A Geek History of Time - Episode 202 - Masculinity in 1980s Fantasy Part IV

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' which is a trickle, you know, baby. You know what it's called. Well, you know, uh, you really like it here. Uh, it's kind of nice.

And uh, it's called as Baccholomob. So yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs the sword out of a stone. Yeah. I'm able to open people up. You will, yeah. Anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah.

So my cleave landing will make me a cavalier. Good day, Sphere. If Sphere thought it was empty headed, would it be in trash? It trash is really good and gruey. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads. We can't even tell the truth.

The ground is too big. A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up to white gibots, some people stay seeing white gibots. But it just... This is a geek history of time. Where we connect, NERGORY, to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in northern

California. And today, just earlier today, my wife and I actually managed to get a part of our garage organized to the extent that you can now see more of the floor of our garage, then you have been able to see since the day we moved in. It is truly a striking change in a very good way. The garage now is a much less stressful place to walk into. But it wound up taking one of the tasks that was involved. Was there a couple of old file boxes I had to go through? I wound up basically throwing out 90% of the stuff that was in it because a lot of it was old, you know, tax records and financial stuff, but it all of it was old, you know, tax records and financial

stuff, but it all dated back to like, you know, 2010. So I'd been holding on to it longer than I needed to. But in the process of going through all that, I found the very first three recommendation letters I got from the end of my student teaching. And that was a little bit of a moment. I have to say, I also found the grade book, the physical hand right in it grade book that I used for my last semester student teaching, which I mean, I know there are people who still use them, but they're vanishingly rare. Like we, you know, I have a, have a mutual acquaintance who I know still uses a physical grade book, or at least she did when I last worked with her, you know, year before last. And so yeah, but that's the only person I can think of. Like everybody else, I know, you know,

we all do all of that online now. Right. Because it's just so much goddamn easier. Danny is here. So yeah, so that was that was a little bit of a brought back some memories and and there was a certain level of holy shit. Was that that line ago that was involved in that. So that was today. Today has been a very fulfilling but also emotionally very draining day. So how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and high school history teacher up here in Northern California. You know, I think one of the reasons why I don't use gradebooks is because the technology finally caught up.

Otherwise, I would just use it to record grades, perverse interest, insistence. But like the system is good enough, that I'm like, okay, that beats the shit out of me doing the wap. But yeah, I have a question for you. That there's one of you 10 ones. So you've been teaching 12 years now?

No. No. So you've been teaching 12 years now? Um, no. You're gonna take? Well, no. I've been teaching, this is nine. Okay. I got back into, I got hired on as a full-time teacher again in at the beginning of the 14, 15 school year. Okay, got you. So, yeah, this is like nine years now. Okay. But I went through

student teaching in 98 and 99. Right. And then, and I got my first full time teaching gig in 2000. Okay. And in the, in the 99 2000, no, 2000, 2001 school year, okay, because I moved up to Seattle at the end of the 2001 school year and then was in Seattle in 2001 substituting when 9-11 happened. So that's how I keep track of the timeline on that. So yeah, these were letters of recommendation from 99. Okay, okay, that's what I was wondering. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, so today I, I, I went to a cat expo. Okay, I, my, my kids love cats. Yeah, let's check it out. One of their grandparents up there. And I will tell you, the way of the future is Bengal Kitties.

There were so many Bengals and Toygers, which apparently, yes, Toygers are a thing. Toygers. Toygers. And the woman who successfully bred Toygers and introduced that breed is the daughter of the woman who successfully bred bangles. Okay. And the more I hear about breeding cats and all this kind of thing, the less comfortable I am with any of it.

And you're talking to a guy who used to own a pug. So. Well, yeah. So it's just, it's, you know, designer animals is, I mean, that's what breeding is. And I'm okay with that on some levels and do what you do and stuff like that, but it just, I don't know. It was interesting and odd, because dogs have a socialization aspect to them. Cats have a, I'm fucking hiding aspect to them. And when they have nowhere to hide, but the back corner of their cages and their crates, it's obvious. And there was a place that was adopting outcats, which I thought was fantastic. Yes, absolutely adopt outcats. That's fantastic. Good job.

Being that shelter that does that. I'm totally down for that. There were also breeders who were selling Bengal cats for 1750. $1,750. Yeah. No, I I do what you meant. I knew. Yeah. And you know, you had those within, you meant. I knew, yeah. And you know, you had those within a baseball throw of each other. Of each, yeah.

You know, and that's, I'm not gonna, again, own to pug, went to a breeder. Like totally, totally get if that's your jam, that was my jam, you know, for the pug, not so much for his looks, but for his personality. But at the same time There is just something that's a little off to me about showing off a cat to hundreds of people and it's just like

You know got the fuck off and all of you fuck off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I Just I have to interject when you've said, you know, chose a Puggerance personality. No, when you chose a Puggerance personality, I immediately went back to what you talked about about your daughter coming up with the college of the idiot. Yes.

Yes, Pugs are the sea student of dogs. They are wonderful in that. Yeah. You know, and it's interesting that you talk about that dichotomy of breeders selling $1,700 cats, a stone's throwaway, or closer to a shelter. And that just reminded me of, you know, the very different examples within my own circle of friends a number of years ago, where one member of my circle

of friends spent, I know it was over a thousand000, but I don't remember how much more for a purebred German shepherd puppy. And then another one of my friends and his wife wound up adopting a German shepherd German Shepherd from a breed rescue organization. And, you know, just the differences in, one of you an outlook in each case. And like, you know, without being judgey either way. But yeah, no, it's remarkable the way that different people can develop an opinion or a position or, don't know how to describe it but a point of view I guess the best way to put it on on doing that and like my wife and I have basically like I've agreed

That as much as I am not a dog person at some point we are going to get a dog. Oh good I am not a dog person at some point we are going to get a dog. Oh good. And we've agreed, like, you know, we send pictures back and forth because she really likes little dogs. Sure. And unlike, we already have cats. If we're going to get a dog, let's get a fucking dog. Like, you know, like, I would, like, if we're to get a dog let's let's go all the way and get a Scottish deer hound like I'm like why are we getting a dog if we're getting something that's smaller than one of our cats because Ronald's Ronald's epithet is Lord Chungus for a reason he's he's a 15 pound fucking cat like we're not getting a dog smaller than that. I know You know, but we but we've agreed that you know, even though we send pictures back and forth of like well, okay

How about a corky how about this you know to try to figure out what we want to do? Mm-hmm. I have a soft spot for corkies. I have to admit and like I have a soft spot for corgis, I have to admit. And like, we both agree though that when the time comes, it's going to be, no, we're going to go down to the animal shelter. Okay. And we're going to be like, okay, what do you got here? Sure.

You know, and that's just our, that's our take on it. Yeah. That's the best breed of dog is a pound puppy. Like, you know, and I mean, I will be the first one to say that pugs should not exist in this world. Yeah, I will also say that my pug was an amazing dog for all of the years that I had him. And he was wonderful. And I do not regret the $1,000 that we spent to buy him as a puppy. Yeah, you know, it doesn't mean I'm not ashamed of how I spent that much money on a dog, but really, I wouldn't have guessed that you were from the way I said that a moment ago.

But yeah, it just, it does strike me, and this might just be sensibility. It does strike me as odd to be that willing to make cats uncomfortable for a day to show them off. Yeah, that's the part that gets me. Dog shows are their own weird and I do not disagree that they're weird, but dogs by and large tend to like being around people or there's enough of them that do And who also like being around other dogs. Yeah, it is not so with cats, so no, but cats domesticated cats left to their own devices will form colonies, so they're not like totally solitary, right? But like if you're not time shares. Yeah, and if you're not, and if you're not part of the clan,

look all the way off. You know, and so yeah, cats shows, cats shows are a very different kind of weird from dog shows. Like there's, there's some common threads, but they're, yeah, I totally get what you're saying. And twiggers, like it looked up to picture, and I don't even find that to be an attractive cat.

Oh, I think they're beautiful. I think every one of the cats that I saw, it might be the photo that I saw. It could be. Because there was some about the proportions and the length of the legs. But I mean, the lighter underbelly mean, oh, yeah, you know, it's cool And and I learned that there's like And my kids already knew this shit for like three years. Mm-hmm, but um, there's one that's like basically the corgi of cats Um, and I'll have to ask my kids what it's called again. You're talking about munchkins. Yeah, those.

Yeah. So there's one of those. It's like they're missing these. Yeah, they're, they're adorable. But like I don't, I don't know if I could ethically have one. Yeah. And again, guy who wanted to pug. Yeah. Yeah.

Clearly, I don't mind just like really shoving my thumb in the eye of evolution. Um, really shoving my thumb in the eye of evolution. And speaking of which, they had several Persians that were just so cute. And I just, those are the pugs, those are the pugs that can't world exactly what I said. I was like, wow, I must have a thing for short snouted creatures in both my kids are like, yeah, yeah, you can.

Yeah, you can. Yeah. Anyway, when last we spoke, we were about third wave feminism. Yeah, in the context of why, why masculinity turned a certain direction in fantasy films. Yes, yes. So, um, as I mentioned, of course, in 1991, 1991, Clarence Thomas got confirmed to the Supreme Court, despite Anita Hill getting on the stand and giving a rather graphic description of the harassment that she alleged she was subjected to by him.

It's too bad that more women weren't available to come forward for that. I mean, that would have been, oh, right. Yeah. Who's in charge of that committee again? Yeah, that was Biden. Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Literally didn't allow like half a dozen women. Yeah.

Good times. Yeah. Good and barbed by partisan. Yeah. I'm my miss Azaz by partisan cooperation. I was at okay. I really don't ask. I'm gonna.

I infrastructureally I kind to do because we had bridges that didn't collapse. But you know, well, okay. Social do because we had bridges that didn't collapse, but well, okay. Social justice. I'm with you. Although Barry Goldwater himself was like, I don't care if they're straight, if they can shoot straight, like he himself was in front of gay people being in the military. So yeah, okay.

Goldwater. Yeah, yeah. Goldberg. No, no, I'm reiterating fucking gold water. Yeah, I was like like already All people in a wrestler. Yeah, no, okay So I was at a school board meeting the other day shockingly enough yelling at people and nobody patriot Philly at Spirit Sacking you're welcome and oh, no, that was that was a blessing on you. Oh, oh, no, no, no, that was that was Go with God my son whether you realize you're not you're doing his work anyway.

So I was there. And there's there's always one gal who gets up and talks about just batshit crazy stuff about COVID. So she did her thing. And I was there with my with my social media union thugs, we call ourselves smut. And I don't know that until that. I'm making it up. And all right. Yeah. But you need shirts. I should get a shirt like you.

Yeah. Yes. Okay. But I was there and there are a few other of my union friends there. And after we spoke, this guy got up and he and the bus drivers have been speaking about how underpaid they are and how inhumane this is and how they have reduced the number of bus drivers by virtue of not paying people well by two thirds. And that's killing the rest.

And so, Jesus. Oh yeah, it's terrible. And it's gonna wind up killing kids. Uh huh. And which is kinda their point. So I like, look, you want these kids to be safe. You know, putting kids first doesn't mean like putting them in front of the bus before it goes.

But that's a good way of phrasing that. You want these, you know, so this guy gets up after he says, you know what, I, I, I've heard all these bus drivers talk and I gotta say like, you know, you say you want a living wage and I think that would be a good thing for you. And that twigged me and I just, I kind of turned to my friend that I was there with him, like, and keep an eye on this guy. And then he starts talking about masking and how it's clear that we're done with the pandemic and blah, blah, blah. And someday this, this part of this episode will time out. But right now,

it won't. And he goes on and on and about how, you know, it's much more important for his kids mental health to be able to see each other than than to be masked and like just completely fucking leave in a side all marginalized communities and people with autoimmune stuff and stuff like that. But on top of that, I turned, so he's going on and on and on. And I turned to my friend, and this is the long way around the block, as I do. I turned to my friend and I say, God, I just love liberal male allies. Don't you? And she, she says, she says to me, she's like, are you serious right now?

No, I'm completely sarcastic. Like, he's the worst, he's the fucking worst. Yeah, liberal allies. Yeah, and just, you know. So I love how we, how we choose to open with, you know, you're talking about one in a living wage, I think that would be great for you. Like do you think it's like you silently said people, you know,

yeah, for you people. Yeah. Do you do you think you're somehow going to like when your audience over like that that segment of your audience I think he was. I think he thinks that and actually I was paraphrasing I think what he actually says is that sounds like a good idea for you No shit share lock. Yeah, like oh Thank you for telling me the thing that eight of us came here to say. Like, yeah, I mean, there, there, there are, of course, ways to be more condescending than that. But you kind of have to look for them. Yeah, you know, that's, that's, yeah,

You know, that's that's yeah, that's that's kind of a big oof like yeah Thank you. I guess like Do you expect the pet on the back? Do you the perennial the perennial question? Do you want a cookie? Yes? Jesus. Yeah, so yeah, liberal ally helped get a serial abuser onto the, uh, the support court, yeah, uh, where he could be just kind of groomed and, and not be important to any policies. Oh, yeah, not have any significant impact on, on social justice issues. In fairness, he did reduce himself from a court case in 1995, I think. Yeah. So yeah, he he showed that they could be the one the one time. Yeah, the one time. Yeah. So yeah. So that

happened in in 91 and that led to, as I mentioned at the end of our last episode, but I think it's worth repeating. Rebecca Walker said in an essay in Ms. Magazine, I am not a post-feminism feminist, I am the third wave. So of course, as we've discussed, but to go over for anybody who's jumping in at this part of the buffet, first wave feminism is to simplify. And, and of course, I'm going to defer to you because it's literally what you have to agree in. But first wave feminism is essentially getting in prior episodes in this series had to do with larger systemic issues of

of inequality and now third wave feminism is essentially rooted in the belief that the work is not done. And we need to maintain attention on these things. We need to maintain pressure because there is backlash. And even without backlash, we still have a long way to go. I would add to that that there is an overwhelming whiteness to it. Yes.

Waves 1 and 2 and many critiques for three years. Yes. And, and also thank you for bringing that up because that is an important part of third wave feminism is the introduction of the idea of intersectionality really becoming a thing. So now third wave feminism, one of the ways in which third wave feminism is embodied was in the riot girl with three hours movement starting in the early 90s out of Washington state, Zines, yes, and it was going back to a subject of an earlier set of episodes. It was a punk movement that explicitly applied a punk ethos to feminism. And the stated raise on detra of riot girl was defined in a tour flier for Bikini kill. And the quote for this is, and this is this is

some powerful stuff, because in every form of media, I see us myself slapped decapitated, laughed at, objectified, raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotype, kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated, knife, shot, choked, and killed, because a safe space needs to be created for girls where we can open our eyes and reach out to each other without being threatened by the sexist society and our day-to-day bullshit because we girls want to create mediums that speak to us. We are tired of boy band after boy band, boy

zine, there's zines, after boy zineine boy punk after boy punk after boy because I'm tired of these things happening to me. I'm not a fuck toy. I'm not a punching bag. I'm not a joke. Yeah, it doesn't get more manifesto than that. Oh, not at all. Yeah, it's a boil down. that. Oh, not at all. Yeah, it's a boiled down whereas whereas whereas even like it really is just like digging into the core. Oh, yeah. And and all of the critiques there, like all of the examples because in every form of media, I see us myself and all those verbs slapped a capitated left out of jackified rape, trivialized, pushed ignored. You know, there's there's a term in in media that comes from comic books talking about female characters being fridged. Yes. Yeah. You know, from taken from what happened to Green Lantern's girlfriend.

Yeah, you do something so very common for her that it moves him forward in his plot. Yeah, and that's, and that's essentially that that reduces her, the female characters whole role in the arc to being a motivation for the male character, right? Yeah. You, you, you have removed her agency and you have dismembered her literally, literally in that instance. Yeah. And in the most grotesque and horrible way so that he can then grow yeah so third wave feminism focused on as I said making sure that the gains of the first and second waves weren't taken for granted so they highlighted issues

of sexual violence continued fights for policies affecting women in the workplace, maternity pay, maternity leave, pay equality, and general consciousness raising, keep the pervasive sexism in society at the forefront of awareness. It's like, yes, there are laws on the books that say you have to pay us the same. There are laws on the books that say you can't discriminate against, you can't fire women for getting pregnant. You know, there are laws on the books that say you can't discriminate against, you can't fire women for getting pregnant. You know, there are laws on the books that say you can't refuse to hire a woman because well, you're just going to get married and get pregnant and, you know, not stick around

for it. Like, you can't do that shit. That's on the books, but that's not the extent of the problem. And so in 1992 and 1993, female representation in the US Senate more than tripled. Now, that's from two members to seven. So that's still sucks, but it's a dramatic increase. Again, like Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it's a shit sandwich, but it's still a big step forward. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the SCOTUS in 1993. Yes. Janet Reno was the first female attorney general. Hillary Clinton was the

first US first lady to have her own legal and activist career. Yeah. I mean, you could point to Eleanor Roosevelt, but she didn't do it after she went with degrees and stuff like that. Yes. Like, she did it by force of personality. Yeah. And most of that was after becoming First Lady. Yeah.

That was using, she, Eleanor Roosevelt is a really good example of using the position of First Lady to get shit done. Like, okay, I'm in this position. This is mostly ceremonial position, but you know what? I'm going to knock some bodies down with it. And like all power to her for that, that's awesome. But when we're talking about demographic shifts and when we're talking about changes in the popular imagination, the fact that Hillary Clinton had been a pretty high-powered attorney

and that she had had her own activist career prior to her husband becoming president of the United States is an important distinction. Yeah, I would point out also that in 1990, the beauty myth was written by Naomi Wolf, who unfortunately now is an anti-vaxing fucking crazy person. Oh, shit, really? She, you know, I really do need to do an episode on Rose Ann Bar, because it's that that problem of you were contrarian to the power structure, and you were right, because you're speaking truth to power, and you took the wrong lesson and you just kept being contrarian.

Oh, okay. And you stopped doing the work in a lot of ways, and you started sniffing your own fumes. Um, but I really genuinely think Naomi Wolf did that, which is a shame, because she also wrote a really good book in 2004, called Letters to a Patriot or something to that effect. But in 1990, she wrote the Beauty Myth,

which you said the article in Ms. Magazine came out in 91. Yeah. Okay. So there's already, of course, you know, it wasn't, you know, she did that and everybody clicked on a light. Um, there was stuff that was the crystallizing. Yes. That was the first time you see the word third wave, you know, but the beauty myth really, really attacked the patriarchal, uh, um, on slot, uhught about a woman's role and a woman's value and things like that. It's a really good book. It still holds up today. I recommend that people go steal a copy because I don't want to give her any more money. Checking out a library. Yes, yes, because fuck her.

And support your local library. Exactly. But she wrote a really important book. I mean, it was, it is one of like, it will be on most syllabus's when talking about third wave feminism. OK, cool. Yeah, all right. Yeah. So, and then there's a whole laundry list

of advances that get made in the feminist sphere during the 1990s. It was a big decade for that. And third wave feminism was a big part of that. Very importantly, it took until it was either 92 or 93. I didn't write it down very well in my notes, but Marital rape was legally defined as a crime in the UK. And I want to say it was 92. I think you were right. So the very idea that a woman in a marriage has the right to say, no, seriously, I'm not in the mood and have that mean something legally if her husband doesn't agree for husband and forces himself on her, like that the legal assumption, like

it boggles my mind, the legal assumption was, well, you're married. So you can't accuse him of this. Like I swear, it's got to be tied to the idea of If you're married you can't be compelled to testify Like it feels like a dark side coin of that Like yeah, like if you're married you can't be compelled to testify against your spouse also seems like the same kind of bullshit just in a yeah a it has the same it has the same chords It might be a different melody. But it's like, why is this privilege of marriage giving me rights over somebody else's autonomy?

And why is it shielding me from their legal obligation to answer a subpoena? Yeah. You know? But yeah. to answer a subpoena. Yeah. You know? But yeah. Yeah. Okay. So importantly, between the 80s and the 90s,

there's also a demographic shift involved. So those 80s movies came out when boomers were famously entering their 30s. And still really into cocaine. Well, okay, yeah, there's that too. But I mean, you know yeah, there's that too. But I mean, you know, I mean that though, too, cocaine has a very, it can lead to a lot of aggression kind of drug.

That's a good point. Yeah. The Lord of the Rings movies had gen Xers in the same demographic position. And and a number of things were very, very different from for our generation than they had been for the boomers. Yeah, they were into ecstasy. You will. And I'm serious again. Yeah, no, yeah.

And I'm serious in my response to you because, you know, let's look at what our emotional landscape looked like as kids for, you know, these you over over which we majority of us, Latchkey kids figured out in many cases how to operate the microwave and feed ourselves without parental oversight. Had a computer room. Had a computer room. Yeah. And so yeah. Yeah.

But I spent my point about the MDMA or the X to see though, is that, you know, cocaine, lots of fucking X to see lots of sex. Okay. I dare say there's a difference there. There you. Yes. You know, there's a, yes, there's very significant resonance difference there. We had been told, I know by the time I started college,

I had heard that I was gonna be less well off than my parents. For the first time since the Great Depression. This is largely borne out by facts. As Jen Exers entered their 50s, they were on average 43% behind the wealth of boomers at the same time in their lives. Oh wow. Yeah, it's a big gap. Now it's worth noting that millennials, yeah, yes, it's also worth noting that millennials are even worse off. And and zoomers, they haven't gotten to that phase of their lives, but all indications are

they're going to be in an even shittier situation. The purchasing power of the dollar had flattened out since the devastating losses of the 70s. It had dropped precipitously from 70 to 79. But then it leveled out from there mostly, continued to drop because that's just the way purchasing power works, but it was not dropping at the same rate. But wages had famously stagnated during the Reagan years while the cost of living had increased, meaning Xers were effectively poorer than the boomers had been at the start of their working lives, okay?

So we just knew that our working lives are gonna be a shit sandwich. Like, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to have the lavish retirement that your parents have. Right. You're not going to have the same level of cushiness in your middle age. You're going to have to hustle harder.

Like, we just knew that. Like, it sucks, but we just knew it. Right? We also grew up with, hey, it's one of those you get this stability through the worst way possible. We grew up with no fault the worst is being the norm. Yeah. And therefore women had the ability to leave an abusive relationship. Yeah. And go out and make it on their own. Certainly at 70 cents to the dollar still, but

they could actually leave. They could actually sign shit in their own names. Like we were with that being the norm. Yeah, it was a viable option to say, you know what? You're an asshole. Yeah. I don't have to put up with this. It like, yeah, it's going to suck, but I don't have, like, I have the option. The option actually exists. Yeah, my marriage is still a choice of a matter of

volition now, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I'm doing research for one of our projects down the road. Mm-hmm. A cartoon, the second season of a cartoon that I'm watching all of, you're welcome in advance. But anyway, there is a character who talks about Halloween with his kids.

And I'm like, well, that's a little weird. You know, nobody's talked about their time with their kids. The only one I'd seen was the previous season where he was talking to a nephew of his about how they were actually both adopted. And that nephew was like, what? Really? And he's like, yeah, and you know what? You know, maybe the family that adopted me

is actually better than the family that I would have been born to. Wow, I never thought of that. Thanks, Uncle. Sure, no problem. Let's go back to fishing. But in the second season, there's a character who actually is divorced,

mentions his ex-wife, mentions that he has kids and is still working for this top secret organization. Okay. Yeah, we're just kind of interesting that that worked its way into a latch key kid cartoon. Yeah. Um, in 1986. Wow.

Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Remarkable. Mm-hmm. Yeah, anyway, okay Remarkable So yeah, that that was that was part of the pattern on the wallpaper for us when for our Silent generation or boomer parents that would have been a big fucking deal Also less wallpaper in our generation. Yes generally. Yeah notably. Yeah aesthetically speaking, much less significant factor of interior design during our childhood.

So, yeah, so we're used to that. We're used to this idea of financial autonomy not being tied to gender. Right. Basically. And and it all is just sucking a little bit more. Yeah. And and everything is just a little bit more autonomy, but it's going to be shittier for it. It's going to suck. Yeah. I have to have both of those things. Yeah.

So, um, and then for the boomers, the Cold War was this thing that got thrust on them in their childhood or this thing that in their childhood was this gigantic looming terrifying thing that they were programmed to be constantly aware of. Yeah, and it's essentially afraid of. Yeah, it's essentially afraid of. Whereas for us, it was always in the background and there was always this looming level of kind of anxiety about it, but it was just always there.

Yeah. And, and, and it didn's like, yeah. It's like, really great. Yeah. In our countries, whereas they lived through pre-cuban missile crisis, post-cuban missile crisis. Yeah. They lived through pre-H bomb, post-H bomb, you know. Yes.

Yeah. Um, whereas for us, it was, no, no. Um, the adults around us are debating about, you know, the adoption of the MX missile system and multiple independent reentry vehicles. And we understand this is all really serious and very scary, but while they're talking about this, we're eight years old. Right. So we don't understand why this is so serious. Like we, the context is entirely missing, right? Yes.

And so then when we got to be, let's see, 14, 15, or if you're older than that, older than that, but then in our teen years or early 20s, depending on what what age of Gen X where you are, the Soviet Union completely collapsed in 1992. Right. And so we saw the evil evil empire in air quotes fall apart. And the United States was left in the position of global Hegemon. Like, well, okay, yeah, we, we, too. Like, yeah, not just like they, that happened isolated in, and oh, I guess we're going to pick up the baton.

It was we won. Yeah, we won without having to fire a shot. Yeah, you know, ignoring all the proxy wars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but, but in, in the perception of dominant culture in the United States It was it was a win. That's one of the W column. Yep. We had lost Vietnam, but we won the Cold War right right and prior to September 11th 2001

Dominant American culture was largely unaware of the threat of global terrorism. Like we knew, we knew that stuff happened. Like obviously Lockerby was a terrible tragedy. Obviously, you know, the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon was awful. But when that happened, that was back in the 80s and we were still kids. And so we, and I'm speaking broadly for Gen X, we did not see the outside world in a global political way. We didn't see the outside world as a real threat. True.

We saw, we're the Hedgeman, we're the only, after 92, we're the only global superpower. Like, Soviet Union has fallen apart. It's now us and everybody else, right? There are the popular perception within our culture was there is no near appear. And so we didn't have the same level of we didn't experience that sense of loss of prestige, that sense of loss of power. We didn't feel We didn't feel, for those of us who were, you know, cis men, we didn't feel unmaned. True. By our circumstances, it was, things are going to suck, but we've always known things are going to suck. This isn't some kind of big, you know, terrifying change that's come about for reasons we can't, you know, uh, the, the, we can't adequately describe. No, it's just, it's going to be harder for us. And it just kind of gradually did that too. It didn't do it in any kind of cataclysmic way for us.

Yeah. Overall, like don't get me wrong, there were cataclysmic things that happened. Yeah. But there, there was, there was noaclysmic things that happened. Yeah. But there there was there was no great depression for us. Even even like going forward a few years for a second, the housing crisis and shit like that. Like that hit people who were kind of trying to reach the bottom rungs of the middle class. If people were in the middle class, they were more insulated from those shocks. Exactly that. Yes, they were more insulated. It doesn't mean that people didn't fall

from their spot on the ladder, but the people that really got knocked out were the people that were just gaining entry in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then for our generation, we had been exposed in school to consciously feminist media, feminists, media that took boomer ideas of self-expression, freedom of identity, and all that, you know, hippie debt, you know, I'm, you know, let your freak flag fly, be you,

be true to you, follow your bliss, all of those ideas that, you know that the boomers had latched on to because they didn't want to be the man in the Graflinnell suit. Sure. All of that then got funneled to us. And the example in my own head that immediately jumped out at me is free to be you and me. Marlott Thomas and friends, there was a TV, there was an album

that they recorded, there was a bunch of skits and songs and stories. That then got turned into a TV special back in the 1970s, which then got shown to me and all of my classmates in Scripps Ranch, California on rainy days when there wasn't anything, you know, when, like, what are we going to do? Okay, here's what we're going to do, we'll show the movie. And I must have, I vividly remember watching it in the first grade. And I know I watched it several times throughout, you know, second and third grade.

And it was, it was a staple in my school days. And it had been made. Well, it was, it was shown to me, ironically, at the same time that the film industry was busy trying to reaffirm the masculinity of adult men with hyper sexualized and hyper violent action movies. While I was being shown the story of Atalanta running the race and- Choosing to fall behind almost. Yeah. And all of the stories that went along with it in that context. Right.

And the movie, the TV special that was turned into the movie that I was watching in school had been made at the same time period that Philishis Schlafly was campaigning against ERA, and indeed a Bryant was busy denouncing homosexuality. And chronologically, this is second wave feminism, right? Right, it absolutely is. But it laid the groundwork for third wave because it was busy programming, you know, teaching me and my female classmates that like, no, you don't have to put up with this shit. Yeah. You know, for the, for the girls, it was, you don't have to put up with everybody telling

you, you can't do this. Right. You know, you can do whatever the hell you want to do. Right. And for me and the other boys in the class, it was, okay, you don't have to wear a specific color. Okay, you don't have to wear a specific color. Yeah, you know, you can wear pink. Yeah, and I'm trying to think about when the color pink came in as a t-shirt color, and that would have been around 2002 to 2004. Yeah, yeah, so that makes a lot of sense too. Yeah, no, that all tracks that all tracks.

Okay, and so speaking of Anita Bryant and homosexuality, Gen X is notably more tolerant than the boomers in regard to queer issues, according to Pew Research, 59% of X's overall support game average compared to 45% of boomers. And that's overall, if you take Christians out of the equation, self identified Christians out of the equation, Xer support goes up to like 79%. Excer support goes up to like 79%. And so those numbers of course were lower in years before 2015, but across the board, the difference in opinion was significant.

Yes. And so basically what I'm saying here is that Excer's had a less threatened view of masculinity as a whole. And so when they turned to fantasy for their escapism, had a less threatened view of masculinity as a whole. And so when they turned to fantasy for their escapism, they reverted to much older character archetypes. Remember that Lord of the Rings was written back in the 30s, back in the 40s, right?

And Tolkien was drawing on archetypes from even long before that. Right. And so this is a much older, much less cartoonish depiction of masculinity. And up until again, I mean, Tolkien is, as we've said, he accidentally allegoried his experiences in World War One. Right. Yeah. The concept of masculinity in World War One is, is where it's, it's baked in. Which means that almost, what was certainly 80 years later, um, these movies, which stuck to the spirit, as you had said, were actually showing us Edwardian, um, ideas of British masculinity. Yes. And there was a tremendous amount of tenderness that was shown in those trenches.

There was a tremendous amount of emotion that was shown. Like, I remember a documentary I saw on World War One poetry. Or no, no, this is a podcast that I listened to from the BBC. And they said, oh, yes, it was very common for somebody. You've got five minutes between this and that thing to scribble out a verse that absolutely sticks to the, you know, the, the, the strictures of that particular style. So if you went decked elic examiner or trochex examiner or whatever, um, and you would, you would regularly soldiers at all levels, okay, not just the officers, but soldiers at all levels would regularly pen out poetry to explain their feelings.

Like that was a normal fucking thing. And so it's really interesting that you, you know, you bring it back to that because what we're seeing in 2001, yes, you got third-wave feminism. Yes, you have our generation grew up less threatened by anything that wasn't like raw meat Hulk Hogan. You know, the Hulk Hogan stuff happens in the 80s. Big cartoonish muscle guys. He's just fucking the ultimate warrior. His name is the ultimate warrior. He looks like a girl's bicycle with muscles. You're picturing the streamers aren't you? And the hot pink. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you've got those guys. And then they give way to lighter, smaller, and very cut, very athletic, but they don't show them off.

They're not, I can't think of a wrestler in the 90s that wasn't Hulk Hogan who was super popular, who only wore trunks. Everybody had tights over their legs. You had a singlet, that kind of thing. You know, and then you get more into it into the late 90s again as the attitude era picks up but But yeah, so we go back to 2000s you've got all those things happening

A culture that is willing to accept Tolkien essentially And I just I find that really who who longs enough for that. Mm-hmm. That again, the movie made $893 million. Yes. Very hold on, I gotta find my stats again, because it's not Ian because made over $1 million. $897 million off of a production cost of 93 million. So yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, shut up and take my money.

Yes. Yes, I want to see this. Thank you. Shut up and take my money. And yeah, and up until 9-11, our generation didn't have any reason to see the US as diminished in the way that boomers and silence had felt in the 1970s. Because our status on the world stage wasn't sinking. And yet at the same time, financially, we knew we were a fucked. Yeah, really weird.

It's a, it's, we're a fucked up generation. Like, like, as a, as a demographic clade, we have so many issues. It's not even funny. Like, there's a whole, I'm sure you've seen some of it. There's a whole, what's it worth looking for, ecosystem is closest. I can think of right now, but I've had two beers. But there's a whole swath of TikTok. That's just, that's just, hi, I'm a Gen Xer and we're fucked like yes

Yes, you know, one of my favorite things was there was a news report and somebody screen capped it as a news report explaining all the generations and they literally left Gen X out Yeah, they literally completely yeah, like oh this is the most Gen X thing you could have done. Yes. That is, that is, that is, that is something that was, that was almost certainly done by a zoomer. Yeah. You know, and, you know, early 20 something who, who knows about millennials and boomers having a war. Right. And has it ever realized that no, no, no, there's there's a whole demographic

group. Yeah. In the middle there, who had no problem with the lockdown because, oh, oh, it's like going back to middle school again. It's really, yeah. Like, okay, great. I got to make my own ramen in the microwave. And, you know, like, what's on TV? Yeah. Yeah. We're good. Three runs again. Yeah. Oh, hey, this is what I've been training for

literally my entire childhood. Hey, how you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And so that's my historical context sake on that depiction of masculinity and why that worked. Now we're going to fast forward to 2011.

And now we're going to have a little bit of a demographic shift, not as dramatic a one, but there is going to be one. And now during that time period, first of all, we have the blossoming of the effects on dominant cultures psyche from 9-11. And I say that very carefully that way because of course the Lord of the Rings films opened in 2001. Right. Okay. But they had been made prior to 2001. So, 9-11 hadn't happened yet when the films were made.

So we have the attacks of September 11th. We then immediately go to war, the United States anyway, we immediately go to war here in Afghanistan. And we are in Afghanistan forever. Yeah, as of this recording, we just got out. Yeah. Yeah. As of this recording, we just got out like a few months back.

Yeah. Last summer. Yeah. So that was started in 2001. And then in 2010, we had the surge under the first Obama administration. Don't forget, we also invaded another country, had nothing to do with anything.

Oh yeah, no, I hadn't gotten there yet. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, no, we invaded Iraq in 2003. Yeah. On the insistent that there were weapons of mass destruction. Well, because Al-Qaeda has the letter Q in it. And so does Iraq. So clearly, there's a connection.

You know, I wish the arguments had made that much sense. It's fundamentally, yeah. You know, I wish the arguments had made that much sense. Fundamentally, frankly, I wish the arguments had made that much sense. So, but the argument got made that they've got this nuclear program and there was some about yellow cake, uranium, you know, chemical weapons, centrifuges, and all this stuff. And yeah, it turned out that was a load of horse shit But we were still involved in occupation efforts until August 31st of 2010 So that's that's seven years. Yeah, right? Somewhere in the middle of that Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face and got away with it

His friend apologized. Yes. Yes, yes. I don't even have that in my notes, but you're right. Yeah. Dick Cheney, yeah, probably drunk, almost certainly drunk. Shot his friend in the face on a hunting trip, and his friend apologized to him for it. He and Mike Hittin is that he was Stonehold sober. He and my little cannon is that he was stonkled sober. Okay, because it makes it worse. Okay, well, and we are talking about Dick Cheney, who is a cyborg vampire. Yeah. So you, but you mean he shot his friend in the chest and head. Yeah, um, his friend lived because it was uh, shout out to the highlights. Yeah, virtue.

Um, and his friend apologized to Dick Cheney. Yeah. Here's the thing. I'm a fan. I'm still a fan of his writing. I don't agree with him politically. But I'm a fan of PGR Rorke. I was going to say it's PGR Rorke time.

Yeah. And O'Rorke on, on, wait, wait, don't tell me on NPR. Auroraic said, okay, no, here's the thing. None of you have ever been grouse hunting and I have. So let me explain something to you. You are not sober while you're out grouse hunting. Okay. Everybody, everybody has been drinking.

There are cigars and And, and at the Dick Cheney level, you have people who are there as, you know, bartender on the field who are, you know, you're, you're having a drink while you're doing this. No, he was, he might not have been falling down drunk, but he was not stone cold sober. Okay. That is not how this works. So, you know, based on that, I'm going to say no, Jamie was and, and, and that, and the thing is for me as a, as a gun guy, that makes it worse.

Sure. Sure. Because I don't care whether you're septic culture is, you have a lethal weapon in your hands. You shouldn't have a shotgun in one hand, like you shouldn't have a shotgun under the Kirk of your arm and a gin and tonic in your other hand. Like no, that is not responsible gun handling. Right. You shouldn't be trying to emulate Keith Richards. Precisely. Or Hunter S. Thompson.

Yeah. Like, let's not do that. Yeah. And then also in the context of Iraq, we have Rumsfeld and the known unknowns and unknown unknowns speech. Now, I will say that I genuinely actually think that that is a very well-wrought speech. I disagree with the man vehemently in all the ways, but pairing things down into that kind of opponent square makes a lot of fucking sense. Now, he uses a smoke screen for his bullshit,

sense. Now, he used it as a smoke screen for his bullshit, but I actually, I fully respect that, that, that as a choice. Yes, as a logic exercise and a rhetorical choice, it makes it off a lot of sense. But on the, but yeah, well, yeah, fuck that guy, but on the on the higher level of Cognitive analysis. Yeah, it's a smoke screen for bullshit. Yes, it is as a PR move. It's a fuck up Because if you're not at the level of okay, no, let's look at the Punnett square like right how many people use Punnett square It's a conversation on a daily basis? Yeah, it's really easy to go. The fuck is that? Yeah, that's true. Okay. We have Barack Hussein Obama,

elected president on a slogan of hope. But then he wound up continuing both conflicts and wound up launching additional missile strikes on other targets in other places because of continual commitment to the global war on terror, right? Do you, and if I'm stepping on toes, Tom, does his election represent a threat to the masculinity of boomers? Because a black man dared to get up. of boomers. Because a black man dared to get up it.

I'm I'm going to air. Well, not air. I'm going to I'm going to come down on the side of it's the the the vehement opposition to him from white supremacist sectors of society. Is its own thing? Sure. And I think thinking of the conservative figures conservativeboomer figures, boomers and semi-boomers, like late silence in my own life. Him being black was not a threat to masculinity, but him being perceived as a liberal gun grabber, right, right? I mean, which is bullshit, but you know, the perception, the clap trap shit, the perception on the right of him being this socialist, gun grabbing liberal, that and the fact that the Republican had lost, right, was certainly because of course, you know, he ran against Cheney who was, you know, war

hero, a war hero, a war hero, a war hero, a two beers. Yeah, yeah, running against McCain who was war hero. Mm-hmm. You know, Naval Aviator, which is like Prime Macho speaking as the son of an Naval Aviator. Like, well, and he's shit-pocho. Boomer, right? Yeah, yeah, generational as a generational thing. Yeah. Um, you know, having, having based on who his opposition was and the fact that he won, yes. Yeah. Okay. But I think, but I think it's, it's as a threat to masculinity, I think it has less to do with his race and more to do with he's a Democrat and Democrat means all of these things. So yeah, I'm just going to push back a little bit. Okay. Masculinity as defined by the dominant culture at that time. And by dominant, I mean the ones that

are in charge, not the ones who are demographically the largest number. It seems to carry with it a couple of things. Heteronormativity, whiteness, and an undercurrent of intellectual, intellectual, intellectualism. Jesus Christ. You haven't, you don't even have my excuse. I know. I know. But, and he absolutely embodied the the the the ladder to being black and being a a fucking brilliant scholar. Yeah. Um, he did not embody the that normativity or the any challenge to the Hennaro normativity. Yeah. Because in his first, um, it's first term, he said, Mary's Poon a Man and a Woman, but that question was really hot for people. And so I would just say that you don't have

his challenge to the power structure and his attractiveness and charisma to the youth of America. And all of those things without him being also black. And you also don't have all those things being true and not being seen as a threat to primacy. And I think to some extent the masculinity of that boomer generation. Okay. I, I, I'm not 100% convinced, but I see your train of thought. I get the logic behind that.

And I think that is something that could be debated. It's almost like it woke up in Boomers, the fact that they didn't realize they were kind of racist. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, yeah, she's got a Mary one. Yeah. It was cool with her dating them. Yeah. You know, it's it's yeah, she's gonna marry one Yeah, it was cool with her dating them Yeah, you know, it's that yeah, yeah, yeah, I kind of vibe my grandkids are gonna be what yeah, yeah

Yeah, so Yeah, so I Yeah, no, I I'm okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cave. I think you're right. That makes sense. I see that, I see that point. Because as we're getting toward a game of thrones, there's, there's some serious white shit going on there and some serious anti-black shit going on there. So, and that's, and again, that's why I'm thinking like, why is this so attractive? Just like why was you know, walking dead so attractive? And I have a chance for Southern people to cheer shooting dark people.

Yeah, you know, run, which is what Westerns in the 50s. So, well, yeah. So, climate change, 50s. So, well, yeah. Yeah. So, climate change, the overwhelming majority of the world and the majority of the US population had come around to understanding during this time that climate change was a problem. This was a thing. And it was kind of the vanguard of that in the popular imagination was the guy who lost but didn't lost and we all kind of know he didn't lose. Yeah. Like it's hard to know. I didn't have anything about the 2000 election in my notes, but you're not wrong. Yeah, because Reagan and Bush both won their elections until Bush lost one. And then you can't really win. And you know that you or you have to tell yourself every morning that you won,

but you know in your heart of hearts, you didn't win. Your guys in power, but not in a way that won. So now it's about power, not about your rightness. And the guy who got defeated went and fucking made this movie. That like, how do we deal with that? Yeah. And so the Republican party basically decided we're not going to deal with that. We're going to gaslight the shit out of the American people. And I'm jumping ahead in the timeline here, but in February 2015, not going to deal with that, we're going to gaslight the shit out of the American people.

And I'm jumping ahead in the timeline here, but in February 2015, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, brought a snowball onto the Senate floor and tried to argue, I have a snowball. Therefore, there cannot be global warming. Yes. And it worked. That's the best part. You know what? I think it worked on people who wanted to be gaslighted. I think, you know, and the thing is, there's this one segment of the population, which is is there's this one segment of the population, which is largely but sadly not entirely generational, that but is predominantly rural or very least ex-urban. The people who are on the bleeding edge of climate change and who could really benefit from us actually regulating things. It's a shame we're not going solar because the gas lighting is killing us.

Yeah. So we have all of this stuff happening. And at the time that this is happening, we have late gen Xers and early millennials being seeing all of this happening as they're in their teens and 20s, right? And then they start to enter their 30s and they find out they haven't even tougher than earlier Xers did.

Yeah. Wages are still stagnant with a cost of rent, food, and especially education have increased exponentially. They're getting saddled with huge college loans that they have to have in order to get entry into the white collar working world, but which are going to then leave them in a position where they're not going to be able to afford to buy a house, right, until significantly later in life than their

boomer parents, right? Yep. Yep. Yep. The boomers who are still the biggest demographic block in the population are insisting on infantilizing them as a generation of trophy. What do you got? Participation trophies. Yeah. Participation. Like, it's like, fuckers, you're the ones who gave them to us. Exactly that. Like, like, you, no, you turned us into

participation trophies. You didn't want to have a kid who didn't get a trophy. So you forced trophies on all of us because it was the status thing. And we pretended to care to be perfectly honest as somebody who I never had a participation trophy. But I did have several things where like the who's who of American scholars bullshit. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah. I I had to pretend to care because it was a big deal. Basically, like my parents generation got snookered and thought that that actually fucking matters. And we had to pretend to care about these things.

And so not only had had boomers been, were boomers in phantomizing late gen Xers and millennials, but they had also been pursuing economic policies, because again, they're still the biggest, right? Still the biggest block demographically, they've been pursuing economic policies that shut their own kids out of opportunities. Yeah, they pulled the ladder up. Yeah, yeah, that's the analogy that continually gets used and it's entirely appropriate, right?

So in 2011, Game of Thrones shows up on HBO, I think it's where it opened. And what do we see there in terms of masculinity and the roles that are portrayed? Well, to start with climatically, climatically, climatically, it's cold.

So fuck you, global warming. Well, at the beginning of the series is not cold. So fuck you global warming. Well, at the beginning of the series, it's not cold. Yeah, beginning of the series, it's part of the longest summer in recorded history. That shit's coming to an end and it's obvious. Yes, that is true. That is true. And the longest summer is a good thing. It's not a like, man, we're fucking parts. We sure wish we had some snowpack.

Yeah, no, no, yeah. And it's cold, even even the longest summer warm as it is, it's still cold up where the sharks are. Well, yes. So we have heroes number one, the, the, the, essentially, the protagonist family that gets introduced, they are living in a place that is not as favored as the rest of the kingdom. Right? It's also quaintly remote. They can write their own rules. It is a rural fantasy.

It's rural, you know, yes, yes. Yeah. And again, we see Sean being, right? And for the first, I'm trying to remember how many episodes of the first season, because it's been a while since I watched it. He is very clearly the hero, because he is the honorable guy who is who loves his wife,

loves his best friend, loves dearly, deeply loves his best friend, right? And the first episode is scene dispensing frontier justice. Yes. Like as a matter of honor. And it's like, we're sitting there going, like, why'd you fucking behead this guy? Yeah. Like because duty demanded it. And it's like, and then he does the whole like the man who orders it must be the man who does it. Yeah. Kind of shit. But it's it's unnecessarily brutal, which absolutely tickles boomers. Like, almost as much as seeing tits on screen. Which is also good to see. Well, and that's a huge pull of it in the beginning too. Yeah, yeah, because everybody's going crazy about like man They're fucking in that thing. Yeah Yeah

Anyway, I think I won't stop but no, yeah, well, yeah, no by all means so but but the starch Mm-hmm as our protagonists, we have ETERD, who is the honorable man who winds up being undone by his own dedication to ideals. Yeah. Okay, because I figured out what the truth is, and I figured out that as a matter of fact,

the heir to the throne isn't the son of the king because the king's wife has been fucking her brother. Right. And like, I know this, and everybody knows who I am. So they know that I'm not gonna keep a mouth shut. Right. So he dies. Yes.

You know, and he dies because of his his virtue, his virtue, which is a very traditional masculine virtue of I'm going, you know, I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to tell the truth and you can't buy me. Right. Because I'm Lord of the North. like the only thing you can do to buy me the only thing you can do to buy me is threaten my children Mm-hmm at which point I will play your stupid fucking game Yeah, and but I will still count on you keeping your word and not being a vicious little shit Yeah, and unfortunately that's a vicious little shit. Yeah, and unfortunately, that's a vicious little shit. Yeah. So, so we have entered who who embodies that particular kind of of masculinity, right? And, you know, you mentioned the appeal of him performing frontier justice and the Western tropes that we see him kind of embodying there.

And then his son, right, putting quotes, John, John the bastard snow, winds up going even farther north to join the black watch. Where it's even colder. Where it's even colder. And where he's surrounded by like every layer, every level of toxic masculinity you can imagine. Yes. Right? They just gang beat people in.

Yeah. Yeah. And so he heads heads he heads there and he is the millennial in this equation. Hmm. Because he does not want to follow the example of the behavior of the other members of the Knights watch. He befriends Sam, right? And acts as Sam's guardian. Yeah. Because because he recognizes the value of Sam's intelligence and his bookishness. I don't know that he recognizes that so much as it's the right thing to do to stand up for for a guy who's done nothing wrong at first Okay, well, yeah, he absolutely acknowledges those things and makes good use of them

But yeah in the beginning it's yeah, okay, we don't why why no let's not fucking do that and if you want to fight me you fight me Yeah, it was very much that yeah, yeah and he so so he's a protector of Sam. Yep. And he, he chafed that it, but he winds up getting placed instead of being made a ranger, he goes into oh god. He gets, he gets a sign. Chamberlain. Yeah. He gets a sign. He gets a sign. He gets a Chamberlain. Yeah. He gets a sign into the logistics branch of the watch. Yeah. And his entire character arc, again, is a more millennial kind of conception of masculinity. He is not the guy who, you know, his sister winds up being the one who defeats the Night King.

Not just his sister, but his little sister. It's true. Um, and he by all accounts, Kit Herrington was pretty pissed about that, by the way. Yeah, I can believe that. I can, I can, I can understand it because Kit Herrington's no visa. Now, now having said that, by the way, um, he also is fairly sexless, which is a very millennial thing. Like if you look at like all the studies that come out and millennials don't like fucking, you know, and it's, they're not as driven by that.

Like, you know, for any number of really interesting reasons, but essentially, everybody around him above and below is down to fuck. everyone. Oh, yeah. And most of them are successful, but because the book's big because yeah, because the book was written by a boomer. Yes. But, but like he and Sam really are sexless. These are the two millennials. It doesn't mean they don't have intimate relations with people. They do. He gets he greet and Sam gets God, what's her name? But the the the the woman who he rescues ultimately

And they both have some really neat relationships Along the way they have some really neat relationships. Yes. Snow and you greet, you greet as the badass, the pair of them. Like you greet as terrifying. Yes. Not even gonna argue with that. Right.

And so he is the closest thing to a protagonist, like we're going to look at these single protagonists of the series. Jon Snow is it. And he's very much a millennial archetype. Yeah, he is. Now parallel, if we have a deuteragonist, it's got to be Tyrion. A hundred percent true. It is a gen X. It's a complete gen Xer, right? He fucks. And he, yes, yes.

Yeah. Um, and he's a sarcastic mother fucker. And he's been not only overbought. Yeah. He's, he's, he's not only been overlooked, but denigrated his entire life. Mm-hmm. You know, and- And what does he make friends with almost immediately is John Snow. Yes. You know, he's like, all, all imps are bastards to their father's eyes. Yeah. You know, now, having said that, he also has a good deal of growth that he has. Oh, it is showing me his shirt, which says, I drink and no things. Yeah, I drink and I

know things. Whereas mine says vintage 1997 or 1977. There you go. In a disco kind of font. Yeah. But uh, but uh, you know, he makes he, he, where's it? where's that going? You distracted me with his an arc. Yeah, he has a mark. Um, where he comes out of the bucket who cares to I'm going to make a mark in this world. I'm going to do something good. Well, not only that, but he winds up being the one who he named RIPPing. Yeah, he repeatedly is put in the position of being like, okay, no, look, why the fuck do we have to kill each other? Yes. Okay, that's the way everybody's done it for forever.

I understand that. We don't have to do that. And I really don't want to. Right. We don't have to do that and I really don't want to Right, you know, he he he literally goes to his sister and says look I know you don't care about your people right But I know you care about your children unfortunately doesn't realize your children at that point are all dead because you're right right Also, he also like straight up. Um, oh God, what was it? He says, um, it's, it's not just about, it's not just about like saving the people. It's not just about naming

the king. He, ah, fuck it. I'll come back. Yeah. But, but yeah, he goes to a sister. Yeah. Well, and, and he, he's the one who, as you say, he has the arc of going from completely cynical, I don't give a shit anymore, to really being at rock bottom with, you know, I killed my dad because my family was trying to use me as a scapegoat. Yeah. I shot him on the shitter. Yeah, I shot my dad while he was on the pot, like, you know, and then he picks himself up and says, okay, no, I have this person who I believe can fix these things and I'm going

to follow them. I'm going to make that happen, right? Yeah, he absolutely does. Yeah, and I mean, sadly, it's a world to do so too. Yeah, yeah, and sadly, in the end, it winds up being too late because I don't know if the writers were just, you know, nihilists or what the hell happened in the tail end of the last season. But you know, so we have, we have him and we have Jon Snow as our dude drag us and our protagonist, basically. Yes. And then around them, we have, and I'm forgetting his name right now because I don't have And I'm forgetting his name right now because I don't have the greatest notes on this, but the other, the actual eldest son of Eddard Stark. Oh, Rob.

Rob. Yeah. Rob Stark, who like, you know, up until a certain point in the books, I was 110% team Rob Stark. Let's go. And then Rob, so Rob is a good leader. He's a good, um, fight, he's a, he's a, he's a mountain to his own really comes into his own. He becomes, you know, he takes on the role of King and the North when, when they go full out. Okay, no, this is rebellion. We're going right. And, and he is successful. He's good at it.

right and and he is successful. He's good at it. And then he winds up thinking with his dick. Right. And he, and he pisses off the fries and gets himself and his mother and his bride and their unborn child. And a whole bunch of other sharks murdered by the way, spoiler alert. and a whole bunch of other starts murdered, by the way, spoiler alert. Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, undoing is, yeah, it's the trapping of masculinity of being a good husband and a good son and a good, you know, and as soon to be father. And well, well, I know you're saying that it's his dick that undoes him. It's, it's he fell in love with her. It's not because, you know, because if it was his dick, then it's just, you know, he could do what

two-hand did. Yeah. But no, he fell in love with her and he's staying faithful to her. So he's falling into all those old tropes of masculinity, additional masculinity like you said. Yeah. And that gets everybody killed. Interestingly, gets everybody killed by by Walter Frye, who is the, who epitomizes the dark side of that because how many wives as he had, how young have those wives been and how many kids as he had from all of those much younger wives, right? Okay. So, um, and then we have, uh, Robert Barathan, um, Barathan. Barathan. Yeah. Like, okay, the way that the way everything got pronounced, like seeing the words on the page and then listening to everybody say all the names on screen, I was like, really? You're talking to a Latin teacher.

Yeah, yeah. No shit. Yeah, no shit. So yeah, Robert Baratheon is trying. I mean, I'm watching Spartacus sometime as a Latin teacher and hearing them say, Batitis, you know,, who the fuck is that?

And oh, but the otters got it. Okay. That's damn it. Just get used to it. Okay. So Robert Baratheon, yes, is Henry the age. Yes, right. But charming, but charming is hell. Yeah. Which, which Henry VIII. Yes, right? But charming.

But charming is hell. Yeah. Which, which, Henry VIII pre-injury. Re-injury Henry VIII was capable of being very, very charming. Yes. Robert Baratheon, the way the characterization is done, and part of this is, I think, a credit to the actor. Is, you look at him and you're like, okay, no.

He's actually not a bad guy. He has been embittered by the shit going on around him. And he is a bluff straightforward man who has risen beyond his ability to handle the machinations around him. And his coping mechanisms are desperately unhealthy. Yes, like all these things. Like I think somebody even said he was a good man, but he was a bad king. Yeah. Like, yeah, he absolutely, he was promoted. He did the right thing for the right reasons and his reward was more work.

It's like, yeah. Well, God damn it. Or which he's incapable of doing. So he and his, he and what's her face? Not Lucilla, God damn, what's her name? The woman who shows violence. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the woman who chose violence. Yeah. You're in the sense. Oh, fuck, hold on.

Circe. Circe. Yeah. Thank you. He and Circe have this amazing scene together early on where she says, was there ever a moment where you love him? And they, they, they, they like talk about the moment where they both turned away from each other.

And it was just so heartbreak. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you saw humanity in her and the regret in him and then they both shut it off. It is really good. Really, really. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And amazing performance by both of them. You know, and I'm going to pick just a real quick, a reminder character here. Yeah. Um, because we're talking about all this masculinity, we're talking about a fantasy setting, because we're talking about a world in which your martial prowess is the thing that makes you awesome, right? Yeah. You have a character like the mountain who is, is fucking enormous. Now, I'm actually not touching him. I just want to go to him.

Because then you have the guy that Eddard Stark hired to teach his youngest daughter who had not yet gone through puberty, how to fight the dancer, serial four all. And he is serial four all four foot five and uses a toothp a a toothpick. Mm hmm. The teacher and and he is one of the most

marshally prolific people. He takes on like five paladins and whoops their asses with a two. Fuck some up. Yeah. And and so when you look at masculinity and you look at all the things, here's a man who absolutely strikes out on all the aspects of masculinity and fuck of his, if he is not an impressive, impressive man. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's being hired to teach a girl how to fight like at the end of the day in that world like it's even that shit

and yet like he absolutely just like he is he is this exemplar so anyway yeah I didn't I didn't want to actually speak to the mountain because I knew that you'd have more but anyway so yeah Robert Barathe I actually thought you were going to go and talk about gray worm. No, no. Okay. But oh, God, he's fun. But but Robert Baratheon, who's death is in his fucking name. Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah, it's like Lou Garag. Like you knew that shit was coming. You knew that shit was coming. Yeah. God damn. Yeah, yeah. Um, and, and so he, he winds up. Would have been funnier if Lou Garag died of Epstein bar. Now they think about it. That's really dark.

Like, where are you looking at me that way? Because what the fuck, man? Okay. So Robert Por the fuck, man. Okay. So Robert Porathion, who gets gutted by a wild boar. And then his brother-in-law, who is actually the father of his on paper son. Yeah, Jamie. Yeah, is Jamie Lannister is again, a character with an arc

Oh yeah. Which they fucked up the tail end like why? But in as far as the books have gotten, see, I saw it as addiction. Okay. Addicted to his sister and some people cannot beat their addicts. Okay.

Yeah, codependency is another other aspect of that. Yeah. Yeah. Which is in a way, a form of addiction also. Also, like he clearly is, is not satisfied sexually with anything else and he lost his good hand. So, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah.

Yeah. But he is the outwardly to everybody in that society, outwardly, he is the pinacle of, if you're a dude, he's the guy you want to be. But we as the viewers know, that as a matter of fact, at the beginning of the series, he's a shitstain of a human being who is fucked up in the head and is banging his own twin sister. Yeah, and murdered a child. Yes, and and and attempted like it did commit like he did in his because he landed on moss. Like yeah, he tried to kill a child. Yeah. And then we have the mountain who rides, or the mountain that rides. It's not even who rides the mountain that rides right is is every indictment of toxic masculinity you can imagine.

He is the walking embodiment of road rage. Yes. Um, even after his death, even after his death. Like they bring him back as a zombie because we need the wall of muscle, right? Yeah. Which gets to what friend of the show Gabriel Cruz talks about with abject masculinity. It ultimately, it's a masculinity that its job is to do the violent thing. Yeah, and beyond that, consumes him, yeah, destroys him. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, yes, a perfect analysis. And so for the generation, because the boomers who were watching this show are, you know, getting excited by the nudity and the coarseness of all of that. Yeah. But the younger audience who's looking at it and the people who are writing it are not boomers.

For the TV series, the folks that are writing it are not boomers. For the TV series, the folks that are writing it are not boomers. The folks who are writing it are GeneXia or Zerlin millennials. And what we are seeing on the screen is the legitimate king is at the beginning of everything we find out the legitimate king is being betrayed by his own wife and his wife's family who don't care about anything as long as one of theirs is going to be on the throne because they're all worried about you know, dynastic politics is going to be on the throne because they're all worried about, you know, dynastic politics, right? And the Baratheon family are the ones whose name is,

like, the king is a Baratheon, but everybody, everybody who's around him, all that is surrounded by Lannisters all the time. Right. You know, and so the Lannisters are going to be the ones who were who were going to who were going to wind up on the throat, even though like he should be a barathe and like the air is going to wind up being a Lannister for all intents and purposes. Because again, we have. Yeah. I'm sorry, his wife is still brother, putting the nasty and dynasty. Yeah, yes in all kinds of ways And then we have the honorable Western hero town sheriff Show up and we think that you know the the conflict is gonna be okay Well, he's he's gonna lead the you know resistance against the evil corrupt Lannisters and then he gets schwacked. And his his daughters, one of his daughters

winds up disappearing and the other daughter winds up getting held hostage by the Lannisters. Oh, God, going through one of the worst arcs. Oh my God. Like holy shit. There's a whole other whole other set of episodes. It can be Allizing what happens to her like yeah, go back to that checklist Yeah, tell me what didn't happen to Arya. Yeah, Arya. What's your name? No, Sansa Sansa. Yeah, and so well and and also keep in mind the books that all of this is being written is is being based on were written by a boomer. And he wrote all the stuff happening to Sansa unironically. Yes. As a response to, well, you know, what are the rings? It's just so twee.

You know, I want to talk about what this quote unquote, what this would actually have looked like. quote unquote what this would actually have looked like. Mm-hmm, you know, and for the sake of realism, we have to involve all of this awful sexual violence and all this stuff. And in his defense, he is depicting what really happened to women in that fictional universe that he thought up. Yes, precisely. Yeah, I mean, it's not his faults. No, it's not at all universe that he completely thought up and made up. Yeah, no, you know, and and and and yeah, keeping it real and and his his introduction of the character of Felicia is is used by this. Well, I'm just talking in

in the novels. I'm not talking about even the ugliness that happened on screen, but his his attempt at a limited omniscient view from, I keep thinking, Calisi, I can't remember her Targaryen name. Daenerys. Daenerys. From Daenerys' extensive viewpoint is pointed

to by female writers as, don't do this. This is not how we experience our own bodies. This is male gaze being transplanted onto a female protagonist. So like, yeah. So, but it is worth noting that because of the power of the viewer over the medium, what happens to Sansa in the TV series has a different kind of resonance from what happens to Sansa in the books. And in the end, it is Arya who kills the Night King. It is Sansa and Arya working together who fuck little finger over and kill his deserving ass. In the end.

And I think those are very important points when we're talking about masculinity. It's not knob, because of course Rob's dead by that point and it's not John snow coming back Right and and avenging what was done to his sisters. It's two of them going no You're the whole reason all this should happen and Fuck you. Yeah, you're a dead band like game over and then Braun who gets thrown out a window and is paralyzed,

is, he winds up being critically important as the raven through his mystical abilities, which are consistently feminized in their viewed as being less masculine. Well, Anne better way of putting that. And with his paralysis, he's no longer able to do the martial things. Yes. He is paralyzed specifically in such a way

that that paralysis is total. Like we're not taught, there's no boners, there's no successful ejaculation that's going to happen. It's a one and done king. He is not going to produce any errors. He will, if he chooses an error, it will be by adoption, which is an entirely different thing.

And as a result, he has to focus on things that are otherly otherwise than masculine, because of all of his masculinity has been stripped from him by a man who is supposed to look masculine, who was acting in the worst ways of masculinity. So, you know, this guy has to be carried around by other men, has to be protected by women, and all of these things, like he is absolutely sexless when it comes to that kind of stuff. In more so than Greyworm. Yeah, far more so than Greyworm.

He's been castrated physically, but this young man has been castrated. I would say in terms of his gender. And there's there's a big difference there, but I'm I'm Wow, all of that and you choose to end it there. It's in the lime season seven. Oh, not wrong though. And so we have all of these different, and like I haven't even gotten into a Brienne of Tarth and oh damn it. The Northman, the red headed Northman who who once Brienne of Tarth,

desperately badly in its one of the most, it's like it's one of the most awesome things on the whole shit. It never goes anywhere. Yeah, like God damn it. I wanted them to get together. Red headed Viking guy. Yeah. Oh shit. That's all Yeah. Oh, shit.

That's all right. Anyway, but, you know, and so we have, like this whole panoply of, of characters who are commentary on gender roles and, and, and they all all many of them meet their ends in in these ways that are rooted in their roles in society, which are largely dictated by gender. And I think it's it's it's important to note the differences in how this goes versus Lord of the Rings. In Lord of the Rings series, the rightful king winds up taking his throne, and he threw his legitimacy and threw his

inherent nobility of spirit, and importantly, through the self-sacrifice of the ring bearer and samwise and everybody else in the fellowship, you know, the right winds out in the end and the dark lord is defeated, whereas in lord of the ring, where his in game of thrones, cheated, whereas in Lord of the Ring, where is the in game of thrones, the good guys frequently get themselves killed because they're the good guys. Yes. And the bad guys, either the prosper or prosper right up until somebody stabs them in the back or they get found out and they meet their their deserved end. And the ending, politically speaking, is a compromise between a whole bunch of different people. And nobody is really a hundred percent legitimate. And nobody is the hero. Right. And that lines up with everything that millennials and late gen Xers had seen going on in the world. Because, you know, to make

Cheney's friend apologize to him. Yeah. right. And that's that's like what I remembered that event. I was like, you know what? That that might be kind of the emblematic event for the attitude toward masculinity because like they're out shooting guns, right hunting, right? And so there's this parody of masculinity involved there. Well, and they're shooting guns. We're talking about a guy who got five-digit firments

to not have to go and get shot at, who is now crafted over 30 years a policy that he's finally able to put into place that sends other people's children to go get shot at and while they're getting shot at he shoots his friend who then apologizes to him yeah yeah it's it's there's so much it's a lannister level shit it really is yeah that's too generous to be perfectly honest. I would say,

Janie is much more little finger. No, no, no. The guy, uh, fuck, what's his name? Um, the guy who marries young women and killed Rob Stark. Oh, um, Frey. Yeah, I think he's much more walled. Wolder, Wolder Fry. Yeah. Um, now I can't, I would like to if, if we don't, if you don't mind, tackle a few other characters in this, though, because I mean, it highlights it. Number one, you have two unix in this show. You have gray worm and you have the fat dude with all the little birds. I Forget his name

But you really two unix right yeah, and then you have Oh God, what's his name? Mandalorian Diego Luna who plays oh, yeah guy who fights with a spear, right? Yeah. So you've got you've got these two unix both of whom are advisers both of whom end up advising the same woman. In different ways. Yeah, it's Lord Varus, by the way, as the is the unit you're thinking of.

Yes. Um, so you've got I may and I may have, I may have earlier said Varus little finger because in my head, I can flate the two because they're both scheming little bitch boys. Well, and they, they are at odds with each other at first, because they're part of the, the King's hand, um, or the, the small council. That's what it was called. Yeah. Um, but it's called. Yeah. But, Peter Baylish, let me figure. But you've got two UNIX. So, men who was masculinity was literally removed. One who has all the power over other people through scheming and spying.

And he has a very feminine affect because of the way he walks. Yes. And then the other one who has power over people by virtue of how he enacts masculinity despite not having the masculine parts in that world. And he's advising, and again, they both end up advising the same person.

I find that, and this, you know, various, his loyalty exists in so much that keeps him alive, in so much that keeps him in play, in so much as it serves his ideals. Hey, worm, his loyalty exists entirely and solely to the person who liberated him. And the person who continues to keep him free. And I just think it's really interesting that both men have been castrated and both end up being major advisors. It's, you know, normally having one unique on a show. I mean, I do not mean to make the pun here is unique. But this literally has two. And I think that's that's interesting.

And then you go over to Diego Luna's character, whose name I don't remember, but who will also help me out in discussing the very whiteness of this whole world because he comes from the southern continent where brown people are. And everybody's last name is Sand instead of snow if they're bastards, right? Yeah. He is all about the sex and he is all about the vengeance and he is dark skinned and he's fighting the mountain on behalf of Tyrion And he's fighting the mountain on behalf of Tyrion. And he's winning.

And by the way, his weapon is longer and harder than the mountains. Okay. Yeah. Outlast the mountain when it comes to fighting prowess. And the only reason that he loses is because he lets his emotions get the better of him and forgets what he's there for, which is to fight. And the mountain is only there to fight. And rips his head off if I recall. No, rips his head and head crushes his skull. Yeah, but like literally like he squeezes in and I swear to God, there's a pulling that happens. Mm hmm.

So you have the man meat masculinity, destroying the sexual masculinity over and over and over again in this show. That's a good point. Yeah. And so, and the only time the sexual masculinity prevails is when it attacks a child because that's when he pushes the end out the window. Okay, I have to point something out. You keep saying Diego Luna, it's Pedro Pascal.

Who am I thinking? Oh, I'm thinking of Andor. Yeah, you're thinking of, yeah, that's a big deal. I, you're thinking of yeah, that's a big and you're thinking of and or yet's Pedro Pascal Pedro Pascal. There we go. Okay. Um, it's because I liked and or a lot better. Yeah. Yeah. Having having seen the first I have so much stuff I going to catch up on, but yeah, have you seen the first couple of episodes? I totally understand that. Yeah. Um, with that being said, as an actor, yes, I'm a huge fan of Pedro Pascal. So I think they're both phenomenal. Oh, yeah. No, I don't mean to take anything away from Diego Luna by saying that at all. Yeah. But yeah, but yeah, I apologize. Yeah. No, and it's, and it's, and the characters over in Martel.

Okay. Okay. Um, but anyway's in the characters Oberyn Martell. Okay. Okay. But anyway, so he gets destroyed by a character who is also, it's interesting too, because the mountain is both sexless and the whole reason that Pedro Pascal is there. Oberyn Martell is there because the mountain was used as an instrument of rape on his sister. Yes. And so he's sexless, and yet he did commit this horrific rape. The interesting thing, and I totally groove on what you're saying

there about that. Like in the book, in the books, there is more context surrounding the book, in the books there is more context surrounding the mountain. Okay. And if I remember. Most of what we get from him in the show is through the hound. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, in the movie, what we mostly get is through the hand. And what we see on screen is him engaging in the ultraviolence. Like nearly every time he's on screen, something sanguinious happens, right? Yeah.

Again, that's the abject masculinity. Yeah, yeah, totally 110%. In the books. Um, there, there are more layers to his shitty masculinity. Hmm. And the fact that he is a regular perpetrator of sexual violence. Okay. Yeah. Is is a thing that comes up. He is still leaning in the direction of that abject masculinity. Mm-hmm. But there's also the more rounded ugliness of, no, no. He he part of the reason that he's not married. It's not that he's not interested in sex. It's that he is a rapist. And so he does not like, he hasn't gotten married because no family wants their daughter to be like a rapist. Yeah. Yeah. Be be like, he's so bad that other families are like, no, no, that's

beyond the pale. We're not going to subject you to that. Right. You know, so yeah. So then we'll take a look at him and his brother, the hound, the brothers, the hound absolutely hates him. He is scarred and disfigured and they're more unattractive to anybody who you wouldn't have to pay, as a mate, he regularly used the C bomb and the word cock a lot, but you don't really see him being sexed at all.

But he was horribly hurt by his older brother and carries the physical and emotional scars from that. So you have a masculinity that is being punished there as well. And you've got that trope of like the older brother supposed to be the protector, but you've also got the bully older brother. But the fact is the parents didn't step in and help him. And so he is, he is emotionally scarred for life. Yeah. And he ends up kind of being a surrogate big brother

in the shittiest ways possible, but at the same time, in a way that is functional for Arya Stark. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So, you've got, I mean, that show came out starting in 2011.

So the housing crisis was officially over by then, but we're still dealing with the aftermath of it, of course. And it was after Obama had been elected president. So you have a whole bunch of white heteronormative agreement. Oh, by the way, Pedro Pascal's character, uh, not only was very sensual, was clearly, uh, bisexual. Um, and so having him so destroyed in front of his girlfriend who they also carried on a polyamorous relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so you've got white agreement, heteronormative, white cis-hat agreement, really, really at the forefront. And then this show comes on and it's a dark

and gritty and sex is used as a weapon. And that's just again, that's keeping it real to how it was in the author's mind. In the fictional world, he created, but it sold like hotcakes, like everybody was fucking talking about it. Everybody, like, and it just, to me, it absolutely does feed back to the masculinity being tied to whiteness that we saw somewhat thwarted by the election of a black man for president and by the appointment of, you know, I'm going to at least say Democrats and liberals to positions of power, if not leftists at all. And that was very upsetting in the culture war. So yeah, and have that rubber band. This to me feels like a regression against third wave feminism and against that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting because again, there's a little bit of power of the viewer involved. I think a lot of the resonance in the Zitgeist was based in that. But I think from another point of view, what we also see is disaffection with ideas of traditional masculinity and ideology takes a massive hit for it. Yeah, because this is about ideology, because the ideal, no, this is about it. No, the idea was die. Yeah, the idealist is the ones who get killed. Yeah. And, and the, the mountain, And the mountain and the other characters who embody, you know, abject masculinity are obviously not the hero. And there are moments where his hyperviolence is portrayed sympathetically in murdering his brother-in-law because in defense of his wife, in defense of Daenerys, there's a level to which that sympathetic, but then he winds up dying ugly. Yeah. You know, and so there's this, it isn't a return to what we saw in the 80s because

because what we saw in the 80s, the world has moved on. And you can't get away with just, making a cartoonish hyper masculine hero be the hero anymore. That's true. That's very true. You know, there's been too much water under the bridge. Nobody's gonna buy that anymore. And so, you know, only thing you can do is burn the house down instead. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you know, and we wind up seeing

female characters being movers and shakers and being, you know, if we want to talk about, you know, Cersei of Blanister, if we want to analyze her, she is a very empowered female character and she's a fucking villain. Oh, very much so. Like, like, you know, and, and we can see what turned her into that. Right. You know, but she's still a goddamn monster. Yep. You know, O'Lennet Terrell, you know, tell- Seriously.

I wanted to know it was me, right? Yeah, and she honestly is the only one that like... Is anywhere near, like, she doesn't use sex as her weapon. Yeah. And that's that. And yeah, I mean, she's an admirable character on a level. But at the end of the day, she does horrible shit. Yeah. She fucking. Yeah. Yeah. Tells her see how it was me. It's like, yeah, you, you had that man kill to be fair. He had it coming, but I would go so first to say he deserved it. I don't think he just had it coming.

He fucking deserved it. And I think they did a great job. The actor, the directors and the writers did a great job of making us know that that guy is nothing redeemable about him. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so we go from the the 80s where we have to defend the traditional idea of masculinity to the 90s or not the 90s to Lord of the Rings where no, we don't need that anymore to game of thrones in the 2010s where we don't give a shit anymore. Like, you know, it's, I think it's emblematic. You know, you were saying that there's been all this,

you know, fufera about, you know, millennials aren't fucking anymore. And like, I think we kind of sort of see not so much the aren't fucking anymore part as we don't give a shit about gender roles anymore. Yeah. Like, this isn't relevant to us anymore because everything around us is such a fucking hellscape Yeah, like this isn't this isn't relevant to us anymore because

Everything around us is such a fucking hellscape that we don't have the energy You know, we don't have the energy to care anymore like nobody has energy to fuck anymore If I yeah, if I want to wear pink I'm gonna wear pink and like I don't care You know if if I Identify his female and I want to like I'm trying to think of anything that would, that would beat, but, you know, looking at the character of, um, Brienne of Tarth, like, you know, she's, she is very much female, but she very much wants to be a knight.

And, yes. And by the way, she very much fucking is one in the context of the show. Yep. In the context of the world around her, she proves that she is. Yeah. Oh, and she still falls in love and she still, like, she worries, is she wants a dude? Yeah.

You know, like all of those things are true to her. I mean, that she wants, but yeah. but she sees the goodness in him and wants that you know, and if you take a look at oh God the guy the fuck there's three guys that get castrated in this show. Oh, reek, yeah, whose name escapes me, but his sister, um's all about fine and big tits to sit between. So there's plenty of non-straight women. Brianna Pert just happens to be one. And yet she is, like you said, she beats the dog. And she Yeah, she's she is doing the jobs that were reserved for men, while keeping her femininity and being six foot two and a fucking badass. Yep. So and and so again, it's I don't give a shit about your general norms, right?

You know, and and when when you try to tell me that you know, this is what a man is I'm gonna point out. No, that's what a man is and that sucks Mm-hmm, and this is what a man is and that's actually pretty cool. Yeah You know, I'm sorry to say like oh, that's what a man is I guess I'll have to kick his ass too. Yeah pretty much. Yeah. And so through that lens, it's really interesting to see how Game of Thrones became this thing that seized the popular imagination and has kind of still hung on,

because now we have House of the Dragon, right? Right. Right. Which isn't as meteoric a hit, but it's getting numbers. And then, you know, and so it was a hit for those eight years that it was running. And then Lord of the Rings was a worldwide huge hit. And then in the 1980s, we had this this bubble. And in each case, there is this very specific view of what manliness means. And they're so strikingly different.

Yeah. Yeah And and yeah, so that's I'm spent yeah, that's that's pretty much that's that's my that's my where I got started with the analysis was I made that realization Yeah, and yeah, so there we are so What is your take it now that we've gone through the entire thing? What is your primary takeaway? you are taken now that we've gone through the entire thing. What is your primary takeaway? Oh boy, it started badly and it's it's only getting worse. Like, I mean, it starts with this very limiting hypermasculine if you're not Arnold, you're not shit, kind of thing. And then, like there was a brief moment, where it was,

there's a lovely bright spot. Wonderful and healthy. And then it just, it's degenerated into such awfulness again. And it's nihilistic awfulness. Yeah, I'm gonna push back a little bit. Okay. Not really hard, but I going to push back a little bit. Okay. Not really hard, but I'm going to push back a little bit. In that, I think the, well, we, we see surrounding

gender identity in game of thrones. And, and, you know, the, whatever I don't care, that we see there. And what I see amongst my students who are six creators is I think we are, while I agree that there is a generalism just because the world is a dumpster fire right now. Uh-huh. Um, I, I also think that what I'm seeing amongst my students is more of an understanding of like, okay, the color you wear doesn't, doesn't say anything about your masculinity femininity. And there is a recognition that, your gender identity is up to you. And what you choose to do with it is up to you.

And I like that, but that is, it's not even an island, it's an air bubble in which people are being held safe in a ocean of turd. Okay. And that's the problem that I have. I wish to fuck that we had done that at the healthy time. Okay. Because then we wouldn't be dealing maybe

with all of these, like, I like that a lot. I just wish that it wasn't occurring at the same time as what everybody hopes this time is the last gasp of this bullshit because it's just getting worse and more destructive. So while I love that my students can identify as non-binary, they can identify as fluid, they can identify as however the fuck they want on different days.

Yeah. And it's just kind of expected that like, I catch up, whatever, right? And it's expected that we teachers don't go, are you sure you're not a boy now? Like we are not to give a shit about the tentacles. Like we are not to give a shit about, you tell me what and then cool.

I'll do my best to remember. It's like that cool. At the same time, the whole fucking system is falling down around them. That's the part that bothers me. Like I love the fact that my kids like grow up thinking that interracial marriage is not even a term that deserves to exist

because it's just marriage, right? And they feel the same way about gay marriage. And it's just marriage, right? Right. And at the same time, you know, my daughters reproductive rights are on the chopping black. On the same time, if either of my children needs gender therapy or something, we'd better make sure that we're in certain states and make sure that we're voting hard, you know, and stuff like that. Like, so while it's wonderful, there is the persistent and loud effort

of a very loud, very hateful minority. And I wish it was just that, but it genuinely feels like there's a nihilistic quality. They're a death cult. And they're, oh yeah. They've got their hands on the wheel. Yeah, and that's, and the fact that they have their hands on the wheel, I totally agree with you is, is the problem and sucks.

So that's why I say it started poorly with the, you know, the 80s and it's only gotten worse. Maybe, maybe that's the problem. It hasn's only gotten worse. Maybe that's the problem. It hasn't only gotten worse. It has definitely gotten worse. Yeah. So again, I've carved out a wonderful bubble of sanity for my students and for my children.

We'll see how long it holds. So yeah, but anyway, I love this. This was fantastic. Cool. Do you have any books you want to recommend or any movies you want people to go look at or series or anything like that? Any media you want them to consume?

For everything I said against his description of the first chapter of Daenerys' point of view, I am going to recommend that people give the first volume of a song of ice and fire a try. Okay. George R. Martin has many very good things to recommend him as a writer. And the first book, I'm not going to say you have to read beyond it, but I think I think the first book was is still a very compelling story, and it's an interesting experiment within the genre. Okay. So that's that's what I'm going to say there. How about you?

I'm going to recommend dismembering the male men's bodies, Britain, and the Great War by Joanna Bork. That was the one that I was mentioning last week as the World War One, but I gave you the World War Two, and instead this one is phenomenal, and it is it's thick and heavy, but it absolutely is looking at just just gender body studies and masculinity as as its own thing. And World War One being very much, there's this wonderful picture of a British soldier and just the way that they were made to stand in detention and stuff like that and he looks like a pigeon back. Like he just curves upward, you know, and stuff like that. It's really interesting. So, and it gives like, it's really, really good. I cannot say enough good things about it, especially

when you look at how many people were injured by that war, who didn't come back. Never mind the ones who didn't. And the effects of shell shock, as it was called at the time. And so like that. So yeah, that's what I recommend. So where can people find you if you wanna be found? On TikTok, I can be found as Mr. underscore Blalock.

We collectively, and be found on Twitter at Geek History Time and we can be found on the internet at www.Geek History of Time.com. And of course, you've already found us, if you're listening to this podcast, you've either found our website or you have gone to the Apple Podcast app or Stitcher and have found us there. Wherever you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe if you haven't done so already and give us the five star review that we know we deserve. That you know we deserve after this. And where can you be found, sir? answer. You know what? Here's what I'm going to say, come to Sacramento and come to Luna's cafe in Sacramento on March 3 at 8 p.m. to see capital punishment, bring 10 dollars, bring proof of vaccination, and bring your own mask, if not, we'll provide one. And then April 7th at Henry's, we will be back there. Same

bat time, same jet bat channel as far as the time and the cost as April 7th. And then back on May 5th at Luna's. So depending on when this airs. So come check that out. We've got some really killer lineups for capital punishment. So please come and check those out. That's cool. That's where I'll say you can find me. All right. Yeah. So for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, remember, winter is coming. you