WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.639 --> 00:00:11.039 Smearing, moments now, moment spelling too your theme fast things too well, 2 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:39.359 and it will so restual. We welcome to this special Passover episode of Amusing 3 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:44.280 Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and contributions to American popular culture. The 4 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:48.479 story of Moses and the Exodus is no stranger to film, whether it's the 5 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:52.960 Ten Commandments, the Prince of Egypt, Exodus, Gods and Kings, or 6 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.799 some other adaptation. The problem for me is that these movies are too safe 7 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:03.000 and too pious, and trying to appeal to mass audiences and trying not to 8 00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:08.000 offend religious viewers. They don't really say anything interesting. There is, however, 9 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:14.719 one exception, Sader Masochism, an uninhibited, one of a kind animated 10 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:19.640 critique of the well known Passover tale. I'm Jonathan Friedman and I'm Joey Angelfield. 11 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:25.640 Producer engineer Mike Tomren is working somewhere behind the scenes. Amusing Jews is 12 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:30.040 a project of a dot Cavareem Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, the Cool Shool Jewish 13 00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:34.000 Cultural Community, and ATHEC United Studios. Our special guest today is Nina Paley, 14 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:38.239 a cartoonist, animator, and free culture advocate. She's best known for 15 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:42.959 her two thousand and eight animated feature film Sita Sings the Blues, based on 16 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:48.840 the Ramayana, and her twenty eighteen animated feature Sader Masochism, a jukebox musical 17 00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:53.560 recounting to Exodus, the eradication of goddess worship, and the rise of patriarchy. 18 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.280 Lena, Welcome to Amusing Jews. Hello, thanks for inviting me. 19 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:01.799 In your two thousand five Team tedex presentation, which I was just rewatching, 20 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:07.480 you describe copyright as a sort of brain damage that stifles the collective mind of 21 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:12.599 culture and interrupts the natural flow of transmission, remixing, and innovation. How 22 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:17.479 is this copyright abolitionist philosophy expressed in your work? Well, in Sado Masochism, 23 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:23.800 it's expressed in me using any music that I wanted. I was not 24 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:31.479 going to worry about that. So much censorship happens inside the artist's mind before 25 00:02:31.639 --> 00:02:36.599 a work ever gets expressed in the first place. So I decided I was 26 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:39.840 not going to cooperate in this that if it was going to be censored, 27 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:44.560 it would have to be censored externally, which YouTube has done. I have 28 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:49.319 not posted it on YouTube, but YouTube does not recognize fair use, the 29 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:54.280 doctrine of fair use, which all of the music uses in Sadomaschism are in 30 00:02:54.360 --> 00:03:00.159 fact fair use. But that doesn't matter. YouTube just has a little robot 31 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:07.400 and I would need big legal resources to challenge YouTube, which I don't have. 32 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:10.599 But I do believe if I challenged YouTube, I would win. But 33 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:15.599 still little artists no money, doesn't get to do that. Could you explain 34 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:20.199 the concept of fair use? And I know that if you were to pay 35 00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:23.360 the rights for all the music in that film, that will probably cost a 36 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:25.479 billion dollars or something like that. I don't know if it'll cost a billion 37 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:37.840 dollars, but yeah, there's very clearer exceptions to standard copyright protocol for transformative 38 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:43.800 uses, parodies included, also educational uses, also commentary. There's like a 39 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:47.120 set and there's some requirements it has to fulfill. One of them is that 40 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:54.319 the use actually is transformative, and another is that it does not threaten the 41 00:03:54.520 --> 00:04:01.840 income of the so called copyright owner from those works. And fair use is 42 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:05.719 like use it or lose it, And we've been losing it because no one's 43 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:14.360 using it because the movie industry is somewhat conservative, extremely conservative and cowardly and 44 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.519 people just don't assert it. But I'm not the movie industry. I'm just 45 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:24.079 an artist. I'm independent. I don't have to answer to investors or anyone. 46 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:30.240 So when I set out to make Sader Masochism, that was that was 47 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:32.639 part of it, as I was, and one of the first songs that 48 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:36.519 I wanted to use. I immediately my immediate reaction was, oh, I 49 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:41.519 can't use that. And it was hard for me to overcome that, but 50 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:46.000 I did use it. It was go Down Moses, even that classic. 51 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:50.439 You can't use amazing, Well, you can't. You can use anything if 52 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:56.360 you just use it. I was asked a screening, you know, how 53 00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:00.160 did you how were you able to use this music? And I said, 54 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.480 well, I bought deeping decent the music, and I put them in my 55 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:09.160 DVD drive and I copied them onto my hard drives and then I put them 56 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:14.199 in my editor Enjoying the show, click like and subscribe. Well, the 57 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:19.399 designs and animation you created for Sadrmasochism are striking and hard to forget. I 58 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:25.839 personally can't see The Exodus the same way after watching the movie. I don't 59 00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:30.920 want to call it propaganda art, but there's a clear and compelling anti normative 60 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:35.839 provocative message that comes through, whether it's the brutal slaughtering of ancient goddesses or 61 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:40.920 the disconcerting image of Jesus at the Last Supper speaking with the voice of what 62 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:46.480 sounds like an old reform rabbi from an instructional passover record many long years ago. 63 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:51.120 On this night, our ancestors heard the call of freedom, and tonight 64 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:57.160 that call rings out once more, commanding us to champion the cause of the 65 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:01.279 oppressed people's throughout the world. I am imagine only an atheist Jew with a 66 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:08.800 secular upbringing would come up with this stuff. Why did you decide to make 67 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:14.000 Sado Masochism? Well, I'm an atheist Jew with a secular upbringing here, 68 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:19.040 so apparently it had that happened. So one reason I made Sada Mraschism was 69 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:25.959 that after my first film, Sita Sings the Blues, came out, some 70 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:33.720 Hindu fundamentalist nationalists called my collaborators on that film self hating Hindus, and there 71 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:41.160 were a lot of oh well yeah. There was a strain of criticism of 72 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:48.839 the film and of me for cultural appropriation because as a what they assumed was 73 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:56.040 a white Christian woman working with the Ramayana that was not okay, I was 74 00:06:56.120 --> 00:07:00.480 not the correct ethnicity for that, and so I thought, but like, 75 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:04.199 oh, really, you know, well you want me to work with Supposedly 76 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:11.240 my cultural heritage is determined by my genetic makeup. Okay, I don't think 77 00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:15.000 you're going to be any happier with that, but I'll do that. And 78 00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:19.360 so, yeah, I was going to be Passover because that's the one big 79 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:27.240 holiday that I was raised observing. But another reason I made Sandramascism was because 80 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:30.680 my father was dying. As I got the idea for it, and I 81 00:07:30.759 --> 00:07:36.160 did want to do something about my father, some attempt to connect with my 82 00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:43.680 father somehow. And I am Jewish, well, both my parents are ethically 83 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:48.680 Jewish, but my father was. He was from a religious family, and 84 00:07:48.759 --> 00:07:55.600 even though he was a hardcore atheist himself, it was very important that we 85 00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:01.480 had some sort of connection to Jewish identity. So that came more from him. 86 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:07.319 My mom's Stapleague was a lot more assimilated and relaxed about Judaism. Yeah, 87 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:11.920 I think. And there is that beautiful juxtaposition in the film between like 88 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:18.399 the harsh takedown of tradition and then some sprinkles of tradition, which I don't 89 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:24.839 know. It makes for an indefinable experience in some ways. Yeah, well 90 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:31.799 that's being a secular Jewish American. It's a somewhat indefinable experience. I mean, 91 00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:37.639 it's been a trip, especially lately. Like I really did not think 92 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:43.759 much about being Jewish. It was just sort of this birky fact about me. 93 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:50.120 I did not experience anti Semitism growing up. I experienced little to know 94 00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:56.399 anti Semitism in my life and just look at the world now, this is 95 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:05.240 just bizarre. So yeah, like I didn't even bother while using my jew 96 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:07.200 card is what I called it. I had literally made a juke card. 97 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:13.440 When I started making Sadr Masochism, It's like I can make this movie, 98 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:18.519 which was you know, it's been so many things have changed in the last 99 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:22.679 ten years or fifteen years. You have some delightful scenes in the film where 100 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:26.679 you depicted as a lamb, are chatting with your bearded god in the sky 101 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:31.759 father, who was a mathematics professor. The audio was taken from interviews you 102 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:35.519 recorded with your father. I know first Handoo, it's like to do something 103 00:09:35.519 --> 00:09:39.799 that your family's not that your family doesn't like. Oh yeah, I like, 104 00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:46.480 what like dropping out of college. It was a stupidity on your PARTI 105 00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:50.080 it has nothing to do with religion. What inspired you to put those in 106 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:54.159 the movie. When I started making the movie, I did a lot of 107 00:09:54.200 --> 00:10:00.200 live recordings of people's satyrs and I used none of those recordings. But I 108 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:05.440 also recorded my father. Those recordings are well, it was just one recording. 109 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:11.039 Really, he was at a hospital a few months before he died. 110 00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:16.360 We thought he was dying that time, but he wasn't. But I really 111 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:20.440 wanted to get an interview with him, So yeah, I was getting interviews 112 00:10:20.519 --> 00:10:26.279 in that one I included, but the scenes with him were the last scenes 113 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:30.679 that I made. In producing the films, I started with the musical numbers 114 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:35.799 and the audio I did with my dad, I just did not want to 115 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:41.720 play for several years. I just felt very ambivalent about it. And I 116 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:50.279 think it was five years after his death that I returned to them because I 117 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:54.960 had to finish the film. And you know, I knew I wanted that 118 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.240 stuff in, but it was just hard for me to listen to the whole 119 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:03.480 thing. And yeah, film, Well, that's part of the sweetness of 120 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:05.840 the film. I think. The other part is that kind of harsh edge, 121 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:11.159 and whenever war flares up in the Middle East, as it often does, 122 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:16.279 I have a habit of sending around the scene from the movie set to 123 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:20.960 the Triumphalist song This Land Is Mine from the movie Exodus, sung by Andy 124 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:26.320 Williams, and the animation shows the never ending back and forth conflict in that 125 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:31.200 land, beginning with early Man, through the Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, 126 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:37.039 Israelites, Babylonians, Greeks, Maccabees and others, to the Crusaders, Turks, 127 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:41.519 Arabs, British Palestinians, Israelis and others, culminating in the Angel of 128 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:46.720 Death, who you describe on your website as the real hero of the Old 129 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:54.440 Testament and right now too. The message isn't exactly ambiguous. But what did 130 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:01.440 you hope viewers would take away from this jarring, darkly humor portrayal of perpetual 131 00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:07.240 brutality. Yeah. People sometimes ask me what I want viewers to take away, 132 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:11.559 and it's not like I really know. I think I make art to 133 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:20.759 be less alone myself. If other people feel less alone witnessing this world when 134 00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:24.799 they see my art, then perhaps I want them to just take away some 135 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:30.480 comfort or camaraderie or the knowledge that you are not alone. Yeah, it 136 00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:35.639 seems that people maybe aren't as open about talking about cyclical violence because that's really 137 00:12:35.639 --> 00:12:41.559 what we're dealing with. And the fact that you portrayed artistically in a very 138 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:48.440 evocative and strident kind of way, I think it does articulate that sense of 139 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:56.360 anxiety and hopelessness that people aren't comfortable maybe saying themselves. Yeah, I guess 140 00:12:56.360 --> 00:13:03.559 that's the one thing that I'm skeptical of with the Middle East situation, the 141 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:11.720 Land of Canaan situation is just when people think that they have an answer and 142 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:16.440 that everybody should go along with this answer. If everybody would just do the 143 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:20.519 they we'd all be great. And it's like, no, people are not 144 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:22.279 going to do the thing. The reason that they're not going to do the 145 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:33.399 thing is because of a couple of thousand years of stuff. And yeah, 146 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:39.360 it's it's difficult to live in a world with an unsolvable problem. Another great 147 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.960 scene in the movie has ancient Near Eastern goddess figuring singing and dancing to the 148 00:13:43.960 --> 00:13:48.440 Pointer sisters. You've gotta believe they taught Moses with the lyrics why not believe 149 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:52.360 in me? In the film, you make the case that the god of 150 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.639 Moses is by no accident Mail. Can you elaborate? I knew I was 151 00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:03.080 making a film about the passover story, which was Exodus, but I didn't 152 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:16.200 know how I was going to find meaning that was resident with me. I 153 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.159 didn't know how I was going to really get into it. What you're supposed 154 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:24.960 to do with the Exodus story is Moses is the hero, and you make 155 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:30.279 a hero story, like all those other films you mentioned, the Ten Commandments 156 00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:37.919 and Prince of Egypt, the for feminists for women, women are supposed to 157 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:41.720 relate to the story through Miriam Moses the sister, which they did a little 158 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:46.519 bit in Prince of Egypt. Miriam was hardly mentioned at all in the text. 159 00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:52.159 She's sort of an invention. Well, her character is sort of made 160 00:14:52.240 --> 00:15:03.159 up by well meaning feminist leaning liberals Jews who want to make the story seem 161 00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:07.080 more feminists or inclusive with women than it is. It really is not, 162 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:16.759 So I didn't want to modify the story to be something that it wasn't. 163 00:15:18.120 --> 00:15:22.519 Have you read the text. I read the version in my King James Gideon 164 00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:26.919 Bible, But well, I don't know if I should admit this, but 165 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:31.679 I do have a PhD in Hebrew Bible. Wow, so you read it 166 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:39.559 in Hebrew, Yeah, it's not any better. Yeah. So you know, 167 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:48.679 this is pretty harsh women and very male oriented, very patriarchal. I 168 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:54.960 mean, Moses was a patriarch. It's a patriarchal religion. So yeah, 169 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:58.039 I was really not seeing Moses as a hero, and I wasn't really seeing 170 00:15:58.039 --> 00:16:03.480 Aaron as a hero. And the fact that Leebke family seemed pretty corrupt, 171 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:07.679 especially after Aaron did that whole Golden Calf thing and everybody got killed except Aaron, 172 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:11.799 and Aaron got to be made a priest and all of Aaron's descendants got 173 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:17.159 to be priests forever. It was like what he like enabled that Golden Calf, 174 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:21.600 Like he did that. So the question was how am I going to 175 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:26.600 relate to this without Moses being the hero? And I was just you know, 176 00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:36.200 I read lots of commentaries and interpretations and books about Exodus, and the 177 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:38.399 one that I liked the most was called When God Was a Woman by Merlin 178 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:45.080 Stone, and it's you know, it's a fallible book, but I did 179 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:52.799 like her basic thesis, which was that the Hebrew religion emerged in a world 180 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:56.840 where goddesses were worshiped, and that's the idols that they were talking about, 181 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:03.000 and that's the neighbor's religions that they were talking about. And that's what got 182 00:17:03.080 --> 00:17:12.960 eliminated when Hebrew Monotheism became dominant. You can't worship goddesses when you know, 183 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.359 thou shalt have only one God and have no other gods before me, and 184 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:22.400 you know, Goddess worth that was the practice there, that was the land, 185 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:26.880 That was what people did. I liked that and I pursued it. 186 00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:30.640 But in order for me to tell that story, I had to sort of 187 00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:37.759 resurrect the goddess. And we can't really do that in modern times because we're 188 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:42.920 cut off from goddess religions as they were historically practiced. People have kind of 189 00:17:44.039 --> 00:17:49.799 reinvented them, but uh, that's really you know, reinventing and reimagining them 190 00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:56.440 isn't the same as having a tradition that's handed down. We are cut off 191 00:17:56.559 --> 00:18:00.480 from that. Humanity is cut off from that part of our legacy. But 192 00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:04.960 I had to make it up, so I did. So I have like 193 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:11.079 these different representations of the Goddess, like just as many as I find, 194 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:21.240 and those animated goddess figurines, the statues. Those were all images that I 195 00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:25.200 was looking at when I was trying to design like a character of the Goddess, 196 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:29.440 and my plan was to redraw them. But I was using animation software, 197 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:34.079 a new animation software for me, and after a while I realized, 198 00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:37.640 Hey, I don't have to readraw these, I can just use the reference 199 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:42.160 material. And that's how those guys got animated, or goalps, I should 200 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.759 say, that's how those galps got animated. You're reminded me of something as 201 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:52.079 well. The founder of humanistic Judaism, Rabbi Sherwin Wine. He would ask 202 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:56.880 rhetorically, what's so great about monotheism anyway? You know, there's this thing 203 00:18:56.920 --> 00:19:03.799 in Western culture where we believe that monotheism is somehow an advantage or some better 204 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:07.759 version of theology. And what you're saying is one reason I think, why 205 00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:12.880 maybe that isn't so right. What do we lose when we decide upon one 206 00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:19.119 deity, one male deity? And your film very much captures what is lost 207 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:25.359 and violently shows how it was lost and so forth. It's quite provocative. 208 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:30.640 Well, thanks, and you know, my first feature, my only other 209 00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:38.160 feature was about the Ramayana which is a Hindu story set in the Hindu pantheon, 210 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:45.480 with you know, lots of different gods and goddesses and avatars thereof, 211 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.240 And I had no problem relating to that story, that story like knock me 212 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:56.359 up inside the head, whereas Old Testament really did not do that at all. 213 00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:00.240 Your work in some of your views have stirred cut controversy over the years. 214 00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:06.079 Do you set out to be provocative or are you simply being true to 215 00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:08.799 yourself? In other words, do you think that your art, or maybe 216 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:15.119 art in general, has added cultural value if it is controversial. I do 217 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:18.480 not set out to be controversial. I know that's hard to believe, but 218 00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:26.000 I really truly do not. I'm just trying to tell the truth because I 219 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.240 don't like being alone. You know, like we're all witnesses of this world, 220 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:34.599 and I witness things, and I need to talk to other people about 221 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:40.400 the things that I witness, and occasionally we're not allowed to do that. 222 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:45.599 Occasionally we're in grave danger if we do that, but I need to do 223 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:52.640 it. I really don't like provoking people, I really don't, but I 224 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.480 can't be alone. I can't be the only person that sees what I see, 225 00:20:56.599 --> 00:21:03.240 and so I talk about it, and that is very upsetting, especially 226 00:21:03.720 --> 00:21:11.000 if you do it six or eight or ten years before the rest of the 227 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:15.519 world realizes that they need to talk about it. To Boo, yeah, 228 00:21:15.599 --> 00:21:18.640 I get that sense that you're just sort of presenting the world as you see 229 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:23.640 it in your art, and there's certainly a personal reason for doing that, 230 00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:27.160 and like you said, kind of resonating with others who may feel the same 231 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:33.160 way, and maybe giving them a voice even or making them see things more 232 00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:38.319 clearly and helping them to articulate perhaps their views on these issues as well. 233 00:21:38.839 --> 00:21:42.839 If you're seeing stuff that's like clear as day right in front of your face 234 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:52.799 and nobody else around you sees it, you feel really crazy and really alone, 235 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:57.079 and going through this world alone is really terrifying and difficult. And I 236 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:07.359 can shut up. But the depression and like the loneliness and the depression that 237 00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:15.359 that causes is actually worse than what happens when other people are provoked. But 238 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:19.799 no, I don't set up to provoke people. I don't know why I 239 00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:25.480 am like this, or I don't know. I don't enjoy it. I 240 00:22:25.519 --> 00:22:30.799 don't enjoy provoking people. In your view, what are the chances of patriarchy 241 00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:37.319 ever going away. Zero. Patriarchy will never go away. So I'm not 242 00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:41.559 like, smash the patriarchy. We can't smash the patriarchy. We you know, 243 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:48.519 we can do our best in it. So this has been a tough 244 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:57.799 decade for feminists because feminists wanted to smash the patriarchy, but you know, 245 00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:07.720 you can't really smash physical biological differences between men and women. And there has 246 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:14.000 been this reckoning and a lot of women have had to acknowledge what we never 247 00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:19.680 wanted to, which is that men on the whole are stronger and bigger than 248 00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:27.839 women on the whole. And when that's the situation, there's an inherent inequality 249 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:33.279 between the sexes, an inherent inequality of strength. And on the most basic 250 00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:40.880 level, if you have a class of people that's stronger and in most cases 251 00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:45.000 more violent than the other class of people, the stronger and more violent ones 252 00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:52.279 are gonna dominate the weaker and less mildent ones. That's just gonna happen. 253 00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:00.799 And as humanists, we can say like, oh, okay, well, 254 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.960 you know, let's try to make things as equal as possible. Let's try 255 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:08.880 to balance this out. Let's try to give some protections to the weaker ones 256 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:18.079 so that they're not constantly intimidated or dominated by the stronger ones. You can 257 00:24:18.119 --> 00:24:25.640 try to do that, but the you know, the reality is there's those 258 00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:30.119 differences. I sort of feel that way too when we're talking about economics and 259 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:37.079 the desire for sort of a compassionate capitalism, because capitalism isn't going away either 260 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:41.799 as far as I know, and you know, it doesn't have a soul 261 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.720 and it doesn't have the best interests of everyone in mind. So the idea 262 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:52.519 of creating a compassionate capitalism, is there a possibility of a compassionate patriarchy or 263 00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:56.000 is that also kind of a dream too far? I don't know. I 264 00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:00.759 mean, when it comes to capitalism, I think of this. I think 265 00:25:00.839 --> 00:25:03.640 it's a line in the New Testament the poor will always be with us? 266 00:25:04.839 --> 00:25:11.440 Didn't they figure that out a long time ago? Like you can't have everyone 267 00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:17.759 in the same class. Human beings are hierarchical, and they sort themselves into 268 00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:22.799 upper and lower and top and bottom. That's what they do, and we 269 00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.720 do that because we're they that's what we do. We're animals, and animals 270 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:33.519 have some animals, some social animals have just in anate sense, of that 271 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:41.319 of the pecking order. So those who want to eliminate capitalism, they want 272 00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:45.079 to do it because it's so unfair. These hierarchies are so unfair. It's 273 00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:51.319 not right that there are poor and rich and that some people get the low 274 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:56.240 the short end of the stick. But I think that that's a part of 275 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:03.359 group nature, you know, human group nature is. Now we can make 276 00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:07.880 it less extreme. We do make it less extreme. Right, We have 277 00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:14.440 some regulations, some social policies that take the edge off of it, and 278 00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:21.039 it would be good to have more of those, But we can't eliminate hierarchy. 279 00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:23.599 Like, even if you eliminate something that's called capitalism, you're still going 280 00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:30.839 to have probably even more grotesque, even more covert hierarchies that are even harder 281 00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:33.839 to deal with. Yeah, as you're alluding to, we are primates. 282 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:38.880 I think we forget that, and primate societies tend to be hierarchical and unfair. 283 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:42.839 And what can you do? I mean, yeah, but you know, 284 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:48.079 we should do our best, right, We should try to be decent 285 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:55.039 human beings and have principles and think about our principles and then apply our principles 286 00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:59.920 and reevaluate our principles. If they're not working, we should do all that. 287 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:02.880 Well. On that positive note, it's been great talking to you, 288 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:06.359 Nina, and it's been great talking to you and to our audience. Now 289 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:11.000 back to your regularly scheduled lives. Amusing Jews is here to amuse you. 290 00:27:11.240 --> 00:27:18.000 If you like being amused, go ahead and click like and subscribe,