Los Angeles Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1027970416187?aff=oddtdtcreator
San Diego Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1030505227877?aff=oddtdtcreator
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In this bonus episode of Straight White American Jesus, Dan and Brad discuss the cultural dynamics of young marriages in conservative circles, the appeal of traditionalist religious practices, and various listener insights. They also share personal anecdotes, including the humorous and awkward moments from their past. The episode wraps up with an exploration of how gender expectations shape religious experiences and personal choices in high-control religious environments.
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And no matter what happens, there's going to be a lot to process.
And a next chapter to prepare for.
That's why we're holding two live events in order to help you stay informed about what's happening.
And to get ready for what's coming.
On November 21st, we're holding an event with Americans United for Separation of Church and State at the University of Southern California.
We have an illustrious group of leaders and scholars, including Andrew Seidel, Rachel Lazar, Kiyoti Joshi, Diane Winston, and Dan Miller.
We're going to talk about what happened and prepare for what's next.
On November 22nd, we'll be talking about Christian extremism and the 2024 elections at the San Diego Convention Center.
Matt Taylor will be giving opening remarks, and we'll have a roundtable with familiar faces like Leah Payne and Lloyd Barba, not to mention me and Dan, and a few others.
Tickets are available now, and you can find everything in the show notes.
You can also watch online if you can't be in LA or San Diego.
November 21 and November 22.
Two chances to be with us at Straight White American Jesus and a number of other great scholars and leaders.
Join us in person or online.
Hey everyone, welcome to this preview of our bonus content here at Straight White American Jesus.
We do bonus episodes every month and bonus content every Monday.
If you'd like to get access to all of that content and our 700 episode archive, ad-free listening, and a bunch of other great benefits, you'll need to subscribe.
You can get all the info in our show notes.
It takes like three clicks and costs less than that latte you bought on the way to work today.
Without further ado, here is today's episode.
So, as always, friends, thanks for listening.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
This is our bonus episode.
It's been a while.
We know we owe this to you all.
We've been feeling bad.
So we are here.
I'm going to tell you where we are in a minute because I'm actually sitting in the same room as Dan Miller.
But before then, Dan Miller, how you doing?
I'm good.
Yeah, we're in the same space.
Was it like two years we figured out since we've been in the same space?
So that's kind of cool and excited to be here.
Like the teaser to where we are, we're in like a real studio and there's an actual like producer here and we're feeling self-conscious because somebody's like listening to us, which never happens like when we record.
But yeah, so it's cool to be here, excited to do this.
Same as you, we know we owe the episode, so I'm glad to finally put it together here.
We've never recorded with a producer, and I guess theoretically I know a lot of people listen to this podcast, but when we're recording, I just pretend me and you are talking.
So now the fact that someone else is sitting here, I feel like we have to behave, and we have to be serious, and we have to be adults, and we have to like, I don't know.
It's a lot of pressure right now.
She's also really good at not laughing out loud.
I see her working to not make noise.
Professional.
Yeah, professional all the way.
Professional.
All right, y'all.
So we want to talk more about some of the gender dynamics of this election, and there's just been a lot of questions coming in.
So we're going to start today talking about gender, masculinity, and answering some questions about why not only we're seeing the bro vote kind of go the way it is, but also this whole phenomenon that more men are now attending church than women, and on the whole, in American religion, men are veering more religious.
There's Tons of questions about that in our Discord and other places, so going to address that.
From there, we're going to go on and talk about a few funny stories, as we do on these supplemental episodes.
A window into Dan's time in seminary, dealing with thieves and thugs.
A window into my lifelong ability to mispronounce words and make a fool of myself.
So do some of that, and we'll answer some more questions, and we'll go from there.
So does that sound good, Dan?
Sounds good.
We haven't told people where we are.
Do you want to tell people what studio we're in?
Yeah, we are at Brigham Young University.
They invited us out to this symposium for podcasters.
We've been here for a few days meeting lots of really cool people, doing really cool different kinds of podcasts and things like that.
And we get to use their literally state-of-the-art facilities, and that's pretty cool.
So thanks to them for having us, giving a thumbs up to the producer right now.
So yeah, it's been really cool.
Yeah.
When we started this podcast, I didn't think anything would happen.
A, I just thought Dan and I would talk to each other.
Send it out into space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Send it out.
See if anybody listens.
Give our wives a break from listening to us.
And then I also thought, I never thought that anyone would listen.
A, But if you said, someday you'll be recording from BYU in a professional studio, straight white American Jesus will go to BYU. Just going to leave that there.
No more comment is going to be made.
But nonetheless, here we are.
Life is weird.
It's also luxurious because when I record at home, when my in-laws come and visit or the cousins, I've got to clean it up because I also record in the guest room.
So this is nice just having everything set up all the time.
I'm a little uncomfortable.
I'm not in a basement.
There's no dryer.
I don't see any piles of clothes.
It's your aesthetic background.
Comfort makes you uncomfortable.
My bike is not in the corner.
So there's no gardener outside who I have to yell at to like stop or like some neighbor blaring their engine or something.
So yeah, this is a little weird, but we're going to make do.
I mean, it's fine.
This facility is fine.
Yes, professional equipment, a mixing board, a microphone that costs more than the plane ticket to get here.
Yeah, it's fine.
I mean, I guess.
But, you know, it'll be nice to go home.
If we went out, like, you know, there's a lot of students.
If we had somebody bring a bike in and, like, set it against the wall, would that make you feel more comfortable?
I guess.
I mean, only if I, like, tripped over some kids' toys and stubbed my toe before we got in here.
And then, you know, anyway.
Yeah.
All right, let's do it, Dan.
So, let's talk about masculinity, the bro vote, and stuff that, like, I think really piqued people's attention.
You wanted to kick this off by talking about kind of two aspects of things related to the campaign and the election and et cetera.
One is Tim McGraw.
Yeah.
And one is Sam Smith.
Sam Smith, the actor.
Sam Elliott.
Sam Elliott.
There it is.
So, this is the role reversal, though, because, like, you mispronounce words.
I'm the one that gets the names wrong all the time.
I, like, try to name a senator, and I call him basically, like, a Sesame Street name or something.
So, like, we just, you know, it's just role reversal.
Listen.
Last week, I shared that I was in my minivan listening to Metallica, but sometimes I listen to other artists named Sam Smith.
And, you know, at all.
Nobody's perfect.
No, it's not a big deal.
And I have a lot of feelings, and sometimes certain songs help me deal with those.
So, tell us about Sam Elliott and Tim Adroff.
Yeah.
So, yeah, a couple pop-cultury things.
For people following the election, you know, it ties in with what we'll get into about younger Gen Z men attending church and younger men, especially, you know, white men without a college education supporting Donald Trump and so forth.
People following the election know that the Harris campaign is trying to make more inroads into that.
Everybody who watches the news or listens to this or a lot of other podcasts knows that you have what looks to be a historically big gender gap opening up in this election.
So, in the last couple of weeks, a couple of things sort of stood out to me sort of within pop culture of this.
And the first, I'll start with Sam Elliott.
He did a campaign ad for the Harris campaign.
And it was interesting to me on a number of reasons.
Number one is, you know, intentionally, Sam Elliott, for a lot of people, is this kind of quintessential vision of, you know, kind of masculinity.
He's got that mustache that those of us who could never grow a real mustache can look at with great envy.
He has that voice.
He's got, you know, the body of work that he's done, you know, everything from Westerns to Roadhouse to, like, you name it.
Big Lebowski.
Big Lebowski, yeah.
All the beef commercials with the voiceover.
I mean, yeah.
So as a side note, Brad, we used to, in grad school, play this really dumb grad student game where we would say, if you could have one celebrity voiceover a paper presentation, like you're going to present a paper in their voice, who would it be?
Sam Elliott was top of my list.
So anyway, he had this ad that came out.
It stood out to me for a few reasons, but the tagline on it was, be a man and vote for a woman.
And if people, you know, you want to hit pause, you haven't seen it, just go, you know, Google Sam Elliott Harris ad, and you can listen to this.
And, you know, he has this number of lines here.
What stood out to me is, number one, the fact that it's just foregrounded.
It's right there in the front.
And we've seen this as well with, you know, Obama, you know, campaigning, not trying to tiptoe around it and just put it right out in the front.
So, you know, be a man and vote for a woman.
And, you know, he says things to specifically take on Trump.
One of the lines that stands out is he says, Kamala Harris has more courage, more honor, more guts than this guy ever had.
And, you know, it pans to an image of Trump.
He says, you know, and he's like, I can't believe we're having this conversation again, you know, with the election.
So sort of foregrounding all of these elements that we're familiar with.
But then some other things that I think are intended to play to kind of a male audience.
So he drops the F-bomb in a campaign ad, which I think is not pretty typical.
He says, are we really going back down that same fucking road?
And poses that question.
And then sort of at the end, this is the part where it really puts it out.
He says, what the hell are you waiting for?
Because if it's the woman thing, it's time to get over that.
So it just stood out to me because of the celebrity status.
We know we talk a lot about celebrities and endorsements and things like this.
It stood out because, you know, it's a big name doing this thing.
Stood out because we know that within, let's call it the brosphere, I guess, anytime somebody who's recognized within that world as sort of the man's man who comes out for...
The female candidate who comes out for a progressive social cause, who comes out, I don't know, in favor of vaccinations, whatever it is, they get this backlash.
So I'll just throw it out.
I'll get to the Tim McGraw piece, which is a little bit different.
But I'm wondering if you have thoughts about this or if, I don't know, how this struck you when you first heard about this or saw it.
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Don't forget, y'all.
Two live events coming in November.
Some straight white American Jesus.
One at the University of Southern California and LA with Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
And then the next night at the San Diego Convention Center.
Tickets are available now and you can find everything in the show notes.
You can also watch online if you can't be in LA or San Diego.
November 21 and November 22.
Two chances to be with us at Straight White American Jesus and a number of other great scholars and leaders.
