Speaker 1: It's ten thirty two PM in the basement of a
Speaker 1: dive bar in Delaware, and you're listening to Night Call,
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back Tonight Call a call in show
Speaker 1: for our dystopian reality. My name is Emily Yoshida. I
Speaker 1: am in Los Angeles. In with me on the other
Speaker 1: end of the line are Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hello. Hello.
Speaker 1: It is week two of Ye tow May. We're getting
Speaker 1: into it. We went straight to the top of the
Speaker 1: uh nostalgia ladder and we're gonna be talking about Fight
Speaker 1: Club later on in the episode, as well as a
Speaker 1: couple other ninety nine movies. I think we took the
Speaker 1: London Eye because I was am right. You just told
Speaker 1: me to think about the London I just goes around
Speaker 1: and around a circle. Man, it's a cycle. I love
Speaker 1: when people are like, what great civic project can we do?
Speaker 1: A giant ferris wheel? Like what kind of public transportation
Speaker 1: can we can we we undertake, you know, something to
Speaker 1: really put our money to good use. How about a
Speaker 1: thing that goes around and around and doesn't go anywhere. Um, yes,
Speaker 1: we are still talking about the Turn of the millennium.
Speaker 1: The White two k Era the year two thousand all
Speaker 1: of the above, and we got a night email from
Speaker 1: a listener about the turn of the millennium in a
Speaker 1: very special and very happy part of the world, So
Speaker 1: Malia writes, when I was very young at the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, there was one celebration. I was the
Speaker 1: perfect Asian target audience for the Millennium Celebration at Walt
Speaker 1: Disney World Resort, especially Epcot. They added temporary exhibits for
Speaker 1: other countries to add to the World Showcase side of
Speaker 1: the park, but the wildest and most aesthetic was the
Speaker 1: Taps Story of Nation's Parade, which Disney was so hype
Speaker 1: about they literally performed it at the two thousand Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Christina Aguilar and Enrique Iglesias, we're not staples of the
Speaker 1: daily park operations, unfortunately, this parade led by the Sage
Speaker 1: of Time and set to the theme song Celebrate the
Speaker 1: Future Hand in Hand, which is full of the exact
Speaker 1: type of Millennium inspiration lyrics you would imagine. Featured enormous
Speaker 1: abstract puppets that all had incredible names like Discman, Hammerman,
Speaker 1: wiggle Girl, Reverse Marionette, as tech Man, an Angel Girl.
Speaker 1: She linked us out to the song and to some
Speaker 1: resources about this parade, the Millennium celebration. Uh, so we'll
Speaker 1: share that in the links. Yeah, Epcot seems like a
Speaker 1: particularly like a very very peak millennium kind of place
Speaker 1: to be for New Year's Eve. I'm jealous. It sounds
Speaker 1: aspirational to me to spend the Millennial celebration in Epcot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Epcot has seemed so weird. I have never
Speaker 1: been there, but I have definitely looked into it because
Speaker 1: it's just like a permanent World's Fair essentially. Well, the
Speaker 1: thing about this parade, because I did listen to the
Speaker 1: song Celebrate the Future hand in Hand, which is just
Speaker 1: like we're kind to reach for the future. Like it's
Speaker 1: just all this very kind of banal type stuff, and
Speaker 1: it just kind of reminds me about how, especially for
Speaker 1: stuff like Disney, I feel like Disney is sort of
Speaker 1: the peak example of this, but there's like this sort
Speaker 1: of because it's the millennium and it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: the future, the future also gets wrapped up in this
Speaker 1: idea of like being cool, So like Disney has to
Speaker 1: be like cool in some way for the turn of
Speaker 1: the Millennium you're talking about, which they are physically incapable
Speaker 1: of doing. Yeah, so that's that's what I love, is
Speaker 1: like Disney, and like that's why I always loved Archie
Speaker 1: comics too. It's like people trying to understand youth culture
Speaker 1: who like fun to mentally have a contempt for youth culture,
Speaker 1: but you're like, this is what sells. Got to sell
Speaker 1: this right now? Well, Disney. Disney is in kind of
Speaker 1: a bind though, because they're literally they're marketing to people
Speaker 1: who are like infants to preteens really, so it's I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to self censor. So there's no way to
Speaker 1: be cool if you're marketing to a group that includes
Speaker 1: like toddlers. And it's especially awkward at that time too,
Speaker 1: because Disney is in like a very um notorious slump
Speaker 1: at the time. Disney is not Disney is in there
Speaker 1: like pre iMac phase. Like if you think of Disney
Speaker 1: and Apple as being these ascendant forces and the ohs
Speaker 1: like like it's right, it's I think it's right. Before
Speaker 1: they shut down their hand Rawn animation studio, they haven't
Speaker 1: had like an animated hit in a while. They're not
Speaker 1: the dominant force that they are today, and so like
Speaker 1: it does feel very like random, grab baggy the stuff
Speaker 1: that they like, they don't have any they don't have
Speaker 1: like it's when they're not with Pixar anymore too, so
Speaker 1: they can't use those very popular problems. Just picture like
Speaker 1: Goofy with some some cool sunglasses on. It's totally that.
Speaker 1: It's like the Goofy movie aesthetic, which I kind of love,
Speaker 1: the everybody movie aesthetic. Um. I was watching a show
Speaker 1: about who framed Roger Rabbit that was edited, not surprisingly
Speaker 1: because it was made by Disney, like a little misinformatively. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was just reading a lot about kind of
Speaker 1: that era of Disney the the news because I guess
Speaker 1: like that was also around the same time as a
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid was Roger Rabbit. But yeah, that kind of
Speaker 1: like pre pre getting back on track with all the
Speaker 1: you know, pre having a lot of product to sell
Speaker 1: or being sure that product is going to sell forever.
Speaker 1: I'm really dying to watch Oliver and Company, which is
Speaker 1: the Billy Joel uh wait you in theaters? Just not
Speaker 1: so I saw it in theaters. I know it'll like
Speaker 1: unlock a weird part of my brain to see it again. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have the DVD, my friend, I have the DVD.
Speaker 1: You're a Billy Joel enthusiasts, I am. I've been listening
Speaker 1: to Keep in the Faith once a week, got to
Speaker 1: listen to the most content, and I watched the video
Speaker 1: for Keeping the Faith just to keep myself, you know,
Speaker 1: on solid ground here, like the thing for us the
Speaker 1: eighties fifties as epitomized by Billy Joel also just a
Speaker 1: big part of the EPCOT dreams that compression of the
Speaker 1: future aesthetic that yeah, it's such a retro futuristic aesthetic, which,
Speaker 1: as Emily was saying, we all really enjoy, right, but
Speaker 1: it feels so much like corporate musicals to me, which
Speaker 1: is also funny, not necessarily fun but interesting. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing this was making me, this whole kind of
Speaker 1: the vibe of the EPCOT millennial celebration was making me
Speaker 1: think about kind of the early early days of Disney
Speaker 1: California Adventure, because that opened in two thousand one, so
Speaker 1: you know, kind of still in that. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a huge bomb at the time. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: really really ticket Yeah, people hated it. It was sort
Speaker 1: of like, what's the point of this thing? It was
Speaker 1: compared to like euro Disney because it was like some
Speaker 1: of the audience for these people for this place is Californians.
Speaker 1: Why would they want to go to California, right because
Speaker 1: they sell beer there. That's why maybe that was added later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might have been what they realized was the ticket
Speaker 1: for it. But there was this ride. I mean I
Speaker 1: didn't go to California Venture until like this decade, this
Speaker 1: past decade, but there was UM an early ride in
Speaker 1: the first that was part of their like a flagship
Speaker 1: ride at California Adventure called Superstar Limo. That's on the
Speaker 1: website the Excellent resource Yesterland. There's a whole record of it.
Speaker 1: And it was like a UM two thousand one era
Speaker 1: tour through like Hollywood. Like the thing is that like
Speaker 1: your celebrity in it. So you're in a limo and
Speaker 1: you're like going to an award show or something and
Speaker 1: getting asked questions by Joan Rivers and there are all
Speaker 1: these like horrifying caricatures of actual celebrities because it's like, look,
Speaker 1: it's bread Pitt or whoever, and it's like an animatronic
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt. It's like really really strange, and it is
Speaker 1: this Disney UM, you know, kind of trying to be
Speaker 1: edgy or cool or hit or something in a way
Speaker 1: that I think just obviously it was a flop from
Speaker 1: the get go. Probably part of the reason that people
Speaker 1: are like, what the hell is California Adventure? Why does
Speaker 1: it exist? Yeah, my boyfriend has told me about there
Speaker 1: was like a section of Disney World called MGM Studios
Speaker 1: that I think had a lot of the proto versions
Speaker 1: of the Hollywood rides from California Adventure. Um, but there's
Speaker 1: a ride from there that I've watched ride throughs of
Speaker 1: that is also fucking terrifying. I believe it's called the
Speaker 1: Movie Ride, and it just takes you through a bunch
Speaker 1: of random movies, um, including some movies I think maybe
Speaker 1: Alien isn't because I think it was like anything Aliens
Speaker 1: on an MGM property. I forget what it was, just
Speaker 1: like the back Lot Tour Universal Universal version of the
Speaker 1: Scarier because there's like an animatronic Wizard of Oz in it.
Speaker 1: It's like weird. It's like a David The back Lot
Speaker 1: Tour though has the backdraft. The draft part of that
Speaker 1: is super scary. It's very scary, and it's also like
Speaker 1: who thinks about backdraft now? Except for in the context
Speaker 1: of the study it overtook the movie. It's because it
Speaker 1: was quite an experience. Although Backdraft is a good movie, yeah,
Speaker 1: Backdraft rules. I've never been on the studio tour really, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Night Call tour. Actually will never be able to
Speaker 1: do that. Probably. I love thinking about that shark just
Speaker 1: being there by itself. Right. The only time I ever
Speaker 1: went to Universal was with Tess. We went didn't you
Speaker 1: go to but you went to CityWalk? Oh? But yeah,
Speaker 1: you just didn't go to inside the park on the
Speaker 1: park parks expensive so expensive, it's it's crazy. It's basically
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's like almost comparable to Disneyland,
Speaker 1: but there's so much less to do. California Adventure, to
Speaker 1: its credit, has gotten better in some ways, although they've
Speaker 1: gotten rid of the things I really liked, like Tower
Speaker 1: of Terror. But the Car's Ride probably is one of
Speaker 1: the best rides in the whole park system. Which one
Speaker 1: the Bumper the Cars themed Bumper ride or isn't there.
Speaker 1: There's also like made ors something or other. No, there's
Speaker 1: like a dark ride where the Canyon ride it's outside.
Speaker 1: Actually that's part of the magic of it, is like
Speaker 1: you're actually under the blue California skies in this completely
Speaker 1: artificial canyon. It's like this fair environment. That was like
Speaker 1: the thing my parents like the best when I took
Speaker 1: them to California Adventure once and we had the past,
Speaker 1: was that was like they were like, this is great,
Speaker 1: Like it's the magical environment. They loved Fake California. I
Speaker 1: also loved fake yosebody. I love the fake the Shining
Speaker 1: Hotel that they have there, which is just exactly a
Speaker 1: replica of the Shining Hotel because it's the a Wani.
Speaker 1: I think somebody, we're going to take a break real quick,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're going to break the
Speaker 1: first rule of fight club and talk about fight club.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Welcome back to Night Call. This week,
Speaker 1: we allowed ourselves one week to talk about the movies,
Speaker 1: and of course, if we had to pick just one,
Speaker 1: we picked David Fincher adaptation of Chuck Palinus Fight Club. Um,
Speaker 1: and I would like to know a little bit like
Speaker 1: why we came to this decision, not not because I
Speaker 1: disagree with it, but like Molly, maybe you can like
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why this is our pick.
Speaker 1: I bullied you guys into it like a real man. Well,
Speaker 1: this is because this is our fight Club obviously, but
Speaker 1: also yeah, Emily made the salient point that everybody did
Speaker 1: their best year from movies things last year when it
Speaker 1: was the twenty year of that. So I did feel
Speaker 1: that if we were going to do one movie, we
Speaker 1: should do Fight Club. But it was Emily was because
Speaker 1: you said it was the last movie where terrorism could
Speaker 1: be good. I don't even know if this movie thinks
Speaker 1: that terrorism is good, Like it's really really soft pedals
Speaker 1: nearly haven't watched it again. I forgot how noncommittal it is.
Speaker 1: It's very not ready to commit to terrorism. I think
Speaker 1: you know, ocleshomann City had been fairly recent, um, but
Speaker 1: this is truly one of the last years where if
Speaker 1: you say terrorists in a movie, you imagine a white man.
Speaker 1: Uh you. It's before terrorism gets completely encoded in this
Speaker 1: whole like com Land security were against terror type thing, um,
Speaker 1: which is super interesting, and it doesn't I don't think
Speaker 1: it necessarily lets it be have a leer about it,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly a different thing to have a movie
Speaker 1: be about or like play with, than it would be
Speaker 1: two years later. Well. Also, if I'm not wrong, I
Speaker 1: think I read somewhere and I'll have to double check
Speaker 1: this and um put it in the notes, but I
Speaker 1: am pretty sure that this was me. Columbine happened in April,
Speaker 1: and so there are a bunch of lines and scenes
Speaker 1: obviously in in fight Club that happened or you know,
Speaker 1: the movie was completed before Columbine, So when test audiences
Speaker 1: were responding to these scenes, they thought they were funny,
Speaker 1: and by the time the movie was released they didn't
Speaker 1: land And that makes perfect sense, but it's it's bizarre
Speaker 1: how much the world shifted just in that brief period,
Speaker 1: and how the movie you know, it was like being edgy,
Speaker 1: well it could be edgy in a certain way, and
Speaker 1: then by the time it was released it was like
Speaker 1: you know right, I mean, it's it's funny, Like I think,
Speaker 1: I I can't think about Fight Club really without thinking
Speaker 1: of the Matrix at the same time. And it is
Speaker 1: very largely about both the Columbne thing, because both of
Speaker 1: those films got kind of like a stink of Columbine
Speaker 1: on them through no intention of their own, um. But
Speaker 1: then also the way that both of those films got
Speaker 1: really um some might say not say co opted in
Speaker 1: the case of Fight Club, but I think definitely co
Speaker 1: opted in the case of The Matrix by men's rights activists.
Speaker 1: That's sort of you know, all the all the terrible
Speaker 1: people that live on our internet now, um and have
Speaker 1: always been there. Uh and and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the world philosophy in it is kind of molded to
Speaker 1: the to the ideals of of these different groups. And
Speaker 1: so that makes both of these movies, even though they're
Speaker 1: like pretty I would say, both really important movies, especially
Speaker 1: for that time period. They have this sort of like
Speaker 1: bad reputation now because of all the stuff that's happened
Speaker 1: since well, it's also so hilarious for men's rights guys
Speaker 1: to take either The Matrix or Fight Club as the
Speaker 1: like symbol of macho nests because both of these movies
Speaker 1: are exceptionally gender queer, and that is why they're good. Um.
Speaker 1: I love Fight Club. I'm a Fight Club homer. I
Speaker 1: think it's so funny. And my memory was that they
Speaker 1: were marketing it badly because nobody knew how to market it.
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch absolutely hated it because of the anti corporation stance,
Speaker 1: and they thought they would just play up the fighting
Speaker 1: part rather than the comedy. So they ran ads during
Speaker 1: UFC and WWF and stuff, and then it bombed in
Speaker 1: theaters and they blamed it on Columbine. But then it
Speaker 1: was like one of the first big movies to be
Speaker 1: a hit on DVD. It was everybody immediately discovered by teenagers,
Speaker 1: who I think also could relate to the Columbine thing
Speaker 1: in a different way of like, yes, people do have
Speaker 1: a lot of suppressed rage and like what should we
Speaker 1: do about that? Right? And when you're a teenager, the
Speaker 1: stuff that Edward Norton's character is frustrated with the conformity
Speaker 1: and the corporate values and stuff like that, it's just
Speaker 1: stuff that you feel like your parents are into. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's what you're you feel. Let's what feels conthartic
Speaker 1: about it to you as a teenager. UM, without necessarily
Speaker 1: having the experience of being like a salary man in
Speaker 1: his early thirties or however all Edward nor is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. UM, it's so it's it's a weird it's
Speaker 1: a weird kind of jump to make, and it's weird
Speaker 1: to have that. Like I think I asked on the
Speaker 1: night called Twitter specifically, I was asking about like men
Speaker 1: over thirty five because I wanted to like get an
Speaker 1: idea of what somebody who at least had a little
Speaker 1: bit of an experience in the working world of the nineties,
Speaker 1: of the entire decade of the nineties, like whether or
Speaker 1: not Fight Club resonated for them, because the micro surfs
Speaker 1: have to say, yeah, because like this is about, like
Speaker 1: this is at its core story about like rejecting corporate
Speaker 1: values and like overthrowing credit card company. Somebody else sent
Speaker 1: me a message where they were like, it's the same
Speaker 1: exact plot as Office Space. Yes it is. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like that was a big point of contention then.
Speaker 1: And I only say seems because I wasn't the age
Speaker 1: where that was relevant to me at all. But I
Speaker 1: watched those movies of course, and like internalized the stuff
Speaker 1: that they were making fun of, right, and there was
Speaker 1: like the Adbusters mentality, like we should be questioning these corporations.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to watch Fight Club and be like, wow, like,
Speaker 1: I Kea is what they talk about as being the
Speaker 1: like fast fashion, you know, churn and burned company. But
Speaker 1: obviously now you could just like slot in Amazon and
Speaker 1: it would be more dystopian even, you know. I think
Speaker 1: Ikea is easy though to mock, especially for visual purposes,
Speaker 1: and like I always remember the like kind of pan
Speaker 1: across his living room where they're filling in all the
Speaker 1: Ikea items. Yeah, they're very timeless, but I mean I
Speaker 1: think about that every time I walk into an Ikea too.
Speaker 1: But Ikia has such an aesthetic, Like it's such a
Speaker 1: I think I get, especially like tests you wrote a
Speaker 1: little bit about internet cafes in in the night called
Speaker 1: newsletter this month, and like that kind of aesthetic of
Speaker 1: just sort of like the clean future. I guess this
Speaker 1: is a lot of stuff you're talking about last week,
Speaker 1: just like the aesthetic of of this point in time being.
Speaker 1: So I guess comparatively an aseptic too, especially to like
Speaker 1: the Gruner and everything that had been at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the decade. I don't know, it's it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: to think that like that was a time when when
Speaker 1: all this fiction decided that like the design and values
Speaker 1: of the late nineties were emasculating um. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's just emasculating. I think it's like dehumanizing to anybody,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but it also kind of shows you
Speaker 1: how obsessed we were at a certain point in time
Speaker 1: with how the white man who was a white collar,
Speaker 1: white guy with angry feelings, like what about him, Let's
Speaker 1: really focus on the issues that are confronting him, And
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I always think of this movie as
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting companion to American Psycho, because both
Speaker 1: of them are really focused so much on kind of
Speaker 1: rejecting polite society and how wonderful it feels to like
Speaker 1: go against society, but obviously in very different ways. But
Speaker 1: when I was watching it, I hadn't seen it in
Speaker 1: so long because I think I I was at a
Speaker 1: certain point really turned off by how I remembered it. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's so much funnier than I thought it was
Speaker 1: when I last watched it a long time ago. Fight
Speaker 1: Club Yeah, fight club Yeah, fight close hilarious. I think
Speaker 1: that's why it's good. I I also just feel like
Speaker 1: I was just talking about this, but like the postmodern directors,
Speaker 1: it's like this is the point where they were still
Speaker 1: making movies that were about something, you know, I had
Speaker 1: like a statement of purpose in some way, and then
Speaker 1: in the two thousands it just all became twee design based,
Speaker 1: you know, just aesthetic and sort of Yeah, at the
Speaker 1: same time, I get like a little bit of a
Speaker 1: dip in my stomach for all the CG shots of
Speaker 1: like going through the hair or going down into the
Speaker 1: gas range or something like that, because I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of people being like the camera can
Speaker 1: go anywhere with g I the intro where they go
Speaker 1: through the brain, and so that the sex scene was
Speaker 1: done in matrix bullet time because they were they had
Speaker 1: to be completely clothed at the same time. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: when and then at the same time. There were some
Speaker 1: other things too that even though it's the top of
Speaker 1: the line, I love like finding stuff like this out
Speaker 1: the little breath when he's in the ice cape with
Speaker 1: the penguin was recycled from Titanic Love that im DV
Speaker 1: trivia for this is a really it's a good page. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think also like I saw this movie. I guess
Speaker 1: we were in high school. We were like juniors or
Speaker 1: seniors in high school. Uh, maybe a little younger or older.
Speaker 1: Softwores are juniors. Yeah, And I just like I watched
Speaker 1: it by myself when I was at that you know,
Speaker 1: my parents house, by myself, Um, and it just completely
Speaker 1: blew my mind. I was and it was the first
Speaker 1: of you that then I watched every DVD commentary track
Speaker 1: four because there were like four commentary tracks on it, um,
Speaker 1: and they're all so good as commentary. Just yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I can't probably disentangle it from my feelings
Speaker 1: about it. But what I'm realizing watching it now is
Speaker 1: that I think the first few times I watched it,
Speaker 1: I just completely is to the m r. A angle
Speaker 1: because my tendency is to just insert myself as the
Speaker 1: narrator into any story, you know, so like that they
Speaker 1: were all men, like didn't really cross my mind, you know.
Speaker 1: I was like, we all need fight clubs. Everybody could
Speaker 1: use a fight club, and then we turn it into
Speaker 1: eco terrorism for the purposes of good Like that all
Speaker 1: checks out. Um. So, watching it again and trying to
Speaker 1: think of it as the m R A stuff, it's
Speaker 1: still just like it's such a it's making fun of
Speaker 1: it so much. It's such a satire about extreme masculinity,
Speaker 1: and it's so unbelievably homoerotic and like unafraid to sexualize
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt, you know, like jokes about how it's like
Speaker 1: a yeah, I mean they have a meat cute on
Speaker 1: a plane, and it's like very flirty and it's like
Speaker 1: you're You're the best single serving friend I've ever made,
Speaker 1: and like brusque older man and like young young Neophyight.
Speaker 1: It's just it's classic. So it's it's very it reads.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a very easy read. It's
Speaker 1: not a stretch at all. I don't know, yeah, that
Speaker 1: they thought that, like just the marketing was so bad
Speaker 1: that they thought women would hate this movie because they
Speaker 1: were like women to see men fighting, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: women want to see like shirtless Brad Pitt like wrestling
Speaker 1: some other guys, like that is totally something women want. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah. I never felt like this was like
Speaker 1: a particularly macho movie. I would say, like a like
Speaker 1: a Christopher Nolan like Batman movie. You know that to
Speaker 1: me is like masculine and fascist and like has no
Speaker 1: sense of humor about it. This to me is about
Speaker 1: masculinity and fascism, but it's like totally has a sense
Speaker 1: of humor about both of those things. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that happens with this movie and I kind of
Speaker 1: experienced it myself when you get into the movie second half.
Speaker 1: I think this movie is a little too long, and
Speaker 1: I think it does suffer from the thing of like,
Speaker 1: people remember the first half of this movie, and they
Speaker 1: don't remember the second half. They remember all the cool
Speaker 1: stuff where they start to fight club and brad put
Speaker 1: is cool and every and their friends and they're living
Speaker 1: in a nasty house because men like nasty houses, and
Speaker 1: then they don't remember the part where they start a
Speaker 1: terrorism cell and the dudes are all like these brainwashed idiots,
Speaker 1: Like they don't remember the part where it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what Like this is why this idea is
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of silly in execution when you tie it
Speaker 1: to the idea of masculinity. Like I'm not saying I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that the idea of of fucking were credit
Speaker 1: card companies through any means, take your pick, uh, is
Speaker 1: necessarily a bad thing. But I'm saying that, like when
Speaker 1: it's tied to like this notion of we're doing this
Speaker 1: to reclaim our place in the world as men, and
Speaker 1: that that like consumerism is necessarily feminine, um and feminine
Speaker 1: I've seen. Then That's that's the thing that I think
Speaker 1: this movie it's still making fun of and it's very
Speaker 1: like aware of, but I just don't think people remember
Speaker 1: that part of the movie, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: that like any kind of I think you're right, And
Speaker 1: that also just happens with any kind of like math
Speaker 1: masculine college movie. Like people don't remember the second half
Speaker 1: of Scarface, remember the second half of Wolf of Wall Street,
Speaker 1: like Everybody Goes On and yeah, and all those movies
Speaker 1: that tend to be three hours long, maybe people don't
Speaker 1: always watch them all the way to the end. Is
Speaker 1: this a case for shorter movies? Finally, a really good
Speaker 1: case for shorter movie. I shocked at how long it
Speaker 1: was because I also did not I didn't remember the
Speaker 1: third act at all. Really, I I clearly have smoked
Speaker 1: so much pot in my days that I just like
Speaker 1: erased fight Club to save a room or something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a Project Mayhem and that whole third act.
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess this is a movie that
Speaker 1: most people, including myself, upon rewatch you start it, and
Speaker 1: then two hours in you're like, I'm it now, I
Speaker 1: remember it now, I'm good. I feel like it was
Speaker 1: the perfect Like you know, also just reading about like
Speaker 1: what could have been and who could have been in
Speaker 1: it and who directed it instead, like like that Fincher
Speaker 1: and Danny Boyle like might have swapped on this in
Speaker 1: the beach at some point. It's like an interesting alternate universe.
Speaker 1: But I do just feel like the fact that it
Speaker 1: ended up being a David Fincher movie is what made
Speaker 1: it work so well, because he has his background from
Speaker 1: commercials and music videos where it's like he knows how
Speaker 1: to sell objects with a camera. He's like at the
Speaker 1: you know, all time genius of being able to do
Speaker 1: that and also do it in a way where you're
Speaker 1: critiquing it at the same time. Yeah. Um. And the
Speaker 1: fact that did you make Zodiac next after this? Now? Panic? Right?
Speaker 1: Panic Room, which he said he didn't want as many setups,
Speaker 1: is why he made Panic Room because he's like got
Speaker 1: undone by his own ambitiousness. But I mean it is
Speaker 1: so expensive, um, But it's also like, what would you know?
Speaker 1: There's something in the commentary where he talks about because
Speaker 1: the buildings they blow up at the under actually the
Speaker 1: Century City Fox buildings, because you can see afraid they
Speaker 1: get in trouble if they blew up the real l
Speaker 1: A skyline. The people who owned the rights to those
Speaker 1: buildings would get the agencies didn't care right well, they
Speaker 1: were like we own these buildings, and David Fincher's was
Speaker 1: something like, who hasn't dreamed about like blowing up these
Speaker 1: buildings and Century City when they're empty? You know, Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. I mean that That's kind of
Speaker 1: what's so much fun about revisiting Fight Club too, is
Speaker 1: looking back at all of these anecdotes, Like I think
Speaker 1: another one was how David Fincher in there the quote
Speaker 1: from the IMDb trivias the original Pillow Talk scene had
Speaker 1: Marla saying I want to have your abortion when this
Speaker 1: was objected to you by a Fox two thousand Pictures
Speaker 1: president of production Laura zisk and David Fincher said he
Speaker 1: would change it um if if she would promise that
Speaker 1: the line wouldn't be cut. Ziskin agreed, and Fincher wrote
Speaker 1: the replacement line, I haven't been fun like that since
Speaker 1: grade school. Then they had to keep that in because
Speaker 1: that was the deal. So there's so much of the
Speaker 1: kind of this is like an anti corporate movie, and
Speaker 1: you're dealing with all of these corporate forces and you
Speaker 1: have to just like kind of stand up for what
Speaker 1: you can. I guess, and I don't think we've moved
Speaker 1: that far from the Angry White Guy movie, because like
Speaker 1: Joker got nominated for Oscars. You know, obviously I was
Speaker 1: just saying, like I would have loved to see what
Speaker 1: other people of gen X like had to say about
Speaker 1: this besides just a bunch of dudes. It's just so
Speaker 1: crazy that Joker was lauded at all for basically making
Speaker 1: many of the same points that Fight Club made, but
Speaker 1: like with well, like for first just tragedy then as
Speaker 1: far well, that's like Joker is like a fight Club
Speaker 1: poster that has never seen the movie. It's like, but Molly,
Speaker 1: you still haven't seen Joker, right, No, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it's the same had a similar thing where it's
Speaker 1: like the people who saw the movie where like this
Speaker 1: isn't actually going to inspire copycats, but the like wave
Speaker 1: of hysteria over copycasts. There's a big wave of hysteria
Speaker 1: about fight Club too, that it was going to like
Speaker 1: inspire young men to violence. Uh, And some people did
Speaker 1: start some fight clubs. Somebody sent us a really good
Speaker 1: Twitter message saying that they owned the website fight club
Speaker 1: dot org and they were going to turn it into
Speaker 1: a Tinder where you could do fight clubs, where you
Speaker 1: could meet people to fight them, but that they're friends
Speaker 1: are like, don't do that because of liabilities. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't do that. So stressful it does. It does remind
Speaker 1: me of that time, just of the millennium being sort
Speaker 1: of a hinging time between early Internet and you know,
Speaker 1: modern Internet, where it was still like how far will
Speaker 1: this go? Would people meet up randomly with strangers to
Speaker 1: fight them because it's a possibility of something you can
Speaker 1: do now. Yeah, and we also got a call from
Speaker 1: a listener who also got inspired to start throwing a
Speaker 1: fight club, which we're going to listen to after the break. Hello, nightcall,
Speaker 1: It's head from Detroit A long time. First time. I
Speaker 1: actually have a two for for today. I'm a man
Speaker 1: over thirty five with the fight club story and ahead
Speaker 1: of bizarre hy Uk story. So, me and my friends
Speaker 1: sawt fight Club in the theaters. We were about sixteen
Speaker 1: years old. We snuck in, and I'm actually very ashamed
Speaker 1: to say that we were so blown away by it
Speaker 1: that we started our own fight club, but thankfully that
Speaker 1: was short lived. I know that it was originally intended
Speaker 1: at the Staff High but it's from my point of view,
Speaker 1: every dude in my high school got a very different
Speaker 1: message from that film, and I can really only see
Speaker 1: it now at this I can only see it through
Speaker 1: my original lives, which was this kind of proto in
Speaker 1: cell message with Edward Norton his character being a kind
Speaker 1: of socially isolated but very aggros shy dude who just
Speaker 1: dreams and dreams and getting his own violent revenge on
Speaker 1: everyone in his life. Uh yeah, But anyway, from my
Speaker 1: wife UK story, I went to a concert at the
Speaker 1: Pontiac Silver Dome where Metallica, Kid Rock and Ted NuGet
Speaker 1: played and Pamela Anderson was there and was on stage
Speaker 1: and did the countdown for the ball drop. On December,
Speaker 1: I spent my wife UK at the pony E Silverdome.
Speaker 1: I didn't even like the music, but I had to
Speaker 1: go to because all my friends were going. And it
Speaker 1: was a terrible concert because the Silverdome was an awful venue.
Speaker 1: So I love the show, keep going right, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for that call. Uh We're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: little more pam Anderson next week, So let's like table
Speaker 1: that that half of it for right now. But that's
Speaker 1: like the most incredible, that perfect that sounds incredible, sounds
Speaker 1: like a dream a dream y two. K. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we'll we'll dig more into it next week. But U
Speaker 1: but let's talk starting your own five club in high school.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that he's like, I think he's
Speaker 1: totally right. I think I think teenage Boys did. No
Speaker 1: matter how much we can appreciate the satire and the
Speaker 1: condemnation all of a lot of things that Fincher's doing,
Speaker 1: Team Boys are kind of dumb, like, and they were
Speaker 1: the primary target for this movie. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't think they were the primary target for this movie
Speaker 1: because I feel like we were the primary target for
Speaker 1: this movie. You know, Like, but I don't see it
Speaker 1: in theaters. I saw it on DVD. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I saw it on DVD at a sleepover, A corred sleepover.
Speaker 1: That what I'm saying. I feel like there's a co
Speaker 1: ed sleepover we were waiting for. We were gonna go
Speaker 1: wait in line or Lee the next morning to see
Speaker 1: to see the X Men movie. Um so, so this
Speaker 1: is the year two thousand and we were just like
Speaker 1: watching movies all night to like get amped and and
Speaker 1: Fight Club was one of them. Um And I thought
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, very edgy and mind blowing
Speaker 1: I will say, though, I want to shift briefly to
Speaker 1: talk about the woman skill Woman of five of Marla,
Speaker 1: who like truly that that was the bigger thing that
Speaker 1: I was the bigger impression left on me as a
Speaker 1: um fourteen year old. I guess what I saw a girl, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I was just like, oh, that's that's who I
Speaker 1: want to be when I grow up. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was just the grunge aesthetic, the like their store
Speaker 1: dress and ship and and wearing big hats and sunglasses.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was cool and I liked her.
Speaker 1: She was such a pill. I liked like she was
Speaker 1: just so annoying. Um, I wanted to I wanted the
Speaker 1: guts to be annoying like Marla, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever truly got them. But I was watching this,
Speaker 1: Yeah it's been a while since I've seen it, and
Speaker 1: she was always like a very big style icon for me.
Speaker 1: But I didn't think it was funny how I actually
Speaker 1: have like more of a wardrobe that mirrors Brad pitts
Speaker 1: now than incredible style in this in this movie. I
Speaker 1: think it's also like if, yeah, if you saw this
Speaker 1: movie and you were a teenager, any movie that reinforce
Speaker 1: the idea that like the adult world was bullshit and
Speaker 1: you already we're finding out about it without even having
Speaker 1: to experience it hit a super hit with the kids. Always, Well,
Speaker 1: there's also that feeling. I mean, we were, like you said,
Speaker 1: we were either sophomores or juniors. We were. It's the
Speaker 1: it's the the idea of like being put under so
Speaker 1: much pressure to achieve something that you're told that you want,
Speaker 1: you know, without really understanding how that fits in with
Speaker 1: what you want for yourself. I mean that's why it
Speaker 1: appeal is it's like it's such a nine a late
Speaker 1: nineties movie, but like what it's about is really like
Speaker 1: a fifties anxiety about just like the man in the
Speaker 1: gray flannel suit stuff that you're like just to cog
Speaker 1: in a machine and you know you're not a real
Speaker 1: person because work has turned you into this other thing.
Speaker 1: Now watching it, I'm like, wow, imagine being so dissatisfied
Speaker 1: about having a stable, high paying job. That aspect of it,
Speaker 1: and the matrix too is interesting because it is like, well,
Speaker 1: now there's like a much lower wrong than that, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it truly makes the nineties feel like salad days, Like
Speaker 1: which is funny complaining about having like health care right
Speaker 1: or just complaining about having like too many choices, which
Speaker 1: is you know, is like we do have way too
Speaker 1: many choices. I think I was also just like full
Speaker 1: space communist at that point in my life. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: like we start the banks from zero, everybody gets twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: The end, we have money again. And I think this
Speaker 1: movie The Matrix like that again. Now, Actually I should
Speaker 1: watch The Matrix. Oh yeah, always The Matrix is so good,
Speaker 1: Like I think that people. I think that it's always
Speaker 1: worth the rewatch, especially because it's been so tarnished by
Speaker 1: the culture and the discourse, Like it's worth the rewatch
Speaker 1: to remember that The Matrix is actually incredible. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've gotten so off track. You know, even
Speaker 1: though people hate corporations, it's like there's this thing now
Speaker 1: where people hate them and also use them because they
Speaker 1: are so octopus, like you have no choice in a
Speaker 1: lot of scenarios. But what Yeah, I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: we just feel so powerless. It's like what can what
Speaker 1: can we do? Yeah? Fight, I'm gonna say I think
Speaker 1: that like this movie The Matrix and another movie I
Speaker 1: watched this past week. Magnolia are very interesting snapshot of
Speaker 1: masculinity and movies in the turn of the millennia and
Speaker 1: really like just really interesting to see the seeds for
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we're dealing with kind of like
Speaker 1: germinating around them. But it feels like so long ago.
Speaker 1: But obviously the whole Frank T. J McKee plot line
Speaker 1: of Magnolia is like kind of this. It's almost this
Speaker 1: like tragic parody of being a men's rights guy, being
Speaker 1: like a pickup artist, that kind of person who like
Speaker 1: this is all like pre pre uh the game, pre
Speaker 1: mystery and all that like that. This is still kind
Speaker 1: of a lot of what that film is about. But like,
Speaker 1: in general, Magnolia is a movie about how men are
Speaker 1: pieces of ship. Like that's the running theme of the
Speaker 1: movie is that like men ruin everybody's lives, and um,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just it was an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: semi back to back watch because I watched both of
Speaker 1: these movies within a couple of days of each other,
Speaker 1: and I felt them in conversation. It's funny because again,
Speaker 1: I'm just like I saw these movies and just framed
Speaker 1: them entirely around my own like sexual pleasure instead of
Speaker 1: whatever else was going on. I was just like, I
Speaker 1: like to see Tom Cruise be like a greasy But
Speaker 1: do you think he's hot in Magnolia? Like only in Magnolia.
Speaker 1: I have never found Tom Cruise sexy business. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: risky business maybe, but there's still there's something a little
Speaker 1: off there. You can always tell you're like something about
Speaker 1: the future cult member. Well, that's why he's interesting as
Speaker 1: this character though, because like I and I think it's
Speaker 1: applied in the film that he like doesn't really have
Speaker 1: that much. And that's the thing. It's like he's hot.
Speaker 1: He's hot because it's a good performance. You know, he's
Speaker 1: a good actor, and he really throws himself into it
Speaker 1: and it uses the Tom Cruise energy for something sinister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like this may be in Collateral. Are the only
Speaker 1: real Tom Cruise performances that I think use him correctly great,
Speaker 1: And he did a few of those and then he
Speaker 1: went back into making action movies. But just to like
Speaker 1: see a glimpse of like, you know, the weird seventies
Speaker 1: actor Tom Cruise that does exist inside Top Gun Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise UM is what makes that movie good to me.
Speaker 1: I also think about Um fight Club just I don't know,
Speaker 1: like it's homorotic because they're wrestling, but also just watching
Speaker 1: it this time, I was like, this movie could also
Speaker 1: just be about cruising, you know. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: the other homoerotic element is how jealous the narrator is
Speaker 1: when Tyler Dirton starts having sex with Marla and he
Speaker 1: becomes like obsessed with it, not only because she's taken
Speaker 1: yet again something that he wants just for himself, but
Speaker 1: he's obviously it threatens his connection. I think that that
Speaker 1: kind of makes the homo eroticism stand out even more
Speaker 1: because it just does feel like a weird kind of
Speaker 1: love triangle. What's also about having a secret life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also what makes this movie better and more
Speaker 1: insightful than something like Joker, because it is about like
Speaker 1: wanting and needing people, even if in this case, sorry
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen Fight Club yet, but like they
Speaker 1: are one and the same person, but like it's still
Speaker 1: this thing of like I want to be a part
Speaker 1: of something like his loneliness is the I would say
Speaker 1: the biggest problem for loneliness is killing him. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's also that's why watching Fight Club has been so
Speaker 1: it is interesting now. Is like the in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie when he's going to these support groups
Speaker 1: just to like cry and hug people, I was like,
Speaker 1: whoa great timing, Yeah, totally yeah, yeah, Well, it's like
Speaker 1: the messages modern society is alienating and now we're looking
Speaker 1: at it from a point of view of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't even know how much more alienating it will
Speaker 1: get with twenty more years of this. But do you
Speaker 1: think I was thinking about this because I remember watching
Speaker 1: this as a teen and feeling like it was sending
Speaker 1: up the notion of support groups altogether, that like, this
Speaker 1: isn't actually what this character needs. He doesn't need to
Speaker 1: cry into meatloafs boobs, like he needs to like be
Speaker 1: a man and get dirty and break his face and stuff,
Speaker 1: and and that is still I think like there's sort
Speaker 1: of a parodic feeling to the support groups that I
Speaker 1: think wouldn't necessarily be there now. I think if you
Speaker 1: made this movie now, because I think that stuff has
Speaker 1: kind of taken more seriously now, but it's seen as
Speaker 1: like kind of fake or something in the film, well
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I I actually really do I
Speaker 1: agree with that, But I think that there's also this
Speaker 1: idea that we can't you can't like touch or physically
Speaker 1: engage with people without permission, and that support groups do
Speaker 1: you have this kind of like cheesy but necessary way
Speaker 1: of forcing people to do things that you would think
Speaker 1: would happen organically more often than they do. And it's
Speaker 1: still I mean, support groups are still kind of fascinating
Speaker 1: to me, and we're fascinating to me in the nineties too,
Speaker 1: just in terms of like it they do fulfill any
Speaker 1: not just for people who are you know who, alcoholics
Speaker 1: or whatever, but like just people who are isolated and
Speaker 1: lonely and need to kind of have a space created
Speaker 1: just to connect um. And it did back when I
Speaker 1: first said it definitely did seem very kind of like
Speaker 1: cruelly poking fun but rewatching it. It's it's not as
Speaker 1: cruel as I remember, Like you can you can kind
Speaker 1: of feel that. It's like there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: genuine empathy for for people that I felt like maybe
Speaker 1: I didn't read the first time. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: part of that is just like we're adults now too,
Speaker 1: and we know we probably know people who have gone
Speaker 1: to one of these groups, whether it's like a A
Speaker 1: or something like that like, we know that real people
Speaker 1: use this and need this, and sometimes it can really
Speaker 1: help people, but when you're a teenager and you're watching it,
Speaker 1: you're like, look at all the sad adults who are
Speaker 1: failures crying in each other's arms, and it makes you
Speaker 1: like resent that. I think, if you're a certain kind
Speaker 1: of I thought you were just supposed to think that
Speaker 1: he was a dick for like arging in on the
Speaker 1: meetings where he didn't know because he was but he
Speaker 1: was genuinely emoting and and he was he was leaving
Speaker 1: an imposter and he didn't want to be out at
Speaker 1: as an impostor. But then you know, after meat Loaf
Speaker 1: kind of joins him in fight club, like you see
Speaker 1: that that they were, you know, maybe more imposters than
Speaker 1: one might have guessed. Well, sort of this idea of
Speaker 1: like the the only thing lamer than going to support
Speaker 1: group and like relying on other people is like pretending
Speaker 1: to go to a support group or something like that.
Speaker 1: Kind of like that that's what it feels like, because
Speaker 1: it's just like it's like his it's the only way
Speaker 1: he can deal with his insomnia and his own kind
Speaker 1: of mental instability at the time, and it's like all
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that the movie is saying that, like,
Speaker 1: these aren't weaknesses. These are all symptoms of like how
Speaker 1: fucked up society is. But like if you treat them
Speaker 1: as weaknesses, and you treat them as something that easy
Speaker 1: to get beat out of you, then you're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: have a problem on your hands. Um, so you take
Speaker 1: another nightcall. Let's take another nightcall. Hello. I am a
Speaker 1: forty three year old white man and I like Fight
Speaker 1: Club and I'm not embarrassed to say it, but not
Speaker 1: in the same way that some people are really not
Speaker 1: embarrassed to say it. Um. I think there's some good
Speaker 1: nuggets of Taoism in there. UM at the time that
Speaker 1: I thought. Of course, when it came out, I was younger,
Speaker 1: and it really made a point things like you're not
Speaker 1: your wallet, you're not your checking account. M just the
Speaker 1: whole of rejection of um materialism really spoke to me.
Speaker 1: And then I think it kind of took on a
Speaker 1: life of its own, and I like to compare it
Speaker 1: to you know, Nirvana, when Kurt Cobain would complain about
Speaker 1: the jocks and all these people getting into the music.
Speaker 1: That was never his intention. Um. You know, I know
Speaker 1: Chuck Polemics not great and doesn't have the best track record,
Speaker 1: but I think he has a voice and it speaks
Speaker 1: to people who live on the edges. And I took
Speaker 1: in more as a self improvement through looking at what
Speaker 1: masculinity really means and not how it took off to
Speaker 1: be to some brace of toxic masculinity and raw violence.
Speaker 1: The violence is a symptom, it's not the prescription anyway.
Speaker 1: That's a forty three year old man's thoughts on Fight Club.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: that night call. We we really we liked that well
Speaker 1: put Yeah, um, I think that the whole the kind
Speaker 1: of Taoist stuff in it and the non materialism, that's
Speaker 1: the stuff that's almost most frustrating to me because I'm
Speaker 1: just like, why isn't this what took off like totally,
Speaker 1: like that should be the that should have if that
Speaker 1: became a cult thing that all these dudes got into
Speaker 1: and they were at a pressurable age, Like why didn't
Speaker 1: that hang on like for sure? And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that was the most frustrating about the two thousand's.
Speaker 1: After that, it was then things got like hyper materialistic
Speaker 1: across all media, and we made a bunch of famous
Speaker 1: people of you know, just rich people. It went like
Speaker 1: it went so far in the other direction. Um, and
Speaker 1: I feel like a case of I mean and we all, like,
Speaker 1: I think we're all big David Fincher fans and we
Speaker 1: like him as a director. But does this just feel
Speaker 1: like a kind of thing where you can't have a
Speaker 1: glossy Brad Pitt starring Fox Studios UM movie about anti consumerism,
Speaker 1: Like it just doesn't work because it's automatic, especially like directed,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, I like, buy a commercial director by
Speaker 1: a music video director. It's all gonna look glamorous and
Speaker 1: cool and like a product. No, because I think I
Speaker 1: think that can exist and fly over the head of
Speaker 1: the audience. Um. I have also talked about Josie and
Speaker 1: the Pussycats as a great YE two K movie that
Speaker 1: satirizes consumerism, but in a way where it would also
Speaker 1: be easy to think it was endorsing it if you
Speaker 1: were not very smart. Um, I think that's just a hazard. Again,
Speaker 1: It's like nobody would say that the Wolf of Wall
Speaker 1: Street is endorsing insider trading, but that was what a
Speaker 1: lot of people took from it. I think people are
Speaker 1: just afraid of the chaotic energy of teenage boys at
Speaker 1: every time in history because this movie got compared to
Speaker 1: Clockwork Orange a lot. Yeah, they were afraid that it
Speaker 1: was going to have the same effect. Yeah. Um, and
Speaker 1: it must be cool to have so much power that
Speaker 1: people are that afraid of you. You didn't know what
Speaker 1: that was like at all as teenage girls. Well, we
Speaker 1: we had the craft. It was we if we only
Speaker 1: achieved magically. But I read that, um Marla Helena Bottom
Speaker 1: Carter based her performance on Judy Garland at the end
Speaker 1: of her life. That's great, makes perfect sense. And I
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of jokes about how Judy is
Speaker 1: the joker for women, because it's like about a joker,
Speaker 1: but instead of like turning it on society, it's just
Speaker 1: like into yourself. You just like fuck yourself up. And
Speaker 1: you know, I do think there's a lot of room
Speaker 1: for stuff about that. And whenever there is something like that,
Speaker 1: like Black Swan that's about like how does female rage work,
Speaker 1: I'm always super into it. Um. But I also love
Speaker 1: all the male rage movies because again, I just think
Speaker 1: they're about me. I'm always like, yeah, there's to identify
Speaker 1: with Tony Soprano. You know, there's a like I think
Speaker 1: it's possible to identify with those characters, But I also
Speaker 1: think like there should I'm always down for movies about
Speaker 1: men if they are in critique of all this stuff. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think like the solution to all of these
Speaker 1: problems that we're talking about that have really kind of
Speaker 1: turned super toxic over the last couple of decades. I
Speaker 1: don't think that the answer is don't talk about masculinity,
Speaker 1: don't talk about like white male problem, because I think
Speaker 1: that like the less that you address them, unless you
Speaker 1: art kind of like address them and and and rude
Speaker 1: out stuff out of them, then I think like it's
Speaker 1: just it's not gonna go away. Like Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: really liked Vice Principles on HBO. I thought that was
Speaker 1: like the best show that sort of summed up the
Speaker 1: moment of white male rage that we're in currently, uh
Speaker 1: without kind of like looking away at how uncomfortable that
Speaker 1: is to think about or endorsing it. Because I also
Speaker 1: think that that happened with Danny McBride with East Bounding
Speaker 1: Down that a lot of people were just like Kenny
Speaker 1: Power's rule, like this is in no way an indictment
Speaker 1: of like southern white masculinity. It's just an endorsement because
Speaker 1: it's on television, you know. And so I feel like
Speaker 1: with the Vice Principles, they were like, we're going to
Speaker 1: double down on like you do not like these people.
Speaker 1: They are not good people. Yeah, And I also think
Speaker 1: at a certain point it's like and it suck, but
Speaker 1: it's like, truly, we can't go down the path of
Speaker 1: like having art being an instruction manual for how to
Speaker 1: do life, Like if people take the wrong message from
Speaker 1: Fight Club or Eastbound and Down or anything else, I
Speaker 1: don't think that invalidates it as a work just because
Speaker 1: people are fucking stupid. And I think Fincher, you know,
Speaker 1: like the Social Network doesn't valorize Mark Zuckerberg at all,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's just casting though. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that movie, this movie are in are
Speaker 1: definitely in conversation because that movie is like, what about
Speaker 1: a totally different type of toxic masculinity that makes the
Speaker 1: type of toxic toxic masculinity and fight Clubs seem really
Speaker 1: wholesome in comparison. Total, it also seems like kind of
Speaker 1: an evolution from it's a fight club is the starting place.
Speaker 1: Then maybe you end up kind of you know, by
Speaker 1: isolating yourself so much from that culture, you turn up
Speaker 1: with some other kind end of toxic. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the message of both is like, if you let it
Speaker 1: fester unchecked, it's gonna it's gonna take over, yeah, and
Speaker 1: destroy your male bonding with your best friend flesh. That's
Speaker 1: why we all love Zodiac the most though, because that's
Speaker 1: a movie about like male tenderness, like everybody um is like.
Speaker 1: That was also movie about just like people trying to
Speaker 1: connect with each other and they just can't because they're
Speaker 1: all siloed off. And now we're all literally siloed off.
Speaker 1: So we could all use a good fight I could
Speaker 1: I all use a good fight club. Howe either of
Speaker 1: you guys have ever boxed or fodd or anything a curiosity? No,
Speaker 1: I like slap somebody once in junior high slap fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had some slap fights. Um, I did, we didn't.
Speaker 1: You didn't do wrestling, Molly. When I did some wrestling,
Speaker 1: I did some I did, like a boxing class. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it's not I worry too much. I've never been
Speaker 1: in a real fist pit, but I definitely remember as
Speaker 1: a teenager, especially being like I wish girls would work
Speaker 1: their conflicts out physically. I had to say I always
Speaker 1: wanted to get into fights with people. I was not
Speaker 1: as aggressive person physically. I just wanted it to happen, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just because like mental warfare is so much worse. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: girl based mental warfare. It's like truly hell on earth.
Speaker 1: So it always seemed like, yeah, just punch it out,
Speaker 1: everybody hugs and goes home. Yeah. Um, Well, when all
Speaker 1: this is over, I was gonna I was truly going
Speaker 1: to get back into boxing, like last month and then
Speaker 1: and that was like the first thing that I realized
Speaker 1: was going to be closed was the boxing gym. Boxing
Speaker 1: will never do you think that two people will ever
Speaker 1: be able to like sweat on each other? Yes, sweat
Speaker 1: and the spit. And like they just announced that they're
Speaker 1: trying to reopen the NFL for the fall speaking of
Speaker 1: fight clubs, which seems like a very bad idea um,
Speaker 1: and also like they're just using it to pump up
Speaker 1: the brand so they can get advertising and then if
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen, it's like not on them. The answer
Speaker 1: of if people are ever going to fight each other
Speaker 1: and like get spit and punch each other. Is yes,
Speaker 1: well we have a vaccine, like of course I can't wait,
Speaker 1: Like I I have to say, like it was a
Speaker 1: brief sidebar about coronavirus stuff, like I true, like right
Speaker 1: now my stance is just like I refuse to be
Speaker 1: like I'm never gonna go to anybody's house ever again
Speaker 1: or something, because it's just like we will like when
Speaker 1: we have a vaccine, I'm gonna be going to so
Speaker 1: many people's houses. Oh my god, you have no idea.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show up unannounced, like I'm gonna lick all
Speaker 1: your plates. It's gonna be amazing. Like I just I like,
Speaker 1: I get too depressed if I think about a future
Speaker 1: in which, even with a vaccine, because of all of this,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to do the things that I
Speaker 1: used to do, not that I used to like anybody's plates. No,
Speaker 1: but I think we're also just like stop stop making
Speaker 1: people feel like this will all be fine by the fault,
Speaker 1: because like we don't know, nobody knows for sure, and
Speaker 1: if there's a second wave in the fall, I think
Speaker 1: because people are dumb, uh, they just wanted to open
Speaker 1: all back up one once and for good. You know,
Speaker 1: we look some of the people are dumb, but I also,
Speaker 1: like my I there there are many, many horrible dumb people.
Speaker 1: But then I think there are also reasonable people who
Speaker 1: just don't know what to do and they're just really anxious.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people. No, I think we're
Speaker 1: getting to wait it out, I guess. But there's this information,
Speaker 1: and also they won't they don't want to say anything
Speaker 1: definitive in case that turns out to be wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: like it seems like people can gather outside, but if
Speaker 1: they say everyone can gather outside and then a bunch
Speaker 1: of people get sick and they're like, whoops, that would
Speaker 1: also be bad. So I feel like they're hurring way
Speaker 1: too far on the side of just like not giving
Speaker 1: enough guidance, and so people are interpreting it in a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways. Like people are definitely interpreting the
Speaker 1: guidance like talmudically because it's confusing. Yeah, but the newest
Speaker 1: information seems to say that the real hazard is congregating
Speaker 1: indoors in groups. So yeah, it feels like if they
Speaker 1: did just come out and say, like you can go
Speaker 1: to the park, just don't have a dinner party that
Speaker 1: would like clear it up for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But again they don't want to say that because we
Speaker 1: don't know that for sure about dinner parties. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: so that just says to me that in the future
Speaker 1: that there will be fight clubs, but they'll just be
Speaker 1: in parksdoor beach fight club. It sounds very modern. Um,
Speaker 1: should we take one last quick more of a statement
Speaker 1: than a question call before we wrap it up? Okay, Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Curtis from Iowa. I'm a man over thirty
Speaker 1: five and I love fight clubs. I really like the
Speaker 1: part where Jordan Catalan don't gets beat up. I was
Speaker 1: always much more of a Brian crack out guy. Thanks
Speaker 1: such a good note to end. Also shout out to
Speaker 1: the three one nine area code. Uh yeah, thanks for
Speaker 1: calling in. I totally forgot that Jared Letter was in
Speaker 1: this movie that completely escaped. He wants to destroy something beautiful.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't. I love to see Jared Jared leto get
Speaker 1: punched in the face. Just as satisfying as seeing a
Speaker 1: bunch of credit card buildings is Jared Letos face the
Speaker 1: credit card building actors. This was right at the point
Speaker 1: when he when Jared Letto had like segued to rock stars.
Speaker 1: That is that true? I think it's right about there.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because he's standing beside behind Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: when he's giving the speech about how you won't be
Speaker 1: rock stars. Like everybody was really really coming down hard
Speaker 1: on Mr Letto for his involvement with thirty Seconds to St.
Speaker 1: Jordan's Catalano and Brian Cracko both have their problems. I
Speaker 1: never watched that show, so I don't wait a second.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Emily, you have to watch it. Sometimes we'll
Speaker 1: do a nineties month sometime. Yeah, it's really good. It's
Speaker 1: a really good show. I'm sure it is. I was
Speaker 1: too young for it when it was on. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just surprised you haven't seen it since then because it's available. Uh.
Speaker 1: Brian crack was the nice guy, so he's got nice
Speaker 1: guy problems. He's got stress or energy though crack Yeah crack,
Speaker 1: I was really speaking of like proto in cell. There's
Speaker 1: a vibeto in cell, like Mark Zuckerberg, like I feel
Speaker 1: entitled to female attention even though I don't look like
Speaker 1: Brad Pitton Fight Club. But that said, it's also easy
Speaker 1: even I identified slightly with Brian Krakow. I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of multidimensional characters who aren't Jordan Catalina. I love
Speaker 1: it because it's like he understands that, like Angela is
Speaker 1: his intellectual equal, but she likes she likes Jared Letto
Speaker 1: because he's hot, and let's save it. Were just understand,
Speaker 1: you'll understand why you want to see him bleed without
Speaker 1: without my so called life. It's fine, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I meet that in a nice way. I don't watch
Speaker 1: just any actual physical violence. Blood blood. Okay, that does
Speaker 1: it for us this week. Thanks for listening to Night Call.
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Speaker 1: Give us a Nightcall at one to four oh four
Speaker 1: six night if you have any Millennium specific questions, comments
Speaker 1: or concerns, and we'll all see you next week see
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