← Offline with Jon Favreau
Offline with Jon Favreau
Trump’s Epstein Nightmare, Jubilee’s Fascist Debate, and the Movie Twitter Wrote
01:12:39
Living through a deadly plague as we watched the country descend into political violence on our screens might've left us with some...unresolved issues. Director Ari Aster sits down with Jon to break down his new dark comedy, “Eddington,” which depicts the violent unraveling of a small town as it faces pandemic, polarization, and AI proliferation. But first! MSNBC’s Brandy Zadrozny joins Offline to unpack the latest in MAGA’s cannibalizing Epstein conspiracy, debate the merits of online debate (we're looking at you, Jubilee), and wade through Elon’s latest unhinged innovation: a horny anime chatbot that flirts with children.
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- [00:00]
Jon Favreau
Offline is brought to you by Oneskin. What does your skincare routine look like? Before One Skin, it was just putting some water on my face once in a while. Yeah, Lucky if there was soap.
- [00:09]
Brandy Zadrozny
No.
- [00:11]
Jon Favreau
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- [01:41]
Ari Aster
I just feel like we're living through an experiment. We're living out an experiment that has already failed so badly and nobody at the levers seems interested in slowing things down. It's only being accelerated. And so I just don't trust the track that we're on. Like, I don't. I mean, I'm horrified by the track that we're on.
- [02:09]
Jon Favreau
I'm Jon Favreau and you just heard from today's guest director, Ari Aster. So Ari stopped by our studio yesterday to talk about his new film Eddington, which Cards on the Table is one of my favorite movies of the year. It is very funny, very dark, kind of insane, incredibly offline. He's actually described it as, quote, the movie. Twitter wrote it's set in a small town during the summer of 2020, and it's basically about people losing their minds after being glued to their screens during the most tumultuous year of our lives. And yet, like I said, it is very funny. I laughed throughout most of the movie. So we talk about the movie, but for those of you who haven't seen the movie for first, go see it second. We talk a lot about social media, the political moment. We're in the specter of political violence, what scares him about AI and whether we can ever get back to having shared reality in this country. We'll get to that conversation in a moment. But before we do, Brandy Zadrozny, welcome to the pod.
- [03:09]
Brandy Zadrozny
Thanks for having me.
- [03:11]
Jon Favreau
It's great to have you on. I've been wanting to have you on for a while. Could you, for people who don't know you, could you introduce yourself and just tell us what you do?
- [03:20]
Brandy Zadrozny
Sure. I am a senior enterprise reporter for msnbc and my beat is sort of hard to pin down. It's politics. It's basically like the weirdos, the fringe of society that just happened to be in power now. So, you know, that's basically it.
- [03:40]
Jon Favreau
The people you were reporting on, who started in the comment sections, now are in the White House. That's unbelievable. That's the journey. So it's been a minute since we've talked news on this show, but there happen to be a few stories worth mentioning, so I wanted to have you on to talk about them. The first is obviously the continued drama around Jeffrey Epstein. We got Mike Johnson literally shutting down the House for the summer so that he doesn't have to hold a vote on a binding resolution to release more Epstein files. We got Pam Bondi looking to interview convicted Epstein co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, which she apparently didn't have any interest in doing before announcing she wouldn't be releasing any more info. And then we have Donald Trump, who is is so angry and desperate to change the subject that he's playing a remastered version of all his greatest hits. Here he is in the Oval Office. Yesterday, the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?
- [04:43]
Brandy Zadrozny
This was treason.
- [04:45]
Jon Favreau
This was every word you can think of.
- [04:48]
Brandy Zadrozny
They tried to steal the election.
- [04:51]
Jon Favreau
They tried to obfuscate the election, they did things that nobody's ever even imagined. Even in other countries, you've seen some pretty rough countries. This man has seen some pretty rough.
- [05:01]
Brandy Zadrozny
Countries, but you've never seen anything like it.
- [05:04]
Jon Favreau
Never seen anything like it.
- [05:05]
Brandy Zadrozny
Everything you could think of.
- [05:06]
Jon Favreau
Everything you could think of. Every word. It's every word you could think of. So, yeah, I know your job is wading through the Internet's right wing fever swamps. This scandal has now lasted more than two weeks, which is basically a lifetime in today's information environment. Where are the MAGA influencers and the MAGA base at this point? Are they still pissed at the White House? Are they buying the Obama pivot? Are they losing interest altogether?
- [05:37]
Brandy Zadrozny
Yeah, there's, like, different tiers of maga. And so, like, you have the MAGA influencers and the MAGA producers and the peddlers, and then you have the consumers, the MAGA consumers who watch all the podcasts and listen to the President all the time and go to the rallies and the audience. And they are on two totally separate wavelengths. You know, after the initial memo came out, all the influencers were, like, turning Point USA was having their summit. So they were sort of inundated with, like, actual people that they had to see to their face and had to answer for it. And you could, like, really, truly see in a way that I've never seen before, like, the fear in Charlie Kirk's eyes during that summit. He was just like, so tell me why you are mad, and really, like, gave people the mic for a long moment. Same thing with Bannon. Bannon was trying to, like, whip up a frenzy there. But then after that moment, after they let them air their grievances, you know, I talk with many of these people, and so back home, as it were, they were kind of hoping that, like, whew, now onto the next thing. Cause it's always been onto the next thing. But the MAGA faithful, I think they're tired. They're absolutely exhausted. Marjorie Taylor Greene had this great tweet the other day where I was like, marjorie Taylor Greene gets it. And she said, you know, you cannot keep promising, dangling these, you know, things in front of your MAGA base. And it's been since 2016, since Lock her up since Lock Up Fauci, since Drain the Swamp, since We're gonna get the Biden crime family, et cetera. I mean, it's just one after another. And now he's gotten everybody out. There's no one there to stop him from doing what he wants to do. Where is the stake and they're not giving it up. The influencers would very much like to move on. They were kind of hoping they could with the Wall Street Journal story the other day. They thought this was gonna be a rallying moment. And even still, the base is like, okay, oh, we're not stupid. Where are the files? It's very sticky.
- [07:39]
Jon Favreau
And I notice now that a lot of the influencers are sort of jumping on this Obama treasonous conspiracy story and FOX is running with it and all this kind of stuff. But even that, I realize my guess as to why the Trump administration is doing it is they're just like, we gotta up the ante to actually have more headlines that are different than the ones we've been getting on Epstein. And just saying, like, John Brennan and Jim Clapper and this and that, that's not gonna do it. We gotta go Obama, we gotta go treason, and we gotta go a conspiracy that's so hard to understand that you don't even actually look into it.
- [08:17]
Brandy Zadrozny
All the things.
- [08:18]
Jon Favreau
But promising that Obama's gonna get arrested and go to jail and all this kind of stuff. That to me is like, in the same category of promising the Epstein stuff. Like, it might get them through a couple days of this and change some headlines, but eventually everyone's gonna be like, okay, you told us there's gonna be Epstein files. There's no Epstein files. You told us that Obama was part of a treasonous conspiracy and you're gonna arrest him. And nothing came of that. Who knows what the DOJ will do, but it's gonna get fucking laughed out of every courtroom in the country. So I just. It seems like they are constantly trying to get themselves to the next day and not really thinking how this might sort of erode trust in them among the people who are their biggest supporters.
- [09:00]
Brandy Zadrozny
In the long run, you get it, right? Because again, they've always been sort of able to do this. This is the one time I don't think it's gonna work. What is that, like a kick? DOG hollers yeah, like, it's very, you know, it's a little bit delicious to see them squirm just a little bit. As a reporter who has followed, like, all of these lies over the years, to finally get stuck in their own conspiracy theory is really fun. I don't know where it goes. The stuff with Obama getting locked up, the Russian collusion hoax, I don't understand it. I don't understand. And I've read the things. I read the DNI reports. It's nonsensical and the conspiracy consumers, they come to totally incorrect conclusions, but they can read. They're not like making things up, they're reading real things and coming to assumptions that are wrong. Like they're connecting the dots in a way that's not right, but they're not stupid. And this sort of thing where now Johnson saying like, oh, we're just gonna leave rather than force a vote, like it really is. And again, Trump's like, I have kids. That nonsensical explanation of, oh, he's really bad. He did all the things like, what does that mean? Like, there's a lot of just consternation among the base online and in these forums that are just, they're like, trust is quickly fleeting from. For this.
- [10:31]
Jon Favreau
You had a piece about the Epstein drama for MSNBC where you wrote whatever the Epstein files end up being. As a journalist, I want them. But I also know what happens when a big messy cache of information gets dropped into the middle of a post fact attention economy. And I'm not excited, I'm nervous. How come?
- [10:50]
Brandy Zadrozny
Yeah, here's just to make it very clear. I want to see everything in the Epstein files. I want every single piece. I want to turn every page. It is a real crime that happened and real people that seemingly looked the other way during that crime, whether we're talking about Acosta or his famous friends. So I want to see them. But I think, and I don't think Trump listens to the show, so we're probably fine, we're safe. But I, I think it would be the best thing that he could do to get all of these people off his back is to release the Epstein files in whatever way that he could do it would be like, that is the thing that he could do. And then the people that love him, who love him, that are seeing these files or going through these things, they probably would come to incorrect conclusions based on that other narrative that they tell themselves that Democrats are bad. There is a cabal child pedophilia is real and Donald Trump is the savior. Look, he released these files. He could probably. I don't know what's in the files because I know how fervent his supporters are about him and how much they love him and the mental gymnastics they do to keep that narrative going. I sort of think that like barring something explosive in these files, they would forgive him or explain away anything that was in these files. So, like, that is what he should do. But that's also the thing that scares me because we've seen so many examples of this with The Twitter files with WikiLeaks especially, where you get this big tranche of information of data, and then people go through it. And those actual data dumps have probably been the sources of the longest running conspiracy theories and the most dangerous conspiracy theories to real people, from QAnon to Pizzagate. And so I don't want it. I would like to be able to gatekeep it in some way, but it doesn't. It turns out that nobody's getting it, so I guess I'm fine.
- [12:47]
Jon Favreau
I think it's such a good point because full transparency does not quell the conspiracies, as we have seen. Right. It's just. And we're seeing this with, you know, Tulsi Gabbard dumps a bunch of evidence and documents and blah, blah, blah, and says it's a big conspiracy. And unfortunately, I read through everything and it's like, you read through it and it's not damning. And it's not like they made stuff up, they actually put it up. They just. If you don't have the context, you can think a whole bunch of different things. And that's probably the case with the Epstein files, like you said, barring some explosive allegation. But I do think Trump's problem is either there is some explosive allegation about him in there or there is nothing. And they're worried about saying that there is nothing or releasing information that doesn't shed any new light or create any new scandals. And then people say, well, what else are you hiding? You know, it's like, you can never satiate the hunger of the conspiracy theorists.
- [13:49]
Brandy Zadrozny
No, absolutely not. It's a real pickle. I feel. I truly feel for them. Like, what do you do in this moment? And again, I think part of it is, again, the way that Trump, during his first term, surrounded himself with, like, fairly competent sycophants who, like, after a short amount of time decided, oh, no, that's not for me, and exited. Now it's just, I mean, less competent, probably sycophants, but who are like, ultra among the base, who will do literally whatever he says. And so there's just, there's no reason that I can think of or that he's made clear that these files should not be released. Except he said it might implicate people unfairly that are in the files. So, like, ugh, I hate. It's like, I know, and I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but, like, it raises questions, right?
- [14:39]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. If you don't buy into the conspiracy, he has really made it extremely hard to maintain that position.
- [14:48]
Brandy Zadrozny
He's not done himself any favors.
- [14:58]
Jon Favreau
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- [16:54]
Ari Aster
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- [16:58]
Jon Favreau
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- [17:00]
Ari Aster
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- [17:28]
Jon Favreau
Speaking of right wing fever swamps, our pal Mehdi Hassan waded into one on the YouTube channel Jubilee when he debated 20 far right conservatives. That's what they were called. But at least one of them self identified as a fascist during the debate. The clips in the debate have all gone viral. The self identified fascist lost his job and then went on a media tour and raised a bunch of money. Jubilee has been getting criticism for giving fascists a platform and of course a discourse has ensued. Here is one of the clips from the debate. Quite frankly, if Trump is anti Constitution, good. And I think he should go further. So this is, this is wonderfully revealing of the modern conservative mindset. So I appreciate you spelling it out so openly. Just checking. Do you support the second Amendment? I do. Okay. Surprised. I was shocked to hear that. I'm saying that Donald Trump is defying the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the 14th Amendment.
- [18:23]
Brandy Zadrozny
He's thinking of defying the 12th and 22nd Amendments.
- [18:26]
Jon Favreau
You're saying you don't care about the the Constitution, but actually you do because you quite like the second Amendment. You just don't like the bits that you disagree with. Can I just be clear on that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I'm more than willing to, I'm more than willing to amend it and whenever it's in your favor. Yeah, absolutely. Can Democrats do the same when they're in office? No, absolutely not. Because you don't believe in democracy.
- [18:43]
Ari Aster
No, I don't.
- [18:44]
Jon Favreau
Absolutely not. What do you believe in? Autocracy. A little bit more than a far right Republican.
- [18:49]
Ari Aster
Hey, what can I say?
- [18:51]
Jon Favreau
I think you say I'm a fascist. Yeah, I am. You made the great suggestion to cover this one, which finally got me to watch most of it. I had been holding it off. Wow, wow, wow, wow. What are your thoughts on this whole thing?
- [19:09]
Brandy Zadrozny
Oh boy, it's hard. I think we have like this, we've had this conversation in the media for a long time about platforming people. Right. Like who we platform and why. But there is a part of me that subscribes to the argument that we're post that period. Like we are beyond platforming people. Like I am no longer a gatekeeper for anybody on a cable news network. You know, I mean the Internet does the Internet thing, but I think it's and in some way. I like a world in which people have to see that and the outwardness of that. And people who are necessarily not in the fever swamps of like the Gripers online, see the Nazi content on X, have to come face to face with the idea that people are proud and out about that. But what are we doing? What is this debate show? What is the point of it? I did a little dive into Jubilee generally and the whole point of it supposed to be something feel good, radical empathy. There's a Semaphore podcast with the Hedda Jubilee and the whole premise of it was that could this bring us together? And it was just like, what? What are we doing? It's fine. I mean, I'm glad to see this guy, like seen for what he is and have to come out and say it, but it's just a weird form of entertainment. It feels very Jerry Springer to me and I don't love that.
- [20:38]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I have had the same sort of tension on this. I've gone back and forth. First I was like, this is ridiculous. Before the Mehdi debate. I've watched a couple others and my first reaction was, this is so stupid. And then I watched one, I watched the one that Sam Cedar did and I was like, you know what, this is actually pretty good because I had seen like the, the ones where it's just a right wing person and then debating 20 liberals or progressives, whatever, and I thought that Sam did a pretty good job. And I'm like, maybe this can be useful. And then I heard about the METI one. I'm like, this is fucking awful. And then I watched it and it was also fucking awful. I do, I agree with you that it's good for people to know that those views are out there. And it's also, I think, important for us to make arguments that refute those views of the world, which are unfortunately real and have gained traction among some faction of the Republican Party and particularly younger people. I don't know how representative it is, right, like that you need more quantitative data than just 20 random people who could have been, you know, some of them are influencers. Who knows how they got them? Who knows how they were, you know, came there. So it's not, I don't think it's a good representation of like how many people believe that shit. But if it's out there, I think it's important to develop arguments that refute it. Because I don't worry about like Mitti convincing anyone in that room, but if someone tunes into that shit, are they going to be swayed by it. And even if Jubilee were to not exist tomorrow, if someone stumbled into those arguments on the Internet, are they gonna be convinced by them slowly, maybe even a little bit, which is still hugely problematic. And so I wanna make sure we refute them. That said, I totally agree that if we're gonna do a debate show, and the purpose of a debate show is to either bring us together or not bring us together, but at least hash out important issues and air disagreements, probably could get a different format with different participants and not just have a fascist on talking about why he's a fascist. And then you hit the button and then the next person comes on like a couple minutes later. I don't know that that's the most valuable use of everyone's time, it really.
- [22:58]
Brandy Zadrozny
But do you remember the Jerry Springer show where you have the KKK people come on with the black power people? And he'd be like. And it was framed as some sort of social experiment. Like, no, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. You just wanted to make people mad and make watchers. It's rage bait. That is what it is. We should call it what it is. And that's fine. I do think Pete Buttigieg did an episode that was interesting and I think that you can't. Maybe they just went too far with this. Cause apparently they have some sort of harm clause at Jubilee where they don't platform people who risk harm. But I'm not quite sure what that harm is. But I hate it. But I have in the last day I've been asking the teenagers in my life and they love it. They love this show.
- [23:50]
Jon Favreau
Well, that is. I mean, again, as long as it exists. I do think probably people like Mehdi who are very good at debating should probably go on it.
- [23:58]
Brandy Zadrozny
Agree.
- [23:59]
Jon Favreau
Because otherwise the people that you get are going to be subpar and then they're going to debate the crazies. And then when the teenagers watch it, you know, they could be persuaded. And look, I do think there is a. You know, you got people like Curtis Yarvin, right. He's that like far right thinker who also doesn't really care for democracy, is making that argument. I could see debates where you have him debating someone else and it's a long form thing. It's like a two hour podcast or whatever you put out there. It's the format and the people that they're bringing on from on the right that is the problem to me.
- [24:35]
Brandy Zadrozny
And you see them recycled throughout some of the. So these are like wannabe influencers whose ideas have not catapulted them to fame yet. One would assume by seeing their debate performances is because their ideas are bad, or they're bad at expressing those ideas. Like they're no Mehdi Hasan, you know, and so, like, this is why there are 20 of them, because they're just not famous enough. But they keep being on the show hoping, like this guy who's identified as a fascist, Connor, hoping that he will now, now he's tonight he's like co hosting or guest hosting this far right podcast. So he's on his way, baby.
- [25:10]
Jon Favreau
I know. I looked at his Twitter feed and he's gotten so much attention and he's on all these live streams now and they raised $30,000 for him. It's fucking terrible. All right, I wanna cover one other story with you before we jump to the Ari Aster interview. Last week, Elon Musk gave the Grok AI chatbot formerly known as Mecca Hitler a very horny makeover. As part of a new feature that XAI is calling Companions, Grok users can now interact with a flirty version of the AI named Annie, which the Verge best described as, quote, a busty young anime woman with blonde pigtails, blue eyes, thigh high fishnets, and a skimpy gothic Lolita mini dress. Victoria Song, who wrote that line for The Verge, spent 24 hours interacting with Annie and found that the chatbot is essentially programmed to flirt, engaging in, quote, spicy stories that amount to softcore porn, and that the bot has, quote, a disturbing lack of guardrails. One of those missing guardrails would be age verification. Casey Newton at Platformer discovered this week that the Grok app in the App Store, which users can access, is rated at being safe for children as young as 12 years old. Seems bad, huh?
- [26:23]
Brandy Zadrozny
I don't love it. You know, I try not to be too pearl clutching when it comes to stuff around pornography because, like, again, I'm an Internet reporter and you know, famously, any technology has always seemingly been used earliest and most popularly for some sort of pornography. And so it's a tale as old as the Internet. But this one, it's just so gross. It's so gross. Coming from Elon Musk. It's so gross coming like a week after the Hitler stuff and the Nazis sympathizing. It's just like, can he just stop?
- [27:03]
Jon Favreau
It's like, I was just thinking about your, what you said about a lot of teenagers like Jubilee. I mean, I do. There is this sort of rise in chatbot companions, too, among young people especially. And so I do think there's a real concern here that as AI becomes more of a daily part of people's lives and. And younger people use it, then it's. It's going to sort of not just reshape how young people think about, you know, sex and deal and interacting with chatbots that are, you know, like this one, but just their relationships, their friendships, you know, what do you. Do you have that concern, too?
- [27:46]
Brandy Zadrozny
Yeah, I have two sons and a daughter, and the oldest one is in his teens now. And, you know, it's very hard as a parent of a teen to, like, talk to them about sex in general, to talk to them about, you know, technology. Pornography just generally is so much different from when I was growing up, from when my husband was growing up. I mean, it's not like a Penthouse anymore, you know, in a friend of a friend's. And it's not even like someone said that the chatbots are almost more like those 900 numbers, those 1, 800 girls, girls. Girls used to have. But even those I've asked for people of their memories recently, and it was a bunch of boys all together, calling the chat room and laughing and hanging up out of shame and embarrassment, and then moving on. Involvement with a chatbot and interaction with a chatbot can feel so immersive. It's. It's this way that, you know, you spend hours, you know, on your cell phone before you realize that you have. And I. So I worry so much about all of our boys, and I worry about, you know, how pornography, just regular video pornography that is so ubiquitous online. And, you know, the age limits don't work on how that's already warping their idea of, like, what healthy sexual relationship is with a partner. And I think it's already, like, so messed up. And then you get. So you're not just passively watching pornography as a young developing brain, you're, like, actually engaging in a type of verbal pornography with a machine, with a bot in this way that, like, there's no guardrails that I know of. I don't know what that does. It scares me. It worries me a lot.
- [29:36]
Jon Favreau
I mean, there's no guardrails. There's also. There's no friction, right? Because you get whatever you want. And in real life, you go out and you talk to people that you're interested in, whether they're friends, whether it's a relationship, and you have to figure out it's clumsy and confusing, and it's hard for Young people. And so why would you do that if you can just stay home, be on your screen and have this companion that's going to tell you everything you want and give you everything you want?
- [30:06]
Brandy Zadrozny
Yeah. How do you figure out, like what a girl likes, what a woman wants? How you know, I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't seem good to me. I know. I was talking to my husband about it this morning and I was like, I have played around with ChatGPT. I have a really great fact checking thing that I run through ChatGPT that I love, but for writing and stuff. I don't use it for writing and research, only for many reasons, but primarily because I gave it a go one time and literally for a week I was like, I feel like a yearning to use ChatGPT where I don't need it. Like that's. And like that is same one to one for me. I'm like, oh, no, we're going to lose our IQ with ChatGPT for work and our. I don't know what's going to happen with our children and their, like, sexual health and relationships, but it just seems really bad.
- [30:57]
Jon Favreau
I find it incredibly useful for search and for like, research kind of stuff. But as soon as it starts, you know, I find myself like thanking it, you know, because it's just like, what? You know, you're like, thank you for that. And I was like, why am I thanking that? You know? And then it starts. The more you thank it and personalize it, then it starts personalizing back to you. And once it got to that, I was like, I don't want to. But we've also lived, you know, half our lives without any of this stuff. For most of our lives with any of this stuff. And I worry about. I do worry about our kids. I. I just saw Common Sense Media says that 72% of teens have used AI companions at least once. So that is.
- [31:33]
Brandy Zadrozny
That's wild.
- [31:34]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. That's something that we're gonna have to have to figure out.
- [31:38]
Brandy Zadrozny
And I think we will. I do think we will. I think the kids are all right, generally. I think that they will be all right. I do not think it will be the end of the world, but I don't like it. And I don't fucking trust Elon Musk.
- [31:50]
Jon Favreau
No.
- [31:50]
Brandy Zadrozny
With my child.
- [31:51]
Jon Favreau
Nope.
- [31:52]
Brandy Zadrozny
With my brain. Like, if I just. I would never.
- [31:56]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Yeah. Well, he hasn't done a good job with himself, so I don't know why he'd do a good job with all of us. Brandy, thank you a ton for joining. Next time we'll talk about some more hopeful topics which are hard to come by when it comes to the Internet and social media, but we'll figure it out. Hopefully we can do this again soon. It was really great talking to you.
- [32:15]
Brandy Zadrozny
It was great to be here. Thanks so much.
- [32:17]
Jon Favreau
All right, in a moment you're going to hear my conversation with Ari Aster. But before we jump to break, some quick housekeeping. If you haven't heard already, Vote Save America has launched a brand new pilot program to recruit candidates in Arizona, North Carolina and Texas. We're talking school board, city council, state legislature, really important races that sometimes people we just don't feel candidates for and we need to in order to build a bench for the long term. 2026, as we all know could be a turning point, but if no one's running, we can't win. And that's where you come in. This is the best, most effective way to get involved and Vote Save America has great partners on the ground who've already identified the races that need candidates and they're here to connect you with the tools, training and support to get started. This is how we flip states. So if you're listening, if you thought me run for office, no way. Think about it. We're here to help you out. Vote Save America is here to help you out. Some great, great organizations on the ground are and you are needed and so think about running for local office. We've already had so many people sign up more than we ever expected, so the response has been overwhelming and it's really important to do this. So think about it. Sign up@votesaveamerica.com run to learn more. Paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more@votesaveamerica.com this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Offline is brought to you by Haya. Typical children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, filled with two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals and other gummy additives growing kids should never eat. That's why Haya created a super powered, chewable vitamin. Haya is made with zero sugar and zero gummy additives, yet it tastes great and is perfect for picky eaters. Haya fills in the most common gaps in modern children's diets to provide the full body nourishment our kids need with a yummy taste they love. Formulated with the help of pediatricians and nutritional experts, Haya is pressed with A blend of 12 organic fruits and veggies then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals, Haya is designed for kids two and up and sent straight to your door so parents have one less thing to worry about. We love Hya Vitamins in our house. Charlie's been taking high vitamins for a long time and he likes the taste and we like that they're not sugary. And we also like that he's getting all the vitamins he needs because he's certainly not getting it from the food he eats. And are you tired of battling with your kids to eat their greens? HA now has Kids Daily Greens and Superfoods, a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids. Packed with 55 plus whole food ingredients to support brain power, development and digestion. Just scoop, shake and sip with milk or any non dairy beverage for a delicious and nutritious boost your kids will actually enjoy. We've worked out a special deal with Haya for their bestselling children's vitamin receive 50% off your first order to claim this deal you must go to hyahealth.com off. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H I y dash A H E a L T h dot com OFF and get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Next Level Pet people will do anything for their dogs. That means treating them with next level protection from parasites with Nexguard + a Foxalonir, Moxidectin and Parantil chewable tablets. Nexguard + Chews provide one and done monthly protection against fleas, ticks, heartworm disease, roundworms and hookworms, all in a tasty beef flavored chew used with caution in dogs with a history of seizures or neurologic disorders. Dogs should be tested for existing heartworm infection prior to starting a preventive. Ask your vet about nexguard plus Chews Res. You're welcome to offline.
- [35:57]
Ari Aster
Thanks for having me.
- [35:58]
Jon Favreau
So I started this show in the middle of the pandemic because I felt like living through a deadly plague in our homes, on our screens with limited social contact in the midst of a presidential campaign that ended in a violent insurrection might have left us with some unresolved issues that we're all still working through. You have made a movie, one of the first, I think that really feels sounds looks like a movie about living through the miserable insanity of that time period. And yet I was just telling you I laughed a lot. I laughed through most of it.
- [36:34]
Ari Aster
Good.
- [36:36]
Jon Favreau
Why did you want to tell a story about those years?
- [36:38]
Ari Aster
Well, I mean I started writing it at the time I started. You know, the film is set in late May, early June 2020. And that's when I kind of.
- [36:48]
Jon Favreau
That was the height of it.
- [36:48]
Ari Aster
I sat down to. Yeah. To try to grapple with it. You know, I was mostly just feeling a lot of fear and anxiety and dread, and I wanted to understand it better. You know, I think that's kind of the only way to get past what you're afraid of, what you're feeling. And all I know is that dread has only kind of increased and, like, risen in me. So, you know, making the film didn't conquer it. But I also think it's because what. What happened in 2020, we haven't metabolized it because we're still living in it. And so, I don't know, I've been. I've been really hungry for work. That's about this moment. Because I don't understand what's happening. And if I see something that reflects my experience in any way, I feel less alone.
- [37:54]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [37:55]
Ari Aster
And so that's.
- [37:57]
Jon Favreau
And it's a period that made us feel quite alone.
- [38:00]
Ari Aster
Yeah. Well, I think. Yeah. I think that's part of what's happened with this new digital, connected world as it's created these new forms of solitude.
- [38:12]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [38:13]
Ari Aster
Like, I'm lonely in a way that I've never felt before.
- [38:17]
Jon Favreau
Right. Even though I always think that these devices, our screens, give us the illusion of connection.
- [38:25]
Ari Aster
Yeah.
- [38:25]
Jon Favreau
You know, and.
- [38:26]
Ari Aster
But we're in our heads.
- [38:27]
Jon Favreau
But we're in our heads.
- [38:29]
Ari Aster
We're deeper in our heads than ever.
- [38:31]
Jon Favreau
How did you experience the pandemic? Like, when you were thinking about this, were you just on your screen all the time? Were you largely alone? Like, what were you feeling at that moment?
- [38:44]
Ari Aster
I was feeling. Well, I was like, just kind of living on the Internet, living on Twitter. I wasn't tweeting.
- [38:57]
Jon Favreau
But you were scrolling.
- [38:58]
Ari Aster
I was scrolling and I was retweeting. And I knew that I was being agitated, but it wasn't really until I got off Twitter that I. That I realized just how agitated I was.
- [39:08]
Jon Favreau
When did you get off Twitter?
- [39:10]
Ari Aster
I got off Twitter around the time Bo came out, where I was just like, you know what? I better. I think. I think I better unplug here. But because I was working on Beau at that time, I kind of rushed to get as much of that time on paper and kind of create an archive of that time as I could before moving back to Bode, just so I had something really solid to come back to. And I recognized at the moment. I mean, I don't know if this is right, but the feeling was everything is changing so quickly, and there's no way to get your hand around whatever this world is that we're living in. Unless I did just decide, you know, I'm gonna make this film about one week, and that way, no matter what changes, I can always come back to that week. And so I'll make a period piece. And so, you know, a big part of that process at that moment was I wanted to take a lot of screenshots, and I created a few different burner accounts or profiles on Twitter, and I got myself into different algorithms.
- [40:29]
Jon Favreau
And were they sort of divided by politics? Like, did you go down a right wing and a left wing and then just.
- [40:35]
Ari Aster
Yeah, and then, like, you know, like the. Like the Nazi.
- [40:41]
Jon Favreau
I was going to say, was it like, wing. Was it not surprising but shocking to you once you sort of refined your scrolling to different accounts and different algorithms?
- [40:52]
Ari Aster
I don't want to say it was totally shocking because I understood what was happening, but I was really disturbed by just how hard it was to get out of those algorithms. And I really tried. I tried to sort of reset things on all of them and see, like, okay, now what would it mean to kind of get myself out of this quicksand and, you know, only to land in some other quicksand? And I found that I couldn't. And, I mean, I was already worried, but that. That only pushed that further.
- [41:24]
Jon Favreau
The movie's fascinating because each of these characters in the film is sort of in their own algorithmic bubble. And so they're together, but they're on their phones. Yeah. And because they're on their phones, because they're all getting different information, it sort of sharpens the divide between them. And I just thought it was. And of course, it's set in a small town in New Mexico, fictional town. And I was just struck by how you were able to really capture the sort of physical social disconnect we have with other people, because we are so in our phones all the time, and everyone's reality is different.
- [42:14]
Ari Aster
Yeah, yeah. That was. The idea, was to make a film about a community that was no community at all. Right. Like, it's people who are living in, you know, the same spaces but on different planes and. Yeah. People who are living in different realities who just are completely unreachable to each other. And I felt it was important to kind of treat all of these people as people who are gripped by, like, a real, like, yearning and conviction, and they all can feel very clearly that something is really wrong. And so they're activated in that sense, but they just all disagree on what that thing is or what the source of that thing is.
- [42:58]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [42:59]
Ari Aster
And so they're all kind of, you know, they're all kind of living in a sort of stasis, you know, in these different, you know, in this like, system that's based entirely on feedback. And they're all very self aware, but they're not. But. And then they're not self aware and they're all. They all know history. Right. But they're using. But there's too much history. So they're all using history to shore up what their beliefs are, which, you know, clash violently.
- [43:29]
Jon Favreau
History and feedback, which is. I think that's an important part of all this. Right. Which is all of these characters. And this happens just this is the way we live now is when you want feedback for beliefs that you have, for ways that you might act, whatever else it may be. You either put up a video or you tweet or you say and you look for that kind of affirmation. And I do think that that ends up really shaping and influencing how we interact with other people in real life and what we actually. And the actions that we take. Is this why you said this is a. I heard you say that this is the film that Twitter wrote.
- [44:12]
Ari Aster
Yeah, in a sense, that's where it started. And so, you know, I kind of wrote the first draft very, very quickly, went off to make Beau is Afraid. And then when I was in post production on boa's Afraid, I started rewriting it and then I flew back out to New Mexico. I'm from New Mexico. It's the region that I know best, the Southwest, but specifically New Mexico. And so I went back out, drove around the state, went to different counties to talk to different sheriffs, went to small towns to talk to mayors, police chiefs, public officials. I went to Pueblos, talked to people there. And I was just trying to get as broad a picture of, I guess, the, the political climate of the state, but also the emotional climate of the state and especially among people who are. Who are in roles of like, service. Right. And I found that that was huge. That really helped the movie get away from me because the film is satire, but it was very important to me that the film be empathic and that I, I see myself in all of these characters in the film.
- [45:28]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I'm very interested in. You did this online research where you have these different accounts and you're taking screenshots and then you did this very offline research where you go to New Mexico and travel around the state and talk to people. What was the difference between what you heard from people on the ground there about pandemic era politics, sort of the overall climate versus some of the stuff that you saw on Twitter in your digital research?
- [45:55]
Ari Aster
Well, you know, all the digital stuff is affected by the fact that most people are not fully anonymous online. But there's. But there's a cruelty and like a nastiness about everything I was gathering online and a smugness and a dismissiveness of anything that, you know, might conflict with. With what you believe or what you feel. And I found that, you know, meeting a lot of these people, a lot of whom had, you know, real feuds in their. In their public lives. You know, I guess, for instance, one sheriff who I found particularly interesting, and I. And I flew back out with Joaquin so that he could meet him. And. And Joaquin's character is kind of modeled on this guy. Not completely, but his wardrobe, for instance, it's how that guy dressed. And he showed up to consult on a few shooting days. But that sheriff had a really interesting feud with the mayor of the biggest town in his county.
- [47:06]
Jon Favreau
Was it over Covid restrictions?
- [47:08]
Ari Aster
Well, you know, they were both kind of on the. He was conservative, the mayor was more libertarian. And, yeah, it was about, you know, mask mandates, but it was about a lot of stuff. It was really complicated, and a lot of it was, like, personal. But you felt that in the way they talked about things, whereas, you know, everything kind of the line between personal and partisan, like, you know, blurred. But that mayor was really interesting because he had only recently become mayor, and before he was mayor, he tried to go to a town hall meeting. I forget what his complaint was, but he wanted to speak, and he had a gun in his holster, and they told him, you can't be in here with a gun. And so they asked him to leave. And so then he ran for mayor on the platform of, you know, like, if I become mayor, you won't be able to come to town hall without a gun. And he won, you know, and so anyway, a lot of interesting, funny anecdotes, but I found it really interesting who I found among all these people sympathetic or compelling, especially given my own politics, because I am on the left. But at the time Biden was president, the governor of New Mexico is a Democrat who's a figure of controversy. And I found that a lot of the. For instance, the mayors who were Democrats and were feeling kind of like they Were satisfied with the status quo. And they were very dismissive of anything that anybody else was feeling that contradicted their talking points. So I actually found talking to them kind of boring. And then I found talking to the people who were more on the right, a lot of whom. A lot of what they believed ran very counter to my convictions. I found them at the time, I found a lot of those people more interesting, more compelling. And they were really.
- [49:31]
Jon Favreau
They're genuine in their belief.
- [49:33]
Ari Aster
They were really upset about things that were happening or that they believed were happening, and they were desperate to talk about it. And they felt ignored or condescended to. And it just helped to talk to all these people and get this picture. And, you know, part of the project of the film was like, okay, I want to, like, turn a mirror on myself and I want to question. Is there a way to question ourselves? And at the same time, try to find the humanity and the people that we see as standing against us or, you know, the people that we have that we abhor, you know.
- [50:11]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [50:11]
Ari Aster
And that, you know.
- [50:13]
Jon Favreau
And so, I mean, looking back on it, I think.
- [50:18]
Ari Aster
Because we're all. Sorry, I was just gonna say, because we're all subject to the same forces, you know, that.
- [50:22]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [50:22]
Ari Aster
That's why that was important. Yeah.
- [50:24]
Jon Favreau
Anyway, I mean, the pandemic, sort of, in a way that you couldn't have scripted, I think, was almost designed to inflame the divisions that already existed in this country. Political divisions in a million different ways. One of them, I think, is just geographic. Right. Which I think you get at in the film, which is what, you know, densely populated areas needed to do for restrictions might not have made sense for very rural areas. Like the setting of Eddington. It's like a rural area. And you can kind of see that in the beginning of the movie, too. Right. So, like, there's, like, four people in the store, and then there's, like, people standing outside in line, but they're all, like, spaced out and it's outside and it's like. And you start to, like. You do start to think, okay, well, how would that have landed with someone who lives in, like, a town that's a couple hundred people where they're outside all the time? Like, it does. It's interesting looking back now. Like, I think one of the reasons I found myself laughing so much during the movie is because some of the satire of sort of the left, whether it was Covid restrictions, the social justice, it's like, oh, that's how we acted back then. And we have changed A little bit now. It was very. I thought that. Now, what have you made of the reaction to the film's political satire?
- [51:52]
Ari Aster
Well, I knew that the film would be polarizing because it's about polarization and it's about how polarized we are. I would say that, you know, I've heard, like, some critiques that I find to be sort of bad faith takedowns. Like, I think the argument that the film is centrist is, like. Is a bad faith reading.
- [52:14]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I wouldn't get that.
- [52:15]
Ari Aster
And I do hope my politics kind of come through by the end. But, you know, part of what was important to me is that the film also kind of be inscrutable just in order to be interesting, honestly. I mean, if I was gonna make just another ideological screed, like a, you know, film that was just strictly partisan in its. In its politics, then I. Then I would have only reached the choir that I was preaching to. And I. Again, I have very clear politics, but I. That felt way too narrow. I wanted to talk about, like, the environment that we're living in and.
- [52:58]
Jon Favreau
A.
- [52:58]
Ari Aster
Key to the film. Maybe the key is that, you know, there's a data center being built outside of the town.
- [53:06]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, an AI.
- [53:07]
Ari Aster
We begin with that, we end with that. That's a bit of a spoiler, but it's. That, for me, is what the film is really about. And it's about a bunch of people who are at each other's throats and who, you know, are warring on ideological grounds that in some ways are, you know, like, you know, have been complicated by personal conflict. Meanwhile, like, above them, there's a big. There's. Hovering above them is a big problem that they're not seeing that they're missing, and that is changing them. And so it's a film that is, in one way about a bunch of people navigating a crisis Covid while another crisis incubates. And they are essentially a bunch of burgeoning cyborgs. Right.
- [54:10]
Jon Favreau
Well, the most.
- [54:12]
Ari Aster
But something bigger is coming. They're burgeoning. Right. It's like it's already. They are being changed. But there's a. But we can't even fathom the change that's coming.
- [54:26]
Jon Favreau
And I think that even with the change that we've gone through over the last decade or so with social media, like, one of the more pernicious effects of this technology is. I think it sort of blinds us to the fact that it changes us because no one wants to readily admit that our minds are being shaped by fucking algorithms. Yeah. Right. And so it's just sort of. It's become one of. It's a difficult problem to solve because a lot of people were like, well, other people are crazy conspiracists, but not me.
- [54:54]
Ari Aster
No.
- [54:55]
Jon Favreau
It's like, well, we're all subject to the same algorithmic feeds.
- [54:58]
Ari Aster
So meanwhile, I'm finding it harder and harder to even think. Like, I find thinking to be more difficult. And we're outsourcing our thought to this new, you know, like, more and more people are going to ChatGPT and, you know, to, you know, to learn about themselves, you know, or to, like. I read something about, you know, just how many people are relying on these, like, you know, language models to, like. To, like, serve as their therapists.
- [55:25]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Their friend, their assistant, their pal, their lover. I mean, it's like it's getting somebody.
- [55:30]
Ari Aster
Marrying one right now.
- [55:31]
Jon Favreau
This is now. Like, I don't. I mean, it's.
- [55:34]
Ari Aster
No, it's.
- [55:34]
Jon Favreau
So when I. Before I saw the movie, I just saw some of the, like, it was described as divisive. Divisive movie. You know, politics. And I was like, great pandemic era, divisive political movie. I'm in. Let's check it out. And then, as I told you, I was like, watch the whole thing. And I went to the premiere with my brother, who's an actor, and afterwards, I was like. We were both laughing. We both loved it. And he's like, I don't get why it was. They're calling it divisive. And I was like, I get why. Because it skewers sort of. The left definitely skewers the right. But the people who review movies and critique movies that are in this world tend to be on the left side of the spectrum. So I imagine that it's gonna rankle some people, even though it's, you know, it's satire and some of it's exaggerated for effect. But it's also, I don't know, I didn't take it as too exaggerated with some of the things I've seen online.
- [56:36]
Ari Aster
No, I mean, look, and like I said, I see myself in all these characters, especially with those kids, you know, who in some ways, you know, they're callow or, you know, I would say one of those kids who joins the BLM movement for, you know, like, not very impressive reasons.
- [56:55]
Jon Favreau
He wants to meet a girl.
- [56:55]
Ari Aster
Yeah, he wants to meet a girl. And so, you know, he is cynical. That character is cynical. And then you have other characters who I think are not there for cynical reasons, and they might not see themselves as well as they could. But for me, it was important to pull back as far as I could and just take as sociological a stance as I could and get as much of the landscape as possible. And I wish that I could have covered like, you know, every corner of the culture at that moment without, you know, sacrificing narrative coherency or, you know, just telling us, you know, without neglecting to tell a story. But I did as much of it as I could without having the cacophony that I was trying to represent, like, just drown out any, you know, sense, you know, the project was can I find a way to, like, to describe the incoherent miasma and have it still be coherent?
- [58:08]
Jon Favreau
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- [61:48]
Ari Aster
Yeah. And just harangue people. You know, that's not that, that that doesn't work. And the film does satirize, you know, performative activism. And I hope it doesn't, you know, like I thought, you know, the BLM movement, like, I was amazed at like the power and momentum of what they were able to achieve. You know, I mean, you know, the Film is about things going viral. You know, the thing is about a virus coming into town.
- [62:12]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's.
- [62:13]
Ari Aster
And so I was interested in virality in that sense. Is that a word, virality?
- [62:17]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [62:17]
Ari Aster
Okay. And so. And you know, I also, growing up in New Mexico, being in New Mexico at that time, seeing how BLM was being kind of responded to there because it is a state with very few black people. And so I was also interested in how people were kind of grappling with this thing that for them was more abstract and co opting it when that's the case. Right. Because I live in New York and I spent some time in New York during lockdown. I spent most of my time in New York during lockdown. But I was in New Mexico for a few months and I just saw that it meant different things in those two places. And just talking about how things are metabolized. It was metabolized differently in New Mexico. And so I also found it interesting and challenging to tell this story from the point of view of a white kind of conservative, libertarian guy who doesn't consider himself racist, who suddenly is confronted by this thing and has to defend himself against it. And to, you know, to basically put him in situations where things are revealed to us and to himself about who he really is. You know, that was just more interesting to me than.
- [63:53]
Jon Favreau
And this dynamic that you see, which is like, you know, a white, more conservative type person and a white liberal arguing about race with, you know, and then there's the. You have a character who's a black police officer. And I mean, one of the pivotal scenes for me is the young white girl who's joined BLM is like yelling at the black police officer about like his oppression and like why he is with the cops and he needs to join them. And it's just. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But it ring like. I've seen it online.
- [64:32]
Ari Aster
I've seen it too. And she's interesting to me because she is coming from a place of actual conviction and sincerity. Again, she's like. She doesn't see herself as well as she could. Yes, but you know, but she.
- [64:45]
Jon Favreau
Same is true for all of us, right?
- [64:46]
Ari Aster
Yeah.
- [64:47]
Jon Favreau
You call this movie a western, but the guns are phones. There are also real guns. Without giving too much away, quite a bit of violence towards the end. How are you thinking about the specter of political violence when you wrote this? Because you wrote it before January 6th.
- [65:03]
Ari Aster
Yeah, well, yeah, I wrote it before January 6th, but the rhetoric was already Promising violence. Like, you don't, you can't, you can't use like the kind of dehumanizing language that's being constantly pushed.
- [65:19]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [65:19]
Ari Aster
Without. Without the risk of violence. I mean, I think that's kind of the point. And, and at the time that I was writing this, like things had reached a boiling point. Like I felt something in the air that I had not felt before.
- [65:32]
Jon Favreau
It did feel like that in this, like June. June, July, summer, 2020.
- [65:36]
Ari Aster
I just. Yeah, it just felt like. Yeah, violence is like really coming. Like, I don't know how it's gonna. I don't know how it's gonna manifest. And maybe, you know, like, I pray it doesn't, but I, but. And again, that feeling is just, is just has only grown in me. You know, I'm. I'm really worried. I'm really scared. This is, you know, this is not a movie that is made from like some detached perch, you know, like, I.
- [66:07]
Jon Favreau
No, it feels very. I mean, it's, it's fascinating because there's the satire, but also underlying all of it is this, like, unsettling feeling that this. Most of it could happen. Yeah, right.
- [66:22]
Ari Aster
There is an element of the film that is, you know, the film is about a bunch of paranoid people. And I did want the movie itself to become paranoid. So it does. By the end, it's gripped by this like sort of manic worldview that. And so, you know, it should kind of spiral out in a way.
- [66:47]
Jon Favreau
Well, it does feel like a day on Twitter, really, at this point. You know, I mean, just in real life, the AI data center we were talking about AI. What is your biggest concern about the AI future that we're headed into? Like the top of my list. And I bring this up because at the top of my list is sort of, it's gonna accelerate some of the trends that you capture in this film, which is the loss of shared reality, isolation, loneliness, which I feel like is sort of under discussed or at least lower on the list than job, displacement, apocalypse, all that kind of stuff. Robots kill us all. But what do you think? What are you worried about?
- [67:29]
Ari Aster
What does Douglas Rushkoff call it? It's like a non specific amplifier, right?
- [67:34]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [67:34]
Ari Aster
And so it's like just, let's just look at where we are. Do we want to strap jetpacks to that?
- [67:39]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [67:39]
Ari Aster
You know, and you know, like automation is not. I don't know, it's just.
- [67:46]
Jon Favreau
It's all of it and it's coming.
- [67:48]
Ari Aster
Yeah. I just feel like we're living through an experiment. We're living out an experiment that has already failed so badly and nobody seems, nobody at the levers seems interested in slowing things down. It's only being accelerated. And, and so I just don't, I, I don't trust the track that we're on. Like, I don't, I mean, I, I'm, I'm, I'm horrified by the track that we're on. So the idea of, the idea of.
- [68:20]
Jon Favreau
Like kind of stepping on the gas.
- [68:22]
Ari Aster
Basically saying like, here's the road, like just self drive now, like, you know, like, like we, we, we've set this up for you now. Just like, let a rip. I, you know, I find it to be crazy. And I like hearing all of these kind of like, you know, utopian ideas and it's like, yeah, but it could be this. So it's like, well, the people who are ushering this thing in are making sure to kind of warn us. Like, you know, these engineers, they're all saying like, okay, this could be the end. Like, this could be really, really bad. But don't say we didn't tell you now that we've told you.
- [68:58]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we put it at 10, 20%.
- [69:00]
Ari Aster
Yeah, exactly.
- [69:01]
Jon Favreau
We gave you it, we put ceilings.
- [69:03]
Ari Aster
You know, but also part of that is we're putting ceilings on it to make you more comfortable with what this thing is. So you still feel superior to it. But I find it to be really frightening. And I've said this before, but a big part of the research that's going into this, there's this thing called alignment research, which is people who are working with these AI and they're interacting with them and they're making sure that they align with human values. So I just ask the question, like, what are human values and whose, well, exactly whose values are we talking about?
- [69:44]
Jon Favreau
But this is to me sort of the fundamental problem with like the Silicon Valley tech utopia view of the world, which is they have so dismissed the role of like human emotion and subjectivity. And they, they really do think that the machines will solve our problems and that there's always something that we can like hack our way out of. And you know, I've been on the politics and government side and when I was there, it was always. And then that was when people like Silicon Valley. But you know, their view of government was like, oh, well, if we just got some technology there, it would fix everything. Just these people are just like slow and bureaucratic and getting in their own way. And if we just invent something, we can figure it out, but it's like, you can't ever replace the need to figure out what the values are, which is a subjective enterprise, which is why we try to have democracy, so that everyone gets a say in that. Right?
- [70:40]
Ari Aster
Yeah, I agree with you.
- [70:43]
Jon Favreau
Last question. I heard you say you're thinking about maybe some kind of sequel to Eddington. I won't ask too much, but if you were to write a movie about this era that we're in right now, this period, and in some ways we're continuing what happened in the pandemic. But I do think there's been a shift, but maybe you disagree. So tell me what is interesting to you about sort of where we are right now?
- [71:05]
Ari Aster
I mean, what is interesting? I don't know.
- [71:10]
Jon Favreau
What do you think has changed from pin?
- [71:11]
Ari Aster
I know what's terrifying about where we are right now. I wouldn't want to even expound on it. I think this is just like a deeply ugly moment. And if I did do that sequel, it would be set right now. And I probably won't. I probably won't get the chance to, you know, like, this was a bit of a. My last two movies, I was kind of taking whatever goodwill I had and just, you know, who knows how much is left at this point?
- [71:40]
Jon Favreau
But I will say, because it's hard to get people to talk about the pandemic talk, and not just the health part of it, but the how we lived part of it, people do not want to go back to this. And I'm. I've been trying to convince. I'm like, hey, I saw Eddington. You got to see Eddington. I'm like, it's pandemic era. Like, I said to my wife, I'm like, it's pandemic era politics. And she's like, oh, I don't want to do pandemic again. I'm like, no, no, you'll love it. It's very funny. It is hard to get people to, like, go back into that. But I think it's. Actually, I found it almost, like, cathartic, little therapeutic to go back to it.
- [72:17]
Ari Aster
I think we're living in an age of total obscenity. And so I wanted the movie to be kind of obscene, too. I wish it were more obscene because I was. You know, things have only gotten worse. And now I feel like the film is almost like it's tamer than I would even want it to be. Like, if I could have. If I could have broken up the movie with pornhub ads. You have to wait five seconds before you can skip, you know, I would have done that.
- [72:46]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's good.
- [72:47]
Ari Aster
That's what it's missing.
- [72:49]
Jon Favreau
You know what? That's a perfect place to leave this. The sequel will have pornhub ads. Ari Aster thank you so much for joining Offline. The movie is Eddington. Everyone go see it. You will laugh if you like this show, if you listen to Pod Save America. It is a good intersection of the cultural, technological and political moment that we were in in the pandemic and many times we are still in today. So thanks for the movie and thanks for coming by.
- [73:14]
Ari Aster
Thank you.
- [73:27]
Jon Favreau
Offline is a crooked media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilech Frank. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. Our engineer is Peter Geiser. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America.
- [74:12]
Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Jon Favreau
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Ari Aster
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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Brandy Zadrozny
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Jon Favreau
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