02
suddenly California will be naked and everyone in America
30:05
will look at me and go, your chapter destroyed California,
30:10
you know? But I think because I was
30:12
between jobs and I felt confident in my research, I was
30:15
able to write what I want to write.
30:17
But what? But I but part of me thought I'm
30:19
never going to get a teaching job.
30:20
So when you're talking about, you want to be free to say
30:23
something. It was a very key moment where I
30:26
was did the research. I had some trauma I had to deal
30:29
with. I love superheroes.
30:32
And I was like, you know, if I'm never going to teaching job,
30:35
I'll write whatever. And that freed me.
30:38
And I think that's why the book's so good.
30:39
But any other time in my life probably wrote something more
30:42
timid. Yeah.
30:43
So yeah, there's a. There's a great Steve Jobs I
30:48
show my class every my high school students every year his
30:51
his end of the year speech. I forgot the word is end of the
30:55
year speech at Stanford and on graduation.
31:00
And one of the things he was talking about was the benefits
31:02
of getting fired allowed him, you know, the freedom to be, to
31:06
be nimble and to be free to take chances in the way that like,
31:10
you don't have anything to, like, hang on to.
31:13
So you may, so you may as well just go for it in whatever
31:16
capacity because there's no, there's no worse than where you
31:19
are right now. You know, and, and the being
31:22
established is inherently the opposite perspective is you want
31:25
to, you want to maintain something and you want to make
31:27
sure that you don't lose your ties And, and it becomes harder
31:29
to do. I was talking to my student the
31:31
other day and he was, and I said, and he said he was talking
31:35
to his friends, like, yeah, I just want to be an accountant.
31:37
I'm like, dude, you want to be an accountant?
31:38
And he's like, yeah, I said why? And someone else was like, cuz
31:41
her sister's an account and she can probably get him a job.
31:43
And like, dude, you're 17 years old.
31:46
You have literally one life to live.
31:48
I was like, do you want to be an account?
31:49
And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, well, what do
31:51
you want to do? He's like, I don't know,
31:53
whatever you want to do, try doing like the next two or three
31:55
years and there's absolutely nothing on the line and you
31:57
could afford to fail at anything you want to do, you know, But
32:00
like you get one life, man, you got like you could be an account
32:03
when you're 25, like there's 17. Do something fun to pursue
32:06
something cool. Maybe you'll maybe you'll be
32:07
able to get to do it, and maybe you won't, but at least you have
32:10
to try. I was in a gifted program at 5th
32:14
grade and 5th grade people were talking like I'm going to be a
32:18
neurosurgeon or I'm going to be a dentist or like the oddest
32:23
jobs. And I'm like, why?
32:24
And they're like, well, I know what schools I'm going to.
32:26
And I was like, man, your parents are really like have a
32:29
vision for you and like, what are you going to do?
32:31
I was like, I'm not sure I want to be like an artist or I want
32:34
to make independent films or like I just picked everything I
32:37
want to do is totally dream oriented because I like
32:41
storytelling and it's because I'm an INFP.
32:45
I'm an idealist. That personality trait is
32:47
considered unemployable, but if you really look, it's the Myers
32:55
Briggs negotiator, idealist, personality type.
32:59
The best jobs are priests, teacher, stand up comedian, you
33:03
know, artist, author. And I'm like, well, that's my
33:07
calling. That's me.
33:09
Yeah. So it's not a practicality, is
33:11
not an option for me. So when somebody says to me, I'm
33:14
going to be practical, I'm like, does your personality allow for
33:17
it? Maybe that's wise.
33:19
Just times I wish I could, but I can't.
33:22
Like I think I would wither. I don't know about other people.
33:26
So I've been jealous of like that kind of certainty.
33:28
Although what you're describing sounds more like he's being
33:31
bullied. I don't know a lot of people, a
33:34
lot of people make a lot of choices based on based on just
33:37
what other people tell them. And they just say, well, sounds
33:40
good to me, you know, like, I mean, I don't even know that
33:43
they I would think I know for myself, especially growing up in
33:46
a life of comfort, thankfully, and I was very, very fortunate
33:48
to have the childhood that I had.
33:51
I didn't part of the one of one of the, one of the one of the
33:55
few downsides not to complain about having thankfully a good
33:57
life is that you never think anything's wrong.
33:59
And so like you kind of just take everything as it is and,
34:02
and, and, and I've learned that I'm in, you know, over the years
34:05
and how how enormously naive I am in so many ways.
34:08
And I'm like, on one hand, that's a wonderful thing.
34:10
On the other hand, I got a lot of catching up to do and like,
34:13
you know, to a certain extent, it's really benefit.
34:16
It's really beneficial because I tend to be very genuine.
34:19
On the other hand, you know, I also every time I'm shocked that
34:22
like, you know, something isn't, you know, just exactly the way
34:26
that everyone says it's going to be, you know, and it's a, it's
34:29
been a, it's been a, you know, so I feel like my 20s has been a
34:32
growing up out of my naivety of, of my, of my childhood.
34:36
That was so, you know that that was so comfortable.
34:40
Every time I think I have a handle on how hard women's lives
34:43
are, I learned something else from like, oh, that's way worse
34:47
than I thought. Well, at least now I know.
34:50
Oh, no, that's way worse than I thought.
34:52
Well, at least now I know, you know, like, yeah, we're not
34:55
allowed to put beer down when we're at a bar.
34:57
Why? Somebody's going to put a drug
34:59
in our drink. Really.
35:01
Like, I know nothing about any of this.
35:03
This. So when me too happened, I'm
35:05
like, I thought I knew about the casting couch.
35:09
I thought I knew about, say, how many people are on my feet are
35:12
saying me too. Hi, Kurumba.
35:15
And so you all had one bad experience.
35:18
Oh, you have 7 bad experiences a day.
35:22
That's why nobody wears low cut shirts anymore.
35:25
Oh my God, you know, it's like, it's just, you know, I just, you
35:28
just don't. But you're, you're curious.
35:29
I can tell. So that don't be too hard on
35:34
yourself because you're doing what I think people like Joe
35:37
Rogan pretend they're doing, which is like, I want to have
35:39
talk to experts. I want to learn.
35:41
I'm curious. I'm a seeker.
35:43
So don't you know that's more important?
35:46
You're you're going to wind up surpassing people who are
35:48
freaking certain you know. Well, yeah, I, I mean, I think
35:52
that there are certain things that I, that I value and
35:56
probably hold certain that I would probably, you know, stand
36:00
up for when it came to when push came to shove.
36:02
But I'm also doing this to, to learn to learn about your
36:05
perspective and to do, you know, and to learn about and to learn
36:08
about other people's perspective too.
36:09
And then I, I do find myself evolving and I do find myself
36:12
changing. And I mean, and, and in so many
36:14
ways that I never dreamt of. And I, and, and, and when that
36:18
happens, and it's funny because I've always kind of been an
36:21
out-of-the-box kind of person in general, I tend to be very
36:23
hesitant to put myself into any kind of category, association or
36:28
box. It's really, really it's, it's,
36:30
it's, it's, it's free, but it's a challenge because it also by
36:34
almost inherently limits people's ability to relate to
36:39
you because you're not in a box, you know, So someone's like, are
36:43
you politically right? I'm like, well, neither.
36:45
I'm like, well, and then you and then I can totally agree with a
36:48
whole lot of the things that people on the on the left would
36:50
say and then totally agree with a whole lot of things people on
36:52
the right would say. And at the same time it disagree
36:55
with them vehemently. You know that so many other
36:58
things and it makes it very, very difficult.
37:01
Boxes almost make things easier. Boxes make it easier because
37:04
things are black and white and we live in a Gray area where
37:07
where you have to say, wait a minute, like, like Captain
37:10
America my size, not always right.
37:11
And like, I've got to be aware of that.
37:14
And one of the interesting things about Captain America's
37:16
development that I, that I didn't appreciate until I, until
37:20
it was pointed out to me was how he started off naive.
37:24
And then especially, I guess in the movies more, but it's more
37:28
my experience with it. But you know, he started off
37:31
naive and then said, wait a minute, like if you wanted to
37:33
compromise, what else are you compromising on?
37:35
And if you're going to compromise, what else are you
37:37
compromising on all of a sudden? And then, but you keep on
37:39
telling me that I have to put make an exception for my morals
37:42
for the sake of this country or this association, Like, why, why
37:47
do I, why do my morals have to take a backseat to that?
37:49
And that's a very difficult way, I think for people to live.
37:52
I think it's easier for people to live in a in a box.
37:54
And Captain America makes a very hard choice and he ends up as
37:58
like a fugitive. He ends up, I mean, when you run
38:00
into him in an Infinity war, he's on, he's on the run.
38:04
No one knows what what he's been up to go in like.
38:07
And I kind of I'm almost tempted to go on the run because I'm
38:10
like, this whole thing is crazy. I mean, you know, and, and I
38:14
mean the fact that the Epstein story, for example, is not the
38:18
biggest story everywhere on the planet right now, I think is
38:21
like a complete indication as to how ideological ideologically
38:25
captured so many people are. That like, you could take
38:29
something objectively bad and, and, and try to and, and, and
38:32
turn it into a political. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
38:36
It's your side. It's your side.
38:37
You didn't release it. You didn't release it.
38:38
It's like, dude, the whole thing should burn if everyone is, if
38:42
it's if it's built on this, you know?
38:44
I mean, it's honestly, everybody was right and everybody was
38:47
wrong, which is interesting because if you look at like
38:50
2016, Hillary on stage says Trump is compromised.
38:56
He, he works for Russia, he's a spy.
38:58
And at the time I, I knew that she was rated the most honest
39:02
politician. My problem with her was she was
39:04
a hawk and I was like, oh, but that sounds kind of wild.
39:10
Like I don't know that I believe he's a spy.
39:11
I've never liked him, but I, and I didn't believe her, but it was
39:16
true. But at the same time, you had
39:18
these, these what was conspiracy theories that that he's kind of
39:22
working for Putin. Like he's got this sort of ties
39:25
to Putin that are really peculiar.
39:27
And then and he's frightened to Putin.
39:29
Trump does. Yeah.
39:31
And that's one of the reasons he's willing to hand Ukraine
39:33
over, put over to Putin and why he gives Putin a hero's welcome
39:37
when he, you know, flies in. So it's Putin may have something
39:41
on him and he's gone to Russia a lot of time.
39:43
So that's not, I thought it was outrageous, but it's apparently
39:48
true. But the other thing that the
39:50
Democrats thought was outrageous, when Republicans
39:52
said that there were these child abuse prostitution rings based
39:59
in pizzerias linked to Hillary and everybody's like, what?
40:03
You know that's crazy. And there are these prostitution
40:09
reductive that's sort of the Epstein files, the Pizzagate
40:12
stuff. But you know, and so the is it
40:16
that they were both right, But like, you can only take the half
40:21
that your person says is true. But what was interesting was
40:25
Trump was able to talk so much about it because he knew
40:28
everybody in it. So he was talking about
40:30
transparency and and one of the things I've realized it's tricky
40:34
is he's very good at identifying what's wrong with the country
40:37
and comes up with fake solutions like let's take it out on the
40:41
immigrants when. But he can identify what's so
40:45
wrong with the country partly because he's part of what's
40:47
causing the problem. Like, so he's like, I'm going to
40:50
expose the Epstein files. Why?
40:52
Because I'm in him, but he's not going to say that, right.
40:55
But he but he'll just hope he never actually has to deliver.
40:58
He's just going to say only Bill Clinton's in the in the Epstein
41:02
files or, you know, only this person.
41:04
And meanwhile, freaking everybody's in the Epstein files
41:07
except like Pope Francis and Obama, you know?
41:10
Yeah. Yeah.
41:12
Is he? I, I think that I think that
41:15
you're right in a certain sense. I think I, I certainly think
41:20
that what you said about Trump is true.
41:23
You said about the pizza gate stuff is almost and we're seeing
41:26
like, listen, it's got to be a hell of a story for it not to be
41:31
the case. Meaning like whatever it is,
41:33
tell me, tell me what is the is the is the is, is the more
41:37
plausible, you know, understanding of that story,
41:40
perhaps, you know for sure. But I think that, and I think
41:43
that Rokon and Thomas Massie were so good about this recent
41:46
term that they coined the Epstein class, which is just
41:50
which is which transcends left and right and really is elite
41:56
versus the populace versus everyday people.
41:59
You know, and I and I actually, it's so interesting because, you
42:05
know, you have a lot of institutions that are trying to
42:08
use different movies as propaganda to try to further
42:12
different types of narratives and establishments, you know,
42:15
ideas. And one thing that I think is
42:19
really interesting is that like the Epstein class or this class
42:23
of morally degenerate elites that, that work on another tier
42:29
of justice, It's just, it's just what it is.
42:31
You know, I mean, if anyone, if I submit my taxes the wrong way,
42:35
I'm, I'm thrown in jail. I mean, like the, the, the, the,
42:38
the conversation is absolutely ridiculous.
42:40
You know, that like not everyone, that the entire system
42:43
isn't in shambles right now, except for the fact that there's
42:45
two tiers of, of justice, right? And so, and we have so many
42:49
movies that are emphasizing and teaching that Americans, whether
42:53
it's true or not. And it most of the time it
42:55
tended to not be true. True, we were the underdogs and
42:57
we were like the, you know, the little scrappy guys.
43:00
And we're like, you weren't this enormous imperial power since
43:03
World War 2. But I think what is really
43:05
interesting is that those type of movies are actually giving
43:08
the populist type of people a hope and a fighting strength
43:12
against what they see now is like the real enemy.
43:15
And it's not one particular party and it's not one
43:18
particular country. It's a group of established,
43:21
very, very powerful, wealthy networks.
43:26
It's, it's, I mean, like Prime Minister, you're seeing prime
43:28
ministers in Israel, the UK, America, I mean, all over the
43:33
place. And, and I think that I think
43:36
that this has been and, and Rokon and Thomas Massie, the
43:40
fact that a left, a lefty from California and a righty from
43:43
Kentucky have been fighting so tirelessly together.
43:47
I think I hope that that is the beginning of an awakening of 20
43:50
of, of 25 very dark years in American in American political
43:54
history or social history, where it almost feels like most of the
43:58
arguments that we're having or just like generated as like the
44:02
next biggest deal in the entire world.
44:03
When a lot of times they're not like a lot of times like, you
44:06
know, like there are things that just get, you know, and, and,
44:09
and information is absolutely a form of warfare.
44:11
And, you know, as soon as the Epstein things come up, war with
44:15
Iran's coming up, ice is popping up, Somalia is popping up.
44:18
You're like, wait a minute, dude.
44:19
Like we're getting distracted from the fact that through that
44:21
a month and a half ago, you were supposed to release everything
44:24
with all the redacted names, unredacted names except for the
44:26
victims. And like, what are you even
44:28
talking about right now? That's the biggest this problem.
44:31
So like I think that I think that we have to keep our like
44:37
the establishment almost shot themselves in the foot by giving
44:39
such good heroes and like Spider Man's and Captain America's and
44:44
and and and and real figures of faith and hope of everyday
44:48
people to Americans. They were subconsciously really
44:51
providing us with, I think, a lot of positive propaganda and
44:54
ammo. When I was growing up, it was
44:58
very important to me to not follow people who were flawed.
45:01
And so I, for me, it was the easiest to have as a hero people
45:05
who were dead or people who were fictional.
45:08
I'm going to join folks who were alive could always let you down,
45:13
you know, And there have been times where I'll, like, put in
45:16
writing. This guy seems to be cool, you
45:19
know? And then like three years later,
45:21
you will find out, oh, that person was evil, you know?
45:24
And so there's something liberating and writing about
45:27
dead Jane Austen. She's not going to let you down,
45:29
right? But when I was a kid, I was, it
45:33
was very important to be, to be decent.
45:34
Like I'm like, OK, I'm, I'm a gentle soul.
45:37
Like my personality type is idealist.
45:39
I'm religious and you know, so how do I be a good person?
45:43
And so the party that's going to trick me into voting for them is
45:46
the one that presents what they're doing is kind.
45:48
And so at the time, like Dan Quayle was like, we just like
45:52
family values. And I'm like, oh, I'm Italian.
45:55
We like family values, you know, and I said, oh, we, we're color
45:59
blind. We, we just want you to work
46:00
hard. We like all the colors.
46:02
We're, we've stopped with that Confederacy stuff.
46:05
And that's very different than the modern branding, the
46:08
Republican Party. So the modern one would have
46:11
never spoken to me, but Quayle's got me in.
46:13
But once I determined that they were like less kind, I switched.
46:17
But broadly, like, right when I was trying to pick a job or who
46:21
to like, my friends love rock music and I was like, I don't
46:26
know if I like rock music because I kind of feel like
46:29
they're all rapists. Like I felt like a teenage girl
46:33
would be come in and be like, oh, I love your music.
46:35
Will you sign my, you know, my CD?
46:37
And they'd be like, great. And then then they rape them.
46:40
And then nobody was sympathetic because they'd be like, well,
46:42
what were they doing in their dressing room?
46:45
And I'll be like, I don't like any of that.
46:48
I don't like, I like music. I like dancing.
46:50
But I'm not going to like, pray to like David Bowie.
46:54
Like I can't do it. I kind of like Madonna more
46:58
because she's hot, but no. And then I was sort of like, and
47:02
sports is the same way. I was like, I don't know,
47:04
whatever a football team wins, do they just feed cheerleaders
47:07
to these guys? Like they're ravenous dogs.
47:10
So I hated sports. So I'm like, because it's just a
47:14
bunch of rapists, you know, and there's all these scandals with
47:17
these coaches, but somebody. But here's the irony.
47:19
It was, I'm like, I feel confident that Hollywood and
47:26
religious leaders don't do that. So I invested in movies, you
47:31
know, because you go see the movies, and the movies are sort
47:35
of like in the 90s, there's really cool Jane Austen literary
47:38
adaptations. And there were all these
47:40
powerful women in the movies, Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow,
47:43
Nicole Kidman. And I was like, wow, the movies
47:45
are a good place for women to be, but who's making those
47:48
movies and who's casting those women is Harvey Weinstein,
47:52
who's, like, raping them? And some of them would vanish
47:55
from sight. And I'd be like, where'd they
47:56
go? They probably refused to date
47:59
with them, you know. So I, I, it occurred to me like,
48:02
OK, well, a friend of mine got a job in Hollywood and I said, oh,
48:06
I'm jealous. I always wanted to make movies.
48:08
And he said, you know, you'd hate it here because he was
48:12
seeing all the rape and stuff. And he left and and he would
48:18
hint at it, but like, if some of the people he was hinting at
48:22
were like gay or Jewish or something, I'd be like, was this
48:25
homophobia? Is this what's going on?
48:27
But he was pointing to real stuff.
48:29
And I would didn't believe him. But he said to me, you're
48:33
writing nice academic books where you talk about what
48:36
superheroes mean to you. That's the way to be a fan.
48:39
I thought going and making those movies was the way to go.
48:43
And it exposed me to the underbelly of Hollywood.
48:47
He said the good news is Kevin Feige is nice.
48:50
That's good. The bad news is I had to get out
48:52
of there. And so it actually made me make
48:56
peace with not being a big enough success.
48:59
But it's I want to survive and be kind of my students and
49:03
promote good messages in my writing, knowing full well that
49:07
any institution, any leader is going to be tempted to eat
49:12
vulnerable people that are in their path.
49:16
And I'm not like that. So it took me a while to see it.
49:20
Like, if you're not a liar, it's actually very easy to be
49:24
gullible because you don't know, you know, and I'm not a sex
49:28
predator. And so I'm just like, I'm nice
49:32
to women, I guess every guy is. But on some level I'm like,
49:35
wait, on the other hand, what did I over here in the locker
49:38
room, you know? So I think that we're finding
49:43
out is anybody who's Obama's my hero or or Clinton's my hero or
49:49
Trump's my hero or, you know, any powerful person, are they
49:54
going to show restraint? You know?
49:55
And but what I've noticed is two of my favorite leaders of the
49:59
last 20-30 years are Pope Francis and Obama.
50:02
And they are the guys that are most mocked in the Epstein files
50:06
by child rapists. So I guess I picked, well,
50:11
models. Yeah.
50:12
Yeah. You know, like, if my favorite
50:14
people or their least favorite people, I guess I'm doing good.
50:17
But I like the potential of getting the folks who were
50:21
really pumped about the movie, the sound of Freedom to, like,
50:27
join with April. Did you hear about?
50:29
That Did you hear about how that box office explosion happened?
50:33
Do you know what you did? Did you hear about that story?
50:36
No, I just know that like I felt bad for being skeptical of a
50:40
movie about protecting children, but it seemed exploitative in a
50:43
dangerous way, so I was Snooty about it.
50:46
So I don't know much about it, but I.
50:48
Don't know, just. Seems to be that something like
50:50
that is a potential overlap, kind of like gun rights is
50:55
suddenly becoming a potential overlap, right.
50:58
But I don't know. Yeah, what we going to?
51:00
Say, well, I think that I think the pendulum always swings the
51:04
the that story with the sound. What was it called the sound of
51:07
freedom or something? Or what was it?
51:08
Something like that? You know what I mean?
51:10
The, you know, aren't they like this pedophiles?
51:13
So we got to go kill them and rescue the kids or something.
51:15
And it's kind of based on. I'll tell you the truth, I, I, I
51:18
didn't watch it and I don't know anything about it.
51:20
What I remember hearing from a business end of that is that at
51:24
the end of the movie, there was, if you want, there's like a
51:26
message, if you want to raise awareness, you can.
51:29
And I think the the terminology was a little dubious.
51:32
And they said, like, you know, you could pass it along by
51:36
forwarding a ticket. And so basically people thought
51:39
they were donating, but they were really buying tickets for
51:43
like, like tickets for the next showing for someone else to
51:45
watch it. And so theaters got booked and
51:48
booked and booked because everyone thought that they were
51:49
donating money to, to survivors or to, you know, to people that
51:53
were trying to protect pedophiles or trying to fight
51:55
pedophiles and stuff like that. And then, and then you end up
51:59
just having sold out movie theaters and like, I don't know
52:02
where I listen. I, I prefer, I like to get
52:05
benefit of the doubt, you know, and say that this may have been
52:09
just a big misunderstanding, but that movie grossed it.
52:12
It made a couple $100 million. It was a tiny budget.
52:16
And very, I, I think that there's a disproportionate
52:18
amount of people that saw it relative to amount of tickets
52:21
that were actually sold because of how many people tried to, you
52:25
know, pass it along, quote, UN quote, and or, or tried to
52:27
donate and ended up just buying, you know, an empty movie theater
52:30
seat. Pretty crazy.
52:33
Just a just a little fun fact. Yeah.
52:38
Well, it's funny what you you can and get a can't get away
52:41
with saying. Like when I was considering
52:47
becoming a reporter, I was torn because on the one hand I grew
52:50
up idolizing Lois Lane, but on the other hand, the main one of
52:54
the main villains of die hard was a sleazy reporter.
52:57
So I'm like, so I, I was enough skeptical of reporters and I
53:00
kept hearing about the liberal media and the liberal media that
53:02
even though PBS raised me to love culture, I was like, oh,
53:07
the liberal media and but I want to be a writer.
53:10
And for summer, what was my job opportunity?
53:13
I could work for Burger King or become a reporter intern.
53:16
That's cool. So I decided reporter intern
53:19
even though I was scared of all them liberals.
53:22
And what I found out was all them liberals are really nice
53:24
people that just wanted a kinder society.
53:26
And I was like, oh, these guys are not quite what Rush Limbaugh
53:30
was describing to me as these sort of vampires.
53:33
So just meeting nice liberals help.
53:35
But also, like, I prided myself on hating Bill Clinton.
53:38
I thought he was sleazy. I was like, I don't like this
53:40
guy. And I would get sent out to
53:42
interview Staten Islanders, which is a pretty conservative
53:45
working class borough in New York.
53:48
And like, I would ask, what's your favorite movie as the
53:52
question of the week? And I go to the park.
53:54
What's your favorite movie? And they would say to me, I
53:56
don't talk to liberal reporters. And I'd be like, I and they
54:00
like, you like Clinton, don't you?
54:01
I was like, actually, I don't like, who do you vote for?
54:04
I was like, actually, I'm between parties right now, but
54:06
leaning Republican. And they didn't believe me.
54:09
And I was like, oh. Porter.
54:12
This is what I was like 2 years ago.
54:15
I'm annoying, you know, and they can say anything.
54:20
They could say you're a communist, you're a traitor.
54:22
You're the, and like, you work for Satan.
54:25
And, and these days, like I posted a meme mocking Pam
54:30
Bondi's testimony before Congress and like, pretty my
54:34
mother in law's like, why are you spewing hate speech?
54:38
Like I posted a meme gently ribbing Pam Bondi who's
54:42
protecting paedophiles, and that's hate speech.
54:47
But I work for Satan. It's.
54:51
Really weird, the pendulum swinging.
54:53
I was talking. I I, I did a solo episode the
54:55
other day, another week after after the ice, after the first
55:00
ice shooting. I forgot her name and good or
55:05
something. Maybe I don't remember her name.
55:07
Yeah. And I was saying that this is
55:10
and then and then Cash Patel goes on the record and goes,
55:13
well, you can't bring a gun to a rally.
55:15
I'm like, if this was a Biden administration and and anyone
55:19
had said you can't bring a gun to the rally.
55:20
I was like, Kyle Rittenhouse is is is a hero on the right.
55:23
And I was like, what do you think he did?
55:25
You know? I mean, he, you know, and I was
55:27
like, at the end of the day, the pendulum is just swinging back
55:30
and forth and everyone thought, and this goes back to again, my
55:33
point before it's like these are stupid wars that are meant to
55:36
keep us at each other's throats, to distract us from the real
55:39
issues. Like you want.
55:40
I, I at the end of the day, like the person in charge is going to
55:45
do what they got. It was going to say what they
55:46
want to say to stay in charge and they're going to do what
55:48
they got to do to stay in charge.
55:49
And like, you know, and, and, and what really bothered me was
55:52
again, because I, I like, I, I have to say, I like the, the one
55:58
thing that I think that the Liberal Party did wrong leading
56:01
up to 2024 was how strongly and how vehemently they rejected
56:10
anyone that disagreed with them or would have any other kind of
56:12
point. And one thing that I was really
56:14
hoping for, I, I didn't love, I didn't, I don't, I never loved
56:18
Trump. I never thought that he was
56:19
going to be, I, I was always surprised by like what came out
56:23
of his mouth and like what he would do.
56:25
I didn't have like a particularly strong opinion.
56:27
I was always like, this guy's like, like we'd even pull that
56:29
from, you know, and like, sometimes it made sense and
56:31
sometimes it did. And sometimes it was crazy and
56:33
sometimes it wasn't. And I was like, I don't know
56:34
what to think, but I certainly can't.
56:36
I don't, I definitely didn't want to, you know, throw my
56:38
support behind him because I don't know what I think of.
56:40
I, I can't, I can't figure them out.
56:43
And, and then I, and then I saw that Tulsi Gabbard came from the
56:48
left to the right. And I was like, Oh, maybe this
56:49
is a good sign. And Elon historically was left,
56:51
was left-leaning and then started voting right.
56:54
Then RFK came over and I was like, look like, maybe this is a
56:57
combination of two-part of, of two parties that like, this is
57:00
really populist versus elite. Maybe this will work out.
57:03
And then, like the second that this that the term starts, it's
57:06
like, Nope, this is the exact same, this exact same thing that
57:09
we've been seeing. Just, you know, just flip the
57:11
color, flip this, you know, flip the flip the person saying
57:14
whatever they're saying, flip the script for whatever FBI head
57:17
of the FBI is going to be saying about what you can do or can't
57:20
do with free speech and rallies and Pam Bondi and not like Pam
57:23
Bondi was terrible, you know, but like, and Thomas Massey's
57:27
point was awesome. Is like, this is four
57:29
generation. This is 4 presidencies of cover
57:31
up and you're responsible for this chapter of it.
57:33
And like you don't get to get away from that, but by by
57:36
blaming other people like we're and and again, I it's just and,
57:41
and, and I want, I want hope. I want faith.
57:44
You know, that's why I love these characters.
57:46
That's why I love these people, because that's how I like
57:48
talking about this stuff. I think that this does lead to
57:51
hope. Well.
57:53
And I think what I grew up in an interesting time period because
57:56
the culture change, like when I was really, really small in the
57:59
70's, The Muppets were all about diversity and joy and being a
58:03
hippie. And, you know, the, their
58:06
villain was the Eagle who was patriotic and, you know, crude
58:09
and so like, and then there's Wonder Woman who's like this
58:13
sexy feminist who beats up Nazis and but talks about love and
58:18
gets the Nazis to defect and become kind.
58:20
And, you know, so she doesn't always kill.
58:22
Like she'll tie people up. That's about as far as she goes.
58:26
And then like in the 80s, it's like Transformers.
58:29
Like it's so manly. They're man robots.
58:32
It took a long time for RC to show up, you know, So it's like,
58:35
very like John Wayne Oil, Airwolf, Knight Rider, you know?
58:41
And so simultaneously I'm like, yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
58:45
Terminator. But also I like The Muppets, you
58:48
know? So I could have gone either way.
58:50
And like, I like the Punisher was the Italian superhero,
58:55
killed lots of people. And I was like, OK, he's kind of
58:58
the Godfather, I guess. I guess I like revenge stories,
59:00
like John Wick. Is he just killing a bunch of
59:03
minorities? Is that a little weird?
59:06
You know, so and, and, and and what's the death penalty for
59:10
him? Like, does he draw the line at
59:12
jaywalking? Like where?
59:14
Yeah, what's you know, when does he just punch them?
59:17
You know? So I think I was confused and,
59:21
and and I think those, that's why I've been divided.
59:23
And I think the other thing is I'm Italian and Italians are
59:26
weird politically because, like, first of all, Catholics are
59:30
supposed to be socialists, but but also like, slightly
59:35
conservative on social issues. Yeah.
59:38
So who the hell do you vote for, right?
59:40
Like, you want to vote for the Democrats for socialism, but the
59:43
Republicans are more like, I don't know about some of these
59:46
sex rules, you know? Yeah, there's that.
59:48
And Italians also came when they came here, they were considered
59:54
black and anarchists and and we got lynched and we got faced
59:57
prejudice and there were political cartoons about how
1:00:00
we're rats and the mafia. What type you know is that?
1:00:05
What time period? When did that happen?
1:00:08
I you know, I would say sometimes some of my relatives
1:00:11
came after the Civil War, but a lot early 1900s OK, this
1:00:14
political cartoons of Italians swimming from a boat through
1:00:18
Ellis Island onto the pier with knives in their mouths and the
1:00:22
mafias tattooed on their heads and they look like rats.
1:00:25
And and now, you know, my relatives are middle class, have
1:00:29
sports cars, jewelry, and they just want their low taxes and
1:00:34
they're pretty mean to newer immigrants.
1:00:36
And it's like we became white. And so we're like depending on
1:00:41
where we are, like in Oklahoma, I'm not white in Oklahoma.
1:00:45
I'm a weird immigrant who's Catholic who's going to hell,
1:00:48
right In New York. We're like the establishment.
1:00:51
We're like, we're the law and order guys in New York because
1:00:54
this is newer immigrants who got to keep an eye on them.
1:00:57
And so, you know, like and Staten Island, I'm the most
1:01:00
liberal person among my friends and in Graduate School, I'm the
1:01:04
most reactionary person. So it, you know, but I'm, I'm
1:01:07
always trying to do the right thing and I'm always me and so,
1:01:12
and I'm willing to change. So it's kind of funny, like you
1:01:15
when you talk about being open and are you being weak or like,
1:01:20
I think if your heart's in the right place and you just take in
1:01:23
new information, you factored in and you're still the same
1:01:26
person. Like, like, there are some
1:01:29
people if you shave your mustache off, you're like, my
1:01:31
God, you've changed. And some you should be allowed
1:01:35
to shave your mustache off. And so, like, if I say, oh, I've
1:01:38
switched party affiliation, people look at me like, you
1:01:42
know, you're dead to me or you're not the same guy I grew
1:01:45
up with. It's like almost like you're
1:01:47
coming out, You know, you lied about your orientation.
1:01:50
Yeah. In a way, for years there wasn't
1:01:54
that much difference between the two parties.
1:01:56
Yeah, you know, And so, like, some of it's baloney.
1:02:00
I don't know where I'm going with this, but I guess I'm just.
1:02:03
Like. I know I would read the Wonder
1:02:06
Woman comics after years of reading The Punisher and being
1:02:09
years of hardcore, like listening to conservative radio.
1:02:12
And she reminded me of how cute 70's pop culture was.
1:02:17
She reminded me of The Muppets. And I was like, oh, I've, I've
1:02:20
drifted towards the Punisher and she pulled me back and I did not
1:02:25
take that as brainwashing. And I was glad that there are
1:02:28
different superheroes and different personalities.
1:02:30
And I get, I get offended when a liberal superhero is written by
1:02:33
a conservative in a stupid way and vice versa.
1:02:36
Like I want people to be faithful to the character.
1:02:39
So it would be dumb if I wrote the Punisher as as a hippie, it
1:02:44
would make no sense. And so if I would have hired to
1:02:47
write him, I'd write him correctly.
1:02:48
And if I were to write Wonder Woman, I'd make her probably
1:02:50
more liberal than me to be faithful because they deserve to
1:02:54
be treated right. And so sometimes, like, what if
1:02:58
a Green Arrow movie comes out and he's not a raving Marxist?
1:03:02
Something's wrong because dudes dressed as Robin Hood.
1:03:05
And I don't understand, like sometimes people like I didn't
1:03:09
like She Hulk. What do you think you were going
1:03:12
to watch? It's about a green woman who's a
1:03:15
lawyer and it's a sex comedy. It's not for you.
1:03:19
You're not the target. Demographic, you know, and
1:03:23
that's it's cool that it's different That's an important
1:03:26
thing that's that's an interest. So that's a really interesting
1:03:29
point. I think that there's a huge it's
1:03:31
it's an enormous issue for Disney studio and going back to
1:03:35
the conversation that we had about, you know, the weight of
1:03:39
establishment versus the freedom of being able to pursue new
1:03:41
things. You could see that Marvel
1:03:44
Marvel's trying to break it into different genres and they've
1:03:48
they've been doing it for a long time.
1:03:49
And I even noticed the vet ways that they were doing it.
1:03:51
But one of the chapters I was just reading the other day from
1:03:54
that, from that book, superhero movies in the state was how
1:03:59
during Ant Man and Ant Man and the Wasp, there's very little
1:04:03
violence. And all the entertainment is
1:04:05
science based and all the entertainment is about, you
1:04:07
know, cool superheroes, men and female that women, you know,
1:04:10
that are with Black Panther with Shuri is like this confident,
1:04:16
peaceful, brilliant scientist that like is a younger sister
1:04:20
and black and cool and like everyone and like, you know,
1:04:22
sassy with their own personality.
1:04:23
And, and, and, and something that was typically like a Tony
1:04:26
Stark type role is really, really being played really well.
1:04:30
And like what you say and what you say said really well also
1:04:33
is, you know, make the characters themselves and like,
1:04:36
don't like, you could tell that, for example, I think Sheree was
1:04:39
a real was, was written pretty well for like who she's supposed
1:04:43
to be. You know, I think that Michael B
1:04:45
Jordan's character was also really great for what he was
1:04:47
supposed to be. You know, in in those in those
1:04:50
movies, there are other characters that kind of go
1:04:55
through identity crises or like you don't really know what
1:04:57
they're supposed to be. And they're not, and they're not
1:04:58
really written in such a way that's so convincing that you
1:05:01
can really feel like you relate to them.
1:05:04
And part of the reason why I'm sure is because this is because
1:05:08
Disney Corporation is like, hey, man, we have a formula that says
1:05:11
that if you do XY and Z at XY and Z point, we're going to make
1:05:13
$500 million in this movie. And every single time that we've
1:05:16
tried, you know, to do something else, it's a bomb.
1:05:18
So we're going to do that. And then Marvel is like, or
1:05:20
Kevin Feige to, you know, is like, well, I need to make a She
1:05:24
Hulk and I need to make Iron Man and I need them and, and, and I
1:05:28
need to make a Shang Chi. And I need to figure out a way
1:05:30
to tie everyone together for, for Doomsday.
1:05:33
And like, we also need to create an authentic enough character
1:05:35
that the audience care to show up for the characters.
1:05:38
Like they got to speak to people and like, you got to give me
1:05:41
time to let this breathe. And, and to Disney's credit, I
1:05:44
guess they've done a pretty good job slowing down the content.
1:05:46
They've kind of, you know, instead of being a fire hydrant
1:05:48
of content, they've done a really good job limiting it.
1:05:53
But they've they've got work to do.
1:05:54
And I'm really excited about about James Gunns's DCDCU, just
1:06:02
to see if it just to see if they could shake up the studios and
1:06:05
cause a little competition among the storytelling.
1:06:08
And he's presenting versions of the characters.
1:06:10
I grew up in the 70s. Can you these are similarities?
1:06:15
DC characters in the 70s were really cute.
1:06:18
If you think about the Carter's, Wonder Woman, Christopher Reeve,
1:06:21
Superman. You had Crypto, you had
1:06:23
Supergirl. Aquaman rode a giant seahorse.
1:06:26
Wonder Woman had an invisible plane, Batman had Robin.
1:06:29
And in the 80s, DC felt competition when Marvel's like
1:06:34
X-Men was a kind of a dark comic, so that to kind of catch
1:06:38
up, they decided to just get rid of the whimsies.
1:06:41
So they killed Supergirl, they had the Joker rape and cripple
1:06:45
Batgirl. They killed off Robin.
1:06:47
He got beaten to death of the crowbar.
1:06:49
They they got rid of Aquaman's seahorse.
1:06:51
They got rid of Wonder Woman's invisible plane.
1:06:54
And it I was like, oh, DC is turning into Marvel.
1:06:57
Like they're trying to make everybody Wolverine, you know,
1:07:00
and Batman had been cute and The Dark Knight was really
1:07:03
depressing and I was shocked by it, honestly.
1:07:07
And so like, and after 911, they got even more conservative.
1:07:13
And so DC suddenly like Watchmen and 24, and then you have Zack
1:07:19
Snyder, who was pretty conservative making the movies
1:07:21
and making them bleak and making Superman practically a black and
1:07:24
white film, you know? And now we've got Superman's
1:07:29
cute again, and there's color and his dog is back, you know?
1:07:32
What do you think of that? You like that?
1:07:35
Yeah, I didn't think I would because the dog was the one that
1:07:38
I felt maybe we don't have to bring him back.
1:07:42
But it wound up being adorable and.
1:07:45
And honestly, it's so in your face.
1:07:48
It wound up being a great resistance movie to me because
1:07:52
if manliness is not showing emotion, not showing empathy,
1:07:56
being the biggest ass kicker, you know, being afraid of
1:07:59
everyone you know, being afraid of diversity and just meeting
1:08:03
that fear with rage and, and here's Superman.
1:08:07
Hi, I'm from the reddest state and my parents probably voted
1:08:11
for Trump, but we hang out and have marshmallows.
1:08:14
We get a dog. My wife's a hot feminist and it
1:08:19
and boy, do we hate that businessman Lex Luthor, who kind
1:08:23
of reminds us of Elon Musk and Trump.
1:08:25
But don't say it too loud, you know?
1:08:27
And it's just this really cute movie.
1:08:29
And it's a wonderful way of saying no.
1:08:31
You can be a man and have a sense of humor and be kind and
1:08:34
like animals and date a feminist and not be threatened by her.
1:08:37
And just by being him and being colorful and being nice and
1:08:41
being heterosexual white guy, like, yeah, that's really
1:08:45
revolutionary now, right? Yeah.
1:08:49
And and so and. But on the one hand, you're
1:08:52
like, how is that political? He's just decent.
1:08:54
Yeah. Oh, my God, you can't be more
1:08:55
political than that. Like, I'm the one.
1:08:57
You know what I mean? So I can see both arguments
1:08:59
about that movie, Like, damn, that's in your face.
1:09:01
And also I'm like, I don't know. It's just kind of nice.
1:09:05
I felt that the the newest Captain America movie was much
1:09:08
more in your face than than the Superman movie was I?
1:09:15
I don't know. Yeah, that's right.
1:09:18
That's right. I don't know nothing.
1:09:21
Political there. And you know what's interesting?
1:09:23
And, and it's like I pointed out to my friends and they're like,
1:09:25
no, man, you're just seeing things.
1:09:27
And then I realized that like so many people watch these movies
1:09:31
and just don't get the context. And like, I didn't either.
1:09:34
And I'm showing my my. And I didn't realize that Iron
1:09:37
Man was a million, a military industrial complex commercial
1:09:41
about excuses to go to Afghanistan and neoliberal, you
1:09:44
know, imperialistic philosophy. And I'm like, and I'm and I'm
1:09:50
showing this to my students. They're like, I don't remember
1:09:52
this about Iron Man. I'm like, yeah, well, it's a
1:09:53
great movie. And I'm like, but like, like,
1:09:56
just pay attention to like the values and like, look at this
1:09:58
great scientist dying with the American flag behind his head.
1:10:01
And he's like, do it for my family and the people.
1:10:03
And you're like, you're like, wait, why are you even in
1:10:06
Afghanistan to begin with, dude? Like what are you doing here?
1:10:09
What are you doing here? So the whole thing is, the whole
1:10:13
thing is really interesting, that they've always been
1:10:16
political. The question is whether your
1:10:17
eyes are open to it, I guess. Why?
1:10:20
And, and it's part of what's popular at a given time.
1:10:23
And you know, like, so like, I really held on to the fact that
1:10:26
I like Wonder Woman and I like the Super Friends and I like the
1:10:29
Fantastic Four cartoon. So when I started collecting in
1:10:32
the 80s, I was looking for that stuff.
1:10:34
And I was disappointed when I couldn't find the DC heroes, but
1:10:37
I could find the recognizable Marvel ones.
1:10:40
But like, people were drawn in the 80s were so into violence
1:10:45
that who was big Wolverine, Venom, Deadpool, Right?
1:10:50
And I was like, wow, that's kind of violent for me.
1:10:52
Like I like Kitty Pry to the X-Men because she's cute and I'd
1:10:57
like to go to the prom with her, even though she's fictional.
1:10:59
Or I like Nightcrawler because he's like funny and he is
1:11:03
athletic and he's Catholic like me or And so I was drawn to just
1:11:06
different stuff than the other people.
1:11:09
And so, yeah, but so I, I think on some level people get the
1:11:15
politics because they could at the base go, I'm black, I like
1:11:19
Bishop, he's black, right? Like that kind of thing when
1:11:23
I'll be like, Bishop doesn't have that big a part.
1:11:25
Is he that interesting? But I get it.
1:11:27
Like he looks, you know, I can't, it's fine.
1:11:29
I like Nightcrawler. He's German.
1:11:31
I'm part German, you know, so there's that.
1:11:34
But sometimes, like you, you get the message and you're like, oh,
1:11:38
I was hoping my hero didn't vote that way.
1:11:41
And it's an interesting moment. And you're like, do I decide I
1:11:45
don't like that here or now? Do I change how I vote?
1:11:49
What does this mean? It's a weird, especially if it's
1:11:53
a hero and an American flag. And then there were a lot of
1:11:56
Republicans who love Captain America and Superman for the
1:11:59
patriotism. And I was at a comic store
1:12:01
overhearing an argument where this one guy says to the owner,
1:12:05
I don't know, man. I think Superman's got to be
1:12:08
Republican because he's patriotic.
1:12:09
And my friend, my friend on the store was like, his wife's a
1:12:13
feminist, his dad was an environmentalist nobody listened
1:12:16
to. And the planet blew up, like,
1:12:19
you know, like this pretty liberal stuff.
1:12:20
And he goes, well, at least Captain America's Republican.
1:12:24
And he's a dude. He's a bigger pink out in
1:12:26
Superman. His best friend's a black power
1:12:29
guy. And they're always beating up
1:12:31
Klansmen. What are you talking about?
1:12:33
You know, so so, but if you're making an action movie and you
1:12:38
can zone out during the conversations that are
1:12:40
political, then you come back for the 40 minutes CGI fight
1:12:44
scene, it feels more comforting. Yeah.
1:12:48
That was great when he threw that guy off a roof, you know,
1:12:52
then you're not challenged by that.
1:12:54
But then there's also the person and what I think Marvel did
1:12:56
really well for a while and they, I, I don't think they were
1:12:59
able to keep it up because I don't think I think they were
1:13:01
rushing out content too quickly. They had really, really
1:13:04
phenomenal character development.
1:13:06
And then you'd get attached to the character like the the the
1:13:10
more like there's also morality baked into a lot of the stories
1:13:14
and character development aside from the politics.
1:13:16
And so a lot of people would get very invested in like Iron Man's
1:13:20
development or Captain America's changing over the over the
1:13:22
course of his over the course of the movies.
1:13:24
And like especially good because you're carrying it through and
1:13:27
and the and MCU is the first real example of so many of such
1:13:32
a huge library all intersecting and all, you know, a related
1:13:36
world on film. And, you know, like even with
1:13:40
Captain America Civil War, I never thought of that movie as a
1:13:43
political movie. I thought the Civil War was just
1:13:45
about, about, about Tony feeling that Captain America and Bucky
1:13:51
were murderers and Captain America and, and, and really
1:13:55
came to the question the morality of if someone behaves,
1:13:58
how much does intention matter in action?
1:14:00
If someone doesn't know that they're participating in
1:14:02
something wrong, If someone can't control what they're
1:14:04
doing, but the physical body does it, you know, like, what
1:14:07
are the consequences? And I ended up thinking, and I
1:14:09
loved Iron Man. I was like, I get where he's
1:14:11
coming from. He can't emotionally separate
1:14:13
himself in the fact he's like, yeah, but it's my mom, you know,
1:14:15
like, he doesn't care. Like, at that point, I'm not
1:14:17
talking out of any kind of rational kind of place.
1:14:21
I'm talking like, I just can't control this emotion that you
1:14:24
killed my mom. And Captain America is like,
1:14:26
dude, it wasn't even him. Like it wasn't him.
1:14:28
So. So I think that there's that
1:14:31
they do a really good, they've done a really good job of
1:14:35
creating these personality developments that I think people
1:14:39
wish they could make themselves. And like you said, like, what do
1:14:42
I do? I'm a Springsteen nut.
1:14:45
I'm a Springsteen nut. And, you know, for years and
1:14:48
years and years, and at the time, at the time that I was
1:14:52
really into his music, I was more conservative politically
1:14:56
and I would and every time, you know, I'd bring him up telling
1:14:59
my friends like, Oh yeah, you know, he hates Trump.
1:15:00
He hates Trump. I'm like, who cares, dude?
1:15:03
Did you read, did you read the lyrics to Thunder Rd.
1:15:05
Do you ever listen to you ever listen to perform 10th Ave.
1:15:07
Freeze out? What are you talking about,
1:15:09
dude? Like, like this isn't like a
1:15:10
conversation as to whether you how he voted.
1:15:12
I was like this guy like he's Springsteen, you know, and and
1:15:16
so like, yeah, my my hero. And you know what?
1:15:18
And, and, and at the end of the day, like I, I kind of wish that
1:15:23
he had the similar opinion to me, you know, but at the end of
1:15:25
the day, what makes him him is him.
1:15:27
And like, we're going to fight with that.
1:15:29
Yeah. I think for me it's because
1:15:31
since I've been in hardcore, both sides and even extreme
1:15:35
versions of both sides, Yeah. And been really religious,
1:15:38
really secular, like I've been bouncing around.
1:15:41
I think where I'm consistent is I just want to feel like your
1:15:44
heart's in the right place or that like maybe you get
1:15:46
different info than me, right? Like, and based on your info,
1:15:50
you, you're doing the best you can, right?
1:15:53
So like, if I'm in a religious phase and I see there's an
1:15:57
atheist who I like a lot who's doing beautiful things, my, my
1:16:03
way of reconciling is kind of going, man, that atheist is a
1:16:06
better Catholic than most Catholics.
1:16:07
Yeah, right. And I'm cool with that, Right.
1:16:10
And so like, you know, if, if, if you, if you're nervous about
1:16:16
Trump and and Lynn Cheney's helping you, I don't know how
1:16:21
much time you got to spend going, you know, I don't like
1:16:24
her politics. Like freaking shelve that for
1:16:26
now. You know, at least that's sort
1:16:28
of my view. Like take an opportunity.
1:16:30
If you have an opportunity to connect, take it.
1:16:32
You know, unless their view is like, I want to kill everybody
1:16:38
with slightly graying hair and you've got slightly graying
1:16:42
hair. That's a big ask, you know?
1:16:44
So like there's only so much I'm willing to ask, say like black
1:16:47
people to accept from ex Trump supporters.
1:16:51
Like you can be mad. You know, it's easier for me to
1:16:54
forgive, but, and I think you'd try to look for what you have in
1:16:58
common. And, and, and yeah,
1:16:59
Springsteen's just a cool working class guy.
1:17:02
It's kind of like like working class conservatives kind of
1:17:06
liking Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore because they're
1:17:08
cool working class guys, right. So The funny thing is, if you
1:17:13
asked somebody in the 90s what the first Marvel movie should
1:17:16
be, they would say the first one should be Venom and Deadpool and
1:17:20
Wolverine. And when I went to Marvel
1:17:23
Studios to visit my friend, they said we're launching our own
1:17:26
studio now. They had already made movies
1:17:28
with other studios of people. I like, like Daredevil,
1:17:30
Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider. So I'm like, OK, well, there
1:17:34
were we're doing who's left? And I'm like, who's left?
1:17:36
And they're like, we're going to launch our studio with Iron Man,
1:17:42
Captain America and Thor. And I'm like, that sounds
1:17:47
terrible because I was sort of like the white Army guys and
1:17:52
Thor is the invincible God guy. Like what about Spider Man?
1:17:58
What, like your big guns? Where are they?
1:18:00
We just had two bad Fantastic Four movies.
1:18:02
Why don't you just make a good Fantastic Four?
1:18:04
Movie, are you aware of the business aspect of it, of the
1:18:07
fact that studios didn't have the rights, like they didn't
1:18:10
have the rights to Spider Man or It's a Fantastic Four at that?
1:18:12
Point Yeah, they had to do it. And I think they made an Ant Man
1:18:15
movie because they didn't have the rights to Spider Man.
1:18:17
Yeah, and they caused. That's Paul Rudd, because he
1:18:19
would have been a good Peter Parker.
1:18:21
So I think that's the. And I think they did Guardians
1:18:24
of the Galaxy because they didn't have Fantastic Four.
1:18:26
Yeah, well. Yeah, they had to.
1:18:28
They had to find, they had to dig deeper into the library
1:18:31
because when Marvel was going broke, they sold off the rights
1:18:36
to film characters individually to different studios.
1:18:40
And in there and in there was the clause that if you don't
1:18:42
make a movie, I think every three or four years, the rights
1:18:45
of the characters go back to Marvel.
1:18:47
So Marvel got a bunch of characters back, which ended up
1:18:50
making including guardians and including and then I think
1:18:53
Disney ended up buying The Avengers from Paramount.
1:18:56
But but, but Sony never stopped making spider man movies.
1:19:00
And spider man has been a multi billion dollar franchise for,
1:19:04
for for Sony. And they're not giving that up
1:19:06
ever, ever. You know the.
1:19:08
Funny thing is, is this, as somebody who loves Spider Man
1:19:11
with Fantastic Four and as a kid was indifferent to The Avengers,
1:19:16
I was kind of glad that they sort of had their own pockets of
1:19:18
the Marvel Universe. Yeah, because Spider Man's one
1:19:21
of those guys. You want to feel like if
1:19:24
Godzilla comes to New York, he's stuck defending New York alone
1:19:30
and he's no way he could defeat Godzilla, How's he going to do
1:19:32
it? Like that kind of threat in the
1:19:34
comics, it's like the Juggernaut or Fire Lord or Sandman, right?
1:19:37
That kind of threat, Right. And sometimes the Hulk.
1:19:42
But if the if The Avengers are there, who needs Spider Man,
1:19:45
right? And so I didn't like that he was
1:19:49
in a shared universe. And with the X-Men, if they're
1:19:53
the only super powered people, then fear of the X-Men makes
1:19:55
total sense. If the Hulk's running around in
1:19:58
a way, who the heck cares about mutants?
1:20:01
Like none of them are friendly, right?
1:20:04
So I think. The the Sony and Fox did a
1:20:08
pretty good job all things considered.
1:20:11
Like there's more good movies than bad movies, which I didn't
1:20:15
used to think. But I think if you look on
1:20:17
balance, like the TV show Gifted is really good.
1:20:20
That's the X-Men show. So what's it on You could folk?
1:20:24
I mean, it was like a Fox Show, I guess.
1:20:27
And it was, it's just, it's about a regular family and the
1:20:32
the dad's a conservative who doesn't like mutants and he
1:20:36
doesn't know his kids and mutants.
1:20:38
And they're outed. They're outed in the school by a
1:20:41
bully. And the Sentinels come to arrest
1:20:44
the kids because just being a mutant's a crime.
1:20:47
And suddenly this Republican guy's got to guard his kids from
1:20:50
the cops, and he winds up becoming a traitor to his party
1:20:55
and his government, and they go on the run.
1:20:57
And the very people he was trying to arrest last week, he's
1:21:00
going to for shelter. Yeah.
1:21:03
And I just thought that I was like, wow, this is a great
1:21:05
concept. Watch that.
1:21:06
That sounds great. Actually, that sounds.
1:21:08
Really cool. Yeah, and they pick unusual
1:21:11
mutants, but they're all kind of interesting like like Blink and
1:21:15
the warpath and but somehow it's really good.
1:21:18
So yeah, so I I was glad they were separate.
1:21:21
And The funny thing is. And that once Spider Man comes
1:21:23
in, he's way too and mashed and all this Avengers stuff.
1:21:27
Like to the point now where I'm like, please, can we have a
1:21:30
gangster movie? Please can we have a gangster?
1:21:32
When's he going to fight Kingpin and Tombstone and and?
1:21:36
Oh, that's an interesting. It's a great genre they haven't
1:21:39
tapped into really. It was the first.
1:21:41
Run he was fighting all his mad scientist villains, which is
1:21:44
cool and he certainly does, and those are his main ones.
1:21:48
But he does have a lot of gangster villains.
1:21:50
I mean, Daredevil took some of that from him, but and The
1:21:54
Punisher took some of that from him.
1:21:55
But they all belong very well together on the street with Luke
1:22:00
Cage and Jessica Jones. And I'm just waiting for what I
1:22:04
want is a movie where the kingpins trying to take Harlem
1:22:07
from Luke Cage and Luke asks Spider Man, Daredevil and
1:22:11
Jessica Jones and the Punisher for help and they fight May or
1:22:14
Fisk. Like that's what.
1:22:15
I want to say yeah. And you know what all the
1:22:18
context is there too. I mean, you have you have you
1:22:20
have the film in cinematic history that's already or
1:22:22
library that's already existed. It's not too far.
1:22:25
It's far. It's far from a stretch to make
1:22:27
that happen. Would you?
1:22:28
What do you think of the Penguin?
1:22:32
You know what's so funny? As an Italian, I've got this
1:22:34
beef against mafia stuff. Like I love.
1:22:38
I do love like Donnie Brasco and I and the book The Godfather,
1:22:42
and there's a lot of cool gangster stuff out there.
1:22:45
But I'm going to be embarrassed to say that while I can't watch
1:22:49
The Sopranos, for whatever reason, I find it triggering.
1:22:51
I can't watch Goodfellas. I don't know why I find it
1:22:53
triggering. I freaking love gangsters in the
1:22:56
Batman universe, which in theory they're the worst ones, are the
1:23:00
most cartoony. But I'm like, oh, Catwoman's
1:23:03
half Italian, you know? And I thought the performances,
1:23:07
that was the actresses of Christina Melodi.
1:23:10
I don't Kristen Melodi she plays.
1:23:12
I Met Your Mother and she was original life in the And The
1:23:16
Wolf on Wall Street. Yeah, and she played the hangman
1:23:20
and. And I was like, she's going to
1:23:22
get an Emmy or something for this.
1:23:23
She was. Amazing edible.
1:23:24
She was incredible. I thought that's great.
1:23:27
I thought that show was the best of H of HBO and the best of
1:23:30
comic of comic content. You know, I thought that I loved
1:23:35
that show. It was so.
1:23:37
It was so authentically HBO is so well done.
1:23:41
I can imagine people who don't know it's a Batman show and
1:23:44
watch it. That's a great gangster show,
1:23:45
and you're like, that's a Batman show to be like, huh, That's how
1:23:49
realistic and well done it was. Yeah, I'm really excited for I,
1:23:52
I, I, I hope that they continue that trajectory.
1:23:56
And it's going to be interesting, especially if
1:23:57
Netflix buys it, because Netflix, Netflix has a really
1:24:02
interesting history of take of, of embracing the gory side of
1:24:06
comic book characters. And I, I, I mean, I'm sure with
1:24:11
your aversion to violence, what do you think of John Bernthal's
1:24:15
Punisher? Oh, but he's great.
1:24:18
And in fact, like I loved. Him by that I thought he was
1:24:20
incredible I. Yeah, I mean, portrayal, I mean,
1:24:25
my chapter I kind of wrote, Gee, you know, there's some weird
1:24:29
stuff with immigration and the Punisher that could lead to some
1:24:33
dark places. And after I wrote that chapter,
1:24:36
police officers started wearing Punisher shirts.
1:24:38
And I'd sort of, I'd be like, wow, I guess I called that one.
1:24:43
But what's cool about the Punisher now is he's like
1:24:46
morally offended by the cops who wear his logo.
1:24:49
And he says it and makes no bones about it.
1:24:51
And his acting is so funny. Who John Burns and the love
1:24:55
triangle with the love triangle with Daredevil and him and Karen
1:24:59
Page is funny. And just to have Daredevil ask
1:25:03
him if he's got any oat milk everything.
1:25:06
So and and they the comic book, it's always weird.
1:25:10
Spider Man and Daredevil team up with him and he's machine
1:25:12
gunning hundreds of people and they're not commenting on it.
1:25:16
So in the last season when Daredevil was shot, he's dying
1:25:20
and the Punisher's killing people to protect them.
1:25:23
And Daredevil's like, maybe hold back and the Punisher's like,
1:25:26
shut up. It was really realistic.
1:25:30
Yeah, that's probably an over long answer, but I think he's
1:25:33
one of the best cast this some great cast superheroes.
1:25:37
But I would say the best is like him Iron Man.
1:25:40
We've had some great Spider Man's.
1:25:42
Would you? Yeah.
1:25:43
Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite?
1:25:44
Spider man, Jeez. I love.
1:25:48
Toby because I sort of commissioned the first movie.
1:25:51
Like when when it was announced in the 90s, like Cameron is
1:25:56
going to make a Spider Man movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and it's
1:25:59
going to be Electro and Sandman. My first reaction was like
1:26:03
Cameron. It should be a horror comedy
1:26:06
director who's a ugly, nerdy actor.
1:26:11
It should be Tobey Maguire. With Sam Raimi or something.
1:26:15
Yeah, I didn't call Sam Raimi, but I said somebody, oh, I know.
1:26:18
I picked the director of Fright Night.
1:26:19
It was Tom Holland, which is kind of funny.
1:26:22
So I picked a Tom Holland and like, yeah, I was like, it
1:26:26
should be the Green Goblin and it should be Mary Jane getting
1:26:28
thrown off a bridge, but she shouldn't die.
1:26:31
Like and I said and Kirsten Dunn should be Mary Jane and like,
1:26:34
that's exactly. And I said, just cast a scary
1:26:37
middle-aged guy for Green Goblin.
1:26:40
And so I'm watching a movie. I'm like, wow, I dreamt this.
1:26:42
It was so weird. That's so I'm always going to
1:26:45
like him. But Garfield's hilarious.
1:26:49
Like, he's so cool. Like, he might be the best actor
1:26:53
who's played Spider Man, I guess.
1:26:56
But in a way, we haven't had a bad Spider Man.
1:26:59
No, no, I, Tom Holland, Spider Man is what got me into Marvel
1:27:04
movies to begin with. Actually.
1:27:06
There's too much of AI, had too much of A stigma against
1:27:10
superhero characters. And then I watched Spider Man.
1:27:13
I was like, this is so real. And it came out, I think while I
1:27:18
was maybe just in the middle of college, so high school was
1:27:23
still pretty fresh in my mind and I was a very, very awkward
1:27:26
high schooler. And I was like this kid, like,
1:27:29
especially as he's learning how to like, use his power, like his
1:27:31
powers in the scene where he's running and like he keeps on
1:27:34
like crashing through bushes in the pool and knocking over
1:27:36
porch, you know, lawn chairs and stuff like that.
1:27:38
And I'm like, this is so great. It's a imperfect superhero.
1:27:43
Like, I love that, you know, like I thought, oh man, and and
1:27:47
and. I'm trying to talk chummy to
1:27:49
people during the combat and civil war.
1:27:51
Hey guys, doing guys like. He's he's written really well,
1:27:57
acted really, really well. It's such a well done character.
1:28:01
And he was the character I was wished was Italian.
1:28:03
And then like, well, suddenly Marisa Tomez, Aunt May and Jon
1:28:06
Favreau is dating her. I was like, it's kind of an
1:28:08
honor. There you go.
1:28:12
There you go. Mike.
1:28:13
I gotta run. This is so much fun getting to
1:28:15
talk to you a little bit. This is such a pleasant, such a
1:28:18
really wonderful conversation. And thank you so much for the
1:28:21
time and it's really great getting to meet you and I hope
1:28:22
we can do this again. Definitely.
1:28:24
It's been a blast. Thanks so much for talking to me
1:28:26
and you have a cool day and everything.
1:28:28
All right. Take care, man.
1:28:29
Thank you so much. Bye.
1:28:30
Thanks.