615 - It’s Not Funny (3/31/22)

Rise of the

Taylor

Audio stops for me at 39min - what gives??

Benjamin Harris

It was also a Colbert line from his old show.

Dan

did will not know that "warrior poets" is a braveheart reference that detail was sitting right there for you to clown on

TheSingleE

Seems very stupid and short-sighted.

Matt's analysis of the culture war seems off. The political wonks of the GOP can easily make up another thing to jump to after they almost inevitably win this most recent spate of anti-lgbt legislation, they do it all the fucking time. Not six months ago it was CRT they were going after and I'm sorry but they fucking won that one too.

good

William Beamish

hearing will’s attempt at a kiwi accent was a hate crime against new zealand

Clare Patterson

It’s a cope of how elite-hate backfires. When you hate them for being rich, you forget they aren’t lizards from outer space. They are weird fucked up children with too much power.

Dan

Naw dude the elites should all just blackball each other and it will in no way effects us. In no way do we become casualties who are caught up in their messy petty bullshit. That’s the big fucking picture right there. In no way does that devolve to the point where it endorses open violence, how would that happen? They’re elites? Don’t they just want to feel better than us? I’m not underestimating the pettiness of human nature am I? No fucking way.

Dan

Her parents were relatively wealthy, supporting her through college and paying her rent until she was 30.[12]

Jonathan G

Dude you're missing the big picture allright. If Will Smith was that mad about Christ Rock for laughing at his wife and Will Smith was as much of a big shot in Hollywood as Will Smith is, he could just pull some string to fuck over Chris Rock next time he's looking for an acting or brand endorsement contract. Those two guys don't need our help to settle their family disputes.

etienne

Elites need a method of settling disputes that corrects their conduct, and doesn’t “cancel” one another. Cancel culture, deplatforming, and now this attack, all happen to be a way of dealing with disputes without settling anything. What’s worse is doesn’t help anyone else in any way! They are always going to demand satisfaction, and they are going to get it in one way or another. It’s just a fact.

Dan

BTW appropriate consequences for laughing at the hair of an ugly billionnaire is getting a high five or two.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

Wow dude you're woke ! Way to own these people who are definitely the same thing as Will Smith at the Oscars.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig

a multi millionaire pimp slapping a slightly less multi millionaire over a hair joke is anti elite action

etienne

Lol if you have a lot of money you need to accept the fact that you will get made fun of.— totally naive shit right there. The fact right is that there aren’t real appropriate consequences for saying the wrong thing, especially if your are a journalist or a comedian or commentator. Violence is not the answer, but cancelling someone isn’t great either for a number of reasons. All these guys can think of is dueling, and in the case of smith, who likely has been in a precarious relationship with his wife, and sees his craft falling out of the zeitgeist, probably wouldn’t mind putting it all on the line with a flintlock in hand. But saying rich people just have to take it, I’m sure that’s what people want to hear, but it doesn’t work like that. They will demand satisfaction in some form or another. Money isn’t everything, and I wouldn’t underestimate how petty some of these rich folks are naturally. I’m surprised Felix didn’t bring up how Khabib is calling for Covington to be blacklisted from the UFC saying the wrong things. These guys get paid to beat the shit out of each other and yet they still are trying to cancel each other for saying the wrong thing. But like bad comedians, their viewers and patrons love the shallow edginess of people like covington and that trumps the consequences from their peers. On top of elite overproduction, demands from their piggy patrons, people will always demand satisfaction when an insult really lands and goes unchecked. There’s no form of getting the elites in line right now, so you get the slap.

Dan

Great, classic ep-Hysterical

Everyone is gettin jiggy wit dis feral sandrich

Scot Forsythe

Smart money is on Manic Pixie Fangirl being a Felix sockpuppet account. He's evolving.

Gaz

I doubt that the GOP's mandarins and money people are going to let Trump win the party nomination in 2024. Similar to Bernie 2020, where party leaders clearly had a plan for derailing his nomination after not really taking him seriously in 2016, I have to think that the GOP's backers are doing the same with Trump. There is no way that he gets the same kind of free media attention that he did in 2015-2016 for starters. Also, the party leaders pretty clearly showed their cards on Jan. 6th. In Sept 2020 when McConnell convinced Trump to abandon the second stimulus, I took that as a pretty clear signal that McConnell et al were trying to help Trump lose. I think the party was OK using Trump after 2016 (and he was happy to use them as well), but the role of the president in our system is to mediate between different power brokers and interest groups. The function of the president in our system is more that of a middle manager, not a CEO or a mob boss. The real power brokers spend decades effectively vetting and supporting people as they move up through the ranks, and the organizations that help to lift up political leaders are the result of decades of investment and work. The system still operates as joint venture between powerful interest groups, more than a kind of personalized dictatorship. On the other hand, Charles Koch is 86, and Trump is only 75. So who knows.

J P 3

Roxane Gay endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Elizabeth Warren in 2020. Identity and lived experience/trauma excuses none of that. She's a recurring columnist at the New York Times and a visiting professor at Yale, so there is no "punching down" here. There's nothing liberatory or feminist about encouraging men to beat each other up because a wealthy celebrity woman may have been offended about a balding joke. On the other hand, imagine wasting ink on a Hollywood dust up or the gender of McDonald's toys when a billion people don't have shoes and two billion don't know where their food is coming from next week, as we careen toward climate catastrophe while grimly hoping our suffering will be cut short by a global thermonuclear holocaust.

SJ

Roxanne was grasping at straws in this one to relate the incident to past traumas and we should call it like we see it. No slight to her as a person. She just missed the mark here

Peter Sullivan

At a certain level of fame it becomes fine to make fun of people for bad takes. Roxane Gay has done a lot of good work and also puts a lot of dumb shit into the discourse like the McDonald’s toy thing, it’s fine to clown on the latter

Tea Ess

Wow. Usually I respect and appreciate your guys’ take on things, but your commentary on Roxane Gay’s article was way off. Of all the people in this world whom you could roast for 30 minutes, you choose a black woman who was gang raped as a child and has spent her career helping people understand the impact of violence/trauma, and is now trying to call attention to the usually unseen/undefended pain of black women? Usually you guys always punch up. Why are you punching down all of a sudden? Your commentary indicates that you did not even make an effort to understand the point she was making. I really hope that this podcast doesn’t turn into the three of you just being contrarian for the sake of it, but it kinda seems like it’s going in that direction.

What a great episode. Long live Chapo and long live Communism.

Riley Bloomer-Ludwig