Speaker 1: Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: a mouthful. That's uh p B PBC listeners. PVC ears
Speaker 1: we should have a nickname, but it's lame to give
Speaker 1: yourself a nickname. Colonels? Are we colonels? Oh god, that's
Speaker 1: even more embarrassing. I forget I said anything. Sorry, super
Speaker 1: caffeinated starting over. Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. I know.
Speaker 1: One thing I'm fond of saying is that the show
Speaker 1: is not English class. There's no required reading or watching
Speaker 1: for that matter. But this week we are diving into
Speaker 1: our first piece of bonifide, bonafide English Lit required reading,
Speaker 1: Elvis Huxley's Brave New World. There's a pretty good chance
Speaker 1: you already had to read this in eleventh grade, and
Speaker 1: we are reading it now because it has been adapted
Speaker 1: into a series on Peacock, the NBC streaming service. But
Speaker 1: trust me, this will absolutely not be a high school
Speaker 1: English class discussion. In terms of the sex, it is
Speaker 1: one of the book with like the most amount of
Speaker 1: sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: when the only sound effect is zip zip, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound very sexy to me, in my opinion. Like they
Speaker 1: all want to. They're all horny for zippers. It feels
Speaker 1: like they're going to be horny for zippers. I finally
Speaker 1: feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade to anyone
Speaker 1: who's into zippers. Welcome back to Popcorn Book Club. I'm
Speaker 1: joined as always by our co host Jennifer Wright, Tantran,
Speaker 1: Melissa Hunter, and Karladon Quall Los Angeles. You're all looking
Speaker 1: quite pneumatic today. No, no, bros. Perfect transition to say
Speaker 1: that we are talking about Brave New World. The I
Speaker 1: Think two book by Alice Huxley, which has recently been
Speaker 1: adapted into a television series on Peacock, which Jennifer was
Speaker 1: just telling us, is very very different from the book.
Speaker 1: They've made the television series a lot more action. I
Speaker 1: watched one episode and I was like, what is this.
Speaker 1: I'm reading this and I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll say that the book doesn't really have
Speaker 1: until the end, which is action pact. At the beginning,
Speaker 1: like the first chapter is just a slow tour through
Speaker 1: a laboratory. I hated it so much. Okay, wait, I
Speaker 1: love the beginning of this book. It does feel very
Speaker 1: like Network executive bait in terms of the like future
Speaker 1: dystopian work, but very like, oh, this is The executives
Speaker 1: that wanted their own West World were like, what about
Speaker 1: Brave New World. It's it's ninety years old, but it's
Speaker 1: relevant right now. So it makes that's like actually, word
Speaker 1: for word the pitch from the executive producer, it was me.
Speaker 1: I was the executive producer, Melissa, you've caught me. O,
Speaker 1: my god, Cora, I missed that deadline announcement. I used
Speaker 1: the pseudonym. The question I was curious about is which
Speaker 1: of it? Have any of you read this book before now?
Speaker 1: Because I read this book when I was in high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I had barely remembered it. But I read this
Speaker 1: eighth grade. M I remember not caring for it at
Speaker 1: all at the time. I liked it a lot more now,
Speaker 1: maybe because I'm more familiar with some of the topics
Speaker 1: that they're talking about, and I don't think that men
Speaker 1: like organs and by peeing into you, as I be
Speaker 1: impressed they did when maybe more I also we have
Speaker 1: a more bleak worldview. Also feels very early to read
Speaker 1: this book in terms of the themes, and like does
Speaker 1: everyone fucking each other and you know all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Everyone belongs to everyone else. In terms of the sex,
Speaker 1: it is one of the books with like the most
Speaker 1: amount of sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just know, I had six women last week. Great, I
Speaker 1: don't care. It's never been so bored by constant fuckingly,
Speaker 1: particularly pneumatic. But it's sex without any longing. That's what's
Speaker 1: so interesting about it that whether or not sex is
Speaker 1: still sexy if there are no barriers to obtaining it.
Speaker 1: I mean, when the only sound effect is zip zip,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound very sexy to me in my opinion,
Speaker 1: like they all want to they're all horny for zippers.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're going to be horny for zippers.
Speaker 1: I finally feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade
Speaker 1: to anyone who's into zippers. Um. At the time that
Speaker 1: this was being written, though, a lot of people were
Speaker 1: transitioning over to using zippers, because there had been months
Speaker 1: before and zippers were considered by like serving Christian groups
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties to be this tool of satan
Speaker 1: that would enable licentiousness for everybody because you just be
Speaker 1: able to zip. So yeah, you wouldn't have to get
Speaker 1: laced in or up in yourself in anymore. It's also
Speaker 1: very like technology. It is very amazing because like I
Speaker 1: don't know how zippers work, becos are amazing. I feel
Speaker 1: like I do know how zippers work. What sticks them together?
Speaker 1: The zipper zip? It's like two it's teeth, it's teeth.
Speaker 1: Here's my question. Could you make a zipper? Given plastic?
Speaker 1: Could you construct a zipper? Could I made you anything
Speaker 1: that I understand? And you handed me a raw chicken,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could cook the chicken like
Speaker 1: I mean, I could, but I don't know if it
Speaker 1: would be good. And I've been eating chicken for a
Speaker 1: very long time. In COVID times. You need to step
Speaker 1: up for meals. I am cooking my own meals, just
Speaker 1: not a lot of chicken because I'm scared of salmonella.
Speaker 1: I will say, reading this book and then remembering it
Speaker 1: was written in does make it like, oh, he didn't
Speaker 1: understand what genetic engineering was, but he nailed genetic engineering,
Speaker 1: yeah in a scary way. Goot on you for figuring
Speaker 1: that out before he understood genetic engineering completely. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of those things I loved about the introduction to this
Speaker 1: book where they're talking about creating these embryos and using
Speaker 1: different mechanisms to make the embryo stronger and better. Um.
Speaker 1: I've been going through IVF for the past year, and
Speaker 1: you end up thinking about your body in this incredibly
Speaker 1: mechanical way. I was like, all right, I can't have
Speaker 1: any hot pass this week because this is the week
Speaker 1: where such and such chemical process has to happen, and
Speaker 1: therefore I can't have any best and this is why
Speaker 1: I can't have any mercury, so I can't eat any fish.
Speaker 1: And this is the problem that could result if you
Speaker 1: have teese. So UM, in a way, I wish I
Speaker 1: could just have a detachable womb where they could just
Speaker 1: put all the chemicals into it. Because you do. Maybe
Speaker 1: it is because, um, because I'm going through VF and
Speaker 1: because I just didn't have sex and then you get pregnant.
Speaker 1: It has started to feel like an unbelievably mechanical process
Speaker 1: to me, which is exactly the way they portray it here,
Speaker 1: where yeah, it's just all chemicals and a big metal womb.
Speaker 1: I wonder what old A Hucks would feel about IBF.
Speaker 1: Was IVF around in the sixties when he no, not
Speaker 1: even that's not that different. I feel like everybody looked
Speaker 1: at me, like, but it didn't become like a thing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like it maybe was a
Speaker 1: thing that like labs were doing, but it didn't become
Speaker 1: like a thing people were doing until like the eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties. Right. But he's he's clearly invested in the
Speaker 1: medical field and in science and technology, so um. He
Speaker 1: Also I don't know if you guys read the same
Speaker 1: version as I do, but my version has like interviews
Speaker 1: and a biography and stuff. He wanted to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: but he was nearly blinded for two years and that yeah,
Speaker 1: he just like went blind because that's a thing that
Speaker 1: happens to people. And uh, he recovered site later, but
Speaker 1: always had site issues and it halted his dreams of
Speaker 1: becoming a doctor. And that's how he sort of ended
Speaker 1: up studying literature. That's sort of that's like one of
Speaker 1: the stories that I feel like only happened in the
Speaker 1: Victorian era and then it got better, Like just random
Speaker 1: things like that happened. Well, it happened, and never have
Speaker 1: I ever to Davy. She couldn't walk for a year
Speaker 1: and then she could walk. But also that is fictional
Speaker 1: What it's not Bendy Kalin's exact life. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: mind blown. Yeah, that does actually inform the reading of
Speaker 1: this book too, because it does feel like it's all
Speaker 1: about predestination and things you can't control. Obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of themes within that. But or someone who wanted
Speaker 1: to be one thing but couldn't was like physically barred
Speaker 1: from that. That makes sense. So let's I do want
Speaker 1: to ask before we get into the plot and the
Speaker 1: story of this book. The major theme at the beginning
Speaker 1: is this idea that the eggs and the sperm are
Speaker 1: put together into an egg, and that egg is not
Speaker 1: genetically engineered, but engineered through the scientific process that I'll
Speaker 1: just actually, you know, fictionalize is too predestined, likes, dislikes, contentment,
Speaker 1: happiness level, which to some degree I think kind of
Speaker 1: exists naturally. Like this is a big philosophical question. But
Speaker 1: where do you guys stand on the idea of nature
Speaker 1: versus nurture and that sort of thing. Do you think
Speaker 1: sort of the way you come out is the person
Speaker 1: you are. Well, I mean again, in like the world
Speaker 1: of ivf um, something that doctors do that I think
Speaker 1: is not especially nice to do to women is to
Speaker 1: make you feel lie. You know, if you have too
Speaker 1: much sugar during this pregnancy, first of all, the baby
Speaker 1: will probably die, but if it doesn't, then it will
Speaker 1: be unhappy forever. Like that's been showing to increase the
Speaker 1: rest of depression. I think. I don't know if anybody
Speaker 1: else is on the nightmares fertility train yet, but if
Speaker 1: you get on it, you will be made to feel
Speaker 1: guilty for eating anything other than you greens and like
Speaker 1: maybe a little broccoli for punch for the next nine months. Jennifer,
Speaker 1: eat a cupcake. Your baby will be fine, and you're
Speaker 1: it's gonna make her, don't. I mean, your baby is
Speaker 1: going to be so sure. Every need to eat a
Speaker 1: cupcake to give everybody else an advantage to catch up.
Speaker 1: That's very nice. You're welcome. My friend is eight months
Speaker 1: pregnant and she went to home depot pick up something
Speaker 1: and like it was like dropped off to her car
Speaker 1: and she got out and the woman who dropped off
Speaker 1: was like, oh you oh, how how far are you along?
Speaker 1: You're getting an epidural? Like immediately act within one second
Speaker 1: of seeing her, was like, are you getting an epidural?
Speaker 1: She's like Yeah, everyone has an opinion on pregnant women
Speaker 1: and how babies are made. Yeah, And I think that
Speaker 1: part of that opinion is like the unknown. Also, people
Speaker 1: are just so scared and they want to control it.
Speaker 1: But I feel like for every study that's like, don't
Speaker 1: do this, then there's another study that's like, oh, but
Speaker 1: maybe if you do this, maybe It's like I feel
Speaker 1: like the fact that we don't have clear cut answers
Speaker 1: makes people more scared and more anxious to control it.
Speaker 1: I feel like if men got pregnant, we would know
Speaker 1: so much more. Let me, let me actually fix that.
Speaker 1: Some men do get pregnant, yes, but if the majority
Speaker 1: aready of people who got pregnant were men, I feel
Speaker 1: like our research and our understanding of pregnancy and fertility
Speaker 1: would be completely different. Yes. Absolutely. And when I when
Speaker 1: I think of like nature versus nurture, I always think about,
Speaker 1: like how when I was just coming out, I was
Speaker 1: so obsessed with, like looking at all the research of
Speaker 1: the gay gene because I was like wanting to have
Speaker 1: an answer or like a definitive sort of like scientifically
Speaker 1: backed reason as to why I was gay, or like
Speaker 1: wanting to answer that. But like it just it feels
Speaker 1: so Now as an adult, I'm like that just feels
Speaker 1: so so so like just a singular mind to try
Speaker 1: to think of things so explicitly in black and white
Speaker 1: in that way that like that there can be a
Speaker 1: gene to do that or like that everything you know,
Speaker 1: like all of that that there is just like a
Speaker 1: nature side of things, and it is such essential ism
Speaker 1: in a way. That's what that really um props up
Speaker 1: white supremacist patriarchal structures of like, oh, women are biologically assists.
Speaker 1: Women are biologically designed to like stay home and take
Speaker 1: care of their young or you know, they would use
Speaker 1: that back in the day against like students of color
Speaker 1: who are like, well they're just not as smart. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of unpack in this book
Speaker 1: about that, but it's like justifying all of that through.
Speaker 1: It's just the biology of gender or race or ethnicity.
Speaker 1: It's it's all women's heads are just smaller, smaller. Wonderful.
Speaker 1: I have this wonderful quote from the eighteen forties. Um,
Speaker 1: my next book deals with medicine. In the eighteen I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, you just have one of those, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the most darling thing I've ever.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite quote because I've been saying it to
Speaker 1: Daniel um every time I forget anything. There's a doctor
Speaker 1: who measured women's heads and found that a woman's head
Speaker 1: is too small for intellect, but just big enough for love. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's the most adorable sexes. You know what I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cross stitch that onto a pillow for each
Speaker 1: And I know what is your next book because I
Speaker 1: am fast? Um Well, okay, first of all, I have
Speaker 1: to sell it. Um so, if I'm working on the
Speaker 1: proposal for all of quarantine, it's about Madame Rossell. She
Speaker 1: was an abortionist in the eighteen forties and the first
Speaker 1: female millionaire independently in America. Um so, she made a
Speaker 1: massive fortune selling birth control pills and performing abortions. At
Speaker 1: a time point abortions were still legal. Uh and then
Speaker 1: the medical establishments started cracking down on them very hard
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty nine, in part because Madame Ristol was
Speaker 1: just like buying a mention in New York. She was
Speaker 1: unbelievably rich. She was a British self taught immigrant who
Speaker 1: learned how to perform abortions, supposedly never lost a single
Speaker 1: patient um got into a huge fight with the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: and the archbishop was planning to build a house right
Speaker 1: across from the cathedral in New York, and Madame Rossell
Speaker 1: I bedam for that lot by a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and then built her mention there where she performed abortions
Speaker 1: and she faked her own. She faked to ron gas
Speaker 1: at the end. It's awesome, it's a great story. Question
Speaker 1: she became a millionaire before Madame C J. Walker? Yes,
Speaker 1: I interesting think so. I'm pretty sure c J. Walker
Speaker 1: was like the eighteen seventies, right, I believe so because
Speaker 1: she was born C J. Walker wasn't born ntil eighteen sixty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Madame Rossell was eight and forties. This isn't Women's
Speaker 1: Millionaire podcast. I know. Well, I think so going back
Speaker 1: to the idea of like science and biology, I always
Speaker 1: you know, the phrase a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Speaker 1: I kind of always thought that with like meddling in
Speaker 1: genetics and like genetic engineering, where it's like I bet
Speaker 1: if you get down to like the electron level, there
Speaker 1: might be a way to understand these things. But until then,
Speaker 1: like thinking we know these certain things and like playing
Speaker 1: God is uh a nightmarish? Eventually I think Ford, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry playing forward of course Edith nightmares. You
Speaker 1: can pick your baby's I color now well, which was
Speaker 1: so fascinating playing, but only out of the colors if
Speaker 1: you if you want, and if you want to play
Speaker 1: an extra ten thousand dollars because you really came, they
Speaker 1: can Testie Brieus that you have and they can tell
Speaker 1: them all of the eye colors. So if you really
Speaker 1: want a blue eyed baby, you couldn't pick the one
Speaker 1: that has blue eyes. But again, only only if you
Speaker 1: Jennifer and Daniela has recessive blue. I'm not getting a
Speaker 1: baby that because I immediately said, okay, I'll hit ask
Speaker 1: for ten thou dollars. I want violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor. Violet.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going for. And it was explained to
Speaker 1: me that that is not an option. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit it's a little bit uh Jurassic Park like just
Speaker 1: because they thought whether they could, they didn't think whether
Speaker 1: they should. Well, look, I mean it immediately, okay, if
Speaker 1: they can do that, um, I think when they told
Speaker 1: me they could do that, I immediately said so like
Speaker 1: theoretically can you tell me which one will be told
Speaker 1: if if we take a boy like he's there going
Speaker 1: to be one that's six four um. And they explained
Speaker 1: to me that it was both illegal and entirely unethical
Speaker 1: to do that. But yeah, but my question is why
Speaker 1: is high color ethic but height isn't. And so as
Speaker 1: soon as that's possible, don't we think on ethical? People
Speaker 1: will pay you extra for it, like the yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: kid that can wear bangs. This is Popcorn Book Club.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: back with Popcorn Book Club. All right, but let's get
Speaker 1: into the plots. So yes, all right, Karama, you want
Speaker 1: to take the first The first act of the plot
Speaker 1: introduced us to the cast of character. Great. First of all,
Speaker 1: this book really has no ptagonists. A thing that pissed
Speaker 1: me off. Everyone is bad is trying hard, but she's
Speaker 1: has a protagonist and more just a flat female character
Speaker 1: at any resolution that pissed me off a lot. I literally,
Speaker 1: no one is the main character in this book. So
Speaker 1: we enter in a factory tour, as was previously established,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of how we get the world that
Speaker 1: we're in. We understand that things have changed. We are
Speaker 1: using a different time system. It's the year after Ford.
Speaker 1: It's like six hundred something after Ford. And the Ford
Speaker 1: seems to be Henry Ford of model t Forward fame
Speaker 1: and Built Ford Tough fame, um. And these babies are
Speaker 1: indeed built Ford tough. They Ford is also the inventor
Speaker 1: of the modernissembly line, which yes, correct, um, which is
Speaker 1: how they make the babies. They are built Ford Tough.
Speaker 1: And they have these different classifications or casts, and they
Speaker 1: which is a fun, fun entry into the deep world
Speaker 1: of racism that exists in this book. Uh So they
Speaker 1: have these different casts, and they create different casts in
Speaker 1: these bottles. And you find out that there is this
Speaker 1: method that they use to bud these embryos so that
Speaker 1: they create dozens and dozens of twins. And page nine
Speaker 1: is when we get our first real, sort of very
Speaker 1: racist explanation of this birth thing where it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we are able to create this many but in Mombassa,
Speaker 1: which is for those of you who don't know, Uh,
Speaker 1: in Mombassa they're able to make so many more. But
Speaker 1: have you seen a Negro egg? And I was just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this is where we're at. And I'm glad that it
Speaker 1: came up on the ninth page, but also I'm terrified
Speaker 1: that it came up on the ninth page. So does
Speaker 1: it keep coming And you're like, yes, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my first yikes that I highlighted. I'm so excited for
Speaker 1: all of the yikes. I texted my friend and I
Speaker 1: was like, I feel like, if you are a person
Speaker 1: of color and you read a book that gets weird racially,
Speaker 1: you should be able to stop at the first point
Speaker 1: that it gets weird and then say to everyone, yes,
Speaker 1: I did read that book, Like I feel like I
Speaker 1: could have read nine pages and then told everyone I
Speaker 1: read the book. I also want to remind everyone that
Speaker 1: that Ford was the type of guy who had a
Speaker 1: newspaper called the Darborn Independent. And there's a very famous,
Speaker 1: a very famous headline, UH from the Forward International Weekly
Speaker 1: UH called the International Jew colin the World's Problem. So
Speaker 1: he is not a great guy in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: That's sort of like his famous, like big headline. Because
Speaker 1: that's so terrible. I can't even make any of the
Speaker 1: jokes that I would want to make if it were
Speaker 1: like it's so bad. It's like and the chapters are
Speaker 1: like exactly the type of things that people on like that,
Speaker 1: like the neo Nazis on Twitter, uh, talk about where
Speaker 1: they're like how Jews always played the victim, like you know,
Speaker 1: how Jews took over the world, how they are not
Speaker 1: American and like you know, like all the dumb like
Speaker 1: greatest hits. So yeah, I mean is bad. I think
Speaker 1: there's also a problem. One of my my prior books
Speaker 1: was about treatment of diseases and it's and it's about
Speaker 1: heros the bottom um and what do you read about
Speaker 1: doctors practicing from I'm gonna say, like, do not thank
Speaker 1: you thirty is fucking impossible to find ones that are
Speaker 1: not at least enthusiastically interested in eugenics and what you
Speaker 1: can do. Um. It felt like I kept going along
Speaker 1: and I would be like, oh, this is great, like yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're working with orphans and oh ship, no, they're
Speaker 1: sterilizing the note they're in Eugenicist No one. Alexander Graham
Speaker 1: Bell was a eugenicist. Everybody to eugenis. They're all eugenicis.
Speaker 1: It's bad. But so in this world we have the
Speaker 1: director of the or is the director different from Henry
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure that out. Yeah, I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Henry the director is the one who then leaves at
Speaker 1: the end. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So there's this
Speaker 1: guy named Henry. He's introduced, Uh, we are introduced this
Speaker 1: woman named Lenna who has lupus. That's super casually thrown
Speaker 1: in there. Dude, we say Lenna. I was saying Lenina
Speaker 1: on the show, they say Lenina, but in the audio
Speaker 1: book that I listened to make this bearable, they said Lenna.
Speaker 1: So I've been conditioned that comes up later to say Lennon.
Speaker 1: I think it's considered it's after Lennon, And yes, it's
Speaker 1: not exactly veiled. No, it's not. No, it's very very
Speaker 1: clearly stated. And I was like, oh, okay, that's where
Speaker 1: we're at. So we meet Lenina or Lenina however you
Speaker 1: want to say. It is correct. She's not real and
Speaker 1: she sucks anyway, not as bad as everybody else, but
Speaker 1: she sucks at She's passive. She's just look, she wants
Speaker 1: to get laid and travel and that's it. She's like,
Speaker 1: she's like Daisy Buchanan and that she is just the
Speaker 1: representation of the system, you know what I mean. She
Speaker 1: like Daisy is actively bad in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: But when we do our great get of somebody in
Speaker 1: the future, we will talk about her. But so we
Speaker 1: meet Lenina or Lenina, we meet Um, we meet Henry,
Speaker 1: and uh, we are realizing that this world is different
Speaker 1: from ours, and that there's this conditioning that happens, this
Speaker 1: um sort of hypno what did they call it? Paid it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hypnopedic hypnopedia, where it's basically like sleep training with sound,
Speaker 1: where they tell you these platitudes um, and they enforce
Speaker 1: the cast syst um where it's like, well, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that I'm not an epsalon. I would never want
Speaker 1: to play with those children. They wear khaki or the
Speaker 1: Gamas hate khaki. Ya, isn't it They reinforce racism in
Speaker 1: your sleep. Yes, also a hatred of khaki, which feels unfair,
Speaker 1: almost as unfair as the racism. Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: no one looks good in khaki, so maybe that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. Do you look good in khaki? I think
Speaker 1: I look kai, I look bad. I don't. Maybe dold
Speaker 1: you imagine you or me Dana and head to tokaki
Speaker 1: and I feel like I feel like Laura drn looks
Speaker 1: good in Khaki. Everything all right, She's an out liar.
Speaker 1: She is no one can compare themselves to Laura Durn
Speaker 1: and feel like it was a fair comparison. This is
Speaker 1: just to say that I feel as if I had
Speaker 1: been sleep told that Khaki is bad because I don't
Speaker 1: think I look in Khaki. Yeah. So there they have
Speaker 1: this peptic sleep training, and then we learn more about
Speaker 1: how their destructions, and everybody's supposed to be doing activities
Speaker 1: all the time and nobody's supposed to be alone. And
Speaker 1: we get to meet Franny, who's Lenina's friend. Franny. I
Speaker 1: think it's my favorite character because she's just like, she's like,
Speaker 1: have you just been having sex with Henry? You need
Speaker 1: to go do somebody else. Don't have another man. Also,
Speaker 1: I love your foe Moroccan belt, like asked Henry where
Speaker 1: he got it. She feels like Judy Greer would have
Speaker 1: played her if they had made this in two three money.
Speaker 1: So we meet these characters. Nothing really happens more than
Speaker 1: just establishing characters establishing the world. And this future world
Speaker 1: has no family structure, so they very quickly established that
Speaker 1: the idea of motherhood is extremely vulgar and the idea
Speaker 1: of being born instead of being canted is like almost smut.
Speaker 1: I think they refer to it as like pornographic and
Speaker 1: smutty and all this gross stuff, and they're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: these people don't know the difference between science and smut
Speaker 1: and the line where that exists, so it's really hard
Speaker 1: for them to talk about it. And um, we also
Speaker 1: learned that everybody has sex kind of without any feeling attached,
Speaker 1: no real relationships attached, because if you make relationships, then
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to make families. And uh, there is
Speaker 1: this or at least attachments, not necessarily families in the
Speaker 1: like nuclear family structure, but there are no real attachments
Speaker 1: and the goal is to have everyone and everyone belongs
Speaker 1: to everyone else, except not really because everyone's straight, which
Speaker 1: was very funny to me. I was like, if everyone
Speaker 1: belongs to everyone else, shouldn't everyone belong to every And
Speaker 1: also the whole point is that they don't reproduce it,
Speaker 1: so like most of the women, they don't they like
Speaker 1: for sterilized, but like not all of them, you know,
Speaker 1: for reasons that they explain. But then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they just make everyone get yeah, or at
Speaker 1: least like experimental people do experiment orgies with everybody, I think,
Speaker 1: but the the orgies have meted out gender, so it's
Speaker 1: like six of one six of the other. It does
Speaker 1: feel like the I mean obviously was written in nine
Speaker 1: so there's a lot it could have been updated, but
Speaker 1: it feels like everything is so regimented, like everyone belongs
Speaker 1: to everyone else. If you're a boy and you're a
Speaker 1: girl and you're an alpha plus and you're an alpha plus,
Speaker 1: like it had just still has to all like fit
Speaker 1: in this totalitarian regime. I do think that that's also
Speaker 1: important to start talking about the characters cast. So Lenina
Speaker 1: is a beta minus in the book, but a beta
Speaker 1: plus on the show, which I was like, I think
Speaker 1: in the book I noticed in the book, I don't
Speaker 1: think they specified she was here. Find it keep talking
Speaker 1: else because because I just sort of filled it in
Speaker 1: because she like made fun of gammas and so you're like,
Speaker 1: she's not a gamma, and we know she is, so
Speaker 1: I just sort of like you just sort of fill
Speaker 1: in the blanks of the I was confused. I thought
Speaker 1: she was an alpha because she was having That was
Speaker 1: the thing. There's intercast sex. I don't think any women
Speaker 1: are alpha's in the book, I think, and women Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're I think it's like the professional women
Speaker 1: are betas they have they have smaller heads, so they
Speaker 1: can't think as much. They can only love, um, but
Speaker 1: they cannot so creative. But his creativity stops at that,
Speaker 1: like it's let me build this entire new world. But
Speaker 1: nobody is queer and no women are alpha's. That's as
Speaker 1: far as gay people didn't exist yet, right, Okay, so
Speaker 1: then we need our hero Bernard Marks, who everybody hates
Speaker 1: for a good reason. It turns out like the very
Speaker 1: very good reason. Um. Despite a fact that everybody belongs
Speaker 1: to everybody else in this brief new world, nobody wants
Speaker 1: to belong to Bernard Marks because they all agree that
Speaker 1: he sucks. So he's slightly he's an alpha plus, but
Speaker 1: he's slightly shorter than the other alpha pluses. And there
Speaker 1: is an ongoing and constant rumor that alcohol was spilled
Speaker 1: into his bottle when he was being decandid, which is
Speaker 1: such a shitty way to bully someone in this UM.
Speaker 1: I think it's also important to know the reason that
Speaker 1: is a rumors, because they do that to lower casts. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: but yes, to make. Isn't it funny than even in
Speaker 1: this dystopian future where everyone is constantly happy and distracted,
Speaker 1: there's still ship. They figured out how to be shitty
Speaker 1: to one another immediately short I hope they'll have to
Speaker 1: lie on Tinder. There is one point where it's like
Speaker 1: I heard that through a friend of a friend of
Speaker 1: a friend that it really is the rumor is true.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she knew somebody was in the room.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah No, it's just total shit talking. So this
Speaker 1: future of huge amounts of distraction and drugs and orgies
Speaker 1: has not made people stop being shitty to each other.
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's okay to Polly Bernard because
Speaker 1: he does suck. They're just going home for the wrong
Speaker 1: reasons because he has a citty personality. He has a
Speaker 1: really personality personality of a guy named Bernard. I also
Speaker 1: think another thing I want to say, I'm still looking
Speaker 1: because I could have sworn it that she was a
Speaker 1: Beta minus, but I could have been wrong. So Danta
Speaker 1: so carefully to you publicly, Mike, you can cut that
Speaker 1: part out if you'd like. I love vigilant you were no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm at the apology, not the not the beta minus part.
Speaker 1: So um, the alpha's are born one egg, one person,
Speaker 1: so each alpha is unique and every other cast is
Speaker 1: born out of this buchanizization methods. Bakovski Y. It's named after,
Speaker 1: it's named after. I looked this up. He was basically,
Speaker 1: So basically this entire book was Eldess Huxley's like subtweet
Speaker 1: to the British political system. And he was a French
Speaker 1: like minister industrialist who like was an organizer in France,
Speaker 1: and so that's what he was facing an Alpa. So
Speaker 1: basically all the names and everything is like are real
Speaker 1: people who are just like people that sort of embodied
Speaker 1: these like I'm putting in air quotes like ideals of
Speaker 1: like organization and empiricism. So we haven't heard and he yes,
Speaker 1: uh so here's a cross on Lanina that's very pneumatic,
Speaker 1: which I think means musty um woman think who it
Speaker 1: very means like curving. I looked at it. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's it's like but also the chairs are pneumatic,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a fluffy, like justush a chair cushing. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so here's a cross on Lanina. She's very popular. Everybody
Speaker 1: likes Landina Um, but she's been going out with Henry
Speaker 1: Foster for a Whileie, it's starting to seem like they're monogamous.
Speaker 1: It's been a few months, she hasn't seen anybody else,
Speaker 1: so she feels like she should go out with somebody else,
Speaker 1: and Bernard offers to take her to a reservation where
Speaker 1: she'll get to see native people in their native habitat,
Speaker 1: and she thinks that would be interesting because her other
Speaker 1: offer is going off with Benito Hoover, who is very
Speaker 1: nice and everybody likes him. But he took her to
Speaker 1: the North Pole and the hotel that they stayed at
Speaker 1: only had twenty five squash courts and his weird ears
Speaker 1: and it's weird. He's a really nice person. Everybody agrees said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the most redeemable person for sure. We all agree with that.
Speaker 1: Benito is a super nice guy and Lenina should have
Speaker 1: gone off with him. She goes on a date with
Speaker 1: Bernard and first of all, he complains about having to
Speaker 1: do anything. I guess I just want us to be alone. Yes,
Speaker 1: he just wants them to be alone in a park,
Speaker 1: which which is fine. But she wanted to go see
Speaker 1: a sporting match, like she came up with a lot
Speaker 1: of ideas of things that they could do. She was like, yes,
Speaker 1: have to exist. I don't know, she's trying to come
Speaker 1: up with the first date with the next day. It
Speaker 1: means something to talk about. Don't play the hell out
Speaker 1: of all. Oh my god, yes, the elector great. That
Speaker 1: is the least sinister part of this society is that
Speaker 1: like everyone after work like goes to play like the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like dodgeball, like a dodge They got helicopters
Speaker 1: to they get a little high and go like, God,
Speaker 1: I wish we had in a society. We're after work
Speaker 1: everyone like joined an adult sports league. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: seems delightful. So Lendi a super cool She takes him
Speaker 1: to a women's wrestling match. They just kind of authentically
Speaker 1: say that Bernard is horrible to all of her friends
Speaker 1: and Franny, who again it's a wonderful character. It's like,
Speaker 1: why would you go on another day with him? So
Speaker 1: that's nice, Like people have some autonomy here. They don't
Speaker 1: have to belong to everyone else to the extent that
Speaker 1: they have to go out with people they don't like.
Speaker 1: And Lindia is very clear, I just want to go
Speaker 1: to the reservation. I think it'll be cool to see
Speaker 1: well that also he's one of few people because of
Speaker 1: his job and because of his position as an alpha,
Speaker 1: who has permission to go to the reservation, So she
Speaker 1: can't even do it with somebody nice like Benito. It
Speaker 1: has to be with Bernard, which just feels like some
Speaker 1: guys dream. Like some guy's dream is to be like
Speaker 1: I can take you to Cuba and a rich boyfriend
Speaker 1: who's like, okay, I'll date him just until we take
Speaker 1: the trip to Paris, who would no one, no one,
Speaker 1: but before we go onto the reservation, which is I
Speaker 1: think going to be a topic. Uh, I just want
Speaker 1: to talk about Bernard a little bit as a character.
Speaker 1: To me, it was very funny that the character that
Speaker 1: you read that you assume would be the hero and
Speaker 1: protagonist of this story, which in a different story, the
Speaker 1: alpha who's so smart he sort of sees through the
Speaker 1: bullshit and he's a little bit shorter than everyone else
Speaker 1: in another story would be the hero. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: like that would lead the revolution. And in any like
Speaker 1: dystopian y a novel, it's always like the person who's
Speaker 1: like a little different, who people don't really like. But
Speaker 1: in this one, Bernard is almost immediately revealed to be
Speaker 1: like a very petty asshole. He's insecure that he's short,
Speaker 1: and he's like a whiny little asshole, and he's also
Speaker 1: like a huge coward like later in the book to
Speaker 1: his nice Friendholds, he's like a jealous book. So that's
Speaker 1: what I found very funny that Bernard is set up
Speaker 1: to be our first protagonist and then it's revealed to
Speaker 1: be just like a little cry baby zero zero, I'm
Speaker 1: protagonists here. Yeah, I found that I found his ark
Speaker 1: to be very satisfying, Like I was very much into
Speaker 1: him having like a crying whiny And yes, you're listening
Speaker 1: to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio and we'll
Speaker 1: be back right after the break. So we're back with
Speaker 1: Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio. Shout out to Helmholtz,
Speaker 1: who is also the only other He's great, he's our hero.
Speaker 1: He's my favorite character for sure, but like he's such
Speaker 1: a side character and it's just so interesting. It feels
Speaker 1: like that one episode of Master of None where we
Speaker 1: just followed the side characters, Like I would love to
Speaker 1: just follow Helmholtz and figure out what his day to
Speaker 1: day is like, because we only see him in relation
Speaker 1: to Bernard and then later in relation to John who
Speaker 1: I'm just going to call him his name because his
Speaker 1: nickname is not Great. No. Yeah, people get really excited
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, it is. It is so weird. I
Speaker 1: really misread the opening of this book because I think
Speaker 1: I've read enough y I dystopian novels, and I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be Lenona and Bernard and they're going to
Speaker 1: fall in love and they both are a little different,
Speaker 1: Like it was the hint to me of she wanted
Speaker 1: to be monogamous, and I was like, oh, maybe she
Speaker 1: feels differently too, and she feels feelings of love and
Speaker 1: she's gonna and Bernard's going to be the one. They're
Speaker 1: going to together and lighten everyone. Nope, that was absolutely
Speaker 1: not it. And neither of them are the protagonists. And
Speaker 1: Leonida gets no conclusion, which really bothered me. Uh, she's
Speaker 1: just out there, No no conclusion, Melissa. She is beaten
Speaker 1: and left maybe alive or dead. Yeah, She's said with
Speaker 1: Henry Foster at the end, but he runs away because
Speaker 1: he's understandably pretty freaked out by the whole situation. Yeah
Speaker 1: she is. I think this is the only situation. I
Speaker 1: can remember spoiler jemming Head where a character is left
Speaker 1: for dead by the author, where he's like, don't care anymore? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I meant, and they like don't
Speaker 1: they don't. He doesn't call her out by name, like
Speaker 1: that was a choice is supposed to be because to me,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if that was her because I also
Speaker 1: said she had blue eyes, which is different than purple,
Speaker 1: and they didn't call her by name, and he was
Speaker 1: in this rage. I feel like it was intentionally left
Speaker 1: like ambiguous. But I don't know even will get there okay,
Speaker 1: but is better than everybody else and everything's he just knows.
Speaker 1: He knows he'll never be as good as Shakespeare, but
Speaker 1: he wants to be. Also, he's so awesome that they
Speaker 1: changed this gender in the show. I thought, yeah, they
Speaker 1: made yes, it's um, it's a really cool choice. It's
Speaker 1: a woman who's in charge of making movies in the show,
Speaker 1: feeling yeah yeah, and she's trying to do something new
Speaker 1: with them. But what she's my favorite character in the show.
Speaker 1: But we'll get to that later. So um, we meet
Speaker 1: Bernard and then they go on their fun cool date
Speaker 1: New Mexico to go explore a native reservation. Cool, and
Speaker 1: they keep referring to it as like the Savage Lands
Speaker 1: or something like that, something equally terrible, but the focus
Speaker 1: is savage. And before they go, as previously mentioned, Bernard
Speaker 1: needs specific permits and specific permission, so he goes to
Speaker 1: the director and it's like, yo, can you sign my paperwork?
Speaker 1: And then he's like, you're going to see the savages?
Speaker 1: Oh my, what I was your age? I will say
Speaker 1: this and then I will finish my voices. When I
Speaker 1: was your age, I went to the reservation with a
Speaker 1: young girl and then she went to missing and then
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, that's weird that you don't care. And
Speaker 1: then chump forward does carry his nightmare cboda, and then
Speaker 1: he covers it up by being like like we were
Speaker 1: a lover and up. And also it's just one person
Speaker 1: who cares like that covers it like that, right, we're
Speaker 1: all part of one large social being and she's gone,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's life. So then we go to
Speaker 1: the reservation in Tienne. You want to talk about the reservation? Ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I read this late at night, So let's go just
Speaker 1: instead of we can sort of assume that people have
Speaker 1: read it. What we're just your general impression. Great. So
Speaker 1: they go to the reservation and like Lenona and Bernard
Speaker 1: are just blown away by the fact that people are
Speaker 1: aging and are not as fit as this their world
Speaker 1: and are like compliment like not complimenting. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: we're marking on their like hygiene and looks and bodies
Speaker 1: in a really gross, terrible way. Um. They are they
Speaker 1: witnessed like a very violent public ritual. And they meet
Speaker 1: Bernard meets this woman Linda, who turns out to be
Speaker 1: the lost woman from Um, the the who the director
Speaker 1: was in love with. And we find out that she's
Speaker 1: had a son, and that son is John, And we
Speaker 1: also learned about him that he like even though he
Speaker 1: spent his whole life on the reservation, he's kind of
Speaker 1: the outsider. Um. Everyone treats him and his mother, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, mother is a dirty word in this world.
Speaker 1: Um treats his mother, uh like outsiders there. They mocked them,
Speaker 1: they abuse them. UM. And one of the big things
Speaker 1: about John is that he's learned to read because his
Speaker 1: mother or maybe the collection of Shakespeare was in there
Speaker 1: on the reservation, wasn't It wasn't his mom's right or
Speaker 1: was it his lover his mom's mother's lover. And one
Speaker 1: of the big problems with his mom is that she
Speaker 1: wants to have sex with everyone because that was very
Speaker 1: normal in the world person she grew up and everybody
Speaker 1: hates her as a result. She's been conditioned being Yeah. Completely,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of slut shaming. Yeah, in a way
Speaker 1: where you're like, wait, eldest, is this are you in
Speaker 1: favor of this? What is your because right? I gotta
Speaker 1: say I thought there was some wonderful comedy, even though
Speaker 1: it was so much slut shaming and the reaction was poor,
Speaker 1: but just the funniness of like I sucked all your husbands?
Speaker 1: Who cares? What is it? It's like a sick mom
Speaker 1: of like, that's what we do? You want to My
Speaker 1: husband's like, my god, oh silly Linda. She just doesn't
Speaker 1: get it. But that's not how that happened. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of violence. I thought. I thought it was
Speaker 1: sort of funny. Um and also sit coming not in
Speaker 1: a in a hahawey. Um had the way that jumping
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit. John is like, oh, I love
Speaker 1: Lenina so much. I love her, but she's a Harlot,
Speaker 1: but strength it okay. Well, look, Lenia never gets to
Speaker 1: have good sex. I hope she got to have great
Speaker 1: sex with Benito Hoover and Henry Foster, because when she
Speaker 1: first had sex with Bernard, he has sex with her,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards she's like, oh, that was nice, and
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, but I wish we hadn't had sex, Like,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that have been cooler? I couldn't wrote that up before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just so lame and like it is like the
Speaker 1: guy you have sex within college that you immediately like
Speaker 1: this was a mistake. Who like you think because he
Speaker 1: thinks he's so smart, he's special, but it's not and
Speaker 1: he's not even as smart as he thinks. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you just find out that that's smart. It's not smart.
Speaker 1: It's just being mean. Yes, you learn the difference of
Speaker 1: quickly at that age. Um, but Linda didn't don't do
Speaker 1: anything wrong, She's been conditioned a certain way. So then
Speaker 1: I feel like the next major plot machination, I'm sort
Speaker 1: of then moving us forward so we can talk more
Speaker 1: big big picture themes is Bernard you like his weird,
Speaker 1: petty like selfishness, like really for purely selfish reasons is like, whoa,
Speaker 1: won't it be a scandal and great for me in
Speaker 1: my social life and embarrass the director if I bring
Speaker 1: back Linda and John? Well yeah, I mean just He
Speaker 1: also knows that that he's going to he hears it
Speaker 1: through him helmeholds that he's going to be sent to Iceland,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm going to get one over on
Speaker 1: the director and actually send him to Icelander, you know,
Speaker 1: cast him off. And that's exactly what happens um, which
Speaker 1: is such a quick hint of Bernard's weaselness that like
Speaker 1: what we hates this world so much. But even when
Speaker 1: he gets a ticket out, which it later gets explained
Speaker 1: that maybe getting sent out of this world is like
Speaker 1: an okay thing is kind of like the best maybe
Speaker 1: the best, are you kidding? Or even as we learned
Speaker 1: to one of the tropical islands, it's just all the
Speaker 1: smart people who just want to hang out. I want
Speaker 1: a dream. Yeah, So he comes, he and Lenona come back,
Speaker 1: but he like doesn't really care about Lenona anymore because
Speaker 1: he's famous because he brings back John and uh and
Speaker 1: everyone's fascinated by John and once once too. It's basically
Speaker 1: like being friends with Beyonce or something where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can get you can meet Beyonce if you're friends
Speaker 1: with me, Like I, she's my roommate, and it's like shop,
Speaker 1: your roommate is Beyonce. So everyone wants to have sex
Speaker 1: with him because he's roommates with Beyonce. Um and and
Speaker 1: so he's like having a lot of sex now with
Speaker 1: like but even started to interrupt, even like less than
Speaker 1: it's like less than Beyonce. It's almost like the Fiji
Speaker 1: water Girl, like a meme for the moment because as
Speaker 1: we learned that like like John, celebrity does like Wayne
Speaker 1: and then by default like Bernard's crash, as we'll learn,
Speaker 1: but like he just is like the trend of the moment,
Speaker 1: people like, oh, what's it? Like? I think if John
Speaker 1: had played into the celebrity more and wanted to play
Speaker 1: the game like everybody can come see me, then it
Speaker 1: would have been different. I feel like it would have
Speaker 1: been closer to Beyonce as opposed to Fiji water Girl,
Speaker 1: which lovely throwback. Remember we're talking about it. I remember
Speaker 1: her pictures. And and also something that's important is that
Speaker 1: poor Linda also comes back and everyone is horrified by her.
Speaker 1: They call her, they call her fat and disgusting. I
Speaker 1: think she's like forty, I've um, and they're just horrified
Speaker 1: by regular normal aging. And she is wants to be
Speaker 1: on a permanent Soma holiday, which I don't think we've
Speaker 1: really touched on exactly what Soma is, but it seems
Speaker 1: like just an opiate some kind of like magical opiate
Speaker 1: um where they just take a little bit to feel,
Speaker 1: take a half a gramma day to like get your
Speaker 1: worries away or whatever, but then you can have a
Speaker 1: bunch and just it sounds like they're on Heroin. They're
Speaker 1: like Heroin and holiday. Yeah. And so she goes on
Speaker 1: a permanent Soma holiday and is going to die because
Speaker 1: of it. Um. But she's just so sad and miserable
Speaker 1: because she's been so cast away. She doesn't fit in
Speaker 1: either world. Um. And then John at the same time
Speaker 1: is starting to be very discouraged by this brave new
Speaker 1: world with such people in it. And he's read all Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: so he's like just in his room reading Shakespeare a
Speaker 1: lot and really rooting, and he doesn't want to go
Speaker 1: to a party with with with Bernard. And Bernard then
Speaker 1: gets like completely cast out by all of the cool people.
Speaker 1: I love that scene because they are they are in
Speaker 1: Bernard's house talking trash about him. Oh yeah, they're drinking
Speaker 1: his wine while they're talking about how he's deformed, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I heard from a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend that it's super true that there
Speaker 1: was alcohol in his bottle before he was decanted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they are the most fair weather friends. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not even They're like, if the forecast changes, we're
Speaker 1: not even sticking around. Yeah. They just really really hate him.
Speaker 1: Even in that section too, I think he starts talking
Speaker 1: about essentially like the nirties version of frenemies. I think
Speaker 1: all this is called like victim friend or like friend
Speaker 1: victim or something way more traumatic and traumatizing, which I
Speaker 1: thought it was hilarious. And then they the Archbishop song
Speaker 1: store whatever. Uh. It takes home Lenina and she's like,
Speaker 1: all right if she doesn't want to, but it's like fine.
Speaker 1: She was disappointed though, because uh, Lenna is developing feelings
Speaker 1: for John, and John clearly has feelings for Lenona, and
Speaker 1: but he doesn't know how to handle them, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to like operate with him because she's like,
Speaker 1: why doesn't he just have sex with me? I don't
Speaker 1: understand it, Like he likes me sometimes, but he doesn't.
Speaker 1: And so they go on this one weird day they
Speaker 1: go to a feeling uh, very racist feeling. I mean
Speaker 1: everything's racist. He uses the word oct roon like eight times,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, if you use the word oct
Speaker 1: roon and you're white, I have a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: and none of them are good. I I have a
Speaker 1: question about that word and not anything that I want
Speaker 1: to ask, just because I genuinely don't know it was ever.
Speaker 1: Was it ever used like in a as a non
Speaker 1: slur to just like in a legal setting ensive? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that it was used as a classification, much
Speaker 1: like the class the cast system that they have where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, okay, you get a little bit more
Speaker 1: rights because you're a quadroon instead of a mulatto, and
Speaker 1: you get a little bit more if you're an oct
Speaker 1: roon instead of a quadroon. But it was because of
Speaker 1: rights and because they were like if you're a little black,
Speaker 1: that's naughty. It's like that one drop rule. So even
Speaker 1: in its classification term as like terminology for just figuring out, Okay,
Speaker 1: how much of a person are you? That's sort of
Speaker 1: where it was. Oh, the word and the meaning is
Speaker 1: super asist. I'm mostly just just curious because I don't
Speaker 1: know that slur. I'm not very familiar whether it was
Speaker 1: always There is a very funny Key and Peele sketch
Speaker 1: where they use it, but other than that, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's ever been used positively. Good to know, Yes,
Speaker 1: you learned something new and it was not a slur
Speaker 1: I was familiar with. It's a it's an old timey one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so the theory is interesting. Oh, it is
Speaker 1: basically like a birth of a nation but future. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like sex, but sex the canting of a nation.
Speaker 1: That's like facing a white woman, right, and then the
Speaker 1: and then these three white male heroes come by and
Speaker 1: a helicopter and I don't know it's but the black man.
Speaker 1: The black man wants her so much that he wants
Speaker 1: to have her exclusively for a weekend. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: crazy thing. That's a crazy thing. The crazy thing is
Speaker 1: that he gets hit on the head on the head.
Speaker 1: She's in love with her now and wants to be
Speaker 1: with her and them to have an exclusive relationship. Fortunately
Speaker 1: she is safe by I guess three men who immediately
Speaker 1: have sex with her. It is an instinct. It ends
Speaker 1: with it ends with an orgy as all happy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A good movies do end group, you know. I do
Speaker 1: feel like every movie should end with a dance number
Speaker 1: of the whole cast dancing and having fun and like, momma,
Speaker 1: here we go again. There just like slum Dog Millionaires
Speaker 1: I have. But it's like that, but orgy and I
Speaker 1: would be okay with that, like to show that the
Speaker 1: cast has fun together, like I love the John sees
Speaker 1: that and his immediate thought was a fellow. Yeah, He's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: that's a blackamore another word used in the book, eldest,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Points for variety, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: But after the day, Lenona tries to make a move
Speaker 1: and she like zips off her a little cute outfit
Speaker 1: and he's like strumpet and runs away. I think she's
Speaker 1: very sad about it and confused. She's just confused. She's like,
Speaker 1: what's happening, Let's just have sex already. Um. Her outfits
Speaker 1: do seem really cute, she seems very fashionable, and to
Speaker 1: see more of that in the show. I will say,
Speaker 1: there are some things about this world that sounds super fun,
Speaker 1: Like the outfit seems very cute and cool, and the
Speaker 1: sense that that's like all the perfumes of different things
Speaker 1: like that sounds great, like the like orchestras of smells.
Speaker 1: I mean, the pheely sound great, like if you know,
Speaker 1: it's like three D. But like all sensory I go down.
Speaker 1: I'd be into that. Soma is just alcohol without a hangover.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd take halfrica it would also I will
Speaker 1: say I'm pro little mini personal helicopters. That's really fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is the impact of that on the environment, though,
Speaker 1: Like if they're electric helicopters, sure, yeah, my fantasy electric
Speaker 1: and you go play some electric golf with your friends
Speaker 1: after work. Yeah, it's electroc golf different from obstacle golf.
Speaker 1: That's my question. Oh sorry, I think it was. It's
Speaker 1: opted to both of them. There's electro magnetic golf and
Speaker 1: then there's obstacle golf. Definitely. Okay. I have a serious
Speaker 1: question when was miniature golf invented? Because did someone read
Speaker 1: this book and say, obstacle golf that's what we gotta DoD. Wow, Okay, wait,
Speaker 1: you know that the high five, the high five was
Speaker 1: only invented. You went to the moon before people high five. Okay, guys, yeah,
Speaker 1: eldest borrowed frum. Oh. I was really hoping it was
Speaker 1: the other way around. But that's okay, that's very disappointing,
Speaker 1: like almost disappointing. Is this whole book. That's our show
Speaker 1: for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm
Speaker 1: Danis Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Danish Schwartz with three z s. You can follow Jennifer
Speaker 1: Wright at jen Ashley Wright Karama, Donqua is at Karama Drama,
Speaker 1: Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f t W and Tian
Speaker 1: Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but
Speaker 1: she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christopher Hessiotes and were produced and edited by Mike
Speaker 1: John's Special thanks to David Wasserman. Next week we continue
Speaker 1: our discussion of Brave New World, the book, and then
Speaker 1: we will go into Brave New World series, which is
Speaker 1: an experience. So uh, Papa Soma and I get ready
Speaker 1: to listen. Popcorn Book Club is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. See you next week,