| Time | Text |
|---|---|
|
Feminist Backlash and Abusive Relationships
00:01:47
|
|
| There's a very quick feminist backlash reaction to assume that she's being coerced. | |
| She's in an abusive relationship and maybe she is. | |
| I don't know. | |
| If I had that body, I might be doing the same thing. | |
| You will see age. | |
| I'm not surprised anymore. | |
| We live in a world where wet-ass pussy is a number one song and, you know, Megan thee Stallion shaking her butt next to Carmel Harris. | |
| I mean, like, we are at a place where it's just the new normal. | |
| Men to woman, a woman to men. | |
| Man to woman. | |
| From Penis to vagina. | |
| You're basically taking away a best actress nomination from an actual woman. | |
| Everybody hates it. | |
| They managed to piss everybody off. | |
| Oh, God, it's horrible. | |
| So that's two hours and 12 minutes. | |
| I'm never getting back. | |
| My apologies. | |
| The Justin Baldoni war with Blake Lively. | |
| She sounds like an absolute nightmare. | |
| For me, Captain America represents a lot of different things. | |
| And I don't think the term America should be one of those representations. | |
| If you're making tens of millions pretending to be a superhero, call Captain America and you're American. | |
| Big up America. | |
| If you don't want to talk about this issue, don't do this movie. | |
| Go be in the weird trans movie and sing the penis to vagina song. | |
| It's a marble film. | |
| It's boom boom kaboom. | |
| Happy days. | |
| President Trump's executive order that only two sexes exist marked a profound cultural shift. | |
| It hasn't though reached Hollywood yet where a transgender star has been nominated for best actress for the very first time. | |
| Musical drama, Emilia Perez focuses on a Mexican drug lord transitioning from male to female, has been nominated for 13 awards, including best film and best director. | |
| To woman, a woman to men, man to woman, from penis to vagina. | |
| What would you like to know about it, madam? | |
| I want to know it all. | |
|
Beyoncé's Naked Album Controversy
00:08:03
|
|
| What is the protocol that Agnixander risks? | |
| How many operations, how much time do you need? | |
| Mamoplasty no plastic, yes. | |
| Pino plastic yes, Laringo plastic. | |
| What have I just watched? | |
| I'd heard about this. | |
| I'm just that what it is unbelievable. | |
| Uh anyway, is it actually any you? | |
| Well, based on that, I I know my view, but maybe i'm just unenlightened. | |
| Or is this the last gasp of the virtue signalers? | |
| Join me to discuss all that and a great deal more. | |
| Is my culture panel. | |
| Will Jordan, aka the Critical Drinker, the radio host, host James Barr, uncensored contributor Esther Kraku, influencer and youtuber Shannon Lester and the host of Popcorn Planet, Andy Signal. | |
| Welcome to all, your stellar panel to debate all this stuff. | |
| We're going to come to Emilia Perez soon. | |
| I mean, it's quite a moment. | |
| When a transgender actor is now up for best actress, it doesn't mean a biological male may win a, an award for women. | |
| We can debate that in a moment. | |
| You can all get your thoughts about that done, but I want to start first of all with the Grammys, And I want to start first of all with Kanye West and Bianca Sensori, which is a weird name for somebody who is about as uncensored as I show. | |
| This is what happened on the red carpet last night. | |
| Okay, let's start with the critical drinker. | |
| I mean, look, Kanye's been going down some weird places for quite some time. | |
| Taking your girlfriend to a red carpet of a major event like the Grammys and basically making her just strip off pretty much naked. | |
| What do we think of this? | |
| I mean, I have no idea if he actually made her do it, but like that has really taken revealing attention-grabbing dresses to their logical conclusion. | |
| Like, why bother wearing anything at all? | |
| I guess if you've got no particular talents and no abilities, well, that's a great way to grab headlines. | |
| Good luck to her, I guess. | |
| Yeah, I mean, Shannon, is it sexist? | |
| What do we feel about what do women think of this? | |
| I mean, obviously any woman can do that. | |
| Yeah, I think that there's a very quick feminist backlash reaction to assume that she's being coerced. | |
| She's in an abusive relationship, and maybe she is. | |
| But there are a lot of women out there who would literally do this. | |
| Go to a NASCAR rally sometime. | |
| Like, you will see a hefty representation in the population of women who are absolutely fine getting attention for their body. | |
| And I don't know. | |
| If I had that body, I might be doing the same thing. | |
| God limited me because he knew. | |
| As beautiful as her body is, and I'd love to know who her fitness trainer is. | |
| She needs to be in a mental asylum. | |
| If you are leaving your house naked, you are mentally unwell, and indecent exposure is still against the law the last time I checked. | |
| I don't really know why we should have to tolerate this. | |
| I woke up this morning, sun shining, the birds tweeting. | |
| I just stretched, went on my phone, and I saw Bianca's bare ass. | |
| I don't know why anyone has to. | |
| To be fair, if you look at your Instagram feed with your pole dancing, I'm not naked. | |
| I quite often wake up to see yours. | |
| And what's the difference? | |
| What's the difference? | |
| I'm not naked, and that is fitness. | |
| Genuinely curious. | |
| You're not naked. | |
| Parading around your pole, all that. | |
| What's the difference? | |
| I have clothes on. | |
| Yeah. | |
| You have to clothes on. | |
| What about on your own fans, Esther? | |
| You wish. | |
| Trust me, I do not. | |
| I have not seen a woman that naked for that long since I exited the womb. | |
| And it was a very shocking thing to wake up. | |
| I mean, look, obviously, Kanye is all about... | |
| Well, yay, as he now is, is all about getting our attention. | |
| Now, when he does it for his music, he's a genius. | |
| That's the problem, though, is that you said it's for him. | |
| Yeah, when it's inflammatory things he says, often that's got him into terrible trouble recently for very good reason. | |
| When he's using his girlfriend like this, it just is a bit odd, isn't it, James? | |
| Yeah, it definitely feels coercive. | |
| Also, a lip reader looked into what he said as she took the coat off and he was like, I got you. | |
| So it does appear to be that he basically made her do it. | |
| It just feels a bit gross, doesn't it? | |
| But I was questioning it because I was like, if it had been Esther on the red carpet, like owning her womanhood, if it had been Lady Gaga, would I have the same opinion? | |
| I probably wouldn't, but I think because she's doing it with a man. | |
| Nothing to do with being naked and mentally unwilling. | |
| It just doesn't feel like it's a good thing. | |
| These two are mentally unwilling. | |
| They don't seem the full city. | |
| Anytime, Piers, you want to hit a red carpet together and do the same thing, I'll happily take it. | |
| You know what? | |
| I would not want to strip off in front of you on a red carpet because it would just humiliate you. | |
| But I would. | |
| Yeah, Andy, look, we're sort of laughing about it, but Ye is he wants to be cool now. | |
| He's in a weird place. | |
| I mean, he just, even by his standards, the last couple of years have been very weird. | |
| Do you think he's, I mean, is he all there? | |
| Is she all there? | |
| Are we watching some weird ongoing meltdown? | |
| What do you feel about it? | |
| I mean, nothing shocks me from Ye anymore. | |
| He knows what he wants, big boobs, big butt, and he wants a woman who's going to clout it. | |
| I mean, I don't know. | |
| I'm not surprised anymore. | |
| We live in a world where wet-ass pussy is a number one song and, you know, Megan Thee Stallion shaking her butt next to Kamala Harris. | |
| I mean, like, we are at a place where it's just the new normal. | |
| I remember my parents being all scared when Elvis shaked his hips. | |
| Like, it's just a new place we live in. | |
| I was more shocked that Beyonce won best country album. | |
| It's not a country album in Rock Nation. | |
| It's not a country. | |
| This whole thing is a shit. | |
| But you know what I think about that? | |
| Oh, I'm glad you raised that. | |
| Here's what I think about that. | |
| She should have won best album before, right? | |
| She shouldn't have. | |
| And she's never won best album on the Grammy. | |
| How could Beyonce never have won best album on the Grammy? | |
| They are better artists. | |
| There's some artists that have better eyes. | |
| Beyonce's one of the top three female artists. | |
| She has to win everything. | |
| She's far from oppressed. | |
| I'm sorry, her husband would have a Grammy. | |
| And then she had the audacity to sit there looking shocked because Hollywood is full of a bunch of pretenders that have a legitimate bone in their bodies. | |
| Oh, please. | |
| I've never seen her. | |
| I've seen her accent. | |
| I've seen her in films before. | |
| She's a much better actress than that shit. | |
| I feel like the wardrobe malfunction would not have happened if she was expecting it. | |
| I mean, she literally pulled her top up because it was falling down. | |
| So I don't know. | |
| I think you have to watch the video. | |
| I saw the video. | |
| She was definitely faking it. | |
| So she was not shocked. | |
| Her husband might have been like, oh, happy birthday. | |
| I just, look, I just think someone that talented should have won best album. | |
| I mean, Taylor Swift's won it four times, right? | |
| Also, the album was a little bit more. | |
| I mean, I love Taylor Swift, but are we seriously saying as a musician, she's four times as good as Beyonce? | |
| I don't think so. | |
| It was about talent. | |
| She's consistent. | |
| What was that, Sean? | |
| Yeah, better than Beyonce. | |
| Swift Times is consistent. | |
| Like, Taylor can craft an album where almost every song is really good. | |
| Beyonce has hits. | |
| She has actual hits, like a few here and there off of every album, but she doesn't craft an entire good album that you can put on and listen to her. | |
| I think Lemonade might want to call you up and have a go at you for that because Lemonade is an incredible album. | |
| Well, then Jay-Z can have another affair and then maybe she'll be in the contention for best album. | |
| Jay-Z should have another affair and have a Rebecca with even better hair. | |
| Do you know what I like? | |
| I like the fact we're debating the quality of their music because once again, Lady Gaga's up there. | |
| I bow to no one in my admiration of her talent. | |
| She's unbelievable singer, songwriter, actress, everything, right? | |
| But she made this speech, which I just thought was so lazy. | |
| So let's take a look at what she said. | |
| It's such an honor to sing for all of you. | |
|
Trans Rights vs Women's Equality
00:06:36
|
|
| And I just want to say tonight that trans people are not invisible. | |
| Trans people deserve love. | |
| The queer community deserves to be lifted up. | |
| Music is love. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Now, Critical Drinker, has there ever been a time when trans people have been more visible? | |
| I mean, literally in the history of planet Earth. | |
| Also, we now have a gay month dedicated to gay people. | |
| I don't even get half an hour as a straight guy, right? | |
| So this idea that the most forgotten people on the planet are gay and trans people is for the birds. | |
| I'm going to come to the gay member of our panel for this, but it's honestly for the birds. | |
| And the whole point about the trans debate. | |
| I don't say birds anymore, Piers. | |
| That's really gendered and quite offensive. | |
| But that's all done, mate. | |
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| Now on with the show. | |
| My point about her intervention was she's obviously appealing to the choir. | |
| I get that. | |
| And they all cheer, they all stand up and everything else. | |
| But actually, the whole point about the trans debate, and I really feel for trans people who've been the victims of this, who didn't want anything to do with this, is that the relentless campaign by the trans activists to basically erode women's rights, that has been the problem. | |
| And that has been what has now been corrected. | |
| You know, things like biological men in women's sport and so on, it's been rightly corrected. | |
| But it's that that's caused the furore and the problem. | |
| And I think it's exposed a lot of trans people to a mockery they should not have been exposed to. | |
| But it's happened because of this relentless attack on women's rights. | |
| Am I wrong? | |
| Well, I mean, I just, I want to start by saying thank you to Lady Gaga. | |
| And I agree with her wholeheartedly. | |
| I too support good things and condemn bad things. | |
| So brave stance there. | |
| But yeah, as for the rest of it, I guess I would defer to actual trans people in terms of their opinions on this stuff. | |
| I don't know how it makes them feel. | |
| I don't know what their opinions on how they're represented in Hollywood and the music industry and so on. | |
| It does feel a bit pandering, but that's just me as an outsider looking in. | |
| Yeah, James, I mean, it is just, it's just virtue signaling, isn't it? | |
| It is. | |
| Come on. | |
| I mean, you've said a lot there, Piers. | |
| It's very difficult to give you a snappy answer to what you just said. | |
| But I think really the issue is that, well, you're making it out that queer people by protesting for trans rights have caused this. | |
| They've bought this on themselves. | |
| No, no. | |
| That is what I said. | |
| Once again, you've misquoted me. | |
| Right. | |
| I said I feel sorry for trans people who just want a quiet life against. | |
| Well, yeah, of course, some people just want a quiet life. | |
| They don't want the attention. | |
| I agree with you on that. | |
| And that's completely fine. | |
| Some people do deserve that. | |
| But you can't victim blame trans rights activists and say that because they were trying to... | |
| We can't when they deliberately damage women's rights. | |
| That's the point. | |
| But we don't want the whole debate about Trump is that he's just, he's decided to... | |
| I mean, also his chat GPT executive order about there only being two genders doesn't even make any sense because you can't be a male at conception. | |
| That just doesn't happen by the way. | |
| Do you remember when David Beckham got all that backlash during the Qatar World Cup because he was going and he was apparently supposed to be an icon for the LGBT until the Qataris waved enough money in his face to make him rule. | |
| 10 million, I think. | |
| Exactly. | |
| I think this idea that celebrities are just trying to draw attention to a worthy cause and there's all the good and will in their heart is ridiculous. | |
| Lady Gago is a known gay icon. | |
| And power too hard. | |
| Her music is popular amongst that. | |
| So am I, but I don't know. | |
| But what the idea of. | |
| I'm gay, I got it. | |
| I just make speeches about how invisible they are when they're literally the most visible people in the world. | |
| Trans women are not the biggest threat to women. | |
| Abusive men are the biggest threat to women and there's a lot of them. | |
| Oh, really? | |
| Yeah. | |
| And if Trump wants to protect women's leadership to protect women from himself because he's had over 26 people accuse him of abusive behaviour. | |
| I'm sure that means he's guilty. | |
| Trans women are abusive men. | |
| If they're in our spaces, even if they're just trying to live a quiet life, that's still within our spaces. | |
| I don't care how quiet they are. | |
| If they're in a locker room with us, I don't care if they're loud or quiet. | |
| They're in there. | |
| And in my purview, I don't know that they're all there. | |
| And I don't know what's going on behind the scene with someone who wants to chop off their genitals and turn them inside out, but I don't know that I need them up against me and me feeling guilty for feeling a little bit unsafe. | |
| I think being in the same space. | |
| And also, also, in the UK, over half of trans-identifying prisoners in prison are there for sexual assault. | |
| So for you to sit there and pretend like women have no basis for feeling uncomfortable is ludicrous. | |
| I never said that. | |
| I never said that. | |
| Well, you just said that the biggest threat is not trans people, but there are way more. | |
| By the way, translation. | |
| The first minister. | |
| Look, just to remind you, the first minister of Scotland literally had to resign because she put a male rapist into a woman's prison because he just went, by the way, I'm a woman. | |
| They put him in a prison full of potential victims. | |
| It's really complicated. | |
| And it's not complicated. | |
| Here's why it's not complicated. | |
| I want fairness and equality for all trans people, right to the point it erodes fairness and equality for women. | |
| That's it. | |
| That's it. | |
| If we reach the left-hand side, they need to be in their own third lane. | |
| Like they are carving out something that has never priorly existed in nature. | |
| And that's fine. | |
| Be a pioneer. | |
| Don't come into our lane. | |
| Don't come into a man's lane or woman. | |
| You want to be in this third thing that has never existed. | |
| How happened, dude? | |
| Exactly. | |
| You just can't erode women's rights in the process. | |
|
Performative Activism in Media
00:15:03
|
|
| Let me turn to Andy about this debate raging, obviously, about the best actress nomination for the star of Emilia Perez. | |
| So it's Korea Sophia Gascom, who is a trans actress, a biological male at birth. | |
| What do we think of this? | |
| I mean, this has been part of my problem with it as well that you're basically taking away a place there for a best actress nomination from an actual woman. | |
| I mean, shouldn't this be something that everyone should feel concerned about? | |
| I mean, is this fair? | |
| Is it right? | |
| Is it equal? | |
| I will say she's good in the movie. | |
| The movie is pretty bad, like really bad. | |
| Well, that claim is diabolical. | |
| She has a really good scene where she's losing her kids and she's a woman. | |
| And now, and I don't know, I don't want to step in all those landmines, but yeah, it's a complicated issue. | |
| What's weird about that movie to me is like the trans community hates it, the gay community hates it, the Spanish community hates it, Mexico hates it. | |
| Musical family hates it. | |
| Everybody hates it. | |
| They manage to piss everybody off. | |
| The only people who like it is the Academy, which is weird. | |
| Yeah, but Critica Drink. | |
| I mean, you're a movie buff. | |
| I mean, from a movie point of view, is it any good or has it been powered by virtue signaling this thing? | |
| Oh, God, it's horrible. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I literally had to watch it for this segment. | |
| So that's two hours and 12 minutes. | |
| I'm never getting back. | |
| Thanks, Pierce. | |
| My apologies. | |
| Yeah, all of the songs are terrible. | |
| I mean, I know you played that clip earlier, but like, that's just a tiny sample of this. | |
| All of the songs have no melody. | |
| There's nothing catchy about them. | |
| They're just discordant noise throughout this. | |
| The plot is just a basic crime drama. | |
| But it's just got this layer of like the transgender main character with a bit of like weird days of our lives soap opera mixed in. | |
| And it does not make for a good movie. | |
| None of those elements mesh together. | |
| So yeah, it's a horrible talk. | |
| Every character sucks in it, right? | |
| The point is basically that the main character is the main character is a cartel boss who's responsible for dozens, if not hundreds of deaths of innocent people. | |
| But then he becomes a woman and it's all forgiven. | |
| And we just forget that about them. | |
| And suddenly they're treated as this amazing. | |
| That's exactly what it is. | |
| That's exactly what it is. | |
| If you say you're trans, it erases any of your sense. | |
| You say you're trans or gay or non-binary and it's fine. | |
| This couldn't have happened to a more deserving. | |
| It's not real. | |
| You know that, right? | |
| I'm so happy that it's literally a made-up. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| I'm so happy that this man is. | |
| Output transcripts are made up, but it's like supposedly a serious movie. | |
| Right. | |
| But Queen here is talking about it like it's true. | |
| It's completely made up. | |
| It's emblematic of what's going on in our culture. | |
| It's really nominated for an offer. | |
| It's not. | |
| Also, a minute ago, you said that things that don't exist in nature shouldn't exist, which is a wild thought. | |
| It doesn't exist in nature, but I'm sure we still eat that. | |
| What have I eaten? | |
| McDonald's doesn't exist. | |
| You said you can't be trans because it doesn't exist in nature, but it's such a wild thing to say that something can't exist if it doesn't exist in nature. | |
| What are you talking about? | |
| All right. | |
| You know, let's move on from trans stuff. | |
| I think it's just what I want to move to is my favorite story, I think, in Showbiz this year. | |
| The Justin Baldoni war with Blake Lively, which seems to me, initially I felt quite sorry for Blake Lively. | |
| Then I've been reading all the messages between them all, and which he's been putting out, obviously. | |
| And it just seems like a pair of absolute weapons-grade narcissists now spray gunning each other with as much dirt as they can possibly do, having spewed lovey-dovey stuff to each other for months on end. | |
| I mean, again, Critical Drinker, this is in your world. | |
| I thought it was a great film. | |
| I got to say, I've not been to the cinema and actually sat through a movie and been as quiet and as attentive as I was to that in a long time. | |
| I thought it was very, very well, well done. | |
| A, do you agree? | |
| And B, what do you make of these two now just trying to destroy each other in public? | |
| Well, A, I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't speak to it. | |
| It's really good, honestly. | |
| I highly recommend it. | |
| I thought it was great. | |
| And they're both great in it. | |
| Yeah, I mean, as for the drama between them, like if what he's alleging is true, she sounds like an absolute nightmare. | |
| I mean, I get the impression that it's like a prima donna that's come in, tried to take over and hijack the movie. | |
| And when she didn't get away, she brought her much richer, more successful, and powerful husband in to lay down the law. | |
| And the result was a disjointed production that had all kinds of problems behind the scenes. | |
| And Baldoni, by the sounds of things, got completely shafted in this one. | |
| So if all of this is true, he's 100% justified in suing her. | |
| I don't know if it's just. | |
| It's all coming out. | |
| I mean, Esther, we've been around the block longer than neither of us would care to mention, me certainly more than you, but in terms of these kind of stories. | |
| But it seems to me when you get to a stage where the guy who makes this huge blockbuster film that makes a ton of money, and they should be basking in the glory of it and probably winning a load of awards as well, that he's now got a website dedicated to spilling the dirty laundry about his co-star in the film. | |
| It's unprecedented. | |
| I mean, it's shocking. | |
| In many ways, I'm quite glad for like new media and all of that, because I can imagine how many people in the past have been victim to the kind of stunt that Blake Livey and her husband have pulled. | |
| Now, apparently, in conjunction with Taylor Swift, who has oddly decided to distance herself from the couple, which is an interesting development. | |
| Look, I went through the 160-page timeline and evidence document that Justin published on his website in detail, as well as what he presented to the court, because it was fascinating. | |
| It was fascinating. | |
| I mean, if even only half of what he's saying is true, Blake Lively is a complete nightmare. | |
| This is an actress that was hired to be in the film, and yet she's asking the director, who's also her lead, for the cuts and the edits, and she's decided to take over the wardrobe and she gets to choose her wardrobe and they pay for it. | |
| That's unprecedented. | |
| No one's ever heard of that. | |
| And then she has the audacity to call her husband and Taylor Swift her dragons. | |
| And that Justin Baldoni and the producer try to sexually harass this woman, this madhatter, who no sane man would go near with a 10-foot barge pole. | |
| It is so offensive and so ridiculous. | |
| I mean, I urge everyone to just read through everything that Justin said. | |
| I mean, it is utterly compelling. | |
| It's shocking. | |
| It's compelling. | |
| Andy, it's sort of unprecedented that stars of this magnitude would dish it all out in public to this extent. | |
| I mean, she began with, I think, the New York Times, very well-orchestrated, obviously, onslaught against him. | |
| And I read all that and thought, wow, poor Blake Lively. | |
| I've got to say, I'm already thinking that now. | |
| The more I read about this, the more I think stain on all your gruesome houses. | |
| The publicists involved, the actors involved, everybody involved seems to be absolutely horrible. | |
| Well, you say we haven't seen it before, but we kind of have with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. | |
| Well, that's true. | |
| Yeah, but that only came out in the end in court, right? | |
| And Johnny did something that I think a lot of people took notes to. | |
| Yeah, he dropped all the evidence. | |
| And I think Team Justin, which, you know, same PR rep who rep Johnny was behind this, you know, Blake sort of saw that as, oh, you're trying to use an Amber Heard tactic, but she didn't even realize like that's not a good defense. | |
| That means you're guilty because Blake, you know, Amber lied. | |
| It's been astonishing. | |
| Like, I just jumped off my life. | |
| We had 30,000 people watching the new hearing because the judge is trying to reprimand Justin for dropping receipts. | |
| And I'm just sitting there like, how is this allowed? | |
| Like, Blake Lively dropped a lawsuit with all his texts, cherry-picked those texts, removed emojis and like intent and backstory to these texts. | |
| Deleted. | |
| Alright, deleted certain sections of the text. | |
| 100% took it all as research. | |
| They're mad. | |
| They're mad at Justin for releasing the full context of those texts. | |
| It makes it a lot more likely to be. | |
| And the worst part of all of this, she decided to promote a film about domestic violence by flogging her alcohol brand. | |
| Even though we know that most domestic violence cases are involved drinking by the part of the abuser. | |
| And she got her husband's PR company that wasn't signed off by Sony to take over the promotion of the film. | |
| What did Ryan Reynolds have to do with this film that Justin Baldoni's production team bought in the first place? | |
| I don't want to interrupt, but I do think someone needs to stick up for Blake's film here. | |
| I've got to say, I'm not going to defend the decision to talk about florals on the red carpet or to promote alcohol or whatever. | |
| But I just think we should point out that a lot of celebrities are annoying. | |
| A lot of celebrities do promo products when they're promoing a film. | |
| That is quite normal in Hollywood culture. | |
| How many promo films are you seeing after the Holocaust? | |
| What were you going to say? | |
| Well, I'm sure it was going to be wildly offensive. | |
| No, but seriously, when you're promoting certain films, you don't encourage you to get a lot of things. | |
| I'm not sure there's a rule. | |
| I don't know if that's a written thing. | |
| Would you promote an oven brand if you're not going to be able to do it? | |
| But the point about the Holocaust. | |
| The point is, this is a woman who said privately on set to various people, I'm not okay with this decision. | |
| I don't like that. | |
| We've seen the clip of them both interacting where she did feel like she was trying to take charge of a situation she was uncomfortable in. | |
| No, she wasn't. | |
| She was trying to take charge of a situation. | |
| You could do it with either lens, I think. | |
| I think if you close one eye and I think there's a hidden language when you feel uncomfortable, and if you've experienced something where you feel uncomfortable, then you can read into what she's saying. | |
| Do you know what? | |
| When I start here, I'm sorry. | |
| I couldn't finish a point. | |
| When I hear her say, when I hear all that kind of stuff, though, honestly, that's all been banned as well, no, isn't it? | |
| Listen, a woman is trying to say she's uncomfortable and then she's been hit with a retaliation. | |
| You know what she could have done? | |
| She could have pulled out of the film and retained her $400 million fortune that she has with her husband. | |
| She could have been aware of that. | |
| The real shame for me, Shannon, is that, have you seen the movie? | |
| I have, yes. | |
| It's an amazing film. | |
| I thought it was great. | |
| And I thought the acting in it from both of them was fantastic. | |
| And in fact, I'm overthinking, wow, the chemistry here is wildly good, you know, and the twist is great and everything else. | |
| I mean, literally, I want to go and watch it again now, Vicky about. | |
| It was such a great, well-made film. | |
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| What's sad is like they should all be basking in the glory of this film, and instead they just kind of kill each other. | |
| Isn't that really good? | |
| Well, let Shannon go first when I come to Critical Drinker. | |
| Shall I? | |
| Like, none of this was ever about making good film. | |
| It was about power. | |
| It was about power. | |
| And now that power is backfiring. | |
| They try to play it out in the public. | |
| That didn't work. | |
| They don't want Justin playing it out in the public. | |
| The only way Blake and Ryan could salvage what's left of their reputation, which they don't even realize. | |
| I truly don't think they realize how reviled they are. | |
| I don't think they realize they're losing. | |
| If they did something that no litigious celebrity has ever done, which was come out and be like, we made a mistake. | |
| Suing someone is a nightmare. | |
| It's stressful. | |
| It's expensive. | |
| It's a life ruiner. | |
| And you know what, dude? | |
| Even if we're right, it's not worth it. | |
| We're going to back away. | |
| I bet Justin would call off the dogs also. | |
| Yeah, I mean, Critical Drinker, what's been fascinating to me, Critical Drinker, what's been really interesting to me is the way the modern phenomenon of publicists through useful journalists using digital outlets and social media stuff to just wage a kind of warfare against somebody surreptitiously under the radar where it just goes viral. | |
| And before, I mean, I just remember reading all the stuff about Blake Lively thinking, what's causing all this? | |
| Why is she getting all this hate? | |
| Because I love the film. | |
| Now, you look at it in totality and you think I was probably a little bit too sympathetic given what's now being published. | |
| I think ultimately all you need is a good PR firm and a few thousand bot accounts, and you can make pretty much any story turn into reality on social media. | |
| That's that's the scary reality of the world that we live in now. | |
| Yeah, I think that's really true and it's really actually quite disturbing. | |
| All right, Andy, I want to play you a clip of Selena Gomez crying about Trump and his immigration deportations. | |
| I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry. | |
| Only people are getting attacked. | |
| Children. | |
| They don't understand. | |
| I'm so sorry. | |
| I wish I could do something, but I can't. | |
| I don't know what to do. | |
| I'll try everything I've promised. | |
| I mean, Andy, that was genuinely one of the most pathetic things I've ever had to endure watching on social media. | |
| In her moment of deep... | |
| That clip's clearly going to solve it all. | |
| It's the whole idea when you're crying like that and you're a massive star. | |
| Your first thought is, I better just Instagram live this to the world, just in case they don't capture my full sincerity. | |
| And of course, I think. | |
| My wife's in Puerto Rico. | |
| She's had concerns. | |
| I'm not going to say that people aren't allowed to have concerns. | |
| What I find frustrating about this is it's so performative. | |
| It's so unhelpful. | |
| It's like, why are you doing this? | |
| Why would you think that's? | |
| I think all social media needs an are you sure button. | |
| It's so narcissistic. | |
| Well, she got an are you sure button. | |
| It came in the response that came from the public who just bombarded it. | |
| But what on earth are you doing? | |
| And it was just so over this. | |
| Yeah. | |
| This people were so over this. | |
| I totally agree. | |
| You should be crying over Amelia Perez, if we're being honest. | |
| Yeah, this kind of performative activism, this like fake outrage and fake tears, like it's done. | |
| Like that sort of thing peaked several years ago and people are just so like wise to it now. | |
| We've got no time for it. | |
| And she got rightly mocked for something like this. | |
| James, let's bring in the defender of the indefensible. | |
| I mean, there can't be a defense for this. | |
| I do agree that just going live on Instagram whilst crying is a choice. | |
| It's a choice. | |
| I don't think she's acting, though. | |
| Like, we've seen her act. | |
| I don't think that is Selena Gomez acting. | |
| I do think that's real. | |
| Also, I would just want to say, Selena Gomez is not a fan of mine. | |
| And after a documentary that she filmed, she did an interview with me and came off the back of it saying that was really pointless. | |
| So if she's not going to be able to do that, I'm not sure if I can do it. | |
| Yeah, exactly. | |
| I'm a fan of Selena Gomez. | |
| And it makes sense that she's... | |
| It makes sense that she's sad. | |
| I mean, there's a lot of people being deported and losing their families. | |
| Well, actually, what's happening at the moment? | |
| Well, actually, this is the point, though. | |
| Again, I call it the TikTok information train, where she probably has just watched a few TikToks, right? | |
|
Deportations, Empathy, and Asylum Claims
00:06:09
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|
| Because the reality is, in this first phase of these deportations, they are almost exclusively illegal immigrant criminals. | |
| And by the way, as the White House pointed out, even if they weren't actually breaking new crime, actually, let's listen to the White House press secretary. | |
| This is what she says. | |
| Say that I'm so sorry for many people. | |
| Seeing that video, it's hard to believe that it's actually genuine and real because she's an actress. | |
| You don't know who you're crying for. | |
| Sorry, by the White House press officer. | |
| And the White House press secretary made another point, which was, notwithstanding the fact that these people there talking have actually lost their loved ones, and there's no sin in Gomez crying for them over illegal immigrants killing their loved ones. | |
| But the other point she made, which I thought was just very simple and powerful, actually, if you're an illegal immigrant to the United States, you are already a criminal. | |
| You're breaking the law. | |
| And I've just, you know, I've just renewed my visa today, right? | |
| It's a laborious process, actually. | |
| Green card, even more laborious. | |
| Citizenship, even more laborious for all those who go through the legal process of doing these things. | |
| Why should people who just wander over borders, whether it's America, the UK, whatever, I think people are pretty sick of it, actually. | |
| Sick of people just abusing a system to better their lives. | |
| Great. | |
| You know, immigrants bring a wonderful, a wonderful thing to many countries in totality. | |
| But in some cases, it doesn't mean that illegal immigration should be. | |
| You always have a choice. | |
| In some cases, we have to have a choice. | |
| Do you know how much fraud you have to commit being an illegal immigrant in a country to actually stay there, to get employment, to get access to hospitals and public services? | |
| Like on every single level, you are committing fraud. | |
| It's not just a choice. | |
| It's the illegal entry. | |
| I think if it's a choice between being murdered where you currently live and then you claim asylum. | |
| Claim asylum. | |
| It's illegal. | |
| Yeah, you claim asylum. | |
| I mean, that's an asylum seeker program. | |
| It's specifically designed for that. | |
| Let me bring in Andy because you're American. | |
| It just seemed to me it was too early to do that anyway, because the narrative of the story at the moment is pretty restricted to pretty unpleasant people who've done pretty unpleasant crimes, as well as being there illegally. | |
| That was the first tranche of this deportation movement. | |
| Yeah, I just think everyone's not as educated as need be. | |
| We're all reacting to TikToks. | |
| I don't disagree with you. | |
| Even I don't feel like I fully understand what's happening. | |
| So many things are promised or offered and then we don't know. | |
| I still stand by it. | |
| While I think some people have issues that they can be worried about, I know my wife, she has, I don't want to get the specifics of it, but my point is, I know people are concerned about what's this mean. | |
| And, you know, I do get worried, but Selena Gomez is not helping. | |
| And I still stand by. | |
| That's incredibly performative. | |
| And she should do more homework before she goes cries and rallies her base to get all emotional as well because she's clearly not as informed. | |
| But she could put some of her hundreds of millions of dollars. | |
| Yeah, that could be nice. | |
| Let's turn to Catalan. | |
| Where is all this outrage in the run-up to the election? | |
| I mean, this election didn't happen overnight. | |
| Was she campaigning? | |
| Was she handing out leaflets? | |
| Was she volunteering? | |
| Was she doing petitions, foundations? | |
| Or is she liking mean tweets about Nickelodeon Baldwin? | |
| I just think we live in a very dumbed down world now, driven by TikTok, actually, which I like. | |
| TikTok's fun, you know, everything else. | |
| But it also is the number one news source for people under 25. | |
| And this is what happens, is they see often deliberately slanted or edited or just completely disingenuous clips lasting 20 seconds. | |
| And they think that gives them a world view about Trump's immigration policy. | |
| The truth is that Trump, you know, under Biden, nearly 10 million people, it's been reported, came in illegally over the border and the southern border over four years. | |
| That's completely unsustainable. | |
| You don't have to be right or left-wing or anything. | |
| You just have to accept that is completely unacceptable. | |
| And he can't go on like that. | |
| So he's decided to start by deporting all those who are here illegally in America who break the law again. | |
| That seems to me completely reasonable. | |
| Anyone disagree? | |
| It's reasonable, but also let's have some empathy and think that's what criminals. | |
| No, I just think they're the people affected by these decisions. | |
| Hang on, James, who do you want empathy for? | |
| Well, we're talking about people who have families. | |
| Maybe their families are also with them. | |
| If they've broken the law, obviously they shouldn't be in the city. | |
| No, you should have empathy for. | |
| But that's stuck. | |
| Hold on. | |
| For the underage brides stuck in Afghanistan who are being pushed to the back of the queue of the asylum process to the United States because some illegal immigrant from Mexico that decided to jump over the border and potentially commit a crime is being asked for us to give them our sympathy by James Barbara. | |
| I'm not wrong. | |
| I never said have sympathy. | |
| I said have empathy. | |
| The point is, is there a clip of Selena Gomez crying for the victims of those mothers talking about their children being murdered? | |
| Of course not, because it doesn't cross their mind to do that. | |
| And it's about that. | |
| It's a bit like the argument with Israel and Hamas, right? | |
| When I've got a lot of sympathy for the pro-Palestinians who start by saying October the 7th was horrendous. | |
| I completely condemn it. | |
| And then put their case. | |
| Fine. | |
| If they can't do that, and the whole worldview about that story is driven exclusively by anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Jewish sentiment, I have no time for it. | |
| And it's the same thing. | |
| It's driven by TikTok. | |
| You see the anti-Israeli stuff all the time and you never ever see the other side of it. | |
| And these people get brainwashed into thinking there is only one way of looking at these things. | |
| I see it on every one of these stories as well. | |
| One side pumped out. | |
| Selena Gomez. | |
| All she cares about is what she thinks are little children being snatched in the street and deported. | |
| That is not what's happening at the moment. | |
| Now, that's not to say it may not happen, but who was the biggest deporter of illegal immigrants in American history as president? | |
| Barack Obama. | |
| He was the deporter-in-chief in Mexico. | |
| That was his nickname. | |
| Three million people he deported in eight years. | |
| You know how many liberal friends of mine know that statistic or care? | |
|
James Bond Franchise Critique
00:06:06
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|
| Zero. | |
| I test them all the time. | |
| They do not know. | |
| And that's my problem with this. | |
| It's all bullshit, performative, ill-informed crap. | |
| And it serves nobody. | |
| Talking of which, let's go to Captain America. | |
| I literally just said, let's have an empathy. | |
| Captain America. | |
| I don't know where you put the empathy. | |
| I've got no empathy for stupid. | |
| My empathy vowel for stupid people is extremely low. | |
| Anthony Mackey, Captain America. | |
| He described, well, let's just watch what he said anyway. | |
| This is in Rome. | |
| For me, Captain America represents a lot of different things. | |
| And I don't think the term, you know, America should be one of those representations. | |
| Like, it's about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity, and integrity. | |
| Someone who is trustworthy and dependable. | |
| I mean, again, let me start with you, Andy, as the American looking puzzled there. | |
| What was he saying? | |
| I mean, he's pandering to Rome. | |
| He wants to pander the non-American countries that he's promoting his film in because Marvel's tanking in all countries. | |
| And I can see why he did it, but I also just think it's he's such a bozo. | |
| Like he knew that was going to get clipped. | |
| He knew how much people are looking at not only Marvel, but just movies in general. | |
| And it just sounds so anti-American. | |
| Yes. | |
| But I do believe he was just trying to sell his movie abroad. | |
| So I'm not as offended as most, but I totally accept why people are upset with him because it's Captain America. | |
| We're the audience. | |
| Marvel is dying right now. | |
| I've used to be so excited for every Marvel movie. | |
| I do not care about this movie at all. | |
| And that's really bad that even Marvel fans are like, eh, maybe I'll catch it on Disney Plus. | |
| And he needs to promote it heavily to make its money, but not at the expense of saying it's not American. | |
| I just think if you're making Critical Drinker tens of millions wearing tights, pretending to be a superhero, the least you can do if you're called Captain America and you're American is big up America, right? | |
| If your basic marketing position is America sucks, says Captain America, this ain't a great idea. | |
| I tend to agree with Andy on this one. | |
| I don't think he was trying to necessarily badmouth America, more so the fact that he knew he was in Europe and he was preaching to a European audience. | |
| And I think what he was trying to say was more just, this is a sort of universal heroic character that people all around the world can look up to. | |
| He doesn't, it's not uniquely American. | |
| I don't think he expressed it in the best way he could have. | |
| And I think he knew it in the middle of actually seeing it, which is why he tries to then backtrack. | |
| There's a little bit more footage where he's kind of stumbling over his words and hesitating because he knows he's said something wrong and he's trying to think of the right way to salvage it. | |
| He can't ultimately. | |
| It's just an unfortunate PR flub. | |
| It happens to everyone. | |
| It happens to the best of us. | |
| You know what, though? | |
| Shallon, I mean, that's very generous, I think, of Critical Drinker. | |
| Unusually generous, if I may say so. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Because honestly, you've got one job if you're Captain America in the movies, right? | |
| Because everyone in America will love it if you say, I love America. | |
| That's all you got to say. | |
| I love America and I couldn't be more proud to play Captain America. | |
| Yeah, they're not coming to see Captain Europe or Captain Rome. | |
| They just made that movie. | |
| It's called Conclave. | |
| They've got that film. | |
| This is like the Blake Lively thing. | |
| It's like, get on board. | |
| Get on board with the PR machine. | |
| If you don't want to talk about this issue, don't do this movie. | |
| Go be in the weird trans movie and sing the penis to vagina song. | |
| Like you have options out there if you didn't understand people. | |
| I'm actually going to have nightmares about that critical watch. | |
| And I only watched it. | |
| God knows what poor Critical Drinker went through. | |
| Two hours of it. | |
| It was an experience. | |
| It really was. | |
| Esther, your thoughts on Captain America? | |
| You see, the thing is, it's a very cultural problem where these American celebrities feel the need to just overshare and to go off script and stuff. | |
| In other parts of the world, if you're promoting a film, particularly a film that they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in, you stay on script. | |
| You say the film is great. | |
| It's been non-being part of this cast, whatever. | |
| But it's American celebrities and this culture of narcissistic culture in Hollywood that makes them say, oh, yes, this doesn't really represent what America is right now. | |
| Who asked you? | |
| Who asked you? | |
| Who cares? | |
| Did anybody ask you anything about what you think about America right now? | |
| Well, so this is why they should never get into America. | |
| Who watched the great film that we spent a lot of time on? | |
| Well, I guess he's not, is he? | |
| He's just like trying to skirt around the issue. | |
| He's not saying it without anything. | |
| No one asked him about the issue. | |
| Your business there is to promote the film. | |
| Close your mouth. | |
| In a way, the movie in itself is kind of about Captain America versus government. | |
| When you see the film, that's kind of what it's tapping into. | |
| It's a Marvel film. | |
| It's a comic book film. | |
| It's boom, boom, kaboom. | |
| Happy days. | |
| Just like that. | |
| It's like James Bond. | |
| It's boom boom kaboom. | |
| It's like James Bond. | |
| We've had this debate before. | |
| We've had this debate before. | |
| It's like James Bond, right? | |
| You just want James Bond to be a hard-drinking, wildly promiscuous assassin. | |
| That's it. | |
| With a twinkle in his eye. | |
| And that's all you want. | |
| That's what women want him to be. | |
| It's what? | |
| Men want him to be, and if the Wokies just leave him alone right, bring him back from the dead. | |
| He was last seen crying, not allowed to touch any women, and the whole thing was just a complete fiasco. | |
| So now we've got to bring him back to the old franchise of Bond and we see someone that's going to take him back to the good old days James Bond. | |
| I can't believe we're having this conversation again. | |
| Well, it's about he's our Captain America, isn't it? | |
| They're very different. | |
| It's a completely different type of movie. | |
| They're not at all similar. | |
| I I understand why you're drawing comparison there, but they are. | |
| I think it's because there's this ongoing thing about what has happened to the James Bond franchise. | |
| They killed, but we don't know. | |
| I love James Bond and I want him to go back. | |
| Is an incredible Bond, so multi-layered till the end, until he became a modern man, and I think that's what we need from our modern man. | |
| He was an emasculated drip. | |
| He became a wetting, and in real life, and in Real life, you kept wearing a papoose. | |
| I mean, it's just ridiculous. | |
| I don't want to hear about yourself. | |
| Anyway, great panel. | |
| Thank you all very much. | |
| Great to see you all, James. | |
| Welcome back. | |
| Thank you. | |
| It's been a while. | |
| Don't leave us along next time. | |
| Cheers, everyone. | |