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- [00:00]
Capella University
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- [00:15]
Tonya Moseley
Edu from WHYY in Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Tonya Moseley. Today my guest is Seth Rogin. He created a new Apple TV series, the Studio, which is a satirical look at how executives in Hollywood make decisions on what movies get made. Seth stars as the head of a fictional Hollywood studio who is trying to save the struggling company. And he says the job of a studio executive in real life is the funniest in all of Hollywood.
- [00:47]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, it's a very tragic job, and I think tragedy is comedy in a lot of ways.
- [00:55]
Tonya Moseley
Also, New Yorker staff writer Andrew Morantz joins us to discuss his latest investigation into how right wing podcasts, streams and YouTube channels have become the platforms where men who feel disillusioned and alienated go to feel seen and heard and the battle on the left to win them back. Plus, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new songs by Teddy Swims, Benjamin Booker and Neil Young.
- [01:22]
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Capella University
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- [02:54]
Tonya Moseley
I'm Tanya Moseley. Let's go back to the year 2000. A young Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg have arrived from Canada, and they're meeting a studio executive to go over a screenplay they've written together. During the meeting, the executive makes a cynical confession. I got into this job because I love movies, he says, and now I feel like my job is to ruin them. Rogan and Goldberg never forgot what that executive said, and 25 years later, they've made it the basis of a new satirical comedy series on Apple TV called the Studio. Rogan plays Matt Rimick, a Hollywood executive who gets an unexpected promotion as the head of the fictional Continental Studios after his boss is fired. In this scene, the studio CEO, played by Bryan Cranston, offers Matt the job, but asks if he has what it takes to do it the Continental way.
- [03:52]
Bryan Cranston
Patty's time has come and gone, and I'm seriously considering you to replace her.
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Seth Rogen
Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. I'm the guy. I'm the guy for the job. Why are you?
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Bryan Cranston
Tell me that. Why are you the guy?
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Seth Rogen
Well, I've worked at Continental for 22 years. I bought the original spec script for MK Ultra, which, as I'm sure you know, spawned a franchise that's made us over $3 billion for the Renee. Where the.
- [04:15]
Bryan Cranston
My green juice. You want a green juice?
- [04:18]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, I'd love one.
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Bryan Cranston
Two green juices now.
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Capital One
Yes, sir.
- [04:22]
Bryan Cranston
Sorry. Continue.
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Seth Rogen
Film is my life. Ever since I came to the studio as a kid and went on the tour, being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted.
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Bryan Cranston
That is adorable. All right, well, listen, I honestly just have one strong reservation about you.
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Seth Rogen
Oh.
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Bryan Cranston
I've heard you are really into artsy fartsy filmmaking, that you're obsessed with actors and directors liking you rather than being obsessed with making this studio as much money as possible.
- [04:58]
Seth Rogen
Me?
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Bryan Cranston
Yeah.
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Seth Rogen
That could not be further from the truth. I am as bottom line oriented as anyone in this town.
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Bryan Cranston
I believe you.
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Seth Rogen
Great. Good, good.
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Bryan Cranston
Because at Continental, we don't make films. We make movies. Movies that people want to pay to see.
- [05:19]
Seth Rogen
Yes.
- [05:22]
Tonya Moseley
From there, the audience is taken on a funny, but also absurd and often cringe worthy adventure. As Matt, always flustered and desperately needing to be liked, has to find ways to keep the studio afloat. Seth Rogen has produced, directed, written, and starred in many films, including Superbad, Knocked up, this Is the End, Sausage Party, and the limited series Pam and Tommy. He founded the production company Point Grey Pictures, along with his writing and directing partner, Evan Goldberg, and the two have founded the Cannabis Products and Home goods company, Houseplant and Seth Rogen. Welcome back to FRESH air.
- [06:00]
Seth Rogen
Thank you. What an intro.
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Tonya Moseley
Well, I really want to go back to this time 2000. You and Evan are in this executive's office and he says this thing to you, like, I now ruin movies. Like, what was your reaction?
- [06:16]
Seth Rogen
I was shocked by the honesty, honestly. Like, I really could tell that he was in a position in that point in his career. And that person still works in Hollywood, is one of the heads of one of the major studios in Hollywood. So he stuck around. And it was an ancient Roman teen sex comedy.
- [06:38]
Tonya Moseley
Oh, really? Okay, so this wasn't Superbad or something.
- [06:41]
Seth Rogen
This was like, well, what's funny is we had written Superbad and no one was making it, and that's how we got the job for this movie. And honestly, we were like, let's just put all of our ideas from Superbad into the movie, basically. And so that's how desperate we were to make something. And so we sort of became like an ancient Roman version of Superbad, which, as I say it is insane. And it was very d. It was very dirty. And what I recall, I think at the point in this process, yeah, we had handed in a draft that he really thought was funny. We thought was funny and was ridiculous and crazy. And he was telling us in this notes meeting that it couldn't be so dirty. And it was clear the notes he had been given from on high. And so in a very honest moment, he said that. And I don't know if the execs I've worked with over the years would agree, but I've always had a sympathy for. I think because of that, I've always felt like it really humanized the job in a lot of ways and made me understand from a pretty young age. Yeah, a lot of these, not all of them, but a lot of them are people who love movies but who are constantly put in positions where they have to either maybe be fired or do something kind of risky. And I think more of them should do something risky, and that will actually lead to better things. But I understand why they don't. I don't agree with it necessarily, but I understand it. And it's a very comedic situation to be in.
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Tonya Moseley
Right. I mean, that's the thing. You have a lot of sympathy for them because of this very formative experience for you. But also you say it's like the funniest job in all of Hollywood.
- [08:20]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, it's a very tragic job. And I think tragedy is comedy in a lot of ways, you know, And A lot of them, yeah, like, because they love movies and they grow up. Now I'm at the age even where, like, some of the people I work with grew up watching our movies and stuff like that, you know what I mean? And for the first time in my life, older than the execs I'm working with at some of these companies. And so they. I'm one of the people they probably grew up watching. And they are constantly put in a position where they have to say things that make me really mad at them. And I would imagine that's a huge bummer. And I've seen it over and over. I remember an exec, like, hiding from a movie star, like, literally in his office because he was avoiding. Because the movie wasn't tracking well and he was avoiding.
- [09:08]
Tonya Moseley
He didn't want to be on the.
- [09:10]
Seth Rogen
Lot and he knew, he was mad. He knew the movie star was there for meeting and was. And he didn't want to get yelled at, basically. And he's like. I remember him being like, I love that this guy's one of my favorite actors of all time and he wants to scream at me. And like, that to us was. It was just funny. It just always struck us as very funny, you know.
- [09:28]
Tonya Moseley
Is it true that you interviewed almost every Hollywood executive for this series?
- [09:33]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, we interviewed a lot of them, whether they knew it or not. Some of them, it was just like us milking information from them without them. And some were very formal interviews where they came in. But a lot of the stuff from those interviews worked their way directly into episodes of the show.
- [09:49]
Tonya Moseley
Yeah. Okay, let's get into the series because I think you said something like 85% of what is in it is actually true to some extent. And talking about interviewing these executives, if this stuff is true, oh, my gosh. Because it's like the cringiest scenarios ever.
- [10:06]
Seth Rogen
I think we're actually at, like, if anything, I think we paint like a pretty sympathetic picture of the situation that, you know, I think to a lot of people's experiences is probably, you know, an optimistic view of what Hollywood is.
- [10:21]
Tonya Moseley
Okay. The characters are phenomenal. I mentioned Catherine O'Hara, who is. She was your boss. She was fired and you take over her job. Ike Barinholtz, who plays this powerful lower level executive desperate for power. He is hilarious.
- [10:36]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, he's great.
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Tonya Moseley
Katherine Hahn, who plays this aggressive marketing chief with lots of opinions. Chase Tsui wonders, who plays an ambitious young executive. And she does a couple of shady things to light it over as an.
- [10:49]
Seth Rogen
Ambitious young executive will do.
- [10:53]
Tonya Moseley
And Then there's the host of actors and filmmakers with very, very fragile egos. And then how would you describe your character, Matt Remick?
- [11:02]
Seth Rogen
I would describe my character as someone who grew up loving movies and who worked very hard to be someone who got to make movies. And I think he's someone who wishes he was very creative, but is not, and who kind of views himself as creative, but simply isn't. And so his avenue to filmmaking, quote, unquote, I guess, became being a studio executive. And he's very ambitious and very self preservational and someone who will do the thing that allows him to keep going rather than to perhaps lose it all. And he. Someone who's constantly put in a position to really disappoint both himself and the people that he idolizes and the medium that he idolizes.
- [11:46]
Tonya Moseley
He's also walking around all the time, terrified.
- [11:49]
Seth Rogen
Yes. He's very panicked and stressed out and wears it on his sleeve and does not. And that's based on some specific people I know, is that they wear their panic. Clearly they have a bad poker face. And that is very much something my character has.
- [12:05]
Tonya Moseley
But that's the great tension of the series. So it's set in present day and all of these executives, like, they're up against the real challenges of the moment. AI plays a big role, racial sensitivity, like there's all these different things. But your character, he wants to make art, he wants to make film.
- [12:24]
Seth Rogen
Yeah. And it's really making fun of me in a lot of ways, you know, And I don't have, like delusions of grandeur. I think my character in the show has, but I think it's inspired by the same belief that, like, one movie can change the entire course of Hollywood. And I don't think I'm gonna be the person to make that movie necessarily.
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Tonya Moseley
But did you want to at one time?
- [12:47]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, and for sure. And I think if you're an ambitious executive who's obsessed with Robert Evans, then you could. Then you really think you could do that, you know, and so I think it's a silly goal to have. And my character has specifically that goal. I think he wants to be viewed as like the savior of this. And that is not an ambition I specifically have, but it's something that I understand where that idea comes from.
- [13:15]
Tonya Moseley
Okay, I wanna play a clip. In this scene, Matt, your character goes over to his old boss's house, played by Catherine O'Hara, Patti, and to seek some guidance. And the two talk about how he's handling being the new head of the studio. And O'Hara speaks first.
- [13:35]
Catherine O'Hara
So how do you feel in all this?
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Seth Rogen
You know, I've worked obviously a long time to get here. My, you know, my parents are very thrilled, very proud. I think Griffin is, you know, optimistic with the plan.
- [13:50]
Catherine O'Hara
Maddie, not one of those words is about how you feel.
- [13:54]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, I feel miserable, honestly. I'm anxious, I'm stressed out, panicking pretty much all the time. I was so much happier two weeks ago when I was just angry and resentful that I didn't have this job. I would give anything to be angry and resentful compared to how I feel right now. You know, I walk past the tour guide every morning and they say that the office was built as a temple to cinema, but feels much more like a tomb.
- [14:20]
Catherine O'Hara
Heavy as the head, Maddie.
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Seth Rogen
Yeah, honored obviously to be one of the people that gets to choose, you know, which movies get made and which ones don't. That's huge. And I got into all this cause, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.
- [14:42]
Catherine O'Hara
The job is a meat grinder. It makes you stressed and panicked and miserable. One week you're looking your idol in the eye and breaking his heart, and the next week you're writing a blank check for some entitled nipple baby in a beanie. But when it all comes together and you make a good movie, it's good forever.
- [15:10]
Tonya Moseley
That was Catherine O'Hara playing the role of Patti in the studio. And also my guest today, Seth Rogen. And that's the basis for this whole series. But you know, I wanted to. This particular scene was really powerful. Cause we understand like his motivations. And then she, as a wisdom, you know, person with wisdom, gives kind of the larger context there. But it's also so beautiful. It's so interesting. Like you guys are standing on an overlook overlooking la and the show and the character's wardrobe is all very much old Hollywood. It's just interesting, the juxtaposition between the visual and then the current day struggles that they're dealing with.
- [15:53]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, exactly. Like the characters, especially mine, longs for days of yore. And that was sort of a big part of the idea was to like also anchor the show in like a real feeling history for this studio and sort of like a real culture that this studio and like an identity that this studio has kind of. And so, yeah, we really used color palettes that were very 70s inspired. And you can tell that the characters kind of long for like there's a nostalgia for a. That isn't there anymore. They're not trying to be on the cutting edge of things. They're actually trying to kind of go back to how things used to be. And, yeah, we shot in a lot of old homes from the 50s and 60s and 70s. That house is a John Lautner house. It's a very beautiful, beautiful house. And in the show, it's as though we kind of have a storyline as though Frank Lloyd Wright designed the studio that we are in because he was in California making, you know, Mayan revival buildings, like, at the time that these studios were made. And that it sort of has this, like, grandeur to it, you know, and this, like, kind of thing that you're trying to live up to. And, you know, I remember it's a name drop. I was at 30 Rock once with Lorne Michaels and I was saying what an amazing building it was. And he was like, in his way, like, well, you know, when any industry is new, they build cathedrals for it. And I always remembered that, and it was so true. And, like, the studios feel that way. A lot of them, like, they're these beautiful places, and they were built at a time when they were kind of, like, unabashedly lauding and trying to bolster the importance of the industry. And so that, to us, was something very important. And we got really lucky with that shot because we shot the show where basically every scene is one take, which was very hard to do. But what it allowed us to do is a scene like that, for example, it's all one shot. And we shot it maybe 15 times. And the first, like, 10 times, it was, like, rainy and gray and cloudy. And we kept having to go inside because it was raining on us and it just looked miserable. But we had a very specific shot we wanted to do. And so we literally just sat inside and waited for it to stop raining as the sun was going down. And then it's like this magical thing happened. We're like, right as the sun was going down, the rain stopped and rainbows appeared.
- [18:13]
Tonya Moseley
I'm like, is that a rainbow could.
- [18:14]
Seth Rogen
See the whole city? And we were just like, let's go shoot now. And to me, it was like a real magical Hollywood moment, kind of.
- [18:22]
Tonya Moseley
It feels like a love letter to Los Angeles, which feels especially just watching it, for me, a tinge of sadness a bit, just with all that has happened for years, definitely.
- [18:35]
Seth Rogen
And I think that it always was a love letter to Los Angeles. And I think, if anything, it is like, I love living in Los Angeles, and I've lived here for a very long time. And I love the architecture. I love the landscape. Like, I love that there's Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and John Lautner houses. And I think that's one of the things that Hollywood kind of has afforded me over the years is just like access to, like, these very beautiful spaces, you know. And so, and as we were pitching the show, that was always something that we would say in the pitch is like a lot of our experience in Hollywood is like being in very beautiful places having very stupid arguments with one another. And like, that was something that we really was A funny juxtaposition as well is like we would be at a movie premiere at the Ace Theater. That was the United Artist Theater that Charlie Chaplin opened in some back room that was like literally the dressing room that Charlie Chaplin would use before coming out the theater and just like screaming at each other over the dumbest, a fart joke or something like that. And to us, that was always just very funny.
- [19:39]
Tonya Moseley
My guest is Seth Rogen. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Moseley, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.
- [19:47]
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- [20:39]
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- [20:54]
Tonya Moseley
So there's this particular episode and there's a scene in the episode where your character is dating a doctor and she takes him to, I think it's like a cancer.
- [21:05]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, like a medical cancer gala.
- [21:07]
Tonya Moseley
Gala. And he, while talking to fellow doctors and researchers who are like looking for cures for cancer and stuff, he Gets into an argument and he says to a group of them something like, you all save lives, but we make life worth living. You all save lives, but we make life worth living. That is like the most absurd, non self aware statement ever. But, Seth, it also is kind of true.
- [21:41]
Seth Rogen
I mean, that episode's probably threading a needle more than any of them. As far as rooting for my character, or at least even understanding where my character is coming from in any way, shape or form. That, to me is actually, I think, in many ways, I personally find it to be the funniest episode because it's sort of based on. It's kind of based on me because. And I understand, obviously, I understand it's comedic and ridiculous, but I have a charity with my wife, Hilarity for Charity. And it's an Alzheimer's charity. And so we find ourselves at a lot of medical galas, and I find myself at a lot of tables with doctors who save lives. And what's funny is often they have, like, a blatant disrespect for the film industry, as maybe as they should, but I don't think so, necessarily.
- [22:34]
Tonya Moseley
So there's no deference for you?
- [22:36]
Andrew Morantz
No.
- [22:36]
Seth Rogen
And they think it's funny, and I think they think it's funny. And they're obviously smart enough to know that I exist in a world where there is deference and they're showing no deference. And they seem to revel in being in a position where they can sort of, maybe subtly at times, diminish the career of another person who clearly views what they do as important. Even though.
- [23:00]
Tonya Moseley
How does that feel for you to see that?
- [23:02]
Seth Rogen
Well, it was. I mean, I personally understand that it's not a thing I should be upset about, but I comedically understand the feeling that you wish you could fight back against that and assert that what you do is as important. And it's not something I would ever do in real life, but it's something that. It's obviously an instinct I had somewhere in my brain because that's where the idea for the episode came from, you know, But I know it's ridiculous and I know my character's wrong generally, but I think that the inspiration for that episode was definitely based on, like, feelings that I've had sitting at tables with doctors.
- [23:41]
Tonya Moseley
There's also, like, this storyline about being scared about whether something is racist. And that's hilarious because, like, it just goes through all these different iterations.
- [23:52]
Seth Rogen
Yes.
- [23:53]
Tonya Moseley
Is that a situation that you've had to deal with in real life?
- [23:55]
Seth Rogen
For sure. I'D say that episode has more actual conversations that we've had to sit in rooms and watch than most of the episodes. And what's funny about it is it's like all people care about is the perception. They themselves have no ideological, like, thing that they are trying to get across. And they don't care at all. They just don't want to look bad. And that is the thing that we would notice the most when these types of things came up was that, like, oh, no, none of these people care. They just don't want to look bad.
- [24:32]
Tonya Moseley
Is there a story that comes to mind that happened in real life?
- [24:36]
Seth Rogen
It's not a thing we got made, but it was like we were making a comic book and there was, like, an alien character. And the alien had been, like, traditionally voiced by someone of a certain race. And so all of a sudden, that became a big topic of conversation, was like, what race is this alien? And we kept thinking, well, it's an alien. But it didn't matter because in people's heads, there was a certain race ascribed to the alien due to the V that people associated with the alien. And then we were like, well, is that racist? And so that was something in the last few years where, again, I found just a lot of people having. At the end of the day, no one involved cared. No one could be like, you know what? I strongly believe that it should be this. Everyone's just like, what? Maybe. Will people yell at us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:23]
Tonya Moseley
There's also the funny scene where to make sure. So in the case, like, the alien, like, in the voice, you go to, like, the one person of color in the place.
- [25:35]
Seth Rogen
Oh, yes.
- [25:36]
Tonya Moseley
Is this okay?
- [25:37]
Seth Rogen
Yes. That happens a lot. I've been there as well. I've had people call me and ask me Jewish things before. Like, it's happened to me. I've been that person.
- [25:47]
Tonya Moseley
Because so much of your material comes from a personal place. Have you ever gotten a note from an executive that felt like an insult?
- [25:53]
Seth Rogen
Oh, yeah, Many, many, many times. We've got notes that just, like, this scene isn't funny, which is insulting. You know, I think I actually understand notes about, like, likability. Because, like, I think that's like, an easy note for an executive to give is like, often there'll be a character based on me, and they'll be like, this character's not likable.
- [26:11]
Tonya Moseley
Well, wasn't there that note from that executive or something about Jonah Hill's character, Superbad?
- [26:16]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, that was the thing. Yeah, that Sony. Well, it was Sony, like, Corporate. Sony. Sony made the movie. You know, Sony owns Columbia Pictures. And so Sony made Superbad. And there's a scene in Superbad where it was supposed to be Michael Cera and Jonah's character, Seth and Evan, based on us playing PlayStation together. And then we got a note from Sony Corporate. Yeah. That Jodah's character couldn't interact with a Sony product. Basically. It was even worse on Pineapple Express where they wouldn't even let us put a PlayStation in the movie altogether. And we had a scene where a kid was playing a video game and. And we had to invent a console that didn't exist.
- [26:51]
Andrew Morantz
Oh, my God.
- [26:52]
Seth Rogen
Yeah, Sony on that one was like, we don't even want to be in this movie.
- [26:56]
Tonya Moseley
But the thing about the super bad one, I mean, Jonah's character is based on you.
- [27:00]
Seth Rogen
It is based on me. And they were like, yes, this character is too reprehensible to be touching a PlayStation. And I was like, that hurts.
- [27:08]
Tonya Moseley
Seth Rogen, this has been such a pleasure to talk with you and thank you for the studio.
- [27:12]
Seth Rogen
Thank you.
- [27:14]
Tonya Moseley
Seth Rogen's new satirical comedy series the Studio premieres on Apple TV on Wednesday, March 26th. Rock critic Ken Tucker has been listening to new music releases, including new songs by Teddy Swims, nominated as best new artist at this year's Grammy awards, and Benjamin Booker, who Tucker says is doing interesting things with volume and distortion. There's also an old pro in the mix here, Neil Young, who has a new band and a new song that Tucker says heralds some big changes. Here's his review.
- [27:54]
Ken Tucker
Something's got a hold of me lately Though I don't know myself anymore Feels like the walls are all closing in and the devil's knocking at my door Whoa, out of my mind.
- [28:13]
Teddy Swims
Teddy Swims had a big hit last year with the song lose control, which showcased his gruff but supple ballad singing. The Georgia born singer has clearly been influenced by southern soul men like Al Green and Bobby Blue Bland. On his new album titled I've tried everything but therapy part two, Swims offers a new set of love songs that demonstrate the depth of his romanticism. On are you even real? He's so swept away he wonders whether he's dreaming the object of his adoration.
- [28:57]
Ken Tucker
But I can get enough you're so beautiful spiritual more like a peppercorn I deserve.
- [29:20]
Teddy Swims
Where Teddy Swims offers up his vocals with glowing clarity, Benjamin Booker opts to reduce his singing to just another instrument in the mix of songs and styles found on his new album called lower. On his previous albums Booker grappled with, then current events such as the Black Lives Matter protests. The lyrics on his new album are more obscure, hinting at deep emotions whose rawness is either matched by or buried beneath layers of distorted guitars and keyboards. There's a beauty in the kind of musical chaos Booker creates. One of the best examples of this is same kind of lonely.
- [30:03]
Ken Tucker
Like you want me to dream like this Me.
- [30:11]
Seth Rogen
And you.
- [30:15]
Ken Tucker
All right, all right love while we all right, all right if I could make it out tomorrow if I could start again if I could be the same kind of if I could be the same kind of lonely.
- [31:04]
Teddy Swims
A few years ago, Benjamin Booker opened for Neil Young on a few of Young's tour dates. Young himself is now showcasing a new band called the Chrome Hearts that includes Willie Nelson's son Micah on guitar and the great organist Spooner Oldham, who was part of the legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section and co writer of hits like the Box Tops Cry Like a Baby. To judge from the band's booming first single, Big Change, however, Neil Young isn't seeking out pop or country sounds. He aims to have the Chrome Hearts sound at least as grungy as his usual backup, Crazy Horse, and the noise they make is powerful.
- [31:43]
Ken Tucker
Big change is coming, coming right home to you Big change is coming, you know what you gotta do Big change is coming could be bad and it could be be good Big change is coming, it's coming to ride home where you stood Big change is coming.
- [32:14]
Seth Rogen
Big.
- [32:15]
Ken Tucker
Change is coming Big drums are drumming heading up the long parade Big change is coming, coming right through your G Big guitar strumming, the singer said don't be late Big change is coming back and it could be great Big change is coming.
- [32:45]
Teddy Swims
Big change is coming, young chants over and over. Given the timing of the release and the image of Young waving an American flag in the video, there's an inescapable feeling that he's talking about the recent presidential election, though it's impossible to tell whether he thinks the changes are welcome or ominous. Like Teddy Swims and Benjamin Booker, Neil Young is letting loose with some big emotions, but letting you judge how to interpret them.
- [33:14]
Tonya Moseley
Ken Tucker reviewed new songs by Teddy Swims, Benjamin Booker and Neil Young. Coming up, we'll talk with the New Yorker writer Andrew Morantz about his latest article, the Battle for the Bros, which is a look at why many young men in America have gone mag, and the battle on the left to bring them back. I'm Tanya Moseley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
- [33:36]
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- [34:30]
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- [34:49]
Tonya Moseley
Newsom recently joined the manosphere, the world of political podcasts, streams and YouTube channels where young men have become the new MAGA vanguard.
- [35:07]
Seth Rogen
This is Gavin Newsom and this is Steve Bannon.
- [35:13]
Teddy Swims
And this is Michael Savage. And this is Charlie Kirk.
- [35:20]
Tonya Moseley
The Democratic governor says the purpose of his new podcast is to have unfiltered conversations with people he doesn't always agree with. And so far he's had on far right media stars, many of whom were instrumental in Donald Trump winning the election. Well, my guest today, the New Yorker staff writer Andrew Morantz, looks at how Democrats are attempting to win back the support of young men in America, those they lost during the 2024 election. And for his piece, Morantz spent time with several high profile podcasters and streamers like Hasan Piker, a leftist star on the livestream platform Twitch, with more than 3 million followers who's known for modeling modern masculin with progressive politics. Morantz's article the Battle for the Young Men have Gone maga can the Left Win Them Back? Appears in the current copy of the New Yorker. And Andrew Marantz, welcome back to the show.
- [36:14]
Andrew Morantz
Thank you so much, Tanya. So good to be back.
- [36:16]
Tonya Moseley
Democrats lost support with nearly every kind of voter, but the defection that alarmed strategists the most was this significant jump in young men who voted for Trump or no candidate. And this comes at a time when men are in crisis. As you write, relative to their forefathers and their women counterparts, men are More likely to fall behind in school. They're more likely to drop out of college, languish in the workforce, or die by overdose or suicide. How did the right not only tap into that grim reality, but also offer a space for male grievance?
- [36:53]
Andrew Morantz
Yeah, so just to start from defining terms, so manosphere is, like a lot of Internet terms, pretty ill defined, and it keeps chang so often originally when people use the term, it was for really, really extreme, hateful stuff. Right. So it was for Andrew Tate, who is a proud misogynist, defines himself that way, has been accused of human trafficking. Really, really, really bad dude. And so often when people talked about the manosphere, they would talk about that, but then it kind of migrated into people who are, you know, conservatives on gender roles or who don't even have, like, gender content that they often bring up, but maybe are just into things that are commonly coded as dude stuff. You know, video games or hunting or, you know, lifting weights or whatever. So all of that is kind of depending on who you're listening to, contained within that category. And there's no reason that the right has a monopoly inherently on being down to earth or being relatable. You know, it's been mentioned many times that people like Bernie Sanders have no problem going onto these shows and, in fact, have been criticized for going onto these shows. So it's a bit of a caricature, but it's definitely one that's stuck. And I think we can now see in the data it's definitely one that hurt Kamala Harris in the. In the last election.
- [38:16]
Tonya Moseley
Well, relatable is a word that just keeps coming up in your piece. And you write about several notable personalities, influencers, streamers, podcasters. One of them is comedian and podcaster Theo Vaughn, who I personally have known since he was on MTV's Real World Road Rules back in the 2000s. So for most of his career, though, he has been apolitical. Can you talk about the power and that built in trust through familiarity? Theo has been around for, like, 25 years. I mean, Donald Trump is a perfect example of this. He built a relationship with Americans as an entertaining figure for. For decades.
- [38:57]
Andrew Morantz
Absolutely. And Joe Rogan has been around since he was, you know, telling people to eat worms on Fear Factor. And so. And I think you nailed it with the word trust and authenticity. I mean, a lot of times. And I think this is true for everyone, but I think it's especially true of listeners who don't think of themselves as political people, people who I think are sometimes pejoratively called low information voters, but people who just don't think it's their job to study up on the ins and outs of politics. Often what it comes down to is who do you trust? And so you hear a lot of conflicting, competing information. You know, you hear one source telling you doge is just a scam, and it's just, you know, a way for Elon Musk to enrich himself. And then you hear Joe Rogan or Elon Musk or Theo Vaughn saying, I don't know, it seems cool to me. You know, we're cutting waste from the government. And if you don't want to embark on the really difficult project of sifting through the conflicting evidence, you can just trust one source and not the other. So, you know, you mentioned Theo Vaughn. To my mind, he is a funny, really affable, kind of goofy guy. He presents himself as basically so curious that he almost seems to see it as his job to go in with no prior information into any conversation. And you can hear him from one week to the next. I mean, he, within the span of a week last summer, interviewed Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. And with each of these interviews, his stance is to kind of just sit back and go, oh, well, that's interesting. I never heard of that before. He kind of copied this format from Rogan, where when something new comes up that they don't know about, they have a production assistant or an intern or someone kind of sitting in the studio and they'll go, oh, could you pull that up? Could you Google that? I mean, I was listening when someone in a Theo Vaughn interview mentioned FDR and the New Deal and Theo Vaughn went, what is that again? Can we pull that up? And they Googled New Deal and started reading the Wikipedia article. So the vibe is very much not, you know, we've done our research, we've studied up, we've pre fact checked everything. It's really the opposite. It's like a.
- [41:05]
Tonya Moseley
They're the proxy for the audience in many ways.
- [41:07]
Andrew Morantz
Yes, very much. It's a dorm room kind of sitting around at a diner kind of conversation. They are a proxy for the audience who may or may not know all the proper nouns. And so they'll just Google it for you in real time. And often that's why it takes two or three or four hours. Cause they're really not in a hurry.
- [41:22]
Tonya Moseley
I want to play a clip from Theo Vaughn's show. It's when he had on social scientist Richard Reeves, who you also spoke with. Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. And he talked to Vaughn about how men are struggling to find purpose in today's world and how during the pandemic, there was lots of research being reported about how the isolation would impact women and girls, but not necessarily men and boys. And here's Theo's response.
- [41:53]
Theo Vaughn
I don't know if ever in my life, there's been, like, a. Like a lot of organizations where it's like, hey, men need help. You know, it's like, everything is that women need help with this, children, you know, and certainly that makes sense. I always think back to, like, women and children first. Like when the Titanic was sinking or something. You know, when. Something like that, it's. It's like women and children first. Right. And that's probably what most men would want as well. But at a certain point, you're like, hey, we exist. What are we doing here? You know?
- [42:21]
Tonya Moseley
That was podcaster and comedian Theo Vaughn and social scientist Richard Reeves on Theo's podcast. Andrew, you write about how at one point during this particular conversation, Theo said, I'm not speaking against any other group. I'm just saying, you can't make white males feel like they don't exist. He's saying basically that mainstream media primarily focuses their attention on the plight of people of other identities, and no one is really telling the stories of the disaffected male. Is that something that you. You heard during your reporting often?
- [42:53]
Andrew Morantz
Definitely. There was a really interesting moment on Theo Vaughan that I spoke to Stavros Halkias about. He's another comedian who's actually a much more leftist comedian. A lot of these guys are professional comedians for, I think, interesting reasons. And when Stavros went on Theo's show, Theo started to say a lot of stuff that I think is, frankly, pretty offensive about, you know, why we need to close the border and, you know, stuff that sounded pretty xenophobic. And because Stavros is his friend, he didn't say, how dare you, sir? And get up and leave and storm out. You know, he kind of laughed along and, yes. Anded the joke in a way that kind of steered him away from the xenophobia parts and toward a kind of more common understanding, to the point that by the end of that interview, Stavros was offering a kind of very concise explanation of why he thought Trump and the Republicans were terrible. And delivering this to Theo Von, who had kind of just been at Trump's inauguration and almost seemed to be in his corner. And it wasn't contentious. It wasn't heated, it was real disagreement, but it was in a kind of amiable bro y way. So I don't know. I mean, if that's the manosphere, then it's not as scary as all that. But it's not always possible to model that kind of agreement. It takes prior relationship, often it takes trust. So it's not like this is a kind of cure all for all the cultural ills of America. But I do think it's worth it for at least Democratic politicians to take note. The kind of pearl clutching aesthetic is just very, very off putting to people. I mean, I heard that more times than I could count.
- [44:32]
Tonya Moseley
You said you had a theory or you found it interesting that many of these guys are comedians. Why is that? Have they just found their lane within the podcasting space or.
- [44:41]
Andrew Morantz
Well, I think there's something about when your job is to talk for a living and to kind of push boundaries for a living. You, I think, kind of over index for that. I mean, a lot of the comedian's craft is to look at something you've seen a thousand times. You know, the line to get into the airplane or the, you know, room service at a hotel and find something quirky and new and maybe a little bit taboo to say about it. And so it kind of makes sense that if you're on one of these long form podcasts, it's not gonna sound like, okay, here's a very tidy, efficient summary of the negotiations yesterday over the budget shutdown. It's gonna sound like, man, like, what even is a budget? Like, why do we even give money to each other? Have you ever thought about that? You know, it's like sort of radically open. And I think a lot of Democrats underestimated how powerfully affecting that is for people. I mean, in the piece, I kind of refer to this as parasocial media. It's not social media in the sense of, you know, an algorithmic feed. It's parasocial in the sense that. I mean, that word means basically a kind of imagined one way friendship that the listener has with the host. So if you're listening to Theo Vaughn or Joe Rogan for tens or dozens or hundreds of hours while you're at the gym or while you're folding laundry or whatever, you'd feel like you know them. I mean, I feel like I know them. And so then when they tell you something or they, they, they start a line of questioning, you have a certain amount of trust and a certain amount of generosity, like, oh, let's see where he's going with this. And that's a very, very, very powerful tool in culture and in politics. And I think for a long time there's been this assumption that, oh, politics is one thing and Spotify is another, and they're just not separate things at all. And I feel like it took way too long for political consultants to learn that about social media. I feel like they've now learned it about social media, but they're a little behind the ball on parasocial media.
- [46:38]
Tonya Moseley
I want to follow the money just for a minute. Are a lot of wealthy donors funding these podcasters and influencers on the right?
- [46:47]
Andrew Morantz
Yeah, there is definitely money going into the right wing podcast sphere. Some of it from political donors and some of it just, you know, Joe Rogan got a massive deal from Spotify just because he was very popular. And part of what, you know, when Hasan Piker says, you know, the Democrats can't podcast their way out of this, I think part of what he means is you can't just have a kind of astroturf solution where you throw a bunch of money at sort of randomly selected people whose views you like and that'll do it. Right. So to kind of play out that argument. The way that argument would go is, okay, let's say some left of center donor decided to give hundreds of millions of dollars to whichever, you know, TikTok Star was kind of supporting the Democrats. Would that boost awareness of the Democrats? Probably. But what it wouldn't do is have the authentic feeling of an organic, trusted, authentic, weird voice. Right. So you were saying before, people who've known parasocially someone like Theo Vaughn or Joe Rogan for years, they have a kind of trust in them. And a lot of what that trust comes from is not just putting in the parasocial hours, although that's important, but also, frankly, how weird and idiosyncratic these people's interests are. You can't grow Joe Rogan of the right in a lab because Joe Rogan wasn't the Joe Rogan of the right until a few months ago. In 2020, Joe Rogan was the Joe Rogan of the left. He supported Bernie Sanders for president and then between 2020 and 2024, he was lost. But the point I'm making with that is if you had decided to astroturf your way to Joe Rogan, you wouldn't have been looking in the right place because you wouldn't have been funding Joe Rogan. So a lot of where the trust and authenticity comes from is, you know, this is someone whose interests I Actually just vibe with at a totally apolitical level. And then when they start talking about politics, maybe I'll take some advice from them. That's a very hard thing to kind of recreate from the top down.
- [48:57]
Tonya Moseley
Have you been listening to these podcasters since Trump took office and how are they approaching it?
- [49:03]
Andrew Morantz
Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk was on Rogan a week or two ago talking about all this stuff. And it was after the Doge stuff had started, after they had made these massive cuts to usaid. And Rogan asked him, what's going on with this man? People say that babies are dying and all this terrible stuff is happening. And Musk just said, oh, no, that's not really true. And then they kind of moved on. You know, again, this is not a journalistic standard of pushback. This is not a, you know, I'm coming in with the receipts and I'm going to make you answer. I think that could be really illuminating, actually, if someone could get someone like Elon Musk to sit down for 4 hours unedited with receipts and say, here, you said you cut a billion dollars, but it was actually a million dollars. Your explanation, please. You know, but I just don't think that is what someone like Joe Rogan sees his job as. I think he sees it as a hang that, you know, we're just hanging. And it would be weird if you were hanging with your friend and you kept badgering them with receipts. So that's not what he's gonna do.
- [50:10]
Tonya Moseley
There's so much more to your article. We scratched the surface. But really, I just wanna know from you, I mean, the title is the Battle for the Bros. Young Men have Gone Maga. The can the Left Win Them Back? What did you come to after all of your reporting? Is it possible for the left to win them back?
- [50:28]
Andrew Morantz
I think it is. Luckily, I'm not a political strategist, so I have no idea how to do it. But one thing we haven't mentioned, which I think I should just explicitly say, is what do we mean by the left? Is actually a very live question. So when people talk about can there be a Joe Rogan of the left, or can the left win back young people? Are the left and the Democrats the same thing or are they actually at odds? In many ways, a lot of what Hasan Piker does is criticize the Democrats from the left. And often what he says is, I'm a leftist, not a liberal. So one thing that has to be sort of resolved, or at least the tension has to be, I think recognized is what do we mean when we say the left? And then I think to the second part of the question, can the center left, Democrat, anti Republican coalition win young men back? I think yes. And I think it, you know, based on the conversations I've had with various people, you know, it's a combination of material factors and kind of cultural factors. So, so I think it's trying to deliver a coherent policy agenda that will actually benefit people and make their lives better and more meaningful. And then also showing up in these spaces, both online and irl, to tell them how you're going to do that. So easier said than done. And as I say, luckily it's not my job to do it, but it's possible for sure.
- [52:04]
Tonya Moseley
Andrew Marantz, as always, thank you so much.
- [52:07]
Andrew Morantz
Thank you, Tanya. This was great.
- [52:09]
Tonya Moseley
Andrew Marantz is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His latest article is the Battle for the Bros. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering help today from Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nakunde, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper with Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Mosley.
- [52:53]
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