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Oct. 6, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:31:24

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #496

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	Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
	Welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 6th of October 2022.
	I'm Carl and I'm joined by Kodrin Stavri, otherwise known as V. You may have seen his YouTube channels, Romanian TV or Lack of Entertainment, and he has come all the way to England, not just for me, actually, because he's on holiday with his wife, but thankfully got him in the studio, so we're going to talk about a few interesting things.
	How are you doing, man?
	Hello.
	Thanks for having me.
	And yes, it's very lovely to be here.
	Good.
	I'm really glad to have you, man.
	We talk all the time, but it's so unusual to see you in person.
	So it's just weird for me.
	But anyway, so today we're going to be talking about how Zoomers don't support women's rights, the failure of the movie Bros and why that failed, and what conservatives can learn from Lizzo.
	You're not really very familiar with Lizzo, are you?
	I might recognize the face.
	I think you recognize the twerking.
	Oh, I think I may know who you're talking about now.
	Right.
	Anyway, so let's get into it.
	So it turns out that when polled, Zoomers, especially young men, don't actually support women's rights.
	They've had enough of women's rights, and they're more interested in talking about women's wrongs.
	I think this is a product of modernity.
	This is a product of the march of feminism, rigging the scales entirely in favor of women and treating men as if they're an oppressive class, which, of course, young men who don't have anything or any real experience in the world Aren't.
	They can't.
	They're just existing like the rest of us.
	And so it seems that they've realized this and they've become aware of the world around them.
	What do you make of that framing?
	Before we can talk about it, we have to define what is a woman.
	That's a great point.
	So we can talk about the rights.
	The Supreme Court of the United States nominated a judge recently.
	She couldn't decide what a woman is.
	It's weird as well because as soon as this conversation comes up, everyone already knows what a woman is.
	There's no question of what a woman is.
	But anyway, before we go on, if you want to support us, go to lowseas.com, sign up, and go and watch The Politics of Fight Club, because I think this is very pertinent to the subject, this kind of, as the thumbnail says, the banality of modernity, this malaise under which we find ourselves.
	I think the Zoomers are finding themselves in very much that kind of position.
	So let's begin with laying out the board, shall we?
	So as you can see, women outnumber men in US colleges and of course UK universities by a massive margin, by 20% margin.
	This is due to the diversity initiatives that were initially done when women were significantly outnumbered by men.
	But even just on a point there, even like in the 60s, there was still 35% of university attendees.
	And they wanted 50.
	And now they've got 60.
	Yes.
	When they got 50, they wanted the initiatives to keep going.
	Yes.
	So now you still have scholarships that promote women.
	You still have various institutions that help women.
	And the result is 60% of students that are women.
	And weirdly, the women aren't demanding affirmative action for the men.
	They're not saying we're for equality.
	They're just going with the flow.
	But this is not just in the United States, of course.
	This is in universities all around the world.
	If you can go to the next one, apparently, data from the UK's higher education admissions has shown that women are 36% more likely to apply to a university than a man.
	And this is happening in all around the world.
	Panama, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Cuba, Jamaica, Brunei.
	In Malaysia, they have 64% of university enrollments are female.
	Christina Hafsommers was pointing out that this affects men as well, not just because they can't attend universities, but these are the husbands, the sons, the relatives of other women.
	And because they can't go to university, women who are looking to marry someone, their own intellectual...
	This will pay grade.
	Yeah, pay grade, but as well as an intellectual person that they can talk with, they're going to realize that the dating pool has shrunk significantly.
	Or they're going to have to lower their standards.
	They're going to have to get used to dating grug.
	I think it's more easy to get more men into university than convince the ladies to lower their standards.
	Well, we have something we can do about it, actually.
	We can always explain that affirmative action is just racist.
	If you scroll down a little bit on this, you can see that white women have benefited more from affirmative action programs than any other demographic.
	So that's always a way of getting rid of things.
	Declare them to be racist.
	Then they have to be taken away.
	Yeah, but then you'll just have non-white women.
	I mean, they want the affirmative action to still be there.
	They just want less white women.
	That is true.
	And also, if we get rid of it, well, Harvard did a study as to what's going to happen if we get rid of it.
	And they say, quote, ending affirmative action programs will significantly decrease diversity in the workplace, disproportionately hurting Asian women, black women, and Hispanic men.
	And the thing is, legally, I don't think they can actually just say, right, we're going to have white women taken out of that, even though white men have been taken.
	I guess they can pump more money into charities designed specifically to help women of color?
	Maybe, but it's the actual policies of picking people based on their gender and skin color.
	I mean, they do do it, so I don't see why they can't.
	Didn't the White House recently said that they're going to grant aid after the hurricane specifically to people of color?
	I believe Kamala Harris did say exactly that.
	But they can do it if they want.
	Because, I mean, what are you going to do about it?
	Yeah, exactly.
	What are you going to do?
	They're the ones in charge.
	So that's the universities.
	Let's go on to the workforce.
	Apparently in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, women are a 46.8% of the labor force, which seems very high, doesn't it?
	That means nearly every woman who can work is working.
	You're asking me from Eastern Europe.
	That's how things should be.
	Well, that's not how things should be in the West.
	40% of women are the primary or co-bred winner for their families.
	That's mental, isn't it?
	No, that's normal here.
	I mean, why do you stay at home, get to work, make money, earn a paycheck?
	See, this is...
	What they've done is reduced us to post-Soviet Eastern Europe levels.
	But honestly, I think that's staggering and not how things should be at all.
	But, of course, the eternal problem is that only 8% of women are CEOs.
	I love this next article.
	If you can go to the next one.
	How many are garbage cleaners and how many work in the sewers?
	Oh, 0% actually.
	Shouldn't we do something about that?
	Not measurable quantities.
	There isn't like 10 times more women who are CEOs than sewer workers.
	If we look at the top, we should look at the bottom, I think.
	I agree, but that's not how affirmative action works.
	But anyway, I love the way this article frames everything right.
	Listen to this.
	There's a 92% chance this is a joke because roughly 8% of CEOs of women are the bitterness.
	You've only had every advantage up until this point.
	And now it's like, yeah, but we're not 50% of CEOs.
	The gender pay gap hasn't budged in 15 years.
	Sounds like it's shaming women at this point, doesn't it?
	Women, what are you, lazy?
	Get to work.
	Fortune want you to earn more money for the billionaires.
	This is the United States, the only industrialized nation without federal paid family leave policy.
	So one in four American women returns to work just 10 days after giving birth.
	How's the pay for Romanian women?
	I think it's two years.
	Really?
	From the government?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But, like, Romania wants to have more children, I guess.
	Meanwhile, as I understand, in the United States, if you want to have an abortion in another state, the company is more than willing to help you out, facilitate the championing of women's rights.
	It's weird that women are so eager to get into the workplace, isn't it?
	Because you'd think that a lot of them would be like, wait a minute, aren't I fueling capitalism?
	Anyway, they obviously complain that there are more chief executives named Michael and James than women who lead S&P 500 countries.
	And so they finish with, here's the kicker.
	The World Economic Forum says it'll take 135 years to reach global gender parity.
	This is a joke, right?
	We all know these facts, and maybe some of us have grown to accept them.
	It feels like progress has stalled and we're stuck in a time warp.
	Women have always been powerful.
	It's past time to let them lead the way.
	It's like, women, you're being lazy.
	No, I can tell you the solution to this.
	Romania out of the entire European Union is the country with the least amount of gender pay gap and women not working.
	Yeah, impoverish the nation.
	No, I'm serious.
	I don't solve the problem.
	Yeah, like if you can't afford to have one income in the household to care for children, then both people need to work.
	And you're going to end up with the father looking at the daughter saying, no, you're not going to go to journalist school because I don't want you to be a parasite for the rest of your life.
	You're going to go to STEM. You're going to learn how to be a doctor.
	You're going to learn how to take care of yourself.
	And I want you out of my house by the age of 22.
	So with that mentality, yeah, like you're going to have equal amount of women in the workforce.
	They're going to try to become CEOs or whatever in order to make more money.
	Well, I mean, maybe that's the case in Romania, but it's definitely not the case in America, or in Britain either, because they can say, well, it's past time to let women lead the way, but then that just leaves us with an open door.
	We can't shove the women through it, can we?
	But if we impoverish the nation, then their fathers are going to shove them through the door.
	I guess they'll have to, because it turns out girls just don't want to lead.
	Tough.
	They need to make money so they can't leave the household.
	They keep surveying young women, girls aged 9 to 18, across all of England and Wales, and they were surprised to find that most were uninspired by today's political leaders and did not want to become leaders themselves unless they could manage people in a different way.
	They described office roles as unappealing.
	Don't want to work in those offices, but, you know, fewer than 10% CEOs.
	Fewer than 20% wanted to work in an office, 75% wanted to work flexibly, and 90% would like to work in an environment that best suits them.
	Because they don't think about money.
	No.
	If you don't think about money and you're just glorifying the position, then you're not going to realize what should motivate you in order to become a leader.
	What's interesting, girls are twice as likely to say they would rather do a job they enjoy than be rich.
	You need to impoverish the nation and then they'll want to be rich.
	Because they don't want to stay in the cold during the winter, they want to put food on the table, and with that motivation comes great inspiration.
	At the moment, we fat Westerners are thinking of enjoying our lives.
	How dare you?
	That's not going to get gender parity, is it?
	You know, this is disgusting.
	They're three times as likely to prioritize being healthy and safe than to be a leader.
	They're not even going to take risks.
	Yeah, not a good mindset.
	No wonder they're not CEOs.
	And they're also twice as likely to prioritize being respected than being a leader.
	They need an Eastern European father.
	I tell you, no, I think what they need is for Fortune 500, the Fortune magazine that we just quoted, to write articles saying women are lazy and lacking in any kind of motivation and drive.
	Come on, women, you can do it.
	We've opened all the doors.
	We've given you all the affirmative action.
	Now you've got to get off your asses and get out there and win.
	Come on.
	Apparently, 42% of girls did want to take on leadership roles, but when asked to rank their career ambitions, being the leader was actually the lowest priority on a list of 17 attributes.
	Really?
	So they're like, yeah, I'd like to be in charge, but I don't want to be a leader!
	No!
	All that pesky responsibility.
	Can you get rid of that?
	Well, it's a lot of stress, isn't it?
	You know, it's a lot of hard work, a lot of stress, long hours in an office.
	And weirdly, young women are like, well, I don't really want that.
	That doesn't sound very fun.
	I actually like to be my own boss.
	Only 33%, in fact, only want to be their own boss as well.
	So only a third actually want to be in charge of anything.
	But they don't want to be entrepreneurs.
	No, most of them not.
	But the ones who are, are very happy in what they do, according to the survey.
	So that's good.
	So anyway, this is the state of women in the West, right?
	So young women have got all of the opportunities.
	They're making up the majority of university positions.
	They're I should have got this in advice, but they're outperforming in earnings.
	Young women outperform young men in earnings.
	And so the Zoomers are like, well, hang on a second.
	What did we do wrong?
	And they're looking at this rigged system and saying, well, hang on a second.
	Why would I want more women's rights?
	Because I seem to be institutionally disadvantaged because I'm a man.
	Does this surprise you to hear?
	No, because if you're a young boy in school now and you keep hearing that you have masculine privilege and toxic masculinity, that's what the professors and the media puts in your head.
	And then you look around you and you see, well, there's this place where women can apply in order to get into college or there's this door and this window.
	And you're wondering, well, but what is it for me?
	And you start trying to change the system because at the end of the day, most people care about themselves and their families.
	It must be really insufferable as well to see all of these privileges open doors for women.
	And the women are like, I don't really want to.
	I'm not really interested.
	Well, I'd love to, but I can't because I haven't transitioned yet.
	It must have been insufferable, right?
	So anyway, this was an EU-wide study that suggests that Western democracies have become increasingly gender equal over the past few decades, and there is a recent backlash against gender equality in the form of rising modern sexism.
	What is modern sexism compared to classical sexism?
	A pale, inferior parody of it.
	I see.
	Furthermore, young men are more likely to see women's progress at their expense, and the trend is most prominent in areas with high unemployment and less trust in institutions.
	Researchers from the Department of Political Science at Sweden's Gothenburg University found that young men see themselves as being in competition with women and are therefore more likely to vote in favor of right-wing, anti-feminist political candidates.
	Doesn't surprise me.
	People vote based on their interests.
	Exactly.
	If you have a law that literally bars you or gives an advantage to other people, why would you vote for that?
	But if you're a man, you've got no choice.
	You're going to get out and work.
	If you're a woman, maybe you'll find a husband who's well-off enough that you can stay at home or something like that and raise the kids.
	You don't have that option as a man.
	You know what I'm curious?
	How do the mothers of those sons vote?
	Well, if you're a mother and you are stuck with a son that can't leave home because he can't find a job, how is she going to vote?
	Maybe in favor of right-wing anti-feminist political candidates?
	Probably.
	Which is great to hear, frankly.
	I'm liking, again, the pendulum swinging like we were talking about before the podcast.
	But what I find interesting about this is like, well, they're more likely to see that this is the case.
	Yeah, but it is actually also the case because you're introducing this competition into the workplace and giving them unfair advantages to push them artificially up the hierarchy.
	So, they're not wrong.
	No.
	It's totally fair, right?
	And so, one PhD student who worked on the research says this.
	Some people believe that increased gender equality only benefits women and do not see the benefits for society as a whole.
	What are the benefits for society as a whole being?
	Well, I guess you have more taxpayers.
	Double the work, double the taxes.
	Some research suggests that this is a feeling of injustice that can even motivate citizens to vote for right-wing radical parties who are against feminism and sexual freedom.
	Where did sexual freedom came out of?
	Ah, well, that's a great question.
	How did that whistle in?
	But, no, that's good.
	That's good.
	The study itself surveyed 32,000 people.
	Respondents were asked to state to what extent they agree with the statement that promoting women and girls' rights has gone too far because it threatened men and boys' opportunities.
	And the results show that young men aged 18 to 29 most often agree with this statement in our survey.
	The older the men are, the less they agree with this statement.
	Some women agree with the statement, but to a far lesser extent than men of all ages.
	Yeah, well, probably those mothers are tipping the scale in the other direction.
	Looking at their sons and being like, well, he wasn't loud because he's a man.
	The results, of course, contradict previous research that claims that older generations are the ones who are the most conservative and opposed to advances in women's rights.
	I love this.
	This is the best part.
	The research said possibly young men who believe that women are out competing in the labor market experience advances in women's rights as unjust and a threat.
	We just need to get better at communicating the benefits of gender equality.
	Well, I think when you show that 60 percent of the graduates are women, you're doing a fine job at communicating the gender inequality.
	Fathers get, yeah, but the benefits for the men, right?
	Fathers get to spend more time with their children, and the burden of being the family's breadwinner is lightened when the mothers in families also advance in their careers.
	And it's like, okay, go and explain that to the young men who want the exact opposite of what you've just described.
	They want to be the breadwinner.
	They don't want their wife to be the breadwinner, assuming they can even get a wife because they don't earn enough money to impress a woman thinking that she can rely on him.
	Yeah, I mean, this is a cultural difference.
	Again, in my country, both people are expected to work.
	Sure, but ideally, they wouldn't, right?
	I have no idea.
	I mean, it's such a different culture.
	You're being ingrained into this since you were born.
	Yeah, it's probably due to the remnants of communism that we had here.
	Well, there.
	And people are born to think that you have to work and provide and the wife has to work and provide as well.
	But again, this is due to the nation being impoverished.
	So that's the thing, isn't it, right?
	So they're like, yeah, so what we want is to get you in the same mindset as a post-communist impoverished nation.
	Yeah.
	I don't really want that.
	You know, weirdly, I don't think young men want that either, you know?
	For example, my wife, she can stay at home if she wants to.
	You're a rich, successful man.
	In Romania, right?
	You don't talk yourself down, you know?
	But she just doesn't want to, no.
	And it's not only that.
	We actually had the conversation.
	She can be a doctor and just stay at that level of the career.
	No, she wants to be a university professor.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, she wants to get a PhD.
	She wants to work hard.
	And this type of mentality, I don't know if it translates well into the West, if there are women who legitimately want to.
	Well, there probably are, yeah.
	But I don't think my wife is an outlier.
	I think she is the norm.
	Yeah, like most women in Eastern Europe, not just Romania.
	So they're definitely trying to turn us into a post-communist country.
	Yes.
	It's awful.
	But the thing is, this is very much what a woman thinks a man wants, right?
	It's like, oh, well, you get to spend more time with the kids and your wife will provide money so you don't have to provide money.
	It's like, yeah, but that's my self-respect that's going down with that.
	I don't think women want that, though.
	Like, even if you have a man who just wants to stay at home and play video games and spend time with the kids, I don't think a woman would put up with it.
	I mean, there are probably a lot of men that would like a superstar model to go to work, bring home the bacon, and then have sex with him.
	But she's not going to get anything out of it.
	But she's not going to want that, yeah, like...
	Well, that's the point, isn't it?
	She's going to lose respect for him.
	I do actually genuinely think that if you're a man, you need to out-earn your partner.
	I do think there's a level of respect that the woman, I think, loses when that's not the case.
	And I've seen so many accounts from people writing articles, and women often, writing articles, being like, I'm 40 and I earn $100,000 a year and I can't find a man.
	I've never been able to find a man.
	That's because you're the man.
	So that's true even in Eastern Europe.
	Even when both spouses work, the man needs to out-earn the wife because otherwise you notice there starts to be scandals in the family like arguments.
	It's interesting because sometimes the woman gets a promotion, she out-earns the man and that's when the scandals happen and the arguments.
	And then the man manages to out-earn her again and then everything is fine.
	Great, now I've got to compete with my own wife.
	God damn it!
	There's no end to it.
	But this, I think, does speak to something that's innate in humans, and no amount of communism can beat it out of us, right?
	The women need to be able to look up to their men, and if he's just some dependent on her...
	Then she becomes contemptuous of him.
	She doesn't, like, find that impressive.
	And so she's not going to marry some guy who's earning half her wage.
	So these poor Zoomers who are like, well, I can't get on this ladder because I'm literally being actively prevented.
	They're not going to become fathers.
	So trying to explain to them, oh, by the way, you know, as a father, you'll be able to spend more time with your kids.
	It's like, bitch, I'm an incel.
	You know?
	Like, I can't.
	What are you talking about?
	I earn $16,000 a year or whatever.
	I can totally understand why young men are just like, no, this feminism stuff needs to stop.
	It's also prestige, not just about the money.
	So if you have a university graduate, let's say a woman that finished law school, she's not going to date the truck driver, which can even out-earn her.
	He can make more money than her, but just because he doesn't have a university, he's got no chance.
	Prestige is a great point as well, because women being very socially-minded creatures think, well, I need a man of high status.
	And like you say, the sort of plumber or whatever, he might earn like 70 or 80 grand a year, which is a really good wage.
	He'll out-earn a university professor at like 50 grand or whatever, but no one looks up to him.
	And I think you're right on the money on that one.
	So yeah, young men, interested in talking about women's wrongs, don't blame them.
	So let's move on to what the left are actually learning about representation.
	Have you noticed that there have been lots of remakes and reboots and original films and series that have done spectacularly badly?
	I don't know if there have been any original creations up of late.
	I can't name any.
	We will talk about Bros, an LGBT film that didn't do very well.
	But what do you think is behind this?
	So it's more of an easy way for Hollywood not to pay good writers.
	Like they can skim money.
	They can skim money on hiring good actors.
	They can hire new faces with diversity initiatives.
	So they can skim money on that.
	And the technique is called fan baiting.
	They're baiting the fans.
	They cause outrage in order to, first of all, get rid of the negative reviews.
	Because you can say there's a lot of racist bigots that are review bombing us.
	And now if you give a negative review, you're being lumped with the racist bigots.
	They get free advertisement in the New York Times, The Guardian, BBC.
	Everyone talks about these movies.
	And finally, they also can justify why Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb can silence the dissent.
	They can simply ban negative reviews without people mentioning there's a conflict of interest.
	So you think, though, that they would hire these bad writers just to save money?
	And to get the publicity going, they save a lot of money on publicity, and then they can also get tax cuts and other ways of money laundering within Hollywood.
	This is very cynical, though, isn't it?
	Well, I prefer being cynical as an Eastern European.
	I'm always wondering, okay, how are they profiting off of this?
	Sure, but I think, and we've talked about this before, but in the West, a lot of people are very idealistic.
	Yes.
	Like, they will do things for what they believe to be moral reasons.
	But you can mix both.
	I mean, you don't have to just have cynicalism.
	I'm sure they can justify it to themselves by saying, well, we're doing this for ideological purposes.
	I think that comes before the money, actually.
	Well, nevertheless, I believe both of them exist.
	Sure.
	And if it wasn't profitable to do this, it wasn't sustainable, then I think they would drop it.
	I don't think it is profitable and sustainable.
	And I think they are dropping it because we saw Netflix firing a bunch of people.
	Yeah, if you look at the institution, it's not.
	But if you look at the people at the top, they are getting paid.
	Well, they're getting paid for now, but if they destroy their own institution, then they won't get paid.
	I don't think they like to think that far.
	Maybe not.
	Like, how will we look like in 10 years?
	Like, if you look, you'll notice that the people who fail at these projects, Zoe Quinn, for example, are you aware of?
	I'm aware of Zoe Quinn.
	So she was placed in charge of a flagship comic book at DC, ended up that not selling, and then she's moved upwards.
	Like, this is how it works.
	Yeah, she failed upwards, didn't she?
	Yeah, many people fail upwards.
	Yeah, but, I mean, there's...
	There's got to come a point where there are too many failures and they cost too much.
	Sure, yeah.
	And I think we're seeing enough of that at the moment.
	And I think we are seeing a kind of implosion of these things.
	But I think that what they are actually is completely captured by left-wing ideology.
	And I think they're actually kind of in a bubble and a box where they don't really understand why they're failing.
	And I think they're quite resentful over it.
	Yeah.
	So I would say, if you want to know more about this, I actually covered what I think is the problem with Hollywood at the moment in my Politics of Warhammer 40,000.
	Now, this is a very long essay that I wrote that's on the website.
	But one part of it is a section where I'm talking about the concept of representation, which I think I'm actually going to do a proper book club on, because this is philosopher Hannah Pitkin's conceptual analysis of just the concept of representation.
	What does it mean to be represented, right?
	And I think that she's actually hitting on a lot of important points.
	And I think it's actually this that underpins why they've done any of this in the first place and why they're failing at the same time.
	Because at the end of the day, if I don't find something represented in the media that is being produced, I'm just not going to engage with it.
	I'm just not going to entertain it.
	I mean, have you been watching The Rings of Power?
	No, no.
	Jesus, why would that be that?
	I mean, that is a way that Hollywood discovered how to fight piracy.
	I wouldn't even pilot it.
	It's really that obnoxious.
	That's a great description.
	But I am aware of Rings of Power, yes.
	Well, I have been sludging just through it.
	I've been trudging.
	Honestly, it's been a harrowing experience.
	I feel like it feels the emotional equivalent of marching up a mountain in a blizzard.
	And every time you get over the next, oh, there's another, you know, it goes up, oh, and there's another, and you just got to keep going.
	You're never getting to the peak.
	That bad, is it?
	Oh, it's genuinely awful.
	I heard the last episode was really good.
	That's what the media tells me.
	Four articles in a day talking about it.
	Well, they have to because otherwise everyone's going to have known what it's like because they've watched the first episode.
	No, it's terrible.
	Absolutely terrible.
	We'll talk about it another time because I want to talk about bros first.
	Oh, yes.
	So this, I hadn't even heard of this.
	Go watch it, you bigot.
	Exactly.
	We'll get to that.
	We will get to that.
	It is go watch it, you bigger, right?
	So you can see the articles, as you say, the puff pieces that they've been producing.
	Art imitating life.
	Bros is the first major Hollywood film to feature an all-LGBTQ cast.
	Take my money.
	Exactly.
	How could that not be an appeal to you?
	They say in this film, Bobby, one of the characters, becomes the executive director of an LGBTQ history museum.
	That's a riveting plot premise.
	And they have a diverse cast of hilariously feuding board members who fight for acknowledgement.
	Eichner, I think he's not the director, but producer or something, and main star, feels that everyone should have access to LGBTQ history.
	They do.
	It's called the internet, yeah.
	But are you interested in LGBTQ history?
	Not much, no.
	You don't spend a lot of time just Googling it out of casual interest?
	Well, maybe when I make a video about it, but either of that, not really.
	Just not for personal enrichment, then.
	He says it's part of life.
	It's part of culture.
	As long as there have been humans, there have been LGBTQ people falling in love, falling out of love, having sex with each other.
	It's part of the human experience and part of civilization.
	Has that been part of your human experience, V? No, but it's fascinating.
	I think it should be taught as soon as you would teach about any other culture.
	And of course, they say, well, look, I mean, there have been other big budget gay movies like Brokeback Mountain.
	They made loads of money.
	So why wouldn't this make loads of money?
	Come on!
	There was an interview with a person that was a left-leaning from Africa, a president.
	Oh, yeah.
	And with a lady from the BBC. And he just wanted to talk about how to economically improve his country.
	And the lady from the BBC was like...
	But what about butt sex, though?
	How do you feel about the LGBT community in your country?
	And I was like, this is the exact thing you're talking about here.
	It's usually the rich, the wealthy, that are fascinated about this topic, and other people are like, how can I put food on the table?
	Apparently, one of the people's favorite scenes is when his character is left alone in the LGBTQ museum, And he gets to see his community's history.
	He realizes that he's part of a collective and that he comes from somewhere.
	And all the collective goes to socialism.
	Exactly.
	This is a landmark gay film, say Yahoo, which is very interesting.
	I think this wasn't originally on Yahoo, but they collate it.
	As the first LGBT rom-com ever produced and distributed by a mainstream studio with an entirely LGBTQ cast.
	Very important.
	It is very important.
	But for Eichner, the main goal was for audiences to have a good time.
	Sometimes it feels like LGBTQ stories are meant to appease and not alienate straight people by getting too specific about our lives.
	And I understand the reason for that, but I think we're at the point now where we can be really honest.
	Ah, so he's alienating the straight people.
	Well, you know, I mean, that's why they tried not to, but he's like, yeah, you know, I think I will.
	I think we're at the point...
	I think he was successful.
	Yeah, I think we're at the point where we can be, as he says, quote, an abashedly gay, proud, raunchy, and romantic.
	Beautiful.
	I can't wait to watch it!
	Me neither.
	And of course, it's not the first gay love story, but it is the raunchiest one.
	You want to watch a raunchy gay rom-com?
	How would you find raunchy?
	Like, what is that?
	Well, actually, pretty raunchy, apparently.
	Like, in terms of service violation, raunchy?
	Yeah, do you want to go to the next one?
	Oh, that is raunchy.
	I don't want to read that out, actually.
	No, but I can view the raunchiness in it.
	Yeah, but if you have to cut out a scene that uses, quote, a $30,000 butt rig to simulate something I'm just not going to mention on YouTube, then pretty raunchy.
	Pretty raunchy.
	So this is not top of your list of things to watch.
	You can feed a Romanian village with that butt rig.
	What do you want me to see in that movie?
	Like how Hollywood elites are flaunting their wealth in front of the poor?
	I mean, that's a deposit for a house in England.
	That's mental.
	Yeah, I mean, that's a house in Romania.
	But it's also a butt rig in Los Angeles that they didn't even use in the film because someone else had used something similar in a different film.
	And they were like, wow, if they beat us to the punch on that one.
	So what did they do?
	Did they get a refund for it?
	No, I think it's just in the warehouse.
	$30,000.
	I hope it's well-guarded, because it looks valuable.
	Are you suggesting Eastern European thieves are going to break into Hollywood warehouses?
	$30,000 is easy to book in a pocket!
	Come on!
	You don't even need a suitcase for that.
	You just put it in a pocket.
	I don't know, actually.
	I don't know how big it was.
	Like, I mean, it sounds like it's quite...
	It's a rig.
	It sounds like it's quite big.
	You might need to bring a van.
	Oh.
	But anyway, moving on.
	This is part of a new wave of queer storytelling.
	So this isn't just, like, the first major Hollywood movie.
	There's going to be a whole slew of these things coming out.
	And I tell you what, it looks absolutely atrocious.
	I watched the trailer.
	I'm not going to inflict the trailer on anyone because, of course, copyright...
	But if you get to the next one, can you just like play it in the background?
	Just have it playing in quiet, right?
	You can just see like...
	I mean, this is just 100% California gay culture, right?
	Yeah, California, yeah.
	But were they actually doing it or just kissing in public?
	Oh, they were pretending they were having a lover's tiff and everyone thinks they're fighting and then they start kissing and they're like, oh, don't worry.
	But you can see it's insufferable people being bitchy You said you weren't going to play the trailer.
	Well, I'm not going to, like...
	Oh, I have privilege, I see.
	But it's just...
	I mean, it's just so cringe.
	I watched it a couple of times and I was just like, God, this is, like, one of the worst things I've ever seen because it's, at the same time, parodying, like, intersectional and social justice politics.
	Because at one point you've got, like, the board members and they're all gay, obviously, or some flavor of gay.
	Oh, yeah, they've got kids dancing.
	That's beautiful.
	Yeah.
	Very progressive.
	This is the Cuties director's cut.
	It's awful.
	Anyway, so, critics and audiences loved it, as you can imagine.
	If you can just scroll down to the tomato meat, there we go.
	Ah, the raked tomatoes, yes.
	Yeah, 90% fresh, 91% audience score.
	Dude, this must be an amazing film.
	Yeah.
	It must be incredible.
	I mean, if people didn't watch it, they didn't vote on it.
	Yeah.
	Exactly.
	But nobody heard of it.
	That's the thing, you know?
	But Oscar, surely this is going to have all of these awards lined up for it.
	And it's going to need them as a massive cope because it really, really failed at the box office.
	It cost $22 million to make and brought in $4.8 million on its box office.
	That's a big boof.
	Yes.
	So, like you say, you know, if they're thinking, well, I'm saving money on the writers, well, you're not, actually.
	Yeah, but not this case.
	I mean, not every single case of woke movie is going to think that they're saving money.
	Well...
	There are professionals, and then there's this guy who...
	But there are lots of them that do fail, right?
	I mean, like, you know, which ones would you...
	Which woke movies are making money?
	I mean, we would have to go through a list, but you wouldn't have to see if they make money.
	You'd have to see if the people in charge are getting paid.
	Well, they're all getting paid.
	Yeah, I mean, what is the name of the girl that ruins Star Wars?
	Oh, um...
	No, the Force's female woman.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Kathleen?
	Kathleen Kennedy, yeah.
	I mean, she's getting a good paycheck.
	She's still there, right?
	So, like, obviously she has an intention of going forward.
	Like, if Disney fails, she doesn't care.
	Sure, but, like, I mean, it is her career that tanks it, right?
	Do you want to be known as the person who crashed Disney?
	From her mansion, she probably doesn't care.
	Sure, but I think it's about ego and status, like we were saying earlier.
	I mean, maybe.
	But it's usually the marketing people that push for this.
	Sometimes in collaboration with the people at the top.
	G4B, there is a perfect example.
	It was the marketing people and Mrs.
	Frost that had the collaboration of trying the fan baiting, which didn't work.
	No.
	I get the feeling, though, that a lot of the people in advertising are kind of trapped between a rock and a hard place, right?
	So the people at the top, like Kathleen Kennedy, are like, yeah, we're having, like, woke Star Wars.
	Market it, and they're like, oh, Jesus.
	What are our options here?
	You know?
	How do we market woke Star Wars?
	I would just call everyone a bigot, which is, incidentally, what they did with this.
	Oh, they exaggerated a little bit.
	Like, usually they would call you a bigot if you give negative reviews.
	Now you're a bigot if you don't watch it.
	That's exactly right.
	So, Eichner tweeted out that he was very proud of the movie after the first weekend that had failed.
	Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores and an A Cinema score, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn't show up for Bros.
	And what a disappointing thing that is.
	Everyone who isn't a homophobic weirdo should go see Bros tonight.
	Well, I would have done, but you cut out the rimming scene, so...
	The $30,000.
	If I don't get to see the butt rig, what's the point in turning up?
	Ha!
	I did the math on this on my channel.
	I looked at how many gay people were in the United States.
	It's about 2%, right?
	Yeah, and then I crunched the numbers and I realized that if every single gay person in the U.S. would have gone and seen it, there would have been more people than actually went to see this.
	So assuming everyone that went to see it was gay and there were no straight people in the audience, he hasn't appealed to even 2% of the gay community in the United States.
	So maybe just maybe it's not about straight people not being interested in this.
	I did see articles saying that sort of thing, but I didn't include it for some reason.
	But he says that the real answer to why it's taken so long for Hollywood to release a film like this is because everyone in the world, including Hollywood, has been very homophobic.
	Absolutely, yes.
	Even Hollywood.
	Hollywood's homophobic.
	They give you $30,000 for a butt rig and they're homophobic.
	No, I agree.
	I mean, when I think of homophobia, I think of Hollywood.
	Yeah.
	I think of the people doing everything they can to make gays look terrible.
	And it's Hollywood.
	Like, honestly, it's not like anyone looks at Douglas Murray, like, you know, clean cut, well-dressed, being eloquent and being like, oh God, the gays.
	No one thinks that, right?
	But this, no one wants to watch it.
	Wonder why.
	I think it doesn't...
	You know, they talk about representation, but they don't talk about relatability.
	Like, I watched the trailer that you showed.
	It's like a strongman lifting weight.
	Some guy going into a rich boardroom.
	It's like, well, that's not speaking to my life.
	That's not speaking to my lived experience.
	Like, all the gayness aside, you're not showing a story that speaks to people.
	Like, I don't...
	You know, if you have the story of a poor person being born in a trailer, like...
	Let's say a Marvel movie, there's this black guy gets to be brought up in a poor neighborhood.
	I can relate with that because I grew up in a poor neighborhood.
	So we have that in common and that creates a connection.
	But when you're going to show the luxurious life of people in LA, that doesn't speak to even 99% of the world.
	John, can we get back to the trailer a second?
	Can we go to the beginning of the trailer and just play the first 30 seconds with the audio on, just so we can hear it?
	What you've hit on there is exactly right.
	Hey guys, it's Bobby Lieber coming to you from the future home of the LGBTQ Plus Museum.
	Everyone is really excited and totally getting along.
	Bye!
	This happens to be Bisexual Awareness Week and no one has acknowledged it!
	Lesbian History Month was in March!
	Nobody said a goddamn thing!
	Of course!
	Lesbians get a month and we get a week.
	That's not my life experience.
	In any way, shape or form.
	I'm not in some California boardroom with a bunch of queer people.
	Screaming about stuff that's very politically engaging.
	Exactly.
	That's just not my life experience.
	And I don't want it to be my life experience.
	And so this is why I was talking at the beginning about representation.
	Who are you talking to?
	And so he carries on.
	He says, look, I think underneath it all, that even though Hollywood has led the charge on LGBTQ issues and representation, I think underneath it all, there was a fear that the quote-unquote mainstream audience wasn't necessarily ready for this type of movie.
	And I think that's because our stories weren't being told.
	It's because no one's bloody interested.
	I don't want to watch a bunch of screeching Californians talking about what they're entitled to.
	It's not interested.
	Prejudice is the reason that it had bad numbers.
	It's just prejudice.
	I do believe there's a measure of truth in what Eichner has said off the news of the disappointed numbers.
	Prejudice did play a role in who felt comfortable enough to see it in theatres and who didn't.
	And film executives were kidding themselves they didn't think a film about queer love could face some financial backlash in a world where queer books are banned and hate groups turn up to drag shows armed.
	The very existence of queer cinema is an affront to many.
	Are they talking about books being banned because they're not being taught into school?
	Yes, they're talking about books that involve gay oral sex.
	So unless a book is not forced read by people and then told to repeat what they read in front of a university professor or a school teacher, it's banned.
	So the Bible is banned in schools.
	Mein Kampf is banned in schools.
	No, the Bible is banned in schools.
	That is also true.
	I mean, we live in a world where the Bible is banned.
	That's very concerning.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised the Christians aren't up in arms in it.
	I'm sure they were, actually, a couple of decades ago when it was banned.
	But anyway, so this is, of course, just the...
	This is an original film, incidentally.
	But, of course, this is not the only thing that's...
	Is it gay-washing?
	What do we call it when something gets a gay makeover?
	Walk-washing.
	That's too general.
	We need something that specifically speaks to gay, right?
	Because that's what's happening.
	Oh, I have a couple, but I don't think...
	So, like, the new interview with the vampire, AMC's interview with the vampire has just dropped, and it's gay as hell.
	Oh, I'm so glad.
	Can't wait to watch it, right?
	I mean, I like the original film, Interview the Vampire, but I'm not really interested in watching a really gay version of it.
	I'm not interested in watching remakes, period.
	At this point, I did a couple of originals to just get out of the whole remake, sequels, prequels era.
	Oh, it's so lazy, isn't it?
	I can't take it.
	Oh yeah, I told you, no writers.
	And the new Scooby-Doo, Thelma's finally a lesbian.
	Finally, thank God.
	What did they do to her?
	Look what they did to my boy!
	Oh my god!
	What is that?
	Are the people in the audience able to see that?
	Yes.
	What is Velma's expression?
	I don't know.
	It looks concerning.
	But yes, so no amount of remakes.
	And why is Velma more breasts than Huma?
	Like, look how massive that is.
	Yeah, she was always quite dowdy, really, wasn't she?
	Yeah, I mean, Daphne was the good-looking one.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So, yeah.
	That's an abomination.
	This is her being, I don't know, enamored with the girl next to her, apparently.
	I have no problem with her being gay, but I have a problem with her being drawn.
	Hmm.
	Yes.
	So, and the final thing I want to end this one is why She-Hulk is failing.
	And I think this all comes down to the question of representation.
	Who are your audience?
	Who are you talking to?
	I think, did you watch any of She-Hulk?
	No.
	No, but I'm aware.
	I've seen the clips.
	No, I come from a place where people are serious.
	They have things to do.
	If any of the people involved in the production insult me directly, then I'm not going to watch their stuff.
	Fair.
	But I figure as a content creator, we might be obligated.
	I haven't talked that much about Shehold, but she's part of the anti-piracy initiative with Lord of the Rings.
	That's absolutely true.
	The only thing I know is the butt twerking.
	They have that ass twerking scene.
	They did, and it's like, right, who's that appealing to?
	The lawyers, I guess.
	Who wants to see a 40-year-old lawyer twerking?
	But I think there's this one particular line in She-Hulk.
	It's in the first or second episode.
	I think it's the first episode.
	I think this captures everything about the problem of representation.
	And I think She-Hulk itself is actually a great example of it, because the quote is, I don't want to be a superhero.
	Right, so you've got a 40-year-old lawyer, doesn't want to be a superhero.
	Why have you made a series about it?
	Who's that appealing to?
	Why are you surprised you don't have an audience?
	Well, I think that She-Hulk actually has a bigger audience than Bros.
	Maybe.
	Apparently it's down to like a million or two million viewers per episode now, which is really low.
	Yeah.
	So maybe.
	But the point is, like, there's no audience for these things because they're appealing.
	They're representing incredibly niche people.
	They're representing an ideology.
	They don't represent people.
	Like, the vision of the people at Hollywood on how they think a progressive woman is like.
	Sure, but like, you know, the sort of single 40-year-old career woman is actually not a great slice of the world's demographic.
	The Californian gay couple is not a great slice of the world's demographic.
	And so they've pitched these incredibly narrow...
	Niche programs.
	Why doesn't everyone want to watch it?
	Because, as you keep saying, representation is important and I'm just not represented in it.
	Well, I use the term relatability.
	Like, I can't relate to this.
	There's nothing in that that would make me say, oh, well, you know, I'm a lawyer too.
	I used to twerk as well in the office and, you know, like, have that connection going.
	But no, it's just...
	But also, like, none of the sort of girl boss characters are what I would consider, like, good people either.
	Yeah.
	They weren't really self-centered.
	And, like, these would be the villains if it was a man.
	Tila from He-Man is a very good example.
	She is self-centered.
	In front of He-Man's parents, she goes, well, what do you think about me?
	What about my loss?
	And the parents just found out that their son is dead.
	When she finally gets to meet He-Man, the first thing she does is chastising him for saving her life by sacrificing himself.
	Yeah.
	And on top of that, she's ugly.
	And I'm thinking like, okay, well, let's say that beauty is on the inside.
	Like, what positive character traits can you possibly have that makes you like this particular character?
	And that's exactly the same for this.
	It's just presumed that you're on this person's side, but she's just really selfish and insufferable.
	- You're lucky for not reading the comic books.
	- Yeah, I am. - There's this scene where she finds a boss which allegedly used his power in order to group a woman.
	This happened during the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
	- Right. - And she's not happy with the fact that even though the lawyer convicted the guy, it didn't give a harsh enough sentence.
	- Right. - So she turns into a she-hulk, and while they were transporting him to prison, she destroys the cop car, probably killing or injuring the officers, We don't know.
	The scene just shows the officer passed off at the wheel.
	Breaks the guy from inside the lorry, and then has a firm talking with him, and that's called empowerment.
	And she's a lawyer, right?
	She's supposed to be on the side of justice.
	That's awful.
	Yeah, but that's what the comic book is like, so I'm not really surprised that the TV show is the way it is.
	Oh, it's...
	The thing is, right, the Rings of Power has the problem of being insufferably boring.
	I don't even care that it's woke.
	This is just bad.
	The problem with this is insufferably woke.
	But anyway, let's carry on.
	So let's talk now about what conservatives can learn from Lizzo.
	You may or may not be aware of Lizzo, and we will see her.
	I think I know who it is now.
	We will see her shortly, but if you want to support us, go to Lizzo.com and watch this stream about cultural colonization, which I think will help explain why Lizzo twerking while playing a crystal flute that was owned by James Madison was something of an offense to conservatives.
	Should we get to the first link which has the video in it?
	This is from her Instagram, where she is dressed very appropriately on the stage.
	I hope it's safe for YouTube, to be honest.
	I don't know, actually.
	But she has this crystal flute.
	It's 200 years old.
	It's a relic, we could say.
	And I'm not going to play the audio, but she can play it competently.
	Especially while trekking.
	I mean, that requires skill.
	Well, yeah, and then she gets the twerking in a second.
	I feel that everyone has to watch this.
	Yep, why not?
	She twerks not as good as that Democrat lady which ran for office.
	No.
	And that one did it upside down.
	That was a lot more impressive.
	I mean, that is just...
	Wait, that's it?
	That's it.
	Oh.
	But that whole thing just feels like a deep embarrassment to the United States, doesn't it?
	Well...
	Are you going to say it's not?
	No, no, no.
	I'm thinking about why people get upset about trekking specifically.
	I mean, she's literally built like a bus.
	And she's wearing that.
	There are so many things I want to say now, but I don't know just how much is permitted.
	No, the whole thing is like you're taking something that requires a lot of skill, which is to play an instrument like that.
	And it usually goes to a culture where you're trying to achieve perfection.
	Like not everyone can play such a thing.
	There's a certain amount of grace to it.
	Yeah.
	And you're mixing that with twerking, which is anyone that has two ass cheeks can do.
	And you're trying to mix them up and saying that this is now not only normal, but you have to clap at it.
	Because if you don't clap at it, you're a progressive bigot.
	And I find twerking to be kind of degenerate, frankly.
	It's kind of gross.
	It is a sexual dance, yes.
	Yeah, but it's demeaning to the person doing it.
	Yes, because it doesn't require much skill.
	Anyone can do it.
	It's not like ballet.
	It's not like those French girls that used to lift their legs in order to show up.
	But it's also the fact that it's sordid as well, isn't it?
	Even if it was just something anyone could do, the fact that it's a sexual dance, as you say, and she's dressed like that doing it, it's like...
	Have some self-respect.
	Yes.
	And you have this thing where if you don't like it, you're the problem.
	You're imposed to like it.
	And the thing is, I noticed a lot of people are trying to associate this with black culture.
	Well, she does.
	She thinks that twerking is the product of black culture.
	So it's interesting that you don't choose jazz music, for example, which is a worldwide renowned song.
	She's got this beautiful flute.
	She can play some jazz on it, but instead she twerks.
	Even in my country, everyone heard about jazz music.
	Everyone knows famous jazz players.
	Even today, there's entire cafe shops and places, establishments where they play jazz music because it's something really successful, speaks to the soul, very difficult to do.
	It's not something that anyone can achieve.
	And instead of focusing on that, you're focusing on this.
	And this, again, in my country, no one even...
	I mean, I'm pretty sure some people know what twerking is, but it's not as famous, nearly.
	And what's the Romanian view on twerking?
	Does your average Romanian think twerking is a noble and worthy goal?
	It's someone who doesn't do anything besides trying to sell their bodies to get ahead in life.
	Oof.
	Oof.
	So I looked into this bit because I found this fascinating.
	I mean, do you know what a glass flute is?
	Crystal flute?
	No.
	Well, these were instruments that were popular in the 19th century before metal flutes were available.
	Because the problem with ivory or wood flutes is that they change pitch and tone during temperature changes because they expand or contract.
	So interesting.
	And so glass or crystal or metal flutes didn't.
	And so most of them were made by a French craftsman called Claude Laurent, who is a craftsman and clockmaker who patented the leaded crystal glass flute in 1806.
	And they became obsolete when metal flutes were produced.
	And so James Madison's one is from the very early 19th century.
	So he got one of the first ones, incidentally.
	Doubtless something to do with the French Revolution.
	And this was given to her, to Lizzo, by the Library of Congress.
	It was just like, yeah, no one's played this in 200 years.
	Maybe you should play it.
	I know how the woke would react if the situation was reversed.
	There is a very popular game which came out.
	It was about a samurai.
	The title eludes me at this point.
	But in order to promote the game, they had a white man playing on a Japanese instrument that was also very old and similar context.
	The woke was livid.
	It's like cultural appropriation.
	It's horrible.
	How can you allow something like this?
	Well, that's a good question.
	And the reason was that that particular man was the only master of that instrument left alive.
	Right.
	It was a knowledge past...
	I think I saw this, actually.
	And he was white or something.
	Yeah, he was white and he was playing a Japanese instrument.
	And the left was absolutely livid.
	Yeah.
	So take those articles and replace the thumbnail with this and change the title a little bit.
	And then everything that's written there...
	But I saw Japanese people replying, he's a great master of this thing.
	Shut up.
	And he played it respectfully.
	He didn't twerk while doing it.
	Exactly.
	And that's what this is about.
	This is about respect.
	Lizzo doesn't seem to have much respect in propriety when it comes to this, right?
	And so the question is, why did the Library of Congress lend it to her?
	Well, it turns out that the person in charge of the Library of Congress is the first black female librarian.
	She was appointed by Obama and a longtime friend of Obama.
	Michelle and I have known Dr.
	Carla Hayden for a long time, since her days working at the Chicago Public Library.
	She is the proven experience, dedication, and deep knowledge of our nation's libraries to serve our country well, and that's why she was appointed.
	So she was the one who decided, does Obama have a daughter?
	Sorry, who?
	Obama.
	Yeah, he's got two, I think.
	Do you think they twerk?
	Have seen suspicious pictures of them, but I can't confirm them.
	Or does Obama's wife twerk?
	Who wants to see Obama's wife twerk?
	It's a thing of social status and prestige, right?
	It's not just, as you said earlier, this might be a cultural thing.
	No, it's exactly that, social status and prestige.
	Had she played the flute, dressed appropriately, and then she would have shown respect to the instrument and the craft, no one would have cared.
	Yeah, exactly.
	No one would have cared.
	We'll get to that in a minute, actually, because that's really important, I think.
	And she did actually play the flute slightly before that stage in the actual library itself.
	And on this one, can we just play that video just so we can hear it?
	Oh, look, she's dressed normally.
	Have we got the sound on there?
	For some reason, the sound isn't coming through, but she's...
	Yeah, it looks like a beautiful performance, yeah.
	Yeah, she's very competent.
	She's very good at playing it.
	And she's not debauching herself, or the institution, or the flute itself.
	So, no one cared about this.
	Yeah.
	And they realize, okay, no one cares about this, let's hop it up a notch.
	Because she is a classically trained flutist, or whatever it's called.
	Yeah.
	There's nothing to complain.
	No, in fact, it's quite an entertaining and enjoyable thing to listen to.
	Mm-hmm.
	She knows what she's doing.
	She's got talent.
	I'm pretty sure like someone said, hey, if you want more publicity, do it in an outrageous manner.
	Exactly.
	That's exactly.
	And this is what people are concerned about.
	Like I said, the library, I'll show you this, a flautist, apparently, that's a classically trained flute player.
	But the thing is, and again, there's this kind of Disconnect, right?
	She says this.
	This is from the early 1800s.
	It was a gift to James Madison from the French crystal flute designer to celebrate his second term.
	There was a fire and only two things were saved from the portrait of George Washington and this crystal flute right here.
	I'm the first person ever to play it, so you're about to hear what it sounds like for the first time.
	Thank you to the Library of Congress for preserving our history and making history cool.
	History is freaking cool, guys.
	Okay, I mean, that's not a terrible statement.
	I mean, when they say there was a fire, it's because the British were in the middle of burning down the building, because it was in the War of 1812.
	So it's not that she's even, like, intentionally disrespectful.
	It's that there's this kind of tremendous absence of mind.
	Do you not think that people are going to be a bit like, why are you twerking with James Madison's flute?
	Just play it normally and everyone will be fine with it.
	There's the decorum.
	When I would go to university to have an exam, I had to wear a suit and I had to be respectful.
	Now, even if I would go to an exam and just express the knowledge to the professor appropriately, if I dressed without a shirt and I would spit in front of the cathedral, in front of the teacher's desk, Then I would fail the exam.
	Because, like, the way of behaving does matter.
	Yeah, I mean, and this is what they complain about in this article.
	Unbeknownst to her, Lizzo breathing music into that ancient flute.
	It's not that ancient, can't it?
	Summon the...
	Says the English.
	Well, says the Europeans.
	Like, 200 years.
	I mean, that's a long time.
	Yeah, but for Americans, it's huge.
	Yeah, okay, for Americans.
	It's not ancient.
	Like...
	Hey, they just started their country a couple of hundred years ago.
	Actually, my house is new, but we've got buildings in this country that are way older than that.
	But anyway, the ancient flute...
	We've got constitutions that are four times older than this flute.
	Sorry, anyway.
	I'll let it go.
	The ancient flute summoned a legion of trolls, furious that she had desecrated the sacred instrument by daring to shake her rear.
	It's like, yeah, they're not wrong.
	It's disrespectful.
	It's about propriety.
	And so, essentially, you get a list of conservatives complaining about this.
	And honestly, I don't find their complaints to be wrong, actually.
	Janet Ellis, one of Trump's campaign lawyers, said that the performance was a purposeful desecration of America's history.
	Matt Walsh says that Lizzo's performance was a form of racial retribution.
	I don't think he's wrong, though.
	I think a lot of them see it that way.
	How many more songs until the retribution has been paid?
	Well, that's a great question.
	How many more?
	I want a number.
	Greg Price said, The Library of Congress really took out a 200-year-old flute that belonged to James Madison just so Lizard could twerk with it.
	They degrade our history and then call you racist if you actually value it.
	Well, it's the fan-baiting thing.
	Yes, it is.
	Had she not done this, no one would know about this event.
	As you mentioned previously, she has done this, and I've not heard about it.
	No one was offended when she was playing it properly.
	Yes.
	So they have to do this in order to promote the event.
	Yeah, and that was a point Ben Shapiro actually made.
	This was deliberately provocative, and so she got the reactionary backlash that she was asking for.
	And I like George Takei, though, right?
	If you wouldn't have a problem with Taylor Swift playing Ben Franklin's piano, then you shouldn't have a problem with Lizzo playing James Madison's flute.
	If you do have a problem, stop and think why that is.
	Well, let's put it a different way.
	It's because you're a racist, V. Just accept it.
	Just admit it.
	That's what George Takei is asking for.
	He's just asking you to admit you're a racist.
	I didn't watch Star Trek with him in it, so maybe...
	Well, it wasn't any good.
	But, um...
	What if I have like a big swastika tattoo on my forehead and then I read the I have a dream speech?
	Do you think it would be appropriate for people to complain?
	What?
	They would surely just be racist against you.
	But the point, of course, is Taylor Swift...
	I think there's actually a picture of Taylor Swift playing a piano at some point in here.
	But she's just wearing normal clothes and respectfully playing the piano.
	She's not twerking.
	And perhaps if Taylor Swift was actually twerking on the piano, people would have been more offended by it.
	Anyway, then you get the really revealing one...
	Sorry, no, go back because this...
	Wait, there's a more revealing one?
	Yeah, this is the really revealing one.
	So one of the hosts of The View, you're aware of The View?
	Oh, yes.
	Sonny Hostin had an insightful take on the situation, stating, quote, Then you have some people on the right who said the Library of Congress really took out his 200-year-old flute that belonged to James Madison just so Lizard could twerk with it and integrate our history.
	Well, James Madison owned 100 slaves.
	That's a degradation of history.
	To full circle a moment in American history, the promise of America, you have a slave's ancestor playing the 200-year-old flute, proving the right-wing commentator's right.
	That's the truth.
	They said it.
	They go on The View and be like, yeah, yeah, that's the case.
	And Matt Walsh is like, yeah, well, there's a form of racial retribution then, isn't it?
	That's what they're saying.
	And of course they, you know, just everywhere.
	They're going, oh, conservatives, how dare you be outraged?
	It's like, well, why shouldn't they?
	So basically in 200 years, the future generation can then be racist in return to the people that oppress the current generation, because that's how it works.
	I guess they can.
	I mean, like, they've already had a black president, now they've got Black flute player.
	You know, I guess that's how it works.
	But anyway, for some reason Lizzo was then invited to play the flute at James Madison's actual home.
	I assume she's going to be twerking again.
	Well, yeah, I mean, James Madison should be rolling in his grave, presumably.
	Do you think it's the same dance, or will she be doing something more elaborate?
	I have no idea, but they invited her.
	And then you get...
	I think the Conservatives are right to be outraged about this.
	I think they are right to say, look, actually, this is gross and you shouldn't do it.
	But then you get other articles coming out saying things like, what Lizzo can teach Conservatives about American history?
	Her performance on James Madison's flute was a patriotic moment.
	She's a teacher now.
	Was there anything more American than a black woman twerking with James Miles?
	I can't think of many things.
	Yeah, I don't think there is.
	Oh, maybe bombing nations in the Middle East, but either did that.
	Maybe!
	This is the second thing that I can think of.
	So they, I'll end this off fairly quickly, but they say, it's especially gratifying to see a young African-American artist embrace this history as her own because there are some Americans who think it doesn't belong to her.
	You can find progressives who seem to prefer that African-Americans adopt a pose of permanent alienation from America due to our history of slavery and racism, and there are conservatives who yearn to exclude African-Americans from our history, e.g.
	the idiots who object to black characters and fancy dramas set in the mythical Middle Ages.
	That's not their history.
	Whatever.
	It is American folklore, though, isn't it?
	Because they don't have the same thing like we Europeans have.
	We have ancient kings and castles and all of that.
	Americans, they have comic books that went around the world.
	They have music, like rock, for example.
	So when you're taking something that's a part of American history, like Spider-Man, and you walkify it, you're basically saying that this is your history from this point forward, and we get to decide.
	I feel like there's a way of embracing the history that doesn't involve twerking as well.
	Probably, yes.
	But the greatness of American history belongs to all of us, just as its sins are borne by all of us.
	Well, nobody's putting the sins of American history on Lizzo's shoulders, are they?
	You know what's interesting?
	If you actually look at African nations, which I know the progressive people of America hate doing.
	Of course they do.
	But if you look at the African nations, I don't see their presidents or their members of staff or anyone that's high status twerking.
	That's weird, isn't it?
	But Lizzo's performance was in that spirit and she has earned the respect of true conservatives.
	And again, true conservatives respect Lizzo twerking.
	Before we go on to read some comments, let's have a chat about Britain from the Romanian perspective.
	It's really fascinating.
	How do you find Britain?
	So, I've only been to London.
	I can't say about Britain as a whole.
	I wouldn't call that Britain.
	It has changed massively in six years because I've been here two times before.
	Okay.
	One of the main things is treating sustainability like a religion.
	Right.
	Yeah, like, if you go to an Eastern European country, you see crosses everywhere.
	Like, here you see posters of sustainability.
	Really?
	I don't notice it.
	I don't even notice it.
	Well, that's why it's interesting, because, like, if you live here, you probably got used to it gradually.
	I'm the frog in the pool.
	Yeah, well, like, to me, it's so startling.
	I mean, taxi cab drivers having it.
	You go to a restaurant, the first thing that pop up are the vegan menu.
	Really?
	Yeah, like the vegan menu used to be somewhere at the bottom, right?
	Because most people that go to a place, yeah, they're not vegan.
	No, vegan menu right on top.
	Shopping bowls with elevators just turned off saying that we're doing this to save the planet.
	My hotel room saying, please be mindful of switching off all electric things before you leave because we're trying to be sustainable.
	So you have like this bombardment of sustainability propaganda and no counter viewpoint.
	Not a single thing.
	It's like, okay, well, maybe if we give taxes to the government, they can't change the weather.
	Like, they can't clean up the London streets.
	Surely, they will not be able to change the weather to clean up the environment.
	No such talking point exists.
	The cashless society thing, like, that's very bizarre.
	I went to five different places.
	They would not accept cash.
	Really?
	I think this might be a London thing.
	Maybe, but I think it might expand.
	Oh, it probably will expand, but if you go into the rest of the country, most places take cash.
	I don't...
	I mean, have you seen any sustainability stuff?
	Well, I haven't been into Swindon.
	I just got off the station.
	But the idea, the concept that they will not take cash is just bewildering.
	I've never heard about that in Eastern Europe anywhere.
	Yeah.
	It needs money.
	It's money, yeah.
	And they will just say, no, we're not taking cash.
	We just need the credit card.
	So that's very bizarre.
	And another thing, which is also, that's my personal experience, my lived experience, as they call them.
	White women in London are incredibly rude.
	I will just say this.
	And it happened two times.
	They bumped into me and they didn't apologize.
	If it helps, they're probably French.
	I've no idea, but like, again, if a man bumps into you, he would at least say sorry.
	You know, like, if I bump into someone, right?
	Like, you're first in to say, oh, sorry.
	I had one literally stepping on my feet on the subway.
	I'm not even joking.
	There are like 250,000 French people in London.
	Probably I didn't 23andMe though.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But like when a man does it- And they didn't apologize so you didn't get to hear their accent.
	Because I went a lot with the Metro.
	I traveled a lot with the Underground.
	And occasionally like people bump into you.
	They run into you.
	And like every single time it was when a man did it or a person of color, they would say, oh, so sorry.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Then when a woman does not.
	So I did this social experiment because I'm a crazy person.
	I just walked on the street just wanting to see if they're going to move.
	Like if I'm just walking towards them.
	White women don't move.
	They just sit there like playing chicken with you.
	Eventually you're about to have the collision imminent.
	So then you're the one that has to move.
	They're like an unstoppable force on the street.
	I'm amazed at the grit that they have.
	They're like, no, he is going to move.
	I don't care if he's bigger than me and I'm going to get knocked over.
	And when I do that with men, they move.
	Eventually they move.
	They're not going to run into you.
	That's just an observation that I have.
	I don't know how accurate it is for the whole population.
	I've never noticed that when I'm walking through London.
	I might automatically just unconsciously move out of the way of white women.
	No, because I did it also unconsciously.
	Like, I was walking on the street and I kept noticing that I kept having to move.
	And at one point, I was like, wait, wait a minute.
	And when they're just trying to just walk with a purpose, they will not move.
	I'm going to look out for that.
	Are there any other interesting things about...
	So besides the money and the...
	No, not really.
	I guess there are positive aspects.
	London for such a huge city is extremely well organized when it comes to public transportation.
	I mean, other places, and I'm not just saying Eastern Europe, like other places as well, public transportation is horrible.
	You have to wait a lot.
	It's very crowded.
	Here you have the trains coming every two minutes.
	How crowded are the trains?
	Depends on the rush hour.
	So if you're like around 4 p.m., 5 p.m., it is crowded.
	But if you're at the other time, no.
	And even then, you have like a two-minute delay to the next train.
	So I really appreciated that.
	People are overly polite, but I think that's a British thing.
	Yeah.
	Which probably is why a lot of conservatives were upset about the dance we talked earlier.
	I think so, yeah.
	Politeness matters a lot.
	Yeah.
	And either that, the cleanliness.
	I mean, I know we're talking about London from your perspective.
	Maybe it's not clean.
	No, it's disgusting.
	But the windows, like, they're absolutely transparent.
	Not a single speck of dust on them.
	Really?
	I don't know how you guys do that.
	I'm going to look out for this.
	Yeah, I don't...
	I hadn't noticed any of this in London.
	Yeah, you have this obsession with windows.
	With transparency, I guess.
	Maybe.
	Yeah, just this painful obsession.
	Like, every single store needs to have, like, big windows, right?
	And they're impeccably clean before rain, after rain, if they're close to the street.
	I don't know how they do it.
	I generally don't know.
	Like, we usually have such stores, but they're not in a high-traffic area where dust just...
	Yeah, so that's my...
	Oh, and the extreme encouragement to snitch on people.
	Go on.
	On London subways, we have zero tolerance for hate speech.
	If you see anyone hate speaking, call the police.
	Really?
	Yeah, stickers everywhere.
	If it's not hate speech, the debate is settled on global warming.
	Oh.
	The debate is settled, okay?
	Because I'm pretty sure they had the conversation with you, and then they settled the debate.
	Well, I mean, they had the conversation at some point with someone, and that was settled, and then I got to hear about it.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm pro-global warming.
	And finally, it's the...
	Worried about the electric bills in the winter, you see.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's also COVID. I haven't seen any people wearing masks in the capital of my country, which is very progressive compared to Eastern Europe and whatnot.
	But here, there's still some people that choose to wear masks.
	Oh, there's no one around this area wears masks.
	Yeah, that's why I got a little bit shocked.
	Because I don't see that at home.
	I don't see that anywhere.
	And in London, I was like, you know what?
	People value safety.
	Well, I guess they must.
	Because, I mean, you wander around here or anywhere, this sort of area.
	COVID is a dead subject here.
	No one talks about COVID. Yeah, this is the same in my country.
	You don't hear it.
	No, and thank God.
	And so I've never seen anyone wearing masks.
	So next time I go to London, I'll Oh, and Ukraine as well.
	Oh, God, yeah.
	I happen to live next to the border with Ukraine.
	And I've seen more posters in London about the subject than I see in my country.
	Really?
	And my country is on the border.
	My town is on the border.
	I help Ukrainian refugees.
	I talk to them.
	I see them.
	They don't come as much into my country anymore because they prefer to go to Poland because the language is closer.
	Yeah.
	But it was overwhelming in London, at the airport especially.
	So you're saying that the Londoners are being propagandized with pro-Ukrainian propaganda?
	It's very popular.
	They're treating it like a football match, I would say.
	You walk through London and it's like an art museum or an art store and it's like, hey, you've purchased from here, some of the money goes to Ukraine.
	And we just don't have that in Romania, which is weird because we're literally next to the border and we help out.
	I mean, we send them food, we send them weapons, we did our best.
	And you would expect that the further you head out from the conflict, you would see less propaganda and less talking about it.
	But it's quite the opposite, actually.
	That's fascinating.
	Surely you guys are worried about being invaded by Russia?
	Yeah, sure.
	It's definitely...
	I mean, it was a concern in the beginning.
	Yeah.
	But...
	Without out of way, it wasn't such a massive thing.
	And the hysteria, especially in the beginning, was, in my opinion, a lot more pronounced in the West than it was in my country.
	Really?
	Yeah, I mean, I was seeing people hysterical about World War III and, oh, the Russians are going to invade.
	And I was like, I'm in Romania and people aren't this hysterical here.
	So do you think that the Russians could get through to Romania or beyond?
	I mean, in a war, everything can change.
	If you looked at the Korean war, the border moved up and down constantly throughout the conflict.
	But realistically speaking, no, I don't think so.
	I don't think that the Russians will invade a NATO member.
	So we're being hysterical and paranoid.
	I mean, there is a level of concern that's normal, and then there is a level beyond that, which is pathological.
	And I do think that it's quite obnoxious to see more propaganda in England than you see in Romania.
	Yeah.
	Great point.
	Something I'm sure that people, especially in London...
	Again, you don't see much of it around here, because we're in the shires, right?
	So it's just...
	We're not important for them.
	But...
	But yeah, in London, everything is the current thing all the time.
	And obviously Sadiq Khan being the mayor of London, he's a current thing person all the time.
	And so yeah, that's why I think London is as it is.
	It's just not like that around here.
	I'm surprised I didn't find any Ukrainian t-shirts with the flag.
	I'm surprised, actually.
	Like with Zelensky and all that.
	But no, just to make people sure you understand, I am pro-Ukraine due to the geographical area and whatnot.
	But I do believe that if you push too much of a good thing, it turns into a negative.
	So if you're going to obnoxiously just flaunt it into people's face, they're going to eventually be okay enough.
	Surely there must be another topic we can talk about.
	The Conservative Party conference just happened and this is something that was revealed there.
	It's not a vote winner.
	People actually don't really care about Ukraine.
	Which is interesting because initially on the polls Britain was a huge supporter of Ukraine and you had your Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the time visiting Ukraine personally But that doesn't impress the British public, like the actual voters.
	No, surely, but they must have internal surveys and polls, and they must realize that doing something like this is going to help with the people and the way they...
	No, no, that's the thing.
	They did the internal surveys and polls, and that's at the Conservative Party conference.
	They were like, actually, people aren't really on board with this, and we don't like the Prime Minister swanning around Ukraine.
	That's actually not what we voted for.
	Oh, I see.
	Yeah, it's a bit of a loser, actually.
	That's interesting.
	I mean, from my opinion, Boris Johnson was one of the only statesmen in Europe dealing with the subject.
	Like, okay, because at the beginning, you didn't know just how strong Russia will be.
	And it looked like an aggression that could potentially expand.
	And I was like, okay, so who's going to be the leader of Europe?
	Like, Macron had pictures with, I don't know if I can say it, but he was pissing his eyes after having a phone conversation with Putin.
	Germany didn't know even if they wanted to have sanctions at the time.
	And the only person that even before the Americans got involved was Boris Johnson.
	And all these people in Eastern Europe, they viewed that as a position of strength.
	Oh, right.
	Yeah, they viewed that as, okay, well, the Brits have their shit sorted and we can rely on them.
	Yeah, but, like, it's just not very interesting and it's been going on for a long time now.
	So people are just like...
	No, I understand.
	No one talks about it.
	No one's interested.
	Well, in London it seems to be a little bit different.
	Well, yeah, in London it's definitely different, but outside, you go into the shop and you don't hear people talking about Ukraine.
	So anyway, let's have some comments, shall we?
	Sophie says, Yay V! Hello from Denmark!
	I really enjoy your smaller videos on YouTube giving East European perspective on the world and events and so on.
	It's always a very eye-opening and interesting perspective that no one else gives.
	What you say are often things I will bring up to my parents and then they don't believe me, oh well.
	Oh yeah, I forgot the video comments actually.
	Sorry, we'll save the video comments because we're running out of time.
	That's a two-way street.
	My parents don't believe the stuff you're saying either.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	It's unbelievable for an Eastern European to hear about certain political issues that are happening in the West.
	They don't believe it.
	The British do that now.
	Well, the thing is, whenever you tell me about, like, Romanian corruption or whatever, I totally believe it.
	I've got a very low opinion of Eastern European politicians, frankly.
	You know, it's just a land of corruption.
	I'm not trying to be offensive.
	No, I believe corruption is everywhere, but we disagree on certain things.
	Like, for example, you had the child molestation scandal in Britain, and I said that it's corruption, and you didn't believe me.
	No, it was racism.
	No, I think it's corruption.
	It's not, it's racism.
	We'll debate that after the show, because it's going to be a low debate.
	We have had this conversation, and I'm sure years ago, I was like, no, look, people are afraid to talk because of the concept of racism.
	You didn't believe me.
	But it's true.
	The word racism has such unbelievable power in this conversation.
	So you don't think the gangs bought some politicians or bought the chief police officer?
	No, I think it's ideological.
	I don't think it's about money.
	I really don't think it's about money.
	I think it's because they are afraid of being called racist and they believe that they're doing a good thing by facilitating a native culture.
	I genuinely don't think it's about money.
	That's why we don't believe each other, you know, what this writer said.
	It's a big cultural block between the East and the West.
	And there are lots of other people saying yay, V, but we'll go on to some other more relevant comments.
	Lee says, we're seeing equal parity in the workforce happening now, even in the West, because for most people, if you want to be able to afford to buy a house before age 45, you need two pretty solid sources of income.
	Women need to work now.
	It's not a choice.
	Yeah, that's what I've been saying.
	Yeah, that's true.
	Alex says, question to Codron.
	If women in Romania are encouraged to work just as hard as men, compared to the Northern European model, where women want different things, how is it working out in Romania?
	Are women happy?
	Is the economy showing signs of improving with expecting women to work too?
	How are family relations?
	So, the work relations, sorry, the economy is a lot better now than it used to be six years ago, and it still shows signs of progress, but, well, a little bit hampered by COVID and whatnot.
	Family relations are usually the grandparents get to raise the kids.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, so, like, having your kid with the nan is something perfectly acceptable and normalized.
	Oh, I want to normalize that.
	Well, you're going to basically raise your grandkids and, yeah.
	My mom would love that.
	But that's the thing, right?
	Because the grandparents, they do love that.
	And usually the parents are at work for most of the time, but then they just visit their children when they can, usually in the weekend.
	The big problem, however, is the European Union.
	What a shock.
	Yeah, we don't have immigration.
	We have emigration.
	So a lot of people moved out.
	And you have a lot of parents that are working in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and they have to leave their kids at home.
	So they end up being delinquents because there's no one that can manage them properly.
	Yeah, because even if the grandparents raise them, if the child really misbehaves, then the parents take over.
	Yeah, but the grandparents can still discipline them.
	Yeah, but like if you have an adolescent male and he can overpower the grandparents, well then that's when the father comes in.
	But yeah, I like the real problem is the European Union.
	It is, it is.
	I totally agree.
	A lot of delinquency can be found because the parents left to work abroad.
	Are women happy there?
	I mean, I haven't seen a poll or a statistic, but yeah.
	In your lived experience?
	In my lived experience, yes.
	They're very happy.
	Okay, that's interesting.
	Lord Sverig says, many women in Sweden are managers.
	They are very nepotistic and have no backbone.
	The worst bean counters and meatball organizers are women.
	Male managers are often emasculated because they can't ask women to work harder based on the sexism card they can pull.
	Another privilege they've got, isn't it?
	That was a problem with the Me Too movement.
	A lot of men refused to coach women or to even be in the same room with women.
	And women were most affected by that.
	Yeah, Mike Pence was right.
	Paul Neubauer says, while women earn significantly less than men because they choose commodity jobs on average and work less full-time, rather oddly they control more than 80% of the spending and purchasing, receive most government benefits and pay less taxes in men.
	In effect, men are the indentured servants of women.
	That's...
	Wrong.
	That's how it should be.
	I mean, I'm with the patriarchy.
	Look, I'm with the gender stereotypes.
	Like, yes.
	And I have actually answered this to the left.
	They keep asking, like, what is a man?
	And I say, a man is a person who, if would disappear tomorrow, other people would suffer because of his absence.
	So when you have people relying on you, that's when you're a man.
	So yes, like, a man is an indentured servant.
	In a way.
	In a way, yeah.
	That's a cynical way of looking at it.
	Well, yeah, I mean, you are a man, the more people you have depending on you.
	Sure, but usually you get respect and prestige and status out of having dependents.
	Okay, that's a good point.
	So it's not really an indentured servant.
	But if you don't have those things, then I think it is fair to characterize him as an indentured servant.
	If you can't even expect respect from your wife or you can't properly discipline the women workers you have because they're being lazy or whatever, then how are you not?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You're basically giving stuff but you're expecting respect in exchange.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And if you're not getting it, then yeah, I think indentured servant is actually a fairly good way of describing it.
	The same like parents.
	You are expected to respect your parents who provide for you in return, yeah.
	And it's interesting that Paul, he is right here, that women are not net tax contributors.
	So if men disappeared, the economy, I mean, even, you know, you're going to lose those benefits, ladies.
	Alex says, it was always the women, above all the young ones, who are the most bigoted adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers, out of orthodoxy.
	That's from 1984 by George Orwell, and probably true.
	Well, I guess they're taking my advice to heart.
	They're going to be successful at ending the gender pay gap.
	Well, yeah, we're literally all being given, like, a tiny allowance a day to buy, you know, rice crackers or whatever.
	Well, what more do you need than the crickets?
	Exactly, crickets, yeah.
	Crickets and rice crackers.
	Then we're going to be very equal.
	There won't be a gender pay gap.
	HRSlave says, so women want to be a boss bitch but don't want to work long hours, make key decisions, shuttle responsibility, or take any risks.
	Welcome to modern-day feminism, folks.
	I mean, he's not wrong, is he?
	Come on.
	Next one.
	I guess you can become a woman and you can fix the percentages.
	Ben says, I've said it before and I'll say it again.
	We need 25 million dead women soldiers to remove the sexismus caused by the First and Second World Wars.
	Come on girls, into the trenches and into the sewers.
	What do you think of women in this?
	Historically, there usually have been around 20% of armies that were women, but they were in the supply lines.
	Yeah, I mean on the front lines.
	Yeah, treating the wounded, helping with the caravan.
	No, but that's sexismus.
	We need them on the front lines, shooting the Russians.
	I don't think they want to.
	I don't care.
	I don't think they want to be CEOs, but that's not enough.
	Well, I mean, we've seen with Ukraine, right?
	I mean, there are a lot of women in the Ukrainian military, but literally on the front line, on the...
	I think they're outnumbered by men.
	And there's no discussion of gender parity.
	The men weren't allowed to leave the country, were they?
	There was a scandal in Vice magazine, I remember, talking about the prestigious people in Ukraine.
	And they were pointing out how transgenders are affected.
	Because there was this lady who wanted to leave the country.
	And the border asked her about the gender and they wouldn't go with the other gender.
	I was like, why does that matter?
	And then I found out.
	Because men aren't allowed to leave.
	Yes.
	But I identify as a woman.
	Yeah, but don't you think Putin would push for transgenderism in Ukraine to be accepted if literally every person can identify as a woman and then just leave the nation, which is under military conflict?
	I mean, sure, I'm sure he's for transgenderism in Ukraine, just like the Americans are.
	Everyone is.
	Yeah, everyone is.
	Catastrophic Regression Threshold says this.
	I'll say this on the bros mess.
	My wife wanted to see it, so we did.
	The movie's biggest issue is the anti-straight marketing that one of the actors engaged in.
	Intentionally or not, it does show how the stupid infighting over who is most oppressed in the community and how gay hook-up culture is soul-crushing to the men involved.
	Was the movie great?
	No.
	Did it get a few chuckles out of me?
	Sure.
	Though, to be fair, I saw none of the trailer on marketing, so I went in blind.
	Also, nice to kind of see it accidentally show that being a constant activist is not a good thing.
	Silver lining is we saw this for free, so screw the whining producer.
	But, yeah, no, I haven't seen it, and I wouldn't.
	I'm not planning to.
	No, really?
	It's probably not even showing in Romanian centers.
	What if you got, like, the director's cut?
	Well, if I can get to see The Rimming Machine, then maybe I'll watch it.
	I would watch it too because I'm curious why does it cost $30,000?
	And how can they afford to just cut that out?
	Okay, so someone else did it first.
	Well, so what?
	You paid $30,000.
	Lord Nerevar says, Ha!
	My movie isn't for straight white men.
	Straight white men will be upset and emasculated by my movie.
	And straight white men do not go and see the movie.
	How could straight white men not see my movie?
	It's your fault the movie bomb, guys.
	Sorry, are we talking about Bros?
	I wasn't sure if that was that or Ghostbuster or Captain Marvel or Rings of Power or anything like that.
	It's the same line every time.
	To be honest, this is different.
	This is the first time I see someone say, if you don't watch it, you're a bigot.
	I've been saying the quiet part out loud.
	They say it all the time, don't they?
	No, but like out loud, like literally, it's like you're homophobic if you don't pay money to watch it.
	Usually they say you're homophobic if you have negative things to say about it.
	Well, I'm sure they're saying you're sexist, which is why you're not watching Ms.
	Marvel or She-Hulk, right?
	Well, if they are, I would love to see it.
	But this is a brand new, very interesting market tactic.
	Ambitious like the government.
	I'm sure I've seen it.
	So, Pete's left me a bunch of things he's called risky comments.
	So, we're going to read the risky comments.
	Oliver Cain says, Romanian immediately talks about stealing, lol.
	It is $30,000.
	I don't care if it's a butt rig.
	I'm taking it.
	After the beta says, guys...
	Imagine the press saying, Romanian steals butter.
	And it's like, okay, who cares?
	Because they won't mention the cost of it.
	AlphaTheBeta says, Guys hate heterosexual rom-coms.
	Who thinks we're going to see a gay one?
	This guy specifically said it wasn't for straights.
	They made a niche movie for gay men who are like, what, 1% of the population?
	Yeah, exactly.
	That's a good point.
	Even if it was a straight romance, most guys don't watch it.
	At best, I'll get dragged by my wife.
	Who's the other chap?
	Catastrophic Russian Threshold.
	Radcheck was right, says, The homosexual cinematic universe looks cringier than Phase 4 Marvel.
	Do you like Marvel films?
	I liked the first time, but now they're getting a little bit tiresome.
	I can't stand the concept of superhero movies anymore.
	Like, it's just...
	I don't need to see Spider-Man's origin story again.
	I've seen it like a dozen times now.
	Yeah.
	They were fine in the beginning when they came out as a novelty, but now it's only superhero movies, and it's tiresome.
	And it's just like, oh, we've got the new superhero movie about some fringe superhero you didn't know or care about.
	It's like...
	Charlie says, the whole gay movie flop reminds me of a joke made by Bill Burr where he chastised the feminists for the failure of the women's NBA since they didn't watch it.
	Well, it seems that the alphabet people want representation but won't spend the money to support it.
	Do the alphabet people really want representation, though?
	Because we hear this from the activists, but do the actual people on the ground, do they really care?
	Well, I think the activists want to be embraced and venerated.
	I think they want acceptance.
	That's what they're asking for.
	And so they make a movie that's made entirely by LGBT people, you know, about a gay romance, and they're like, straight people, we want you to embrace this.
	Yeah, but like, Pinocchio is a transgender story now.
	Do you think people genuinely...
	Is it?
	I suppose it is.
	Yeah, I mean, we can talk about it if you want, but like, do you think like transgender people really wanted Pinocchio to be a transgender, to have a transgender message?
	I can't imagine many of them thought about it.
	He doesn't turn into a little boy, you know, because what's in the heart matters the most.
	Yeah, I mean, if anything, he's transphobic, right?
	Pinocchio is only valuable once he becomes a real boy.
	He's not valuable as a wooden toy.
	He also gets kicked out of school because he is a wooden boy.
	A wooden toy.
	Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?
	Because in the original, that wasn't the case.
	He was skiving.
	Yeah, he decided to skip school.
	So now that choice was taken away from him, which means that society is bigoted towards Pinocchio.
	And because of society, he has to go to Pleasure Island.
	Because his entire power of choice and decision has been taken away from him.
	Yeah, and that's not what the original story was at all.
	No, no.
	It was a message, like, you need to be good.
	Yeah, sure, it's painful to go to school and wake up every morning, but, like, everything you do as a little boy is for your own benefit.
	Like, that was the original story.
	But now it's a story about, you know, society being bigoted, not accepting Pinocchio for who he really is.
	And Pinocchio has no choice in the matter.
	And it's interesting how the locus of responsibility has moved from Pinocchio's decision-making to society in general.
	Yes.
	Something you can't really change, whereas your own decision-making you could change.
	Yes.
	Anyway, V, we're out of time, so where can people find you if they want to follow you online?
	Well, I have a YouTube channel called Romanian TV, and hopefully I'll see you guys there.
	Nobody in the West watches TV anymore.
	I know, but it's the name of the channel, because I had an artist draw a little television set, and I was like, okay, well, I can use that layout.
	Right.
	Anyway, yeah, go follow V, folks, and thanks for joining us, and we will be back tomorrow.

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