Wesley Morris: How Critics at Large See the Stories We Miss

Summary

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Podcast Summary: What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: Wesley Morris: How Critics at Large See the Stories We Miss
Date: December 25, 2025
Host: Trevor Noah
Guest: Wesley Morris (Pulitzer Prize-winning critic)
Additional Voices: Eugene

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Episode Overview

This episode features a lively conversation between Trevor Noah and Wesley Morris, delving into what it means to be a “critic at large,” how trends in culture tell deeper stories than we realize, and the changing power of names, art, and movies in society. The episode moves seamlessly from playful banter (about old-fashioned names and messy bathrooms) to philosophical explorations about how art reflects and shapes identity, power, and the stories we tell about ourselves—often without noticing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Some Stories Stay Unnoticed (Critics at Large)

• Defining the "Critic at Large":
  Trevor frames the “critic at large” as someone who notices unspoken cultural trends and makes connections other people might miss. Unlike a traditional critic who reviews a single work, the critic at large sees the broader patterns and what those patterns say about society.

  • “A critic at large is somebody who is looking at society, all of the elements that are within that society, and then tries to notice how the shifts in that society are telling us a story that the society itself doesn't notice.” —Trevor Noah [13:23]

• Approaching Culture as a Living Story:
  Morris explains his process of seeing beyond surface phenomena. For example, why he’d write about the public’s fixation on a tennis player’s haircut rather than an everyday win:

  • “The US Open is the place where people do the weirdest stuff to themselves... it's like, what's the story here?” —Wesley Morris [15:31]

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The Power and Performativity of Names

• Name Trends as Cultural Barometers:
  Names once cycled linearly, but now the cycle is eating itself due to celebrity culture, globalization, and assimilation. Morris notes how certain names fall out of fashion or are considered “too ethnic” to catch on, even after prominent visibility (e.g., “Barack”).
  • “I just want to live in a world where like Yoon is just... the new James in the US. But I don't know if we really want that because of the way assimilationism works here...” —Wesley Morris [09:49]
  • “Have you heard about Donald?... I don't believe Donald is on [the top names list].” —Wesley Morris [12:14]
  • “Judith. Margaret. Arnold. My parents’ names... Those are dead names.” —Wesley Morris [06:33]

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Haircuts, Sports, Gender, and What We Notice

• Superficial Trends as Deep-Symbol Stories:
  The conversation turns to Carlos Alcaraz’s haircut at the US Open and how the media fixated on it, forcing an apology and reflection on why some appearances demand explanation—and how that burden is usually reserved for women.

  • “Now here’s a man having to, like, explain his physical appearance in a way that I don't recall a male tennis player... ever having to do. It's usually women.” —Wesley Morris [27:01]

• Men Now Explaining Their Appearance:
  The Alcaraz moment is rare, showing how anxieties about appearance—and their social meaning—are shifting unpredictably across gender lines.

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Who Owns the Past? Museums, Art, & the Politics of Returning

• Should Art Go Back To Its Origins?
  The hosts debate if art looted or exported from its place of origin should be returned. Morris and Eugene offer contrasting views, exploring what art means when it’s “foreign” versus “returned home,” and how context gives objects significance.

  • “I feel like it's not art if it’s with its people. I feel it’s art when it's not home. It becomes, it has significance when it's not at home.” —Eugene [38:12]
  • “It kind of only gets you so far with art... responsible institutions will tell a story of where it was and how it got to be where it is.” —Wesley Morris [45:34]

• Time vs. Ownership:
  Trevor introduces the idea that the time in which art is moved may be more important than the people who moved it—raising questions about which era or government’s authority should count.

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Art as Proof of Existence and Dignity

• Artifacts as Evidence for Identity:
  When traditional narratives erase African civilizations’ achievements, everyday objects become crucial proofs of existence, dignity, and intelligence—making debates about repatriation deeply meaningful.

  • “Now all of a sudden, that plate, that comb, that statue is no longer just a plate, comb or a statue – it’s now proof that these people... actually happened.” —Trevor Noah [61:02]
  • “A people needs to know its story and the value of the story that the artifacts represent—a whole that kind of dignify or redignify a people.” —Wesley Morris [61:52]

• Art in Diaspora:
  Pride comes from seeing one’s own heritage recognized in the great museums of the world.

  • “It just fills you with pride. Like, I came all the way over here, didn’t need to see any black shit... but here we are.” —Wesley Morris [63:22]

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Art, Power, and National Identity (Trump & Museums)

• Why Politicians Fear Museums:
  Trevor notes the peculiar energy and focus certain American politicians—especially Trump—placed on museum exhibitions, suggesting they understand the narrative power of art in shaping public memory and identity.

  • “He’s not saying ‘my kid could do that.’ He’s saying, ‘this shit is powerful... and it needs to be stopped.’” —Wesley Morris [66:36]

• Trump as America’s Apotheosis:
  Morris offers that Trump may lack empathy or understanding of history, but is also a “quintessential” American, shaped steadily by the room he’s in.

  • “He is the apotheosis of this country in many ways, right?... A very good example. There are lots of, like, great Americans. Trump is Trump, at the end of the day, no matter what you say.” —Wesley Morris [71:14]
  • “You just get him in the right room...” —Trevor Noah [82:28]

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The Changing Shape of Movies – From Everyman to Superheroes

• Loss of Everyday Humanity in Film:
  The group discusses the stark difference between past films—rich with scenes of kitchens, families, and work—and today’s blockbuster movies, which are dominated by superheroes and lack regular people and real-life detail.

  • “There was a value to watching Sally Field try to keep her farm from going under... now, we don't have that with the Avengers.” —Wesley Morris [99:19, 100:11]

• Movies as a “Museum in Action”:
  Morris sees movies (and previously, video stores) as active records of a people’s inner life, hopes, and anxieties—the “museum in action.”

  • “The movies are the museum in action, right? Like a video store, when we had them, those were museums, 100%...” —Wesley Morris [95:56]

• Representation, Aspiration, and Imagination:
  Films once encouraged viewers to identify with ordinary people who changed their world. Today’s superhero giants, instead, ask audiences to watch (not imagine themselves as) the heroes.

  • “If you grew up watching Die Hard... you believed you as an individual could make an outsized influence in the world. Avengers comes along, and it’s like, listen, all you’re gonna do is be in your office screaming.” —Trevor Noah [100:54, 101:10]

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What Makes a Critic at Large? (And Why So Many are Black)

• Outsider Perspective Breeds Insight:
  Trevor asks why so many great critics at large are Black. Morris reflects on being shaped by curiosity, encouraged to question, and the freedom to be both inside and outside the mainstream—seeing connections and context others miss.

  • “There's something about wanting to understand how the world works... art is a version of how the world works.” —Wesley Morris [121:10]

• Learning From Scarcity and Exclusion:
  Growing up with few flattering representations, Black viewers learned to read against the grain, notice absence, and imagine more.

  • “We grew up at a time... there were very few flattering depictions of Black people from Hollywood, at least. And it never mattered, right? It never mattered.” —Wesley Morris [121:20]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Exchanges

• On Critic at Large vs. Regular Critic:
  “A critic is somebody who is criticizing or commenting on the elements of any particular thing... But that's it. A critic at Large is somebody who is looking at society... and tries to notice how the shifts... are telling us a story.” —Trevor Noah [13:23]

• On the Power of Absence in Art:
  “So the thing that I love about, no matter where the art winds up, is responsible institutions will tell a story of where it was and how it got to be where it is.” —Wesley Morris [45:32]

• On Trump’s Relationship to History:
  “I can't think of a living person… with that degree of power, who also simultaneously knows nothing about history, but also has a deep understanding that he is making it as he goes.” —Wesley Morris [72:04]

• On the Loss of Human Stories in Movies:
  “I mean, I’m not saying I want more farm movies, but there was a value to watching Sally Field try to keep her farm from going under. Which is a kind of movie that happened every week.” —Wesley Morris [99:19]

• On Superheroes Displacing the Everyman:
  “Their family only exists as a device to give them an origin story… But we don’t see who these people are, or who they mean to them, or how they shape them.” —Trevor Noah [100:10]

• On the Enduring Power of Storytelling:
  “When they're focused on what regular people are dealing with and going through, you just... you learn something about how to be in the world.” —Wesley Morris [104:51]

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Important Timestamps

• Naming patterns, assimilation, and power of trends: 03:08 – 12:22
• What a critic at large does (Tennis, haircuts, and meaning): 12:33 – 29:43
• Art, museums, and repatriation: 38:02 – 61:53
• Art as proof of identity, and the dignity of artifacts: 61:03 – 66:04
• Trump, museums, and the battle over narrative: 66:01 – 87:43
• Movies as reflections and tools of civilizational memory: 91:41 – 104:51
• Why critics at large are often Black, growing up learning to “read against the grain”: 109:18 – 121:19
• Closing reflections on movies, critics, and the value of noticing: 127:03 – Episode end

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Final Takeaways

• Wesley Morris illustrates how the critic at large’s superpower is to make the invisible visible—spotting the subtle evidence of what we value, what we ignore, and how cultural objects shape who we think we are, often without us noticing.
• The episode challenges listeners to look beneath the surface of trends, names, art, and film, and understand them as living artifacts—reflecting our anxieties, aspirations, and the stories of power we tell, inherit, and sometimes resist.
• Trevor stresses the importance of slowing down and digesting culture—rather than consuming in haste—in order to see the stories we might otherwise miss.

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Listen if you want: An insightful, funny, and thought-provoking conversation about culture, art, identity, and the power of criticism to reveal the hidden stories behind what we watch, name, and display.

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Transcript

[Wesley Morris]

Foreign.

[Trevor Noah]

To look at when Superman movies come back and when they don't.

[Wesley Morris]

When they do well, and when they don't. It's a great point.

[Trevor Noah]

There's a moment when America's telling a story about itself being exceptional and fighting the Russians and fighting communism. Superman's the thing. And then that story, like, fades away. Superman fades away. And then the Superman that becomes popular and comes out is like a gritty, non Supermany Superman.

[Wesley Morris]

That's the trump. That's the first trump. Superman.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's like the. And then now the new now the American Superman sort of thing is like, back and the parents are even more folksy and the. You know what I mean? It's like, it's interesting to think about, like, what we're experiencing in our world. And then the question. Then the question becomes, is the art imitating life or is life imitating art? This is what now with Trevor Noah. This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Eat well for less. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. Imagine this. You're at a checkout counter. You're ready to pay, when you realize you don't have your wallet.

[Wesley Morris]

Dun, dun, dun.

[Trevor Noah]

You could drive all the way back home and you could get it. But you remember that you have your Apple card on your iPhone so you can tap to pay with Apple Pay. Imagine that. No need to carry a wallet. But, you know, one of the things I do like about having my card on my phone is we live in a world where you lose your card and then you don't know where it is. And then you're like, what do I do? Well, if your phone is connected to your card and your card is connected to your phone, you know what's going on. The best thing about having the Apple card connected to your phone is, you know what every transaction is. You know, like, sometimes you're like, what did I spend this month? The Apple card will show you one month. I had spent an obscene amount of money ordering videos online.

[Eugene]

Just videos?

[Trevor Noah]

They were just videos.

[Eugene]

What kind of videos?

[Trevor Noah]

That's not the point. The point is, I knew that I didn't want to order those videos anymore because I'd spent too much money on it. It was videos on how to not spend money online.

[Eugene]

I felt like I'd been duped.

[Trevor Noah]

Point is, Apple showed me what I was spending my money on, and I was able to change my spending habits. And you can do it, too. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase with my Apple card. That's unlimited daily cash back no matter where I shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to cred approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and [e-mail].

[Ashley Flowers]

Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the Go to Crime podcast for the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday, it is truly a crime Junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt, and our entire Crime Junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Trevor Noah]

You guys both have, like, old men names, you know? No, but it's true, though.

[Eugene]

Yeah, like Wesley.

[Trevor Noah]

Wesley's a very, like, not now name.

[Eugene]

Wes is a young person.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, Wes, Wes.

[Wesley Morris]

But Wesley, I would like to see the birth certificates because I'm sure they're not even bothering with the.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but think about it. Wesley is a. Is like an older name in that way. And then Eugene is also a name.

[Eugene]

Infer mature, not older.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, you can take it the way you want. I meant it not as a slur or a slight cuz I, I don't see age.

[Wesley Morris]

What do you say? I, I, Yeah, no, I, I was just talking about women's names that you're just never gonna get again.

[Trevor Noah]

Ruth. Ethel.

[Wesley Morris]

Ruth Ethel Margaret. My grandmother's name was Martha.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I like Martha.

[Wesley Morris]

That's kind of not dead yet. There's an.

[Eugene]

It was a Hazel, but Martha always felt incomplete. Why?

[Wesley Morris]

My mother, Martha Ann. You see Martha Ann. Yeah, that was her. Yeah. Martha Ann. Everybody called. People called her Martha, but only if they didn't know there was an Ann. If you knew it was Martha Ann.

[Trevor Noah]

Then it was Martha.

[Wesley Morris]

It was Marth fan. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Where's your mom from?

[Wesley Morris]

Philadelphia.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

Judith. There's another one. My mother's name is Judith. My father's name is Arnold.

[Trevor Noah]

Arnold can come back.

[Wesley Morris]

Really?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

I don't know. No.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean? No?

[Wesley Morris]

I, I know the time. When's the last time you met Arnold?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but guys, guys, all these names and I'm actually. You're the perfect person to talk to about this stuff. It's perfect to have these conversations with you. And I want to say thank you and apologize to you for not giving you, like, a full idea of why we're here. Right.

[Wesley Morris]

I had been asking and then I was like, you know what? I trust these guys.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you.

[Wesley Morris]

So I'm here. Not ordinary. I'd walk into a blind environment and not know what I have been. But for negroes, I will do it. For two negroes, I will definitely. I will do it.

[Trevor Noah]

So let me explain, right? The reason I say you're the perfect person is because of what I would like this episode to be. I was trying to explain to a friend the other day what a critic at large is basically doing.

[Eugene]

I am that friend. Go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no, no, no. But I was. Oh, yeah. It was you. So for a second I was like, are you taking the other. I was like, oh, yeah.

[Eugene]

It was look alike to him.

[Trevor Noah]

It was you. We're all one.

[Eugene]

Must have been another.

[Trevor Noah]

It was we are all one.

[Wesley Morris]

So what office are you running? So not even. Pete wouldn't even try that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, Pete wouldn't do that. Don't slander Pete like that.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, okay.

[Trevor Noah]

You were right here with him. Don't slander Pete. So what I was trying to explain was like your superpower, and I genuinely think it's a superpower. It is the ability to look at culture, notice trends that other people may not necessarily be. Necessarily be noticing.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

But then go beyond that and understand what the trend actually tells us when you correlate it with something else. Its origins, its moments, its significance. And I know someone listening or watching this might be like, wait, what did you just say? You'll see it unfold. And names is like a perfect place, right? You just said which name is never Judith is never coming back.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Judith Margaret Arnold is never coming back.

[Wesley Morris]

Those are my, My parents names. Methyl's and aunt. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So good. Yeah. But I'm saying, I think we're holding a seance here.

[Eugene]

Did she. Did she also. Did she like wearing purple?

[Wesley Morris]

Ethel? Yeah, a hundred per. Ethel was basically purple.

[Eugene]

I see her in a.

[Wesley Morris]

But that's. That's alcohol.

[Trevor Noah]

So this is what I mean. Names are like a perfect place to start this conversation in. Because there's a generation that'll have a name, right? Yeah. So now we go, oh, there's no more Judiths. There's no more Ediths. There's no more this, there's no more that. There's no. Then I go, yes, but all it takes is one moment, one elected official, one famous athlete, one movie star. Like a name, a character, something. And all of a sudden it comes back, Right?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I like this. This is. I. This is definitely persuasive. There's one problem. Let's go Well, I think that the cycle has basically begun to eat itself. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh.

[Wesley Morris]

So like it's a. It used to just be maybe a line, but now it's a circle.

[Eugene]

So, you know, explain the line.

[Wesley Morris]

The line used to be people would get born.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

They would die. The names wouldn't get too crazy because everybody was essentially. Well, there were circles and then the browner, the gayer, the more, the less. From England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany.

[Eugene]

Became less Eurocentric.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. The more interesting the names got in terms of spellings, in terms of just the variety of options. But I think culturally, I don't know. I don't know when to say this started, but it definitely feels like in the last 20 years, I think that like when you're talking about like what you need as a very famous person to then change the name conversation.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

But I mean, think about it. It's all Taylors and Jacobs and Travis's and Jason's and Trevors and. Well, don't do that. Not as many. Trevor.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't do that.

[Wesley Morris]

Trevor still would be like, what a gift.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you. Thank you. Wiz.

[Eugene]

Sorry, Wiz.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you.

[Eugene]

Sorry. What a.

[Wesley Morris]

What a gift of what? Of a kind of variety. Eugene dead. Wesley dead. See that one coming. Wait, Sorry. Oh, no, no, no. You're out. You're the last Eugene. I just, I don't know, like, we're going to get a lot less interesting names. And I think in this country in terms of, you know, I. The, the place a place to look is like, what are like people from other countries? Like especially Asian countries.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

What are they choosing as their like American name? Right. Like, what are, what are those names? Because I just want to live in a world where like Yoon is just. That's the new James in the US.

[Trevor Noah]

That is the name.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. They're like white kids walking around being called Yoon. But I don't know if we really want that. But like the odds, odds are low because of the way assimilationism works here. Like the assumption is Yoon won't get into college if he's Yoon. Yoon won't get a job with some white people if he's Yoon.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

So he's, he's James, period. And I think for his for is. I don't know what lots of other cultures are doing, but predominantly if you come here and you want to make it, you can't be Sandeep. You got to be Sandy, you got to be Sam. I think that still feels true. Like I've meet a lot of South Asians, for instance, who have not Changed their names or changed them, but, like, ascribed. Some given themselves some new name.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But in the meantime, in order for the name thing to change, like, here's a. Here's a test. How many Baracks do you know?

[Trevor Noah]

Only one, Right?

[Wesley Morris]

Exactly. I think there's something about. I also was like, naming your kid Jesus in a way, Right.

[Trevor Noah]

It is a bit like. It's very unique.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

We had the same thought.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, you did. Yeah. You just. You said Jesus.

[Eugene]

What else do you have? I have $5,000. What do you. We don't have the same thoughts anymore.

[Wesley Morris]

Definitely.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you.

[Wesley Morris]

Was that a thought, to get $5,000 or to, like, have in your possession $5,000? I don't know. There are interesting, like, things. Okay. I mean, Donald. That's a dead name. I don't care how powerful, how cataclysmic.

[Eugene]

Not coming back.

[Wesley Morris]

Nobody. Donald's not. I don't care how much they love me.

[Trevor Noah]

You think Donald has become too ubiquitous or it's become like too, like, singular?

[Wesley Morris]

It's old fashioned. It's just not a cool name.

[Eugene]

Then why didn't Barak catch on?

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know either.

[Eugene]

He was lovely.

[Wesley Morris]

I think that's too ethnic. It's considered too ethnic. Just think about the U.S. right? Just think about the way that Americans brainwash themselves into believing that things have to seem sound, feel American. Yes. He ran the country for eight years. Yes, many, many people professed to love him. But the real test is, would you name a baby after this person? And I don't think even Donald.

[Trevor Noah]

Have you.

[Wesley Morris]

Have you heard about Donald?

[Eugene]

No.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know what the. We should look up the top 10 names in the last, like, 10 years. But I don't believe Donald is on them.

[Trevor Noah]

So you see, what you've just done now is why I wanted to have a conversation with you and why I wanted to have you on my dream and my goal is that by the end of this episode, you help us.

[Wesley Morris]

This episode?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, this episode.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

You help us to understand or help us learn how to process the world through the lens of a critic at large. Because I'll try and break down what you do and you'll correct me on the other side of it, wherever I go, like, astray. When I think of what a critic at large does, the first thing I do is I have to separate it from a critic generally. So a critic is somebody who is criticizing or commenting on the elements of any particular thing. Food, movie, et cetera, et cetera. But that's it. A critic at Large is somebody who is looking at society, all of the elements that are within that society, and then tries to notice how the shifts in that society are telling us a story that the society itself doesn't notice. You know what I mean? And so like when I was thinking of examples, actually. I'll play this out with you and I'll see if I have it right here.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Would you write about the US Open just coming back to New York for another year?

[Wesley Morris]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Would you write about sinner Yannick Sinner beating just like a random person in one of like the early rounds?

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. Perhaps.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. But it's not. That's not a yes.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, depends on who, who one of. He played Denis Shapovalov in like the fourth round or maybe the fourth round. I want to say that was a good match. He took a set off him, maybe the third round. But no, that, I mean, I, I would, that would be a data point. I would make a mental note.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

Remember Dennis Shapovalov got a set off Jannik Sinner.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. Would you write about people's reaction to Carlos Alcaraz cutting his hair off?

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, 100%.

[Eugene]

That's the Ed Lodgepot.

[Wesley Morris]

No brainer.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you see what you remember what I told you? So now I'd love for you to explain why. Cuz you love tennis. Yes. You are absor. You are observing a US Open as it's playing out.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Why is it that Carlos Alcaraz cutting all of his hair off and the reactions to it is what you would write about at the tennis and not the tennis itself?

[Wesley Morris]

Well, it's connected to the tennis.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, of course it is.

[Wesley Morris]

It's that the US Open is the place where people do the weirdest stuff to themselves. I mean, just like a recent ish history of weird clothes in here. At the US Open, there's a player named Dominic Rabati, H R A B T Y who showed up at the Open. I'm pretty sure it was the Open. And he had. His shirt had two vents in the back. They were like cut out of the shirt, like two holes. Like where Wings might maybe have once been.

[Trevor Noah]

Like angel wings. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And he played. I mean, I don't know, he maybe lasted to the third round. He was one of those. Rabati was one of those players, like he could give you trouble every once in a while. He would, he would make it to the third round of just about every tournament, but he wore that outfit. And it's like, what's the story here? And you know he just got him a lot of attention. It was a weird thing to wear, and it made no aerodynamic sense. He claimed. I think the claim was that it did. It helped his tennis.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

It helped something about the airflow on his back, and it just felt really good to hit a backhand. Serena, Every great, terrible thing she ever wore pretty much happened at the US Open.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Wesley Morris]

So into this history of things people wear at the US Open comes Carlos Alcaraz, who was wearing in his sort of purple get up, you know, purple, magenta, whatever. Get up, you know, standard. Pretty good thing to wear at the Open. But he shows up with a haircut. It looks like he got 30 seconds before he got on court. Yeah. You could still see nudes.

[Trevor Noah]

It was like. Yeah, it was a fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. Buzz, fresh.

[Eugene]

So what I saw at the final was not.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Eugene]

It was actually the final result.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

No. Well, the final. It's like. Funny story about the final is we learned how fast hair can grow because by the end of the tournament, he looked like himself again.

[Eugene]

So when was the haircut in leading to the.

[Wesley Morris]

The claim was that he wanted his brother to touch up his haircut maybe that day and, you know, made a mistake. This is why you don't. I mean, there. This is.

[Eugene]

You don't buy it.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I believe it. 100. I believe it. Well, wait. Oh, my God. Do I not believe it? I didn't even give it a second thought.

[Trevor Noah]

I believed it. Eugene doesn't believe it at all.

[Eugene]

I don't buy it. There's something also I don't buy at the US Open that I'll talk to you about.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, wait. So you don't buy it at all?

[Eugene]

I don't buy it.

[Wesley Morris]

What do you think happened?

[Eugene]

Here's a critic at large.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, but tell me why you don't buy it.

[Eugene]

Here's a critic.

[Trevor Noah]

But tell me why you don't buy it.

[Eugene]

Having a conversation about. About it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Because I feel like there's certain sports or certain arts where you need to do something crazy to stand out.

[Wesley Morris]

And I think cutting your hair interesting.

[Eugene]

Is one of those. But having a mental breakdown and a meltdown.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, but don't go. Wait. Don't go far.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, that's Djokovic. We can come back to that.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, but my question here. Okay, so, yes, I want to know why you think the person wouldn't just cut their hair. And then. Because, I mean, the days are gone of athletes, like, being afraid. Why do you think he wouldn't Just say, yeah, it's my new look.

[Eugene]

Because I think he knows what the impact would be of him appearing different.

[Wesley Morris]

Here's my rebuttal to this, because I've thought about this. I have. I didn't think that. I didn't think the way you were thinking. So hats off to you, because that is interesting. But what I thought was, this is clearly a mistake. Because first of all, it looks terrible.

[Trevor Noah]

It did.

[Wesley Morris]

It looks like a mistake got made and they just decided, you know what? Shake the Etch A Sketch. It never happened.

[Eugene]

You know, I'm going to say that to people who make mistakes now. Etch the Etch A Sketch.

[Wesley Morris]

Well.

[Trevor Noah]

It is a great line. Shake the Etch A Sketch.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, just like, we don't want to shake the Etch A Sketch anymore. We're over. We need to redo. Keep drawing. Just keep turning them. Make something new. Don't shake it. And then put it in the Smithsonian and lock that shit up. No, I thought, it's gotta be a mistake. You're in New York City. I don't know what the per capita barber situation is here versus the rest of the US Anyway, but there are more people who could give you a great haircut easily. And he's in Queens. Yes, he could go. I mean, I'm sorry, it's gotta be a mistake. But also, the idea that nobody said like, like Francis Tiafo wasn't like, listen, when I'm in New York, here's where I go. Because you gotta get a lineup or just. You need to shape it up. Get a line, get something. Cause this is. This is not working. This is a mistake. You can't go out there like that. Went anyway. Looked like he just fell out of a calf's butt. Is how. Is how fresh that haircut was. He looked like he just got bored. It just. I don't know.

[Trevor Noah]

But what was interesting to me was that he addressed it and pseudo apologized. And that's. That's what made me think of you.

[Wesley Morris]

I went, we don't expect this of you, Carlos. Yeah, but you've got the best hair in men's tennis. Why would you do this to us? That's the apology for exactly. That uses.

[Eugene]

For exactly this.

[Trevor Noah]

Now, you see, this is what I mean. This is what your. No, but this is what your brain does, though.

[Wesley Morris]

But what were you thinking when you saw it?

[Eugene]

I won't lie.

[Trevor Noah]

I wasn't thinking too deeply about it, okay? Because I. A few months ago, David Beckham was cutting his own hair. He cuts his own hair and Then he was cutting his own hair, and then he messed up.

[Eugene]

Just fall for these scams all the time.

[Trevor Noah]

You calm down. You just calm down.

[Wesley Morris]

Wait, what were the scams?

[Trevor Noah]

And David Beckham just, like, he was like. And he, like, just messed it up, and then he made a video. He's like, I messed up my hair.

[Eugene]

Oh, there we go.

[Trevor Noah]

Right? But, like. And then he just shaved it. I don't know what he did, but he, like, fixed it.

[Eugene]

But he.

[Trevor Noah]

He also did that. So I go, there's a good chance that you can mess up your hair. Carlos Alcaraz's story made, like, boring sense to me. You're traveling. Your barber couldn't get to you in the way you planned.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. So your brother's like, let me handle this. I've been in that situation where someone close to you is like, I got you. How hard can it be?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then they know firsthand how hard it can be using your head. Right.

[Eugene]

They find out.

[Wesley Morris]

They find out.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But that wasn't the thing that got me. The thing that made me think of you, because I knew you were coming on the podcast, obviously, was. I went, why is this such a thing? They spoke about it the entire tournament. They. He kept on, like, acknowledging it. He had to keep on saying, like, what do you think now? And. And. And I. I found myself wondering. I was like, huh? What is this saying about the US Open and the people who watch the US Open and the community of the US Open that we don't know that it's actually saying or not saying or. Like, is there a sport where the person wouldn't have had to address it? Would they ignore it? Would the commentators say anything about it? Like, what is it about that echelon? You know what I mean?

[Wesley Morris]

I think it is a lot to do with who the person is and what the environment is like. Think about where my brain goes, when you put it that way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Is like NFL training camp, 2012, I think 2011. 2011, probably. And Tom Brady shows up for camp, and he's got hair that comes down to here. This is a thing. Nobody had seen this before. Why is Tom Brady's hair down to it? What's he trying to tell us? What's Gisele making him do? Cause they were still together at the time. Like, it was a real story for, like, the first four games of the season.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

What is going on? And if he cuts the hair now, is it a Samson and Delilah thing where the season's over? If he cuts it? It was a Whole thing. Like, there are these occasions where a person's. Where our idea of a person is challenged in some way because the person is like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm getting out of this prison. I want to. The thing that you think you love about me, I'm removing it.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm challenging it in some way. It's not always hair or clothes. It's like, what roles I take. In Carlos's case, it was truly an accident, but he felt compelled to respond to it because he couldn't even win a match and go to a press conference without, like, the second question being, so what happened? Even though he had already addressed it, like, this is a thing he's already talking about. But then you start thinking about who else got bald and had to, like, account for the baldness. It's usually women. It's usually women who get a haircut and then have to apologize for having gotten the haircut. Right. Or what is a woman telling us when she does. I mean, Britney Spears, famous example of a woman who.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, not. I mean, I guess you didn't appreciate how important the hair was to the get up until there was no hair.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eugene]

Did Halle Berry go through such as? Well, there was a point where Halle Berry cut her hair off right when.

[Trevor Noah]

She cut it short, right.

[Wesley Morris]

She. It was short, short. And people were like, eh, Right. But she's still Halle Berry. Like, it doesn't matter what Halle Berry does to her hair. Like, it just doesn't matter. Sigourney Weaver in that fourth Aliens movie, Right? Like, what is Ripley? What is going. Or the third Aliens movie? I want to say. Is it the third one or the fourth one? I think the Winona Ryder one.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

When women go short that way, it's just a scandalous thing. And it's usually received as some attempt to, like, get closer to masculinity. But with Carlos Alcaraz, because he's already so boyish, it just. It did. It neither toughened him up. It made him seem even younger somehow. Like, truly, like, he had just like, climbed out of the call of, you know, that protective coding that animals and people are born. Yeah. Like an Alien movie, actually. And I think that, like, there was. It just was too much for people to accept that this had happened. And you could hear the buzzing when he took the first. When he took the court, that first match. Like, you could just hear people being like, oh, my God, what happened to you? What is he trying to. But the truth is, like, he had to then say, I'm not trying to say anything. This was an accident. Hopefully, by the end of the tournament, we won't be having this conversation anymore, because I will have won it. And I was nervous that what I was really the thing I would have tried to write about if I had jumped on it the night it had happened, because it was a night match, because I sat on my sofa for about 20 minutes being like, should I do it? Should I do it? Should I do it? And then what should I do? And the story would have been seeing what night. What, like, if he makes it to round three. Yeah, like, what round three is like. Like, are we still talking about the hair? Is the hair still a story? So I sat there and I really thought about it, but it was so clear. I was like, is it going to affect his play? Is it going to. Like, is he going to be in his head about this? And it's just like a weird. It's a burden that men never have to deal with, right? Like, is my appearance gonna cost me something?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn. Now, this is critic at large.

[Wesley Morris]

Now, this is, like, a thing women always. I mean, in addition to all the other shit that women have to take on a tennis court with them, right? Like, you know, I hope my body cooperates. I hope I don't hear somebody say some stupid sexist shit in the third row, which happens. Not. I mean, I don't want to say. Not infrequently, but I've heard it, like somebody saying something to Sabalenka about something. Amelie Maresmo, they called her a man. Would go to these tennis tournaments, and they would just call her a man. That's the thing she had to hear. I mean, maybe her whole career. Serena Williams, Venus Williams, the things that they. I mean, Sloane Stevens, just like, the things you have to put up with just because they're in earshot. Now here's a man having to, like, explain his physical appearance in a way that I don't recall a male tennis player, male athlete really having to do. Unless you're joking. Unless you're Jokic or Luka. Luka Doncic.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Who? It's the opposite problem. It's like he was being dogged for years of being overweight, and then he.

[Trevor Noah]

Lost a ton of it.

[Wesley Morris]

Lost the weight. And now everybody's like, well, I mean, I don't know how this is gonna go. He lost the weight. This guy can't win. Like, got traded, got into the best shape of his life because he needed to. I mean, I don't. I don't Know what Lucan needed, but, like, it can't hurt that he's in better shape.

[Eugene]

Oh, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, that's right. That's what LeBron said. Right? He said he improved his longevity by years by dropping. I don't know the exact number, but it was. It was a pretty substantial amount. I think, I stand to be corrected. Maybe £20. Yeah, maybe.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, he was just like.

[Trevor Noah]

It just. It just helped him last longer in the game.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I mean, I liked that body because, you know, as a tennis player, that is Stan Vavrinka's body.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, right.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, Stan Vavrinka was built just like that. Won three majors against, you know. You know, during the Big Three era. Beat all those guys. Did he beat Federer really in a meaningful way ever? No, but he beat Rafa and he beat Djokovic to win majors. And I don't know. I like that body. But the idea that he now has to talk about it. He's going to spend however many months of the NBA season, when it starts, just talking about. Just talking about, like, you know, whether or not, depending on how the Lakers do. Is it. Is it the new body? Does he need to get used to it? Is it just the wrong body for this guy playing this, you know, the dumb shit that people have to talk about, but men don't have to deal with it. This is a woman problem. And so, wait, so what does it.

[Trevor Noah]

Say that men are starting to have to deal with it then?

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I don't know if they are.

[Trevor Noah]

That's right.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't think they are. I think in this case, Carlos Alcaraz did.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, okay, but.

[Eugene]

And so you could have caused him not doing it.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, you're saying he could have. He could have just carried on playing?

[Eugene]

Yeah. No one would have said anything.

[Trevor Noah]

But now when you.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, so now I do think he was being asked about it. That was the news. Right? Like, this is now a thing that he has to. It's the same. This was happening simultaneous. How about this? The same tournament. Coco Gauff, she was the other story of the tournament, and that was the story of the tournament until she lost. Right. They stopped talking about Alcaraz, maybe by the third round, she loses in the fourth. And the story of the tournament is she's getting her serve fixed in real time. She's getting her forehand fixed in real time. Let us count the double faults. Let us. Let us, like, keep track of every time. Coco Gauff double faults as she fixes her serve. She needed to fix it because she's got the most double faults on the tour, but she knows that and she's working on it. Should she have stayed home and just worked on her serve until January? I don't know. That's not my business. But this woman had the bravery, courage, determination to enter the tournament and see how this technique surgery was going in real time. And the tennis commentators, that's all they would talk about during her matches. That's all the press conferences were about when she won the matches and when she lost, she had to explain that too. It's just like it's such a burden. It's such a burden having to. And this is not necessarily because she's a woman, but I don't recall any man changing how they play the sport that they play in real time and having to like constantly talk about it, it and that that gets in here. And I always worry with Alcaraz that, that all of that talk and self explanation would get in his. Get in his head.

[Trevor Noah]

But he played.

[Wesley Morris]

He played. That was the best tennis I have ever. It was not the most exciting tennis. But he wasn't going to keep winning like this with exciting tennis.

[Trevor Noah]

He just went in, he became a bull. He, he, he reminded me of Nadal in some ways. He's like the Spanish bull pushing through similar outfit. But I want to go back to what you were saying about. I sat on the couch and I thought, should I write this? Should I write this for 30 minutes?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you went, no, I'm not gonna. I wanna get into that. Like, how do you decide what you should write and what you shouldn't write? Like, what was, what was the last piece that you put out? Let's talk about that.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, you know, I'm. Well, it's funny. Cause I'm making this podcast now.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

It's called Cannonball. And a lot of my time is being spent, like, figuring out, you know, how much time to spend making our show.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

And how much time to spend writing these pieces. And I'm now at a place where, like, I'm like, oh, I think I've struck a balance where writing. I can write pretty much as often as I used to and still make this show. So to answer your question, the last thing I think was published that was a piece that had nothing to do with the show was about how to look at art in museums.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, not how to look at art in museums.

[Wesley Morris]

Let's be. I want to be extra clear how one should position oneself to not be cut off by some other art looker.

[Eugene]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, how does one stand? How should one stand? How far away from a painting do I need to stand to keep your ass from cutting in front of me while I'm looking at it and to.

[Eugene]

Make sure I still enjoy the full experience of. Of looking at the art.

[Wesley Morris]

Having a moment with this piece of art. What? Like, is it 2ft? Is it. Is it 6 inches?

[Trevor Noah]

You know, I mean, now you see that? That's such a left field turn for me. Why did you think that was significant art? Seems like such a. Like, it's such a niche world. It's such a, you know, high futin world. Why did that. What were you. What did you get to in that piece? That wouldn't be obvious when I read.

[Wesley Morris]

The headline, I think it's not the deepest thing I've ever written.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. But still, what did you.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I think it's just that everybody makes this mistake and nobody really thinks that it's a problem. It's the. It's the. It's the kind of etiquette. You know, I am probably 15% Larry David, you know, only like. Well, no, no, really, because the 85% is why I'm. I'm in this job and not doing Curb youb Enthusiasm. But I think the degree to which there's a Larry David in a lot of us, it meets up in these areas in which decisions are made on our behalf, allegedly to make them easier, but make them worse. I would identify packaging as this. I mean, famously, there's a Curb youb Enthusiasm episode.

[Trevor Noah]

The episode where he buys the scissors that open the package, but then he gets them in the package, and he can't open the package without the scissors because the scissors to open the package are in the package. To open packages, it's.

[Wesley Morris]

It is the deepest, realest, but obvious, Most obvious. One of the most obvious problems we humans face is like, how to get something out of something. How to, like, remove something from something else, but another one is. Is each other. Like, how do we deal with each other? Like strangers, Right?

[Eugene]

How do we.

[Wesley Morris]

How do we compare ourselves in public space? That's a huge Larry David question. And for me, I hate it when I am looking at a painting, a sculpture, whatever the museum is asking me to stand here and look at, and somebody's just like, boop, boop, boop. Breaking this connection that I'm having with the work. I'm not trying to take a picture with my phone.

[Trevor Noah]

You're doing the offering.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm looking at my eyes.

[Trevor Noah]

You're standing there.

[Eugene]

But maybe you're standing for too long with. I've got places to go to. You've been here for five minutes. I've been behind you.

[Wesley Morris]

Come on, Eugene. Have you ever seen a cue for Mona Lisa? Does not count. Where's the queue? Oh, Guernica at the Prado. There's another. I've seen a line to look at Guernica.

[Eugene]

How did you know that's my. One thing that I want to see here is what? Guernica.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, it's in Spain.

[Trevor Noah]

Are you being serious?

[Eugene]

Yes, it's.

[Wesley Morris]

You got to go to Madrid.

[Eugene]

But what is that painting that Picasso has at the United nations building?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, what is that? You should go. Yeah, you should go right now, though, because they're coming next week. Un week is next week. So get over there now.

[Eugene]

I want to see that.

[Wesley Morris]

What's. Oh, there is a Picasso.

[Eugene]

That is Genica.

[Wesley Morris]

When you go, it might be a replica of.

[Eugene]

It might be.

[Trevor Noah]

When you go there, you should stand there.

[Eugene]

Let me guess.

[Wesley Morris]

That makes sense.

[Trevor Noah]

And then I hope Wes cuts in front of you.

[Wesley Morris]

I would never.

[Trevor Noah]

While you're staring at. What was your conclusion? What did you come to? What's the rule? How far should you stand? How long should you stand for?

[Wesley Morris]

I just don't.

[Trevor Noah]

Were you wrong? Who was wrong?

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, I'm sure there's a world in which, like, I need to get over myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm open. See, the thing about me is I am open to the possibility that there's another way.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, cool.

[Wesley Morris]

Which is why I'm not a world leader and I'm just a critic. Because I know that there's another opinion or another way of doing things that might be better than the one I've got. But I think that. I mean, conclusion. I think you should just. It was removed.

[Eugene]

Oh, okay. It was removed ceremoniously. So.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, sent back to the Prado. The Prado took it back.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay.

[Eugene]

Yeah. In 2022, it was ceremoniously removed.

[Wesley Morris]

The Prado. It comes home to the Prado. Prado. I mean, it really should be in northern Spain with the Basque people. Honestly, that's where it belongs. It should not even be in Madrid. But we'll take it because the Prado is one of the great museums. More people will probably go to Madrid than go to wherever they would put it. I mean, maybe at the bill at the Guggenheim Bilbao.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you think all art should be back where it's from?

[Eugene]

No.

[Wesley Morris]

That's a great question. That's deep, Trevor.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you Think you can't throw it back to me.

[Wesley Morris]

All right, I'll think you said no.

[Eugene]

I feel like it's not art if it's with its people. I feel like it's art when it's not home. When people get to view something that doesn't belong there and they get to stare at it longer. It happens when people are people watching. I love that someone looks unfamiliar. They stay longer so it becomes, it has significance when it's not at home. That's why I think it was more at home here, because I've been doing my research about it and the one part that I missed was the fact that I'm three years late.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh yeah. I didn't even wear in his think piece.

[Eugene]

Did not think to inform me that it's gone.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, okay, so I like this for you. So you're saying you don't necessarily think that art should go back to where it's from?

[Eugene]

Take off anything exotic.

[Wesley Morris]

I really like this. I like this.

[Eugene]

Women, home design, athletes. The way you guys speak about Alcaraz now is reminiscent of the Spanish bull. Like you guys were saying with Nadal. Nadal, yes, he's foreign. There's no way anyone local would have captured you like this because anything exotic and foreign is always going to be attractive. It's going to be. Look at, I look at the Pagani Zonda, for example, and I'm like, what a horrible car. Those teardrop mirrors, those gear knobs, the metal, the clanky clank. I mean, we buy cars now because they're quiet and you buy that thing because it's loud and there's metal clanking on metal inside with the gear levers. So I'm like, we love it because it's exotic, it's one of a kind. And it's foreign. Anything foreign will do. Ice cream is the same. Ooh, it's in lies.

[Wesley Morris]

It's just not from here.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, okay, wait, so let me think then.

[Eugene]

Anything foreign.

[Trevor Noah]

So you want every art to go where it's not from?

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, wait, there is, there are some complications here.

[Eugene]

Tell me.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I mean, looted art, for instance.

[Eugene]

What is looted art?

[Wesley Morris]

The Jews in Austria, Germany, Poland, who had the Nazis took all the art, got it. It that got. Take that wound up in museums. The museums claim. Well, we didn't know. We didn't know the providence of these, these great artworks, these clips and you know, et cetera, et cetera. And these Modigliani's. We didn't know how they, how they got here.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's Personally owned. That's theft to me.

[Wesley Morris]

Of 100%.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

To me, looting is more like.

[Wesley Morris]

But I mean, just like, think about. Let's just. But I'm thinking about this as, like, absolutely philosophical.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, go, go, go. Yeah, yeah, go.

[Wesley Morris]

I want to present the. Maybe the worst case scenario.

[Trevor Noah]

Cheryl wants to go.

[Eugene]

What's the difference between looting and booty?

[Trevor Noah]

That is a very valid question. You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

[Wesley Morris]

Actually.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Just don't loot the pootie. Just. Just don't do that. That's no good.

[Trevor Noah]

So I like the. Let's go into the philosophical idea here. So art exists somewhere.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

It is held by someone or something. There's a moment in time, it shifts it moves it, whatever's. I think we can break it down into. Wait, let's start by breaking it down into, like, a few categories. Right? There are things that have been owned by people directly.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

That was stolen from you during a war, during a raid, during a theft. That's just theft. I think we can all agree on. That's like theft.

[Wesley Morris]

Theft, yes.

[Eugene]

Looted, right?

[Trevor Noah]

No, that's theft.

[Eugene]

Theft. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Stolen is a class of theft.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but. No, but what I mean is, like, by looted is. Let's say somebody goes to like, Egypt is a great example of this.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, like, let's go to ancient civilizations.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. Right. One of the big conversations people are having now is, should all the Egyptian art that is everywhere in the world be given back to Egypt?

[Eugene]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Now you say no again. Okay, I don't.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, okay, no, but there's an asterisk next there. Next to the. Next to my. No, because I think. Who says right? Does the Egyptian government say. Do the Egyptian people say right? Does the Egyptian exhibitor class have a say? Like, who makes the decision about where the art. That's already, like, for instance, at the beautifully redesigned Ancient Civilization sections of the Museum of Modern or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[Eugene]

Wait, what?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, well, how long are you guys here?

[Eugene]

Till Sunday.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. Eugene.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, like, in the wake of this conversation, and keep it in mind as you walk through this, you know, very pristinely renovated portion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where all of this great craft work, you know, civilizational craft work, they call them antiques. Antiques. No, we're not doing that.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay?

[Wesley Morris]

This is art that's just old.

[Eugene]

No one in their house looked at this and it was old 300 years ago.

[Wesley Morris]

No, it's just in the possession of a major art collection, therefore, blah, blah, Blah. But antique implies for sale. To me. There's a.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. There's a negative connotation.

[Wesley Morris]

There's a monetary value associated with antique to me.

[Trevor Noah]

All right.

[Wesley Morris]

These are great craft pieces that both tell a story of a people, of a time, of a place. They've done a really good job of positioning where in the world and in time these. These pots and tiles and little tiny statues are from, you know, shields, ceramics, everything. Everything, everything. But the question is, like, the way we've been talking is, does where should Sumerian art go back to? Right. Where should Babylonian art be returned to? You know, these great western African pieces? Like, what nation.

[Eugene]

What nation lays claim to them?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Right. So in that sense, it's funky to say, well, let the American institution have them. Cause I don't know, they've taken really good care of them at this point. Yeah. The provenance of a lot of these things is really still in question. Right. Like, we don't know. We know neither the makers, names, or in some cases, how they got in these collections. Well, we. Sorry, how do I put this? We know by and large, it's a white person, who the white person was. Who what? You know, the stories that these places tell are like, you know, this very rich person liked to go off and load up his jeep with spears and shields and skulls and stuff, and in a moment of absolute generosity, he dumped some of it at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exactly. The Smithsonian. So the thing that I love about no matter where the art winds up is responsible institutions will tell a story of where it was and how it got to be where it is. Right. And the sort of the mythos of the pieces becomes important to the way the art is framed and positioned to want it back for the sake of having it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

It kind of only gets you so far with art.

[Eugene]

Exactly.

[Wesley Morris]

But I think especially with old art, because there's a story that you're then, I think, responsible for telling.

[Eugene]

I think art is sometimes meaningless without it being attached to some suffering of some sort, pieces being stolen. An artist that cut off his ear because he was frustrated.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong. The Mona Lisa is the Mona Lisa forever going on. It was. It was nothing, really. Not nothing. Let's, you know, let's calm down. Trevor.

[Wesley Morris]

This is like me. I went to a party once. It was like, the Constitution's a stupid document, and I had, like, 17 gay men looking at me like. I'm just saying. I think that, like, following them meant.

[Trevor Noah]

Anyways, I'm not saying It. I'm not saying it's. But. But I do find it interesting to exactly what you just said, that the Mona Lisa owes a lot of its fame to the fact that it was stolen. And that begins its journey of. Before that, there was no lion, there was no famous anything. It was just one of the paintings. But when the painting got stolen, the law of the painting made it what it is today. And so many, many art scholars will sort of argue, you know, obviously there's the mainstream. They'll go like, no, no, this is. It's the Mona Lisa, and it means this and it means that. It means that. And then others will go like, actually, this thing wasn't anything special in that way until it got stolen. And when it got stolen, it became this story of, like, the greatest art heist, and where's this painting? And what is the. And why was it stolen? So it's interesting that you say that because sometimes that is, you know, like, to come back to, like, a critic at large. It's like, it's funny how these things are shaped in ways that we often don't look at.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But even art and value. And not like when you said that, you said, these people are generous driving a jeep, going and picking up spears and shields and dropping them off at a museum anonymously. No, no, no. The first thing I think of beyond anonymously is I think to myself, what a brilliant way to create value for your collection.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So if I went somewhere in the world and I found six pieces of ceramic art wherever I am from, 500 years, a thousand, 3,000 years ago, what better way to make that ceramic collection more valuable than by giving some of it to a museum? Because if I give them three pieces and I keep the remainder, those three pieces can become prominent because they're on display and they get a story told. And then someone will be like, we still wonder where the other pieces are. And then you're like, ah, look who has the other piece.

[Eugene]

Surprise, surprise.

[Trevor Noah]

And you create. You can create. You can create value. That. And I'm not even saying it in, like, a conspiracy way. I just. You can create. It's the same way artists, big great artists will have some of the biggest jumps in their prices and their prestige when their art is on display in these museums and in these galleries. Yes, the art was already there, but because it is now in this space, it's hallowed in a different way.

[Wesley Morris]

But this is now raising these other concerns to me. Like, we have not quite settled the question of, does Egypt get its Shit back.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but here's the question. Actually, you know what? You know what I wonder? This is. I like that you both asked the question through the lens of people, but I didn't hear either of you ask the question through the lens of time. And I think that's actually the more complicated one to answer. Right. Is like, what I mean by this is if your people, your family, your city, your country, your whatever you want to use, have agreed or done something in a different time to you, whose time gets to supersede the other person's time. So this is what I mean. There was a time when the Egyptian government welcomed archaeologists from England who were funded by some rich person who just wanted to have, like, stuff nobody else had. They paid for all of these expeditions. They paid for the, like. They were the ones who were like, yeah, go and do this, because we get to benefit from what you're doing in some way. But that's a time. And then you find, like, today's government, not just of Egypt, of any country, might go, no, we want our stuff, but you were given it by another time. And that's where I think it actually becomes more complicated.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, 100%. Because again, like, who. Who adjudicates? Who votes yes? Like what? You know, I think with respect to time, I think you learn from it. Right?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

You just give the looted stuff back to the people, the descendants of the people from whom it was stolen. But I think maybe we're talking about a statute of limitations. Yeah, like, there's a statute of limitations and anything. Let's just. Let's just. I don't. There could actually be one, and I don't know, but I've never heard of. Of. Of these collections spoken of in this way. But, like, let's just say that the statute of limitations is like a century. Right?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

There's like, beyond a certain point in 1900, with exceptions for. For looting and. Or theft. Right. Like just outright theft. But that's sort of more of a. That is a sort of interpersonal legal question. Whereas we're talking about kind of international law.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I'm talking more like a thing that didn't even happen between people per se.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. I think that a statute of limitations really does kind of make the. Make the questions of claim and re. Appropriation a little easier to adjudicate. And so I would say that anything that is in these great museums or even like these small museums, but they're. It's work that. That has no known owner, you know, no known maker. Mm. Just leave It.

[Eugene]

And when I was. Sorry to disturb you here.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, no, no.

[Eugene]

We were talking about houses. Someone was renovating a former school building to become their own personal house. They weren't antique shopping. They found pieces, decorated the house. Very beautiful. And myself and Ryan said, if someone buys this house two years from now, they'll look at all of this as trash. They'll be like, what?

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Eugene]

But that person was like, I love these things. These things are so beautiful to me. And here's the thing for me with African art, West African art and all those places, and also Egyptian art, and, like, there's two distinct differences that I draw here. West African art and that kind of art. East African art as well. How sure are we that when it was acquired, it was art? It could have been an arts and crafts market, and a European was walking around going, I like this, I like that. I like this. There was no museums. These were things that were used by.

[Trevor Noah]

They bought a plate from a flea market.

[Eugene]

Yes. If you bought. If you got yourself as a sailor all those centuries ago, a Ming dynasty vase, you probably bought it. You don't have to steal it.

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Eugene]

Where are you gonna run to? Clanking, clanking, clanking, with a gigantic ceramic vase?

[Wesley Morris]

I don't think they were running anyway, exactly. They just put it in a bag and walk.

[Eugene]

And Trevor said it quite well with the Egyptian art. And I think the Egyptian. Even the battle of getting the art does a lot for Egypt and its popularity than getting the art. I mean, than getting the. Because that is not art that was stolen there. It was stuff from the valley. Yes. And burial rituals. And the mask of Tutankhamun, which I'm a big fan of. I've seen it in a couple of exhibitions. The copy of it is what made me interested in the story of Egypt. I think Tutankhamun as a king, he didn't do much to be lured as a great leader of Egypt. In fact, he wasn't the leader long enough for Egypt.

[Wesley Morris]

It was just the process by which.

[Eugene]

But the mystery of the chariot and the mask and the burial chamber is what attracts me to Egypt. So if anything, it made me realize that there's a great king Khufu, who's done far more, who built the pyramid of king.

[Wesley Morris]

It's the stories. It's truly the story of the lore of the pieces themselves that sort of create an interest not only in the pieces. Cause, you know, it's crazy that, like, I don't know how I became the person who's now talking about artifacts in museums. Because that's the part of the museum I always skipped. Right. I'm just in love with somebody right now. Who? Where? That's one of his favorite parts of going to the museum. No, no, we just met. But give me a second. Just give me a second. I can see it.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I can see it. But just hold on. I feel like now I go and I'm really paying attention to all the stuff that I'm asking these questions I'm much more aware of, or I'm much more unsure of and questioning what the difference is between craft and art. Right. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. There's no doubt that these people are artists.

[Eugene]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, because it's the question around, you know, the way that they. The way that all diasporic black people are sort of talked about, what inheres in us and what we had the skill, education, knowledge, prolonged experience to do. Right. It wasn't that, you know, for instance, you know, enslaved Africans just were born knowing what to do with soil.

[Eugene]

Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

They had to. This was a cultivated knowledge that took, you know, centuries of studying, learning by trial to figure out. And so I think that the point at which artisanship yields can yield the craftsmanship. Right. Or the places in which craft and art meet, sort of where they meet. Those are the places in these artifact collections that I'm fascinated by, because the parts stand in for a whole, and you kind of need one. You need these big institutions in some way to have the capacity to have enough pieces that. To tell a story. Yeah. So the reason I love these places now is like, oh, plates, forks, bowls.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

But I'm like, wait a minute. They had Tuesdays. They had Thursdays. Like, they ate with utensils. Yes, yes. With vessels. And I would love to know what they look like. They took time to. To paint these ceramic bowls.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, like, just. There will be times when I'm sitting there looking at a comb, and I'm just like, wow, they took the bone. And just. I don't know how you turn a bone into a comb, but, like.

[Trevor Noah]

But they did it.

[Wesley Morris]

Somebody did it.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't go anywhere. Cause we got more. What now? After this.

[Ashley Flowers]

Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of Crime Junkie, the Go to crime podcast, or the biggest cases and the stories you won't hear anywhere else. So whether on your commute, studying, or while you work, let us keep you company. With new episodes every Monday, it is truly a crime junkie's dream. So join me, my best friend Britt and our entire Crime Junkie community right now by catching up on hundreds of episodes and by listening to a new case every Monday on Crime Junkie, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Wesley Morris]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Wesley Morris]

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[Ashley Flowers]

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[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

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[Trevor Noah]

It makes me think of the idea that maybe the mistake we make sometimes in society is we search for a concrete answer that'll exist for all time, but maybe the answers are always shifting and if we can get comfortable with that, if we can get comfortable with that, maybe then we'll be better at answering the questions because we understand that the question is not permanent.

[Wesley Morris]

Trevor, you should just run, just run.

[Eugene]

Run away from here.

[Trevor Noah]

No, because here's why I say this.

[Eugene]

Okay, that's a good one. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I love what you just said about stories and art and the people. Because let's start with, you know, a simplistic idea of where this journey begins. There's a tribe somewhere in Africa, they're making their craft. Pottery, pottery, plates, whatever. They're making jewelries. You know, the Zulu were smelting long before Europeans were, etc. Etc. So they're just doing their thing in.

[Eugene]

Mapungu where they were making rhino statues.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly, exactly. So they're just doing their thing at that point. I would argue a lot of the stuff that they have is not art. I would argue. Right. You find some of it is, but I think for the most part it's just like, it's just a thing that they're making its crafts and they're enjoying it. Then you, you, you, you Develop a world where there's now global trade and then obviously pillaging as well. Right. The two coexist at the same time. So some stuff is traded. So the Europeans bring hair dye and they bring different spices and they ding.

[Eugene]

What?

[Trevor Noah]

And then they get traded mirrors. But whatever. People are trading. People are trading. So some things go legitimately, some things go illegitimately. As in. As in they're taken. Okay. They go to museums. They exist in different places, then people's houses. They. You know what I mean? I would argue at the time, when Africans are making this stuff, originally, it doesn't hold that much value even to African people, because they're just making it. And they're making it at the time. I mean. No, but now. But now it then leaves after a combined period of both trade and pillaging other people presented in their museums, telling a story, whatever. But I think when Africa is now in a place where the narrative about it is that it can get nothing done. It has come from nowhere. It means nothing. It has no intelligence. It has no advancement. It has no. So now all of a sudden, that plate, that comb, that statue is no longer just a plate, a comb or a statue. It's now proof that these people whose stories. Whose stories were stolen, actually happened. It's now like. Do you get what I'm saying? So now it becomes even beyond art. I can see it now being, you.

[Eugene]

Know, like in a similar civilization.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly. And in a perfect world, I would almost argue that a New York museum should go, hey, we have a bunch of your stuff. But right now, the stories that are being told about you are that you've never had stuff. So we're actually gonna give you this stuff so that you have an opportunity to showcase to your people and to other people who come to you.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

The fact that you had stuff.

[Wesley Morris]

See, I actually think it's the converse of what Eugene's saying. Because I think. I mean, I think both things can be true. I think that a people needs to know its story and the value of the story that the artifacts represent a whole that kind of dignify or redignify a people. Yeah. Re.

[Trevor Noah]

Dignify. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And I also think it is important to advertise the dignity of. To the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, damn. That's true.

[Wesley Morris]

Of these. Of these other nations.

[Trevor Noah]

That's true.

[Wesley Morris]

Because, you know, I just will say as a. As a black American, the points of pride just to stay in the museum space. Right. The idea that some curator thought to put a Horace Pippin painting.

[Eugene]

Well, no.

[Wesley Morris]

In the Prado. In The Prado in Madrid. There are no. There's very little African American art. There's lots of American art. Very little art by African Americans. There's a Horace Pippin that is just in the American 20th century art section. It's just sitting there next to Ad Reinhart and, I don't know, Mel Gusaurus. And. Wait, Mel Gustow's a critic at the New York Times? Forget that.

[Eugene]

He should be there.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, he should not be there, like, right next to Joseph Stella, right? And there's like, Horace Pippen is just like a little tiny or not insignificantly sized. Horace Pippen is just among these great white artists, and it just fills you with pride. Like, I came all the way over here, didn't need to see any black shit.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[Wesley Morris]

But here we are, just like a great. And it's like, it is a story, you know, I don't remember which one. Which. Which Pippen is at the Prado, but it's a. Or is it a Bearden Now? I'm just all over.

[Trevor Noah]

You can just say names, and I'm gonna stay here because I don't know. I don't know the names of any artist.

[Wesley Morris]

You can just say that it's actually not Horace Pippen. It's Romare Bearden.

[Trevor Noah]

You can call it.

[Wesley Morris]

You can say Judith.

[Trevor Noah]

You can say Arnold. You can. I'm just gonna be like, mm.

[Wesley Morris]

There's a great Romare Bearden that lives at the Prado, and it's just there among all these great artists and these great white American artists. But he's just, to the Prado, an American artist.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. They're not like the great black artist, you know, Romare Bearden, he's just like, this guy's the same as everybody else in this room. We probably don't. We might know he's bull. I mean, at the museum, they know, but, like, they're not. That's not the story they're telling. The painting tells the story. But I think there's a real power in letting these, like. I guess the sort of literary, poetic term is like. Like, it's a metonym. It's like a piece that can stand in for the whole. And that piece signifies something to everybody who bothers to go look in the. In the vitrines. And like, me, who skipped it for years and years, and now, like, you know, I want to talk about Indonesian art. Let's just talk about it. Because I didn't have any feelings 10 minutes ago, but I got a lot of feelings now because I spent two hours just walking around looking in these cases. I have a lot of questions.

[Trevor Noah]

Is that why Trump and his people are so adamant about Trevor?

[Wesley Morris]

You know the answer?

[Trevor Noah]

Answer, no, no, no. I don't necessarily know the answer. I never assume that I know the answer.

[Wesley Morris]

You have a sense.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that doesn't mean. I know it.

[Wesley Morris]

But complete your thoughts. Sorry.

[Trevor Noah]

I know we might get. We might get further together is we. We talk about the world of art. And, you know, these museums, they're very hoity toity.

[Eugene]

You know, it's very.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, most people would go like, ah, who cares and who doesn't? I found. I found it particularly interesting that, like, Trump and his close cohorts took a special interest in museums on day one.

[Wesley Morris]

Basically, I was like, this is such.

[Trevor Noah]

A who cares world is what people often say. I was like, why does he care about this so much? Why does he care so much about what the exhibits are and more importantly, what the exhibits say?

[Eugene]

I think you have the answer.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you get what I'm saying? No, but what it made me realize is as much as people will roast Trump and maybe his people for being uncultured and uncouth, and I was like, what do they realize about art and its power that a large swath of the population doesn't? You get what I'm saying?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, 100%.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, most of the time, when people have conversations about museums and galleries and we people are like, who? Art is such a niche. But for Trump on day one to go, yo, museums, we need to.

[Wesley Morris]

He's not saying, my kid could do that. He's saying, this shit is powerful.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I mean.

[Wesley Morris]

And it needs to be stopped. Right? And you know what's crazy? I don't know if you remember this. He went to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, like, the month after the inauguration, got a tour from Lonnie Bunch, like, who's now the. Who now is the director of the entire Smithsonian system. And he left the tour and, like, gave remarks and was like, you know, this is some powerful shit. I don't think I saw everything, but I'm going to come back and everybody needs to see this because this is a very important American story. This is very important. And, you know, there's a lot to be proud of here. But, you know, there's still. I mean, I'm now paraphrasing, but, like, there's a lot of work to do, and this museum is an important part of that work. Lonnie, I salute you. This museum's a real success. Wow. Can't wait to get back to your point. The question isn't why is he doing this now? I mean, you kind of. You were right, Trevor. Like, he's doing it because he already knows the power. Now the question, the real question.

[Trevor Noah]

I love the fact that. Cuz I didn't know that part of the story. Yeah, I only knew. No, I only knew the part where, like, Trump very recently said, hey, National Museum of African American History and Culture, you guys get a. You guys better get your shit together and stop being so anti white. Right? That's like basically the mandate. He was like, you are very, very anti white. And the way you make it seem like slavery was just white people. It's not cool, man.

[Eugene]

Who else?

[Trevor Noah]

It's not cool. But now the way you tell the story. But the way you tell the story now almost feels more like, like it's weird that, like, what he was like, walking through this museum.

[Wesley Morris]

I have been thinking about this.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, what was he doing when he was. Do you get what I'm saying?

[Wesley Morris]

I really have been thinking about this. I don't know. I don't know what. You know, there's a kind of person who just doesn't have the patience to try to sit in his brain to figure it out. But I want to. Like, I'm not scared to be in there, right? Like, I have a shower, I know it works. But I think that. Because I do think that to the extent that he is like no other American, he also is quintessentially, deeply, like inexorably, like the apotheosis of America. The what? The apotheosis. Like the sort of ultimate example of Quintessential.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, damn. Apotheosis.

[Wesley Morris]

Quintessential. No, in some ways, because quintessential implies that there's something to measure you against. Well, preservable, like worth. Worth. Like, this is the. This is like the absolute essential. Now I could be displacing my own feelings about my own word choices. I would not use quintessence. Quintessence or quintessential to. To describe Donald Trump. Unless we're like, talking about the, like the quintessential cheeseburger eater, right?

[Trevor Noah]

Wow, wow, wow.

[Eugene]

You went from the present to a cheeseburger eater.

[Trevor Noah]

This guy just said the quintessential cheeseburger eater.

[Eugene]

Okay, Yo, I'm gonna use that for somebody.

[Trevor Noah]

You just gotta walk past somebody having a meal and be like, well, well.

[Eugene]

Well, if it isn't the quintessential cheeseburger either.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, my goodness, who isn't the Hamburglar can't be the hamburger. But I think that, like, he is, like, he is the apotheosis of this country in many ways, right? He is, he is the, he is a very good example. There are lots of, like, great Americans. Trump is Trump, at the end of the day, no matter what you say, is, is one of the great Americans in, like, the purest sense of the word. Great. Like, it is enormous. It is vast. It has great capacity to contain lots of aspects, things, moments.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Wesley Morris]

And I think, oh, God, like, in his mind, to just be in there for a second, you know, to listen to him talk about the things he thinks he deserves. The Nobel Peace Prize.

[Eugene]

Mount Rushmore.

[Wesley Morris]

Mount Rushmore. The Kennedy Center Honor. There's a world in which, I think, depending on, like, how, depending on what the Smithsonian body chooses to do in response to the threat, I think there's a world in which, you know, forget the presidential library, Library, like one of those museums becomes his. Right? And it is filled with not just his version of American history, but the history of him. Right. He thinks, I mean, it's. I can't recall a person who simultaneously, you know, I'm not a historian and, like, I'll let, like, the Smithsonian staff, like, come at me when I say this, because they would know better than I would, but I can't think of a living person of that level of prominence, with that degree of power, who also simultaneously knows nothing about history, but also has a deep understanding that he is making it it as he goes.

[Trevor Noah]

That's fascinating. What a conundrum, right? Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And so he, I'm going to say he doesn't like that history, not only because it defaces white people, like, like, blames white people. It's that he honestly can't imagine himself in that story. He can literally say he never owned slaves. Right? He can say he never enslaved anybody. He can't say he never rented to a black person. He can't say. He can't say I, I, I never. He can't say I never didn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

He can't say I never denied a home. You know, there are lots of things he can't say he didn't do. He can't imagine himself. He cannot, he can't. He doesn't have the empathy to understand the degree to which, or he's denied himself access to that, to an empathy, because he, he performed it once. He went on that tour and came back and was like, works for me.

[Trevor Noah]

So I Think you might be a little more generous in your reading of him than I would.

[Wesley Morris]

Probably. Probably. I am. I.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I. The thing that in many ways scares me more with Donald Trump is I feel like he is completely shaped by the people he is with at any given time. That's true. That is true.

[Wesley Morris]

That is true. That is true.

[Trevor Noah]

And so I think it feels true. His worldview in any given moment can change depending on who is next to him, telling him the story. Now, someone would go, no, but he's been pretty consistent. He hasn't really been. In fact, he's shown these blips of inconsistency. One of them was, do you remember when there was that bombing in Syria? I've gotta get more specific. But it was the image of a kid who. His face was covered in white ash and dust, and it was this image of this young boy in an ambulance. And this picture went around the world. And that's when Trump was like, he launched a strike against Syria. Do you remember? And. And people.

[Wesley Morris]

I didn't remember the call.

[Trevor Noah]

This was his first term. And he was very proudly, even then, saying, we're not gonna get involved. He's like, we're not fighting. No fights for us. Nothing for us. Not getting involved. And then he launched a strike, right? And then they said to him, what changed? And he said, ivanka showed me a picture of the little boy. So sad. Little boy, Nobody. That little boy. And I remember at the time, a lot of people were like, oh, he doesn't care. And I was like, no, no, no. He did in that. It's a weird thing, but he did because Ivanka showed him the picture. Right? It's the same way. He didn't toe the line. Do you remember when the images were coming out from Palestine of the children starving? And then Netanyahu was like, no, no, no, these images are fake. This is not a thing. Someone showed it to Trump and then they asked him, and he's like. He's like, those are real. I know that's real. You can't lie about that. It's terrible. It's terrible. And it completely went against his position, quote, unquote. And you see it with all of these things. Like, I've seen Trump. I'm sure you've seen these moments when Trump gets surrounded by, like, let's say, the heads of HBCUs or something.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, well, the famous. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Trump is in a room with people and they're telling him something. Trump will walk out of that room and he'll be like, what has happened to African American? Terrible, terrible times. And we gotta fix it, we gotta change it, we gotta fix it. And people go, oh, but then he doesn't do it. And I'm like, yeah, but I know this sounds crazy.

[Wesley Morris]

If you took his administration and just replaced it with like, yes, the Obama, the Obama people, yes, we would be in a different situation.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I mean because I found every time, because remember, the HBCU presidents visit him, they don't stay with him.

[Eugene]

What is the hbcu?

[Trevor Noah]

Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

[Wesley Morris]

Spelman, Howard, Fisk, I mean many, many others, historically black history. There was a famous moment in I believe 2017 where all of these. Was it 2017 where all of you know, the presidents and chancellors of all these historically black colleges and universities are going to the White House for what they think is just like a visit. And at some point they, I don't know how this happens to people, but it apparently happens a lot. They're going for a visit and then all of a sudden they're walking down a hall and a door opens and they're in the Oval Office.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And these 20 something like very senior, very executive oriented negro people find themselves in the Oval Office with Donald Trump. Trump, who is ready to take a picture. The meeting did not occur in the Oval Office. This is a photo opportunity. And there's a very famous photo.

[Eugene]

Of.

[Wesley Morris]

These people standing around, some of them looking really like.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, what just happened?

[Wesley Morris]

Are you and Donald Trump. It's an amazing photo because Donald Trump is standing at the desk and just looking so pleased with himself. Like, I got him, I got him. Look at this photo. It's amazing. I can dine out on this photo for four years and the composition of it is great. Like his tie clears the. It's just an amazing image. But to your point, like if those people were also suddenly, if they also found out that day, by the way, guys, guess what? You've got new jobs. You're no longer going to be heads of these elite universities, these great black American institutions. You're working in Trump administration. Good luck. I actually think if those, if the people who found themselves, I mean, I guess that's slavery actually. That actually is exactly how he just surprise.

[Eugene]

One minute people were walking the dogs were there, the next thing.

[Wesley Morris]

They're important, powerful people.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

That's exactly.

[Wesley Morris]

The next minute they're working for some white man forever.

[Trevor Noah]

But let's say in this instance, but.

[Wesley Morris]

Let'S just Say in this instance, like, they signed a document and there was a paycheck involved and they had the. That's what I'm saying. No, but they sweeten the deal. Whatever. Just let's play Twilight Zone for one second. Like, how different would things have been according to your theory of his impressionability? Would it have been if you had had, you know, a room full of black men and women helping him advise the country instead of Stephen Miller? Yes, I'm down. I'm down to find out. I'm not that down, cuz no style has been cast. But.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but this is. What I'm trying to say is, like, strange about him in that way is that I don't think that Donald Trump holds any values beyond Donald Trump. Okay? So he said many times, if you like me, I like you. He says it very simply. Doesn't matter what you say about him in the past, if you're just cool with him now, he's cool with you.

[Eugene]

He.

[Trevor Noah]

He, like.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, this is.

[Trevor Noah]

He brushes it away, like, quite quickly, actually, because he. It's almost like wrestling to him. He's like, no, no, let's keep it moving. Let's keep. I understand that plot's done and now we can move on. Right?

[Eugene]

But.

[Trevor Noah]

But I love that you. You said he is the.

[Wesley Morris]

Say the word again, the apotheosis. Apotheosis of America.

[Trevor Noah]

Because in many ways, I would argue like an apotheosis. I would argue that, like, he's an apotheosis of most people in that he holds the ideas of the people who are closest to him and he feels that those are the most important ideas. And so I argue if Mar A Lago was predominantly black, if the golf clubs that he was in and around were predominantly Hispanic, if the places where he was. Think. Think of the small things that Trump has revealed, right? He said, immigration, I don't want it. But then he went, well, except for, of course, like, Satan is all the.

[Wesley Morris]

People in my life who I know, right?

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. But then he said. He said, but I'm not, not. I'm not talking about sommeliers. No, no, he said. He didn't say sommeliers. I'm saying sommeliers. He said he called them wine choosers or something like that.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know if you remember that, actually. Wait, what was this? No, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

He said that was like second term right now. Now, like, he said it. Oh, man. He didn't say sommeliers because I remember correcting it in my head.

[Wesley Morris]

But he said wine Choosers?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, he said wine waiters. Wine choosers. What did he say, Ryan? It was wine.

[Wesley Morris]

You're not talking about the people who work on the. He's not talking about the actual.

[Trevor Noah]

He's talking about the person who comes to you and helps you select your wine. I know that for a fact.

[Wesley Morris]

The wine picker.

[Trevor Noah]

But you could see, it was so interesting that in his head, the good type of immigrant is the one that he encounters all the time, who brings him his food and his wine, and he's like, that immigrant should stay, of course. But the one that he sees on Fox News and on his social media crossing a border and then killing a family, he's like, that one mustn't come in. You hear what I'm saying?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, of course.

[Trevor Noah]

And so, like, I. The reason I say that he is. He's a great apotheosis in that way is it's very seldom that a country is run by somebody who is swayed as much as the average citizen of that country is swayed.

[Eugene]

The only difference is they have so much power.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly. Like that. Like that. That thing always gets me with Trump is where I go, like, man, you just get him in the right room, in the right. You know, who knows this? Almost all the leaders in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, New York, et cetera, they know. You get them in the room, the man will come out, and all of a sudden he'll say something slightly different to what he said coming in because he's had time with you.

[Wesley Morris]

But the problem is, like, talk about shaking an Etch A Sketch. It's so easy to shake his Etch A Sketch. Yes. Right. His Etch A Sketch gets shaken every day.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And somebody. Somebody's always gotten the knob, so to speak. I just. But see, the problem with that. I mean, what you're saying is, I believe that that is a very cogent way of thinking about Trump. But then there is. I mean, the part that does feel like he is like a metaphor in action is that it never amounts to anything because he's also so aware of his own. If he understands the value of anything, it's him.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, definitely.

[Wesley Morris]

And so it's never like, you know, I'm for immigration because my homie from Wharton, you know, came up from Chile to get an education, just like me. It's never. No one has ever eaten equal to him. He's never. He's. He's rarely. And has an equal. His equals are, you know, Putin, Kim. Kim Jong Un. Yeah. I mean, but even. Or. Or conversely, you know, in the business world. Right. Like, who are the people he's never really aspiring to be? Steve Jobs.

[Trevor Noah]

No, his.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, he's never said this, but I mean, he's much closer to like, like the obvious people, like a Gotti or something like that. I mean, those are the. And those would be. That's an applicable model to an aspect of his governance which is, you know, using a kind of threat tactic, bullying tactic to get people to just yield, strong arm or give him what he wants. But, you know, and then. But these never sort of make their way into policy.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

It's not like the whispering in the ear for good things ever results in, you know, more housing for people.

[Trevor Noah]

But I'm saying it's cause they're not around enough.

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

And I mean that honestly, I believe that. I genuinely think they're just not. Like, you can't do it in one meeting and you're not gonna be around him more than. Yeah, long enough. But the people who were around him long enough. And I think that's why there's so much infighting around him amongst his own people to get other people away from him. So Steve Bannon fights with Stephen Miller and then that person fights with that person because they know once you've got.

[Wesley Morris]

His ear, if you can keep his ear. I want his ear.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you keep his ear, you've got his power. But if you. If it's like, that's why the Elon Musk thing threw everyone off. Cause it's like Elon's whispering this, the other people are whispering that. Elon. And then he's like, I like Elon, but I hear this about him. But at the same time, I also think Elon's annoying.

[Wesley Morris]

Elon wasn't there 24 hours a day.

[Trevor Noah]

And he was when he had the most power.

[Wesley Morris]

Right, right, right.

[Trevor Noah]

There was a point where he was at mar a lago 24 7. He was basically living there. He was around Trump.

[Wesley Morris]

But he had to doge, you see, and doge was work. And it meant he had to actually go to these agencies.

[Trevor Noah]

There you go. When he was outdoing then, now someone's whispering in Trump's ear. Yo, man, what's up with this Elon guy? Yeah, when he's outdoing. But listen, I don't. I don't want to spend all the time talking about Trump because everyone does.

[Wesley Morris]

But he is like a fascinating cultural.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, he is figure, right? Yes. Because he's the defining cultural figure for now.

[Wesley Morris]

No, I mean, and so he is fascinating to Talk about. Even though there is a kind of danger in. You can't forget the other things that that figureheadness is also doing.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

And that's always the sort of moral tension among discussants when it comes to Trump also. Yes. Keep in mind, though, that there are people being disappeared. Keep in mind, though, that he's about to take over another American city, predominantly with a significant black population. So, I don't know, it's tough. I'm a person who loves to try to figure out and unpack cultural figures, including presidents, but, you know, it kind of runs aground. I mean, for instance, you know, I wouldn't have spent. I didn't spend very much time talking about George W. Bush during his presidency, although there was, because there was so. Also, there was so much culture around that presidency, like, responding to it in real time. Time. There's no culture. He is the culture, Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that is true.

[Wesley Morris]

There's no. There's no filmmaking that. That is, like, responding to this presidency first or second.

[Trevor Noah]

But how could you.

[Wesley Morris]

People are terrified, I think, though.

[Trevor Noah]

And what. I mean, people. I mean, like, the money is terrified. I don't mean, like, the people.

[Wesley Morris]

But what's interesting is these things have a way of happening anyway, anyway.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. So I think that's really fascinating that, like, the horror movie is, like, the most interesting things happening at the movies in, at least in this country involve horror. Right. Involve, you know, the un. Like, the darkest, grimmest, and not just, like, you know, there's a. There's a crazy person at the door. But, like, there are mysterious things happening that don't seem to make a lot of sense. And it's interesting to me that, like, our Death Drive is on the charts. Right. Like, I am obsessed with the fact that Die with a Smile. This Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars song that Won't Die is called like, is still in the top 10 as of our conversation right now. It is number 10. It has been in the top 10 for a year. Like, when we were kids, songs didn't last. You'd like, if you got a song to last in the top 10 for a week, right?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

So the idea that you've had a song that's been in the top 10 for a year, like, it probably more than a year at this point, is just mind blowing to me. And maybe it's not more than a year, but it's definitely almost a year. And it's about, like, you know, I'd rather, like, you know, it's coming back to me. The melody just hit me just just like washed over me. You're. You don't have to deal with this. I don't know if you're doing the Grammys this year, but you don't have to deal with this song. It was last year.

[Eugene]

I thought that was the lyrics of the song.

[Wesley Morris]

I was like, no, all right. They do. No, I, I think it's just fascinating to me that that song is about, not about like spending the rest of my life with you, not about like. But you know, if I get like, you know, another, another bit of time with you, I will die with a smile. Like, it's just a, it's a beautiful sentiment, but it's just telling. The song is called Die with a Smile. I'm kind of a literal minded person. You put it on a plate like that, I'm going to put my fork in it.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't press anything. We've got more. What now after this.

[Wesley Morris]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Trevor Noah]

I. I wonder then when. So when you, you see that, that's what I mean about like how you see these things and how you think about them. Going back to what you said about horror movies, I don't think I would think about that just off the bat. But we do have to ask ourselves why certain things are more popular when they are, and what they're tapping into when they're tapping into it. Like, you know, there's. There's more obvious ones that you can see in hindsight, like movies like Rambo and all of those things. America was telling itself a story, and it needed to tell itself the story, and it did it successfully, you know, and even in, like, the cartoons and stuff like that. Like, when I think of, like, Popeye. Popeye was telling me a story, you know, and, and.

[Eugene]

And domestic violence.

[Trevor Noah]

Who was.

[Eugene]

Oh, Pluto and Olive Oil. Oh, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

I thought you were saying Popeye. I was like, popeye hit Oliver's like, damn, bro. Which. What did you watch? No, no, no, no, no. But I mean, but I'm saying the.

[Wesley Morris]

Story and human trafficking.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but if you look at the story Superman, the stories that Superman was telling, you know, and it is interesting to. Now when I'm. When I'm thinking through your brain, I go, huh? It's fascinating to look at when Superman movies come back and when they don't and when they do well and when they don't and what. It's like, there's a moment when America's telling a story about itself being exceptional and fighting the Russians and fighting communism. Superman's the thing. And then that story, like, fades away. Superman fades away. And then the Superman that becomes popular and comes out is like a gritty, non Supermany Superman.

[Wesley Morris]

That's the trump. That's the first trump. Superman.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's like the. And then now the new. Now the. The American Superman sort of thing is like, back, and the parents are even more folksy and the. You know what I mean? It's like, it's interesting to think about, like, what we're experiencing in our world. And then the question. Then the question becomes, is the art imitating life or is life imitating art?

[Wesley Morris]

Like, you know, I think that art has a weird way of corresponding to moods. Cause the people that make this stuff are basically us, right? Like, they have the same neuroses or like, not dissimilar neurose. Part of the problem, truly, with movies right now is that I think there aren't enough geniuses who don't. Who aren't like us to show us, like, how we. How we could be right, or to like, to like, elevate. Well, I think that talk about, like, we're talking about, we never really quite got to the bottom of the name thing, but the. There is a way in which. Because Hollywood is no longer making as many movies as it used to, just to stick with the movies, because the movies are an important talk about a thing that you put in a museum to tell a story of a people and its priorities and who it was. Like. Like, the movies are the museum in action, right? Like a video store, when we had them, Those were museums. 100% of. Of world civilization was time traveling, right? But it was both that and artifacts of peoples. And without them, it's really hard to know. Well, not really hard because we've got this whole, I would say, quarry of social media, right, where, like, you could dig through there to find that one chunk of marble that, like, is worth keeping, but there's just a lot of rocks in there. But the movies are this kind of, like, determined, like, cultivated art form where even when they suck or, like, don't have aspirations to greatness, still wind up telling you a story, they do. And it feels true. And I think that we are no longer. We are so addicted now to whatever it is the superhero gives us in terms of a feeling of. I'm giving these movies more credit than they probably even need. But, like, there might be something here about the way these movies make us feel as a people, right? Like, it's great to watch these people stop the world from ending over and over and over and over and over. And what no longer happens is regular people no longer exist in this world. Right? Oh, wow. Like, there's a world in which I, for as strange as I found Clark Kent's parent in this new Superman movie, I was kind of fascinated by how these two people raised that.

[Eugene]

Are they black?

[Wesley Morris]

No, unfortunately. You'd have heard about that. You'd have heard about that. You know, you would have heard about it.

[Eugene]

Thought we got Ariel.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, you got stuck with Aaron. That's as good as it's gonna get. But I think that, you know, I grew up in a time, and this is not a nostalgia. This is not a. This is not nostalgia that I'm talking about. It's the value of storytelling, which is not a nostalgic observation. But you got a really robust menu of stories, even when they didn't explicitly feature people who were black, were Asian, were gay. You got stories that were human enough to trick you into thinking that you were Molly Ringwald. Right. Could trick you into thinking you were Clint Eastwood. For as problematic as that Even is right. You would be seduced into identifying with lots and lots of different people who did not wear a cape.

[Eugene]

You're right. It's almost like there's certain parts of making a movie that have been removed. The kitchen. Oh, the dining table.

[Wesley Morris]

Speed.

[Eugene]

The couch and the tv, the remote. Holding the remote. The driveway, the garage, the car have all been removed. And those were the things. The bicycle lying in the driveway, you know, and the lawn and the sidewalk. Those things have been removed to make movies more efficient. And if you look at old movies, those things were always there.

[Wesley Morris]

Always there?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Even when they looked fake. Right. They were still present.

[Eugene]

I always say the first time I experienced a beer in cinema was through cinema. I mean, when someone just opens a can of beer after coming back from work and holding a six pack, it told a story for the longest time. I never thought you drank beer cold. So when you see commercial in South Africa and the beer is cold, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. After a long, hard day's work, you take a six pack. And then I experience the hangover and I'm like, how do you go to work tomorrow after drinking six warm beers? So all of that has been removed. You're right. A real human being and the aspirations that a normal human being would want to have of having somewhere to go to and somewhere to depart from have been removed.

[Wesley Morris]

They don't exist anymore.

[Eugene]

Looking through a window has been removed.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I mean. Well, I mean, because you now have these giant, like, hangars where all the action takes place. Right. Like, they call them headquarters. You know, I mean, they could. They're just giant soundstages that seem like sound stages in the movies themselves. And so, I don't know. I just. I'm not saying I want more farm movies, but there was a value to watching Sally Field try to keep her farm from going under.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Which is a kind of movie that happened every week. Like Jessica Lange, Sally Field. There was a farm movie a week with some great white woman trying to keep the farm going. And Danny Glover was on every single one of them, being like, I gotcha. But, you know, I'm gonna help.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, it's funny you just say that. You say that now. I do think there's something powerful in that imagery and what story it tells us. Because let's think of, like, you know, like, Danny Glover and that type of story. Lethal Weapon.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, here's a great example.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean? Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or any of those types of movies. As much as these people are quote, unquote professionals, there was also, like, a very everyman ness to the story.

[Wesley Morris]

They spend so much time in Danny Glover's house. Once they realized that that was a real relationship between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Wesley Morris]

You got to know his family.

[Trevor Noah]

That's exactly what I mean. That's exactly. But what to. What you just said now, which I've never considered is, is you don't have that with the Avengers. No, you really don't. You know what I mean? Their family only exists as a device to give them an origin story. But beyond that, we. We don't see, like, why this is their family or who these people are, who they mean to them, or how they shape them or how they. But what it does more importantly is I. I think of the effect that it has on us in. In questioning or even imagining where safety comes from. Yeah. You get what I'm saying?

[Eugene]

Absolutely.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Yeah, Absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

Think of how if you just grew up. Now, watching.

[Eugene]

That was a good one.

[Wesley Morris]

That was good.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but think about it. If you grew up watching, like, Rambo or if you grew up watching, like, that era of movies Die Hard, you believed that you as an individual could make an outsized influence in the world. I don't care if a band of terrorists has taken over a building. You can do something about it in.

[Wesley Morris]

Your tank top and bare feet.

[Trevor Noah]

You can indeed. But you can do something about it. And then Avengers comes along, and it's like, listen, listen. All you are gonna do is be in your office screaming. That's your only role. And then Superman, you've ruined it for me.

[Wesley Morris]

Now Hulk or whoever, D.C. or gonna destroy your office.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but all you. Your only role is to. To scream and run. And then pray Superman swoops you off the ground before the thing falls on you. And pray that, you know, Storm creates a little tornado to protect. But that's your only role. They don't even, like, help the superheroes. There's not even, like, a thing where it's like, if it wasn't for you people of Earth, this wouldn't know.

[Wesley Morris]

It's like, y' all wouldn't be anything without us.

[Trevor Noah]

Your job is to have your hot dog cart that gets blown up, and all you do is run away. Your job is to have your car fall off a bridge, and then that superhero comes and lifts it and holds the bridge, and then you get out with your family. That's your only purpose.

[Wesley Morris]

But that's us turning everything over to these powers.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I mean. But I'm saying, like, you don't, you don't think of the power of that because. And I'm sure some people watching this will be like, ah, come on, man, movies. But one of the best analyses that was like, like of sociology was the, the Eddie Murphy special when he talked about Rocky. Do you remember that bit?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And he talked about like, what it did for like white working class males. Yo, Rocco. Hey, Rocko. And I think it was very astute. It made a lot of people who were like, oh, that's me. I'm a quote, unquote nobody. But you know what? I'm a somebody.

[Wesley Morris]

I could come to a draw in a ring with Leon Spinks. Just let me, just let me. All I gotta do is run up an art museum steps and beat up like a hanging. Hanging cut of beef inside of beef. Let me at Leon Spinks. I will. I can fuck him up.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that's powerful. We take for granted how powerful that is.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, just think about what it takes for people of at least my parents generation. But I mean, really, anybody who grew up as a non white person in a society of oppression, right? You grow up in the Jim Crow south, you grew up in apartheid South Africa. And you get these stories that are asking you to spend some time with white people who don't ostensibly have anything to do with your situation. But it's a story about somebody trying to overcome something. Somebody caught in a plot that they need to get solved. By the end of the hour and 40 minutes, you are suddenly forgotten about your situation and you have completely invested Your hour and 40 minutes into this other person's situation. And there's a world in which some of the images from this experience, whether it's like terrible, like the movie itself, is not very good. It doesn't matter.

[Eugene]

Doesn't matter.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, because you're wrapped up in a story and maybe by the end you're like, this doesn't really work. But what you did was you watched an avatar for your own self in some way go through something that you couldn't imagine going through until you. Do you think I ever thought for one second that Bruce Willis, like, I never thought once about trying to save people from a hijacked. Yeah. Skyscraper. Never once.

[Eugene]

Once you've tried to help them from someone blocking them from viewing art. And that's about it.

[Wesley Morris]

That is a superheroic act that a regular person can do every day. But the power of the movies.

[Eugene]

Big.

[Wesley Morris]

And small is like, when they're focused on what regular people are Dealing with and going through, you just. You learn something about how to be in the world. Just peace.

[Eugene]

There were no CEOs in movies.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, there were.

[Eugene]

There were just regular working guys.

[Wesley Morris]

There was a really real. But here's another aspect of this. To your point about Die Hard, there was a whole moment in the 80s that you probably remember. Cause I know you saw these movies where like every week you'd get some young person who thought they could do a better job making money than the people who went to Princeton to do it. Like, Working Girl, Secret of my success. These movies came out all the time. Or they were like the descendant. They were the children of these people. Like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The story of a yuppies kid who just decides I'm gonna just act like my dad all day and not even realize I'm acting like my dad. That day was. Yeah. You hated it.

[Trevor Noah]

I loved it.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, you loved it. Okay, good.

[Eugene]

We should try recreate it.

[Wesley Morris]

You and me.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

I mean, you can bring a friend or two and then could have the longest day ever in an.

[Wesley Morris]

Ever since.

[Eugene]

Exactly.

[Wesley Morris]

What would it look like for a bunch of, like, old men to do Ferris Bueller? I think. I don't know, but I feel like.

[Eugene]

Matthew Broderick, you know?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Just like he would take. I mean, he's actually. Didn't he do a Ferris Bueller commercial or something?

[Trevor Noah]

He did. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

As his old self. As his regular current self. No way. Like, yeah, he did it. But that's the other thing. Right. Like, we have given the keys to our. To our civilization over to, I'm gonna say, the algorithm to decide. Right. Like, these executives who make our movies don't care about telling stories that reflect the lives that we are living currently. They care about mergers. They care about, like, making sure that I don't actually know what they care about. But I can tell you what they don't care about. Cause we don't get it. Right.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm not saying I want places in the heart every week, but I wouldn't mind it now. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

I was thinking the other day, I don't know how long it'll be before we see another movie like Forrest Gump in the cinema.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, my God, that's a great.

[Trevor Noah]

For example, that's an example of a film where I go, I don't know a single person who could watch Forrest Gump and not find themselves somewhere in the story. I don't care who you are. That story touches everyone. It touches everything. It touches race, class, disability. It touches War, it touches. Capitalism, it touches. It doesn't matter what it is.

[Wesley Morris]

It goes everywhere. Yeah, but it's about going everywhere.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly. And can that story exist today? And someone might go, oh, but who cares? And I'm like, yeah, but if you look at it on the, on the, on the smallest level, do you remember what you would do as a kid when you were done watching a movie?

[Wesley Morris]

You'd watch it again.

[Eugene]

You'd enact everything. You said.

[Trevor Noah]

You would enact everything. You would go, I'm going outside.

[Eugene]

Would watch it.

[Trevor Noah]

He's like a five year old critic.

[Wesley Morris]

What was that? I want to know how that works.

[Trevor Noah]

Where's like a five. A five year old critic at large? All right, well, this time, this time I'm making notes.

[Wesley Morris]

Movies that you probably shouldn't be reenacting. Oh, damn. When I was 11, I saw Fatal Attraction Lake three times in the movie theater. So guess what I'm not doing.

[Eugene]

So you don't want to know how much. I mean, watch Sharon Stone doing the leg cross game.

[Trevor Noah]

So now. Yeah, but, but what I'm saying is like what you would do is you would go out and want to be. You would, you would try the kick.

[Wesley Morris]

Goonies is a great example.

[Trevor Noah]

You would go on the adventure. You would, you would imagine yourself to your point in that world or you would imagine that that world could happen to you. Right? And so as we look at the shift of storytelling, you know, when you tie all of these threads together, the museum, the story that is telling you of you and the possibilities that you and your people may contain. Movies, it's exactly the same thing. It's like, yeah, names. It's telling you the story of you, the possibilities that you contain. And then within that framework, you now act. You. Now, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you and I wondered how this fits into everything. Why do you think it is that so many critics at large, you know, whether they focused on fashion or art or whatever, why do you think so many of them were black men? What do you think? Is no genuine question.

[Wesley Morris]

No, I'm thinking about this because there's also Margo Jefferson, who is a great American critic and memoirist and a black woman. I think it really, I mean, I'm like, we should name. Who were some of the people we might be talking about, like Hilton Owls, Vincent Cunningham, Margo, of course, some other great person that I'm not remembering at the moment. But basically I think, well, I mean, I think there's like an innate curiosity about, like you get trained to be curious Right. Like, I mean, if you have the luxury of being able to think broadly about things or like making these connections. Because so much of, I mean, a lot of my life was really about, like my childhood anyway, was my mother sort of encouraging me to just think for myself. Right. Like, if you've got a question, you go find the answer, because I actually don't know it, so you'll have to look it up. And there was no Internet, so I would, you know, I. I became very good at encyclopedias, for instance, which is where you got the answers to these questions, if you, if you, if you had them. I think a lot of the people that we're talking about are basically the same age. I also think, I mean, I'm younger than those guys, but I also. Well, and Vincent is younger than I am, but I think that you. There is something about seeing things and wanting to be free enough to not just ask a question, but like to connect them to something else. And also it's like, it's a little dissatisfying. Cause you learn this. I was a movie creator critic for a long time.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And you realize, at least in the, in, in my practice, that I was spending a lot of time doing critic at large work anyway.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

Because movies are, are a fascinating art form because they already incorporate so many other art forms to exist. Right. I mean, there is, you know, the visual, the audio, the compositional. Right. They have to be written hopefully, I mean, more than typed. You hope you got a screenplay that was written and not just typed.

[Trevor Noah]

There's the fashion, there's the. What people are wearing. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

There are the. There's the soundtrack or the score. There's so many there. I mean, if we're, I mean, architecture, there's. There's just an opportunity, if your eye is open to making these connections among all these different disciplines and art forms that are being assembled and harnessed to tell, you know, any kind of story.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And these are things that you frequently, as a moviegoer, you just take for granted.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But I learned at some point, for instance, I usually stay for all the credit. I worked at a movie theater for a number of years, and I would have to stand at the back of the theater while people left and watch the credits.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, what were you doing at the movie theater?

[Wesley Morris]

I was an usher.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I was an usher from like 16 to 19.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, so what did you do back then as an usher? Cause I feel like ushers have changed over the years in movie theaters. Like, what was your job? Breaking the ticket and showing them rip a ticket.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, if it was an older person or a disabled person, I would take them to their seat.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, okay.

[Wesley Morris]

You'd wait at the back of the theater for the first 15 minutes of every show to make sure the picture was right. Doesn't happen anymore.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, no. I'm like. I'm like, where were you? You know how many movies are blurry these days? And I'm like, oh, where is. I didn't even know there was someone who's supposed to do something about Trevor.

[Wesley Morris]

I go and report, and now I didn't like doing it in the old days because when something was wrong, there was one projectionist, at least in Boston, where I lived for a while, who. And you know, that person might get in trouble if something was wrong. But then. And I. You know, there are a lot of things to be happy for James Cameron, for one of them that's not so great is like that momentary advent of 3D.

[Trevor Noah]

That was terrible.

[Wesley Morris]

Which changed projection, right? It helped change projection. I'm gonna blame James Cameron and Avatar, but it could have been some other thing.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't blame him. I blame the people chasing the money behind him. Cause Avatar did it for real. For real.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, it did do it for real.

[Trevor Noah]

And then everyone else was just like, it's 3D. And it's like, no, but they took pictures, man.

[Wesley Morris]

But Trevor, they would leave the lenses on. They would leave the 3D.

[Trevor Noah]

Is that what it was?

[Wesley Morris]

They would leave the. Some theaters would leave the 3D projector on for 2D movies or the lens that you needed to flip off, man, for a 2D movie. So, I mean, there's a lot of things about the moviegoing experience that suck. But, like, my job back in the day with a film print was just to make sure the picture was straight, the sound was good. There were no issues with the print. And then I cleaned the bathroom. A lot of bathroom cleaning. Spent a lot of time cleaning the bathroom.

[Trevor Noah]

What's the worst bathroom to clean, Men or women?

[Wesley Morris]

Great question. Women, easily.

[Trevor Noah]

That's the worst.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, my God.

[Eugene]

I've had horses.

[Wesley Morris]

Ellen DeGeneres, one of Ellen DeGeneres greatest bits.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I thought, you know, I didn't know where this story was going.

[Eugene]

I thought you were gonna say Ellen DeGeneres uses female bathrooms. I was like, how dare you?

[Trevor Noah]

I thought he was gonna say Ellen DeGeneres took a dump. So, like, I didn't know where that was going. I didn't know where that joke was, where that story was going. He went like, women, bathrooms Are the worst. Ellen DeGeneres.

[Wesley Morris]

No, Ellen DeGeneres never came to the rich at the Bourse where I worked for a bunch of years. But Ellen DeGeneres informed I was doing this bathroom work before I saw Ellen DeGeneres. Great bit about her own questions about what is going on in the ladies room. And she at some point is like, I went into the ladies room and I just thought that a bomb had gone off in here. Except the dirtiest bomb of all time. This is like from like the late 80s.

[Trevor Noah]

I thought it was cleaner.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, no. And she's like, when I go in there and I see what's on the walls and on the floor, I'm like, what are these ladies doing? Like, and then she's like, they go. Do they go into the. What are they using the disabled bars in the. In the, in the handicap. In the disabled stall to like to not sit on the toilet? Because that's what I did. And I'm swinging around doing a, doing a, doing a high bar routine in the ladies room. And then she. I think the punchline is like. So I got down and I looked around what I did and I was like, oh, this explains it. Oh, damn. This is why they're in such bad shape. All the women going in there are doing gymnastics, yo.

[Eugene]

Any place with a queue and high foot traffic can never be clean.

[Wesley Morris]

Also, I just.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I don't know why. Okay. Because I assumed. You know why? Because whenever I'm in a man's bathroom, it's always. There's always pee on the floor. It's always sticky for some random reason. And.

[Eugene]

Yeah, no random reason. That reason is not random. Don't go spreading lies on this podcast. There's no random reason why the floors are sticky. So.

[Trevor Noah]

So I would always like, this is disgusting. Surely the other side can't be worse because I went. People aren't just like peeing on the floor the way the men are now. You've just blown my mind. Cause I've never. I've never. I've never worked in cleaning men's and women's toilets. So.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, the women didn't even want to clean the women's room.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, I mean, that's how I mean it was. You know, I worked with. I won't. I mean, I'm. Loden was one of the women who worked. She just Loaden would never clean.

[Eugene]

She would refuse.

[Wesley Morris]

She wouldn't do it. She also was too cool. That was one of the coolest people I've ever worked with. Joe Novak, Fritz we wound up cleaning the. And Greg. Oh, man, I loved Greg. Anyway. Yeah. It's like, why do you even ask a question like that?

[Trevor Noah]

Because I've always wanted to know.

[Wesley Morris]

Because whenever I talk about it, I really. That's how I remember. It was. I can't believe the women's room.

[Trevor Noah]

No, that's what I wanted to know.

[Eugene]

Yeah. So. But my question is, where does this moral high horse come from when you live with a woman and should always criticize our bathroom etiquette? When their public stalls look like that.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I. Maybe that's also another thing, because, like, that would be, like, a thing that maybe even my mom would say.

[Eugene]

Just.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Would be like, oh, it's like a men's toilet in here. At school, they used to say something similar as well, but I don't know. I mean, now I'm hearing it. Derek. Maybe this was like a big, big.

[Eugene]

I'll never be conspiracy theory.

[Wesley Morris]

This is wild.

[Trevor Noah]

But I interrupted you. Sorry. Let's go back. So we. We're in the movies. You're in this world. You are. Your job is to make sure that everything works.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Rewinding to that. Sorry I took us off, everybody.

[Wesley Morris]

No, that's fine. I mean, I. Now I'm curious about the mail that you guys are gonna get. About. About pristine. About pristine women's rooms. But I will tell you firsthand, I spent three years cleaning them. But cleaning two sets of bathrooms, and one. One I did not dread cleaning.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn. Well, this is good to know.

[Eugene]

Mm.

[Trevor Noah]

So going back to what you're saying, I. I wonder if the gist of it is. Is it that it's easier to look in when you are not in. Is that what it is? Is. Is there a. Is there a correlation between being able to critique a society and look at it through an objective lens when you are not, like, held within the deepest ven of that. Of that society? Is that what it is? Or is it just how your mind works? What do you think informs. How you're able to be a great critic at large?

[Wesley Morris]

It's probably both. I mean, you know, I'm going to answer this, but I'm also, like, in sitting here talking to you and being familiar with the work that goes on.

[Eugene]

Work?

[Wesley Morris]

Like, especially work. I mean, it is.

[Eugene]

Wes, have you seen us, though? Where have you been for the last hour and a half?

[Trevor Noah]

Work.

[Wesley Morris]

You've been working like this. This is a. This is a mind. This is an act of mine. But I mean, I think. I mean, one of the things that you Know, one of the great thrills of. Of. Of my cultural diet in my lifetime was. Was, like, spending time with you during the pandemic.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn.

[Wesley Morris]

Thank you. Right? I mean, you were doing the work that I do just in this highly concentrated, I would say, almost like, vertiginously difficult form.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, Vertiginously.

[Wesley Morris]

Just, you know, like, man, we need to, like.

[Trevor Noah]

Yo.

[Wesley Morris]

Doesn't matter. You can cut it, yo.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I'm not cutting anything. We just need a. But anyway, the point is, like, this man's vocabulary.

[Wesley Morris]

I think there's a world in which some of my interest. Yes, Vertiginous. Vertiginous. Like Vertigo, you know, like.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. I'm with you. Yeah. I'll catch up.

[Wesley Morris]

All right.

[Trevor Noah]

I learned words.

[Eugene]

Me. That'd be a long night for me.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, no. Look out. Fasten your seatbelt. He's already there. Wow. It usually takes me a drink to start working for Massa. Just. I mean, just saying we did. Just we. Whatever. My point is that I think I'm hearing what you say, and I think that there is. There's something about wanting to understand how the world works.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And there's an understanding. You develop an understanding, especially as a young person, that, like art. Art is a version of how the world works.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, yes.

[Wesley Morris]

It is a world unto itself that is also in. In one way or another reflecting the world you live in, even if, like, the properties within that world aren't one to one. I mean, I think that one of the most amazing things about the way that I grew up and Nicole Hannah Jones and I talk about this a lot just in terms of. With a sense of wonder, which is, you know, we grew up, like millions of people grew up at a time. Black people grew up at a time where, you know, if you go back and watch the movies of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, like, there were very few flattering depictions of black people from Hollywood, at least. And it never mattered, right? It never mattered because a. I mean, I knew what my family was like. I knew I was. I was a part of a family that had no bearing. Like, you know, there would be these ways in which, like, people would seem to overlap with members of my family. Like this actress, Anna Maria Horsford, when she would show up, like, as Harrison Ford's secretary and Presumed Innocent, I knew that movie wasn't about her, and I wasn't silly enough to think it should have been. But there was also a part of me that was like, why shouldn't it be? What's she Doing while this woman's getting murdered over here in the office? Like, I, I just wondered about things like that. But I also was just fascinated by how these made things like, had meaning. They meant something like the stories amounted to something. The prolonged exposure to individual stars or individual story tropes, they wound up meaning something like, what is a Glenn Close performance? When you've watched 10 Glenn Close movies in, you know, seven years, you know, who is Spike Lee? Who is this guy Spike Lee? Once you've seen, you know, four or five Spike Lee movies, what are soundtracks doing? Like, so you're telling me there's a world in which there's music playing in this movie and the people in the movie can't hear it.

[Trevor Noah]

Whoa.

[Wesley Morris]

But I can hear it. And this music has nothing to do with the, with anything happening in the world of the movie, but. Well, in the world of the characters, but in the world of the movie, this soundtrack is like a conveyor belt.

[Eugene]

Of action and of emotion. Right.

[Wesley Morris]

And of feeling like that is. I just, I became obsessed with how soundtracks worked in movies. Now there are no soundtracks. Yeah, right. There's a music supervisor who makes sure, like, there's vintage music in a lot of these movies. Cool, cool songs. But at one point in time, you were getting original music. Some of the greatest pop songs ever written were written for movies.

[Trevor Noah]

My heart will Go. I mean, yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

That is like. That is an elite example. Highway to the fucking Danger Zone.

[Trevor Noah]

Right?

[Wesley Morris]

Like. Like a movie, like a song that it's so written and could only exist for. Top Gun. Like, you couldn't put that. You just, you couldn't put that out as a song without knowing there was a. There was a fighter jet attached to it. What is Kenny talking about? What's he talking? Highway to the Danger Zone. But you know, because you would have known.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

That Tom Cruise. Well, you would have known that Top Gun was attached to it. Tom Cruise was not quite yet.

[Eugene]

He's not the big star that he.

[Wesley Morris]

Is the Tom Cruise. He became a star in part because of that movie. But I don't know, I just really wanted to figure out what, what the meaning of things were. Like, I can tell you, like reading all of those people as younger versions of themselves, that they also had these questions. And frequently the thing that made someone like Margo Jefferson great was that she really wanted to understand, for instance, because she wrote about music for a long time why all these white artists sounded black. Right. Like she just was hearing black music in these white artists sounds and wanted to try to taxonomize and kind of theorize a little bit about what she was hearing. And, you know, she wrote one of the greatest pieces of criticism I've ever read about, like, mostly built around Elvis, but also just around, like, 1970s rock and roll, and it's its relationship to 1950s rock and roll in the U.S. do you guys, like, are there, like, South African critics that you. That you like a lot?

[Eugene]

Well, there was one that Trevor brought up the other day, which we grew up watching on television every Sunday.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, Barry Runger. Yeah. Yeah, he was legendary.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. I'm into that.

[Trevor Noah]

But he was.

[Eugene]

He was a film critic, but he was every Sunday.

[Wesley Morris]

Barry Runger.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Passed away many, many years ago. But like, he was the first person I think most of us encountered where he would. He wouldn't tell you, like, the movie was cool or fun or. He didn't use any of those words or ideas.

[Wesley Morris]

He.

[Trevor Noah]

He critiqued what it was trying to do and what it meant and how it would. But in a way where, like, I remember sitting in front of the TV as a 10 year old and I felt like I needed like a monocle and a glass of tea.

[Eugene]

No.

[Trevor Noah]

Because of how sophisticated he made me feel.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, interesting.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean? Like, I would, I would. And then when I would go to the cinema, I would stand there with my friends and I'd be like, ah, yes. I've heard that it relies too heavily on tropes of. I was like, I don't know what.

[Wesley Morris]

Any of this means, but, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

What it made me do is like, at least around that time, it gave me the first invitation to think beyond what was presented and also include how it was presented and what that meant.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And he, like. I think he did that in a big way where it was like, oh. He made you realize when things were derivative, he made you consider why it wasn't, you know, Cause you'd be like, it's a dope action movie. And then by the end of his review and his critique, you'd go, huh, this is not. It's not really a great story or it's not a. You know, and I. That's. I would say that's like one of those where we. He had an outsized influence, I think, in a lot of South Africans lives.

[Eugene]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. I'd never heard of him. I'm. I'm definitely. I will spend some time watching some YouTube. Some YouTube.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder if they'll be on YouTube.

[Eugene]

Bejazzled waistcoat.

[Trevor Noah]

He used to have an interest.

[Wesley Morris]

Not One of those critics. There's always, you know, how he dressed.

[Trevor Noah]

Dressed.

[Eugene]

Used to have a waistcoat and, like, a white long shirt.

[Trevor Noah]

I actually forgot how he dressed.

[Wesley Morris]

It was like. It was sequined.

[Eugene]

Yeah, some. Yeah, he was flamboyant. Huh.

[Trevor Noah]

Huh.

[Wesley Morris]

Fascinating. You don't remember that part?

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no.

[Wesley Morris]

So the important part got through though, huh? Yes, I guess.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But I'm like.

[Eugene]

Never got information about a movie. I was like, I'm never wearing a waistcoat in my life, ever.

[Trevor Noah]

But a jacket with sequins.

[Wesley Morris]

Count me in.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, man. Yo, Wes, this has been great, man.

[Wesley Morris]

Thanks for having me.

[Trevor Noah]

No, man, like, because genuinely, I hope. I hope people get what I get from you. And it's like. I don't know. Here's what it is. I think as we've come to live in a world that gives us more. Faster, it means we have less time to digest, right? So just, like, food, you're just getting it shoveled at you. Shoveled at you. Shoveled. But now it's in, like, tiny little bites and it's like it just moves on and it's gone. And when you're in that world, you don't necessarily notice the story of the meal that you're getting. You don't see the trend. You don't really understand what just happened or what you might be part of or what story you're hearing. And what I really love about your work is it just reminds us and invites us to do that in, like, a really cool way. Like, I think a lot of people love movies, but not many people think about what a movie does to them and how it makes them feel. How it can make a country see itself or not. How it can make a people see itself. So, like, thank you, man. I appreciate your work, your vibe coming and hanging with us.

[Wesley Morris]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, man, I'm gonna.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, it was an honor. I appreciate you guys a lot.

[Trevor Noah]

You gotta come back again.

[Wesley Morris]

Truly, I appreciate you. I will come back.

[Trevor Noah]

You gotta come. What's the. What's the best movie you've seen this year?

[Wesley Morris]

This year?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I know. A lot of them were terrible. What's the best one you saw this year?

[Eugene]

From this year?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, tricky. You know, I saw this. There's a few. There's a few movies I've seen that I liked. I just. Well, I liked Warriors a lot. Sorry. Weapons.

[Trevor Noah]

Weapons. Weapons.

[Wesley Morris]

I liked Weapons a lot. I don't know why I keep calling it Warriors. Weapons, you know, has all the. When you were talking about the. The Granularity. The sort of like. Like native granularity that has gone out of the movie. Just like, you know, the things that give a movie or any work of art, be it a novel or a painting, a sense of place, texture as well. There's a. Have you seen this movie?

[Trevor Noah]

No. Don't spoil anything. I won't spoil anything, but I know it's from the same director and I think. Writer of Barbarian. Yes, yes, yes. And some of the imagery that you sort of even alluding to is similar.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Like you felt like you were somewhere with people who live a certain life and it felt very like us.

[Wesley Morris]

This movie has a sense of place, even though it doesn't tell you exactly where it is. I see some Pennsylvania license plates, and in the distance you can see a city that is not Philadelphia. But, you know, you're somewhere like small townie. But you also. There's a really important shot in the movie. It doesn't spoil anything, but I think about it a lot in terms of the way some production person, and perhaps even the screenplay itself, wanted us to notice something without drawing our attention to it explicitly. There might be a closeup of what I'm about to tell you, but I noticed it before the camera told me to, which is a bunch of newspapers piled up in a driveway, like newspaper delivered. And they just. These plastic bags of newspaper just littering a driveway in the background of a different shot of a shot that had. You're not neur free to notice whatever you want because it's a painterly image. Right. The image is a long shot. It's framed in such a way that your eye is free to go wherever it wants. It's a very democratic piece of filmmaking, this movie, in a lot of ways, in terms of what it's allowing you to keep your eye on. But I noticed that, and I was like, I don't really care what else happens in this movie because the person who made it cares about the things I care about.

[Eugene]

It's not about us.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. He thought about what a regular human might be like living day to day. So I don't know. I mean, that's a great. But also. Sorry. I tried to connect that to what we were talking about earlier. The movie's just suspenseful. It's just a very great work of suspense.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I had it hit my dread area. I rarely experience dread the way. Oh, wow, I did in this movie. You might hate the ending. The ending changed nothing for me. I liked the ending just as much as I liked everything else. Sinners, you Know, Sinners is not Sinners. It's funny, I was watching Weapons and was like, I think this is a better made movie than Sinners because it almost really is. But Weapons doesn't have what Sinners has, which is like an active mind that is really determined to make you wonder what is really going on here. Yeah, right. Like you're imagining your imagination as a moviegoer is free to. I mean, I'm. I'm still not sure about Sinners in terms of, like, what is going on.

[Eugene]

100.

[Wesley Morris]

Whereas weapons, it's. It's pretty clear some ambiguities, but it ties it up. Its ambiguities aren't really its selling point. It's the crispness of its filmmaking and it's. It's real attention to how to build and generate and exploit suspense. But Sinners is just like, God damn it.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a great film.

[Wesley Morris]

Like this, the first hour of that movie alone, I could have watched two of that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. That's just like a film film.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. And this is like. And it's just a very satisfying work of ideas. And sometimes a work of ideas is almost better than a perfectly made movie. So, I mean, those are the two. And then there's this movie that's gonna come out in the fall by Kelly Reichart called Mastermind. That's about. That's got. Oh, my God. What's that guy's name? I'm not used to saying. He's the Irish guy who is in Challengers. Who is not Mike Feist. Irish guy in Challengers. Anyway, that guy whose name will occur to me while I'm saying this to. He tries to commit. You're not gonna believe this. An art heist, full circle moment. And the question is, is he going to pull it off? And I won't ruin it for you, but this movie has. It's just. It's thrilling because you're watching a director whose movies I've been watching for years, been yearning for, and she. She's just really. She's an art house. She's an art director. She doesn't care. I don't think. I don't know if she cares where her movies get played. But, like, she just all. She's into texture. She's into, like, atmosphere. Plot is not really her thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

This woman was like, you know what? I want to tell you a story. Beginning, middle, end, Suspense, Surprise. This movie has the ending of the year.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow. Big words.

[Wesley Morris]

It's called Mastermind. It is very, very good with that Irish actor that you're gonna see all over. Is it Josh o'? Connor? Is that it? Josh o'? Connor?

[Trevor Noah]

We believe in no Googling in our friendship. Eugene and I have a pact. Whoever can say the. The answer, the most convincing, we go with it. We go with that.

[Wesley Morris]

I've been convinced many times this afternoon. We're anti Google. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

This was great, man. Thank you for joining us.

[Wesley Morris]

Thanks for having me.

[Trevor Noah]

Thanks for having me. And good luck in the. In the. You have the podcast.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. Cannonball is happening every week for the foreseeable future. Forever. Forever and ever and ever.

[Trevor Noah]

Forever and ever.

[Wesley Morris]

And you know, I'm going to. I'm going to go right tomorrow. Thanks for having me.

[Trevor Noah]

This is dope. Thank you.

[Wesley Morris]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Markets has everything you need for the holidays. Whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner. Whole Foods Markets has convenience and cost friendly finds that'll delight everyone at your table. Plus great gift ideas, all of which follow the Whole Foods Markets strict ingredient standards. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters. What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Rose. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Hardooth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what Now.

[Ashley Flowers]

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[Trevor Noah]

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