Cannonball with Wesley Morris

Episode: "Dear Haters of 'Marty Supreme'..."
Date: January 29, 2026
Host: Wesley Morris
Guest: Sasha Weiss

Episode Overview

In this episode, Wesley Morris and guest host Sasha Weiss dig into the cultural tempest around the film Marty Supreme, which has sharply divided critics, audiences, and Oscar voters alike. With scathing reviews, walkouts, and passionate defenses, Morris and Weiss tackle why so many people hate (and why some love) Marty Mouser—the abrasive, charismatic, and deeply Jewish lead character played by Timothée Chalamet. Using pointed commentary, fan correspondence, and a freewheeling "Hall of Shame" segment, Morris and Weiss explore issues of likability, Jewish representation, shamelessness, and cultural discomfort. The episode is a keen, personal—and occasionally hilarious—examination of how art and identity clash on the big screen and beyond.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Marty Supreme: The Film, the Frenzy, and the Backlash

• [01:00] Wesley describes Marty Supreme's critical and commercial success, and towers of Oscar nominations, yet notes vitriol in the public response, especially toward the main character Marty Mouser.
  • “The plot is pretty straightforward. It's about an ambitious Jewish kid slash ping pong champ…in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1952, just a few years after the Holocaust.” – Wesley ([01:23])
• Sasha shares a firsthand account: her friend was so overwhelmed by the film’s violence and chaos she nearly “got physically ill” and wanted to leave mid-movie ([02:48]).

Audience Reactions – Read Alouds

• Katie M., North Carolina: “I just walked out of this movie. My God… There are no redeeming qualities to this movie. Think of the most obnoxious person you know, behaving at their very worst for two and a half hours and you're trapped in a room with them.” – Read by Sasha ([03:29])
• Julian B., Massachusetts: “All I wanted to do was go home and take a shower to wash off the unpleasantness.” – Read by Wesley ([04:02])

The Safdie World & Antihero Centrality

• Wesley contextualizes directors Josh and Benny Safdie’s filmography: “They're New Yorkers. They make gritty, scuzzy movies about New York City. And…the people at the center…aren’t people who, at least in this century, tend to get centered.” ([04:33])

2. Who Is Marty Mouser?

• Dissection of Marty's abrasive qualities and their purpose within the film:
  • “He’s one of those rat-a-tat talkers. Like, he never shuts up…his mouth stays open for most of the movie.” – Wesley ([06:05])
  • Sasha notes Chalamet manages to be “a little bit unappealing physically…he has this kind of like open-mouthed stare.” ([06:19])

Shamelessness and Unapologetic Striving

• Marty’s drive and lack of remorse:
  • "He apologizes for nothing. He doesn't have a lot of remorse, regret, chagrin. He is unabashed, he is shameless. And if he wants something, he is going to try to obtain it..." – Wesley ([06:34])
• His Jewish identity as both an engine and a shield:
  • “He figures his own ascent and his will to triumph as a Jewish thing. He says at one point…‘I'm Hitler's worst nightmare because I'm on top.’” – Sasha ([08:27])

Love/Hate: The Allure and Annoyance of Marty

• Sasha: “His self belief, his silver tongued quality, his improvisatory quality…in one setting...or in this kind of buttoned up world of table tennis, he is always himself. Even though he's lying all the time. There’s a kind of purity to him.” ([09:26])
• Wesley on Marty as a classic American striver; Sasha on his “resourceful, canny, New York type” appeal. ([07:25-08:12])

Representative Jewishness and Audience Discomfort

• Sasha raises if discomfort is “about his Jewishness,” mentioning Marty embodies “some of the ugliest stereotypes about Jews”—money-grubbing, scheming, sexual rapaciousness ([13:03]).
• The movie, they agree, is “very aware of its own Jewishness and this feeling that he embodies...the ugly stereotypes about Jewish people” ([13:36]).

3. The Holocaust Scene—Layers of Meaning

[17:48–27:40]

• Sasha’s favorite scene: Marty, at a Ritz dinner, engineers an encounter centered around his ping-pong partner Bella Kletzky's Holocaust tattoo and backstory.
• Through storytelling, cinematic flashbacks, and a con, the movie blends tragedy, dark comedy, manipulation, and meta-commentary on Holocaust representation.

Memorable Quote:
"He tells that he was in the woods…he smears [honey] all over his body…and this sticky body being licked by ten men." – Sasha ([22:22])

• Wesley explains the additional layer crafted by casting Geza Röhrig (star of Son of Saul) and critiques Holocaust depictions as “aesthetic sportsmanship…trying to outdo what’s come before” ([25:01]).
• The scene’s irreverence, profundity, and gall:
  • “Think about the flex of turning a thing that many directors build their whole careers trying to depict…This guy’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it to you in 10 seconds. I did it.’" – Wesley ([26:20])
  • The scene’s “blasphemous” joke-iness and artistry becomes a skeleton key to the movie’s worldview.

4. Shamelessness as Virtue and Weapon

[29:59+]

• Wesley: “This movie is shameless. The movie has no shame. And I don't know, it's like that shamelessness, you know, corresponds to a whole constellation of shamelessnesses.” ([29:59])
• Sasha elaborates on how Marty’s “life force and vitality” is both a product of trauma and something irrepressible, and how those contradictions power the film ([28:22]).
• The pair launch into "Hall of Shame," nominating cultural figures who embody “productive” shamelessness.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Marty’s Jewish Striving:
  “He figures his own ascent and his will to triumph as a Jewish thing…‘I'm Hitler's worst nightmare because I'm on top. I'm here and I’m on top.’” – Sasha ([08:27])
• On Audience Discomfort:
  “Maybe a discomfort with, like, a guy who embodies like some of the ugliest stereotypes about Jews…not knowing what to do with that.” – Sasha ([13:03])
• On the Holocaust Scene’s Audacity:
  "I watched that entire sequence with my jaw dropped. Because…this guy’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it to you in 10 seconds. I'll do it in 10 seconds.’ And that itself is a kind of reprehensible flex.” – Wesley ([26:20])
• On Shamelessness as Art:
  “Shamelessness is very aware of the conventions that it is pouring itself all over—that it’s gasolining.” – Sasha ([40:50])
• On Marty’s Mixed Legacy:
  “He knows the history. He is both reacting against and trying to advance forward. That is the power of the character…he can't help himself but to be barreling forward at all times while dragging this history with him and insisting that it come.” – Wesley ([41:18])

The Hall of Shame: An Ode to Productive Shamelessness

(Segment begins [31:03])

• Mickey Sabbath (Philip Roth’s “Sabbath’s Theater”): A despicable, randy, grieving puppeteer whose shamelessness is paradoxically the vehicle for “beautiful thinking about love, about sex, about spirituality, about grief.” ([32:03])
• Grace Jones (as Strangé in “Boomerang”): Defies decorum, embodies “I love my vulgar self,” upends both racial and sexual expectations ([33:43]).
• Ali G / Sacha Baron Cohen: “His shamelessness was a kind of dye in the veins of their [establishment figures’] shamelessness.” ([36:06])
• The B-52s: “What you are hearing in their uniqueness is a very particular kind of shamelessness…they have applied their shamelessness to their mastery of the form…I just think the B52s are a great example of this because there’s a version of this band that sucks. The thing that makes them great is that they have applied their shamelessness to their mastery of the form.” – Wesley ([39:56])

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:12: Introduction to Marty Supreme and host/guest setup
• 03:29: Reading and discussion of scathing fan comments
• 06:05: Deep dive into Marty Mouser’s character
• 09:10: Debate on Jewishness, anti-Semitism, and audience discomfort
• 17:48–27:40: The Holocaust scene: analysis and meta-critique
• 29:59: Shamelessness as theme, prelude to “Hall of Shame”
• 31:03–41:24: Hall of Shame segment: cultural analysis via icons of shamelessness

Tone and Takeaways

The episode captures both the seriousness and the irreverence of its subject—analyzing Marty Supreme’s provocations with warmth, intellectual rigor, and humor. Morris and Weiss interrogate not just why people recoil from Marty, but why the power of art sometimes demands characters who are unlikable, shameless, and stubbornly themselves. Their playful, personal, and unsparing conversation is both a defense and a celebration of complicated cultural works—and a call for dignity inside shamelessness (and vice versa).

For New Listeners

You’ll come away from this episode with a nuanced sense of what makes Marty Supreme so polarizing—and why that very polarization is, for Morris and Weiss, a marker of the vitality of both the film and its titular antihero. Expect tough questions, generous analysis, and lots of laughter. The conversation is both a tribute to and a case study in why art’s discomfort zones matter.