WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.240 Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics Fans. As I've told 2 00:00:12.279 --> 00:00:15.800 you before, TikTok has been such a gold mine for me, not only 3 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:20.640 of ideas, but of finding new people who I just realize are have incredible 4 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.120 things to say, great perspectives, and people I want to bring on the 5 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:26.719 podcast. And that's what I'm gonna get to do today. Cage Bishop Cosplay. 6 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:31.760 You may have seen them on TikTok, on Twitter or on their podcast 7 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:37.719 Blurred Perception. They have been talking about great things about fandom and race and 8 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:40.840 how we interact with each other as fans and how we can be better about 9 00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:43.479 that, topics that I really love, and so I'm so glad to have 10 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.759 them on the podcast today. Cage Bishop, say hello and tell us a 11 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:51.000 little about yourself. Hi, everybody, I'm Cage Bishop Cosplay, also known 12 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.960 as Perception Blurred or the Unapologetically Blurred. I have been cosplaying for the better 13 00:00:57.039 --> 00:01:00.560 part of i'd say twelve years now, and i've been podcast asking for the 14 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:04.319 better part of five ish, not starting Perception Blurred until twenty twenty, but 15 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:07.959 I had a former show with some friends before that, and that just kind 16 00:01:07.959 --> 00:01:11.079 of fell a little wayside because you know, life happy. I hear that. 17 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:14.280 I hear that well. And this is a perfect episode now because just 18 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:18.280 recently we released an episode on my other podcast, Star Wars Universe, specifically 19 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:21.519 about cosplay there. So I'm excited to talk to you about all the things 20 00:01:21.519 --> 00:01:23.959 you're doing. And let me gotta just start by talk to us about yourself 21 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.560 as a fan. I've seen you talk about a number of different things. 22 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:30.719 I think I see you wearing an Avenger's T shirt right now. Yeah, 23 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:34.280 although I embarrassed myself, where did you kind of get started as a fan 24 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:36.640 and what are the fandoms you kind of think of yourself as most in? 25 00:01:37.159 --> 00:01:42.879 Okay, so well, my fandom history goes back for almost the full forty 26 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:46.959 years of my life. My dad and my mom are major geeks. My 27 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:49.319 mom's a geek in her own right with certain things. She's not a huge 28 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:53.000 sci fi or fantasy nerd, but she has heard things. My dad is 29 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:57.120 where I learned all my sci fi and fantasy and action film stuff, and 30 00:01:57.159 --> 00:01:59.640 he was always a fan, so he got my brother and I into that 31 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:06.400 very very young children. I started my major fandoms with all things eighties giant 32 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:12.599 robots, so transformers, Vultron, Gobots, Yes, gobots. I was 33 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.080 a fan of gobots. All that type of stuff was my wheelhouse. And 34 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:22.520 as I said in my origin story video on TikTok this past week, my 35 00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:25.960 big first memory was I was two years old, my brother was just born. 36 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:29.919 To get me out of the hospital, a manic two year old running 37 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:32.000 around and to let my mom and my baby brother rest, my dad took 38 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:36.919 me to the theaters to see Transformers the movie, and the rest is history, 39 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:39.360 like it just fell into place from there, and anything that kind of 40 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:45.120 correlates along with that type of genre, like so Transformers, you know, 41 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:49.319 Ghostbusters, anything sci fi really was my thing. And then we got into 42 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.039 the nineties with Power Rangers and X Men, and my dad started me and 43 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:58.000 my brother on comics, and I'm just into a little bit of everything, 44 00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:01.159 you know, like if it's yeah, some kind of connection to the greater 45 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:06.479 sci fi world, or like even some fantasy in some way, shape or 46 00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:08.319 form, my dabbling. I love that. I love that, and I 47 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:13.280 love when we get stories about how our parents helped get us involved, because 48 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:16.759 I think there's often the perception you and I are similar generations, and I 49 00:03:16.759 --> 00:03:20.400 think a lot of times there's a thought that our generations kind of the you 50 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.319 know, people in their forties or whatever, was kind of their first of 51 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:28.120 the like real nerd generations, and like, you know, my mother was 52 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.520 a huge Star Trek fan. She wasn't, I think, geeky in a 53 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:34.280 lot of other ways. Maybe at cooking, that's the whole other kind of 54 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.159 thing. And she went like, she wasn't super into the science of it. 55 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:39.680 But as a young kid, she would sit me down and we watch 56 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:44.719 episodes of the original series. This was before Next Generation came on, and 57 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:46.479 then she would ask me about the kind of questions it raised, you know, 58 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:51.439 about like religion and like, you know, and race and gender and 59 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:54.080 all these things. And that was kind of my first introduction to the idea 60 00:03:54.240 --> 00:04:00.840 of that spaceships and phasers and people with pointy ears could also be ways to 61 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:02.639 really inform us about how we live in the world and our ethics and morals 62 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:04.919 and stuff like that. So, yeah, I just love hearing it when 63 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:08.240 it comes from the parents. Oh yeah, absolutely. My mom and my 64 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:14.400 dad have always encouraged our creativity and encouraged our curiosity. My mom will be 65 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:16.000 the first to tell you, you know, honestly, I grew up my 66 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.319 brother and I just grew up with our mom parents separated at a very young 67 00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:23.439 age. My dad is still a part of our life. But my mom 68 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.720 always will tell people that she didn't sugarcoat anything for us. So if we 69 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:30.079 had a question based on watching something on television or based on playing a video 70 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:34.000 game, she was there to answer those questions and to teach us the difference 71 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.720 between fantasy and reality, much like I do with my daughter. Now, 72 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:42.399 my daughter could watch or play just about anything she wants to to a degree. 73 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:46.000 Now, you know, things are a little bit more detailed than when 74 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:48.680 we were kids growing up, So there's still some stuff my daughter can't play, 75 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:53.519 But if she were to get into it and had a question, I'd 76 00:04:53.560 --> 00:04:56.519 be there to answer it for her and be realistic and be logical about it. 77 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.639 You know, you can't hide these things from kids and expect them to 78 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:02.920 not fall into it some way. So that's that was my mom's philosophy, 79 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:05.560 and that's how she raised us. And she just said, hey, this 80 00:05:05.639 --> 00:05:11.199 is fake, this is real. Don't do this because in the real world 81 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:14.439 there are consequences for it, right, I mean, you can't solve all 82 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:16.120 your problems by just jumping on top of them and running from the left side 83 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:18.000 of the screen to the right side of the screen. As much as I 84 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:23.920 would like to, yep, I hear that. I hear that well, 85 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:25.800 And there's so much they I want to talk about, but I want to 86 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:29.399 kind of further set the scene with people. So what is a blurred I 87 00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:31.639 think a lot of fans if I heard that term. Some may well have 88 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:33.959 not, but a lot of people haven't really thought too much about it. 89 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:36.319 What is it blurred? What does that mean to you? Because I know 90 00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:40.600 that's an important part of your kind of fandom journey. Yes, okay, 91 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:45.199 So a blurred is a portmanteau of the words black and nerd spelled b l 92 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:50.680 e r D, And it is basically that it's a subgenre of African American 93 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:56.360 culture or actually world black culture, to be honest, because there are blurreds 94 00:05:56.360 --> 00:06:01.839 all across the planet. And I think the biggest thing for me is there 95 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:05.240 was a time, and I mean I've seen this going around a lot on 96 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:09.879 TikTok lately actually in the last couple of days, to where being black and 97 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:13.480 nerdy was something that was made fun of and it was stigmatized. Ye. 98 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:15.639 Thus, I mean, like you know, that's where the Steve Ercles of 99 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:19.879 the world come from in the old TV show, And it was a thing 100 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:23.759 that was looked down on as something that wasn't part of black culture. If 101 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:26.839 you were nerdy, that was you were considered the white kid of the black 102 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:30.160 family or the black group. And that was something that as I've gotten older, 103 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:34.800 and as other Blurds have gotten older, we've separated ourselves from because it 104 00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:39.800 doesn't diminish our blackness being a nerd. It just means that we are allowed 105 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:43.879 to like and love the things that we're into, and pardon me, I 106 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:47.160 share those things with the people around me. You know. I want people 107 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:55.600 to understand that you can be black and be into hip hop and myself the 108 00:06:55.639 --> 00:07:00.000 Power Rangers. You can be black and you can like Matta like a and 109 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:04.399 in the same breath watched the Tyler Perry movies. You know, those are 110 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:10.560 things that are not musually exclusive just because you're of black descent, Like you 111 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:15.319 can band all of that and enjoy it and not let the world beat you 112 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:17.399 down because of it. Whether it's other Black people, whether it's white people, 113 00:07:17.399 --> 00:07:21.319 whether it's Asian people, whatever, be blurred, be on, apologetic, 114 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:25.680 love who you are, and love the people around you. Yeah, 115 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:28.519 now I love that. I love the way you talk about it, because 116 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:30.519 you know, as a white person, there's a lot of that, of 117 00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:32.240 course that I've never experienced, but I've seen it in others. I remember 118 00:07:32.439 --> 00:07:35.399 one of my best friends in my friend group in high school was black, 119 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:39.879 and he wasn't often getting peased by the other black kids that are school because 120 00:07:39.879 --> 00:07:43.600 he was into the role playing games and goth lifestyle and all that kind of 121 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:46.199 stuff. And it was only later this is kind of my own ignorance of 122 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:48.600 realizing that, like, you know, part of where that came from also 123 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:53.160 was how incredibly white all the things that those things were, you know, 124 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:56.000 that that you know, the superhero worlds and all those kind of things. 125 00:07:56.519 --> 00:08:00.680 And one of the things that I've seen a way that it comes up a 126 00:08:00.680 --> 00:08:03.519 lot as well is also I think the you know, as you say, 127 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:05.680 it's coming from both directions, because it's there may be some of the like 128 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:09.199 you know, from from other polks in your communities of like why you know, 129 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:13.279 all the nerds stuff, but also like when I see you know, 130 00:08:13.319 --> 00:08:16.360 and this is a tendency I would fall into that trying to be much more 131 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:20.319 careful of in later years of like, okay, there's you know, if 132 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:22.720 a podcast has a black guest on, it's to talk about Black Panther, 133 00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:26.079 you know. Or when a black nerd comes out, the first thing they're 134 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:28.560 asked about is Luke Cage and stuff like that, right right, that does 135 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:33.559 happen all too often. And I mean, honestly, aside from as you 136 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:37.000 know, Luke is my favorite superhero. But aside from Luke Cage, like 137 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:39.080 I grew up with the X Men, I grew up with Spider Man. 138 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:41.240 I can talk to you about nineties Spider Man cartoons. I can talk to 139 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:45.440 you about Spider Man comics. I can talk to you about X Men characters 140 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:50.600 that aren't Storm and Bishop because I didn't have them all the time, and 141 00:08:50.679 --> 00:08:52.519 a lot of people don't realize that that. Like, you know, when 142 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:54.799 I talk about Power Rangers, I don't have to talk about Zach. He 143 00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:58.279 was one of my favorites because I got to see a live action black superhero 144 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:03.200 for the first time. But honestly, Jason was my favorite Power Ranger for 145 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:07.159 the longest time. And it's not because he looked like me. It's because 146 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:11.519 of what he represented as a leader and that positive role model and that strong 147 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:13.559 friend. So I was like, hey, that's my guy. I'm the 148 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.159 Red Ranger. When we're playing Power Rangers in you know those at the playground, 149 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:20.519 I was the Red Ranger because I thought he was the coolest. Yeah, 150 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.720 but, like you said, the problem is being a black nerd in 151 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:28.360 nerdy spaces. The first thing people want to talk to us about is is 152 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:33.519 black media. Which is great if that's what's popular, right then, Like, 153 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:35.639 if there's a new Black Panther movie out and you want to talk to 154 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:39.759 me about it, fine, But if we're having a regular conversation to challis 155 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:41.200 shouldn't be the first thing that comes up, you know, Like, yeah, 156 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:46.240 I can talk Anime, I can talk Final Fantasy, I can talk 157 00:09:46.279 --> 00:09:48.440 Lord of the Rings, I can talk all that stuff. I might not 158 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:52.639 be super well versed in all of it, but I am a fan, 159 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:54.759 so let's talk about it, you know, Like yeah, And I think 160 00:09:54.759 --> 00:09:58.720 that's such an important conversation to have because for myself, as a person who's 161 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:01.720 wink, as a person who's non binary, as a person who's disabled, 162 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:05.879 I often use a wheelchair, like I often want to be careful not to 163 00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:11.200 say like, oh, the experiences of all different you know, non privileged 164 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:13.799 groups are the same because they're obviously unique and different in different ways, and 165 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.279 there's nothing no time for the oppressional Olympics or comparisons of the like, but 166 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:22.240 there's definitely, I think similarities people can hear and see, and I know 167 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.639 for myself at least in listening to a lot of the conversation from black nerds 168 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:30.840 such as yourself and some other great content creators on there, it got me 169 00:10:30.919 --> 00:10:35.759 thinking about times when, like, you know, someone has seen me in 170 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:37.639 the wheelchair and a fan thing or something like that, and the first thing 171 00:10:37.679 --> 00:10:39.559 I want to do is come up to me and ask me about like different 172 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:41.919 disabled heroes and things like that, and like I'm the onely a hand. 173 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:45.799 There's a great part of it of you know, oh hey, cool, 174 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.279 this is actually not a conversation most people get to have. But also it's 175 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:52.480 that same kind of tokenization of Okay, you think this is the part of 176 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:56.480 my identity that you see. You don't see all the other parts. This 177 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:58.720 is the part of identity that is most visible to you, and so you're 178 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.840 going to you that that's the fan of that care most about exactly exactly, 179 00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:05.159 And I totally understand what you're saying. I do think it's lost on a 180 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:11.519 lot of people that the non majority people we are fighting a very very as 181 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:15.639 you said, very similar battle. Not the exact same battle, but we 182 00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:18.679 are fighting a very similar fight, and I think people need to realize that. 183 00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:20.559 And like, if I were to see you out at a con in 184 00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:24.840 a wheelchair but you were like cosplaying, say you were cosplaying Commander Riker. 185 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:28.440 I'm going to talk to you about Riker. I'm not going to be like, 186 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:30.919 oh, well, you're in a wheelchair. You're clearly this character from 187 00:11:30.919 --> 00:11:33.000 Star Trek. No, I'd be like, hey, man, I love 188 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:37.200 the Riker costume. That's dope. Cool, I'm glad you're a fan. 189 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:41.000 What do you like most about the show? Blah blah blah blah blah. 190 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:45.440 I try not to, like you said, generalizes, general generalize people and 191 00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:48.559 put them in a box. One of the people that I've known for a 192 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:54.440 while, I'm gonna name drop a little bit here Michael Knightmage Wilson. He's 193 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:58.799 a cosplayer from the Ohio area. Man has hundreds upon hundreds of cosplays. 194 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:01.879 One of the things he shouts out is the fact that he is a black 195 00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:07.399 cosplayer, but he gets tired of hearing he's the black version of the character. 196 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:11.039 And I get that because he has like an Oliver Queen. He has 197 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.240 a green arrow and people are like, oh, you're a black Oliver Queen. 198 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:16.919 He's like, no, I'm just Oliver Queen. Or he'll have he 199 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.120 has a shredder. It's like, oh, you're a black shredder. No, 200 00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:24.039 I'm just shredder like you. You don't have to put a qualifier in 201 00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:28.600 front of it because we're slightly different than you. You know. Yeah, 202 00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.840 I remember one of the things that I was most struck by when Black Panther 203 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.440 came out, and there's just one of the cosplay stuff is you know, 204 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:39.440 I was in a neighborhood New York City at the time, in Brooklyn where 205 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:45.159 tons of kids would go out and in nothing caught well Halloween outfits, which 206 00:12:45.159 --> 00:12:46.360 I don't know if that's like six year old vote cosplay, you know, 207 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:50.080 whatever you call it, but the number of white kids that I saw in 208 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:52.960 Black Panther outfits. Yeah, and there wasn't black face, there was none 209 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.159 of that kind of nonsense. It was just the kids want to dress up 210 00:12:56.200 --> 00:13:01.240 like their favorite hero and they didn't see it as I have to. It 211 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:03.279 was just like, hey, Tachalla can be black Panther. I want to 212 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:07.159 be Black Panther as a six year old white kid, And I just I 213 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:09.919 love that because that seems it's it's the flip side. It's it's that kind 214 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:11.200 of like it doesn't have to be that the race of the character, and 215 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:15.120 for time want to enjoy it as a kid, right exactly. And that's 216 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:18.080 the thing is a lot of people again miss that as well. I had 217 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:22.159 a friend asked me, a white guy asked me if he could cosplay Killmonger 218 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:24.279 the year that the movie came out, and I was like, you can, 219 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:28.279 but maybe give it a little bit, let us enjoy this for a 220 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:35.480 bit first and then maybe but as children. I love seeing kids embrace all 221 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:41.360 of these characters because that shows you what the character actually means. That shows 222 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:43.320 you the purity of the art form. You know, you see a little 223 00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:46.360 white kid that wants to be Tachalla and the same breath that you see a 224 00:13:46.399 --> 00:13:50.919 little black kid that wants to be up thor you know, like that happens. 225 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:54.879 These kids want to be these characters because they think they're cool, not 226 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:58.639 necessarily because they are a reflection of themselves, but because they think they're cool. 227 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:03.000 On that same token, I love seeing the kids that want to be 228 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:05.919 the characters because they see themselves in them. You know. I love watching 229 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:11.039 my daughter watch Black Panther and she gets to see Shari and Okoye and Nakia 230 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:16.639 and Queen Ramuda and all of those strong, powerful black women get to be 231 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:20.279 those characters. I loved watching Black Lightning with her, and her getting to 232 00:14:20.279 --> 00:14:24.919 see Thunder and Lightning be badass teenage superheroes with their dad. I love watching 233 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:31.519 the Ghostbusters answer the call and her getting to see for women get to be 234 00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:33.320 Ghostbusters. And that was the same feeling that I had when I was a 235 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:37.440 kid watching Ghostbusters with my dad, because as a little boy, I got 236 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:41.000 to see for men, you know, kicking ass with proton pack, and 237 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:43.519 my daughter gets to see that as a little girl now and now with the 238 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.600 new movie, you know, the little girl's lead. So that's great, 239 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.840 But it's just that that pure innocence of it can teach the world a lot. 240 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:58.039 If we took time out to watch kids more often in fandom spaces, 241 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:01.440 I think we would solve a lot of the world's problems. Honestly, if 242 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:05.240 you just watch kids at comic cons, if you watch kids in a comic 243 00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:09.399 shop, if you watch kids in a toy store, it's about the purity 244 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:13.360 of those characters and what they represent and what they mean to these kids. 245 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:18.440 And as a fan base for all these things, I think we inherently forget 246 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:24.279 that these things are four kids. Like they may not seem like it. 247 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:28.679 Put Star Wars as a children's franchise. The Lord of the Rings was written 248 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:33.519 as a children's franchise. People miss that because we have always loved them. 249 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:37.360 And I'm not saying to stop loving them, but I'm saying, hey, 250 00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:41.240 take a step back, take a breath, and realize that things aren't going 251 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:45.120 to go the way we want them to all the time, because our generation 252 00:15:45.240 --> 00:15:48.639 is aging out finally, right, and these kids now are coming up and 253 00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:52.480 they're loving this stuff and they're appreciating this stuff, and they get to see 254 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:56.600 themselves represented now, and they get to see their friends represented, and they 255 00:15:56.639 --> 00:16:00.960 get to see all kinds of walks of life now because we're not just seeing 256 00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:07.080 you know, the straight white male characters as superheroes with the minority characters being 257 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:12.519 the villains. You know, like we're black black people in LGBTQI plus people 258 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:19.480 are not relegated to just background characters anymore. We're getting in the forefront and 259 00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:23.440 we are being seen, and our kids and our families get to see this, 260 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:26.799 and I love it. I love it so much. Yeah, no, 261 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:30.039 I hear you. And I think there's something so important about that. 262 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:34.480 Like with any of these communities, you have characters where there's a part of 263 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.600 their identity that is a defining part of their character, you know, Like 264 00:16:37.639 --> 00:16:41.399 I think like Luke Cage's blackness is an essential part of who he is. 265 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:45.960 Absolutely, you know, Seung Chiese asianness is an essential part of who he 266 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:51.279 is. But then a character like I can't forget his name, but the 267 00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:56.600 agent played by Randall park in Oh Jenny Jimmy Whoo. Yeah, he's a 268 00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:00.039 character. And I've heard his actor talk about, like how important is for 269 00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:04.000 him to be playing an Asian character in Marvel who's not a martial artist, 270 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:08.839 who's not like he the actor who's playing him, unless the character is Asian, 271 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:11.960 but the Asian is isn't inheritant to his character, And like, you 272 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.079 know, he had talked about how that he loved Shang Chi, but he 273 00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:19.000 thought it was important for both to be in the MCU exactly, absolutely, 274 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:22.759 and I love that. And that's again to go back to Black Panther. 275 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:27.640 That was the importance importantness of that story was my brother and I talked about 276 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:34.359 this at length. It didn't show black people as a monolith. It showed 277 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:41.440 Black people's potential as a people. It showed that even our bad guys were 278 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:47.359 written very well. Hillmonger was an excellent villain and the fact that where you 279 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:49.559 looked at him for like a couple of seconds, you're like, I kind 280 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:52.559 of get why you're doing this, and then you're like, wait a minute, 281 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:56.599 this guy has kurt thousands of people to get where he is just to 282 00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:00.799 do what he wants to do. Yeah, maybe he's not who I saw 283 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:03.119 he was, but like that's not a reflection of black people as as a 284 00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:07.759 as a race. And what I loved is like, there were no drug 285 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:12.720 dealing, there were no gang banging, there was no police force that was 286 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:17.960 shooting at random black people. It showed black people can be the hero and 287 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:22.519 can tell the story without having those like inner city, ghetto, downtrodden elements. 288 00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:26.279 And when it showed the inner city, when it showed where where Eric 289 00:18:26.359 --> 00:18:29.920 was raised. It didn't show it as a bad place to live. It 290 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:32.440 showed it as just, hey, it's a it's a high rise building where 291 00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:36.160 he's downstairs playing basketball while you find out that his father is actually a secret 292 00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:40.720 or Conden spy. You know, look right. And I love that because 293 00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:44.759 I think with representation, people often get like again, it can become very 294 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:48.240 polarized, and I think there's kind of a middle ground between oh, you 295 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:52.200 know why you know. On the one hand, you get the white folks 296 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:55.079 who are like, well, oh no, you should never race swap characters 297 00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:56.599 or like every or you know, why can't a white person then play you 298 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.559 know, kill Monger or whatever it is, and all the way to the 299 00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:04.319 other side. And the way I would look at it is something like, 300 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:07.240 you know, you take a character named kill Monger, and I see that 301 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:15.640 character on two levels. On the first level is the general experience of I 302 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:18.559 have been shut out of the world that I'm supposed to be a part of, 303 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:25.079 and I have been very badly treated by a community, and thus I 304 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:27.799 want revenge against the community. Those are things that I can relate to. 305 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:34.039 And then there are parts of his experience that are specific to growing up as 306 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:37.319 a black man in Oakland, in that community, and then you know all 307 00:19:37.319 --> 00:19:41.000 the other stuff you were just talking about that I can't relate to, but 308 00:19:41.079 --> 00:19:44.359 that I watch that, I'm like, oh, okay, so here's this 309 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:48.880 general story that I've experienced, told in a much more specific way in a 310 00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:51.799 specific context, and I'm not part of. But I get still watch that 311 00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:53.759 and then learn from it as how it fits my own context. Because like, 312 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.680 to me, one reason I love kill Monger so much is because he 313 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:00.559 reminds me so much of Magneto. I think in many ways there are very 314 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:06.839 similar characters. Magneto is that if kill Munger is the that in a black 315 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:11.119 context, Magneto is that in a Jewish post post Holocaust complex. And for 316 00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:15.319 myself, as jewet has a lot of Jewish family and experienced anti Semitism, 317 00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:21.119 myself like I relate more to Magneto, but I can see in kill Munger 318 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:23.839 story, Okay, here's this general story. Now every time you take that 319 00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:27.599 general story and put it into a specific context, it changes. It's like 320 00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:30.160 what is similar, what is different? And how do we learn from that? 321 00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:34.599 Exactly? Like, I'm actually glad you brought up Magneto. I know 322 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:40.640 you saw my helmet this week. Yep. I love Eric as a character. 323 00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:45.440 I love him, especially in modern comics. I'm not up on all 324 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.119 the X Men stuff that's going on right now because there's a lot and it's 325 00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:52.519 very convoluted, but a lot of it can be boiled down to Passtag. 326 00:20:52.559 --> 00:21:00.200 Magneto was right because Charles has shown that he is like not the upscale citizen 327 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:04.240 that he claimed to be in the mutant community, and Magneto was shown to 328 00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:07.920 be the hero that we knew he could be. Now, you don't always 329 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:12.599 agree with the methodology of these characters, either Killmonger or Magneto, but their 330 00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:17.640 overall message resonates with a lot of people because you're like, this is us 331 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:19.839 if we're driven to the breaking point. I get it. I get it. 332 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:23.519 And as you said, though, I can relate to a certain part 333 00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:26.680 of the core of Magneto's character, but there are things about him as a 334 00:21:26.759 --> 00:21:32.279 Jewish man that it was a Holocaust survivor that I can't relate to, but 335 00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:34.920 I can respect. Yeah, And that's what people need to do, is 336 00:21:34.920 --> 00:21:40.720 you take these pieces of these characters, excuse me, and you respect them, 337 00:21:40.759 --> 00:21:45.519 and you realize that it might not be the same journey that you're taking, 338 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:51.119 but you're on a very similar path. You are walking in the same 339 00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:53.440 general direction that they are. You might just not be going the same way. 340 00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:59.759 But that doesn't mean that these characters have to look different or be different 341 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:04.440 for you to relate to them. And then I do understand, well, 342 00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:07.599 no, let me rephrase that. I don't understand. When people flipped out 343 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:14.000 about Miles Morales becoming Spider Man, it did not destroyer or erased the character 344 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:18.720 of Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe. At that time, Peter was gone, 345 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:22.720 he was killed off. Miles happened to be another character that stepped up, 346 00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:25.519 and then when they brought Myles to six one six, Miles and Peter 347 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:30.839 co existed. So people got mad and up in arms about Miles Morales being 348 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:33.960 Spider Man. Yet we had what a year and a half two year run 349 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:37.640 of Ben Riley as Spider Man before that, And yeah, people didn't like 350 00:22:37.720 --> 00:22:42.000 the clone saga, but people love Scarlett Spider So what's the difference? Yep, 351 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:47.680 you know. And I just think that Stanley said it hit himself about 352 00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:49.680 Spider Man and other characters that anybody can be these characters. You're putting on 353 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:53.960 the mask it's the same thing that DC feels with Batman, and that's why 354 00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:00.440 we got you know, Tim Fox as Batman recently in DC. Because the 355 00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:04.920 cal is the symbol, the mask is the symbol, Captain America's shield is 356 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:10.240 the symbol. These symbols can be carried by anyone, and that is why 357 00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:15.799 the characters themselves are important. But passing that mansilon makes sense, you know, 358 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:19.920 it just to me, like people complaining about quote race swapping bothers me, 359 00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:23.599 or now you know, the whole anti m she you movement, that 360 00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:27.160 bothers me because it's like, you guys clearly don't read comic books because all 361 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:30.480 of these characters existed before these movies came out. Yeah, all of it. 362 00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:33.000 It's the same, the same thing. And you know, my particular 363 00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:38.400 favorite fandom Star Wars, where people say, oh my god, why are 364 00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:42.720 they putting all of this politics into Star Wars, and like go back and 365 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:49.039 watch interviews with George Lucas in the early nineteen eighties and he's explicitly saying the 366 00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:53.119 rebels are the viet Cong and the death Star is America. Like he's, 367 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:59.039 you know, like there's always been politics in these things. And one thing 368 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.720 that really kind of clicks for me as you're talking about them. Also, 369 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:07.440 is that I think one thing people forget is that the way different communities are 370 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:12.079 viewed in the world changes over time. You know, I know that, 371 00:24:12.119 --> 00:24:17.680 like uh, like I've talked off with my with my father and with my 372 00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:21.680 My father's parents were both dead by the time, yeah, my grandma was 373 00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:26.519 again. My grandparents and my father's side were both dead by the time I 374 00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:29.400 was, you know, fairly young. But I've talked to other people in 375 00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:32.960 my family of that generation or you know, from other families and communities and 376 00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:36.480 stuff, and come to realize that, like, you know, for me 377 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:38.720 Grant, I was an interfaith family. I'm part Christian. I'm now religionsly 378 00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:41.839 Christian, but I being born at least into a Jewish family, I never 379 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:48.119 felt that my Judaism made me not white. My grandparents absolutely did. You 380 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:51.119 know, at the time my grandparents were born in the twenties and thirties, 381 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:53.559 if you were Jewish, even if you were Ashkenazi in very pale skin, 382 00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:57.200 you weren't white. You know. That's just the nature of those terms has 383 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:02.039 changed, same with class and other things like that. And where I'm going 384 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:07.839 with that is at the time that Stanley and Kurt Jack Kirby created Spider Man, 385 00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:15.559 being a white kid from a poor neighborhood in Queens, you know, 386 00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:18.640 maybe there's an implication of ethnicness, maybe there's a you know of like, 387 00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:22.039 you know, Catholic or Jewish or something like that, and that's certainly been 388 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:26.559 argued about quite a lot. But certainly you are treated very socially differently than 389 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:30.960 if you'd been born to rich parents in Manhattan. And that was a very 390 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:36.279 clear stratification that today in New York City doesn't exist in anywhere near the same 391 00:25:36.279 --> 00:25:40.240 way. And so to say Peter Parker is always supposed to be kind of 392 00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:45.720 the outcast in a way that a kid born even poor in Queens isn't as 393 00:25:45.799 --> 00:25:48.839 much today as they were in the sixties when it was created. So let's 394 00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:52.359 make a new version that character who kind of actually is a lot more similar 395 00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:56.920 to the Peter Parker of the nineteen sixties and seventies. And I just, 396 00:25:56.319 --> 00:25:59.759 I mean, that's something people forget all the time, and I love when 397 00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:03.559 it's when writers are really willing to wrestle with that, right right absolutely, 398 00:26:03.559 --> 00:26:07.960 And it like like you're saying with Star Wars and I've had people that got 399 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:10.880 mad years back because you know, Obama was on the cover of a Spider 400 00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:14.279 Man book and he's like, I just want my comics to stay politic free. 401 00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:15.880 And I was like, so, you don't read comic books at all, 402 00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:18.119 because like, every comic book is political, every single one of it, 403 00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:22.640 down to archie comics. Every comic is political in some way, shape 404 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:26.519 or form. That's the point of the media form. The literal first version, 405 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:30.240 I think it's the first. Like the second episode of Superman, one 406 00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:34.480 of the villains he goes up against is a landlord who's being like who's trying 407 00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:40.119 to evict their tenants and using goons to do it, like literal the first 408 00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:42.880 you know, the first Captain America ever, he's punching Hitler right before the 409 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:45.400 United States is in the war. And when it's to a political question, 410 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:49.160 right it's always been there, it baffles me, like you know. And 411 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:53.440 then I had someone to share a picture with me. He's a buddy of 412 00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:56.279 mine that is a huge Shoe Jacksmann fan. He's a much bigger X Men 413 00:26:56.359 --> 00:26:59.839 fan than I am, but he's my go to X Men guru. If 414 00:26:59.839 --> 00:27:02.640 I have questions, I'm like, hey, bro, what's going on in 415 00:27:02.680 --> 00:27:04.440 Da da Dad? What do I need to read? Well, he showed 416 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:08.480 me a picture from a fan group that got taken down. This guy actually 417 00:27:08.519 --> 00:27:11.359 made up a T shirt and was going to go to a con and cosplay 418 00:27:11.400 --> 00:27:15.759 one of the members of the Friends of Humanity, you know, the known 419 00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:18.519 hate group and the X Men universe. And I was like, what made 420 00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:22.000 him think that was a good idea? Not my friend, But he showed 421 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:23.359 me a picture that this guy had posted, and I'm like, what made 422 00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:26.640 him think this was a good idea. I'm pretty sure I'm throwing hands if 423 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:29.160 I see a guy like that in public, because you're like, at that 424 00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:32.200 point, you're no better than a Nazi in my opinion, Like you want 425 00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:36.759 to cosplay a known member of a hate group, like I get. I 426 00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:41.119 honestly understand people they want to cosplay Red Skull. I get it, especially 427 00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:45.920 because Hydro separated himselves from the Nazi party, you know, especially in modern 428 00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:47.839 times, they made sure to go out of their way to be like, 429 00:27:47.839 --> 00:27:55.359 hey, we're not that's not up. But I also do not understand why 430 00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.079 you would go out of your way to miss the message of an X Men 431 00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:00.640 book and still call yourself a fan. The X Men books have always been 432 00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:07.839 about diversity and about the minority experience, and people get mad at that, 433 00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:12.079 and I'm baffled by it, Like I don't understand. I mean, let's 434 00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:15.039 let's go ahead and cards on the table won't be blunt about it. We 435 00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:18.200 saw comic books at the shop I work at. A kid was coming in 436 00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:22.839 in twenty twenty in a mega hat buying X Men and buying Avengers comics, 437 00:28:22.839 --> 00:28:26.119 and I had to stop myself from asking him all the time, how are 438 00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:32.720 you reading these and completely missing the message? Yeah, I don't understand how 439 00:28:32.799 --> 00:28:37.200 you are getting into these books and you don't understand the message behind them unless 440 00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:41.359 you think the Sentinel program is a good idea. It's like the cops who 441 00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:45.640 adopted the Punisher as their symbol when like, the whole point is that the 442 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:48.559 Punisher is wrong on some level, know that, like the vigil anti justice 443 00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:52.839 that he's doing. Yeah, it's just it's baffling. And there are times 444 00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:56.359 where I do think, like there's stuff, some stuff that I'll watch when 445 00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:00.000 I'm like, I think you as the author too subtle, you know, 446 00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:03.759 And I think you as the author holds some responsibility for the fact that people. 447 00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:04.680 But then yeah, some of the stuff like the X Men, it's 448 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:10.119 like the blinders you have to have on to claim this right. But I 449 00:29:10.119 --> 00:29:11.359 think that's unfortunately. What some people can do is they can be like, 450 00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:15.359 you know, I just love the spectacle of it and I missed any skipped 451 00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:18.240 the politics entirely. Yeah, well, I mean to send with the Punisher 452 00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:22.640 logo thing. It's funny you mentioned that because my wife, every time she 453 00:29:22.759 --> 00:29:26.079 sees a thin blue line Punisher logo, whether she's on her way to work 454 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:27.559 or out and about, she takes a picture of it and sends it to 455 00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:30.359 me and she goes, I just want to ruin a stranger's day so bad 456 00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:33.680 because she wants to go up to them and say, so, you don't 457 00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:37.400 read comic books, do you? The Punisher would hate cops, and he 458 00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:40.519 would hate you. He'd probably target you because you had that logo on your 459 00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:45.200 car. My favorite way that fandoms and memes and stuff like that have done 460 00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:48.559 this is there's a thing that I've seen in the queer community a lot when 461 00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:51.720 you see the thin blue line, like it's the it's the American flag. 462 00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:56.200 But as the Blue Lives Matter nonsense and people call it a oh this person 463 00:29:56.279 --> 00:30:00.920 has has forgotten to fill out there, do it? You're queer flag, 464 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:03.599 and so they just start coloring the other lines with the rainbow colors. I 465 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:07.680 love that'd be like, I assume admitted to be a queer bright flag and 466 00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:10.920 it's like that, you know, that's that's fandom his best Yeah, yeah, 467 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:12.960 it is, it is, and you know it just it baffles me 468 00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:15.400 so much that these people, no matter how much did the I mean, 469 00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:18.200 you know, Marvel did a whole issue with the punisher yelling at cops are 470 00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:22.039 using his logo, and they still ignore it. They think that that's the 471 00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:26.680 the woke agenda these days, and it's like, it's not. That's not. 472 00:30:26.920 --> 00:30:30.599 Frank Castle killed cops way before you guys started using the logo. I 473 00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:34.039 don't understand why you Oh it's I do understand. You don't read comics. 474 00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:38.000 You've watched a movie or a clip or two of a movie, and you 475 00:30:38.119 --> 00:30:42.519 think you get it when you don't. Yeah, like, and I don't. 476 00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:47.279 I don't expect everybody to that as a fan of the MCU or the 477 00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:51.279 DCU, to read every single comic book. I don't expect everybody to recomics 478 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:52.000 all the time. If you don't want to recomics, it's fine. You 479 00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:55.599 just want to be a movie fan or a cartoon fan, that's fine. 480 00:30:56.119 --> 00:31:03.279 But still respect the identities of these characters, Respect the stories that these characters 481 00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:07.119 are telling. Understand that there's a reason behind all of them, and it 482 00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:11.519 might be political and you might not agree with it. So maybe pick somebody 483 00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:19.519 ill like if you want. I mean, people don't realize that the Tony 484 00:31:19.559 --> 00:31:22.480 Stark we got in the MCU is not the same Tony Stark from the comics 485 00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:27.200 until recent memory, and that's not a bad thing. They evolved the character 486 00:31:27.559 --> 00:31:32.519 from modern times to make him a more sensible character and make him realize the 487 00:31:32.559 --> 00:31:37.680 air of his ways as a weapons deal. They don't realize that that didn't 488 00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:41.279 happen overnight. It wasn't one issue, and then Tonio was always like, 489 00:31:41.480 --> 00:31:44.640 I'm giving up the weapons game. No, that took time. Even after 490 00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:48.799 getting kidnapped and making the Mark one, that still was a build up before 491 00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:52.119 we got to the Tony Stark. We know and we love the Danda endgame. 492 00:31:53.079 --> 00:31:57.559 And again going back to the fact that like all these alpha male dude 493 00:31:57.559 --> 00:32:02.200 bros want to be mad at female characters as if they don't exist, and 494 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:07.559 haven't you know outside of the male gaze, Like, yeah, am I 495 00:32:07.640 --> 00:32:12.599 gonna complain honestly about a nine foot tall Jennifer Walters working on the TV show. 496 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.200 Absolutely not. I don't understand why people did. I was like, 497 00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:19.200 she's talking with Megan the Stallion, what's wrong with you? I'm enjoying this 498 00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:23.519 and I love the show for what it was it did. It did exactly 499 00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:28.039 what it sought out to do, and people missed the point because they were 500 00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:32.000 mad because they were who they were talking about, the same thing, and 501 00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:37.759 not to go too deep into the you know, movie territory and everything, 502 00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:39.160 but the same thing. I told my wife and my daughter we went to 503 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:44.319 see the Barbie movie. Any guy that watches them, any person that claims 504 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:50.519 that is a sist male or is male identifying, that watched the Barbie movie 505 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:54.920 and is angry about it is exactly who the movie was talking about. I 506 00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:58.640 watched it and I was like, this is hilarious. I love everything about 507 00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:00.720 it. And Ken is supposed to be Paul I get it, okay, 508 00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:06.000 yeah, and honestly, like, I mean, like you, I haven't 509 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.920 done a fish recoverage in the Barbering movie in part because of the strike, 510 00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:12.480 but honestly, even before it, I was like, I'm mask identified, 511 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:15.839 Like my voice is not the one that's needed. But then I saw the 512 00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:17.359 movie and I was like, you know what, the strike's over. I 513 00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:22.359 want to make content about how. I know that women are bringing their daughters 514 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:24.920 to see this, and I think that's fantastic. But I want young men. 515 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:28.960 I want boys, like you know, all kids, but especially like 516 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.440 mask identified kids, you know, six to twelve to see this movie, 517 00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:37.519 because, frankly, if I had seen Ken's Journey as a kid about how 518 00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:42.920 you don't have to define yourself by which women are interested in you, and 519 00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:46.680 you don't have to try and see every other man around you as competition, 520 00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:52.559 and basically all the things it did to break down the toxic masculinity that I 521 00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:55.839 was taught as a kid, my life in my twenties and thirties would likely 522 00:33:55.880 --> 00:34:00.079 have been far far better. My friend who hit the nail on the head 523 00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:04.960 with that as a as assist male up, there's a sist straight male. 524 00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:09.400 I watched that movie and I felt the same way I had, like a 525 00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:13.199 lot of my nephews and my baby cousins and everything. I was like, 526 00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:17.519 I really hope they watched this movie because there's so many messages, particularly to 527 00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:21.320 go back to what we were talking about with blurred them, particularly in the 528 00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:24.800 black community. There are so many messages from that movie that need to be 529 00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:30.599 seen because you know, I was listening to music at work yesterday and I 530 00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:34.599 think it was Marvin Gaye where he said a man is not supposed to cry, 531 00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:39.239 and I was like, why, ye who taught you that? Whoever 532 00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:45.639 taught you that was wrong because you have to show your feeling. You don't 533 00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:49.840 have to be that hard rock all the time. I do. I credit 534 00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:52.519 myself as a provider for my family, Yes I do. But on that 535 00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:57.039 same no, my wife makes more than I do. So am I gonna 536 00:34:57.039 --> 00:34:59.360 sit here and act like I'm the breadwinner? No, my wife is. 537 00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:04.199 I do what I can and I am the protector of our family. Like 538 00:35:04.239 --> 00:35:07.000 if anybody comes through that door that's not supposed to do, they got to 539 00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:09.360 get through me before they get to my wife and my daughter. But on 540 00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:14.039 that same note, if I'm having a bad time, if I'm having a 541 00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:19.719 rough mental health day, if I am just sad and tired, they know 542 00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:22.800 it because I talk to them about it. You know, if something's actually 543 00:35:22.840 --> 00:35:24.760 bothering me. We have a conversation about it. I can talk to my 544 00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:27.679 wife. I can talk to my daughter, she's eleven years old. I 545 00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:30.000 can talk to her. I can call my brother, I can call my 546 00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:31.679 father, I can call my mother, and we can have these conversations. 547 00:35:31.679 --> 00:35:36.559 And my parents know now that these are all things that they should have been 548 00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:39.079 doing. And that's not to discount anything that they did do, don't get 549 00:35:39.079 --> 00:35:45.360 me wrong, but that now they know this when I'm almost forty, that 550 00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:52.000 we need to break away from the generational trauma, from these generational curses of 551 00:35:52.119 --> 00:35:57.239 acting like men weren't allowed to show emotions and women had to be subservient and 552 00:35:57.280 --> 00:35:59.920 had to be the ones in the household. I'll be damn if I teach 553 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:02.800 a little girl that if if my daughter decides she doesn't want to get married, 554 00:36:04.039 --> 00:36:07.039 doesn't want to have kids, doesn't want to be at home all the 555 00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:08.840 time, she wants to go to the moon, and you know, solve 556 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:14.079 the alien conundrum. I don't care. I'm proud of whatever she does. 557 00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:16.719 And that's the way it should be in every one of these households. And 558 00:36:16.840 --> 00:36:22.360 that's what Barbie was showing us with the kins and Alan, who was arguably 559 00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:28.280 the best character of the movie. Ye and I would say non binary mask 560 00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:31.159 claimed Allen. You know, I get it, I get it, and 561 00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:37.119 more more power to y'all because he Alan was dope. I just I did 562 00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:40.440 not see that out of Michael Sarah, like I loved him and Scott Pilgrim 563 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:45.559 because you're supposed to, but you're also supposed to hate him. But seeing 564 00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:49.480 him as Alan, where he was playing Michael Sarah, but he wasn't playing 565 00:36:49.480 --> 00:36:53.599 Michael Sarah as he was a nerdy, not quite good enough male figure in 566 00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:59.079 that community, right, but then he kicks the crap arl the security guards. 567 00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:01.599 You're like, that's the guy. Yeah, that's the guy. And 568 00:37:01.639 --> 00:37:05.159 I love what you said because I think it really kind of illustrates one of 569 00:37:05.159 --> 00:37:08.639 the points that you're making before that Basically we're circling around a word that I 570 00:37:08.679 --> 00:37:13.519 was put on the table, intersectionality, you know, in that like there's 571 00:37:13.559 --> 00:37:17.000 a conversation like I think race is a very small part of Barbie, but 572 00:37:17.039 --> 00:37:22.000 there's a conversation that Barbie is very much having about gender and about gender roles. 573 00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:27.280 And you and I two people who have different relationships to masculinity but are 574 00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:30.559 both on the masculine side of things and also who come from different racial backgrounds, 575 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:35.320 can both talk about like all the ways we both connected to it as 576 00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:37.639 well as like you were talking about how there are some ways that is particular 577 00:37:37.639 --> 00:37:40.159 to the Black experience of masculinity that are part of your version of it and 578 00:37:40.199 --> 00:37:45.079 that are different from mine, but also gonna help to inform mine because I 579 00:37:45.119 --> 00:37:47.280 had so many of the same converence feelings that you were talking about. And 580 00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:51.199 funny because I've been like tearing up three times right was podcast, you know 581 00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:57.400 about the crying nonsense. But I am a community organizer by trade. My 582 00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:01.800 spouse is a computer programmer. There was no world she could go to work 583 00:38:01.840 --> 00:38:06.880 for like the lowest paid part of her professional I could go to work for 584 00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:08.880 the highest paid part of my profession. She's still gonna be making two or 585 00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:13.519 three times what I make because just we have different brain sets, different skills, 586 00:38:13.559 --> 00:38:16.400 different things we love. I do most. So basically she works full 587 00:38:16.400 --> 00:38:21.360 time. I work about halftime, and I, you know, do the 588 00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:22.239 most of the cooking around the house and a lot of the cleaning. We 589 00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:24.440 don't have kids, but I probably would be a you know, a stay 590 00:38:24.440 --> 00:38:29.280 at home dad. If that was more what was happening, And yeah, 591 00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:32.559 there was some weirdness around that and people. You know, there was about 592 00:38:32.599 --> 00:38:37.039 two years or so when we'd be out at a party and someone ask her 593 00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:38.360 what she does, and then when someone would ask me what I do, 594 00:38:39.039 --> 00:38:44.199 and I had to kind of work through why does it bother me so much 595 00:38:44.199 --> 00:38:47.239 to have to admit that I'm not like the hard working bread earner by those 596 00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:52.400 definitions that my spouse is seen as, because actually I'm just as hard working. 597 00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:54.440 I'm just doing the work that is much more devalued. Why it's really 598 00:38:54.440 --> 00:38:58.679 the work that women would normally be doing, right and all this is part 599 00:38:58.719 --> 00:39:01.559 of that Ken story, you know, Like I haven't gotten it yet because 600 00:39:01.559 --> 00:39:06.239 again I'm gonna wait till after the strike. But I'm one and buying the 601 00:39:06.280 --> 00:39:09.920 I Am Knough kind of shirts, you know, because it's and I just 602 00:39:09.960 --> 00:39:15.079 love that we can have that conversation of hey, like I think you can 603 00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:17.679 get a bunch of men around a table together and say, hey, let's 604 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:22.920 all talk about what did Ken's story mean to us? And part of that 605 00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:27.960 conversation is here's the things that we all related to. And then there's the 606 00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:30.760 conversations about like, hey, here's how I, as a black man saw 607 00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:34.760 this story, and I here's how I, as a person in a wheelchair 608 00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:37.960 which is so tied into masculinity, saw that story. And here's that someone 609 00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:39.320 else would say, as a gay man, I saw that story, and 610 00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:43.639 I just to me, that's the conversations more than anything that I want to 611 00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:46.920 have where we can say what's the thing that unites us and we can be 612 00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:52.320 okay agreeing to all that well also saying let's be careful not to speak for 613 00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:54.760 everybody, but also it doesn't mean like your version of Ken's story, micy 614 00:39:54.840 --> 00:40:00.800 version of Ken's story aren't completely different. It's how can your unders Kin's story 615 00:40:00.039 --> 00:40:02.920 better inform and help me to better understand my own version of it? But 616 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:13.360 absolutely agree with you, there is no right or wrong way to describe the 617 00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:16.559 journey we took with that with all of those characters. As long as you 618 00:40:16.760 --> 00:40:20.800 we all come out on the same side of it, and that is that 619 00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:29.039 patriarchy as a whole is toxic, and we all have our different struggles with 620 00:40:29.079 --> 00:40:31.519 it, we all have our different journey with it, But as long as 621 00:40:31.559 --> 00:40:36.239 we come out on the other side of it and can have a conversation and 622 00:40:36.280 --> 00:40:37.000 say, Okay, this is what I took from it, this is what 623 00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:42.320 you took from it. How does this make us better as people? How 624 00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:46.000 can I watch this movie and realize aside from the entertainment value of because it 625 00:40:46.079 --> 00:40:52.039 was hilarious and it was a great film, but I cried during a movie 626 00:40:52.039 --> 00:41:01.800 about a sentiendul you know, but it it's leaving so many people I think 627 00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:07.679 better for watching the movie, just for getting to see it. And like 628 00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:09.920 you said, more people need to see it. More mask presenting people need 629 00:41:09.960 --> 00:41:15.760 to watch that movie and go, oh shit, I get it now. 630 00:41:15.159 --> 00:41:19.920 It's not just about a doll. It's not just about playing with toys. 631 00:41:20.239 --> 00:41:23.760 It's not a glorified toy commercial. As you know, most movies to be 632 00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:29.039 blunt shot through the mail gays are, you know, like we can love 633 00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:31.840 the MCU, but there's merchandise for them to sell. I love Transformers. 634 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:36.519 I love everything about Transformers. At the end of the day, Transformers is 635 00:41:36.519 --> 00:41:38.800 a giant toy commercial. You know why because it works for me. It 636 00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:44.159 works on me all the time. I know that, so I can take 637 00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:47.079 lessons from each of those things. But going into a Barbie movie, I 638 00:41:47.079 --> 00:41:51.559 didn't feel the need of aside from like needing to buy a kinough t shirt 639 00:41:51.719 --> 00:41:53.320 or hoodie at some point in time, I didn't feel the need to rush 640 00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:57.960 out, like I gotta get my daughter the dolls from all from this movie. 641 00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:00.599 I gotta go get you know, all the collectibles from this movie because 642 00:42:00.599 --> 00:42:02.840 it's gonna be really valuable and it's gonna be really cool. I left that 643 00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:07.079 theater and I was like, huh, I feel like I just had like 644 00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:12.159 a great experience and I feel like a better person because of it. And 645 00:42:12.199 --> 00:42:15.199 I was with my family and one of our best friends watching it, so 646 00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:19.320 it made it that much better. Yeah, And I just I can't wait 647 00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.039 for it to come out on digital or hard copy so I can watch it 648 00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:23.920 with my mother. Pardon me, because I think my mom and my daughter 649 00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:27.480 watching that together. My mom is gonna go damn. I did not expect 650 00:42:27.559 --> 00:42:30.280 that from a Barbie movie, you know. And my baby brother, my 651 00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:34.119 brother's gonna love it too when he gets a chance to see it. My 652 00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:37.199 brother is a is a gay black man, and I think there are things 653 00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:42.760 about it that he will see that I didn't understand, and we'll talk about 654 00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:45.280 it, and you know, it's the same experience yet again come in full 655 00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:47.199 circle to the geekiness and the geetam and everything of all of it. It's 656 00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:51.840 the same experience as the two of us growing up loving X Men together. 657 00:42:52.320 --> 00:42:55.320 Is there are things about X Men that I see that don't necessarily impact him, 658 00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:59.320 but there are things about X Men that he sees that impact him that 659 00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:02.000 don't necessarily packed me. And we talk about it and we learned from it, 660 00:43:02.039 --> 00:43:05.960 and we learned from each other, and we've had conversations about it where 661 00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.760 it's like, Okay, well blah blah blah blah, x y Z ABC 662 00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.599 one two three, you get this, I got this? What does this 663 00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:15.920 mean as a whole? What? What can we do? What are people 664 00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:19.039 missing about the narrative of this movie? And we talk about it, and 665 00:43:19.079 --> 00:43:21.599 you know, people didn't see it that we talked to, We're like, 666 00:43:21.599 --> 00:43:23.840 oh, well, you missed this point of it. I had the conversation 667 00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:30.480 not to jump around too much. But when Zutopia came out, I had 668 00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:34.199 a conversation with a friend that had seen it and what she saw from the 669 00:43:34.199 --> 00:43:38.000 movie, Oh my god, that ring camera. Where was I Oh? 670 00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:40.960 But Zutopia. What she got from the movie was it was just a badass 671 00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:45.760 story about a woman that got to be, you know, the hero of 672 00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:49.320 her own story. And I said, you're right. I said, but 673 00:43:49.360 --> 00:43:52.800 the movie was also about institutionalized racist and she was like, well, I 674 00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:54.880 didn't get that, and I was like, well I did. I was 675 00:43:54.920 --> 00:43:58.679 like, what do you think Predator versus Price stood for it? I was 676 00:43:58.719 --> 00:44:00.760 like, it was classism and racism. That's what that movie was about. 677 00:44:00.920 --> 00:44:04.480 And it's a very good way to have those conversations with children. When you 678 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:08.199 watch it, you're like, oh, hey, this is what this means. 679 00:44:08.559 --> 00:44:13.079 This is what this allegory meant, this is what this character represented. 680 00:44:13.239 --> 00:44:16.360 And this is why of the Fox, I can't remember his name the state 681 00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:20.039 of my life right now, but this is why his character was the way 682 00:44:20.079 --> 00:44:23.400 he was, because he was supposed to represent that ideal of it to where 683 00:44:25.400 --> 00:44:32.800 we are now seeing that he's not the swindling bad guy. He actually was 684 00:44:32.840 --> 00:44:37.280 a good person at the heart of it. And Judy, the main character, 685 00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:43.039 had to break her own worldview to see the rest of the world outside 686 00:44:43.079 --> 00:44:45.920 of Zutopia and see what it meant for everybody. You know, she wasn't 687 00:44:45.960 --> 00:44:49.400 just a cute little She literally says that cute is our word in the movie, 688 00:44:49.559 --> 00:44:52.679 and I had to explain to people that that was about racism, and 689 00:44:52.679 --> 00:44:55.800 people still missed it. I mean, I had the same experience because I 690 00:44:55.800 --> 00:44:58.480 don't know how I'm a Star Wars fan. You are, but have you 691 00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:02.239 seen andor Yes? Yes? So I watched that and I got to talk 692 00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:05.920 about it on the Star Wars podcast with a number of great creators, and 693 00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:07.800 there's so much of it that I was getting. But two of my favorite 694 00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:13.719 podcast guests and favorite TikTok creators are two people named written in the Star Wars 695 00:45:14.079 --> 00:45:19.519 and uh Uh Jedi star Killer. I'll link to them in the show notes. 696 00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:25.599 Both of them, either themselves or their family immigrated from Mexico to the 697 00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:30.679 United States. And they were talking about how they see and or through that 698 00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:34.559 lens of his character being an immigrant, you know, and that he you 699 00:45:34.559 --> 00:45:37.360 know, he he and his people spoke a language that we as the audience 700 00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:40.480 didn't get to hear, and that he was basically, you know, kind 701 00:45:40.519 --> 00:45:46.840 of like kidnapped, forced adopted into a non immigrant family when he was rescued 702 00:45:46.880 --> 00:45:51.599 from his planet. And they just brought this level analysis that I would have 703 00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:54.239 never seen and and to me, I felt like that made my life as 704 00:45:54.280 --> 00:45:58.679 a fan so much better. And yeah, I love what you're saying there, 705 00:45:58.679 --> 00:46:02.800 because that's to me that the whole point is that like these stories. 706 00:46:02.880 --> 00:46:07.599 Yeah, there's great fight scenes, and there's great costumes, and there's you 707 00:46:07.639 --> 00:46:09.559 know, the nine foot tall woman working with Megan the stallion, and I'm 708 00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:13.920 loving all of that. But also, to me, what makes these stories 709 00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:17.159 so powerful is when, yeah, these sneak that they're not hitting you over 710 00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:21.360 the head with a message, but there's a message there that different people are 711 00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:23.719 gonna get different parts of. And the best between that's the very best part 712 00:46:23.719 --> 00:46:27.199 of fandom is when we can get together and say, oh, hey, 713 00:46:27.239 --> 00:46:29.679 here's this part of the story that I saw. But I can then say, 714 00:46:29.679 --> 00:46:30.320 oh, cool, but here's a part of the story that I saw. 715 00:46:30.440 --> 00:46:32.840 How can we all learn from the conversation? Right? Right? And 716 00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:36.880 that's why, honestly, I think, and as a man, you know, 717 00:46:36.920 --> 00:46:37.760 there's only so much of this I had a right to say. But 718 00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:43.880 that's why I think, in my opinion, Wonder Woman was a better movie 719 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:46.239 for feminism versus Captain Marble. Now, mind you, I liked Captain Marble. 720 00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:50.639 I liked a lot, but I felt like Marble was intentionally trying to 721 00:46:50.679 --> 00:46:55.679 beat the message over your head with it. And again I enjoyed the movie, 722 00:46:57.400 --> 00:47:02.360 but Wonder Woman spoke for itself. We didn't need the quippy smile more 723 00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:07.559 from a guy to Diana in that movie because Diana was just a badass. 724 00:47:09.639 --> 00:47:15.599 Carol is a badass and I loved her more in Infinity War and Endgame, 725 00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:22.480 and I can't wait to see her in the Marvels compared to Captain Marble meets 726 00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:24.679 Nick Fiery the movie. You know, Yeah, again, I liked it 727 00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:27.559 for what it was, but there were things about it to where I was 728 00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:29.400 like, that was a little much, that was a little on the nose, 729 00:47:29.719 --> 00:47:32.679 and I feel like Marvel did it on purpose because of all the criticism 730 00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:37.800 they got for it. Right, Brie Larson is absolutely wonderful. I think 731 00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:40.760 she did an amazing job. And again it's it breaks my top ten honestly 732 00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:45.320 for what it was because we got a lot of backstory. But I do 733 00:47:45.599 --> 00:47:49.639 I enjoyed Wonder Woman better to see them Like what a year or two apart, 734 00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:54.400 Wonder Woman was a more like Diana in the uniform or out of the 735 00:47:54.519 --> 00:47:58.880 uniform, Like you're like, I respect this woman. Wonder Woman eighty four. 736 00:47:58.960 --> 00:48:00.199 That's a holy that's a whole different story. We want to talk about 737 00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:06.480 that, but it was a very eighties movie and that it told women you 738 00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:08.119 can have your career or your love, but not both, right. But 739 00:48:09.119 --> 00:48:14.519 it was wonder Woman meets Lifetime. That's why. Yeah, with Steve Trevor 740 00:48:14.599 --> 00:48:15.719 back. Nope, Nope, we're not gonna do Nope, Nope, we're 741 00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:21.280 not gonna do it. We're not gonna do it. But yeah, like 742 00:48:21.440 --> 00:48:23.639 I just again, I enjoy watching these movies, and I enjoy getting to 743 00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:32.039 see these strong characters through everybody's lens. And I I have the privilege of 744 00:48:32.079 --> 00:48:36.519 watching a lot of this stuff with my eleven year old little girl, who 745 00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:42.719 is incredibly smart, incredibly talented, and she gets to tell me saying the 746 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:45.119 same thing like I said, watching movies with my brother, watching movies with 747 00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:47.960 my little girl, my wife, my little have black daughter gets to watch 748 00:48:49.039 --> 00:48:52.039 the movie and tell me things, Hey, dad, that's what this means. 749 00:48:52.039 --> 00:48:54.760 And I'm like, oh cool, because no, I'm learning from my 750 00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:59.400 child as much as she's learning from me watching these films, or playing these 751 00:48:59.440 --> 00:49:02.480 games, or or watching these TV shows, are reading these comics together, 752 00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:09.000 or watching these cartoons and to see that and to see to get the familial 753 00:49:09.039 --> 00:49:14.159 aspect of it, and things like Moon Girl and Double Dinosaur or Black Panther, 754 00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:22.119 Black Lightning and Star Wars like my daughter loved Ray and the second the 755 00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:28.119 second all three of those movies were finished. That's what I saw them for, 756 00:49:28.960 --> 00:49:31.880 was because yet again my kid got to see the like. Admittedly enough 757 00:49:31.960 --> 00:49:36.239 they made me mad by putting Finn on all the posters as if he was 758 00:49:36.239 --> 00:49:38.760 going to be a Jedi, and then not making him a Jedi. That 759 00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:42.960 bothered me. But the argument where people are like, oh, Ray is 760 00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:45.639 too strong. She only trained for a little while, Mike, so did 761 00:49:45.679 --> 00:49:50.840 luke ye your arguments invalid. They basically told four or five and six over 762 00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:53.000 through a modern lens in seven, eight and nine, and people hated it. 763 00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.800 And I was like, if we got new movies like we did with 764 00:49:54.800 --> 00:49:57.679 one, two, and three, you would have hated them too. I 765 00:49:57.800 --> 00:50:00.679 understand the fair criticism of these movies, but again, at the end of 766 00:50:00.719 --> 00:50:07.800 the day, my daughter watched seven, eight and nine, and after seven 767 00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:10.599 immediately wanted a Ray costume. That Halloween. She wanted a lightsaber, she 768 00:50:10.639 --> 00:50:15.519 wanted Ray staff. And then she got to see when we were going to 769 00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:17.199 other cons. She got to see other ray cosplayers and she wanted to take 770 00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:22.480 pictures with them because that character resonated with her. And I think that's something 771 00:50:22.519 --> 00:50:27.000 that we miss as fans as fan and fandoms as a whole. Like I 772 00:50:27.039 --> 00:50:31.400 said at the beginning of the show, these are children's franchises. Yeah, 773 00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:37.840 we need to not argue about them. If we don't like them, that's 774 00:50:37.880 --> 00:50:42.199 fine. Move on. I don't need to harp on it for ten years 775 00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:45.760 because I didn't like something. Move On. There's a lot of stuff I 776 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:47.280 don't like, and I'll talk to my family about it. I might make 777 00:50:47.280 --> 00:50:50.039 a post it's like, hey, you know what, this got a three 778 00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:52.079 out of ten from me. But I move on. That's what we need 779 00:50:52.119 --> 00:50:55.159 to do. I'm so with you that, and that's gonna be a transition 780 00:50:55.199 --> 00:50:57.840 to kind of lasting. I want to talk to you about about what we 781 00:50:57.880 --> 00:51:00.000 do with fandom. I want to say one thing quick on what you're saying 782 00:51:00.119 --> 00:51:04.159 four is that I was somewhat different view of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel than 783 00:51:04.199 --> 00:51:07.079 what you're saying. But I think we're in similar places. But because I 784 00:51:07.159 --> 00:51:09.039 love Captain Marvel, I actually liked that movie a lot more than Wonder Woman. 785 00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:14.159 But to me, I think more than anything, I think fandom needs 786 00:51:14.159 --> 00:51:17.480 both because I remember how before we were talking about how sometimes the point is 787 00:51:17.519 --> 00:51:21.920 there, but the idiots are going to it's subtle and the idiots are gonna 788 00:51:21.960 --> 00:51:24.400 miss it. No, I read a lot of people kind of like you're 789 00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:29.639 talking about the maga hat person talking about x men. I saw a lot 790 00:51:29.679 --> 00:51:32.440 of posts from people making really sexist takes and why they loved Wonder Woman. 791 00:51:34.199 --> 00:51:37.800 No one missed the point in Captain Marvel, you know, And when I 792 00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:44.000 saw to me, when I remember watching like the way women talked about Wonder 793 00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:45.480 Woman, and some people were like, this is the best thing I've ever 794 00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:47.760 seen, and some were like this could have gone so much further. I 795 00:51:47.760 --> 00:51:52.239 wish it hadn't tried to be so subtle. And then when Captain Marvel came 796 00:51:52.239 --> 00:51:53.679 out and some were saying, this is my story in a way Wonder Woman 797 00:51:53.719 --> 00:51:57.079 never was, and others were saying, like it didn't have to be like 798 00:51:57.159 --> 00:51:59.719 hitting me over the head quite the same way. And to me, the 799 00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:01.960 two of them are like this wonderful picture of like, yeah, each of 800 00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:06.320 us individually is can respond differently to them and like someone's gonna like one one 801 00:52:06.320 --> 00:52:08.679 and the other. But to me, it's not about which one's better. 802 00:52:08.719 --> 00:52:13.199 It's about I want both in the fandom, you know, I want the 803 00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:20.239 fairly like to me, I want Falcon and Winter Soldier, where race is 804 00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:22.840 kind of like a small part of his journey but it is played up a 805 00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:27.880 lot versus you know, Luke Cage and T'Challa and and you know whatever characters 806 00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:30.480 it is. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I see where you're 807 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:32.360 coming from with that for sure. I mean it's like the duality between and 808 00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:36.480 there are two different studios, but like between Black Panther and Black Lightning. 809 00:52:37.159 --> 00:52:40.480 Whereas Black Panther was inherently what we call ultra black or super black, to 810 00:52:40.559 --> 00:52:45.079 where that was like the pinnacle of blackness, that's what black people can be, 811 00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:47.159 but then you have street level black Black Lightning to where it was like 812 00:52:49.639 --> 00:52:53.239 the it's set in the fake city a guard of I can't remember where it 813 00:52:53.320 --> 00:52:59.119 is now, but it's basically Cleveland because that's where Tony Isabella is from. 814 00:52:59.159 --> 00:53:04.840 And you know, you get the hood aspect, but you get that positiveness 815 00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:07.920 of it too, and you get the drug dealing and you get the gang 816 00:53:07.960 --> 00:53:09.760 banging, but they don't. They do it in such a way to where 817 00:53:09.800 --> 00:53:15.119 it wasn't illustrated as like her tuny or corny. It was real life even 818 00:53:15.159 --> 00:53:20.880 though they were superheroes and superhumans in it. So I kind of get that, 819 00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:23.159 you get the duality of the two again. I, like I said, 820 00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:28.079 I loved Captain Marble, and I definitely see the aspect of like you 821 00:53:28.119 --> 00:53:30.920 were saying, where sometimes you need to be smacked in the face with it, 822 00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:34.599 because I definitely get that. A lot of times you do need that 823 00:53:34.679 --> 00:53:37.199 handprint across your face that sizzles and you get that little burn of oh, 824 00:53:37.239 --> 00:53:40.320 oh I get it, Oh I get it, because sometimes the subtlety is 825 00:53:40.360 --> 00:53:45.599 just not enough to where you're like, oh, I didn't get that. 826 00:53:45.599 --> 00:53:49.320 Well, Like I was staying with Utopia to where my one female friend didn't 827 00:53:49.400 --> 00:53:52.599 understand where I was coming from within and socialized racism of it. That's not 828 00:53:52.639 --> 00:53:55.440 what she saw from the movie. So I guess sometimes if you just say 829 00:53:55.480 --> 00:53:59.480 it, yeah, you need to just come out and say, hey, 830 00:53:59.599 --> 00:54:02.480 nope, that's what we're talking about, that's what this is about. Yeah, 831 00:54:02.760 --> 00:54:06.840 not totally well, and so let's let's kind of wrap up with this 832 00:54:06.920 --> 00:54:08.480 question about like how we are as fans. Know, that's something you talk 833 00:54:08.519 --> 00:54:13.880 about a lot. You do a great series of no hashtags, only facts 834 00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:16.199 that I love and and I want to talk more about what you're saying. 835 00:54:16.199 --> 00:54:21.440 They're about like being winning as fans to let go when we don't like something, 836 00:54:21.480 --> 00:54:27.960 because I think there's there's such a difference between conversations and the arguing and 837 00:54:28.079 --> 00:54:31.079 the fighting, And what I see this most is like, I think it's 838 00:54:31.119 --> 00:54:35.480 totally legitimate to say, like, hey, I don't like where this story 839 00:54:35.480 --> 00:54:38.039 wound up. But I think there's like aspects of the story that our homophobiack 840 00:54:38.119 --> 00:54:42.679 or ablest or racist or sexist or whatever it is. And that's a good 841 00:54:42.679 --> 00:54:45.880 conversation to have. But I also think that there's times in place, you 842 00:54:45.920 --> 00:54:50.119 know, and I think that one of the things, and Star Wars, 843 00:54:50.159 --> 00:54:53.239 I think is unfortunately the perfect example of this. For about five years after 844 00:54:53.320 --> 00:54:57.400 Last Jedi, I'm bad at math, but for a while after Last Jedi 845 00:54:57.480 --> 00:55:00.400 came out, and it's don't It's dimmed down somewhat, but it's still there. 846 00:55:01.480 --> 00:55:04.519 You could make a post if you made a post about like, I 847 00:55:04.559 --> 00:55:07.639 love Luke's journey in Last Jedi and someone wants to argue with it, Fine, 848 00:55:08.760 --> 00:55:12.239 if you said, like, you know, I love Ray and like 849 00:55:12.320 --> 00:55:15.440 my daughter, you know, and and someone wants to talk to you about 850 00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:19.320 it. Sure, But then when someone comes in with the like very old, 851 00:55:19.400 --> 00:55:22.760 we've all heard it before, arguments of like, oh, Ray is 852 00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:27.440 just this badly written character that Mary Sue all that nonsense, Like what's the 853 00:55:27.519 --> 00:55:30.559 point of bringing that up right? And and to me, where it goes 854 00:55:30.599 --> 00:55:32.880 so much further is like like, as an example, I made a post 855 00:55:32.920 --> 00:55:40.320 about how I loved seeing Admiral Akbar in the Last Jedi because I had I 856 00:55:40.360 --> 00:55:45.440 had an Admiral Akbar costume for Halloween when I was six, and so I 857 00:55:45.480 --> 00:55:49.400 strongly identified with that character because I loved him so much, just because I 858 00:55:49.440 --> 00:55:52.199 just was talking about like the joy of having a character a costume when you're 859 00:55:52.239 --> 00:55:57.119 six years old and how that plays out for you thirty five years later watching 860 00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:00.639 a movie, and I had like dozens of people comments, Oh, but 861 00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:04.360 Acbar story was ruined because it had to be all about Ray instead or lay 862 00:56:04.360 --> 00:56:07.480 it. It was just like, dude, we all know you feel this 863 00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:08.880 way, right, why do you have to make this point and why do 864 00:56:08.880 --> 00:56:12.800 you have to bring it into conversations that have nothing to do with that, 865 00:56:13.079 --> 00:56:16.639 right, so to piggyback on that, as you said, all facts, 866 00:56:16.639 --> 00:56:24.320 no hashtag people just want to be contrariant. And these people just they hate 867 00:56:24.320 --> 00:56:29.880 everything just to hate it, not because they genuinely just like just like it, 868 00:56:29.920 --> 00:56:32.480 but because they don't like it, because it gets them used, it 869 00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:37.800 gets them comments, it gets them engagement, because rage farming is easier for 870 00:56:37.840 --> 00:56:43.280 them to do than to have a general positive take of something. Even if 871 00:56:43.320 --> 00:56:45.920 you don't like the inside, Like you said, you like the Akbar because 872 00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:49.480 it was general Akbar because you got to see Akbar again. Yeah. I 873 00:56:49.559 --> 00:56:54.000 loved Lando coming Back because I got to see Lando again. Yeah. That 874 00:56:54.039 --> 00:56:59.039 doesn't take away from the rest of the movie or the things we don't like 875 00:56:59.159 --> 00:57:02.880 about the movie. Doesn't take away from seeing our favorite characters again. One 876 00:57:02.880 --> 00:57:07.800 of the things that I'm having I am struggling with these days. And I 877 00:57:07.880 --> 00:57:10.880 tell people this, I love individual fans, I hate fandoms as a whole. 878 00:57:13.320 --> 00:57:15.840 As a Power Rangers fan, this is the big thing for me. 879 00:57:15.920 --> 00:57:21.880 As I said, these are children's franchises. We have had people in the 880 00:57:21.880 --> 00:57:27.719 Power Ranger community actively attacking the showrunner of the last two seasons because they don't 881 00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:30.079 like decisions that were made because oh, you didn't do what I would have 882 00:57:30.159 --> 00:57:34.320 done. Oh I would have done this differently. You should have done this, 883 00:57:34.559 --> 00:57:37.039 You could have done this, and it's like none of you could have 884 00:57:37.119 --> 00:57:42.400 done that, because if you could, you'd have the job. I need 885 00:57:42.480 --> 00:57:46.400 people too. If you don't like something, don't consume it. You have 886 00:57:46.599 --> 00:57:51.599 that option. If you don't like a book, don't read it. If 887 00:57:51.599 --> 00:57:52.920 you don't like a movie, don't watch it. If you don't like a 888 00:57:53.039 --> 00:57:57.840 video game, don't play it. If you are actively spending the money on 889 00:57:57.960 --> 00:58:04.519 these things just to complain about them, they're a fan. Whether you act 890 00:58:04.559 --> 00:58:07.119 like it or not. You are. You secretly love it, and you're 891 00:58:07.119 --> 00:58:12.280 just hating because you know you're gonna get the feedback for that. You're gonna 892 00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:16.599 get the two pennies from YouTube for posting a video saying you hated Star Wars 893 00:58:16.639 --> 00:58:20.480 seven, eight and nine and what you wish They had to kept the Expanding 894 00:58:20.599 --> 00:58:29.920 Universe. And while I understand people's feelings about that, shut up. The 895 00:58:30.239 --> 00:58:34.800 Expanded Universe might not exist in movie form, cartoon form, or anything. 896 00:58:35.119 --> 00:58:38.239 The books and the comics still exist. You can still consume that media. 897 00:58:38.440 --> 00:58:44.400 The biggest phrase that I hate that I absolutely hate, is it ruined my 898 00:58:44.559 --> 00:58:51.280 childhood. Because unless they invented time travel and went back in time and destroyed 899 00:58:51.360 --> 00:58:54.679 what you loved from your childhood, it still exists and your childhood is still 900 00:58:54.679 --> 00:59:00.760 intact. It didn't ruin anything. Ghostbusters Answer the Call did not ruined one 901 00:59:00.800 --> 00:59:05.480 and two. Granted was the new movie was Afterlife better? Yeah? I 902 00:59:05.639 --> 00:59:08.199 think it was. My biggest problem with Answer the Call was it wasn't connected 903 00:59:08.239 --> 00:59:12.199 to the original two movies. I think it should have been. But let's 904 00:59:12.199 --> 00:59:15.679 be real, Ghostbusters two is kind of trash. We don't talk about that 905 00:59:15.840 --> 00:59:21.320 enough. But if we're gonna hate on it, hate on it. You 906 00:59:21.360 --> 00:59:25.199 don't have to consume anything you don't want to, especially as adults in these 907 00:59:25.239 --> 00:59:30.320 fans faces, we still have the ability to watch the things we love. 908 00:59:30.679 --> 00:59:34.079 You don't like the fact that the cast Hallie Bailey is as aerial and the 909 00:59:34.159 --> 00:59:37.239 live action Little Mermaid, don't watch it, watch the original one. You 910 00:59:37.280 --> 00:59:42.440 don't like the fact that Will Smith is a Genie in Aladdin, don't watch 911 00:59:42.440 --> 00:59:45.079 it, watch the original one. You don't like the fact that Ray is 912 00:59:45.480 --> 00:59:50.360 the most powerful Jedi that we've seen live action, don't watch it. Watch 913 00:59:50.400 --> 00:59:52.079 four or five and six, watch one, two and three that you claim 914 00:59:52.119 --> 00:59:55.280 to hate the children you love because you hate seven, eight and nine. 915 00:59:57.039 --> 01:00:00.719 You don't have to take time out of your day, out of your week, 916 01:00:00.920 --> 01:00:04.280 out of your month, out of your gear to consume this shit if 917 01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:07.400 you don't want to, You're making an active decision to do that. And 918 01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:10.960 I think as fans we need to call people out more often about it. 919 01:00:12.760 --> 01:00:15.360 We need to stand up. And I'm not saying argue with people, fight 920 01:00:15.400 --> 01:00:19.599 with people like you said, Like if I make a post tomorrow that says, 921 01:00:19.639 --> 01:00:22.960 hey, Jason was my favorite power anger and somebody's like, but you 922 01:00:23.000 --> 01:00:25.360 know Tommy was the best my blah, I'm not gonna argue with you. 923 01:00:25.599 --> 01:00:30.519 That's your opinion. That's fine. You like Tommy cool, Tommy wasn't my 924 01:00:30.559 --> 01:00:32.800 favorite. I love the Rest in Peace JDF, I love the character, 925 01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:37.280 but he wasn't my favorite. I'm not going to argue with you about it 926 01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:40.079 because that's your opinion. I'm not trying to have a fight with you. 927 01:00:40.400 --> 01:00:45.599 If I say something that is factual though, like hey, I like the 928 01:00:45.639 --> 01:00:50.519 first Michael Bay Transformers movie because I really like seeing optimists along no Semi again, 929 01:00:50.719 --> 01:00:53.000 and you say optimist problem was never a long nose Semi. I can 930 01:00:53.079 --> 01:00:57.440 argue with you about that because I have proof that he was. Just because 931 01:00:57.440 --> 01:01:01.400 he wasn't after you dropped out of the fandom doesn't mean he wasn't. You're 932 01:01:01.400 --> 01:01:07.760 wrong. And I love that you keep bringing up the Power Rangers because I'll 933 01:01:07.760 --> 01:01:10.519 admit I think in a lot of fandom circles and I'm guilty of this as 934 01:01:10.599 --> 01:01:15.800 well, power Rangers are the furries of geek fandom. Yeah, and I 935 01:01:15.840 --> 01:01:19.000 say that also is like I think that like a way a lot of like 936 01:01:19.039 --> 01:01:22.199 sexuality communities treat the furries is not cool either. Like one of the things 937 01:01:22.199 --> 01:01:27.239 that communities love to do is to say people are going to attack me, 938 01:01:27.800 --> 01:01:31.199 so I need to find someone else who's even more out there than I am, 939 01:01:31.239 --> 01:01:34.559 and I need to throw them under the bus to say, look, 940 01:01:34.599 --> 01:01:37.519 we're not them. And talking to you makes me be like, yeah, 941 01:01:37.519 --> 01:01:39.960 at some point I should go and like check out some Power Rangers stuff, 942 01:01:39.960 --> 01:01:45.599 because for too long I've been in spaces and probably participated in where we'd say 943 01:01:45.679 --> 01:01:46.760 like okay, well, yeah, I know you think we're weird about how 944 01:01:46.840 --> 01:01:50.480 much we love these things, but at least we're not the Power Rangers fans, 945 01:01:50.639 --> 01:01:52.760 you know, like it was that that dynamic. And in terms of 946 01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:57.599 what you're saying about the attacks and all that, I totally agree, and 947 01:01:57.800 --> 01:02:02.559 I think to me, people have truly separate. I think if you don't 948 01:02:02.599 --> 01:02:05.719 like Ray, if you don't like anything like that, if you want to 949 01:02:05.760 --> 01:02:10.079 put a post on your own social media, go for it. If someone 950 01:02:10.159 --> 01:02:14.320 posts the open question that says, hey, I want to have an honest 951 01:02:14.360 --> 01:02:17.639 discussion about what do people think about Ray? And you can contribute to that 952 01:02:17.679 --> 01:02:22.039 conversation even though you're on a negative opinion of Ray, without falling into sexist 953 01:02:22.039 --> 01:02:25.679 diet tribes, without falling into like the same nonsense we've heard a million times. 954 01:02:25.880 --> 01:02:29.599 But you want to make actual critique of Ray, go for it. 955 01:02:30.440 --> 01:02:34.400 But when someone says I love Ray and as a young woman, this character 956 01:02:34.440 --> 01:02:37.239 really meant this to me going out of their post, especially if you're not 957 01:02:37.280 --> 01:02:40.480 a woman, so seeing a woman Jedi and screen didn't mean as much to 958 01:02:40.519 --> 01:02:44.400 you, That's not the place to do it, exactly. You know, 959 01:02:44.760 --> 01:02:50.960 in the same way I agree with you that I think Finn was badly treated. 960 01:02:51.440 --> 01:02:54.400 I think the fact that like the first one, he's kind of paired 961 01:02:54.400 --> 01:02:57.800 with a white woman, and then the next one he's kind of paired with 962 01:02:57.840 --> 01:02:59.599 an Asian woman, and then the next one was like no, no, 963 01:02:59.480 --> 01:03:01.360 no, okay, well to be paired with an another black person, like 964 01:03:01.760 --> 01:03:06.800 John Boyegas talked about that. There's all kinds of racism comments he's made. 965 01:03:07.960 --> 01:03:12.239 But it'll also be the first to say when I saw Finn holding a lightsaber, 966 01:03:13.280 --> 01:03:15.519 there was no I was like, oh cool, a black Jedi. 967 01:03:15.599 --> 01:03:17.480 That'd be fun to see. But there's no part of me that was like, 968 01:03:17.639 --> 01:03:22.039 that's a Jedi who looks like me. And so because of that, 969 01:03:22.280 --> 01:03:24.920 even if I disagreed with some of that stuff, you know, if you 970 01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:30.880 post on your page how important it was to you to see Finn holding that 971 01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.679 lightsaber as a black man, I have no place going in there and telling 972 01:03:34.679 --> 01:03:37.320 you you're wrong, right, because I need to start by saying you're having 973 01:03:37.320 --> 01:03:42.840 an experience of the character that I don't get, or I can. I 974 01:03:42.880 --> 01:03:45.360 can empathize with it. I can sympathize with it because it speaks to a 975 01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:49.760 longing that I've never had, because I've never had to have it, you 976 01:03:49.800 --> 01:03:52.320 know, like, and I think that's something people forget all the time. 977 01:03:52.679 --> 01:03:55.599 Yeah, it's it is something that people forget all the time. And our 978 01:03:55.599 --> 01:04:00.760 experiences, again, like you said, our experiences aren't going to be exactly 979 01:04:00.800 --> 01:04:05.480 the same. But you have to respect other people's experiences with these characters, 980 01:04:08.039 --> 01:04:11.239 and you have to as fans. We need to be better in the aspect 981 01:04:11.280 --> 01:04:15.599 that we don't need to attack actors, actresses, writers and directors for decisions 982 01:04:15.599 --> 01:04:18.880 that were made because you didn't like them. There's no reason that Kelly Murray 983 01:04:18.920 --> 01:04:24.039 Tran should have had to delete or social media, not whatsoever. There's no 984 01:04:24.119 --> 01:04:27.679 reason that Bree Larson should have had to take a hiatus from social media. 985 01:04:27.880 --> 01:04:32.519 There's no reason that any of these actors and actresses should have to run away 986 01:04:32.559 --> 01:04:36.320 and hide because we hated the character. They They got paid to play a 987 01:04:36.440 --> 01:04:40.480 character. They might not have liked that character, but they got paid to 988 01:04:40.480 --> 01:04:43.519 play a character. And I'll even talk about one where a lot of the 989 01:04:43.519 --> 01:04:46.559 fans this podcast might agree with me and disliking stuff. I think that Zack 990 01:04:46.639 --> 01:04:53.199 Snyder fundamentally misunderstand Superman, oh and to some extent Batman he does. I 991 01:04:53.280 --> 01:04:58.440 do not like Zack Snyder's take on those characters. And if I make my 992 01:04:58.480 --> 01:05:00.000 own content, or even someone says, hey, what did you think about 993 01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:04.000 Justice League? I will say that, but I'm never going to tag him 994 01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:06.960 in those commus. I'm never gonna attack him personally. I'm never gonna write 995 01:05:08.000 --> 01:05:13.519 letters to him. I'm I'm he, And I will start by acknowledging that 996 01:05:13.800 --> 01:05:16.599 I could study filmmaking for twenty years and not know as much as he does 997 01:05:16.639 --> 01:05:23.280 about the craft, Like he is a very talented writer and director who makes 998 01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:28.400 choices that I don't like. And then I think that, you know, 999 01:05:28.440 --> 01:05:31.800 it's not my Batman, it's not my version those characters. But I watched 1000 01:05:31.880 --> 01:05:35.679 Justice League, hated every minute of it, and then went home and turned 1001 01:05:35.679 --> 01:05:39.559 on some of my favorite episodes of Batman, the animated series, and guess 1002 01:05:39.599 --> 01:05:42.559 what, they were still just as good. Right, nothing was ruined about 1003 01:05:42.559 --> 01:05:45.800 them. He didn't take that experience away from you by making a movie, 1004 01:05:45.880 --> 01:05:48.039 right, Yeah, there's a shocking aspect that that could happen, That you 1005 01:05:48.079 --> 01:05:55.159 could go home and do a palate cleansers after like Ghostwriter. Watch Ghostwriter in 1006 01:05:55.239 --> 01:05:58.920 theaters, hated every second of it, went home, watched like classic X 1007 01:05:58.960 --> 01:06:02.039 Men cartoons, fell better about life. For my reason, I went to 1008 01:06:02.079 --> 01:06:08.440 see Ghostwriter too in theaters, came home and watched like a bunch of comedy 1009 01:06:08.440 --> 01:06:10.519 specials because I was like, I need to get this out of my mind. 1010 01:06:10.679 --> 01:06:13.760 I was stupid Green Lantern. I got to see Green Lantern in a 1011 01:06:13.800 --> 01:06:18.480 theater for free and came out and demanded my money because it was so bad. 1012 01:06:19.039 --> 01:06:23.880 And I love that Ryan Reynolds acknowledges that, but I've never faulted him 1013 01:06:23.920 --> 01:06:28.159 for that movie. Yeah, I realized what was going home with Warner Brothers 1014 01:06:28.239 --> 01:06:30.760 is that they were like, Hey, the Dark Knight trilogy work. Let's 1015 01:06:30.800 --> 01:06:32.599 make everything dark and gritty. What's some comedy in it, and let's catch 1016 01:06:32.679 --> 01:06:35.920 Ryan Reynolds and he'll do it. And you know that wasn't his fault. 1017 01:06:36.400 --> 01:06:42.719 But you have to, as a fan remember that again, these are fantasy 1018 01:06:42.760 --> 01:06:46.320 worlds and if we want to not enjoy them, we're allowed to. But 1019 01:06:46.400 --> 01:06:50.639 you don't need to write a ten page essay about why Green Lantern is the 1020 01:06:50.639 --> 01:06:55.280 worst superhero movie ever. You know, I also don't think it is. 1021 01:06:55.320 --> 01:07:00.519 Honestly, there's much worse, but but you need to understand ends that if 1022 01:07:00.519 --> 01:07:04.599 again, you write on like I wrote a review of Smallville, the finale 1023 01:07:04.639 --> 01:07:10.000 of Smallville when it came out on my own personal Facebook page, what fifteen 1024 01:07:10.079 --> 01:07:15.880 years ago when it happened, and I wrote a blog post about it, 1025 01:07:15.119 --> 01:07:21.920 and I didn't like it the ending specifically, But I didn't expect everybody to 1026 01:07:23.000 --> 01:07:27.800 like send that to CW or Tom Welling or Michael Rosenbaum or any of those 1027 01:07:27.800 --> 01:07:30.800 people and say, hey, this particular guy didn't like the end of your 1028 01:07:30.840 --> 01:07:34.239 show. You guys should listen to him because he knows more than you as 1029 01:07:34.360 --> 01:07:39.039 actors and as writers and a show. I don't want any of that, 1030 01:07:39.119 --> 01:07:43.280 because that's not what that was for. Yeah, you know that was for 1031 01:07:43.320 --> 01:07:45.559 me to set just say hey, this is why I didn't like this. 1032 01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:47.519 If you get the chance to watch it, maybe you'll have a different experience 1033 01:07:47.519 --> 01:07:50.599 with it than I did. I just didn't like it, and I understand. 1034 01:07:50.639 --> 01:07:53.320 I know there are people that did like the end of it, and 1035 01:07:53.320 --> 01:07:57.800 I don't argue with them about it because that's they're prerogative. It's not that 1036 01:07:57.920 --> 01:08:01.000 hard. We don't have to on everything, and as fans and his friends, 1037 01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:06.119 you're not supposed to agree on everything. But sharing your experiences is what 1038 01:08:06.199 --> 01:08:10.519 makes these shows, these movies, these cartoons, these comics, these novels, 1039 01:08:10.760 --> 01:08:14.840 these video games is what makes them better. It's because, like you 1040 01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:19.039 might have seen something in a movie and experience something with a movie that I 1041 01:08:19.079 --> 01:08:23.640 didn't, So now we could talk about it and I go rewatching my damn 1042 01:08:24.760 --> 01:08:28.279 you know ethical Banda was right, man, this is this. I get 1043 01:08:28.279 --> 01:08:32.000 this now. It's a different experience for me because of the way they saw 1044 01:08:32.079 --> 01:08:35.720 this film. Now I see a part of it that I didn't see before. 1045 01:08:36.079 --> 01:08:39.359 Or you might take something that I've said, like you said, you 1046 01:08:39.439 --> 01:08:42.039 might go watch some Power Rangers. Don't get me wrong, it's campy as 1047 01:08:42.079 --> 01:08:46.479 hell. Some it's really really hard to watch. But you might look at 1048 01:08:46.520 --> 01:08:48.439 it, you know, through a different lens now and go, oh, 1049 01:08:48.479 --> 01:08:53.119 I get why Bishop has still been liking this thirty years later. I understand 1050 01:08:55.640 --> 01:08:59.279 it might not, which is fine, you know, yeah, And I 1051 01:08:59.279 --> 01:09:02.000 think it's important that that can be critical as well. If you're seeing a 1052 01:09:02.039 --> 01:09:05.359 part of it that I didn't see, like and here I might be attacking 1053 01:09:05.359 --> 01:09:08.359 one of your sacred cows. I don't mean that, and I hope you'll 1054 01:09:08.399 --> 01:09:11.479 hear that. My point is you can still love it like you. I 1055 01:09:11.520 --> 01:09:15.520 saw Ghostbusters as a young kid. It is still one of my absolute favorite 1056 01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:17.840 movies. There are lines from it that I can still quote entire scenes from 1057 01:09:17.880 --> 01:09:21.920 and if someone mentions it, I am absolutely in love. And I watched 1058 01:09:21.920 --> 01:09:25.720 it with a woman I was dating, maybe like ten years ago, and 1059 01:09:25.720 --> 01:09:29.920 she'd never seen it before, and you know, and I noticed she was 1060 01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:32.680 not having a very positive experience about it, and I was like, okay, 1061 01:09:32.760 --> 01:09:35.640 and like kind of about you know, we've finished the movie, and 1062 01:09:35.640 --> 01:09:38.800 I asked her, like, hey, I get a sense you didn't really 1063 01:09:38.800 --> 01:09:41.239 love that. What's going on? And she's like, Bill Murray is a 1064 01:09:41.239 --> 01:09:47.359 stalker. He's a horrible, horrible person. And I was like, thinking 1065 01:09:47.399 --> 01:09:53.520 about all the ways in which he treats the Data character and continually ignores her 1066 01:09:53.560 --> 01:09:55.760 when she says that, you know, she's not interested. And I was 1067 01:09:55.840 --> 01:10:00.039 like, you're right, you saw that movie in a light. And I 1068 01:10:00.079 --> 01:10:01.319 don't think that movie went out of its way to be a sexist. I 1069 01:10:01.399 --> 01:10:04.880 think it treated women characters the way a lot of movies in the eighties treated 1070 01:10:04.960 --> 01:10:09.880 women characters, which is quite awful, to be clear. And when I 1071 01:10:09.960 --> 01:10:13.279 saw it as a six year old, I missed that entirely. And because 1072 01:10:13.319 --> 01:10:15.520 of that watching, I think like, if i'd seen it for the first 1073 01:10:15.520 --> 01:10:17.399 time. Today, I might have been bothered by it, but I saw 1074 01:10:17.439 --> 01:10:21.399 it for the but I still was like, you know what, I saw 1075 01:10:21.479 --> 01:10:24.760 it through the eyes that six year old who first watched it. Yeah. 1076 01:10:25.439 --> 01:10:28.920 Now, after she said that to me, I changed my view of the 1077 01:10:28.920 --> 01:10:31.119 movie. And then a year later it was on cable or whatever, and 1078 01:10:31.159 --> 01:10:34.319 I watched it again and I still thought it was hilarious. And now I 1079 01:10:34.359 --> 01:10:38.920 cringed a little bit more at the Bill Murray parts, the romance parts. 1080 01:10:39.199 --> 01:10:43.039 But it didn't like make me not like the movie anymore. But it also 1081 01:10:43.079 --> 01:10:45.199 made me realize, wait a minute, there was a thing I was blind 1082 01:10:45.239 --> 01:10:47.880 to about this movie that she puts out that gives me a better understanding this 1083 01:10:47.920 --> 01:10:50.680 movie. And it also helps me understand why it's a part of the movie 1084 01:10:50.680 --> 01:10:54.840 that's really not aged well. And we're going to have that conversation, but 1085 01:10:54.920 --> 01:10:57.800 in a because what she was never saying was like, you're a terrible person 1086 01:10:57.920 --> 01:11:00.520 for liking this movie. She was just saying, Hey, here's my experience 1087 01:11:00.560 --> 01:11:01.520 in the movie, and what I don't enjoy it the way you do, 1088 01:11:02.119 --> 01:11:05.680 and that's perfectly that's acceptable, and that's fine, and and like you said, 1089 01:11:05.720 --> 01:11:09.560 that's a way for us to be critical of these characters and everything. 1090 01:11:09.560 --> 01:11:13.000 You're not supposed to relate to all of these characters. I mean, one 1091 01:11:13.039 --> 01:11:16.039 of my biggest takeaways from the Ghostbusters franchise as a whole, which they have 1092 01:11:16.079 --> 01:11:23.720 rectified now pardon me, is Winston and yet again eighties, So I get 1093 01:11:23.760 --> 01:11:27.399 it. But like street smart black guy doesn't need to be the thing all 1094 01:11:27.439 --> 01:11:30.840 the time. That's the one thing I loved about the comic continuations, which 1095 01:11:30.880 --> 01:11:32.960 are supposed to be cannon, but I'm not sure how much they are anymore. 1096 01:11:33.359 --> 01:11:38.720 But Winston goes on to get his PhD as well in quantum physics in 1097 01:11:38.760 --> 01:11:42.119 the comics, and he's also a scientist. Now it looks like based on 1098 01:11:42.199 --> 01:11:45.439 Afterlife, Winston goes on to be a booming businessman, which I love that 1099 01:11:45.479 --> 01:11:47.560 they did that, and that's the way. Ernie Hudson has talked about it, 1100 01:11:47.560 --> 01:11:50.199 and he said his character needed to evolve. But then in answer to 1101 01:11:50.239 --> 01:11:54.319 the call, they did the same thing with Patty with Leslie Jones's character to 1102 01:11:54.319 --> 01:11:58.560 where a street smart black woman where she wasn't a scientist, and that bothers 1103 01:11:58.600 --> 01:12:02.119 me again. It doesn't take away from my overall enjoyment of the films, 1104 01:12:02.199 --> 01:12:05.720 but it lets me be critical as an adult to watch these movies and go, 1105 01:12:06.359 --> 01:12:11.560 I don't like that, you know. And it's the same thing with 1106 01:12:12.760 --> 01:12:16.640 a lot of the way that black characters were treated in media in the eighties 1107 01:12:16.640 --> 01:12:18.800 and nineties, and like, again, I've said this, you know, 1108 01:12:18.920 --> 01:12:23.159 to keep circling back to Power Rangers. The first time I saw Walter Jones 1109 01:12:23.600 --> 01:12:27.520 outside of Mighty morphin Power Rangers or Space Cases on Nickelodeon, outside of kids 1110 01:12:27.520 --> 01:12:30.359 shows, was on a cop DRAMAA where he played a drug dealer, and 1111 01:12:30.399 --> 01:12:32.880 I was like, wait a minute, that man's a superhero and you guys 1112 01:12:32.880 --> 01:12:35.279 relegated him to a drug I don't like that. I don't like that at 1113 01:12:35.279 --> 01:12:41.000 all. That again doesn't take away from the actor for me, but it 1114 01:12:41.119 --> 01:12:44.760 made me think a lot about things even as a kid growing up, and 1115 01:12:44.800 --> 01:12:47.159 I'm like, this doesn't make any damn set, Like why are we getting 1116 01:12:47.199 --> 01:12:50.560 these roles all the time? And then I had to say have similar conversation 1117 01:12:50.600 --> 01:12:55.920 with somebody about Luke Cage where they didn't like the character of Scarf the crooked 1118 01:12:55.960 --> 01:12:59.439 cop because the only white guy in the show was a bad guy, and 1119 01:12:59.479 --> 01:13:02.560 I was like, welcome to my life. Yeah. Typically when we are 1120 01:13:02.640 --> 01:13:08.039 background characters or secondary characters, we're the bad guy or where the cooked cop? 1121 01:13:08.279 --> 01:13:10.479 Or where the drug dealer? Or where the gang banger? Or where 1122 01:13:10.520 --> 01:13:15.000 the abusive husband or boyfriend, where the cheater where whatever. So to see 1123 01:13:15.079 --> 01:13:16.680 that and to see a show to where it's like, huh no, I 1124 01:13:16.680 --> 01:13:18.720 mean not gonna be wrong. Luke was a little bit of a womanizing and 1125 01:13:18.800 --> 01:13:24.199 not a little bit a lot of it. That's that's the character. But 1126 01:13:26.159 --> 01:13:32.119 I totally understand why Scarf was the bad guy in Harlem. And I had 1127 01:13:32.119 --> 01:13:38.560 people that straight up told me, you know, I didn't see enough of 1128 01:13:38.600 --> 01:13:41.119 myself in the show as as white people. And I'm like, yeah, 1129 01:13:41.119 --> 01:13:44.279 well, that's because it's in Harlem. I don't know if you know this 1130 01:13:44.359 --> 01:13:48.640 about Harlem, but there are white people, but Harlem is a majority ethnic 1131 01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:53.640 area. That's why you see the majority of ethnic people. And a lot 1132 01:13:53.720 --> 01:14:00.800 of people missed the fact that Alfrey Woodard's uh black Mariah wasn't correctly prejudiced. 1133 01:14:00.279 --> 01:14:05.039 When she was, you know, talking about opening the hospital and shaking the 1134 01:14:05.079 --> 01:14:10.039 hands of little kids, little kids, she immediately sanitized her hands after touching 1135 01:14:10.039 --> 01:14:14.039 little white kids immediately, and that stuck out to me because I was like, 1136 01:14:14.119 --> 01:14:15.000 I've had white people do that to me when I was a kid, 1137 01:14:16.439 --> 01:14:19.199 So just see this black woman do it like you're supposed to hate the character, 1138 01:14:19.239 --> 01:14:23.720 and she was a great villain, but I was like, I think 1139 01:14:23.720 --> 01:14:26.520 a lot of people are gonna miss that subtlety, and like you said, 1140 01:14:26.560 --> 01:14:28.680 sometimes you need to be beat over the head with it. And I think 1141 01:14:29.199 --> 01:14:31.319 towards the end of season two, when she actually is straight up evil, 1142 01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:34.560 you get that beating over the head of who she is and you're like, 1143 01:14:34.560 --> 01:14:38.600 oh shit, this is the way she's been the entire time. But I 1144 01:14:38.720 --> 01:14:44.880 think that you're supposed to be You're supposed to take critical view of all of 1145 01:14:44.920 --> 01:14:48.359 these characters. And that was again a lot of the argument with Killmonger for 1146 01:14:48.359 --> 01:14:50.279 Black Panther too, to where people are like, oh, he should be 1147 01:14:50.279 --> 01:14:54.479 the Black Panther, and I'm like, he is a whole villain, he's 1148 01:14:54.560 --> 01:14:58.840 a bad guy. No, he should be to me, one of the 1149 01:14:58.880 --> 01:15:01.119 whole points as you were seeing, like Black the First Black Panther was a 1150 01:15:01.199 --> 01:15:06.720 chance to tell a story about what would a black world that hadn't been touched 1151 01:15:06.720 --> 01:15:10.840 by white supremacy be like. And in many ways, I think one of 1152 01:15:10.880 --> 01:15:15.119 the tragedies of the first Black Panther in movie is that kill Monger is like, 1153 01:15:15.159 --> 01:15:17.119 in some ways it's not the kill Mongers an even horrible person, is 1154 01:15:17.119 --> 01:15:23.159 that he is the person who's been really touched and hit by white supremacy and 1155 01:15:23.760 --> 01:15:26.760 how that's affected him, and that it's there's a tragicness to him. And 1156 01:15:26.800 --> 01:15:30.680 that's part of why like this is going way back. We're talking earlier about 1157 01:15:30.720 --> 01:15:32.680 kill Monger and Magneto. I think one of the things that unites them, 1158 01:15:32.880 --> 01:15:36.359 and this is becoming a trend borne more with some villain characters, is by 1159 01:15:36.439 --> 01:15:40.720 the end of the movie, the hero thinks they were right, you know 1160 01:15:40.800 --> 01:15:44.159 that, Like T'Challa is, like, I disagree with what Eric was doing, 1161 01:15:45.119 --> 01:15:47.239 but everything he said about how Black Panther needs to stop being so walled 1162 01:15:47.279 --> 01:15:50.760 off is wrong, And I'm going to go to the exact place that Eric 1163 01:15:50.840 --> 01:15:59.359 is from of you know, the downtown areas of Oakland and try and rescue, 1164 01:15:59.439 --> 01:16:01.720 you know, trying do what what conduct can to help the kids like 1165 01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:05.079 Eric in the way that Eric never got and you know saying with a lot 1166 01:16:05.079 --> 01:16:12.720 of times pressor X winds up doing that with Magneto stuff and for somebody else 1167 01:16:12.720 --> 01:16:15.000 you said that, oh yeah, and just go alas with something else you 1168 01:16:15.079 --> 01:16:19.119 said about Luke Cage. One of the things that I think those shows can 1169 01:16:19.159 --> 01:16:24.760 do that I think I get why it so speaks to people in the community, 1170 01:16:25.119 --> 01:16:29.479 but also so helpful to folks outside the community like myself is. Like 1171 01:16:29.520 --> 01:16:32.359 you said, it can it gets past the oh you know, because all 1172 01:16:32.359 --> 01:16:36.079 you ever see is the black character who's the drug dealer. Then yeah, 1173 01:16:36.159 --> 01:16:40.640 that is part of what reinforces the stereotype in the minds of white people of 1174 01:16:40.680 --> 01:16:43.399 that's how they see black people. As you know, as I said, 1175 01:16:43.439 --> 01:16:46.479 the Rental Park was saying, you know, if every time an Asian superhero 1176 01:16:46.520 --> 01:16:50.880 is a martial artist like that creates all those kind of ideas. And to 1177 01:16:50.960 --> 01:16:55.800 me as someone who grew up, you know, my mother lived like she 1178 01:16:55.800 --> 01:16:59.479 she's not doing well financially, and so she was basically as the upperwast side, 1179 01:16:59.560 --> 01:17:03.560 the up west side butts up against Harlem in New York City, and 1180 01:17:03.680 --> 01:17:06.239 she was basically always like just on the line of it. And as the 1181 01:17:06.279 --> 01:17:10.800 Hipps side would expand further and gentrifying some parts of Harlem. And that's a 1182 01:17:10.840 --> 01:17:14.760 whole of the story that's really problematically we can talk about. But she was 1183 01:17:14.760 --> 01:17:16.039 always going to push north and north, and so I always lived on the 1184 01:17:16.119 --> 01:17:19.039 edge of parts of Harlem and had a lot of experience that community, although 1185 01:17:19.039 --> 01:17:24.359 obviously not within the community. But one thing that I was very well aware 1186 01:17:24.399 --> 01:17:29.720 of is that there were, you know, a number of distinct communities within 1187 01:17:29.960 --> 01:17:32.680 people who just call the black community. But one of the biggest separations was 1188 01:17:33.079 --> 01:17:39.560 between African American and Caribbean American, and that the Caribbean American immigrants often saw 1189 01:17:39.600 --> 01:17:44.800 themselves very differently as the people who were the descendants of slaves in here in 1190 01:17:44.800 --> 01:17:46.760 the United States, and that there's a lot of community tension about that, 1191 01:17:47.520 --> 01:17:51.600 and that community tension is a fundamental part of Luke Cage season two, and 1192 01:17:51.640 --> 01:17:55.920 I was I loved that, and I love listening to black creators talk about 1193 01:17:55.960 --> 01:17:59.560 that about like, yeah, this is a this is a this is a 1194 01:18:00.239 --> 01:18:03.600 me within black communities that white people don't see, and that there are differences 1195 01:18:03.640 --> 01:18:09.399 there between the people who see America as the country they came to as with 1196 01:18:09.479 --> 01:18:14.359 a hopeful immigration story versus the people who were kidnapped and taken here their ancestors. 1197 01:18:14.520 --> 01:18:17.399 And that's the experience of America and that I'm briefly summarizing it, but 1198 01:18:17.439 --> 01:18:19.760 I like, to me, that was such a brilliant part of that show 1199 01:18:20.279 --> 01:18:24.239 that it made plain for the people who don't see that. I like, 1200 01:18:24.279 --> 01:18:30.439 No, this isn't one monolithic community, right, absolutely, and again like, 1201 01:18:31.439 --> 01:18:34.760 you still need to look at the nuance and things, and you still 1202 01:18:34.760 --> 01:18:41.119 need to look at the minutia and these characters and these settings in these worlds 1203 01:18:41.399 --> 01:18:46.920 and realize that sometimes everything ain't about you. As a fan, everything ain't 1204 01:18:46.920 --> 01:18:50.920 about you. You might not see yourself in a character, but you don't 1205 01:18:50.960 --> 01:18:57.520 need to see yourself in every character. It is absolutely nice and representation matters, 1206 01:18:57.560 --> 01:18:59.520 and I love it. Like I said, go back and look at 1207 01:18:59.560 --> 01:19:04.159 little kids it's watching these things and realize why representation is so important. But 1208 01:19:04.399 --> 01:19:09.600 as a fan and as a fandom, the ways we need to do better 1209 01:19:10.880 --> 01:19:15.399 are to realize that not everything is for us. You don't have to love 1210 01:19:15.439 --> 01:19:20.399 everything. You don't have to like everything. Move on, like seriously, 1211 01:19:20.479 --> 01:19:26.479 move on, dislike what you want to dislike. I don't need a ten 1212 01:19:26.600 --> 01:19:31.760 page essay you know double space at mL E format about it, Like, 1213 01:19:31.840 --> 01:19:35.119 I don't care like you can post, Hey, I didn't like blah blah 1214 01:19:35.119 --> 01:19:39.239 blah blah blah. I had somebody spoil Endgame, Dude. The week it 1215 01:19:39.399 --> 01:19:42.039 came out, I had somebody spoil it on Facebook. I don't even know 1216 01:19:42.079 --> 01:19:45.119 why. I was friends with this guy and he complained about he's like smart 1217 01:19:45.199 --> 01:19:48.039 Hulk and he dabs and I was like, bro, the movie's been out 1218 01:19:48.039 --> 01:19:53.000 for an hour? What is wrong with you? And I deleted and blocked 1219 01:19:53.079 --> 01:19:55.720 him, like I'm okay, cool, you don't like it. You don't 1220 01:19:55.720 --> 01:19:59.680 have to spoil the experience for everybody else. It is not our job as 1221 01:19:59.720 --> 01:20:03.279 fan ends to do that. It is not our responsibility to spoil the experience 1222 01:20:03.319 --> 01:20:08.560 for everybody else. Let somebody find help. They don't like something, maybe 1223 01:20:08.680 --> 01:20:11.840 they'll like it anyway, just because you don't like it. My wife and 1224 01:20:11.880 --> 01:20:15.920 I don't see eye eye on every TV show. I will say she's gotten 1225 01:20:15.920 --> 01:20:20.520 me in the Desperate Housewives lately, and I dislike it because I love it 1226 01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:23.720 so much, I can't every time she's got it on, I'll be out 1227 01:20:23.760 --> 01:20:25.680 of the room and I'll come in a room with like a snack or something 1228 01:20:25.680 --> 01:20:28.560 and sit down like it. So we watched Desperate Housewives. Okay, cool, 1229 01:20:29.279 --> 01:20:31.279 you know, but I walked in the room one day I ended up 1230 01:20:31.279 --> 01:20:35.399 podcast early and my spouse looks stricken because she's watching too hot to handle. 1231 01:20:36.600 --> 01:20:40.039 And I started watching it so that I can make fun of her for watching 1232 01:20:40.079 --> 01:20:42.600 it. And then I was like, and I sat down with her and 1233 01:20:42.600 --> 01:20:44.960 we watched it and we want like biddah seasons of it, you know. 1234 01:20:45.039 --> 01:20:46.960 So I'm all with you about that. We had a great conversation. We 1235 01:20:47.000 --> 01:20:49.399 could go on so much longer, which tells me I'm gonna have you on 1236 01:20:49.439 --> 01:20:53.560 as a guest again. Let me just ask, is there any last parts 1237 01:20:53.600 --> 01:20:58.000 about the blurred experience or your thoughts and fan number, any other like last 1238 01:20:58.560 --> 01:21:00.560 questions or points you want to bring up. I mean, I guess really 1239 01:21:00.560 --> 01:21:03.560 what it comes down to is enjoy the things you enjoy, let others enjoy 1240 01:21:03.600 --> 01:21:09.800 the things they enjoy. And to be absolutely blunt, there'll be a dick 1241 01:21:09.840 --> 01:21:12.880 about the things you like. You know, like and love what you want 1242 01:21:12.920 --> 01:21:16.359 to, but let people enjoy what they want to and don't be hateful because 1243 01:21:16.359 --> 01:21:20.640 they like something that you don't. Yeah, or because I think that's the 1244 01:21:20.640 --> 01:21:27.199 thing is like, be solid enough in your feelings as a fan that other 1245 01:21:27.279 --> 01:21:30.960 people either liking it or disliking it doesn't challenge you, because I'm sure you've 1246 01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:32.520 seen this as well. It's like, there's the thing that you don't like, 1247 01:21:32.720 --> 01:21:35.640 maybe because you think like there's some racism or some sexism in it, 1248 01:21:35.720 --> 01:21:40.159 or maybe because you just think the acting is bad. And people will be 1249 01:21:40.199 --> 01:21:42.039 like, oh my god. You know you're not a real fan if you 1250 01:21:42.039 --> 01:21:45.439 don't love every version of Power Rangers or whatever. Like, allow for both, 1251 01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:49.239 give like, let people have space to experience their feelings and something. 1252 01:21:49.520 --> 01:21:53.800 If you think there's problems with it, point that out, but also let 1253 01:21:53.840 --> 01:21:56.039 people enjoy the things they're gonna enjoy, and let people not enjoy the things 1254 01:21:56.079 --> 01:21:59.159 they don't like, right absolutely, And that's that's really like you said, 1255 01:21:59.199 --> 01:22:01.560 like, you're not gonna like everything, you know, We're we're what twenty 1256 01:22:01.560 --> 01:22:06.520 seven movies in the MCU know, I haven't liked all of them. Yeah, 1257 01:22:08.000 --> 01:22:12.640 you don't have to. It's fine, nobody's making you. We are 1258 01:22:13.399 --> 01:22:16.560 twelve Fast and Furious movies, and now I don't like all of them for 1259 01:22:16.680 --> 01:22:19.720 some odd reason. There's a fourth Expendables movie coming out. I'm gonna watch 1260 01:22:19.720 --> 01:22:25.920 it. I didn't like three. I'm gonna watch for but you don't have 1261 01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:28.560 to like all of it, and then if you think you're not going to 1262 01:22:28.600 --> 01:22:31.720 like it, don't consume it. I haven't seen The Meg because I think 1263 01:22:31.760 --> 01:22:34.479 it looks stupid. I love Jason Statham. I'm not watching those movies. 1264 01:22:35.279 --> 01:22:40.680 Yeah, that's fair, you know, but just enjoy the things you enjoy. 1265 01:22:41.399 --> 01:22:44.000 Yeah, well, thank you so much for being on here. We're 1266 01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:46.880 gonna have a brief section for our patrons, which is actually now our members. 1267 01:22:47.680 --> 01:22:51.159 I'm not talking about this much, but these podcasts have you probably may 1268 01:22:51.239 --> 01:22:56.079 have noticed, had moved entirely over to the true story dot fm community, 1269 01:22:56.359 --> 01:23:00.039 and so I'm kind of phasing out Patreon. If you are a p t 1270 01:23:00.239 --> 01:23:02.960 already, you're gonna get a free month of membership. But the best way 1271 01:23:03.000 --> 01:23:06.159 now is you can sign up to become a member of this podcast on the 1272 01:23:06.199 --> 01:23:10.079 True Story Fm. All the links are in the show notes, and if 1273 01:23:10.079 --> 01:23:12.760 you do that, it's either five dollars a month or fifty five dollars for 1274 01:23:12.800 --> 01:23:15.279 the whole year save five bucks. You get bonus content, You get access 1275 01:23:15.319 --> 01:23:19.119 to a lot of discord conversations, and you get the bonus content. You 1276 01:23:19.199 --> 01:23:23.119 can add free content, all the great things and mostly you get to know 1277 01:23:23.119 --> 01:23:26.359 that you're helping to support this podcast, and as I was doing with Patreon, 1278 01:23:27.600 --> 01:23:30.600 because I really want to help support the strike and all weeken, twenty 1279 01:23:30.600 --> 01:23:34.520 five percent of any money that we get from those membership fees is all going 1280 01:23:34.560 --> 01:23:39.479 to go to the Strike Fund. That's helping the actors, the writers and 1281 01:23:39.520 --> 01:23:43.000 only them. It's helping the hairstylists, helping the makeup artist, it's helping 1282 01:23:43.039 --> 01:23:46.439 the people who you know, the guy who owns the pizza shop that used 1283 01:23:46.479 --> 01:23:49.159 to deliver pizzas all the time to the studio and now it doesn't have any 1284 01:23:49.159 --> 01:23:53.880 business because no one's at the studio. Like this fund is helping all those 1285 01:23:53.920 --> 01:23:58.199 people. So please consider it becoming a member. Please consider going to you 1286 01:23:58.239 --> 01:24:00.560 know, we love going against feedback. What'd you think of the episode and 1287 01:24:00.640 --> 01:24:03.279 everything that Cage Bishop had to say? Go to a website, go to 1288 01:24:03.279 --> 01:24:06.000 the show notes. You can find our email, our Twitter, our TikTok, 1289 01:24:06.119 --> 01:24:10.399 all the ways to contact us. We love feedback. But most importantly, 1290 01:24:10.479 --> 01:24:13.640 I hope that you've as I have, listen to all the things that 1291 01:24:13.880 --> 01:24:15.319 my guests had to say. You want to know more about what they're doing. 1292 01:24:15.640 --> 01:24:19.680 So Dave just tell me as we finish up where places people can find 1293 01:24:19.720 --> 01:24:21.800 all you and all the great stuff you're doing. All right, So if 1294 01:24:21.800 --> 01:24:25.359 you want to check me out on TikTok, which is my primary I am 1295 01:24:25.439 --> 01:24:30.720 Caged Underscore Bishop Underscore Cosplay. On TikTok, you can find my show Perception 1296 01:24:30.760 --> 01:24:34.239 Blurred Why Not? That is Perception b L E R D Y Apostrophe NLT 1297 01:24:34.520 --> 01:24:40.520 on all major podcasts platforms. Just search that. I have a segment called 1298 01:24:40.560 --> 01:24:44.039 on Apologetically Blurred, which is just about the blurred the experience. Perception Blurred 1299 01:24:44.079 --> 01:24:46.279 is more about the experience of a black man in the world. Currently, 1300 01:24:46.760 --> 01:24:51.600 and I did a spin off show with my best friend and my wife and 1301 01:24:51.600 --> 01:24:57.680 my daughter called Tables, Ladders and Dice where we talk about professional wrestling, 1302 01:24:57.960 --> 01:25:00.000 and I swear we are going to get to tabletop at some point in times. 1303 01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:02.319 Just wrestling has been really hot right now, so we've been talking about 1304 01:25:02.319 --> 01:25:05.520 that. You can find that all on Spotify, Apple, Google, wherever 1305 01:25:05.520 --> 01:25:09.880 you find podcasts. We're there. Yeah, I've got an episode coming up 1306 01:25:09.880 --> 01:25:12.239 about wrestling that I definitely want to get you on for if you're up for 1307 01:25:12.279 --> 01:25:15.960 it, and I'll commit now when the strike ends, we can talk about 1308 01:25:15.960 --> 01:25:17.840 that media again. I'm doing an episode on Power Rangers, so we'll definitely 1309 01:25:17.840 --> 01:25:20.039 get you on for that as well. Yeah, I also want to say 1310 01:25:20.159 --> 01:25:25.199 that I'll give a warning here. No, i'll give a spoiler here. 1311 01:25:26.359 --> 01:25:28.720 I don't know if it'll be any good, but given what you said about 1312 01:25:28.760 --> 01:25:30.079 that, like, you know, you'd come up to me if I was 1313 01:25:30.119 --> 01:25:34.039 in the wheelchair doing a Riker cosplay at some point in time. I take 1314 01:25:34.119 --> 01:25:40.199 me years, but I've got to do a Riker costplay because what is one 1315 01:25:40.199 --> 01:25:43.039 of the defining things about Riker that we all love to laugh at. He 1316 01:25:43.119 --> 01:25:45.359 doesn't know how to get into a chair normally, So I have to do 1317 01:25:45.399 --> 01:25:50.279 one about weird ways of getting into my wheelchair in a Riker costplay. So 1318 01:25:50.439 --> 01:25:54.199 it's gonna happen sometime, I don't know when, and I'll give all the 1319 01:25:54.199 --> 01:25:56.880 credit to my friend Cage Bishop. So thank you as much for being a 1320 01:25:56.920 --> 01:26:00.000 guest. To all of our members, We're gonna have more discussion with Kage 1321 01:26:00.039 --> 01:26:01.840 Bishop of about cosplay injured a second. To everyone else, thank you so 1322 01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:10.479 much for listening. We have spoken where we are