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March 1, 2025 - Where There's Woke - Thomas Smith
42:40
WTW77: What Happens to Male Celebrities When They Give Bad Interviews?
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Time Text
What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here, and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, everything, everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 77. I'm Thomas Smith.
That over there is Lydia Smith.
How are you doing?
Hello.
I am doing okay.
My voice is still gone.
The way you answered that question, wow.
It made me want to quit my job.
I don't know how I'm going to, for the longest time, I blame myself.
For eight years.
Yeah.
It is time that Lydia Smith has taken down.
Dang.
People are tired of this behavior.
Wow.
They're tired of it.
So fucking ridiculous.
So yes, we got to continue debunking the fuck out of the idea that Blake Lively, the hate on Blake Lively is like warranted in any way.
Yeah.
Whatsoever.
By the way, when I say that, important time to say.
I don't know Blake Lively.
I have no fucking idea.
I literally hadn't seen anything she was in.
I swear to God, I had never seen a thing that I know of that she's been in.
And if I did, I forgot.
I don't care.
She might actually be like not that great of a person.
It doesn't matter because what we need to be talking about is was this warranted relative to replacement level celebrity Hollywood stuff?
Yeah.
Because any...
Celebrity, you can find stories of people hating them and they're a monster or whatever, for the most part.
There's like two exceptions and they're both men.
It'll be like Keanu Reeves and...
Like Tom Holland.
Tom Holland and the Fonz.
Oh, Henry Winkler.
Henry Winkler.
Everyone loves Henry Winkler.
And that's great for him.
I love that.
That's cool.
But other than that, everybody has these stories.
And so...
This is not a Blake Lively is above any and all criticism and is a deity.
I don't fucking give a shit about that.
What I'm telling you is this is bullshit.
Yeah.
This is absolutely bullshit.
And this is part two of this is bullshit for this one.
This will be fun.
I got to give you some examples of men in, I don't even know if I can call it equivalent situations.
It's going to be fun.
And it really, like, I've been thinking a lot about this, and it's just really interesting to talk about the gender dynamics here and, like, how much of an uphill battle it is for, again, people who are not, like, the dominant demographic of society to try to speak up at all about their discomfort in any way.
And how easy it is for men to get away with stuff, essentially.
So we'll take our little break, and then we'll get to that.
Congratulations on your little break.
Congratulations on your little break.
Fucking, I quit.
I quit my job.
I quit.
I can't handle this abuse.
All right.
I know we've debunked this to death.
We're not going to go through her videos anymore, Kirstie Fla, because fuck that.
Although, I am going to make one point about her videos, which is she tried to kind of continue on this, like, celebrities behaving badly kick.
And I think that was probably the Anne Hathaway one, which she had some success for that.
She had a few other things, but she tried to do like the next one she did.
It was two months ago.
She posted, this might be my most uncomfortable interview experience ever.
Interesting.
And it's with Ezra Miller, who is insane.
Yeah.
And this is nine minutes and I'm not going to play through the whole thing.
He doesn't say anything that's like physically threatening or anything.
But he's so fucking weird that I would be like, wow, am I in danger right now?
Like, this is a weird thing.
I can play some of it just to see.
So when people meet you now, or like, especially kids maybe, are they like, is this the Flash?
Is it Credence?
Are they kind of like, how do they approach you?
That's how I feel when I'm trying to figure out how to approach myself.
You're talking about my internal process, but no, kids don't know who I am.
They're like...
You're stupid.
Pay attention.
That's what a kid said to me once.
There was like this three-year-old who just looked at me and was like, Pay attention!
And I was like, You are absolutely right.
Where did you come from, you wise little sage?
Who gave you all these knowledges and powers?
I guess it was God.
And then he hit me.
What?
And he knocked my head three-quarters.
Of the way off my body, like nearly headless neck, and that's why I have this terrible scar.
Do you see it?
No, what?
You can't see it?
No, I can't see it.
But I believe you.
I mean, my hands are bright red.
Yeah, what happened to your hands?
It's probably from that incident, though, because it was really, it changed a lot about my life.
Yeah, it's just crazy.
Ezra just goes crazy.
And it's disturbing and weird and uncomfortable.
The first thing I want to say is it's so interesting.
To see the comments.
Because, again, this is the double standard that exists.
People are like, well, wow, cocaine is a hell of a drug.
This is why you don't do drugs.
They're kooky.
Yeah, yeah.
This one, he didn't seem like a bully to me.
He seemed like he was completely full of himself and really high on something.
I don't see his behavior as rude, but on a completely different planet than most people.
They just monologued for a while, not letting Kirstie talk.
But no, this is weird.
It's kooky.
It's, wow, drugs.
It's bad.
I'm not saying they like Ezra or that the commenters are like, this is fine.
But that's the key difference is they'll find one thing, the earliest, easiest thing to completely dismiss the very existence of a woman who they want to.
And then a male presenting person can be literally the most insane fucking person ever.
I'm not saying they're fans of it, but it's just they don't disqualify.
That's the thing that's really key that I noticed, especially like arguing about fucking Trump and Hillary forever.
It's not as though like there weren't criticisms of Hillary.
There were valid criticisms of Hillary.
But it's the same thing we run into every time where there's a difference between a criticism and finding a way to discount someone's entire personhood instantly.
Like they just find something where it's disqualifying, that they don't do with men.
Trump had plenty of things, but it wasn't ever like, oh, and that's why we can't vote for him forever.
It was like, eh, you know.
Ezra Miller has, like, a very complicated history, like, legally and, like, abusively, like, that people are responding in the comments section as if, like, none of that exists is kind of crazy to me, too.
Yeah, well, this interview is from 2018 or something, or 2019. Yeah, but I mean, it's the comments of people.
Commenting on the video now.
Well, and it's so funny because she's not doing the same like Hollywood.
You know, like it's uncomfortable.
It's weird.
It's not, I was going to quit my job.
Why didn't this make you want to quit your job?
Yeah.
This would absolutely more make me want to quit my job than congrats on your little bump.
This is insane.
Yeah.
So getting off the Kirstie Flaw train, I just want to give more examples of...
Things that women could never do in a million fucking years.
And this is my favorite.
This is my favorite one.
I forget if you know this, but I love this one.
This is so good.
Kick your fucking ass!
I want you off the fucking set, you prick!
Sorry.
No, don't just be sorry.
Think for one fucking second.
The fuck are you doing?
Are you professional or not?
Yes, I am.
Do I fucking walk around and rip down?
No, shut the fuck up, Bruce.
Do I what?
No!
No!
Don't shut me up.
Am I going to walk around and rip your fucking lights down in the middle of a scene?
Then why the fuck are you walking right through?
Like this in the background.
What the fuck is it with you?
What don't you fucking understand?
You got...
Any fucking idea about, hey, it's fucking distracting having somebody walking up behind Bryce in the middle of the fucking scene?
Give me a fucking answer!
What don't you get about it?
I was looking at the light.
Oh, good for you!
And how was it?
I hope it was fucking good because it's useless now, isn't it?
Fuck's sake, man, you're amateur.
Jeez.
Like, feels fake.
Like...
McG, you got fucking something to say to the clip?
We're not even a third of the way.
Well, somebody should be fucking watching and keeping an eye on him.
Fair enough.
This is the second time that he doesn't give a fuck about what is going on in front of the camera.
All right?
I'm trying to fucking do a scene here, and I'm going, why the fuck is Shane walking in there?
What is he doing there?
Do you understand my mind is not in the scene if you're doing that?
I absolutely apologize.
Sorry, I did not mean anything back.
Stay off the fucking set, man.
I'm going to keep going.
Let's have fun.
For fuck's sake.
So insane.
Let's go again.
Let's not take a fucking minute.
Let's go again!
And let's not have you fucking walking in!
Can I have Tom put this on, please?
You're unbelievable, man.
You're un-fucking-believable.
Still going.
Number of times you're strolling the fucking round in the background.
I've never had a DP behave like this.
Ah, you don't fucking understand what it's like working with actors.
That's what that is.
That's what that is, man.
I'm telling you.
I'm not asking.
I'm telling you.
You wouldn't have done that otherwise.
No, what it is is looking at the light and making sure that that would be cool.
I'm going to fucking kick your fucking ass.
You don't shut up for a second, alright?
I'm gonna go, do you want me to go fucking trash your lights?
Do you want me to fucking trash them?
Then why are you trashing my scene?
You are trashing my scene!
You do it one more fucking time, and I ain't walking on this set if you're still hired.
I'm fucking serious.
You're a nice guy.
You're a nice guy, but I don't fucking cut it when you're bullshitting and fucking around like this on set.
Yeah, you might get it.
He doesn't fucking get it.
I get it.
You might.
I get it.
He does not get it.
Good adjustments, okay?
For real.
Honestly, I get it.
Walk for five seconds.
No, I don't need any fucking walking.
He needs to stop walking.
I ain't the one walking.
Let's get Tom and put this back on.
Let's go again.
Seriously, man.
You and me, we're fucking done professionally.
By the way, that movie was Terminator Salvation.
Really?
It's the movie you should care least about.
It wasn't The Godfather 2. And we all know this was in 2008. And Christian Bale never worked again after that.
What happened?
Is he still alive?
What happened to him?
Good question.
Too bad.
He had a good...
He had a lot of potential, I think.
It's too bad that he squandered it, never to make another film.
Nope!
Totally fine.
Totally fine.
I just would love to play the side-by-side.
No, don't just be sorry.
Think for one fucking second.
What the fuck are you doing?
Okay, we got that.
And then let's see if we play the equivalent here.
First of all, congrats on your little bump.
Congrats on your little bump.
Well, I guess I see how hers is worse now that I think about it.
I guess I get how that's worse than this.
Are you professional or not?
Do I fucking walk around?
I see it.
Yeah, no, you're right.
That's worse.
What she did was worse.
Here's another fun one.
I love this.
We're going to go to another actor who never worked again.
Content note, extreme racism on this one, by the way, for real.
I don't work around in tight clothes.
- I stayed at home for most of the time.
Who is that?
Another actor who never...
Oh, you don't know who that is?
No.
Oh, it's Mel Gibson.
Oh.
Now, Mel Gibson did take a reputational hit.
Don't get me wrong.
But that should be career-ending.
Listen, he's an ambassador to Hollywood now, so...
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Thanks to Trump.
It is so...
It's way worse.
There's more to it.
It's really racist and disturbing, to be honest with you.
So I don't want to play more.
It's awful.
That's something that should be...
Oh, never mind.
You're done forever.
Like, if people had...
The reaction they have to Blake Lively saying congrats on your little bump to that, that would be great.
Now, Mel Gibson lost work, sure, but he made a comeback.
He's in stuff.
Here's the thing.
If I do a search for Blake Lively, I get we're in the midst of the thing.
I get we're in the midst of the thing.
There is not a single result that is not Blake Lively should be fucking killed and die and she's the worst and she's the worst.
If I search Mel Gibson, I have to specifically find this.
And I get there's a difference in time, but...
That shouldn't be how it is.
This should be the end of Mel Gibson.
Also, like, he did stuff that was horrific over and over and over and over again.
Like, we're talking about, like, a moment that some people didn't like how she phrased a response.
That's crazy that that juxtaposition is there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's another fun one down memory lane.
Hey, I want to tell you something, okay?
And I want to leave a message for you right now, because again, it's 10.30 here in New York on a Wednesday, and once again, I've made an ass of myself trying to get you a phone to call you at a specific time.
When the time comes for me to make the phone call, I stop whatever I'm doing, and I go when I make that phone call at 11 o'clock in the morning in New York, and if you don't pick up the phone at 10 o'clock at night, and you don't even have that goddamn phone turned on, I want you to know something, okay?
I'm tired of playing this game with you.
I'm leaving this message with you to tell you, you have insulted me for the last time.
You have insulted me.
You don't have the brains or the decency.
As a human being, I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old or 11 years old or that you're a child or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass.
Oh, my God.
Who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned.
You have humiliated me for the last time on this phone.
And when I come out there next week, I'm going to fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue.
I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again.
You've made me feel like shit and you've made me feel like a fool over and over and over again.
And this crap you pull on me with this goddamn phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother.
And you do it to me constantly and over and over again.
I am going to get on a plane or I'm going to come out there for the day and I'm going to straighten your ass out when I see you.
Do you understand me?
I'm going to really make sure you get it.
Then I'm going to get on a plane.
I'm going to turn around and I'm going to come home.
So you better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me.
So I'm going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are.
You are a rude, faultless little pig.
Okay?
To replay this, man.
That's so crazy.
I see how hers is worse, though.
Congrats on you.
You know, I get it.
Like, it's...
Man, maybe I should have thought more deeply about this because that is worse, you know, than yelling at a 12-year-old girl, your daughter.
Yeah, it's so crazy.
A 12-year-old girl.
And we all know that happened, I think it was like 2007. Alec Baldwin never worked again.
Yeah.
Was never in another thing.
Man.
Here's what's the crazy part about it.
The things these men are doing are actually representative of a horrible person.
Look, I'm going to eventually play Christian Bale apologizing, which he does very well.
It's hard because I like Christian Bale's work.
I like Christian Bale.
I actually really, really like Alec Baldwin as an actor.
I've always known he's an asshole, so it hasn't been like a...
I've never...
I've kind of always had that like, oh, I like his acting and know he's an asshole at the same time and haven't really, you know...
I do think it's one thing to be an asshole to other grown-ups.
It's another thing to be an asshole like that to a child.
To a 12-year-old girl.
And to like your kid.
And to my point, they're going to say, these men will all say, ah, you know, I got angry.
Yeah.
But it's like, I don't care how mad I ever get in my whole entire life.
I would never do something like that.
It's not possible.
And so while a split second, congrats on your little bump, is disqualifying her as a human, she's not a human anymore.
They go into this like, well, she's a narcissist.
You can tell how she's doing.
Like they go into this extreme psychoanalysis of how she's a pathological narcissist.
She's a psychopath.
Like this is, you see all this.
It's nonstop.
She's a psychopath abuser.
But then a man yells, first off, no one cares, or it's like, oh, man, it was funny that he was mad in that moment.
And we don't go like, geez, what kind of person could possibly do that?
It's crazy.
Oh, here's the one that I love, I think is a great direct comparison here.
I'll tell you a story.
This is true.
I'm not going to use any names, but I was away and I came back and she told me she had been raped.
But she handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way.
But my immediate reaction was...
I asked, did she know who there was?
No.
What colour were they?
She said it was a black person.
I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be...
Approached by somebody.
I'm ashamed to say that.
And I did it for maybe a week, hoping some black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know, so that I could kill him.
And it took me a week, maybe a week and a half to kind of go for that.
And she said to me, where are you going?
I said, I'm just going out for a walk, you know.
What's wrong?
Nothing's wrong.
Fine.
It was horrible.
Horrible.
When I think back.
But I did that.
And I've never admitted that to it.
I'm saying it to a journalist.
God forbid.
Holy shit.
It's awful.
But I did learn a lesson from it.
You learned a lesson.
And I eventually thought, what the fuck are you doing, you know?
And I come from a society.
I grew up in Northern Ireland and the Troubles.
And, you know, I... I knew a couple of guys that died at Amber Strike, and I had acquaintances that were very caught up in the troubles.
And I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge and more killing and more killing.
And, you know, Ireland learned that as proof of that, you know.
All the stuff that's happening in the world at the minute, the violence is proof.
Yeah, what he learned was revenge isn't good.
What he learned.
Yeah, it's kind of interesting to me that he's like, oh, that's the first time I've told anyone about that.
Like, maybe you should have told a therapist about that first.
If you look at the comments under where he, you know, clarified his revenge remarks and said he wasn't racist, everybody is so quick to not only accept that everything is fine with Liam Neeson, but how dare anyone even be upset about this?
This was one where I covered at the time, and I still can't believe there might be some people who don't understand, that, like, you can't confess to, I wanted to go kill a black person at random.
Like, I literally wanted to commit a race murder at random because I was mad.
And then I learned that you shouldn't get so mad.
It's like, no, man.
The part you needed to learn most was you don't...
Punish an entire race of people and potentially commit racial violence because of one individual's actions.
If he had told the story, I think he told the story as it happened, so fair enough.
But if what had happened had been, oh, you were raped, who did it?
I'm going to go find them and kill them.
If the story had been and I walked around just hoping I would find that guy and I would kill him.
I don't think anyone would have.
I mean, I'd be like, yeah, it's not good.
But, like, I get it.
Like, I would get that reaction.
That's an anger reaction.
But he was completely oblivious.
To this day, I think he was completely oblivious about the obvious racism of saying, I'm going to go find someone of the same color skin and murder them.
Yeah, it's so crazy.
And people are like, he isn't racist.
Let the man be.
And then a bunch of what I can only imagine are definitely real people.
As a black man, I give respect to this man.
Society.
Men, talk about your feelings.
Men, talking about their feelings.
Society.
We actually weren't ready for that.
I don't think he's racist.
It's amazing.
You have to appreciate the amount of courage it took for him to say that.
It's incredible.
The amount will bend over backwards.
And as we all know, six years ago, Liam Neeson never made another film.
Never in another thing.
So what I also did was, and we don't have to go through it, but to further illustrate the point.
I was looking for like, oh, celebrities that ruin their career with one interview, and that's a topic.
And I noticed something about them.
Again, 20 celebrities that ruin their careers with one interview.
They don't all fit exactly, but let me just list them and see if you notice something.
Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Cruise, Piers Morgan, Liam Neeson, it was this one, Michael Jackson, Lance Armstrong, Paula Abdul, Katherine Heigl, Megan Fox, R. Kelly.
First off, ruin their careers.
Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, no.
Also, R. Kelly ruined his career doing something else.
Exactly.
So, R. Kelly, that interview was crazy.
Remember the one where he's yelling?
I don't know if I've seen that.
It's insane.
I mean, it is insane.
How stupid would it be for me with my crazy past and what I've been through?
Oh, right now, I just think I need to be a monster and hold girls against their will, chain them up in my basement, and don't let them eat and don't let them out unless they need some shoes down the street from their uncle.
Stop it.
Y'all quit playing.
Quit playing.
I didn't do this stuff.
This is not me, y'all.
I'm fighting for my life.
Y'all killing me with this.
I gave y'all 30 years of my career.
30 years of my career.
Y'all trying to kill me.
You're killing me, man.
This is not about music.
I'm trying to have a relationship with my kids and I can't do it.
Y'all just don't want to believe the truth.
You don't want to believe it.
Yeah.
The people who actually, quote-unquote, ruined their careers with one interview...
You could say Lance Armstrong, but I don't know if it mattered.
I think it was after the fact.
And he admitted to doping.
So that should ruin people's esteem for him.
Yeah, you cheated.
R. Kelly is a fucking nutjob criminal.
Serial rapist.
Yeah.
That should ruin his career.
The female examples of Megan Fox, Katherine Heigl, and Paula Abdul.
Now, Paula Abdul was really high or something.
She was on substances.
And I don't know if she had a substance abuse problem.
She probably did.
When was that?
I think it was 13 years ago.
Okay.
That one's not great.
The Katherine Heigl one is weird because it's like nothing.
That one's weird.
Megan Fox.
So, on one hand, we have, I think, three categories here.
We have men who did things that were fucking insane.
Whose careers were not ruined.
Tom Cruise.
Joaquin Phoenix is a weird one.
I mean, he did that Letterman appearance.
Like, again, that's a thing that only a man can do.
You can say, well, but it turned out it was for a movie.
It's like, yeah, but that's crazy.
He just went and ruined a David Letterman night by just not talking because it was like, that's okay.
I mean, I guess.
But the point is, that's very weird and it definitely didn't affect him in any way.
Piers Morgan, that's a little tricky because he's political.
So, you know, those kind of people, I think people on the left don't give a shit and people on the right are fine with him because he's on the right.
But his career is not over.
Tom Cruise.
Was Tom Cruise's career ruined after the couch thing, hon?
Did he?
No.
Never made another film after that.
Not even Michael Jackson.
That interview was very weird where he talks about, like, it's not weird that he sleeps with a...
The point is, there's three categories.
There's men who did something incredibly weird whose careers absolutely weren't ruined.
There's men who, a couple men who did something criminal or horrible whose careers absolutely should have been ruined, and they kind of were.
And then there's women who had kind of bad interviews.
It illustrates the very point that we're so quick.
To completely disqualify women.
Whereas men get chance after chance after chance.
And when they are ruined, it's because they finally did something so goddamn horrible that there's no denying it.
We can even dial it in even more so, right?
Where we're not talking about one-on-one interviews.
We can talk specifically about differences in press tour, where it is like these quick, repetitive...
I mean, like, Sad Affleck, right?
The whole meme about, like, where Ben Affleck is, like, just looking down, he looks sad, like, for all of these questions during press tour for Batman vs.
Superman, and people just thought it was funny, you know?
But if you're the interviewer, like, it's kind of rude.
Like, that's sort of a rude interaction.
I want to start by saying that I think, honestly, one of the biggest things that I feel...
They just suck.
That's not among the biggest thing that I hope people learn from this.
Well, yeah, I know.
But I hope that's a little other thing that people learn from this, that press tours are so bad.
No one cares.
They only care because they want to take down Blake Lively.
No one cares about press tours.
Well, I guess I'm looking at it from the angle for the actors, too.
Like, for the industry.
And, like, you know, Jonah Hill, problematic guy, but, like, he has explicitly said he will not do press tour anymore because of his mental health.
It caused anxiety attacks for him.
I sent you a video, actually, where they did an Oscar roundtable, and Brad Pitt, another problematic guy, but he speaks about this.
Well, now I'm on my own soapbox, because it just, you know, it's the other thing that you didn't sign up for, that suddenly, you know, you get to...
You put yourself out in a film, you lay it on the line, and that's what you believe your job is.
But then there's this whole other entity that you get sucked into, and it's this publicity machine that you have to go and sell your wares.
And it's something I've never made my peace with, I wrestled with it, and it's out of control.
Somehow you're not supporting your film if you don't get out and get on a show and talk about your personal life.
I don't know, I find it so, like...
It just has such a bad feeling.
And it has nothing to do with what I, you know, why I do this.
And I think that's a fair perspective to have there.
I mean, and like there's other examples where, you know, like Harrison Ford has kind of made a name for himself in the press tour industry.
They call him grumpy.
Like that's how they frame.
His interactions with the press while he's promoting films.
There's a 2013 article in The Wire where it says, quote, It's a universally acknowledged truth that Harrison Ford is sort of a grump.
He's been especially grouchy in his later years, giving hilariously gruff, contentious interviews to various magazines of record.
Today, Zach Barron of GQ posted an Ender's Game interview with Ford, who, Barron writes, manages to give a couple of full-sentence replies.
Take, for instance, this exchange.
Question, what was it like filming a space movie in the age of CGI? Does it force you to work differently?
Harrison Ford answers, no, acting is about using your imagination.
That's it.
Question, is there a trick to making seemingly ridiculous dialogue like when the aliens first invaded work?
Answer, yeah, that's my job.
That's why I get paid.
And no one is categorizing this as like, what a rude person for not engaging in this question and answer like, that interviewer deserved way more, etc., etc.
He's a bully.
They just say, oh, you know, what a grouch.
What a grumpy guy.
Yeah.
It's endearing for men.
Yeah.
It gets to be a character trait or a thing that like we all, the world, that's what it is.
Oh, well.
That's how he is.
The world shall adjust.
Yeah, exactly.
But when it's a woman expressing any discomfort, no, the fuck you aren't.
Yeah.
You need to change.
How dare you have boundaries.
Absolutely.
And there's another thing.
So I referenced the Christian Bale apology.
And I want to play this, and it's along those lines because...
It really got me thinking about the dynamics that lead to that.
Hello there, guys.
Hello, Christian.
How are you?
How are you doing, fellas?
Doing well, sir.
Who am I talking to?
Oh, no!
This is Ralph, Kevin, and Bean, and Lisa Mays also here in the studio, Christian.
All right, well, listen, I spoke with you guys a few years back.
You seem like good guys, but I wanted to talk with you about it.
Oh, no!
Are we being punked right here, Ralph?
No, you're not.
This is really Christian Bell.
Please tell us it's not.
Believe me, this is no punk.
Wow.
Christian has apparently heard some of the segments.
We've been doing since the release of that audio tape.
I gotta tell you, I have to tell you, listen, it has been a miserable week for me.
Sure.
And you guys, I was driving in the car, at least I think it was you guys I was listening to.
Right.
And you made me laugh in the midst of all this crazy stuff.
I find that hard to believe.
Really?
So, listen, I know I have a potty mouth.
Everybody knows that now.
Right.
But I understand this is live, so please don't worry, I will behave.
If you don't, we are done professionally, Christian.
Now listen, can you let me make a few comments?
Yes, sure.
We'd love to give you the opportunity.
Thank you for calling.
The thing that I really want to stress is I have no confusion whatsoever.
I was out of order beyond belief.
I was way out of order.
I acted like a punk.
I regret that.
And there is nobody that has heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me.
So I make no excuses for it.
It is inexcusable.
And I hope that that is absolutely clear.
You know?
One thing that has really disturbed me throughout this, because I'm just...
I'm not familiar.
I'm not comfortable yet with this notion of being a movie star.
I'm an actor, and I don't quite know how to handle the movie star thing.
And the thing that disturbs me so much is that I've heard a lot of people saying that I seem to think I'm better than anybody else.
And nothing could be farther from the truth.
I am a lucky...
I don't want to swear.
I'm a lucky movie.
That's what I do.
I never forget that, and that is why.
I put so much into what I do and why I care so much about it and why sometimes that enthusiasm just goes awry, you know?
I would play this whole thing.
It's 10 minutes.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I listened to the whole thing, and it's so interesting to think about because, for one, it's like, yes, I mean, he did pretty much probably, like, the best apologizing you can do for something like that.
And it comes across, it's like, it's charming.
It's like, you have this feeling, I mean, don't let me speak for you if I'm wrong, but you have this feeling of like, ah!
Yes, he gets it.
Oh, it's charming.
Oh, exactly.
How the woman responded like, aww.
Yeah, yeah.
That wasn't me, folks.
I was actually going to say that same thing.
But you have that feeling.
And I thought about it.
And he goes on, he talks about how the guy, he apologized that day, and he's like, oh, people said it almost got physical, which, yeah, you heard in the fucking recording.
He's like, it didn't get physical.
That guy's way bigger than me.
Never would have gotten physical.
I didn't really believe what I was saying.
I was in the moment of the character of, you know, because my character was supposed to be a little crazy in that scene, and it just buried reality.
And he actually has another insightful point, which is, I think, one of the radio idiots is like, oh, and you know, a set is a safe...
Space to experiment and kind of thing.
And Christian Bale says, oh, yeah, but that shouldn't cover up bad behavior.
Like, that's not the point of that is not to.
So, like, he says all the things.
Not to treat crew badly.
That is a safe place to experiment with.
Exactly.
And he makes that point.
And he does pretty much all the things.
He does all the apology, all the things.
Yeah.
But I was thinking about it.
And I was like, in real terms, though, that's like what he did was insane.
Yeah.
And if Alec Baldwin, I haven't looked it up, but if he did an apology.
Where he hit all the notes, let's say.
I did think, yeah, he repaired the relationship with his daughter, but yeah.
Yeah, but no.
Like, in real terms, what should be happening is, I don't think you could ever apologize for that.
Especially Alec Baldwin.
I don't think you could ever apologize for saying those things to a 12-year-old girl.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't say never as in he should be cast out of society, but like...
I don't know that you should really be, like, a celebrity after that.
I think that should be like, all right, you know, like, you're around, but, like, that's fucking, that's really bad.
You know, that's like, as I said earlier, that's such an actual look into someone's bad character.
And this Christian Bale thing, I mean, you just find yourself wanting to excuse it.
You find yourself being like, oh, he's in character, he's not really that.
And maybe that's true.
But when I found myself wanting to excuse it, I was just thinking, you know?
My first thought was, imagine how scary that must have been in that moment.
Terrifying.
Terrifying.
Actually terrifying.
And my first thought was like, yeah, and like imagine how not terrifying it is to hear, congrats on your little bum and the difference there, obviously.
But then I also realized like that's kind of, I think that might be the bottom line, very basic evolutionary, if you want to call it that, reason why some of this dynamic exists.
If a man is very angry and yelling and genuinely scary and then wants to apologize, you want to be like, oh, thank God.
Oh, fucking.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah, I get it.
Obviously.
Because, like, just historically, just because of who men are and who women are.
Yeah.
If a scary, dangerous person, we'll say, is scary and dangerous and then wants to apologize, you want to make it okay.
It's in your interest of safety to make it okay.
And I think that there's no way that that isn't a lesson that is learned at just almost an instinctual level.
It doesn't apply in every situation.
Now you could say, well, now we're not in that situation.
Like, you could call the cops.
Yeah, but okay, we're dealing with base instincts here.
Like, we're dealing with how we perceive people.
And I really think that is tied to these dynamics where you want it to be okay.
You are desperate psychologically, I think, for this to be okay.
Because then that's one less scary, dangerous thing happening in that moment.
Whereas women, we're not scared of women.
Society is not scared of women in this way.
Society is not worried about women kicking our ass.
We're just not.
As a society, we're not worried about that.
So for women, when they step slightly out of line, we can be like, you know what?
Fuck you.
We hate you forever.
What are you going to do about it?
What are you going to do about it?
I really think that's what's going on.
I think that's a huge part of this whole dynamic.
And it's depressing.
It was just a realization I had just thinking about how scary he would have been and how much that makes you want to forgive someone.
And then just the pure physical differences going back through time being a reason why you just don't feel that.
Women are the ones who have to conform.
Because of that danger, we don't have to conform to women.
We don't have to sit there and be like, well, I guess that's just how that woman is.
I guess that's just how Harrison Ford is.
I guess, you know, like, we don't do that.
We're not accommodating to that whatsoever.
Yeah.
It's really interesting.
And here's another thing that makes me think of.
People might say, and I think this is almost a point, people might say, yeah, but Blake didn't even apologize.
All she has to do, a lot of them say that, all she has to do is apologize.
And we'd be fine.
First off, no, you wouldn't.
Yeah, I know.
Secondly, she's currently in a legal situation, and let me tell you from experience, you cannot fucking dare apologize.
Our legal system sucks.
If she admits any wrongdoing or any hand in her reputation going south, that will be exhibit A1 in the case against her trying to capture damages, even if she did deserve them.
Again, even if she totally deserved them.
Even if we want to say hypothetically she's responsible for, I don't know, 20% and he's responsible for 80% or whatever, you cannot admit that.
You absolutely cannot because of the legal system.
But also think about, again, if we talk about this as kind of a longstanding gender dynamic, possibly, this is just me theorizing, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's got a lot to do with it.
Just imagine going through time and having this dynamic where men like Christian Bale apologize and they get that reaction.
You almost like him more.
Yeah.
And imagine over time that learned behavior.
Oh, I can apologize and I get that reaction.
And women being like, well, if I even try to apologize, for one, I have to apologize for behavior that's one one billionth as bad.
Yeah.
And I don't feel like I should have to apologize for that.
I would think if it were me.
And two, when they apologize, I don't even know that it's accepted.
Yeah, too little, too late.
She's just trying to give narcissists, trying to get our affection back.
And so it's like, for that reason.
What are people going to learn over time?
What are men going to learn over time?
And what are women going to learn over time about what's acceptable and how they can apologize and how it will be received?
You know, it's like, this is all a load of bullshit, is what I want to say.
That is my grand thesis here.
And we didn't get to talk about the fact that, like, this is the same YouTube audience, YouTube, TikTok.
A big reason we're covering this on Gavel Gavel is this is the same misinformation, anti-woke, conservative, reactionary force that is responsible for Trump and the world ending.
Like it may be some of the very same people.
We know Ben Shapiro is covering it.
But like if you want to listen to the Gavel Gavel, which you should, we're eventually going to get into it.
Like the allegation of the media manipulation, the social media manipulation, and the fact that there is this angry crowd.
There's another thing that I'm going to cover and I don't know on which show yet.
But then there's this feedback loop too where people on YouTube and TikTok realize that that's what gets them the views.
And then there's this feedback loop.
And it's really interesting because Gavel Gavel being a law show and coming at things from that angle, I have a bunch of examples of lawyers forgetting how to be a lawyer or conveniently forgetting what law is in order to capitalize on this misogynistic hatred.
And it is so emblematic of everything the show and all our projects are about.
It's the reactionary.
Anti-feminist, anti-broadly woke emotion that is so easy for people to feel and so difficult to fight against, and it leads to so much misinformation.
It leads people to not question things.
It leads people to be unskeptical when it's something like, oh, angry college kid doing that.
They just accept it at face value because it's everything that they want.
It's everything.
It's all their biases packaged into a nice, neat thing.
And to end with where we began, That book of scientists writing about how the biggest threat to science is the woke in this moment when, like, you might as well have Trump and Elon destroying a thing, literal thing called science.
They might as well be dipping it into a volcano and then those people being like, see, it's the woke people.
Yeah, I mean, who knows what kind of flu shot we're going to have next year.
An anti-woke one that's going to get rid of the woke.
It'll be bleach.
So, I hope folks found that interesting, as interesting as I did.
It's really just...
I just can't stop thinking about this.
It's so fascinating.
Just to kind of tease, I think, some of the direction we're going to go on this show with the coverage, too.
Coming up, we're going to be talking a little bit about that right-wing media and their leveraging of this situation for their brands and their pipeline of viewers.
Oh, yeah.
Looking forward to it.
Specifically in front of a very large crowd at CPAC. CPAC! Yep.
Next time on Where There's Woke.
Can't wait.
Well, thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for supporting.
And again, if you want to, check out Gabble Gabble.
And we're just so excited to have you listening.
And we'll see you next episode.
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