Martyr Supreme

Summary

Red Scare Podcast: "Martyr Supreme" (Jan 12, 2026)

Episode Overview

In their first episode of 2026, Anna Khachiyan and guest co-host Ben* (subbing for Dasha) deliver a highly detailed, sardonic, and digressive cultural analysis centered around Josh Safdie’s latest film, Marty Supreme. Using the movie as a springboard, the duo riff on everything from Jewish-American identity and the current state of film, to contemporary gender mores, law enforcement, and viral political incidents. The episode is punctuated by deadpan wit, self-deprecation, and trenchant critiques of critical and mainstream audiences alike.

[*Ben seems to stand in as a guest, possibly Ben Dreyfuss. Attribution is made based on the transcript’s speakers.]

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Main Themes

• In-depth review and dissection of Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, its style, performances, and meta-commentary
• Jewishness as identity, subject, and trope in contemporary American cinema
• How films like Marty Supreme reflect broader anxieties about assimilation, masculinity, and American-ness
• The limits of crowd-pleasing cinema and the tension between authenticity and formula
• Digressions into contemporary social issues, including the ICE/Minneapolis shooting and gendered radicalization

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Detailed Episode Breakdown

1. Return and New Year’s Banter (00:26–01:00)

• Anna and Ben kick off the first episode of 2026, post-holiday break.
• Opening with jokes about the episode title and puns on “supreme,” setting an irreverent tone.

2. Marty Supreme Review: First Impressions (01:00–05:54)

• Marty Supreme is Safdie’s first post-breakup solo effort—a high-budget, period “dramedy” loosely based on real ping-pong hustler Marty Reisman.
• Ben: “I have to give credit to Josh Softy because he's amazingly smart and talented...and very challenging as a filmmaker.” (02:29)
• Anna is slightly more enthusiastic: “One of the best movies of the year.” (03:16)
• Both agree: Safdie’s atmosphere and eye for detail are the film’s strongest assets (03:50–04:54).
• Discussion of the anxiety-inducing, “cortisol spiking” Safdie house style; Anna recounts a surreal movie theater moment where the fire alarm raised everyone’s anxiety, mirroring the onscreen tension (04:09–04:54).

3. Safdie’s Filmmaking Style and Moviegoing Today (05:54–06:42)

• Both hosts lament the ordeal of contemporary moviegoing: inflated runtimes, endless previews, and “demeaning” theater experiences (05:58–06:29).
• Anna: “I really like the theater I go to... but some not so much.” (06:29)

4. Marty Supreme Cast & Performances (06:42–10:13)

• Notable cast: Timothée Chalamet as Marty, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nomi Fry, Tyler the Creator, etc.
• Anna on Chalamet: “He was good, great. But I wasn't like blown away.” (08:15)
• Ben on the movie’s formula: “The softies are good at like delivering crowd pleasers.... it is a little like formulaic.” (08:33)
• Anna and Ben agree that while Chalamet’s performance is strong, it lacks comedic chops and “rhythmic variation”—ultimately, “kind of one note.” (09:59)

5. Themes, Plot, and Safdie Cinematic Universe (11:16–14:11)

• The film follows Marty, an arrogant table tennis champ navigating infamy, scandal, and family drama—mirroring Safdie’s prior narratives (Uncut Gems, Good Time).
• Comparison of opening/ending imagery—symbolic, anxious Safdie trademarks.
• Ben: “All of these movies have in common that they're about a guy gambling with his fate. Like borrowing, stealing, scamming, doing whatever it takes.” (11:16)
• Discussion: Unlike Uncut Gems’ nihilistic ending, Marty Supreme has a “more mature,” ambiguous emotional conclusion (13:00–13:46).

6. Female Characters & Safdie’s Gendered Lens (14:11–16:44)

• Anna longs for a Safdie film about a woman, but notes “all the female characters are super underwritten, one dimensional.” (14:43)
• “He makes movies about men, about masculine stuff, which I like.... Very Boys Will Be Boys.” (15:10)
• Side discussion on Woody Allen’s comparative psychological insight into women versus Safdie.

7. Meta-Filmmaking & Autobiography in Marty Supreme (17:49–19:31)

• Anna and Ben argue Safdie’s films are always, at some level, about the struggle, hustle, and legacy of movie-making itself.
• Anna: “Every movie is kind of about making a movie.” (17:44)
• They note autobiographical undertones, with Marty as a stand-in for Safdie reckoning with his industry legacy (18:05).

8. Critical & Commercial Reception (20:00–21:39)

• Marty Supreme is an “unqualified success” and reportedly the highest grossing A24 film ever (20:44).
• Both agree it’s difficult to critique a film so knowingly self-aware and self-referential.

9. Pivotal Scenes & Plot Holes (22:00–24:46)

• Discursive parsing of pivotal scenes: Marty impregnates a friend in a stock room and meets his newborn in tears.
• Amused critique of plot logic: “It doesn't make sense that they...wouldn't all know each other.” (22:35)
• Favorite scene for Ben: Marty’s climactic, intimate encounter with his Japanese opponent, blending athletic respect and narcissism (23:49 – 24:46).

10. Dialogue, Style & Anachronism (25:03–30:52)

• Mild annoyance with ahistorical dialogue (“You're a narcissist”)—but both agree they’re fine with stylized/presentist storytelling.
• Praise for the “Softie house style” (fast-paced, anxiety-driven, highly detailed), but note potential for self-parody.
• Anna wants to see Safdie move away from frenetic grit to a more restrained, “Hannah and Her Sisters”-type film (31:00).

11. Jewishness, Assimilation, and Meta-Commentary (31:12–48:07)

• Extensive discourse on Jewish representation, self-awareness about “entitled or groveling” stereotypes, and postwar Jewish-American assimilation.
• Dive into “ordeal of civility” — the tension between Jewish particularism and American universalism (45:57–47:00).
• Anna: “Part of assimilating In America, definitely for the Jews, wasn't just about like, assimilating. It was about, like, being excellent.” (46:36)
• Talk about how Marty Supreme inadvertently satirizes identity politics through irony and knowing self-reference.
• Notable Quote (Ben, 56:33, quoting a review):

“Marty supreme is not a genre film. Not even a sports movie. It’s a movie driven by a maniacal supernatural drive to entertain. It has a playful relationship to history, and it’s a satire of identity politics...”

12. Jewish Filmmaking, Transcendence, and the New York Groove (58:42–63:31)

• Consideration of whether Safdie (and prior Jewish auteurs, e.g., Spielberg/Kubrick) have/can transcend “Jewish movies.”
• Anna: “I think that Josh already has transcended...Most of his films aren't about being Jewish.” (59:40)
• Discussion of “ethnic whites,” New York archetypes, and why they're more compelling than WASP characters on screen.

13. Retro and Modern Society – Technology & Social Mobility (71:09–73:23)

• Anna celebrates period pieces as “satisfying” because pre-digital worlds allow for more kinetic, scammy, dramatic action:

“You can’t, like, scam and worm your way into high society the way that Marty does. Because there is no high society anymore.” (71:59)

• Modern life’s surveillance, digital records, and “receipts” kill mystique, enable hypocrisy hounding, and flatten all difference.

14. Segue: Viral Policing, Gender, and Minneapolis (73:44–105:53)

• The conversation takes a sharp turn into real-world tragedy: the viral police/ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
• Key points discussed:
  • The difficulties of parsing intent and morality in cases of police lethality.
  • Media narratives, the futility of body cam “evidence” to sway opinion, and both sides’ obsession with hypocrisy.
  • Gendered narratives: why are “women so easily radicalized by the left?” (Collected at 79:37–86:04)
  • “Karen” moral panics, radicalization by social media, and contemporary tragedy as a product of compounded personal/societal contradictions.
    • Ben: “This is really like a Softy film. It's like a lead up of gambling against your fate forever.” (96:45)
    • Anna: “In a way, plausibly, what she did...is not so different from suicide by cop.” (103:14)
• The futility of expecting rational, “de-escalatory” responses from anyone, and lament over both right and left’s inability to find the high ground.

15. Coda: Law, Hypocrisy, and Social Contract (124:27–129:36)

• Anna and Ben touch on utilitarian, unsatisfying truths about state power, law enforcement, and society’s collapsing mutual trust.
  • “They're guys doing a job that has to exist in our current state of affairs because there are a lot of illegal immigrants in the nation.” (126:53)
  • Discomfort over the spectacle of enforcement, the proliferation of ICE, and how everyone avoids the core tension.
• The episode ends with a reflection on tragic contradiction as the defining note of both the movie and real life:
  • Anna paraphrasing Elia Kazan: “A tragedy is when a person is doomed by the inevitable contradictions of their character. And I would add that contemporary tragedy also has to do with...the contradictions of society.” (119:53)
• Ben: “She thought she knew, and she like, fucked around and found out. And it's very sad. I feel very bad for this woman. I'm not like happy or excited that she died.” (107:49)

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Notable Quotes & Moments With Timestamps

• Ben, on Safdie as a filmmaker:
  “He's amazingly smart and talented...and very challenging as a filmmaker.” (02:29)
• Anna, on the power of period detail:
  “A period piece is super satisfying... you can't just call a guy and you can't, like... scam and worm your way into high society the way that Marty does.” (71:22)
• On Chalamet's acting:
  “He's really not funny. And I think that's his big... weak spot as an actor.” (09:20 – Anna)
• On Jewish-American “ordeal of civility”:
  “Jews used to have to be like hyper collectivist for their survival. And Marty's survivalism is very like self oriented...He's out for himself. And it's about like the distinctness...” (53:53 – Anna)
• On contemporary gender politics and tragedy:
  “I mean, I haven't seen too many people making this point... in a way, plausibly, what she did...is not so different from suicide by cop.” (103:14 – Anna)
• Final note, on society’s contradictions:
  “A tragedy is when a person is doomed by the inevitable contradictions of their character. And I would add that contemporary tragedy also has to do with...the contradictions of society.” (119:53 – Anna)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Topic | |-----------|------------------------------------------------| | 00:26–01:06 | Opening Jokes, New Year’s Return | | 01:00–05:54 | Marty Supreme – First Impressions & Style | | 06:42–10:13 | Cast & Performances (Timothée Chalamet, etc.) | | 11:16–14:11 | Plot, Themes, Moral Ambiguity | | 14:11–16:44 | Gender & Female Characters | | 17:49–19:31 | Auto-Biographical Echoes, Making a Movie | | 22:00–24:46 | Plot Logic, Pivotal Scenes | | 25:03–30:52 | Dialogue, Anachronisms, “Softie Style” | | 31:12–48:07 | Jewishness, Assimilation, Identity Politics | | 58:42–63:31 | Jewish Filmmaking & New York | | 71:09–73:23 | Period Detail, Modern Society Digression | | 73:44–105:53| Minneapolis ICE Shooting, Gender, Protest Discourse | | 124:27–129:36 | Law, Hypocrisy, Social Contract, Finale |

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Summary

Red Scare’s “Martyr Supreme” episode is not merely a movie review—it’s a meandering, critical, and at times darkly comedic meditation on the overlaps between art, ethnicity, gender, tragedy, and contemporary political farce. Anna and Ben dissect Marty Supreme’s Jewish male antihero (and Safdie’s entire approach) with both relish and skepticism, lament the state of filmmaking and moviegoing, and use both film and current events as registers for the broader, confusing contradictions animating American life. The episode’s tone swings from ironic to earnest, occasionally dwelling on the unresolved and perhaps unresolvable—leaving listeners with more open questions, and more to argue about, than any tidy review ever could.

Transcript

[Anna]

Before we do our great riffs. Okay, we're.

[Ben]

We're back.

[Anna]

We're back.

[Ben]

We're back. Wow.

[Anna]

It's. No, we did one. No. It's our first pottery.

[Ben]

It's our first episode of 2026. Yeah. Happy New Year, everyone.

[Anna]

Happy New Year. It feels long, but I guess it's only been a week.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, we've been on break.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And now we're back.

[Anna]

And now we're giving the people. We're literally back.

[Ben]

Which is a review of Josh Softy's new film, Marty Supreme.

[Anna]

Marty Supreme. I was trying to think of some kind of supreme pun martyr supreme interest there.

[Ben]

Wow.

[Anna]

I was like, Marty Supreme. Drop like Marty.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. Well.

[Anna]

Yeah. Tennis table tennis Supreme. I don't know. I got nothing. Well, it is. I had like Fatty Supreme. It's not make sense.

[Ben]

Well, the funny thing is, like, this movie is ostensibly on the surface, like a period dramedy, but it's not really at all. And the title is like stupid little NYC Wigger, which is appropriate to the context. I was also thinking about supreme, but I wanted to maybe if we get around to it, touch on the ice shooting and the events in Minneapolis and maybe Maduro and Greenland. If we get to it. We'll see.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

There's so much to talk about with this movie. I don't even know where to begin.

[Anna]

Already feels so far away. Well, did you like it? No.

[Ben]

No, no. Not. No. Not. No. Not. No.

[Anna]

Okay.

[Ben]

I really have to give credit to Josh Softy because he's amazingly smart and talented.

[Anna]

True.

[Ben]

And very challenging as a filmmaker.

[Anna]

Challenging? I don't. How so?

[Ben]

He annoys me a lot, but he also impresses me a lot.

[Anna]

You mean challenging for you? Yeah, because I feel like it's real crowd pleasing stuff.

[Ben]

Yeah. But yeah, I like, you know, in the spirit of the movie, I guess I can be very forward and say that, like I appreciate him and what he does. So I don't want to be like overly hard on him. Plus, you know, Len's getting up there in age and he's gonna need an internship.

[Anna]

Right. Well, that's. I liked it. Yeah. I mean, I, I. One of the best movies of the year.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, it's early in the year. Well, I guess It's a 2025.

[Anna]

Which a lot of people are saying. And I feel like it's because it's kind of the last one that came out. Yeah. And I kind of liked adding to more. I know I have my critiques at the time and I like Marty Supreme. I Thought my favorite thing about probably all the Safdie movies is, like, the atmosphere.

[Ben]

The atmosphere of gambling addiction. Yeah, yeah.

[Anna]

No, no, that's. Yeah, that I like. But just in general, like, I think he's very detail oriented and he's very incredible at, like, crafting atmosphere. And. Yeah. Like, it's. They're very, like, emotionally driven, which I like.

[Ben]

Yeah, they're very high octane, anxiety inducing. These are movies that, like, spike your cortisol.

[Anna]

Yeah. Well, when I. When I went to see it at the final match at the end, the theater started smelling like smoke. And it was a matinee, so there wasn't that many people there, but everyone, like, we all. Everyone was, like, looking around at each other. And then eventually we started. We were like, do guys smell like a well again? I was like, am I. So I was really anxious.

[Ben]

You're, like, having an aneurysm.

[Anna]

Well. Or like, am I gonna die in, like, a movie theater fire?

[Ben]

It's like the camps. It's just like the camps. And.

[Anna]

Should I watch Walk out.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

In the last, like, five minutes of Marty Supreme.

[Ben]

Because I can't.

[Anna]

But I stayed. I was like, I guess I'll figure it out.

[Ben]

One of the. I. I expected to like this movie a lot less than I did because I'm very on the fence about uncut gems, as you know. I'm like, the number one uncut gems hater.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Even though, of course, I recognize, like, its impact, its significance.

[Anna]

And very similar.

[Ben]

To gems which I want to talk about. But basically I was going into it, I, like, looked at the runtime and, like, kind of groaned to myself and was really dreading it because it is so long. It's like two and a half hours long.

[Anna]

I mean, that's a properly, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah. And my. My thing is, like, a movie should be like an hour 30 tops. But. Of course. Yes. But I actually, like, I felt like it went by a lot quicker than I thought it would.

[Anna]

Yeah. It doesn't drag.

[Ben]

Yeah. The length ultimately didn't end up bothering me that much, if at all.

[Anna]

Well, you don't. You don't really, like, go move the movie theater.

[Ben]

No. It's such an ordeal now because I, I, you know, I go to, like, one of the big movie theaters. I'm not going to dox myself. And it's so, like, unpleasant and sensationalist and you have to sit through, you know, like, 30 minutes of previews. The start time was 1:20, but the movie actually began at, like, 1:50. And I find that whole Process very unpleasant and it was demeaning.

[Anna]

Yeah, I really like that. I'm not gonna dox myself either.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But I really like the theater I go to.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But some not so much.

[Ben]

So. Yeah. The movie is loosely based on Marty Riceman, who was a famous hustler and table tennis player. It stars Timothee Chalamet, obviously he's playing Adam Friedland.

[Anna]

Dead ass. Should have been my boy Adam.

[Ben]

Yeah, that scene where Marty Mauser is groveling before Milton Rockwall is pure Adam. I love his acne scars and his unibrow and his glasses. I loved his like impatient knee bouncing. The little details. He's like a classic Les Ellis Island Jewish stereotype. Timothee Chalamet should play Kafka.

[Anna]

They there actually a Kafka movie came out this year called Franz that was like some. It like played at the quad for a couple weeks. It's some like European movie. Yeah, I didn't see it, but I can't imagine anyone would.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Who doesn't like already care about Kafka?

[Ben]

There's a star studded cast. Timothy Chalamet, obviously. Gwyneth Paltrow, Nomi Fry, I think Emily Schubert, Isaac M. Isaac Mizrahi Tyler, the creator.

[Anna]

I. I'm gonna say something a little haterish. I'm not a temperate.

[Ben]

Uhhuh.

[Anna]

I thought Timmy was Tim. Tim Chalamet. I thought he was good, great. But I wasn't like blown away. Everyone's really. First of all, the unilateral, like effusive praise for the movie. It's a little much.

[Ben]

Well, that's what happened with Uncut Gems too. Because like you said, it's. The softies are good at like delivering crowd pleasers.

[Anna]

But like, no one, you know, like even it like. And I know every director, like makes the same movie. And it's a good movie. I like the movie, but it's. It is a little like formulaic.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean the, the glaze is legendary. The way people.

[Anna]

And then people talking about Timothy the best, you know, he's the best performance. And I'm like, it's good, but it's not like. I don't know.

[Ben]

I mean, okay, I'm gonna.

[Anna]

Funny. That's probably what I was thinking about, why I didn't. Wasn't like so impacted by it.

[Ben]

But he's supposed to be funny, right? But it kind of falls flat.

[Anna]

He's really not funny. And I think that's his big. The like weak spot as an actor. And when I think about actors like, or Performances that I really do think are great. They're usually like, I think Robin William, you know, like. Yeah.

[Ben]

Or like Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[Anna]

Yeah, they have. They're able to, like, be funny.

[Ben]

Right.

[Anna]

And he's obviously super tapped in. Super, like, locked in, really, like, channeling Marty, inhabiting this character, giving it his all.

[Ben]

But, like, watching clips of the Adam Friedland show to prepare, there's not enough, like, rhythmic variation.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

He. His performance, I have to say I agree with you, was kind of one note.

[Anna]

Which is fine. And it was good.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But the way people are talking about it is. And the movie in general, just a little much.

[Ben]

It do be like that. Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, it's. It can't be that great. Like, there's no movie that is possibly this good that everyone thinks it's the best movie they've ever fucking seen.

[Ben]

I know, but people are also so starved for anything resembling good.

[Anna]

Yeah, no, that's true.

[Ben]

And I think Josh Softy knows that. And so there's a lot of.

[Anna]

Like.

[Ben]

I was worried that. That this movie would be kind of more of a sequence of memes or a movie product like Uncut Gems was versus like an actual film. And I really still stand by my take that the Softies changed what movies are for better or for worse with that film. And much like Uncut Gems or Good Time, this movie retreads the usual Softy stomping ground. It's Josh Softy's first film after splitting from his brother. And it's.

[Anna]

I didn't see Benny's movie.

[Ben]

I didn't either. But his brother also has the sports movie out. It was the most expensive film produced by 824 with a $70 million budget. The LARB reviewer mentions that it's impossible to view this film in a vacuum outside of its marketing. It's the cinema event of the year. They're not only trying to replicate the success of Uncut Gems, but secure the future of filmmaking. And it's like, basically about this young, arrogant table tennis player who has to hustle and grind to achieve his dream of becoming a champion while getting longhoused by all these relations and authorities along the way. And in the process, he knocks up his married childhood friend. He has an affair with this beautiful but fading older actress. He tries to, like, wheel and deal on her wealthy husband. He competes against a deaf Japanese incumbent. There's a subplot with, like, a mysterious mafioso type and his scary dog named Moses. Moses. Yeah. And all of these movies have in common that they're about A guy gambling with his fate. Like borrowing, stealing, scamming, doing whatever it takes. Even the opening sequence is very reminiscent of Uncut Gems, like, in the sense that they love these, like, microscopic close ups. In this case, it's like an egg being fertilized in Uncut Gems. It was like the inside of a diamond with all its facets, if I recall correctly. But the interesting part was that the moral lesson was totally flipped in this one. Like, in Uncut Gems, Howard's hubris and delusion basically leads him to destroy his family and get himself killed.

[Anna]

Well, yeah. It has kind of a nihilistic.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Conclusion. And this. It's just. It feels more mature.

[Ben]

Yeah. It. It's. Yeah. Than Gems did, which is more control.

[Anna]

Pace, and a lot of the same motifs.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Anna]

Ultimately. Yeah. It's like a higher grade product.

[Ben]

Yeah. Which is to be expected, obviously. And, yeah, in Marty Supreme, Marty's hubris and delusion, I guess, ultimately bring him closer to achieving his dream. But then he sets them aside in favor of what really matters.

[Anna]

You don't really know that. You just see him have an emotional reaction to his child. It's a little. I found it a little tragic and.

[Ben]

Because he's cucked by life.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. And I also thought this movie was, like, weirdly intimate and familiar for how, like, epic and big budget it is. Like, you know, ultimately, Josh Softy made a wife guy movie about being a family man, even though, as you say, like, the ending is ambiguous and possibly shallow.

[Anna]

I would really like to see Josh make a movie about a. A woman. I know.

[Ben]

Renee Nicole. Good.

[Anna]

I was honestly interesting, but all the female character, like, not to, you know, get on my bed. What's it called? High Horse. No, the bed. What the. I don't even. I can't even remember what it's.

[Ben]

Oh, soapbox.

[Anna]

No, no, the test. The litmus test of films with female.

[Ben]

Oh, Bechtel test.

[Anna]

Yeah. Like, not to get on a Bechel test kind of tip. But, like, all the females. Super, like, underwritten, one dimensional.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, always.

[Anna]

They're all. They're all. And it's fine. He makes movies about men, about masculine.

[Ben]

Stuff, which I like, which I love very. Boys Will Be Boys. That's a. Yeah.

[Anna]

But even Odessa, a Zion character, who. I thought she was really good, actually, I was impressed by her performance, but maybe because she. I feel like I just found out who she was and kind of had, like a skepticism about her being memed as a star, but she was really good.

[Ben]

But Sandra Bernhardt, Fran Drescher.

[Anna]

Sandra Bernhardt, incredible actress.

[Ben]

Nothing. Barely anything. Fran Drescher. Nothing. But I think, like, because, you know, this is a. And then a movie made by, like, a young Jewish auteur. And I don't know what his view of women actually is, but his view of women as, like, a director and storyteller is like, annoying, overbearing Jewish mommy.

[Anna]

I think mommy issues are evident.

[Ben]

But Woody Allen. Ari asked her get in line, like, whatever.

[Anna]

No, the thing about Woody Allen is he doesn't make the same movie. And he actually has, like, a tremendous insight into women's mind psychology.

[Ben]

He makes a lot of true. Yeah.

[Anna]

Women. And. Yeah. Probably has mommy issues, too. But, like, he's. Woody Allen's a genius.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Anna]

And Josh Safdie's a very talented guy.

[Ben]

No. Damn. Damning with fame.

[Anna]

I mean, a genius. It's just a lot of geniuses are unfit. You know, he probably. If he was a genius, he probably wouldn't be able to be as successful as he is.

[Ben]

That's true. Yeah. Well said.

[Anna]

Sometimes the genius is, you know, kind of trapped in the circumstances. Yeah. And, yeah, he's very much like, is able to create momentum. Well, I think. I don't know if I've. So I think he's an enneagram 7 for the enneagram. Heads up there. Okay. And then Ronnie Bronstein, his writing partner, and Dan lapatten, I think are both fives. And so you get this, like, physically or Enneagram fives. And so I feel like the alchemy of them collaborating, which now they have, like four time five, I don't know how many times, creates, like, a infrastructure that Josh is able to thrive in. And in that way, he has a genius and that he's able to, like, use people.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I'm. But I think every movie is kind of about making a movie.

[Ben]

Yeah. And that. Well, okay.

[Anna]

Especially early in your career and late in your career, it's kind of about your legacy and your canonization.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And so Marty, I feel like, is obviously like Josh.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And Marty supreme is kind of about, like, uncut gems not getting an Oscar.

[Ben]

And then he had Smart. Yes, exactly. It felt like a very deeply personal movie. That's what I mean when I say it's like, kind of like intimate and familiar. It's earnest, given.

[Anna]

More earnest than gems.

[Ben]

Yeah. And as. As the reviewer, like, one of my big issues with not only the Softies, but, like, contemporary films in general. The Sweet east or Anora or all of these movies that are coming out of, like, the, quote, downtown like dime square scene, just, you know, bear with me. For the sake of convenience is that their main criteria for whether they're good and successful or not is whether they make the viewer feel cool because they're like, edge, lordy and badass. And I don't really love that. And this movie actually didn't have that quality, as the LARB reviewer points out. It's, like, decidedly uncool, which I like. And I'm glad that you brought that up. That it's like a movie about making a movie or reckoning with your legacy of making movies. Because I felt like I was gonna sound, like, so gay and annoying if I said this, but there's. There's obviously, like, the analogy to filmmaking in that you really have to, like, hustle and scrap and believe in yourself for it to come together. Often at the last moment.

[Anna]

A moral things. You have to, like. The only critique I've even seen really of Marty is that Martin, he's not a good person.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which is like, that's not whatever cares about that.

[Ben]

And like. Yeah. Even, like, you know, my philosophy of the world is much closer to what happens to Howard in the end than what happens to Marty in the end. Right. So, like, who cares if, like, your characters are good and moral people? But.

[Anna]

But yeah, like, I'm making a movie. Especially early in your career, you have to really, like, basically scam people out of their resources and time.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And. And like, keep the ball in the air to, like, pull off a feat of will.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anna]

So, yeah. Maybe it's an obvious.

[Ben]

Yeah. And none of that really matters unless you have something to come home to or whatever. Blah, blah, blah. But that also is, like, possibly cope. And another thing that I agreed with in that review is that the film is an unqualified success, which is like, outside of. It's like, separate from the fact of whether you think the film is good or not, you know?

[Anna]

Yeah. No, it's the most successful A24 movie ever, I think.

[Ben]

Is it?

[Anna]

I think so.

[Ben]

Oh, wow.

[Anna]

I think it's highest gross, expensive.

[Ben]

Yeah. And I had a lot of issues with the movie, but I almost feel like it's hard to take umbrage with anything about it because of how knowing and ironic it is in terms of its, like, self referentiality and homages. Like, he knows what he's doing. So even pointing out certain, like, irritating or inconsistent details is like a fool's errand.

[Anna]

Yeah. For me, once you. If once I made a movie, it was. It's hard for me to watch movies critically, even in that way, because you.

[Ben]

Know how hard it is in part.

[Anna]

But also just unless they're like. Especially if they're objectively good, which Marty is. You know, if they're. You know, it's easy to look. Know when a movie's bad, but when a movie's good. Yeah. You don't want to, like, pick it apart and you just kind of want to enjoy it and then process. I do later.

[Ben]

It's. I'm still processing it and I feel like.

[Anna]

Which I feel like is a mark of a good movie.

[Ben]

Yeah. A Jewish movie. Jewish movie lingers, but to the point of it being way too long. Which, again, didn't prove to be a deterrent or a deal breaker. The two pivotal scenes were when Marty knocks up Rachel in the stock room of the shoe store where he works.

[Anna]

Okay. Can I just say. Can I say one thing?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

So he lives in this tenement building with his uncle who runs the shoe store that Rachel also lives in. And we're meant to believe she can come into his place of work and they can pretend not to know each other and have sex. Yes.

[Ben]

Like. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. Like.

[Anna]

Like that. To me, like, I doesn't. It doesn't make sense that they. People wouldn't all know each other.

[Ben]

Yeah. Because these are, like, Lower east side or Upper west side or whatever. Jews who all know each other. They live in the same building. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm willing to suspend some. My. Sure.

[Anna]

It's not the point. It doesn't matter. It also doesn't make sense that he's broke after he comes back from.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

His, like, Harlem Globetrotters World Tour.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, he has to, like, maybe or no. I guess his uncle steals his money when he gets the cop to come.

[Ben]

Well, he steals his uncle's money and then the uncle steals it back. Is that the idea? It's hard to keep track of what's going on in this movie. There's a lot.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Which I guess is part of its charm. And then the. The other pivotal scene is Marty meeting his newborn in the hospital and breaking down in tears. And both of these scenes are just kind of handed to you. And they come at the beginning and end of the movie. Everything in the middle is fairly arbitrary and interchangeable.

[Anna]

Well, the final. The scene with the. At the end with the Japanese guy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Is the most successful one I thought.

[Ben]

Yeah. That was my favorite scene where he, like, embraces Endo and tells him he's a good player and it was a good Match. It was like very humanizing and thoughtful.

[Anna]

Oh, that's not even how I interpreted it.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Anna]

I thought that since he won't be able to compete, when he says, I hope you win.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

It's because since he has beat him, he wants him to go on and win the tournament. Yeah. So that he can live with the satisfaction of being better than the guy that won.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, definitely. That's part of it. But he's, he's also in that moment, I think, doing the thing that all good athletes do, which is they recognize the athleticism of their opponent.

[Anna]

Sure.

[Ben]

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but in.

[Anna]

A way that, you know, if he was a bad player, would it mean anything to beat him?

[Ben]

Right. Yeah.

[Anna]

He's a narcissist.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah. Well, okay, that. Okay, so I.

[Anna]

Pregnant black haired chick calling a guy a narcissist. Lower east side. A little Anna Catching. Yelling about narcissism.

[Ben]

Well, okay, that. So I had a few issues.

[Anna]

Yes.

[Ben]

I, I have to say, I, I don't know how I feel about the contemporary dialogue. I think she calls him. She says, you're such a freaking narcissist or you're a narciss freak. There's a scene where Wally calls Marty which like, nobody talked like that back then. I'm not going to be a purist about it. They have creative license to do whatever they want.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And it's not a deal breaker. It does pull you out of the action a little bit.

[Anna]

But I don't want. Sometimes it's distracting when people are like. And scram. You see, Whatever.

[Ben]

Like, I'm not asking this movie at all to be like, you know, faithful to the time period because that's not what it's about. Of its appeal is that it's like a stylized version of the past that's equally applicable to the present. Right. But I think that that part of it was a little bit too knowing and cynical. Maybe because it was. It's like we're going to give the people what they want. We're going to give them some dime square dialogue. Yeah. And as expected, there was like a lot of frantic yelling and bartering and haggling and catching. There was that scene, the pastrami versus roast beef scene where I think it was like a Jewish guy and an Italian guy who are like side actors arguing over their preferred sandwich. There's some black and Jewish camaraderie.

[Anna]

They always like to get those New York freaks in the movie.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Kevin o', Leary, fantastic.

[Ben]

He was Milton Rockwell Yeah, yeah, he was great. Yeah.

[Anna]

He's the guy from Shark Tank who calls people cockroaches. Okay. And apparently when he. In that scene where he says, I was born in 1601, I'm a vampire. Improv.

[Ben]

Oh, interesting.

[Anna]

Came up with that.

[Ben]

And I liked Marty's reaction to that, because he was like, yeah, okay, whatever, old man. Well, because he didn't know how to react to it.

[Anna]

Well, it's. So when he says, I was born in 1601, it's so.

[Ben]

You're like, what?

[Anna]

It is so, like, jarring and crazy. It is such a good line.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, if he had just said, I'm a vampire.

[Ben]

Yeah. But the.

[Anna]

I was born in 1601.

[Ben]

But it's a great, like, kind of, like, generational misunderstanding because this boomer is trying to school the zoomer by kind of owning him, but he does by, like, he does by pulling rank.

[Anna]

He knows he's right.

[Ben]

Yeah. But then the kid kind of owns him back by just being, like, ignorant and ironic.

[Anna]

Well, didn't you think it was interesting that he. After suffering all the humiliations and trials that he does.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

He doesn't want to kiss the pig.

[Ben]

Well, that I thought was a very ordeal of civility moment.

[Anna]

I think the whole thing is. Yeah, it's a very ordeal simulating to an individualist American mode.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Moses, the, like, ambiguous relationship he has with the dog where he wants. He, like, kind of abandons it, but then tries to get it back.

[Ben]

Kind of like his ambiguous relationship with the old baby. Acts and accepts. Yeah.

[Anna]

And the pyramid he gives his mom. Also kind of a gems. Throwback, I felt. He gives her a piece of that pier.

[Ben]

We was Kang's moment. We built this. Yeah.

[Anna]

Built this. Yeah. But a lot of, like. Yeah, those kind of, like, Jewish details.

[Ben]

Yeah. And obviously, like, do you feel.

[Anna]

Very significant.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, they are.

[Anna]

Kadian.

[Ben]

They are. Well, they are like a meta commentary on the current Jewish discourse, obviously. And even, like, his relationship to Rachel and their unborn baby is interesting because, in part, he initially rejects her because he's a brazen and arrogant young man who doesn't want to be longhoused by no woman. And. And, you know, he does the classic thing where he denies that the baby is his and tries to abandon her multiple times. But part of the reason he's so scared to accept her and his newborn baby, or unborn baby, is that he's. She represents, like, the pale, the shtetlight, the.

[Anna]

Like, his mother.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

The.

[Ben]

The ordeal.

[Anna]

The. Yeah, yeah. She really is the Ordeal. And that scene where he asks her if her husband pulls out when she like she gets really emotional. That was really good. Her. Yeah, her performance was a very, very strong. And that's when I could.

[Ben]

That's how a woman.

[Anna]

That was a point where I like, it kind of like switched and I was like, oh, she's very good.

[Ben]

Yeah. Pamela Adlon's daughter. I thought, like. Yeah, like the. The title was maybe like a little bit gay and forced. The music, of course, is anachronistic, which is intentional. Some of the choices in editing, like the opening and closing songs, Forever Young and Everybody Wants to Rule the World. I felt a little cheap and gimmicky though. Again, they're like millennial people pleasing tactics. The other thing is like the softies historically have taken a lot of shortcuts to create this kind of like high anxiety, high octane environment. And you know, they literally give like the. The viewer like a dopamine hit or like instant gratification. The. The movies are always very fast paced and high contrast, which to me sometimes feels like a cop out. But again, it's very hard to take umbrage with that because it is like the softy house style.

[Anna]

Yeah. It's just. And it's distinct.

[Ben]

Yeah. And there would be no softies without that style. You know, that's why I'd like to.

[Anna]

See him do like Hannah and her sister. Like a kind. They're not comparable at all.

[Ben]

Besides being bourgeois psychodrama. Something like.

[Anna]

It'd be. I just. He should try it.

[Ben]

My.

[Anna]

He could do it.

[Ben]

I think he could pull it off and I think he might want to and hope he hears this and is inspired by our review. This was by far the most anti Semitic movie I've ever seen. And of course it was made by a Jew, so it's okay. There's like this meta commentary where Marty makes an off color Auschwitz joke about his competitor at a fancy lunch. And then he says like, no, I can say that sort of thing because I'm Jewish. Like, he has the hood pass. It's like, I'll finish the job that the camps couldn't sort of thing. And that reminded me of like Curb youb Enthusiasm, which is the most anti Semitic show ever made, except that it was made by a Jew. And I think there was even like a direct homage to the Survivor episode where Milton informs Marty that his son died liberating Auschwitz, but it turns out that his son was serving in the Pacific. Did I make that up?

[Anna]

I liked when he says the Soviets liberated the Cams? No. He says, the Japanese killed your son, but I don't think that's true. I think he's just, like, reaching, being a bitch. Yeah.

[Ben]

But it's unclear, like, what happened to the sun. Right?

[Anna]

Yeah. And I don't think Marty knows. I think he's just, like. He feels insulted, so he's, like, lashing out.

[Ben]

Yeah, they're like volleyball, but they're basically all scamming and taking advantage of each other throughout this movie, even when there's, like, love involved. Rachel scams Marty, Marty scams K. Marty and Wally are always driving around scamming people. Marty scams Rockwell, then comes back groveling to him. Marty and Rachel try and fail to scam Ezra. There is a scene where Rachel fakes a black eye from her husband Ira, with makeup to get Marty to finally, like, notice and accept her and their unborn baby. And he sets her up at, like, a friend's house. In spite of the guy's protest. He, like, beats him with a hammer and, like, maims him. Seriously. And says, shame on you. Shame on you. Like, the famous Jewish line that they all like to pull out when you're, like, saying something totally reasonable when you're beating your wife. At one point, Marty says to his friend, must be nice to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You're throwing your friends out in the street. You're throwing a pregnant woman out in the street. Just like classic Jewish shaming and manipulation tactics. There's another scene where Marty is fucking Kay in the shower, and he unclasps her necklace to let it fall into the drain so he could fish it out and pawn it later. And then it turns out that it's costume jewelry. So he crawls back to her and returns it apologetically, but she sees right through it. And he claims that he didn't know it was costume jewelry. And she knows that he's already gone to, like, a pawn shop and gotten it appraised.

[Anna]

Right.

[Ben]

And knows it's worthless junk. Not. She calls him on his bullshit because he wants to make it seem like he had second thoughts for moral reasons.

[Anna]

Because he can't stop thinking about her.

[Ben]

Yeah, but it's really because he couldn't sell the necklace to make money for himself, but she ends up giving him a more valuable necklace anyway.

[Anna]

Yeah. And she says, I would steal from me, too.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah. Cuck's Mr. Wonderful. I remember there being some press about the sex scenes.

[Ben]

Huh?

[Anna]

Gwyneth Paltrow talking about how she was didn't use the intimacy Coordinator.

[Ben]

Right.

[Anna]

But the sex scenes are kind of, I guess, besides when he's eating her box in the damn park. Spoiler alert. But the other two were, like, barely sex scenes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I was like, you need intimacy coordinator for this.

[Ben]

Yeah. I actually didn't mind that part. That the sex scenes are, like, speedy and breezy.

[Anna]

Yeah. But just. Yeah. I was anticipating them because of the. And all the intimacy coordinators.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Anna]

And was a little let down not to be a Jack Mason about I don't need to see his dick and balls.

[Ben]

Yeah. Have you ever seen Devil in a Blue Dress?

[Anna]

No. It's a. I don't think so.

[Ben]

It's an old Denzel Washington movie from the 90s. I've been.

[Anna]

Picture the COVID That's why.

[Ben]

Yeah. I've been going down the. The Denzel catalog. And it's. It's basically like a neo noir. It's Chinatown for black people, but made by Jews. And that there is, like, you know, like the typical, like, murder mystery and an incest plot, but it's much more, like, simplistic and a beautiful, wonderful movie. And the funny part about that movie is that there's. The reason I bring it up is that there's a really amazing, steamy sex scene that I was referencing all the Marty supreme sex scenes against because I just watched them back to back. Right. Which I highly recommend. Yeah.

[Anna]

What do they got?

[Ben]

Do doggy or no. A funny. A funny thing about the Denzel Washington brand is that because he is. Looks very handsome and intelligent in, like, a classic white guy, leading man way, he often plays the sort of drunk underdog who has succumbed to alcoholism and is washed up and seems like a. Initially seems like a bad guy and a piece of shit, but actually lands the plane. Yeah, exactly. But actually turns out to be a good guy who's an alcoholic because he's morally troubled.

[Anna]

Yeah. Denzel's great at the glassy eye. Kind of strung out.

[Ben]

Yeah. He's an amazing actor because he's very undetectable. He's basically always playing himself. He has, like, a very narrow repertoire. And I was thinking about him when I was watching Gwyneth Paltrow's performance because she's a very good actress.

[Anna]

Luminous.

[Ben]

Yeah. And it's not even because she's, like, pretty or sexy or, you know, the camera loves her or whatever. It's because she's very.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Like effortless and seamless and almost like, not acting. Which is funny because in the movie her character is always, like, pissed off and disgruntled because she's trying to make, like, a theatrical comeback as like, a washed up, semi retired actress from the silent era. And she's like, they're not letting me act. Yeah, I'm not doing any acting. She's like, really pissed off. Like, I was steamed about it.

[Anna]

So actor. Do you see they changed the SAG Awards to the Actor Awards? No, they changed it.

[Ben]

Yeah. I didn't know that. Which is.

[Anna]

Makes sense because everyone's kind of like, what's, you know. Yeah, what's a sag? When I'm like, I have a sack where we were like, what's that? But I would have called it the Actress Awards for Male Best Male Actress because they all are such actors.

[Ben]

Divas. Yeah.

[Anna]

What else? But very classy of her to do. Great role for her.

[Ben]

Yeah. You know, where she's basically also playing a version of herself because, you know, as they point out in all the, like, press and reviews, she quit acting. She quit acting to run her goop empire and had to be persuaded to take on this role. But yeah, it is a very ordeal of civility movie in that, like, it depicts a lot of behaviors and tendencies that, like, goys might see as unbecoming or unseemly, but that Jews view with fondness and affection. Like, on. On the one hand, they're like, absolutely depicted as, like, perfidious and manipulative, liars and scammers, but it's all love and no one holds a grudge. And, you know, it's all treated with fondness and affection and the goyim love it. Yeah, they eat it up because it's like a familiar archetype. You know, they're. They're stealing, haggling, bickering. Even in the beginning, when Marty's neighbor Judy, who's played by Sandra Bernhardt, calls him up to say his mom, who's played by Fran Drescher, is, you know, pale and sick and going to the hospital. He calls bullshit on it because he's used to being like, longhoused and he.

[Anna]

Hears his mom in the background being like, tell him I can't breathe.

[Ben]

Yeah. And he's like, used to dealing his, like, histrionic overbearing Jewish mother. He says, she's trying to sabotage me. There's another good example in the end when Rachel gets shot by the farmer, when they try to take back Ezra's dog and Ezra get. Gets killed. And as they're like, fleeing in the getaway car, she's asking Marty to get the money out of Ezra's pocket while he's, like, laid out on the porch, dying, and she says, is there a lot of money?

[Anna]

Well, she doesn't yet know that he's found a way to get to Japan, which is what he needs the money for. So she still thinks, yeah, she's doing it. And also in, like, a self sacrifice.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But also very Jewish female type of way.

[Ben]

But what's the. That.

[Anna]

And then the money's fake, right?

[Ben]

Yeah, it's like. Yeah, but what's that? There's, like, that famous Nassim Nicholas Taleb line that he clearly probably pilfered from somebody else. Where. Or maybe it was even Marty Perrott's. I don't know. I'm getting all of my references confused. When it was about the Israel, Palestine conflict, where he says, you know, in that part of the world, it's very me against my brother. Me and my brother against my cousin. My cousin and I against the world. Marty and Rachel have no problem scamming each other, but when it comes down to it, they'll band together and scam everybody else. Sure. And, yeah, there's a part where, you know, Marty manages to get Rachel to the hospital, like, eight months pregnant and bleeding from a gunshot wound. And then he immediately abandons her to go to Japan to face off against Endo. And then he comes back. Yeah. And, you know, they really deserve each other. And he even says it's every man for himself where I grew up, because it is this very, like, working class Ellis Island Holocaust survivor mentality.

[Anna]

But that's not every man for himself.

[Ben]

Well, yeah, it's. It's.

[Anna]

That's very clannish.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's both.

[Anna]

And Mark is trying to break the mold, but ultimately can't.

[Ben]

He's.

[Anna]

Yeah, he's, you know, doomed or blessed, depending on how.

[Ben]

Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in, you know, but.

[Anna]

He has these, like, contradictions within himself. He wants to, like, transcend his Jewishness.

[Ben]

Uhhuh.

[Anna]

But ultimately can't.

[Ben]

Yes. Yeah.

[Anna]

It is like Nicuentes said, a Jew is someone whose grandchildren will be Jewish.

[Ben]

Right. Yeah.

[Anna]

And he. So he's.

[Ben]

And that's what ends up happening. There we go. Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And that's. And even, like, what. You know, it's like, just like, Rachel, for him, represents not only, like, adult responsibility in the form of, like, being a husband and a father, which is like, you know, he views that fate pretty ambiguously at that point. K represents, as the LARB reviewer pointed out, not only getting embraced by someone from elite society, but surpassing Her. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also funny because Gwyneth Paltrow is like a paternal Jewish.

[Anna]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben]

In reality. Yeah.

[Anna]

Interesting.

[Ben]

But it's funny that this is like the depiction of themselves that Jews are not only self aware about, but like, to promote. But then they get, like, upset and confused when other, like, non Jewish people find their, you know, qualities less than civil. Yeah. Unpleasant and disturbing. They're freaked out. And another funny aspect of that is, like, how throughout the movie, Jews are depicted as, like, affectionately depicted as either entitled or groveling.

[Anna]

Yeah. But excellent.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Hence the. That's why it's chosen. Because there.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And it is like, to me, it's a more American story than, I don't know, some goyim from the heartland. Like America, really, I feel like, came into an identity in the post war period that was largely shaped by Jews and they, like, made the American project kind of a Jewish one. Yeah.

[Ben]

There was a point in. Yeah, I mean, that that's. That's a good point. When the world, like. How would I put it? Like, I think this was a cudahy point. That as the world secularized, the concept of chosenness had to cease being a religious one and had to become a secular one. And. And in that way, Jews really manifested their own chosenness by, you know, literally. We've talked about this before, that, like, originally Jewishness was seen as like a religious category that was an umbrella term for all these different tribes and clans. And eventually, through the process of ethnogenesis, the Ashkenazim were born and they became the dominant Jewish population just demographically. And they now speak for the worldwide Jewry. Right. But they are, even though they claim to be like a religious and or cultural group, are really an ethnic group at this point.

[Anna]

Yeah, but they're even, you know.

[Ben]

Well, and Josh, Softy, now that I think of it, has his own mini ordeal of civility going because he's half Ashkenazi, half Sephardic. Right.

[Anna]

Oh, I didn't realize.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think so.

[Anna]

Okay.

[Ben]

I'm not sure we need to fact check that, but there's like a nesting doll of ordeals of civility. Because, you know, in. In the macro sense, you have the Jewish people trying to assimilate into gentile society, but then in the micro sense, you have like the Sephardim trying to assimilate into Ashkenazi society.

[Anna]

Well, in Marty, too, it's like. And that's what I think. I'm. I mean, when I say it's like American, because part of assimilating In America, definitely for the Jews, wasn't just about, like, assimilating. It was about, like, being excellent.

[Ben]

Yeah. It was achieving excellence.

[Anna]

It's not about assimilating. It's about, like, surpassing.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Anna]

And like, creating the conditions in which.

[Ben]

Yeah. There's relationship.

[Anna]

And chosenness is legible. I like the scene where he says to Rachel, it was very like Kanye when he says, like, when you have.

[Ben]

To.

[Anna]

I'm gonna botch it. But he's like. He's talking about how he has to make sacrifices, even though he seems to not ever be making. You know, like, he seems like he hasn't ever made a sacrifice and is only looking out for numero uno. But that he, like, frames it as, like, a duty that he has.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

To do what he does, which is play table tennis very well.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

That he had like, that in his mind. He thinks he's being self sacrificing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But he's being totally self serving.

[Ben]

Yeah. And it's. It's as much a matter of, like, self fashioning or self image as it is a matter of actual achievement. Right. And like, there's also a great part where. Yeah. And he's saying this, mind you, to, like, a pregnant woman who's making the ultimate sacrifice. Well.

[Anna]

And then he says, how do you go through your life just doing whatever. Yeah. But ultimately biology, destiny. Like, he's also, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

He is also, like, driven by these animal impulses.

[Ben]

Primitive. Yeah.

[Anna]

Desires that, like, contradict his, like, Faustian quest.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And ultimately kind of. Yeah. Doom him. Or maybe not do. Maybe. That's a pessimistic read.

[Ben]

Yeah. Bring him back down to earth. Yeah. Man. Long houses himself. There's also a great dialogue where he's talking to K. I think, in her hotel suite or in a dressing room or something, and she says, what do you plan to do if this dream of yours doesn't pan out? He says, that never enters my consciousness. And you sound like my mom. And she says, you sound like a child. And then he says, clearly, I'm old enough. Yeah.

[Anna]

Which I didn't. That felt a little false that she would be so scandalized.

[Ben]

She's not. She's not. She's just giving him a hard time and, you know, playing the role of the woman scorned or whatever. Yeah. And then there's also this underlying very Jewish understanding that the goy is like the ultimate, other and possible villain, as embodied in that farmer guy with the rifle.

[Anna]

Well. And Mr. Wonderful Kevin O'.

[Ben]

Leary. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Anna]

He's also like capitalists.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like it's implied that he's anti Semitic.

[Ben]

I guess. Yeah.

[Anna]

I read another review. I think it was in reverse shot that really was like talking about how he was an anti Semite. That the guys at the bowling alley were anti Semitic.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Anna]

Which they weren't.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And then they killed them.

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, yeah, there's a great scene in Devil in a Blue Dress where Denzel's character goes out to some pier in Malibu to meet up with like some small time mobster slash private eye and he's approached by a young white woman who strikes up a conversation with him and then her white friends come out and try to basically lynch him for speaking to a white woman. It's a very like Emmett Till black ordeal of civility. Mom. Where he's obviously like, not at fault at all. And the, the white guys are like, out for blood. And like, you see this, it's like a very Straw Dogs thing that you see in like, the Softy Brothers and Ari Aster. Like a lot of Ari Aster's films.

[Anna]

Are about like scary.

[Ben]

Like Midsommar.

[Anna]

Specifically midsommar. But I mean, he's. Yeah. There's a lot of fear.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Throughout his films, but I know what you mean. Yeah. The archetype of like. And yeah, Straw Dogs is like the template of like the Jewish mathematician and then the like rugged, dangerous.

[Ben]

Like, like rural townie guys. Yeah. And you know, like Ari Aster's first, like, student film, which is like his best film, about the guy rapes his dad.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

The strange thing about the Johnsons is this kind of like, ordeal of civility movie where he like, in a very edgelordy fashion, casts black actors to play what would be like a prototypically like, white family.

[Anna]

Yeah. And that has some like twisted Freudian.

[Ben]

Jewish drama, like incest drama. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about this one really random, bizarre scene with Marty's competitor and mentor, Bella, who's like a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor. And it's told in a flashback by Bella to Milton, I think, because Marty is using Bella to stunt on Milton. But long story short, Bella is protected by Auschwitz guards because they respect his game and they allow him to like, prowl the perimeter of the camp to disarm bombs. And one day he follows a bee to Honeycomb and smokes out the hive with a cigarette and then smears honey all over his body under his like, striped uniform and lets his bunk mates lick the honey off so, like, they can eat, so they can be nourished. And it's a very like visceral and off putting and animalistic scene.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

That is like frankly, really homoerotic in nature.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And it's obviously about like the lengths that people had to go to survive and what they were willing to do. But I'm curious what you think is like the per. The ultimate purpose of that scene other than its obvious role in like moving the plot along? Because it is kind of like out of place.

[Anna]

Yeah. It's not really relevant to the plot. To me it's like. I think it possibly is about like a generational again, the ordeal of civility. Like the. What's that, the character's name?

[Ben]

Bella.

[Anna]

Yeah. Bella is, you know, like. Yeah. Jews used to have to be like hyper collectivist for their survival. And Marty's survivalism is very like self oriented and I think because he's like.

[Ben]

Breaking away from the tribe.

[Anna]

Yeah. He's breaking from the tribe. He's out for himself. And it's about like the distinctness. He's like a foil to Marty.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And yeah. Mark makes Marty exemplary of like a new mode of Jewish American.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

With like the emphasis being on the American.

[Ben]

Huh.

[Anna]

Whereas in the camps, like the Jewishness was the primary.

[Ben]

Thing.

[Anna]

Bonding category, obviously. But I don't know. What do you think?

[Ben]

I don't know. I. I like have no opinion on it. It was just like. And that sort of scene would ordinarily like be very ham fisted and sentimental.

[Anna]

Yeah. But it was very like abrupt and comic.

[Ben]

Yeah. It was just like perverse and I think ironic and knowing.

[Anna]

And I think it also serves of some character development on Milton's side because he like interrupts the story to mention his son.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Liberating them from the camp.

[Ben]

Right. Yeah.

[Anna]

And so, yeah, there's like a triangulated tension.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Between the like hyper successful goy, the Jewish striver and like the old world.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Jewish guy.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was thinking about this because I've also been.

[Anna]

It's a powerful moment. Not just even the flashback, but like that. The way it's encapsulated in that scene.

[Ben]

But it didn't come off as, as like irritating and ethnocentric as it could have. You know what I'm saying?

[Anna]

No, no, I mean it definitely could have. And I think honestly it would have played a bigger role in that era.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which maybe is why in part it was included.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

As like a reference to the recent history in the world that the film takes place in. Like, because it's like 1953 or something. But I feel like. Well, I guess it. With Japan and everything. I guess. Yeah, it is. But there's a lot of, like, post war.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Themes.

[Ben]

There is a good quote from that review that you sent where that kind of gets to the heart of the matter. Let me see if I can pull it up. Marty supreme is not a genre film. No. Not even a sports movie. It's a movie driven by a maniacal supernatural drive to entertain. It has a playful relationship to history, and it's a satire of identity politics. Is it? That's what the reviewer claims. I don't.

[Anna]

Why is it Saturday?

[Ben]

I was thinking about that. Well, because it is very ironic. Knowing. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge about the Jewish question and the problems of assimilation. But on the other hand, like the softies, two biggest films, which are uncut gems and Marty supreme are about Jews, but in a way that doesn't feel particularly relevant to identity politics. It's mostly like a function, like a functional thing because, like, this is like the milieu that Josh Safdie like, travels in A and B. I think just because it is crowd pleasing to. To make a movie about, like, ethnic whites trying to get by. Which is, like, what. You know, why Anora was so successful? Part in part.

[Anna]

Well, also, I mean, I feel like the Safdies two biggest movies are always the last two movies that they made. Yeah.

[Ben]

So there might be now just Josh.

[Anna]

And the last two, but prior, it was good time and.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Gems were the biggest Safdie movies and good times.

[Ben]

Not. Not Jewish at all.

[Anna]

Well, Daddy Long Legs, because it's very, like, autobiographical, but heaven knows what.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Not about Jews.

[Ben]

They like.

[Anna]

Yeah. They were doing, like, the derelict.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Urban thing.

[Ben]

I guess I'm curious. Like, like, the question that I would have for Josh is whether he's interested in transcending making Jewish movies about Jewish characters and whether that's even possible.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

In the current, like, framework, like, is he gonna go the way of like, a Yorgos Lamb Lanthimos or who's the other guy?

[Anna]

I bet he won't make another. I mean, they'll all always be Jewish.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I mean, fashion.

[Ben]

But you even look at Steven Spielberg, who is, you know, a Jewish guy, but not a Jewish filmmaker. He's like a guy who's transcended his race. Right. And like, I recently re. Watched Jurassic park too. T O O not two. I think there is a Jurassic park too, but, you know, that's just like an epic blockbuster. I think it was like, the highest grossing, most successful film of its time for Many years.

[Anna]

I mean, there have been a lot of Jewish filmmaker. And I don't. I think that Josh already has transcended, like, in his filmography.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Most of his films aren't about being Jewish, so he's definitely. I don't think it's a fixation. I think he just happened to make.

[Ben]

No, I think it's just like a very, like, functional, logistical thing. And obviously something that he's, like, personally just like an expert in and interested in. But Steven Spielberg is like the Michael Jordan of directors and that he totally transcended his race. But if you look at one of his first films that I love, that is, like, Lenny's favorite film. It's called Duel. And it's about this working schmuck, every man, wife, guy, family man, who's targeted by, like, an evil, spooky, nameless, faceless truck driver on, like, some southwestern highway. I don't know if you're familiar with this film. It's really good. No, and it's. It's totally, like, identity and ethnicity neutral. Like, the guys, a lot of.

[Anna]

I mean, there's just a lot of, like, they didn't used to be Jews. Used to make a lot of excellent movies that weren't about Jewishness.

[Ben]

Yeah. But even that, in its own way, is an ordeal of civility movie because while the character isn't explicitly Jewish and there's again, like, no evidence of any, like, ethnic or racial anything. It is about this kind of neurotic, cucked, working stiff guy who's targeted by, like, the equivalent of the Marty supreme Farmer with the rifle.

[Anna]

Right. I mean, who made Deliverance?

[Ben]

I don't know. Good question.

[Anna]

Castrata. Sam Peckinpah's not Jewish. No. And he made Stratov. Yeah. So. But I mean, don't you think Kubrick transcended his Jewishness?

[Ben]

Yeah, I don't think he even really cared about it. Right.

[Anna]

That's what I mean. Yeah, he was. But he was.

[Ben]

He was. He was like Michael Mann in that. He was like a one of a kind guy who didn't give a. About any, like, ethnic or tribal loyalties and just, like, did his own thing and.

[Anna]

Yeah, he was a real. He was like a remote viewer level genius. Yeah, he was just on another level.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But it's interesting, but, like, William Friedkin made tons of movies.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Made like, the best Catholic movie. The Exorcist.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah. Total Jewish guy.

[Ben]

The best single mom movie.

[Anna]

Polanski.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I guess the Pianist was sort of his. You know, I feel like usually with They'll. They'll do one kind of ethno narcissistic.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But mostly they want, you know.

[Ben]

Well, I guess I'm saying that, like, Josh Softy has made Jewish movies because he's made New York movies because he's a New York guy and those two things are. But he's kind of interchangeable. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[Anna]

Good times. Like not really.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

At all.

[Ben]

Yeah. I guess they're like vaguely Greek in the movie.

[Anna]

Right? Something. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Stavros Core.

[Anna]

But I mean, ethnic whites just are more compelling.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

You know, you don't really want to watch a movie about who's gonna. Who's gonna menace the rednecks, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

They don't really have adversaries in the same way, so they're not as driven.

[Ben]

Yeah. They're like always depicted as the apex predator.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Here's another quote from the review. Such ostensible detours emphasize the materials. Tertiary semiotic preoccupations. That's a lot of words. The bowling alley is quintessential American iconography. A space whose racial dynamics, among others, are slyly inverted for profit by our heroes. I guess that's what he means when he says, like, this is like an ironic send up of identity politics. The alley is so rich in the broader mythos and imagery of the film that it's easy to forget that Wally and Marty have only the thinnest reasons for being there in the first place. The cumulative effect of such scenes is borderline Dickensian, serial esque, like its makers are getting paid by the minute. But the still can't risk anybody tapping out. The scope of the film is thus large and luxurious. Marty supreme has the means, creatively and financially, to integrate any tangent. If a movie as epic and multifaceted as Marty is about one thing above all else, it is assimilation as a type of performance. The kind that demands both the caricature and the erasure of one's own identity in exchange for personal gain. This is never better exemplified than by the titular hero. Marty is consistently foregrounding his own Jewishness. He declares himself Hitler's worst nightmare because he knows that it'll get him written up by the paper. Upon learning that Milton and K's son died during World War II, Marty Pressures fellow player Bela Klutzky to tell Milton a shockingly erotic story from his time in a concentration camp. Kletzki, it should be mentioned, is played by a Gaza Roaring, who starred as a death camp prisoner in the controversial Hungarian Auschwitz thriller Son of Cell. Okay. The stunt Casting is very, like, relevant and specific because he, like, hires people who have like a pre. Existing relationship. Relationship or reputation. Yeah. Mr.

[Anna]

Wonderful.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

He's always telling people he's chastising entrepreneurs. He's perfect.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, this was even the case with casting Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems because, like, as I said, in like 2019, Adam Sandler is like a. A nice and wholesome comedy dad who gets like, popped in the face.

[Anna]

Right.

[Ben]

By Ice. By these mafia adversaries who are not Jewish. Right.

[Anna]

I don't know. Maybe they are.

[Ben]

There's some kind of like, vague ethnic whites.

[Anna]

I. They might be Jewish because it's all diamond districts.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. But it's like whatever they said about Quentin Tarantino, like with Pulp Fiction where he like, basically revived John Travolta's career and like, made Samuel L. Jackson's career.

[Anna]

Well, Sandler is not. He'll He. He's a great actor and very funny.

[Ben]

But he's also another guy who's just like.

[Anna]

But he'll do the odd prestige Punch drunk love. He, like, he has real, real range.

[Ben]

Yeah. And he's like, rich and conservative and doesn't give a. And doesn't need to show up for anything. Like, just wears like, literally like supreme basketball shorts everywhere.

[Anna]

So to sit course. Oh, my God, Anna.

[Ben]

No.

[Anna]

He'S hot.

[Ben]

Timothy Shalamet, for how. One note. He was as Marty Mouser.

[Anna]

Great. He was great. He.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Kinetic. Fantastic.

[Ben]

But he is actually a very versatile actor because, you know, he looked so like, beautiful and elegant and like a Roman towel boy and call me by your name. And here he just looks like Jewy and mousy and like, you really get none of his beauty at all whatsoever.

[Anna]

No. A lot of charm.

[Ben]

Yeah. Like, you can kind of see that he has a nice jawline, I guess, but he's basically just like shrimpy and hunched over. He's.

[Anna]

Yeah. And he's confident, which makes him.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Appealing.

[Ben]

He's like a guy. You would see it time and again.

[Anna]

Exactly. And you know, he's like, really giving it his all. And Josh too. It's very like, they want that Oscar.

[Ben]

I mean, I think if Anora won the Oscar, Marty supreme should win the Oscar.

[Anna]

I mean, it's a contender, certainly. And Timmy wanted the Critics Awards or something. He's doing. He's. I think he'll be. He'll have. He'll be on a generational run, But I don't know. I think I like Dunka Gems more.

[Ben]

Why?

[Anna]

I don't recall. I didn't It's.

[Ben]

I know it's hard to recall anything about any of these films because it's a little.

[Anna]

It's like more mid budget. Scrappy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

So there's like, sometimes when you have a huge budget and can make something really epic, a little bit of like, humanity is lost.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And I think I just respond more to like, restraint.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which maybe Benny, arguably, you know, maybe there was something with the brothers.

[Ben]

Well, the guy, the reviewer was making a distinction between Benny's style versus Josh's style, which I kind of skimmed and didn't really retain. But he was talking about how, like, Benny likes more like long, epic, slow burn shots, whereas Josh really likes to trail his actors and get up in they face.

[Anna]

Well, I think Benny's a real actor and Josh is really a director. Yeah. And Benny's a director, but he's, you.

[Ben]

Know, which must be a cause for a painful rivalry up in there.

[Anna]

I don't know. And I didn't see Smashing Machine, but I got the impression that it was very actory.

[Ben]

That's the one. The Rock and Emily Blunt. Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah, it'd be interesting.

[Ben]

I mean, both of them have the same thing where they, like, are really pandering to millennials taste for nostalgia and coolness.

[Anna]

Well, I just think they are cool because they've got the. Or Josh. Definitely.

[Ben]

Well, they're cool because they're not cool. Because if you actually scratch the surface, they're like earnest down home nice Jewish boys.

[Anna]

But they're like prep, you know, they're like prep school street wear New York guys.

[Ben]

Prep school gangsters.

[Anna]

Yeah, they are. And that's cool.

[Ben]

I know.

[Anna]

And that's what people, like, respond to.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And then like Alara A24 are also very good at like, generating like, cool marketing.

[Ben]

Eli Bush.

[Anna]

Exactly. That people respond to, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But overall, yeah, I did. I thought it was great, but not as good as everyone's. And I'm not even. I'm not trying to be a hater. And I think part of it is that it's.

[Ben]

It's very good coded. It's very. It is. That's well said. Yeah.

[Anna]

It's very tasteful.

[Ben]

Is it, though? It's actually like very extreme and over the top and like vulgar. Like, there's just a lot of like.

[Anna]

But in the detail, like, you know, a period piece is super satisfying. I think a 20th century period piece because people aren't on their damn phones. And like, when Marty wants to do something, he, like, I feel like modernity has really, like, Cucked and hindered people from, like, you can't just call a guy and you can't, like, you can scam in new, like, digital ways.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But you can't, like, scam and worm your way into high society the way that Marty does.

[Ben]

Yeah. Because there is no high society anymore. And like, you know, as many, like, right wing and on posters are fond of pointing out on Twitter, like, even rich people consume the same things and partake in the same events as everybody else.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So there's not even anything and everything inspired.

[Anna]

You can't just go stay up at the Ritz and say, like, bill me later.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, there's just things that used to be possible that aren't.

[Ben]

Yeah. You can't exploit and arbitrage stuff as. Except for crypto anymore because, like, everything is so, like, high connectivity and happens, like, instantly.

[Anna]

Yeah. And surveilled.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And there's like the. When they're interviewing Marty and he says that his mother died in childbirth and his dad abandoned him. Yeah. And then later he tells Rachel's husband, who's like a rate when he catches them in the back of the pet store that.

[Ben]

Oh, that's so funny that his name is Ira and he's irate.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So true.

[Anna]

And he says, my dad just died. Which again, I was like, don't they all live in the same house? Like, wouldn't he know who Marty's dad is?

[Ben]

Like, how.

[Anna]

And you never really know who Marty's dad. Yeah.

[Ben]

Who is Marty's dad.

[Anna]

But yeah. That he's even able to just kind of like, lie and myth make.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Is impossible in contemporary life because everything's too.

[Ben]

Well, everybody has the receipts and they can just pull up old tweets. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was like a big thing with the ice shooting where a lot of leftists were getting up in arms about the lack of, like, respect and piety that the right was showing this dead woman. And then all the right wing guys were, like, pulling up tweets from those same leftists who were, like, gloating in and celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. It's like everything just happened.

[Anna]

Everyone does.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Always like, it's like, gotcha. Yeah. It's just like hypocrisy. Truffle swining.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And week. This is a good segue. But I was thinking on my way over here how I actually do think Eddington was the best movie of the year.

[Ben]

Why do you say that?

[Anna]

It just like, when I think back to it.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I. It registers more impressively to me. And everything feels like Eddington.

[Ben]

Yeah, it does. I mean, it didn't quite.

[Anna]

When the movie came out, it wasn't like a total. It wasn't like totally, like, prescient or futuristic because all of the. That was happening. But now it really feels like every. We're all just watching, like, brutality with, like, everyone in the background filming on their phone. Yeah, Everything is like someone with a phone in your face.

[Ben]

Yeah. All the time. Well, one of the previews that I saw when I went to the theater to watch Marty supreme was for 28 years later.

[Anna]

Awesome. That was actually. Take It Back. That was the best movie.

[Ben]

Did you watch it?

[Anna]

Well, I watched the one before and it was. I think this is, like 28 decades later.

[Ben]

It's 28 years later still Danny Boyle.

[Anna]

Yes.

[Ben]

Okay. Dude, it was so good.

[Anna]

The zombies were super scary. Yeah, I saw that in theaters.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Last year at some point.

[Ben]

28 days later is like, viscerally, like, etched in my mind as one of the scariest, best movies I've ever seen.

[Anna]

This new one's pretty good too.

[Ben]

Killian Murphy was so hot.

[Anna]

So hot.

[Ben]

Now he looks like not my type, but hot, angry, left wing lesbian activist. But he was amazing in that movie. And Danny Boyle is a genius for creating the 28 days franchise because he can basically just like, make a movie every half a decade that's like 28 days later, 28 weeks later, 28 months later, 28 years later, 28 decades later.

[Anna]

I think 28 years later was the one that came out last year. Yeah, that was very good and very, like, experimental actually. It had almost. It almost felt like the cinematography. Oh, yeah. Okay. So last year, 28 years later, this new one that we saw the preview for is called 28 Years later the Bone Temple.

[Ben]

So it's a different 28.

[Anna]

Oh, but he's not directing that one.

[Ben]

Okay, that's what I thought.

[Anna]

It's a sequel to the one he made last year. Got it.

[Ben]

But that whole. So 28 days later and the whole, like, zombie craze of the 2010s was very prescient because it, like, anticipated how zombified like, public life would become due to social media. It did. It sounds so gay and trite, but it's true.

[Anna]

But that's. The zombie's been. It's like the vampire. It's always, like, represented something.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, people have anxieties about, like, from the jump. 28 years later is about a. It takes place in the future. It's actually kind of poignantly about migrants. Because it's about. And so there's like the virus that makes people zombies has like broken containment. It's spread all across the world. And there's like a small island that's like Brit British, I guess that is like quarantined. But the men who live on the island have to go out to the mainland periodically to hunt or to do get supplies. Something.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

They like have to venture.

[Ben]

They bring the illness back to the island.

[Anna]

Well, that's. Yeah, that's kind of this, you know, and then the zombies try to break in and blah, blah, blah.

[Ben]

The illness being porn addiction.

[Anna]

Exactly.

[Ben]

But yeah. That the. It's funny because I feel like vampires are Jewish coded and zombies are goy cattle coded.

[Anna]

Totally. Yeah. I mean, they are.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

They're NPCs. They're the original NPC.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And in the gaming community you often have to.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Murder them.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Because they have a hive mind.

[Ben]

You know what Josh Softy should do next? He should make a film adaptation of Camp of the Saints to really like prove his edgelord bona fides. He's never even touched that book.

[Anna]

He might have. I've honestly only read kind of like the first.

[Ben]

Me too. I keep reading the same like 40 pages and then over and over.

[Anna]

I get too scared. It's too scary. But yeah. I couldn't really tell you, like, what happens in it besides the.

[Ben]

Yeah. Like a flotilla of Indians. Yeah, that's like.

[Anna]

That happens. That's like the first thing.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And like, then what I'll look at. I'll do some research later.

[Ben]

But.

[Anna]

Yeah. Should we talk about Minnesota?

[Ben]

Yeah. What's your take? Well, okay. Yeah, two questions, unrelated but semi related actually. Number one, why do you think that Minneapolis is such a hive of wokeness? Number two, why are women so easily radicalized by the left?

[Anna]

Well, I think question one, Tim Walls policy. And like a natural Midwestern temperament of politeness and individualism.

[Ben]

Because we're talking about like mostly Anglo Saxon and Germanic, but not really an individual.

[Anna]

Not individualism, more of a kind of conform. Not even a collectivism really, but like a conformity that's grounded in an Anglo politeness.

[Ben]

Yeah. That.

[Anna]

Prevented them from actually being like individualistic enough to protect themselves.

[Ben]

Yeah. Or like a tolerance that is part and parcel of like a high trust, ethnically homogenous society that becomes intolerant because of the introduction of multiculturalism.

[Anna]

Yeah. It can't keep up with.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

It has its own ordeal of like uncivility. It has to. I. Yeah.

[Ben]

I really do think that, like virtually any political ideology, whether it's socialism or fascism, could work in a high trust, ethnically homogenous society, but falls apart when you introduce a multicultural element. Because then you get into, like, tribal warfare.

[Anna]

I mean, socialism and fascism are often connect. They're not like, mutually exclusive socialism. You know, like, they're usually. But I think. Well, I'm thinking of Japan now.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Anna]

Arguably. Is not. Is also in decline.

[Ben]

Well, yeah. Because I think they're opening their borders. That's slowly but surely.

[Anna]

That's not why.

[Ben]

Why.

[Anna]

I think the. That, like, I think fascism or, like a fascistic impulse is often reactive.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And sometimes necessary, but not sustainable.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Anna]

In modernity, in the long run. In Japan, I feel like if there's too much fascism, too much conformity, too much, like, repression, then there's like, a stagnation.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Because there's nothing to justify. Yeah. Justify it.

[Ben]

Yeah. To aspire to.

[Anna]

And then you. The people just end up being kind of like, buck broken.

[Ben]

Well, yeah. And this makes me think of, like, the. The whole question of whether, like, nationalism and liberalism are compatible, which I think they are, but that's besides the point. So. Yeah. Minneapolis, there was, like, a protest and a shooting, and this woman, Renee. Nicole. Good. Is that her name? Was shot by an ICE agent while attempting to flee the scene.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And now there's, like, some newly unearthed body cam footage, which I'm glad we're doing the episode now after that has been.

[Anna]

It's not even body cam footage, interestingly. It's a cop filming.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Anna]

You see him.

[Ben]

That's.

[Anna]

Sorry.

[Ben]

Adding to Edgington.

[Anna]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because surely. I mean, actually, I don't know if. Well, yeah, there's a lot of conversation about ICE versus police officers.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which feels arbitrary because they're all fed. They're law enforce. They're enforcing a law.

[Ben]

ICE are federal law enforcement agents, and the police are federal or state law enforcement agents, depending.

[Anna]

But it comes out.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

ICE agent kills woman.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

In her car. There's.

[Ben]

Kills a young mother.

[Anna]

Yeah. There's two. There's one video and then another one that, like, I saw Megan Kelly post. Yeah. That's, like, more blurry and hard, you know, and everyone's talking super authoritatively and definitively on both. Like, people are saying, obviously he shot her.

[Ben]

What?

[Anna]

He used lethal force. I mean, obviously he shot her, but he used lethal force when she wasn't a threat. And then other people are saying she's accelerating towards him.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And her death was justified. And then the body cam footage doesn't seem like it. Or the. Whatever. The more granular cell phone footage doesn't seem like it. Anyone changed their mind?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which everyone is still just like, well, this is it.

[Ben]

Yeah, clearly. Yeah. I mean, I hate to say it, but I would do some dumb like resist arrest and get popped in the face for being a. Though I, I guess I would never get out there and protest. And as Veronica pointed out, there's like a disconnect between like gambling away your life because you assume the other side like values it while also thinking that the other side is like inhuman or subhuman, which doesn't make sense.

[Anna]

Or like the just like not like Gestapo.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

ISIS trumps gestapo.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Anna]

And they're brutal killers. And then it's like, yeah, that their.

[Ben]

Modern day Gestapo, the. This was a state sanctioned execution. The irony is that there's all these think pieces about men being radicalized by the right, but no one in the mainstream media ever talks about women being radicalized by the left.

[Anna]

Well, that point, to answer your second question. Yeah, I think in part the divisive political climate, the rhetoric obviously to blame in part. But also I feel like the Karen craze, the psychological terror operation that was waged against Karen's in the COVID era, made women insane.

[Ben]

I don't know. I don't think it's the campaign against Karen part of it.

[Anna]

I think it's part of it that they like on some level, white women. White women. White women's tears. White women, you know, as these like foot soldiers of this fascistic regime because they were telling a black guy to put his mask on or whatever was going on. But yeah. Do you remember all those videos that people would take of like middle aged white women having like mental breakdowns because a black person was yelling at them and filming them with their phone?

[Ben]

Yeah. Well, there were, there were two big incidents. The, the one was the, the bike Karen and then the other one was the bird watching Karen. Both of them turned out to be like more or less in the right, even though they were maybe being like annoying and difficult.

[Anna]

Well, it's just inhumane to trap someone like that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And then like shame them publicly. People aren't built for that.

[Ben]

The other big irony is that like if you're on the Left as a 37 year old woman, you're a young mother. If you're on the right as a 37 year old woman, you're an old hag.

[Anna]

Well, she has older, she's. She has three kids.

[Ben]

She. Okay, so she. Here's she has three kids by two baby daddies. One of them died, allegedly by suicide. The other one has sole custody of the other two kids. The dead one's brother has said that he's going to seek custody of the first kid. As many have pointed out, like, the dad having sole custody of the two children is a really bad sign because it's extremely rare. And generally speaking, family courts will side with the mother. She was also in a lesbian relationship. There's some evidence to suggest that she was part of an organized activist network, whatever that means or whatever that looks like. It's clear that this woman wasn't merely a young mother out for a drive. She was literally protesting and agitating. Yeah, there a lot of the discourse is focused on what her intent was in, in hopes of, like, clarifying whether or not the agent shooting her was warranted or not. The two things I would say is, like, I don't think that we're ever going to conclusively know what her intentions were. Even in this, like, newly released body cam or not body cam footage. The intent is still very ambiguous. Right. Because, yeah, it is clear that she did graze him and would have hit him full on had it not been for the ICE on the ground. And also, like, the second thing is, like, I don't think it matters in determining whether his response was warranted because he's, like, not a mind reader. And it's also worth pointing out, the last thing is that, like, ICE agents are obviously under a lot of pressure and under a lot of threat. Like, people make moves against them all the time. They're constantly doxed. This particular guy had been dragged by a car six months earlier. But anyway, I feel like all of.

[Anna]

This is that I think is really irrelevant.

[Ben]

It is, yeah. I feel like it's irrelevant because he.

[Anna]

Hasn'T overcome his trauma response.

[Ben]

Well, yeah, but that's, like, very neither here nor there. I just. I think this is all irrelevant because, like, even if it was the case that she had meant to cause him bodily harm and the left knew this, was aware of this, they still wouldn't care because they see ICE as like, an unlawful and illegitimate entity. Not only because they're enforcing immigration policy by rounding up illegal immigrants, but which, you know, they're explicitly against, but because in their mind, like, all law enforcement is unlawful and illegitimate. It's like, defund the police. So in a weird way, everyone's in agreement that her intentions don't really matter, even though that's become, like, the focal point of the scandal.

[Anna]

Well, it's because it has to do with the use of lethal force.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. But the left sees it as irrelevant because they see the law and the state as unlawful and illegitimate. And the right sees it as irrelevant because they see the state and the law as like, technically upholding the right to self defense. Right. Because she technically resisted arrest and obstructed justice no matter what her unclear intentions were in that moment. And so, like, a lot of, like the people in. On the left and on the center who are arguing, they're like, arguing like, that she didn't deserve to die. But that's like, very irrelevant. I also agree that she didn't deserve to die. I think George Floyd didn't deserve to die. Even though I'm like a Justice for Derek Chauvin truther, I don't think that he should be in jail. I think it's a great stain on America that this k. That this trial was even allowed to proceed. And I don't think even Derek Chauvin, if you asked him if you, like, wrote him a letter in prison, would. To say that George Floyd deserved to die.

[Anna]

Yeah. I mean, it's tragic.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

That's what it's. And the thing about tragedy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Is that malice is like a legal category or intent or whatever. All these, like, conversations people are having feel very, like, inhumane.

[Ben]

Yeah. Because they're trying to morally freight something. That's a technical matter.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Was. Was the ICE agent technically justified in firing his weapon given the circumstances? Yeah, he was. Did that mean that she was a bad person who deserved to die?

[Anna]

No, I mean, I think. Yeah, that's what's tragic about it is that. Well, yeah. That there was something inevitable about it, But that she didn't. He didn't have to shoot her in the. The face.

[Ben]

Yeah. There's a lot of people being like, oh, he could have shot the steering wheel or he could have shot in the air or whatever.

[Anna]

It does seem excessive, especially. Here's my. Okay, I came up. I. I figured out. I figured out it's not fair. Yeah, exactly.

[Ben]

Well, it's not fair, but it's warranted.

[Anna]

No, no, no. What I'm. What I'm about to say is my. Yeah. The principle that I would apply because I think what I've deduced from my, like, analysis is. Yeah, she. I don't think she was trying to kill him. I do think she was, like, spazzing out and like, trying to flee.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But did accelerate towards him. Could have killed him. And so the first shot through the front Potentially justified.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But then he keeps shooting through the side window as she's pulling away.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's. That's a little excessive and overbearing.

[Anna]

Well, this is where this, the, like, this is. I think if the first shot killed her. Okay.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But if the second or third shot was the one that killed her. Excessive force.

[Ben]

Interesting.

[Anna]

And it's not fair. It's not fair. It's like, you know, it's tragic, cosmic, you know, could have been the first, who knows? But that if I, Yeah, if it was up to me, I would say, okay, you were justified in firing that first shot when the car was going towards you.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But to keep shooting.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, either way the optics are very bad because, you know, it's an L for the right and a W for the left. Tim Walls is obviously like breathing a sigh of relief.

[Anna]

I don't just even like, I mean.

[Ben]

Narrowly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. After all, Somalia, I don't see it as a victory at all. I don't think anything is like really going to change.

[Anna]

And even with the new footage where you see her like, terrorist, Justin Bieber, ass lesbian partner, like being a total wicked cunt and she does say drive.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

She's culpable, honestly.

[Ben]

Yeah. Somebody said that they're like in a lesbian relationship, there's always like the naive molested one and like the evil predatory one.

[Anna]

But in that, in the like, video where you see her face and they're like more of their interaction up close, it really underscored. And again, I'll say tragedy again because, like, she's mentally ill. Well, yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. So. So the question is like, ill. Yeah. So like, like you said, she's like clearly confused. Not confused in that moment, but confused in general.

[Anna]

Very much so.

[Ben]

And like the, the question is like, like, you know, it's like the, the plea of, of insanity. Like, is she sane and capable enough to understand the consequences of her actions? It's like she's not. This is really like a softy film. It's like a lead up of gambling against your fate forever.

[Anna]

She looked at too many infographics that said, like, if you see an ICE officer block, like there are. I see this, this circulating that like, if you see an ICE officer, you need to like, intervene.

[Ben]

Well, and they do this like Brazilian favela thing left where they were like, well, you know, how would you react if, if like a masked man ran up on you with a gun and tried to like pull it into your car?

[Anna]

Well, that's not what happened.

[Ben]

And they're, they're trying to act like she was like innocent and confused in that moment because she was unaware that they were ICE agents, but she was clearly aware that they were ICE agents because she was there to protest just them specifically.

[Anna]

Which is also what leftists say, like makes her a just and moral actor.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

It's not that she was there by accident, but that she was there on purpose.

[Ben]

Yeah. And they don't, they don't care again if she meant to cause bodily harm or not. Here's a really good take from a user called user. You need to stop assuming anyone is going to be persuaded on this. It's not that they deny she hit him with the car, that they think she was confused or afraid. They know exactly what happened. They just believe she should be allowed to do it without being shot. The problem is that the belief is just wrong. She's not allowed to do that without being shot. When you use a vehicle as a weapon against somebody, you are authorizing lethal force and response. That's the reality, whether people like it or not. And this has to be the rule because if someone can use a car as a weapon without facing lethal force in response, then there's no meaningful limit on violence. This is, this boundary is what prevents chaos. And that's like, you know, you have to like, get to the bottom of what law enforcement is and what it means to you. And the fact is that a lot of leftist activists like explicitly protest the system but also depend on the system to protect them. Which is like the great irony.

[Anna]

They assume ACAB until you need to work with the police department.

[Ben]

Yeah. They assume that the system will protect them because they've never faced any real consequences in their lives. Which is like, you know, that's a very fine point because clearly this woman in particular has had some very serious consequences in her life. Like she was a troubled, dysfunctional person with like a history of like mental illness. I mean, we don't know that family dysfunction. But, but it's true. And like it's very clear that, that yeah, like she had, had, had experienced some really real consequences, but her relationship to like the state and the law was consequence free and she really didn't know what she was getting into.

[Anna]

That is. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

[Ben]

And like the only thing, the only question I have that could possibly throw a wrench in this is like, what is the legality of ICE reacting this way versus like standard law enforcement, AKA the police? I.

[Anna]

Well, they're not supposed to arrest citizens unless they.

[Ben]

Right. Unless they Obstruct justice or resist arrest. Which, which, you know, you can say that like, you know, whatever you think about this case morally, like, technically, that's what she did for sure. And you know, the, the problem. Yeah. Again, is that these people have really never faced any real world consequences for their beliefs. Which again, just goes to show how like, say, and comfortable our society is. Yeah. And what a luxury their beliefs are because like throughout time, throughout history, people were just like rounded up and taken out back and shot.

[Anna]

Well, there's so many. I've seen now videos of like these middle aged midwestern women interfacing with ICE officers.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And. Yeah. Giving them a lot of like righteous attitude. But they're all like shaking.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

They're not like, they're like something's really wrong.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

These people are crazy.

[Ben]

I mean, it is really weird to. I mean. Okay, I would put it this way because a lot of people on the right were like, well, what would compel a woman to abandon her child to protest.

[Anna]

Like, her evil lesbian wife?

[Ben]

Yeah. Like, what would compel a woman to go to a political protest when she had children? And like, I generally agree with that. Like, couldn't, couldn't be me.

[Anna]

But I mean, I've, you know, I'm anti protest pretty generally.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But like, I think it's like an anti social display.

[Ben]

That's because she never bargained for the fact that she might actually be shot and killed.

[Anna]

Because she's not.

[Ben]

Because she actually believes in the system that she's like openly fighting against.

[Anna]

A black lady would not be doing this unless she was on drugs like George Floyd.

[Ben]

That's a tragic element of it.

[Anna]

Experience adversity.

[Ben]

Well, she has experienced a lot of adversity on the personal level. I'm assuming, though, she doesn't really. Or she didn't really like put two and two together.

[Anna]

I mean, I haven't seen too many people making this point. And I get it because it's not. Maybe it's not a very good one, but in a way, plausibly, what she did. Maybe this is, maybe this is really wrong to say is not so different from suicide by copying.

[Ben]

Huh.

[Anna]

Like, people commit suicide by menacing police officers into killing them.

[Ben]

This sounds like a Denzel Washington movie.

[Anna]

And definitely I don't think she intended to do that.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But functionally that's what she did.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And we don't hold police officers culpable for suicide by cops cases.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And I'm not saying that he shouldn't be culpable. Again, I have my Whole.

[Ben]

Which bullet rubric? Well, I guess the question is, do you subscribe to the social contract construct? Do you. Do you subscribe to the idea of society? And if you do, that means you believe that there has to be law enforcement.

[Anna]

Well, I think these.

[Ben]

But what's like the opposite of that. There's no law enforcement and society is totally lawless and ceases to be society.

[Anna]

Well, I think the ICE protesters see themselves. I wouldn't. I think they believe in a society that is highly liberal and multicultural.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And I think women especially are drawn to these causes in like a confused, bleeding heart way.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Again, also social media, obviously, her wife was filming. They were like, generating content in which they're like, heroically upholding this vision of society that is contradictory to anything that they actually know or have experienced in their life.

[Ben]

Yeah. And I don't think, like, in her mind, it was like. I don't think she was thinking of it as I'm abandoning my child, who I just dropped off at school to be a freedom fighter. She didn't think of it that way.

[Anna]

No, of course, no. She thought that they would get. Or, you know, I don't know. Again, we're speculating, but. Yeah. That they'd have some content.

[Ben]

To prove.

[Anna]

How of them, like, Right.

[Ben]

Violent and Gestapo esque. ICE was.

[Anna]

Yeah. And like righteously standing up to this like, fascistic force.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And that's like stealing their neighbors. Yeah.

[Ben]

And this brings up a very, like. Well, it brings up two very sad realities, which is like, there was a good tweet by this guy Gary, who I follow on Twitter. He said women really hate violence, especially self defense. Someone gets hurt and their instinct is to nurture the person who got hurt regardless of whether they were at fault or not. So they get all weird about it and refuse to accept any reasonable justification. And my feeling about it, I replied to him was that, like, this is good and normal and you want this in women for what it implies. Right. You don't want a woman who has a masculine disposition toward violence. But then the problem becomes how much influence women should have in public life, whether they should have voting rights. This kind of stuff that seems like really, like, bizarre to even talk about because we're past that point. But it's true. Like, when women start to influence the culture, you get a lot of these incidents. And then the other big problem that, like, people have pointed out is that she was protesting on behalf of people who are actively seeing to or seeking to like, scam and defraud her own children. Yeah. But she clearly wasn't thinking of it that way. I mean, like, no offense, but Somali fraudsters in Minneapolis would have no problem.

[Anna]

Like, no, they don't care.

[Ben]

They're just glad raping and killing her children.

[Anna]

The heats off their daycare centers. But I think, yeah, people's wires are just super duper cross. They like don't even know. They don't even know what they're mad about.

[Ben]

I mean, yeah, they just have this. She thought she knew and she like around and found out. And it's very sad. I feel very bad for this woman. I'm not like happy or excited that she died. I see a lot of right wing accounts being like, she deserved it.

[Anna]

No, Horrible. And then that. Yeah, that just perpetuates this like, gotcha.

[Ben]

Is.

[Anna]

On both, both sides where no one's taking the high road even a little bit. It's all like the lowest level discourse.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Of like who is good or bad or who deserves to die or who deserves to kill. But I saw someone posted a Ted Kaczynski oh yeah.

[Ben]

Quote.

[Anna]

That I thought was very lucid. I'm gonna, I'll just read it. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle. And moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the over socialized type. But compassion, moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior. So is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the left is this claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously, it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would at least make verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an extreme excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so, they actually harm black people because the activist hostile attitude towards the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

[Ben]

So true. Yeah, so true. I mean, this is like the Zoran Mamdani choosing that woman, Sia Weaver as like his housing authority or whatever. It's like, it's very funny that these people who are like explicitly anti white pick the worst white people to pal around with.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Because they Don't. Yeah. They don't really know.

[Anna]

Exacerbate, like. Right.

[Ben]

Like.

[Anna]

Renee Good and her partner think they're on the right side of history.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But they're actually like the foot soldiers, like, perpetuating and drawing us closer to a race war.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And, like, antagonizing the situation.

[Ben]

Yeah. And like, libtards, just, like, they see any, like, acceptance of reality or acceptance of hierarchy as, like, cruelty or callousness or malice, but they have no problem accepting just, like, casual cruelty or callousness or malice among those that they deem as marginalized.

[Anna]

Well, it's like the. The pro Palestine protesters.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, they.

[Ben]

Often.

[Anna]

Are. Don't know any Palestinian people. They just feel this supposedly, like, righteous indignation.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

On the part of an oppressed. Oppressed group.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

That they launder.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Into hostile and antisocial behavior. Yeah. Because it gives them a license to, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah. And it's really about the hostile and antisocial behaviors. Like, that's a mystery grove tweet about communism. Yeah. It's like they're. They're. That's the first order. And jealousy. Okay. I don't want to.

[Anna]

Huh.

[Ben]

I'm not trying to be a. And I don't want to fight. But I saw Will Manaker was responding to J.D. vance, and he said J.D. is always willing to hug any anchor thrown his way if he thinks it'll get him a pat on the head from a father figure or gassed up by the group chat. This was in response to JD Vance's, like, perfectly neutral and reasonable.

[Anna]

I think JD's been going too hard.

[Ben]

He's.

[Anna]

I don't think he's being. He's. There's not enough or there wasn't definitely. At least when he first made remarks.

[Ben]

Well, he probably knew he was briefed, unlike Zoran. But he's basically like, accusing Vance of pandering to Donald Trump and right wing and ons while simultaneously, like, pandering to his base and telling them what they want to hear.

[Anna]

Well, that's. Yeah. Sounds like straight up projection, but that's.

[Ben]

Really annoying and unclean. Like, why do people fight like this?

[Anna]

I mean, what I think a valid criticism of JD is that he is not much like the ICE officers de. Escalating, which would be. I don't know. I think that there is a more diplomatic way.

[Ben]

Yeah. And you can actually probably make the case that, like, J.D. vance is, like, too online.

[Anna]

Definitely.

[Ben]

And posting too hard. Yeah. In other instances. But in this case, it does not apply, actually, in his in that specific response that he quote, I, I should pull up that response because it was.

[Anna]

Like he posts a lot but VPs kind of don't do anything. So that is kind of his job.

[Ben]

But it's like, you know what I'm saying? It's like a muddling, a mixing of metaphors. Like Will is fighting dirty but. And he knows it too.

[Anna]

I was very, I found it. I, I found that JD invoking the ICE officers like previous injury.

[Ben]

But that's totally reasonable because this guy is under threat.

[Anna]

But it's not like.

[Ben]

But yeah, even that aside, it, you're right, it's not relevant. What's relevant is that, that that's not good. The guy, it's not a cause to fear for his life and act in self defense in that present moment regardless of what her intentions which couldn't have been known to him because he's not a mind reader. And it's like yes he did because she does graze him with her car when she's peeling off. And it's like unfortunate and unfair and a tragic and incident. I, I again, I feel very sorry for this woman and her family and her children. Don't think she deserves to die.

[Anna]

Feel really bad for this guy too. Don't think he was like prepared to take a life that day. Probably.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And people are like New York Post running stories about how he has like an immigrant Filipino wife to like showcase his hypocrisy and being an ICE agent which. No, no hypocrisy detected.

[Anna]

I don't think think the New York Post was doing that.

[Ben]

No, they did. They posted. They, they like.

[Anna]

No, but if you read the article, they're very much on his side.

[Ben]

No, I know, I know. But they posted his face, his identity.

[Anna]

I think his face was already out there.

[Ben]

This was the JD Vance tweet. Watch this. As hard as it is, many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defenses. They could totally boilerplate, neutral, straightforward tweet with no moral content whatsoever. Like of all the tweets Will Miniker could have chosen, this wasn't the one.

[Anna]

Also in JD's defense, he is combating like media narrative.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

That people who aren't online and not like watching the footage from all angles are receiving.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which is an ICE agent shot of.

[Ben]

Innocent, innocent young mother of three car. They want it to be true, but.

[Anna]

He'S not going about it in, like, a nuanced, diplomatic, politically savvy way. He's just, like, inflaming tensions that already are very, like, feel very, like, like dangerous and high.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And I think there's a smarter way to go about it, to present, like, the facts in a way that feels. That at least feels more neutral, which he really doesn't.

[Ben]

Yeah. Someone responded to, like, that would give him more authority. Sure.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I don't. I mean, I don't know. I think he's just like. He has, like, millennial teacher's pet disease, which I also have, which is that he's trying to, like, clarify and explain the situation at all times. He could do it better, and ain't nobody want that. I get it better.

[Anna]

He's too emotional.

[Ben]

Somebody said to me in response to some tweet I made that. Likewise, the right will defend ICE even if they line up protesters above a ditch and shoot them, which is such a histrionic and manipulative way of arguing, because as it stands now, ICE has never done that in the history of their existence. But you want it to be true. It's like Pedro Gonzalez, like, let a tranny step to my kids. Like, it's a. A wishful thinking cope fantasy. You want it to be true that ICE is the modern day Gestapo and that they're rounding up innocent civilians and citizens and lin them up and shooting them.

[Anna]

Well, it's just LARP for so many of these people. Until it's not in this instance, but for, you know, a lot of grassroots political protest activity. It's completely, like, disconnected.

[Ben]

Yeah. People were mad at me because I said her name being Renee Nicole Good was, like, nominal determinism, and they thought I was, like, mocking her life and death. But it is nominal determinism. It's like all of these big incidents that, like, reach a national pitch, obviously have, like, symbolic weight behind them. And, like, she thought she was being a good person.

[Anna]

I mean, it. Yeah. It occurred to me.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Like, she believed her.

[Ben]

She believed good.

[Anna]

I said, they shot a woman. I said, name was good.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

I said, damn.

[Ben]

Yeah. She's in her mind, she's good and they're bad.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And it's. It's like. It's like, beautiful and Dostoevskian. You know, it's. It's almost.

[Anna]

It's.

[Ben]

It's like, as beautiful and symbolic as, like, the Irina Zarutska murder, where, you know, this, like, poor Ukrainian woman flees a literal war zone to be stabbed by, like, a feral, black vagrant on public transit in America.

[Anna]

Yeah, I have. Yeah. Well, Charlie Kirk really took the. The momentum away from the Arenas of Kutski stuff. And she just doesn't. Her name just doesn't have quite a ring to it as good.

[Ben]

Yeah. I guess Kirk means church.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Let that sink in.

[Anna]

Think about it. But yeah, it's not that Renee Goode was bad.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

It's that. Well, Elia Kazan talks about. He has a book about directing to.

[Ben]

Circle back.

[Anna]

About Streetcar Named Desire where he has this very astute analysis of Blanche dubois and he says that a tragedy is when a person is doomed by the inevitable contradictions of their character. And I would add that contemporary tragedy also has to do with like the contradictions of society. And in Renee Goode's case. Yeah.

[Ben]

That are reflected in the contradictions of somebody's character.

[Anna]

That is like, what is so tragic about it is that she's like a.

[Ben]

Product of the society.

[Anna]

Of society. As is the ICE agent. As are like all of the actors in this situation.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. And picture plane reply to him. Reply to tweet to that nominal determinism tweet and was like, these guys are saying that she deserves to get killed because she's a lesbian. That's not the point. The point is like the causality. She's a lesbian because she's been burned by life so many times as a product of her society.

[Anna]

I mean, it is just.

[Ben]

It's not crazy to be a. It's not. It's not that they're mother.

[Anna]

Like, she's not.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Anna]

Yeah. And then.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

She's not a queer person.

[Ben]

Yeah. She's not a lesbian. She's a. She's a woman who's been burned my. By men and is down on her luck who has turned to lesbianism and left Wingery, who this other lesbian prayed to to like, like cope with her circumstances. She's like a complicated, troubled person, much like George Floyd was. Yeah. It. He wanted to make it seem like they were saying that ICE killed her because they're like modern day fascist Gestapo agents who are anti progress and anti lgbt. But that's not what's going on here.

[Anna]

No, they're. I mean, I do think they are obviously under a tremendous amount of pressure. Yeah. They have a lot of people making their jobs harder, but they've also. We've. There's been a mass recruitment of ICE agents and it's possible that they're not adequately trained. Yes.

[Ben]

And it's also possible that it's selecting for a certain type of ideologically Possessed person. Because it's such a objectively thankless job. Like, why would anybody sign up to be a law enforcement officer?

[Anna]

Pretty well.

[Ben]

Okay. Like, how? Well.

[Anna]

I think, like, starting salary is like, 60.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Anna]

Which is good, you know?

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which is pretty good. And it's not like it's people. I also see people being like. They're just. They, like, recruit. They're just. They're not like, just letting anyone be an ICE agent. But they've have had to hire so many ICE agents. Yeah. That they can't possibly be, like, adequately controlling.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And training them. And that's why they might be, like, excessively forceful or trigger happy.

[Ben]

Also, I. I honestly don't want to.

[Anna]

Kill people because they, like, Aren't prepared.

[Ben]

Right. Yeah.

[Anna]

Aren't. In part because of what they're dealing with isn't just, like, rounding up migrants, but now they're. They have, like, an additional job of, like, mitigating protest activity.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Which isn't their job.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

So there's just fail. It's failure all the way down. A lot of people failed this lady. The, like, the world is like, flopping.

[Ben]

Yeah. I have to pee real good. I'll brb.

[Anna]

Okay. Done. We're past two hours, so we can wrap it up.

[Ben]

Are we done? Yeah, I think we can wrap. I guess the last thing I would say is that there. There is, like, I don't really care about hypocrisy at the end of the day, because everyone's a hypocrite. And you're allowed your hypocrisies. And it's like the kind of, like, easiest, like, lowest game to, like, truffle swine for hypocrisy. But the hypocrisy here is very relevant because I think the people who are, like, totally. Who are, like, really mad about what happened, like, what would they do in a situation where they needed to call law enforcement to have their back? Right. Like, how would they react?

[Anna]

They'd expect them to show up.

[Ben]

To show up and take them. Take care of them.

[Anna]

Take care of them.

[Ben]

Which they. Yeah.

[Anna]

For the most part, do. I've had some experiences with my local police precinct I won't get into. But I love cops.

[Ben]

Yeah. But even if you don't, like, let's say you live in a society and something bad happens to you, someone steps to. Tries to steal from you, breaks into your house, like, what are you supposed to do? Like, this whole thing functions, again, against the implicit backdrop. Backdrop that we live in a society which implies, like, the state, the Law. It means that there are like authorities that, that have your back in an impartial way.

[Anna]

Well, I think most like centrist slips would concede that point. But they see ICE agents as like.

[Ben]

Extra. Yeah. Like they don't. Unlawful extra. Judicial arm of the colonialist, imperialist, the.

[Anna]

State or whatever of the Trump administration.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

They're like a proxy for Trump.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

And their frustrations. But they are just guys doing their job. That really is, that's just the truth.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah.

[Anna]

They're.

[Ben]

They're guys doing a job that has to exist in our current state of affairs because there are a lot of illegal immigrants in the nation.

[Anna]

But I think that the duties of.

[Ben]

Their job.

[Anna]

Are also have become extra.

[Ben]

What do you mean?

[Anna]

Like they're not just enforcing immigration law, they're interfacing with like civilians.

[Ben]

Citizens. Yeah, yeah.

[Anna]

Psychopaths who are like trying to impede them.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

In doing their job, which is like a whole other job. We need a new. We need another task force to deal to handle angry lesbians, to handle anti ICE protesters so that ICE can get back to doing. To rounding up the immigrant.

[Ben]

What did you think they meant when they said the future was female? Vibes essays.

[Anna]

Well, okay. Also, the Department of Homeland Security isn't doing themselves any favors with like the hype. Hypey edits and stuff that's just also inflaming. That's.

[Ben]

Yeah. I don't love that.

[Anna]

That's part of why it's gotten this bad.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

Is because they're not just like discreetly enforcing laws. They're like making a spectacle out of it that obviously people respond badly to, which fuels their like pre existing hostilities and all of that has contributed.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But everyone needs to take a, take a beat.

[Ben]

I know, I know. But it really like confounds the mind that people are out there protesting on behalf of like a new foreign population that is stealing like billions of dollars.

[Anna]

But they don't see it that way. I know that's not part of their like calculation. They really don't. They see it as like their abuelita, like you know, their neighbors, their communities, their like, who they probably mostly don't even have real relationships with. Cuz their minds are also like broken.

[Ben]

The reason you're a lesbian is because Somalians defrauded your day cares.

[Anna]

But they don't. They're not like. Yeah. It'd be really hard to explain that, I think.

[Ben]

True.

[Anna]

But someone should try.

[Ben]

It's going to be me.

[Anna]

You have to take behalf as a gentler touch, you know, yeah, I'm gonna.

[Ben]

Eat my words because I'm gonna take a bullet at a protest.

[Anna]

Oh, don't, Anna.

[Ben]

It's gonna happen by accident. I'm just gonna be milling about, going to Mariam Nasir seda sample sale and catching a stray at Dime Square. Well, I think we've covered it all.

[Anna]

I think we did. We did the show. We'll see you.