← The Broski Report with Brittany Broski
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- [00:01]
Brittany Broski
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [00:41]
Ryan Seacrest
Direct from the Broski Nation headquarters in.
- [00:43]
Brittany Broski
Los Angeles, California, this is the Broski.
- [00:46]
Ryan Seacrest
Report with your host, Brittany Broski.
- [00:56]
Brittany Broski
Watching the mic levels go. All right. My God, man, conduct yourself with a bit of decorum. Never in my life have I seen such a more blatant display exhibition of gross indecency. My God, man, get yourself together. Get a hold of yourself, my dear fellow. Okay, here's the thing. Lots to talk about. Good morning. I'm back in my Victorian era. And some of you bitches are going to say, yeah, with those features, you're always in your Victorian era. What's that? That trend on TikTok that's like, just found out I'm chopped. Just found out I'm chopped. And also unk the comments that are like, Aphrodite. They used to make statues of your body type. Just found out I'm chopped. And also unk. That's literally how I feel. You look like you give the best hugs. Like those fucking comments on TikTok. She found out I'm chopped. And also unk. Yeah, I do kind of give uncle, huh? I give uncle down. I give uncle big time. I'm big time uncle vibes. Shit. Where are all my girls that are uncles? Stand up. Let me see you guys. Yeah, we've transcended this. This limiting description of fun, drunk aunt. And now we've moved on to uncle. Just flat out uncle. And I think that's great. You know, Uncle Britney. It is. Rolls off the tongue and it feels strangely correct. Guys, lots to talk about today. Victorian. God, they were fucked up, huh? I know. I've kind of mentioned the Victorians before the Victorian age. We are not. Not living through something similar right now with a rise of, like, conservativism and puritanism and all these things that. It's like a return to traditional values. I say in heavy quotations because who do traditional values serve? At the end of the day, y', all, I'm charged up today. Okay, here. Here's what's inspired this entire episode. I need you guys to sit down, strap in, grab a fucking pencil and take some notes on this episode. Because, my God, I've got something to say and I've got some shit to teach. Okay? I. And yes, I can read. Just finished the Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray. Now, some of you probably have heard of this. If you haven't heard of this book, then you've definitely heard of Awes. Oscar Wilde, okay? Oscar Wilde. Gay, gay, gay, gay. Irish gay and Irish. Two of my favorite things ever to exist on this planet. This book, I have so much to say. So you bitches better sit down. Today is going to be fun. And sad, but fun. Because lots to discuss in this book. Okay, before we kind of get into that, I do want to let everyone know that I'm going to the Mayhem Ball tonight. So if I start to, you know, if one of my eyes starts to wander, that's why I got sunglasses on. Because I'm over here, I'm thinking about Lady Gaga. I'm thinking about Ga ga ga ga ga goo goo goo ga ga. Sometimes that's how I feel. Because when you memorize lyrics to a song, you have to get every syllable correct. You know what I mean? And I didn't just then. And I can acknowledge that. But that's the beautiful thing of, like, when you love an artist and you memorize it, okay? You have to memorize all the ad libs. You have to memorize how the vowel sits in the mouth. When I'm memorizing Fontaine's D.C. lyrics, I do it in fucking Green Chatten's accent. Because you have to, okay? Selling genocided half good pride. I understand. I had to be there from the start. I had to beat a fucking man. It was a clamor of the night. I sucked a ring off every hand had employed me with drink. Even met with dirt and mans. I love him, okay? Anyway, Was it the weed? The moment. That stuff. Skintifia. Guys, pause this and go listen to Skintifia by Fontaine, CC okay, now come back. Okay, now pause it. Okay, now come back. Okay. Uncensored picture of Dorian Gray. This book really has changed me. I'm taking the sunglasses off for this. This is a tale of. I believe. There's so much to say about this. I believe this to be a tale about, first and foremost, youth and beauty and our obsession with it and how it is fleeting. No one survives. Everyone fucking dies. No one is able to cling on to youth, okay? And that's what makes it precious. Youth is for learning. It's for making mistakes. It's for being young and beautiful. Yes, but beauty doesn't expire, okay? If you look at beauty from an expanded definition, what is beautiful? What do you think? How do you define the word beauty? And I think that's what this book kind of made me. I went down that thought process a bit, but more. So this book is like a new hedonism, okay? The main characters talk about it. A lot of this is in the context. So much to say, I'm freaking out. This book was written in 1891. It was published in 1891. This is like height of kind of Victorian ideals. It is. Like I was saying, it's. It's Puritan culture. And to publish a book like this, which at first, the reason it's called the Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray is because the original editor who published this and okayed it for publishing, removed like 500 words or sentences, something like that, because it was too homosexual, it was too graphic. And even reading this, I was like, oh, this is going to be like a gay porno girl by Victorian standards, sure, but it's just the most subtle mentions. Well, maybe it's not subtle, but it's mentions of, you know, a man worshiping another man in a romantic fever, where he is so enamored by this person and he knows that it will never work out, but that doesn't stop the emotion. And there are some heartbreaking scenes where one of the main characters reveals this to the other character and the other character is a bit unmoved by it. You know, he's almost expectant of the adoration. I'll get into the plot in a second, but a lot contextually to describe with this book. And I actually wrote some notes, so if it looks like I'm reading off my laptop, it's cause I am. Okay? Can a teacher not read off her fucking PowerPoint? So, like I'm saying, the context of this book makes the story even more devastating and impactful because it was so taboo. And arguably it still is taboo, right? Like, we haven't really climbed to the peak of this mountain yet. We're still fighting for gay rights, not only in America, but across the whole world. So texts like this were revolutionary at the time, and they set some stepping stones for us. But fuck, we're not there yet still, you know, 130 years, 140 years later. So at the time, the British government was really cracking down during the Victorian era and beyond. Oscar Wilde lived through this heightened intolerance of what was described as Gross indecency. Now this is a very vague descriptor, gross indecency. A lot could fall under that, okay? And it really was to target the gay community. But I mean, you, you didn't have to be fucking to be called grossly indecent. Walking arm and arm with another man. Gross indecency. Things like this, late night visits, male only brothels, male prostitutes, all these things, it's, it's falls under the blanket, the umbrella of gross indecency, which is just a legal term for homophobia. Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland. He was born in Dublin, went to Trinity College in Dublin, I believe, and then went to Oxford. And at Oxford, I think he lost his Irish accent. And around this time as well, he starts to really find his stride. He's very stylish, he's very opinionated, he's incredibly witty, he is entertaining. You know, he's just a personality to behold. And how sad is that? That just from having those qualities, it's like, no, you're a little bit too fun to be around gay. Something must be wrong with you because you are so vibrant. Yay. And that's how it was for real. He was a poet, a playwright, an intellectual. And a book like this, I believe this was his only work that, his only novel that was published. And let me go ahead and explain the plot. Okay, if you're gonna read it, maybe skip ahead 10 minutes, but I know a lot of you are not. So let me go ahead and give you the Cliff's notes. There is a painter named Basil Hallward, which in a British accent, Basil. His name is Basil. Basil is a painter. He meets Dorian Gray, who is a 17 year old boy, quickly becomes infatuated with him. He's described as having an Adonis level beauty. It really. I was having some flashbacks to Song of Achilles of the way that Patroclus described Achilles. Just the most ethereal, godlike, sunlight, beauty. Basil's very infatuated with him. He starts painting portraits of Dorian Gray. Dorian is at this time this almost innocent figure. He hasn't been corrupted by the evils of the world yet. Thus enters Lord Henry, Basil's best friend. Okay, he is this old cynical, I wouldn't say apathetic, but God, some of his opinions were just like, this book is gag. To be honest, it's gag. I was gagged because my favorite book is the Secret History by Donna Tartt. What I love about the way Donna Tartt describes characters and the way that the Secret History is told is that it's very character Driven. You are so in the mind of the narrator that the way that the narrator describes these people, I'm as infatuated with them as he is. So that level of, oh my God, what an intriguing, complex character. That's how I felt about Lord Henry. And it's to this level of there's no clear narrator in this book. It's not told from any one person's perspective. It's kind of this neutral other that is narrating the story at large. What I really enjoy about Lord Henry is that yes, he is cynical. Yes, his view of the world is kind of really fucked up. But he sees it almost. I was thinking of it as like voyeuristic hedonism. It is pleasure for the sake of pleasure. It's art for the sake of art, which is also aestheticism. And it's all these things where he is intrigued by people because he's curious what they're going to do next. There's no real, you know, concern with morality or with is someone good or bad. It's life offers so many paths and decisions. I'm intrigued to see which one you're going to pick. He sees it as almost this, like he's an audience member and the stage of life which is so interesting to take no, like accountability or no blame for the way that things go. This is how I kind of interpreted this and treating life as like a big game, which I've just never, you know, we take life so seriously. And a character like this who is so hyper intellectual, it's like life being reduced down to, you know, a game of life, like the board game is a very interesting concept. And I don't know, I mean, so many things converge to give him that worldview and being well traveled and well read and whatever. Yes, that goes into it. But he has very interesting opinions on marriage. You know, that marriage almost requires a level of secrecy, especially Victorian era marriage, where it's more a marriage of duty and convenience than love. And fitful passions of love are with your mistress. You know, your wife is someone who you live with, who you, you know, you carry on the family line with. And he admits to Dorian that there is this accepted level of secrecy. Yeah, we both sleep around. I don't want to know. She doesn't ask. You know, we come home and we have dinner together. It's that sort of weird. It's. This book points out the hypocrisy, the fucking stark hypocrisy of the Victorian age. And not just the Victorian age of humankind in general and of civilized society. I say that in quotations, in general, how we're performing for each other. We're upholding these laws. We're trying people in cases and behind closed doors. You're doing the same fucking shit that you're trying these. It's just a level of hypocrisy that is not new. It's not shocking, it's not surprising. It's always existed, but it's just really on an exhibition here. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [16:15]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [16:45]
Brittany Broski
So Basil meets Dorian, is quickly infatuated with him, in love with him, asks him to sit for a painting. He's painting a portrait of Dorian because he's so beautiful. Around this time, as he's working on the painting, his friend Lord Henry comes. Lord Henry, this cynical figure, he. He comes in, you know, he's got an opinion on fucking everything. And he believes himself to be right about everything. Lord Henry and Basil are going at it and he's asking, are you going to put this portrait, you know, on, on display? Are you going to show it at an exhibition or at a museum? And Basil goes, oh, no, I can't. And Lord Henry goes, why? And Basil goes, oh, well, if I tell you, you can't tell anyone. I'm ashamed. And Lord Henry's like, come on, dude, what the fuck's going on? Just tell me. Why don't you want to show it? It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. He goes, I fear I've put too much of myself in it. I've put too much of the artist in the work. Yes, it is a portrait, but the curve of the lines, the suppleness of the skin, the fullness of the lip, there's a sensuality to it that surely I will be known. I will be discovered as being gay because of the care that he painted this other man with. And he had a real fear of being made a mockery or being. I mean, at this time, this was a criminal offense of. Of being discovered. And Lord Henry goes, come on. The fuck are you talking about? And Basil's like, no, I. Please don't mention this to Dorian. And please don't ever bring it up to me again. You know, he's embarrassed. Lord Henry's like, yeah, sure, whatever. Lord Henry meets Dorian quickly. Dorian becomes attached to him. Their first meeting. He's corrupting the youth. He's corrupting the fucking youth, girl. So Dorian's sitting for this painting, all three of them are in the studio, and Lord Henry's just fucking talking, okay? He's asking Dorian some questions, some introspective questions, mentioning points that Dorian's never heard, okay? He's an innocent, uncorrupted youth. He's saying shit like, the terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion. These are two things that govern us. The body sins once and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then, but the recollection of a pleasure or the luxury of a regret. The only way to rid temptation is to rid yourself of temptation, is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain and the brain only that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose red youth and your rose white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, daydreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame. And then Dorian goes, stop. Fucking stop. You're scaring me. You bewilder me. So he's just filling his head with these ideas of like. It's hedonism, right? It's what he calls new hedonism. Or if you're British, hedonism. I think that this being the foundation for this book of like, Chase pleasure. Don't concern yourself with regret. Don't concern yourself with morality. Don't concern yourself with any of the things that uphold the pillars of this society. Do what you want to do. Don't even worry about who you can affect or will affect in the process, chase your desires. Dorian is 17 when he hears this. Okay? Da, da, da, da. They finish this. Lord Henry has to go, and Dorian is just addicted to him, okay? They start hanging out one on one. Well, we know that Basil's in love with Dorian. Lord Henry and Dorian start having this weird thing, you know, they're going to dinner, they're going to the opera, they're going to country houses together. They're doing this, they're doing that. Dorian starts acting out in a way that is predictable. And the debauchery that he starts to get involved in, it's one of those things of leave it to the mind. Like, leave something to the imagination. The way that Oscar Wilde describes what Dorian ends up getting into is vile. It is disgusting. You know, it's all these things. And when he's met with coming face to face with what he's done in his life, because, you know, you go forward. He's 17 when they meet towards the climax of the book or the very ending of the book, he's 32. So he has lived a long time. And here's the crux of the story. I'm not ruining this. Because if you know anything or have heard anything about the picture Dorian Gray, this is a gothic horror. And what ends up happening is this portrait that Basil paints of him is so stunning, so beautiful. He gifts it to Dorian and Dorian keeps it. And then something happens with a woman where he's infatuated with this woman. She's an actress. She's incredible. And then he proposes to her. His friends come to watch this play that she's in, which is fucking Romeo and Juliet. And they're sitting in the. And he's just been talking her up. Girl. I was even getting annoyed. I'm like, she can't be that good of an actress. They sit down. She's awful. She's fucking awful. He's sitting there, like, hand over mouth, so embarrassed. Basil and Lord Henry are like, this is your girl. That's your girl. Ow. Wow, she's really good. Lord Henry leans over and he's like, mama, this is shit. Mama, that's poop from a butt. She is awful. Happy for you, though. Happy. Happy for you. She sucks. All right, I'll catch you. I'll catch you later. That literally is how the scene goes. They Leave early because Romeo and Juliet's what, three, four acts? They leave early. They're like, I cannot sit here another minute and watch this girl. I'm so sorry, but I am happy for you. And he's like, come on, Dorian, let's go. I don't want to sit. Let's go. Let's go out to the gentleman's club. And Doria goes, I have to sit here and see this through. I'm so sorry, y'. All. He's crying. He's so humiliated. He goes backstage after the show, and the woman's like, I freed myself, Dorian. Now that I've known real love, I don't have to act anymore. Wasn't my performance horrible? It was on purpose. There's no need to act now that I have you. Let's run away together. Kiss me, Dorian. And he goes, mama, that was shit. That was shit. I don't love you anymore. Breaks off the engagement. She's devastated because, duh, she just threw her acting career in the shitter for this man who just tossed her to the side because her performance was girl. So that's one night. The next fucking morning, woman found dead, killed herself. Okay? The first sin has been committed. Dorian goes home. He finds out about the news. Lord Henry tells him. He. He's devastated. Obviously he's devastated. But then he quickly, almost too quickly gets over it. Some things happen. They discuss it. Lord Henry kind of helps him in his fucked up, cynical mind. He's like, think about it. You freed her. What a beautiful tragedy to die for love. She died in the most poetic way possible. You should be proud of that. And Dorian's like, yeah, so true. Like, he's fucking this young dude up. Fucking him up. Lord Henry goes away. Dorian looks at the portrait. There are lines on his face. Bitch, it's a magic portrait. It's haunted. Okay, so now here is the setting for this book. Here's the kicker. He sins. The painting bears the sin. He made a wish when Basil was painting this portrait. Oh, I wish my youth would never leave me. I wish that instead the painting would grow old and I would stay forever young. Because Lord Henry is talking about the beauty of youth and how he's just the most stunning young man he's ever seen. His wish came true, bitch. Every single bad thing, immoral act that Dorian commits, the painting bears the brunt of. Honestly was giving me substance vibes. I think the substance pulled from the picture of DORIAN GRAY, It's 100% the same substance story to a certain extent. So what does Dorian, do with this. The same fucking thing that Demi Moore does, okay? Sin after sin after sin. Unabashed living life. He gets into so many things during this time where he's just committing sins left and right with really reckless abandon, because who's keeping him accountable? Who fucking cares, right? And he's. So there's commentary here about when you are beautiful, you can get away with it. When you are nice to look at the world turns a blind eye. And I think that's very interesting, because I don't. Oscar Wilde wasn't really a looker himself. A lot of people during the Victorian age were just kind of hard to look at. Chopped. She found out I'm chopped. And also unk. Dorian Gray was not chopped, okay? And so he would do all this shit and treat people horribly. I mean, the sexual perversion that's alluded to here is just, like. It boggles the mind. Would truly kill the Victorian child. Like, if the Victorian child had known what Dorian Gray was up to, sneaking in and out of brothels and these clubs and traveling and leaving almost just like, destruction in his wake. And Lord Henry gave him license to do that. He was not taught to feel remorse. He was not taught to look back in regret. He was taught to shut the door and. And keep moving forward, chasing those pleasures, okay? So during this time, he explores all these different disciplines, from embroidery to music to jewels to travel to culture to, you know, art. He's a connoisseur of art. And that, you know, obviously doesn't repair the hole that's left in you as a person. When you have no moral spine, you have no semblance of what is good and bad, what's right and wrong. But he does right. This is my theory. He does. It's just easier to give in to temptation. And you've been given, you know, permission to do it from. Here's an older gentleman that you respect. You've been given permission. Why would you not. So fast forward into the book. Basil comes over and he confronts Dorian and he says, brother, what these girls on the street are saying about you is so nasty. Wicked. It's wicked, part two. What they're saying about you cannot be true. Please, Dorian. And by the way, he's not aging, okay? Dorian's not aging. He still is the same youthful beauty that he was at 17, 18, now 32. He's, you know, languishly laying on the couch listening to Basil say all this bullshit about where he's been, what he's done, okay? Also, it's gag because he's saying the things that. It's almost like Dorian knows and doesn't give a shit. Associates and friends that Dorian has, you know, been seen around dead or killed themselves. Almost every woman that he's been with dead or killed herself or exiled. He used to run around with this one woman. Now her kids can't live with her. Taxis won't even pick her up. Like this is for real. He is leaving destruction in his wake with no concern. And so Basil's sitting there and he's like, where is the boy that I used to know? What the fuck happened? Please tell me it's not true. Just look at me in the eye and tell me it's not true. Please. And Dorian won't. Dorian goes, you wanna know? You really wanna fucking know? Follow me. And Basil's like, what do you mean? He goes, I've kept a diary of all my sins. I'll show it to you. Basil goes, dorian, what is this? What's the meaning of this? Follows him upstairs to where Dorian keeps the portrait under lock and key and under a sheet. He goes in there, brings the lantern, rips that shit off, and shows Basil the portrait. Look at my sins. Look at this. You did this. Okay, right? He's blaming Basil. Basil's, of course, horrified. Horrified. He thinks it's a joke. What sick fuck would paint over that beautiful portrait? I did so many. Did you do this? Who did this? Oh, this is, you know, it's like a crime, whatever. Then he sees at the bottom left, his signature. And then it starts to make sense. Dorian has not aged a day. Look at the painting. In a fit of rage, Dorian looks at Basil and thinks, this is the motherfucker that did this to me. You have marred my soul. You have marred me as a person. He starts to really. He's worked up. He's worked up. He finds a knife on the nearest bookshelf and he fucking. Okay. He stabs Basil in the neck. Stabs him in the neck. He's sitting down at a table that's up in this attic space, and he slumps over, dead. I mean, in less than 60 seconds, dead. Dorian in the most like, bitch. I was gagged. I wrote notes. I mean, like, true sociopath, for real. The way that he. The way that he conducts himself for the last, like, 40 pages of the book. He's calm. He acts like it's just a task to do, like have to dispose of this body. How the fuck am I gonna do this? I'll handle it tomorrow. Goes to bed. Okay? Next morning, wakes up his butler wakes him up with some hot chocolate. He's smiling, he wakes up. And then as he's going about his day, the birds are chirping. He's sitting there having his tea. He's eating breakfast, whatever. And then he goes, oh, oh, dead body in my attic. Frack. Classic Wednesday. Normal Wednesday, like Wednesday vibes. Have to go clean the fucking corpse out of my attic. And so he blackmails someone to come help him, Whatever. And then at the end, I'm gonna ruin it. Okay, if you're gonna read the book, go skip forward. Skip this whole part, actually, this fucking 30 minute part. End of the book, he goes up there and he goes, I know what I have to do. Takes the same knife that he killed Basil with, rips the painting. And then the perspective ship shifts to the valet and the butlers and. And the policeman outside. Passerbys, it said they heard a cry and a thump and they went up there. Dorian Gray was old as fuck, collapsed on the floor. The painting was ripped. The painting was of a beautiful young boy, and the knife was in Dorian's heart. And that's how the fucking book ends. Gag. Okay, if you skipped forward. If you skip forward. Pa, come back now. Oh, my God, this book is. Gag. Okay, so that's the plot, right? The context and the ripple effect of what this story was. The homosexual undertones, the debauchery, the absolute disregard for Victorian civil standards was what makes it so good. At the same time, this marked a real pivot for literature and for art from, you know, art should be almost an academic medium now. It's for pleasure and entertainment. It's art for art's sake. It's not art to appease someone, whether that be the church, a government, you know, painting for kings or whatever. This really is a shift in. I believe it's pronounced aestheticism, decadence, which, by the way, decadence. We think of something being decadent as like a cake or a chocolate. Something that's very rich and perhaps luxurious. If we see a room and it's. Oh, it's decadent. Decadence actually means decay. Decay of something that is once was good, almost down to like a trashy level. Now, this book as well as a lot of Oscar Wilde's works are described as decadent. Or this movement of decadence, which just learned that. Very interesting. This episode is sponsored by SeatGeek. Guys, I don't wanna scare anyone, but Hozier is still on tour. He's out there. 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Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name the Broski Report with Brittney Broski in the survey so they know that I sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from this show. Thanks. Okay, so let's move on to Oscar Wilde's the kind of end of his life. After this book came out, he was criminally tried in court for gross indecency. If you're at all interested in this. And what I'm about to say is, so it's tea, but it's also very sad. And also what I. This 100% is part of queer history. And what Oscar Wilde represents to queer history and to pride as it stands today. He was tried in court for gross indecency by his boyfriend's dad. Gag. They go to court, and he treats the courtroom like a theater, thinking that he's charming when he's on the stand, he's making people laugh. He's getting caught. You know, he's catching the opposing counsel and, like, he's asking him questions back, rhetorical questions, making a farce of the whole thing, but really, he ended up making himself look more guilty. He played word games with opposing counsel, and he fucked it. He completely fucked it. What's important to note about these trials is that it was never about actually proving he was engaged in homosexual sexual activity. Just the implication of it was bad enough. This was a humiliation ritual, okay? It was to make him this sort of metaphorical leper of look what happens when you do the things that Oscar Wilde does. We all know he's doing it. And let this be an example to anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps, okay? He was made out to be an example. The view of masculinity after these trials became much more narrow. You know, you don't want to be described as gay or having any qualities or descriptors about you that would allude to you being gay or being grossly indecent. In trying to squash this caricature of the sinful indecent other, this threat that the British government was pinpointing, they actually ended up creating a figurehead for the whole movement, which isn't that how it Goes he was a martyr. He was a martyr for gay rights. And I think that's part of the reason why he's so wide celebrated today. Now, I'm speaking objectively in the sense of what Oscar Wilde lived through, what he was put through. He served jail time for being gay. I don't know jack shit about some of his personal worldviews. He was a product at the time. If he was racist and sex, he probably fucking was. I'm not defending that. I'm saying that in the time period that he was active and when we could have gotten so much more art and beautiful work, I mean, this was his one novel. And it's amazing. Like, that's what I mourn is when these artists are persecuted, prosecuted, and ultimately die prematurely. It's like, it's a loss for human history as a whole. And while his life was important and what happened to him, really, it has marred the history of how humans treat each other. You know, the history of human rights and the struggle for human rights and just common decency between people. That is this story. And his life is incredibly relevant. Oscar Wilde died alone, broke and in exile in a Parisian Hotel in 1900. Like all that, and it's just, it's so sad. But the way that he is celebrated today, what he represents today is arguably so much more important than any of the works that he did. You know, what he represents is living unabashedly unfiltered. Truly, you and I love that. I really do love it. This is a quote that I love from him in defense of homosexuality. It is in this century, misunderstood. So much misunderstood that it be described as the love that dare not speak its name. And an account of it. I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful. It is fine. It is the noblest of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. Then he goes on to defend getting with minors and the beauty of an older gentleman dating a younger gentleman, which I just, you know, it's like, come on, come on, Oscar. You had me, you had me and you lost me. But it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's not completely defendable, but I guess his heart is in the right place. Where it's true. There's nothing unnatural about it. And that love is no less or more than straight love. It is completely human. And it's just like to ruin it by saying some bullshit about and I should be able to groom. Okay, and gay rights. And also I should be able to date a 17 year old. And yes, I'm 40. Okay. Love is love. Like fuck. Okay, can we strike that one from the. Yeah, go ahead and strike that from the record. Thank you. Anyway, by the way, homosexuality was not decriminalized in the United Kingdom until 1967. Okay. Okay. Yay. Yay. I want to read this passage. At the beginning of this book is a huge introduction. It's probably like 40, 50 pages of a. An introduction of the. Like I'm saying the context of this book, the struggles of publishing it, and the critiques it was met with, and this is what I want to read. The novel altered the way Victorians saw and understood the world they inhabited, particularly with regard to sexuality and masculinity. It heralded the end of a repressive Victorianism. After its publication, Victorian literature had a different look. I mean, holy shit, what an impactful work. There are so many good, just like individual lines that I ended up annotating or underlining. One of them is the life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become ignoble, hideous, and uncouth. That's how it's described here. But that one line, the life that was to make his soul would mar his body. Isn't that the point? Isn't that the point? Isn't that the price you pay to really self realize the process of self realization and all the pain, sorrow, joy and happiness that come from that and everything in between? The cost is a marred body. But isn't that almost proof? It's proof you lived it. It's proof and battle scars, not to sound cliche, of a life well lived. And while there is an importance in your health and not necessarily preserving youth for the goal of preserving beauty, but, you know, wearing sunscreen every day, eating right all these things that you want to protect your organs, that's more so the point. And I really, you know from last week's episode, me ranting about this shit. It's like this book, honestly, I. I was gonna read. I haven't finished east of Eden. Sorry. The intro is a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's giving 20,000 leagues under the Sea. I don't want to fucking read this. But it's one of the most highly rated books ever. I will get to it. But this one, it's been calling to me. On my shelf, I've got a whole bunch of books because I love to go to Barnes and Nipple and spend money that I really shouldn't be spending. And so I've had this as well, a bunch of other classics. I might read Frankenstein next because I've never. Well, actually, I read Frankenstein in college in my Brit lit class, but I didn't, you know, I have not paid attention since then. I was probably 18. So I think it'd be fun to revisit it 10 years later and really see it through now that I'm in this sort of gothic horror. Whatever. I might finish Dracula as well. Anyway, this book is very relevant to so many things that we're still. What I love about reading. Bitch. What I love about reading is nothing is new. Nothing is new. The struggles that we have today, humans, have had for millennium. It has always been a struggle to be seen, to have rights, to be represented, to live freely, to live comfortably. All of these things have always been under attack. No generation, okay? And I put that with an asterisk. No generation has had it easy. Every single generation, every single century has had the things that plagues it. And we haven't figured out how to perfect the human experience yet. All of us are still a part of this big puzzle, this big equation that has no solution. It has no ending, it has no formula. We have theories, we have philosophies, but we're hopeless. You know, like, we are hopelessly chained to our own humanity, which is flawed. We will always be flawed. So find the beauty in the flaws. Find the beauty in the hypocrisy, in the contradictions. I mean, part of the. It's art that represents that kind of stuff. Like this, where this is almost a satire, I would argue this is a satire. This book albums like Motomami by Rosalia. These things deal with transformation and acknowledgement of the fact that we are always transforming. Therefore, how can anything be solidified? How can anything be solid? We are fluid beings. So something like this, as well as just reading in general, it opens the mind to. And honestly, it endears me to these authors and to a time that is not my own, that, oh, my God, we were going through the same thing. Of course, it's a different flavor and it has different context. And sometimes the words they use are kind of really outdated and hard to read. Both, like, actually, you know, I'm having to Google what they mean, but at the same time, just completely racist. Just unabashedly racist. Really fun. Oh, my God. And Fox, the lead character in this Lord Henry, he's got some crazy views on, like, just super misogynistic, you know, women, like, classic, like, women be shopping, like that kind of shit. Oh, fuck. It just. Is it boggles the mind. But I. You have to sift through all that, all the prejudices and the judgments and whatever, and sit with the fact that the struggles of that age are the struggles of this age. And when you read books like Heart of Darkness, that deals with colonialism and the effects of that, we're still dealing with that today, you know, and all these. It's like there's nothing new. Human history repeats itself and it's a cycle, but it doesn't have to be a circle. I learned that recently as well. So all these things. I mean, reading is so powerful. You don't need me to tell you that, like, please get back into reading. I'm also on this. This kick. There are so many things pulsing through my body right now where I feel so privileged always to have a platform to be able to spread this message of the best piece of armor you can equip yourself with is intelligence. Intelligence is the only thing that really has weight in this world. Beauty is fleeting. Youth is fleeting. Fame is fleeting. Intelligence. Intelligence and an education. Wow. Those are the. It's. There are reasons when you, you know, there are banned books that the curriculums are under attack. Universities are under attack. Why do you think that is? All of these things are. It should be redirecting you or charting the stars in your sky to want to know more. And the more you know, the more you want to know. And that, to me, is a life well lived. Have I seen all there is to see? Have I read and experienced all the things that I never would have experienced if I never left Texas? Dude? Oh, my God. We have the Internet at our fingertips and what do we use it for? So reading, to me, it's a great way to get the fuck off of my phone. I get the hell off my phone. I finished this book in a day. I was so proud of myself. I was so proud of myself. I finished it in a day and I annotated it and I did all the. I mean, I don't do. I'm not this girl, you know what I mean? Where people are, like, reading Acotar, annotating actar. I'm not doing all that. This, to me, is a. It's an academic work that is worth annotating because either it's lines that I really love because Oscar Wilde was a fucking poet, or it's like, towards the end, what did I write? I wrote something that was to the effect of, like, a true annotation. I wrote, oh, this is towards the end of the book when Dorian has just gone off the fucking deep end. I said, he's so corrupted beyond reproach that the absence of praise for his good deed is enough for him to never try again. And then I wrote in quotations, because I know people like this. I have people like this in my life of the. Well, I guess I can't do anything right, right? Well, I guess I can't do anything right in your eyes, so why even try? It's giving, Dorian Gray. It's giving. Shut the fuck up, bitch. You are childish. So I wrote that of, like, summarizing, kind of in a real life way, the personality type. God, so well written and really reminds me of the secret history. The way that Oscar Wilde writes characters really reminds me. And you know what? I want to see the Importance of Being Earnest. We had to read that play in high school. And I couldn't have given less of a fuck. I couldn't have given less of a fuck. I don't care. Importance of being. Don't give a shit. Epic Chungus moment. Epic Chungus moment. I don't care. I was 17 now, like, local, nearest Importance of Being Earnest play near me featuring Paul Mesco. Like, fuck, I want to see it. Well, so go read the picture of Dorian Gray. This book fucked me up. It fucked me up in a good way. And I. It's so sad because I'm like other works by Oscar. Oh, it's just, you know, an unfortunate reality of intellectuals and academics always having been executed for telling the truth, for putting society under a microscope. They get fucking executed for it, girl. I watched this YouTube video the other day. 25 different philosophies in 10 minutes. And I'm like, hell, yeah. I pulled it up and it basically goes through, you know, anything from, like, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, to Confucius to, like, Thomas Aquinas to, you know, whatever, like, modern philosophy. And, like, there's a through line with a lot of thought leaders with a lot of mouthpieces for philosophical movements. So many of them are killed. Why do you think that is? So many of them are killed. Even when you get into, like, Malcolm X, John Lennon, these people that, like, represent progress, right? Quote, unquote, it's like they become martyrs. Because why they don't have to become martyrs. And in doing that, you, like, inspire a new generation when we could have just let that keep going and maybe achieve more progress. Who fucking knows? It's just so devastating to watch. I was watching this video getting pissed the fuck off because they killed Plato or. No, it was Socrates who killed Socrates. Socrates was sentenced to Death by the Athenian court. He was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. And after being found guilty, he was ordered to drink a poison hemlock. It was the jury of Athenian citizens who convicted him. It's just like. And even shit like Galileo, da Vinci, like, all these people, they become enemies of the church, enemies of the state. And it's like, for what? Why? I mean, I know why, but it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way. Me, Britney Broski reacting to human history. Oh, what the. Why? They could have just not killed him and life would have been better anyway. Yeah, so go read some Oscar Wilde. I have some other shit I'd like to talk about. Oh, I got my stint removed. I don't know if I told y' all that it went great. The gallbladder saga is officially behind us. It's officially in. Probably embalmed in some formaldehyde somewhere in Rome, Italy. I don't know what they did with her. I don't know where they put her. Okay, My gallbladder could be on the black market somewhere. I don't know. Who wants it? It was necrotic and filled with gallstones. So I really am not at liberty to talk about the whereabouts of my gallbladder. But I do hope she's out there doing okay. What, do they just throw it away? What the fuck? How do hospitals dispose of. Dispose of organs? Hospitals send. This is the AI overview. Hospitals primarily send removed organs and body parts to pathology labs for examination and analysis. After analysis, they are disposed of through incineration or other regulated waste disposal methods. In some cases, organs may be preserved for research purposes or, if the patient requests and it's feasible, return to the patient. Damn. Should have asked for my gallbladder. I could have kept it on the desk. I could have kept it in a jar on the desk. Oh, my God, I'm changing this podcast. You know those like. Oh my God, I wish Drew was here. She would. She would laugh at this. Do you know that group of people that honestly I think I believe I belong to? That's like steampunk enthusiasts, like cyberpunk girls where they wear the Victorian boots, the lace up boots, and like, they dress. It's not cosplay because they. Their houses are decorated like this. And usually they have like the victory rolls, the red lipstick. It's like the vintage cosplayers, like sexy ladies. There's like that whole community, they're really tatted up. I have always been addicted to those type of Women, because they're so fucking cool. And I don't think I've admitted to myself that I might be. I might be that, like, my look, my house is kind of getting. It's pushing into that territory. All my furniture is antique. I've got those Victorian lampshades. All right. It's kind of like Texas meets 1875. I don't know. I really don't know. But I know that that's in me. That shit has always intrigued me. Girl. When we went to where were We? I think it was Barcelona my mom and I went to. It was like. It wasn't a macabre museum. You know how they'll have those sometimes, like history or Museum of the Dead or Museum of the Macabre, whatever. And it's like pinned butterflies and moths and bats and shit. That's, like, weird and not Funko pop, but, like, steam. Steampunk. Like, I don't. It's like that. It's a real shrine to Victorian oddities. It's. It's oddities. Okay. I'm going to decorate the Broski Report set like that. So next time you see it, there's going to be lace everywhere. There's going to be wallpaper, there's going to be Victorian lampshades. There's going to be huge glass jars with, like, embalmed. Like that, dumbass. Like, what is that? And it's never real. They're like, embalmed chupacabra. What are you talking about? And then I'm like, embalmed chupacabra. I'm going to have that. I'm going to have old dusty books they have. They make those. I hope they're not real, but usually they're like fake taxidermy bats that hang upside down that you can pin. Sometimes they're real. I don't like that. But that shit, you know, those oddity museums, I love that stuff. Oh, I was gonna say in Barcelona, me and my mom went to what used to be. I'm gonna look it up. Yeah. Dude, this was it. This was it. Hell, yeah. The Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia. This was so, so, so interesting. Okay. As we know, medicine and the study of medicine has always been a point of intrigue. And there have been so many mishaps over the history of medical research where. You know, from dissecting bloated corpses, where you, you know, cut the stomach with a knife and it fucking explodes like that. This was the era of that, okay? They had little to no understanding how. Of how a body decomposes what organs are where the function of each organ. Studying things like bloodletting and leeches and all these archaic forms of healing that ultimately they didn't know what they were doing. This was a learning amphitheater. So you can see here in this picture, and if you. If you're not watching video, I'll describe it to you. Audio listeners. If you're an audio listener, make some noise. Now. Shut up. If you're an audio listener, make some more noise. Yeah, now stop. Okay. This is an amphitheater with tiered seating. It's in an oval shape. And in the middle of this room is a marble table that can fit. The purpose is putting a human body on it. The floor is kind of concave. It goes down for draining reasons. Yeah, I'm fucking. Ew. There's a drain on the floor. And so the floor slopes down. There's a huge marble table. And then around it are seats. And then above that are benches with, like, nice velvet cushion, whatever. And also in this room are these thick ass velvet curtains all around. This was a very prestigious place to be. You had to be somebody to sit in this room and watch a surgical. You know, what is that called? It wouldn't be an autopsy. It's when they cut open a body. You know what I'm talking about? And this was a real place for learning. And we went in here and y', all. It's so well preserved. And it's also so macabre to think about this because, oh, my God. One of the tour guides said if you were sitting in that front row, you were in the splash zone. Splash zone. Splash zone. Hey, what do you mean, splash zone? Hey, I'm about to vomit. Hey, so what the fuck do you mean, splash zone? Human body, splash zone. SeaWorld. But it's guts, okay? What are you talking about? Splash zone? Yeah. Please wear your Covid mask, okay? Because guts might get in your mouth. So they would sit here and they would watch and they would learn. And I'm not sure what the fuck they were learning because I think this was like 1700s or like late 1600s. And I think this was used all the way up until maybe the late 1800s. But this whole building was so stunning. Oh, my God. It was like these huge libraries, huge conference rooms with all, like, original furniture, original books, and it was just amazing. And this was. This is an example of many around the world of a learning environment where I'm not sure who the corpses were. I'm not sure who volunteered themselves to be kind of dissected and cut open. But damn. So much of what we know about the human body is unfortunately through these sort of, you know, medical research opportunities. Very, very tea though, to go in here and be like, damn, the forward thinking minds of medicine were in this room for centuries learning about things we still don't. We haven't figured out fully today. So, yeah, very, very interesting. Let's move into songs of the week. I'm gonna go ahead and throw Disease by Lady Gaga in there and I'm also going to throw Crying in the Chapel by Elvis Presley, actually. Okay, the Elvis version and also the Rex Allen version. That's my favorite one. Crying in the Chapel by Rex Allen and oh my God. Euro country by C Mat. Why am I. Why have you bitches not told me about cmat? I really trust you guys. I read those comments and not one of you told me about cmat. I had a big butt and it had me all on me, all around me, that, oh my God, I could do a whole separate episode on the meaning of that song where we kind of learn it together. That song, Euro country by cmat, is about the Irish economy and how the Celtic tiger and all these things and how Ireland was really the first country to be hit with the 2008 recession and they felt it very intensely. It also addresses suicide within the Irish community, which is a staggering number. It also, I mean, this C Matt is like your artist's favorite artist type of shit. You know what I mean? Like, she's ahead of it. And I also like that she's kind of in this realm of Sam Fender and Mumford and Sons. Love CMAT and all. It's like very political but very real. Like there's no feigned academicism and the lyrics are raw and they are to the point and they hurt. And that's. It's great artistry. I mean, she's fucking incredible. I would also like to offer Head down for the conversation by Get Down Services. Who the fuck is Get Down Services? They came on my kneecap radio. I was listening to Kneecap and they came up and their music is very. Talking like this and they're doing an accent. It's really got thick drums in the back. It's like, I'm driving. I'm like, oh, okay, hold on. Okay, yeah, okay. And then. And they followed me on Instagram. I'm freaking out. Who are they? Where did you guys come? Hey, Get Down Services. Where did you guys come from? I love them. I'd like to see them live. I'd like to get very very violently high and go to a Get Down Services concert. Do you guys mind if I do that? Anyway, going to the Mayhem Ball. Pray for me. I might take an edible and have a panic attack. I might pay a little visit to the medic tent at the Mayhem Ball. Okay. Might ruin everybody's night. Just for fun. Got a little greened out. Green Dot, Abra Goodabra, Me and the Medic Tin. And it really is like that. All right, guys, there's an official playlist for all the bullshit songs that I recommend. Actually, they're not bullshit. They're really fucking good songs that I recommend because I have taste. If you ask me, I have taste. There is an official playlist linked in the description that my fantastic squire Elizabeth put together for us. Go give that a listen. There's also an unofficial playlist that some loyal member of Broski Nation has been working on for like the past four years. Every song I've ever mentioned in any capacity, Instagram story, an interview, my podcast, she adds that shit. I don't know who you are, but I am sending a big fucking hug to you. Please shoot me a dm. Whoever runs that that playlist. If you want merch, go grab it at Zabrowski Shop. If you want to listen to my music, go do it. It's on Spotify wherever you listen to music. I love you guys very much. Thank you for listening to me rant about the Victorians and how fuckered they were. Okay, I will see you guys next week. Goodbye. Foreign.
- [67:33]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Chobani, Altshine, Sparkling Ice Planters, Skippy, Electrolyt, Drumstick, Kender and M&M's. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.