Modern WisdomModern Cinema Patronises Young Women - Baggage Claim
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 26,870 words- 0:00 – 0:19
Intro
- BCBaggage Claim
I can't believe I have to say this, but, like, just because you're a woman does not mean you are inherently good. You can be crazy. You can be destructive. And that's what I like about shows like House of the Dragon, is that it shows destructive capabilities that are both masculine and feminine.
- CWChris Williamson
The next
- 0:19 – 10:11
Emotional Evolution of James Bond
- CWChris Williamson
James Bond films will have bigger roles for women and a more sensitive 007 according to the producers, who said, "Bond is evolving just as men are evolving." This is from The Telegraph. Producers said Daniel Craig's successor will continue the work of cracking Bond open emotionally as the franchise seeks to evolve. Next gen Bonds film will have bigger roles for women, more sensitive to 007. Bond is evolving. Brabra- Barbara Broccoli (laughs) said that the next actor will take the role, continue the work of Daniel Craig. Craig's last film, No Time To Die, humanized Bond by making him a devoted family man. It also featured meatier roles for female characters. What are your thoughts on this?
- BCBaggage Claim
So I think partially it makes sense to me and partially it doesn't. Um, I'm glad that the strategy isn't to just, uh, have a female, you know, play James Bond and completely change the character, because James Bond is a male character. And I think an important aspect of having more female characters and female heroes should come with creating new heroes for females, or, you know, new roles for females. Uh, but the idea of making James Bond more sensitive, I guess I would ask what they would mean by that. I think part of what's very attractive about James Bond is that he is a macho, uh, character who's very, who's very powerful physically, but also mentally, that physical strength that is very, we encourage that in men, you know, specifically when they have very difficult jobs. Like, I think a couple, couple weeks ago, you spoke to someone who was, who was in the high rungs of the CIA, right? And it's not, it's not an easy thing to be doing work like that. It takes a lot of mental fortitude. And that's not to say that women can't do it or men can't do it. It's just a different type of strength that looks very masculine when, when, uh, a man like James Bond is doing it, and I think that's what makes him super attractive. Uh, I think if we take that and break it down and in the way that, you know, ev- every, every male character these days has ge- gotten this, like, deconstruction that's happening to him, where, uh, maybe he's a lot more emotional. Maybe he's a lot more, you know, showing-
- CWChris Williamson
Stupid.
- BCBaggage Claim
... showing his vulnerabilities (laughs) and stupid. That's definitely the biggest one. I think that's not the right approach to take to male characters. I think men who watch, you know, watch the movies, they look for inspiration is that, "How can I, too, emulate strength?" But that shouldn't ever come at, at the cost of then, you don't, your emotions don't exist. You're not a real person. You don't get to feel anything. It should never come to that. There are always extremes to anything, right? Uh, so I think if they go too extreme on the other end, where he stops being what makes James Bond so exciting and interesting, I think that would be a really big mistake. But I'm also glad that it's not the sort of 1950s approach to how ma- masculine and feminine, uh, people would interact with each other, right? Uh, where there was definitely a lot more misogyny in, in the 1950s and '60s in the way the female characters were treated. It's very dis- different, and I think Vesper Lynd was a very big shift, right? She was this, she was a great female character to introduce to... Well, obviously she was in the books, but it was very different in the movies. I like that approach, where it's become more of this equal thing, but it shouldn't, it shouldn't be that James Bond stops being James Bond.
- CWChris Williamson
I think the concern that people have is that James' character gets eviscerated, and he's left as sort of this husk of a man.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
We've seen, I mean, you do these amazing video essays online, and one of the best examples or two of the best examples I think have been Loki, what happened to him, and then Thor, and what happened to him-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... as well, like just completely gutted from being capable, confident guys that could overcome things to... Well, I mean, how would you describe what's happened to their trajectory?
- BCBaggage Claim
I think it's, um, it's a public humiliation. Uh, I think it, to me, the way those characters got written and how they evolved from, let's say, their initial introduction onto the, onto the screen, it felt as if, uh, the writers were exacting some form of revenge on, on these characters, um, and taking all of the things that made them exciting, interesting, to let's just make them really stupid, and let's eclipse them with, uh, the, their obvious counterparts that are gonna be better than them, right? And that's the female version. There's a female Loki. There's a female Thor. And I think, um, it was less obvious with Thor, where they just, you know, where Jane wasn't necessarily a bad character in the way that she was written or anything like that. But, um, but they just really dumbed down Thor, you know? He's... His outfit, his hair, the fact that he grabs his hammer and, and, uh, yeah, his hammer, and it looks like a witch's broom, and he rides it. It was just so, it was so, such a farce to take a man that, that is supposed to be this god, right? And to completely make him this joke. And they took all the ideas that they built out in Ragnarok, and then just y- took it so much further that, uh, it just, it became an em- it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing to watch him.
- CWChris Williamson
What about Loki?
- BCBaggage Claim
... uh, Loki, it was less obvious but, you know, it was, it was similar things, that he's bumbling, he's dropping things, he's breaking things, you know. He's, he's not aware of the mission. He's kind of dancing around and singing for some reason and, and, uh, forgetting that he needs to be in disguise. And, and it's, it's, f- f- uh, female Loki, what was her name, um, Sylvie, she's the one who has her wits about her and, uh, she has to remind him that, "You are, uh, you're being a real idiot right now." And so it, it was things like that, that, um, with, even with Loki... Oh, he, the dressing downs he received repeatedly, right, even from, um, Owen Wilson's character where he says to him, like, "Calm down for a second, you know, you're..." Or him repeating, repeatedly having to affirm that he's better than the other Loki. How come the other Loki has more protection or security than him? And it's hard to then remember that when you look back on the first Avengers film where Loki's this formidable, uh, you know, almost like... I, I think, uh, Nerdrotic said this on, on the stream I did last week on, on Critical Drinkers thing, it, where he said it almost, it was like he was resurrected from hell, right? That that's how he was introduced into The Avengers as, uh, this really formidable force, and then now he's just this dancing monkey and he's, he's no threat at all. He's-
- CWChris Williamson
But-
- BCBaggage Claim
... in fact, easily, he just transitions away from his power, uh, you know, power-hungry phase.
- CWChris Williamson
Surely though for a long time women haven't been as represented when it comes to superhero movies and stuff like that.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it not a good thing? Is it not a- a- an advantage that we've now got females that are putting men in their place and telling them what they think about them?
- BCBaggage Claim
(laughs) I think it would be just as good as, as men putting women in their place and telling them that they're not so good. I think anything that is a reaction, um, that's such an intense pendulum swing where you are, you're motivated not by storytelling or, or sharing deeper human stories but instead you're motivated by revenge, I think n- nothing good ever comes out of that. It's good that there are more, uh, roles for women. That's great. But it's not good if those roles, uh, actually create a false perception of what it really means to be a woman. Uh, and what I mean by that is so much of, so many of the M- Marvel super female superheroes are p- so perfect that it's impossible to connect with them. It's impossible to know, um... U- you know, a deep connection with a character comes from seeing yourself in that person's place, and if you, if you do connect with these people you think your life is perfect and you think that you won't, you sh- you don't... Anything that wrong that goes in your life is undeserved, right? And that's a lot of the way that these stories are written is that there's not the traditional hero's journey, there's not the development of the power. It's more of, like, you're born, you have the power, um, and if anyone doubts it, it's coming from a place of malice, right? So even with female Loki, right, what does Loki say to her? "You're, you run rings around them. You're amazing. How did you learn magic?" "I taught myself." Right? And you'll see that theme throughout Marvel, even in Shang-Chi, which is a movie I actually liked. Um, uh, but the h- Shang-Chi's sister, whose name I can't remember right now, but, uh, s- his sister, she was not allowed to train with the boys and she just taught herself, and she's even better than Shang-Chi, right? She gives him that good old kick in the groin to prove that point. And I think what would traditionally happen is that if someone taught themselves anything, the idea would be that they have major holes in their knowledge that then, um, then they would be really, they would basically suffer consequences for not knowing about those gaps and then have to, have to fill that in and then excel to that next level. But that doesn't happen.
- CWChris Williamson
An
- 10:11 – 14:14
Unrealistic Female Characters
- CWChris Williamson
example of that might be the, um, classic MMA underdog story where the guy gets angry because the bully beat him up or stole his girl and he goes and kind of learns on his own, but goes into a MMA gym finally to find out that he doesn't know grappling or he doesn't know Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He has the gumption and the motivation to go and do the thing, but he needs to discipline it, he needs to be able to wrangle it within the existing format. So there's this sort of, um, wild brilliance that people come in with, but it still needs to be honed in that way, yet it seems that it's something that is self-generated at the moment, c- is already perfect. It blooms and blossoms into something that was better than it ever could have been.
- BCBaggage Claim
Right. Right. No, that's exactly right. So i- it's... I think, um, that's my main issue, is that my problem is never with the fact that there are so many female characters. I think what is wrong with that really? There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's that it, it's rooted in an understanding of, uh, of people that's not accurate and it's espousing a sense of entitlement that's not good on an individual level.
- CWChris Williamson
So what is it specifically? Give us some examples th- about characters that people wouldn't resonate with, female characters that girls particularly wouldn't resonate with and why.
- BCBaggage Claim
I think Sylvie is a good example of that, but maybe I can think of, um... Oh, you know what? Actually, She-Hulk is probably the best example of it, um, because so much of She-Hulk talks about, um, you know... Okay. She, she gets someone else's power. She gets her cousin's power. And her friend asks her-... are you g- is does mean- does that mean you're going to be part of the Avengers? And what does she say? She says, "No, it's for narcissists." And so th- immediately there's, there's an immediate cut down of one of the most successful stories that this universe has told, right? About a group of people that, that come together despite their, you know, varying power levels and personalities and they overcome a m- a major super villain, Thanos. And immediately it's like, no, they're all a bunch of narcissists or I think she calls them a- adult orphans and narcissists. And i- i- i- it right off the bat s- s- you know, sets that tone that if a group of people choose to live not for, let's say their own day-to-day glory, but to come together and do something that's dangerous and that's risky that might mean that they'll lose their lives, and some of them do lose their lives, and still they're willing to put their necks out on the line to do the right thing, that's somehow narcissistic. But then the whole show that follows is entirely revolved (plane flying) around her dating life, her ou- uh, wardrobe for some reason, her career which is, you know, that's fine, but the whole thing is about her, and that's okay. I think on a personal level that's fine, but how is that not a narcissistic en- endeavor in itself, right? I, I think people often now will start to look at it as like, "Oh, if you wanna put an outfit on and fight for the little guy, oh, you're just doing that for yourself. You're, you're a narcissist, right? You just want the glory. You want the brand name out there." But if it's female motivated, it's like if she wants to put herself out there and she wants to do, um, she wants to fight for the little guy in the courtroom instead of out on a battlefield, then that's okay. Her motivations are not, not to be questioned. Uh, and I think i- it's there's that, like, subtle difference that, uh, I think makes for people, makes f- makes her a bad representation out in the world for little girls to, to look at someone else who's putting out- putting themselves out there as narcissists, but my motivations are never to be questioned because I'm a female. I think that's a very bad lesson to teach anybody.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. That's interesting. I think that (clears throat)
- 14:14 – 23:57
How She-Hulk Patronises Women
- CWChris Williamson
you can see this catty, antagonistic sort of just petty behavior that comes through. It seem- it, it portrays women in kind of the most juvenile way all of the things that for quite a long time I think women have been trying to dispense with, this sort of-
- BCBaggage Claim
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you don't know me. There's this line from She-Hulk where she's saying, um, that "I deal with anger on a daily basis when men tell me about my area of expertise and when guys look at me on the street and when blah, blah, blah," like, you don't know anything about anger as she points at Bruce Banner, someone that apparently the law suggests his, uh, Hulk persona is his abused child battling with his real adult self. Like-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... ha- you're, you're going to say, you're genuinely going to sit there and tell the guy that was abused as a child that y- the fact that men catcall you on the street is-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... somehow comparable, but no, because you're a man-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... because you're coming from a place of patriarchal oppressive super- uh, how would you say, like, advantage, privilege, you, you don't get to, you don't get to make a comment about this. And I mean, let's just talk about the fact that in She-Hulk when she transforms into the She-Hulk, she's able to still speak and pick guys up and take them to bed and stuff.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, Bruce, Bruce Banner destroys cities.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
She presumably-
- BCBaggage Claim
And something else.
- CWChris Williamson
... annihilates guys' hips.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah. Oh, oh, my God, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBaggage Claim
I didn't even think about that, but yes. (laughs) I'll try not to think about that during the next episode, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- BCBaggage Claim
... uh, yeah, I, I think immediately she has, you know, control over her emotions, immediately, uh, she can speak like you mentioned, and the fact that she compares herself to what Bruce endured, right? Um, th- but this is another way that, uh, they're really driving home that point that men are s- you know, so clearly, um, you know, worse, worse than women in, in so many different ways that it took Bruce I think something like 15 years to come, you know, uh, come and really, I would say integrate with his shadow, right? Best way to put it. Um, and, and the fact that the story says that he saw his mother get, I think, get murdered by his father and that's why he has all this rage pent up, and here he is offering his wisdom, his expertise, but i- it's, it's so funny, it's like her very argument that if someone... that I have to control my anger as a woman when men in my level of expertise come and tell me what, what to do, and here she is putting down a man that has been the Hulk for so many years and dealt with it for so many years and he has his expertise and there's no room for her to even consider that he might teach her something, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Irony completely lost.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. Yes, but that's the whole point, right? I think one of my major motivations for starting this channel was that s- so m- especially in the last five years, I, I, you know, it, it has become a very polarized land across the west- western society in the way people view each other, think about each other's motivations, and it's also this, this massive belief that I should never wonder about my own motivations and what drives me. But I should always wonder about what drives everybody else and it's the if I am a woman, if I am brown, if I'm an immigrant, I fall into all of those categories, I'm perfect. There's no reason for me to doubt what I should, what I should, uh, what I'm saying, what I'm doing, how I'm treated peop- uh, treating people, and that's what I hear. Like, I was hearing that out in the world all the time that people were, were telling me, like, "Hey, you're a put-upon woman.""You're someone who, who should be resentful of life. Like, aren't you just the ch- mo- biggest victim that's ever existed?" And, and it's like, first of all, I've never looked at myself like that. And if I don't look at myself like that, then people are like, "Well, that's because you're privileged." So the idea that you might have a good perspective in life and look at it as like, "Hey, it rains on everybody. Everybody has problems. I don't care if you're a Rockefeller, you have problems. You are not guaranteed happiness just because you have money." That's my perspective. And some people are dealt a worse hand than others, but the best you can do is to make the most of it and get on with it. "Oh, no, that's a very privileged perspective. That, that means that you actually had it better than other people, that you were privileged enough to even think that way." So the more I was encountering that in the real world, I, I said, "This has to stop." We h- like, at least I'm in a position where I can address it without necessarily easily being canceled. It's hard, it's h- I mean, they, they say women don't have privileges. I have privileges. And it's, it's, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
It's that immigrant privilege that you can talk about-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... whatever you want without someone (laughs) coming for you.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, yeah, I mean, I can see the allure from somebody that sits in a movie studio that hasn't spoken to an immigrant for ten years, uh, uh, unless they catch their gardener or whatever on the way out of the house to go to the air-conditioned studios, their driver picks them up on a morning, I can see why they would think in the current atmosphere of social justice and upholding of victimhood as a virtue that if we were to make a film which completely masks off, breaks the fourth wall about how the underdog is always the person which is, who is always going to be perfect, that women and minorities, whether they be racial, sexual, gender identity, they are already perfect as they are, the issue is always that the world didn't believe in them enough, I can see why somebody would presume this is an amazing way for us to weaponize, galvanize, commercialize, monetize this current cultural milieu.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But the problem is that that's not how people think. And this is what I learned from watching your stuff, that people, especially women, 'cause we've spoken mostly about women so far, that-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- 23:57 – 31:49
Does Woke Fan-baiting Work?
- BCBaggage Claim
- CWChris Williamson
If people aren't taught to be able to take criticism, especially if the portrayals that they see of themselves represented in media never take criticism, if somebody does criticize them, then there's a clap back, boss bitch-... moment where they tell them exactly, put them in their place and tell them. And sure enough, all along, I mean, we're seeing this with the Lord of the Rings. Galadriel is just permanently in the right. We saw this with the Star Wars, with the fact that the female, the new female superhero there, that, that she was, she taught herself and then immediately-
- BCBaggage Claim
Perfect.
- CWChris Williamson
... was able to destroy everybody around that. I would think Eternals had some sort of weird stuff like that in it. She-Hulk's had some stuff like that. I mean, Batwoman got canned presumably because, um... Who does that? Is that Warner Brothers that do that one?
- BCBaggage Claim
Uh, was it W... Yes, it was Warner Brothers.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So Warner Brothers, it seems, can't continue to piss money away, but Disney can. So Warner Brothers are binning things that they can foresee might not make money 'cause, I mean, this is the... The long and short of it is that people aren't going to go and see these movies. Like when I think, I, I enjoy going to the cinema, but when I think about going to the cinema and then look at what's available for me to go and see, I didn't wanna go and see Thor: Love and Thunder. I looked at that and I was like, "The trailer doesn't look very good. It looks kinda cheesy. It looks kinda stupid." We'd already seen Thor start to kind of creep into that in the one that he did with the Hulk. What was that one?
- BCBaggage Claim
Ragnarok.
- CWChris Williamson
Ragnarok. Um, he was kind of a bit of adult there and I was like, "Mm, uh, I get a sense that this is gonna go even further." But it's not just... Y- y- one of the places that a lot of the movie studios go to is the reason that people aren't going to go and watch this music, uh, this movie is because of bigotry in one kind or another. Charlie's Angels director said that men need enough empathy to see movies starring women because I've been forced to do it with men my entire life. Like, look, you are not going to be able to guilt people into watching your movie. I, I learned a, a term. Have you heard of fan-baiting?
- BCBaggage Claim
No.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, so this is the name for it, apparently. This is the actual name that's being given to it. So, um, using sexism-
- BCBaggage Claim
This is, I'm assuming, I'm assuming this is what Bros is doing, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- BCBaggage Claim
To get people to go see Bros.
- CWChris Williamson
Precisely correct.
- BCBaggage Claim
Okay. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Precisely correct. So for the people that don't know, Bros was this rom-com, but it was a gay rom-com. And very quickly, it... Perhaps even before it started, uh, Amazon did this with Lord of the Rings, they, The- the Rings of Power, they front ran the fact that it was a very diverse cast. They played on that a lot. And what it does is they're using the speculation and the controversy around the production of the production itself to generate news rather than allowing the value of what the, uh, content consists of to be able to carry itself through, so using sexism or racism or homophobia or transphobia as the justification for why a particular film doesn't do well. But the bottom line is, like, gay people didn't go and see Bros either. Women aren't going to go and see She-Hulk and Thor: Love and Thunder either. It, it's people within the demographic that is supposed to be the one which is being upheld also think that it sucks. Like it's just bad cinema. And one of the perfect examples that we've got here, especially with Lord of the Rings, I think... I mean, there's a- a lot of problems with the most recent Lord of the Rings, which, uh, it's like a dunk fest if you just search Lord of the Rings online.
- BCBaggage Claim
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You get the first two trailers and then the rest of the videos are just people annihilating it. Um, but you have the comparison between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, right? Game of Thrones has got... I mean, Game of Thrones has got a albino Black man in it with a gay son, but it wasn't the front of the... The, the, the identity wasn't wrapped up in the fact that they're Black and/or gay. It just happens to be that way. And, yeah, I think that you are seeing play out in real time what happens when casting and agenda is forced down people's throat and what happens when casting and agenda is sort of naturally emerged from what is going to make good TV.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. And you're absolutely right about when you look at House of the Dragon, you have, you know, two, two very powerful women playing out a big chunk of the drama and none of that feels contrived in any way. It doesn't feel patronizing because they are... You, you could make the argument that they're, you're seeing all facets of each character. You're not just seeing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBaggage Claim
... one side of them. And so what, what that means is that there is positive and negative aspects to each character that then play out on the screen th- a- just like it does naturally in real life, and that makes for compelling story. And you have a diverse c- cast, but it's not obvious. It's not something they're, like, hammering over your head that just because someone is Black, then they're definitely the good guy. I mean, what happened in this last episode showed, like, you know, there, that no one's protected, right, obviously, in, in the, in the stories. But with Marvel and... You know, I chose not to watch Rings of Power, by the way, because I'm, I'm a really big Lord of the Rings fan, just huge Lord of the Rings fan, and I... It was one of those things that I didn't wanna take a risk and, like, what kind of bad taste was it gonna put in my mouth? And, um, I talked about this. I think I've been saying this all over the place, but, um, my frus- biggest frustration with Rings of Power is Galadriel and that she was this incredibly powerful feminine character in Lord of the Rings and her, her powers were so, um... They were so intensely quiet, you know, and, and represented in a very powerful way, but it was without her lifting a sword, right? But you, when you were in her presence, you knew that she ha- possessed incredible wisdom and power. And there was so much eeriness going into that situation where then she's looking at each member of the fellowship and she's seeing right through them and she's...... reading them and talking to them while talk, like, she's talking in their heads while she's talking to them. I mean, it's like really intense power that I think can be very well attributed to women's ability to see things and, like, have intuition and, and perceive, perceive what might happen, right? Um, I think Loui- I think there was a conversation you had with Louise Perry, uh, did I get her na- name right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- BCBaggage Claim
That was, it, by the way, I loved that conversation. She's, she's one of the-
- CWChris Williamson
Spectacular.
- BCBaggage Claim
... one of, yes. But one of the things she talked about is that how women have that incredible intuition to pick up on danger, especially in men, right? Because the consequences for a woman are so much, so much higher. And I thought that Galadriel was a great, uh, great example of that feminine strength, and then in Rings of Power, who cares about that? She has a sword. She's, you know, everybody calls her Guy-ladriel now. She's, it's like, who cares about feminine strength? It's better to be a man, obviously.
- CWChris Williamson
I, uh-
- BCBaggage Claim
And it's, they did that in Thor too. Sor- sorry, but like, I'm clearly very angry about this, but they did this on, on Thor. Valkyrie gets the title of leadership for, for just being a drunk. Uh, but she's not queen of, uh, um, Asgard. She is king. Why? Oh, apparently it's better to be king than queen, right? Isn't that, like, the messaging that they're saying? And at a time that we, that the, the world had a queen, you know? I, I know not the world, but the U- United Kingdom.
- CWChris Williamson
I
- 31:49 – 37:48
Reducing Galadriel’s Roles of Mother & Wife
- CWChris Williamson
s- read a quote earlier this week, and I've been trying to put this together for a long time. I was referring to it as the male default for a long time, which is, uh, the assumption that whatever men do, the masculine is preferred, that the boss bitch, lean in, disagreeable career woman is the path that women are supposed to go down. And if you're a mother, you're a second-class citizen that's kind of been duped into it by the patriarchy and so on and so forth. And someone said earlier on, uh, female empowerment means acting like a man. That's the new way that this is seen. Yeah, I mean, you've taken someone that could have been queen, which we've had a lot, and in-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Game of Thrones, they have queen. "You're going to become queen." There are battles between queens, Queen of the Stormlands, Queen of the Realm. But no, no, no, no. I, I mean, and what's the subtext that that says? Like, yes, on the f- on the face of it, it sounds cool, but the subtext immediately is that it places king in a superior position to placing queen. Like, that's the least equality promoting idea that I can think of.
- BCBaggage Claim
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, it's so patronizing to women.
- BCBaggage Claim
Absolutely. Completely agree with you. And, uh, uh, I mean, and th- then there's also the ne- we, I mean, it's a very sensitive subject, but then there's also the degeneration of a title like mother, right? Um, it's like, "No, you're a birthing person." You know, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
A womb-haver.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah, and it's, it's like, uh, it's like, um, it's like reducing us to just, uh, (laughs) to just, like, f- flesh and bone. It's like, "Oh, the status of mother can't exist anymore." And I think it's this whole desire that there should be no, there should be no definitions of anything. You know, we should all be person. You, you shouldn't even have a name probably. We should all just be a person because, uh, you know, if you have names, that means you have a hierarchy. That means you have people that don't fall, that fall off of the hierarchy and everything is, you know, is destroyed from there in, in the way that the s- the extremist left tends to look at it.
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to the mother thing, am I right in saying Galadriel is supposed to have a husband and kids?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. So she's-
- CWChris Williamson
And in Rings of Power, they've kept them away, and it looks like they're maybe going to try and introduce them in season two s- because at the moment, she needs to be in boss bitch mode. But she-
- BCBaggage Claim
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... may actually have them already or she may m- meet them in fu- I don't know.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah, I, I believe, um, Galadriel is somehow, I can't, I forget now, but I, he, she is somehow related to Legolas, either through marriage or something like, one of her, her kids is mari- maybe I'm forgetting. Anyway, uh, but, uh, I don't know what the pow- what, what their plan is with Rings of Power. I try my best not to watch any of it, or I, I think I watched those, like, initial promo photos, and when I saw Galadriel was sitting, she was, you know, in this full armor doing the man spread with a dagger between, holding it between her legs, I realized that this was not gonna be a show that I was going to enjoy. So, I decided just to completely lock it out of my, my, my stratosphere as much as possible.
- CWChris Williamson
What else are the, um, messages that you think are trying to be promoted here, whether they be, uh, hierarchical, racial, societal, gender-driven?
- BCBaggage Claim
I think ... the idea of, um, ideological consistency being patriarchical is one of the biggest messages that they're trying to push, that if someone asks for logic in the way that you think, then they're trying to oppress you. And it, this is like, this is probably the hardest thing to then negotiate with is like, it's like, okay, if you're saying, if you're against racism and sexism, but you turn around and do reverse racism and reverse sexism and people point out to you, um, "Hey, this is ideologically inconsistent." And then you turn around and say, "Well, um, your desire to h- make sure that I'm ideologically consistent is patriarchical." And, um, it just, it's, uh, I think that, the more people buy into that, uh-... line of thinking, the harder it is going to be to bridge that gap of how are people gonna see each other and understand each other. Um, because if you can't even understand each other, you can't understand yourself, for sure. So I think that's probably the most, the one that I find shocking. Um, I'll often get comments on my videos or I'll get really hateful messages, um, in, on Instagram, Twitter, wherever s- calling me a pick-me girl, which is really interesting. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
What's that mean?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know that term.
- BCBaggage Claim
Um, so it's the idea ... You know, you know those types of girls who are like, "I don't hang out with guy, uh, I don't hang out with other girls. I like hanging out with guys." You know what I mean? Like, "Oh, girls is just so complicated. I d- like, uh, you know, I'd rather be wearing basketball shorts and playing with the guys." Like, those are called pick-me girls who ... Or they'll say, like, "Oh, that person, that woman has internalized misogyny because she's, she, she doesn't even wanna be a woman almost." Someone actually sent me a comment saying, "You don't even wanna be a woman," or, "You don't even wanna be an Indian. You're probably, you know, you, you pass as white and you probably love that." And, uh, so it, it's that, it's that whole idea that if you, if you don't think a certain way, you don't even belong in, in, in, in the class that you happen to be born into. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. I mean, that's that whole race traitor thing that people come after anybody that doesn't decide that they're going to agree with the current hegemony in whatever particular group it is that they ... And so, okay, so you,
- 37:48 – 45:54
Cultural Narcissism in Marvel
- CWChris Williamson
you've done a lot of stuff as well related to cultural narcissism and the self-esteem movement. What's the ... How does that tie into what we've spoken about so far?
- BCBaggage Claim
I think the, the trends of Marvel, of Star Wars, um, and, you know, even shows like Batwoman that you mentioned, they are all, um, selling, like, really neatly packaging the ideals of narcissism. And, um, and I know, uh, you know, it, it does stem very closely with the self-esteem movement, right? That, the idea that you don't need to, um, you don't necessarily need to work on something. You need to instead work on just believing in yourself, and that self-belief is what will make you someone that's whole. And, um, that's sort of, you know, all, uh, all of the plot lines, uh, seem to be around that, right? Even if you watch, um, Doctor Strange 2.
- CWChris Williamson
I watched it on the plane over here, and-
- BCBaggage Claim
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
... it, I'd, I'd seen your video. I, I, I'd seen you reference it before. Didn't watch the video. Watched the movie, watched the video and was like, "That is just-"
- BCBaggage Claim
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"... so perfect." Can you explain what the role of America Chavez is for the people-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... who haven't seen it?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. She gets introduced as this character who ha- who clearly has a very powerful power, which is to move in between various dimensions or wa- I guess you could say ... What did they call it? I mean, I forget. They-
- CWChris Williamson
Multiverse, right?
- BCBaggage Claim
Multiverse, yeah. They, she can traverse the multiverse, um, and that's her main power. And, um, sh- but she doesn't know how to control it. And, you know, she's, they, they definitely made her a character that's very clearly, like, token, token, uh, you know, marginalized person, right? Her, her, she has two moms and she's, she's clearly, uh, of, um, of South, uh, s- you know, South American descent. And s- and then her name is America Chavez. And, and then h- she's, sh- her entire, the entire plot of the movie is basically Doctor Strange babysitting her and trying to f- you know, help her out because she's, she's being hunted by, by, uh, Scarlet Witch. And until the end, end of the movie, um, there's not really any development for her. Uh, which is real shame. I think, you know, that, that could have really beefed up her as a character. And the final, final, uh, battle is really just, uh, Doctor Strange telling her, like, "Hey, you just, you need to believe in yourself. You already-"
- CWChris Williamson
There is this scene-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There's this scene where zombie Benedict Cumberbatch-
- BCBaggage Claim
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... comes back to say to her, "I just came here to tell you that you need to believe in yourself." And you go, "Okay."
- BCBaggage Claim
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"Okay." (laughs) Nothing else? Nothing else?
- BCBaggage Claim
Nothing else. No.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, you, you went through a car crash that shattered all of your bones. You've, uh, you- you have been banished to the shadow realm. You've gone and been taught by a lady who doesn't have any hair about how to be... You know, all of that, all of that journey that you had to go through, and then you've assisted the Avengers and so on and so forth. And you're not the, he's not even the lord s- king of whatever the thing is at the moment, the-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... head monk of the-
- BCBaggage Claim
It's Wong.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's the other guy. Uh, but no, she, America Chavez, because woman, she just needed-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to believe in herself.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah, and I, I think that's actually a, that ... Okay, that in itself is just such a narcissistic trait. Like, if you actually dia- uh, talk to someone who's very high ... You know, o- obviously narcissism gets thrown around a lot, so just to clarify what I mean by that is that there are people who have healthy form of narcissism, which we all, we all need some level of that. And then there are people that have unhealthy levels of it, and then there are people that, uh, can be diagnosed as having a narcissistic personality disorder. And then when you are, you have disordered behavior, that means that your, the way you view, view the world ends up creating a lot, um, creating situations for yourself where you're not able to ... you're not able to make accurate deci- decisions and, like, perceive reality, right? So there's b- you know, uh, borderline personality disorder, which became this whole thing when, when Amber Heard, the Amber Heard trial was ta- going on. She was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. So anyway, with narcissistic personality disorder, w-... the big belief is that if I'm doing something, it's right. But if someone else does that same thing to me, I'm the victim of that. That they're... And th- that's one of the big, uh, hallmarks of h- having any kind of relationship with a narcissistic personality disorder or NPD, is that they, they can't stand boundaries. They have... They wanna have a free roam approach to their lives and their relationships, and specifically their, their work. And if, if they put out a persona, which they always do, they p- put out a persona that's pretty far off from their true self, true identity. If anyone rejects that persona even slightly or questions it, um, they come down, uh, with a hammer, but it's, it... Sometimes it can be aggressive if, if you're dealing with, you know, aggressive types, or it can be, like, just such an intense amount of victim behavior that a, a reasonable person is, like, shocked into, into, like, retreating. Like, "Oh my God, I, I didn't think I was gonna hurt you that way. Uh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say any of those things." So, it... You know, th- that pattern sounds very f- similar to the self-esteem movement to even giving that idea that you are perfect, you just need to believe it.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so scary, and I... It's quite easy, uh, having done, uh, uh, watching a lot of different videos about criticisms online, as people veer further and further, uh, inflammatory sometimes, right? Um, it, it can be used to kind of deliver a anti-progressive message. And y- there's a debate to be had about whether or not that's something that needs to be studied. There, there are some aspects of woke culture that are going too far forward. However, I think that the most compelling argument here is it's patronizing to women. If I was a woman, I wouldn't want to hear that I'm perfect as I am. I wouldn't want to hear that all of the characters I'm supposed to look up to don't need to go through any trials or tribulations. They're not strong enough to deal with criticism, to deal with setbacks, to do whatever. I mean, the strongest character at the moment in the Marvel cinematic universe is... What is it? Not Wonder Woman. Captain, Captain America?
- BCBaggage Claim
Captain Marvel.
- 45:54 – 53:00
Is Meghan Markle Going Too Far?
- CWChris Williamson
we're seeing increasingly now, I mean, the Amber Heard trial was a great, uh, a great example of this, and you've done some, uh, fantastic stuff about, uh, Prince, uh, William, Prince Philip... Uh, not Prince Philip, sorry, Prince, uh-
- BCBaggage Claim
Prince Harry.
- CWChris Williamson
... Harry and the difference between their two relationships. We are starting to see what happens when this takes hold of people that are in positions that would previously be pretty renowned, and it doesn't look very good on them either.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. And, uh, you know, something Jordan Peterson talks about a lot is that we know where r- the right, the right can go too far, and we've all pointed at that and said, "That's too far." And then we're struggling to do that when it comes to the left, and I mean, some people do that and other people disagree with it, that where does the left go too far? But I think it's a similar thing it... Where we've all agreed as a society where men go too far. Like, that's not okay if men are behaving in that way. But we're really struggling to do that with women and saying, "Where do women take it too far?" Um, and, you know, there was a podcast that Meghan Markle released, and she's b- she's been releasing quite a few podcasts lately, and um, the one she just released this- earlier this week, she talked about, um, this... She talks about archetypes, right? What are archetypes that are holding women back? I think it's a, it's a misuse of the word archetypes. Uh, it's a misunderstanding of it, but what she means is labels, fine. And one of the labels she talked about was, um, being labeled crazy, that women get labeled crazy. And they're... And she was saying her own experience, that she's been called crazy so many times and, and that it's a way to hold women back. And, um, they... You know, she brings in an expert, and the expert talks about how his- hi- the concept of hysteria has this, you know, long, long history, again, sta- steeped in misogyny. And so, it, it's this painting this perspective that, um, you know, because doctors in, you know, a hundred years ago labeled women as hysterical instead of actually getting to the root of what they were going through, uh, which you could make an argument that that ha- has happened, uh, you know, for people in general. But, um, you know, again, it's driven by misogyny and that the... now that has whittled down to the term crazy. And so, if you call a woman, woman crazy, uh, you're being misogynistic and you're trying to exert control over them. And, um...You know, you look at the Amber Heard trial and i- there were so many people that were s- willing to believe her and then so many people using the hashtag of Believe All Women. And one of the best things about comedians, but specifically Bill Burr, was that his response was like, "You know, Believe All Women, like, are you sure, like, all of them? How about like 20% of them that are crazy that wanna key your car?" And it's this, this idea that, like, just because you're a woman... I don't know, I can't believe I have to say this, but like, just because you're a woman does not mean you're inherently good. You can be crazy. You can be destructive. And that's what I like about shows like House of the Dragon, is that it shows destructive capabilities that are both masculine and feminine. And, um, even, you know, a show, I've talked about this i- in the past, but, like, a show like Fleabag. Are you familiar with this show at all?
- CWChris Williamson
No. What's that?
- BCBaggage Claim
I- You know Phoebe Waller-Bridge?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- BCBaggage Claim
No, uh, y- you know, you p- you probably know of her, because she was the one who came in and helped rewrite, do some rewrites for James Bond for that last film. And people were pretty angry about it because they consider her, sort of, this, like, feminist, feminist writer. Uh, but I actually f- I think she rides that, that line pretty well. And she wrote this show called Fleabag. It's a two-season show. It's on, I think, Amazon Prime. And she, uh, you know ... I'm sorry for spoilers, I'm just gonna give it away to you because I've brought it up now, but, um, uh, she is a character who's very self-destructive and, um, she does a lot ... She definitely does a lot of things, including hooking up with men, um, uh, and, and that make her unhappy. Like, she herself identifies that as making her unhappy. But, uh, there's this whole season leading up where, um, she sh- she shows to the viewer, because she constantly breaks the fourth wall and she's letting them in at very specific times, where she tell- shows the, the viewer that her best friend passed away. And the way then we find out is that she walked in front of a bus, and then for a long time she hides the fact that the reason she walked in front of a bus was because the main character, and her ol- her only name in it is Fleabag, is that sh- Fleabag slept with her boyfriend, and that's why she ... And, and when the viewer finds that out, you know, you see her completely unravel because it was a fact that she was hiding. And it's beautifully done because it shows that, uh, you know, being feminine is incredibly powerful in a way that can be incredibly destructive. There's a lot of chaos that we can create ourselves. We don't need men all the time to create chaos, right? Which is the o- overarching belief right now. So our way of creating chaos is that we have a deep perception of human emotion and we know how to unravel people. There's a reason why it's much easier for a woman to win a, a, win an, win an argument in a relationship with her husband. It's much easier, right? And if we don't recognize that, if we don't recognize that we have a dark power in us, then we actually are likely to use it inadvertently on people all of the time. And, um, I know I've been rep- ref- referencing Jordan Peterson here and there, but, like, one of the things that really struck me, and I think it was f- something that really changed my personal trajectory, was I was watching his lectures, I think this was back in 2016 before, before he, like, absolutely exploded, but, um, one of his lectures talked about helping people understand that you would be a Nazi guard. And I hope I can say the word Nazi. I know-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, you can.
- BCBaggage Claim
... YouTube doesn't love it. Um, that you would be, and I don't mean you, but like me, I would be a Nazi guard. Ev- everybody wants to believe that they would be the hero and, uh, they would be Schindler, but they would probably be a Nazi guard because of the fear, and, and, and every, you know, there are all these different things that go into it. And if, that if a person, an individg- individual can recognize about their dark capacity, then it's less likely to turn into this, like, massive pathology that exists in society. And I think that's what's happening now, is that people are becoming less and less convinced of their own in- internal darkness, becoming more convinced of other people's darkness. And that's, I think that's a pretty dangerous place to be.
- 53:00 – 59:42
Increasing Gap Between Critic & Audience Reviews
- BCBaggage Claim
- CWChris Williamson
One of the most obvious places I think that this is starting to show up is in, uh, movie critic scores diverging from audience scores and the performative empathy that's happening by the people who have something to lose if they go against the dominant ideology, whatever it is that they're supposed to put out there. You know, most of the scores on Rotten Tomatoes are anonymous or they're done by a username that you're never gonna be able to track back to somebody, so they can say whatever it is that they want. And maybe there is, uh, what's it called? Review bombing, which Amazon turned off the first 72 hours for Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, and then extended it for another five days in a desperate attempt to try and stop people from, uh, giving a realistic review of what it is. Uh, and that was labeled with misogyny and racism, so on and so forth. But it seems to me that the powers that be, the people that believe they're supposed to be the elite media class that know what's good for everybody, that will point at the plebs and remind them that you really should just put your faith in us, they are failing increasingly to resonate with the people who are living a normal day-to-day life. Uh, perhaps this is because of inequality, uh, you know, the kind of life that the people who are going into Hollywood offices now is going to be even further away than most of the people that go to see their films versus 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, for sure. You know, you think, I always think about this when I watch, um-... archive footage of sports games and stuff, you know, like, from the 1930s and stuff like that. And these professional athletes, they would, th- they were basically the same as the people in the stands, except for the fact that they were well known. The only difference was really their renown and their lifestyle in terms of their routines, not in terms of the quality of life that they lived. They do these interviews with old British footballers from the 1950s and the 1960s and stuff, and they lived an all right life, but it wasn't insanely different to everybody else. But we now have this divergence in terms of lifestyle. We have a divergence in terms of the ideology that people follow, the values that they have, what it is that they think should be upheld. And increasingly, as that happens, people are struggling to... The powers that be are struggling to find a way to resonate. And the only thing, it seems to me, the only solution that they can find is to be increasingly brazen with outright virtue signaling because, "Well, if I can't get you to like what I do, at least I can guilt you into feeling good about it." That's the closest I think that they can get.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. And you're absolutely right about that difference between celebrities or, you know, uh, athletes from... 'Cause it's kind of similar to the kind of scale that everything achieves now, right? Even if you look at, um, companies, the size of companies, because the whole world is accessible as a product versus, you know, your corner shop that existed in the 1920s where you, you probably were face-to-face with the business owner and he cared about his reputation with you. And same with doctors. Doctors knew you and your family. And, you know, it, I think everything has become so scaled up that each, um, each brand has access to millions and billions of people. And so, uh, with, with, what happens I think with celebrities is that they get scaled up so fast for doing something... Like, compared to how much they get paid and how much, uh, how much their lives change overnight, if you look at what their work is, it's not that different from any other job. And I think there's a level of insecurity that they start to experience that, "I'm l- I'm looked at so disparately from who I really am, and I'm living this..." You know, even if you look at Johnny Depp, right? And Johnny Depp talked a lot about this during his trial, that after, after he was in, um, Pirates of the Caribbean, um, his life completely changed. Eh, he could not live sort of the normal life that he used to, going, going and grabbing coffee. He just couldn't do things like that. And to him, he's, he's clearly not someone who's made for celebrity and never really internalized it in the same way, but you can also see him completely unraveling from that and having a really bad drug addiction and alcohol addiction and, like, getting very scared about the people who are around him. Like, the whole cabal of, of Amber Heard's friends were basically living off of him and his, like, several penthouses and, and that's, that's sort of the life that happens. But then with o- other people, and I think this was kind of true with Brie Larson, is that she was this completely normal, great, down-to-earth person, and then she became very famous because of her Oscar win, which, you know, her acting was incredible in that movie. I think it's called Room or The Room, one of those two. And, um, suddenly, she just b- I think she just bought into her own hype really intensely. But there's, like, a guilt there. Like, "Do I deserve all this fame?" And then, "I'm living so apart from a regular person and I have guards around me and I have gates around me, and so there must be a reason that I'm here. So I need to speak for other people and I need to go and constantly have a responsibility." Mm-hmm. And so someone asks her at the red carpet, like, "What does it mean to be a woman in Hollywood?" And she says, "It means it's really hard. And if you're a woman of color, it's really, really hard." Coming from a person who's... Like, what's so hard about your existence in Hollywood? What exactly is hard about it? You are, you have, you have a, a great voice. Like, people are listening to you, they're looking at you, they're paying attention to you. What is so hard to be a woman in Hollywood? But I think that helps alleviate that guilt. Like, "Oh, at least I'm taking all those fee- those, these feelings of insufficiencies and turning them hopefully to help people. But in the process, just creating this, like, victim narrative for myself."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Because that helps to hopefully bring down the gap between where somebody is in terms of their status and the work that they know that they do. If they can manufacture artificial oppression that outwardly appears like the gap has been reduced down, "I actually do have to go through-"
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
"It's not just the time learning lines and being on set. It's all of the, the expectation and the oppression and the victimhood and all of that stuff-"
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
"... that I've got to get through as well."
- 59:42 – 1:04:41
What is the True Role of a Studio?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so I had, I had a thought that has come up a bunch of times when thinking about the role of media and what it's supposed to do. Do you think it should be the role of studios to create something which is popular or to create something which pushes a virtuous moral ideology? Taking away the fact that we don't think much of the ideology that's being pushed at the moment is virtuous, what's the role of a studio here?
- BCBaggage Claim
I would say... I would say the role, the true role of a studio is to tell stories that resonate with people. And if you, if you do that, um, it's not about necessarily, like-... morally what's right or wrong, right? If, if you, if you, uh, because, uh, y- I know, uh, what I'm about to say does talk about morality, but a lot of the great stories and the reasons why actors became, became something that we really looked up to is because what, what do they represent, right? It's the story. And I think a lot of actors of old, even if you look at Leonardo DiCaprio or even Tom Cruise, though sometimes he breaks, he, he broke out of it a couple times, but they, they try to keep as much, um, like, you know, what am I thinking of, like fog around the actual lives and who they really are because let them instead be immersed into the roles. Like, Christian Bale does a great job of this. Like, I don't really know who Christian Bale is as y- you don't, you don't really get a sense of his personality or anything except for the fact that he is very dedicated to his roles. And so he immerses himself and plays those roles in a way that is heavily believable. And, you know, certain movies and certain books really resonate with people because they become this guideline of, "How can I live a life that's going to be meaningful?" And if you tell stories around that, every- everything else becomes irrelevant. Uh, p- things, like, just make sense. Like, why, why is a movie like... I don't know what I was go- But like The Dark Knight is a great example of this, right, is that, uh, there are so many moral conundrums in that, in that movie and the questions are hard to answer. Even the question around, um, uh, you know, where, uh, Fox wants to, uh, Fox wants to shut down the system that Batman built where he can hear, listen in on everybody's personal conversation and yet Batman feels, uh, you know, vindicated in that because he, he knows that if that's what's gonna, it's gonna take to take down someone like J- The Joker. And it's, it's like morally you could take either stand but, th- what's wonderful about that movie is that it is a deeper exploration of a hard to answer question on many different levels. And i- I think stories like that that then resonate with something that you're dealing with in your life, like you personally are grappling with. And then you look up to someone and you say, "Okay, they're struggling with it, I'm struggling with it, I can start to piece together the answers in a way that's not just the easy way out." And I think those are the stories that and, uh, w- whether, whether these movie production companies wanna do that or not is irrelevant because the market is going to speak after a while and they're going to have to change course, but th- uh, those are the stories that are going to, to work. And if you look back on even movies and then sometimes, like, I look at shows and movies from 19 t- uh, 1990s and then the early 2000s and it's, that's, those are the kind of stories they were telling and that's what was, like, sticking with us.
- CWChris Williamson
That is the main question, I think, that I always have in my mind which is how long can a desire to push a popular ideology continue to last in the face of an ever-dwindling capital liquidity? Like, just how long can movie studios and Disney+ continue to... I mean how much was... Batgirl was, like, 50 million or 100 million? And they binned it before it even went to edit?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I think they'd filmed the whole thing.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, they'd done the hard bit, but they'd, uh, sent it to edit but, "No, we're just not gonna bother." Uh, I don't know what the... Do you know what the relative proportion of budget that would be spent on edit versus on, uh, filming is?
- BCBaggage Claim
I've heard that it's, like, close to 20%.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so the lion's share of the cost for producing this.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah. 40%.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, get it out there, right? Y- they've already done some marketing, although marketing is probably gonna be a bit, uh, a good bit on, on top and blah, blah, blah. But still, the point being that there are changes being made, uh, the Aquaman 2 or Aquaman 3 obviously has got a lot of Amber Heard in, so they're, like, retroactively trying to un-person her, I don't know how they're gonna do that. Um...
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But
- 1:04:41 – 1:14:06
The Next 5 Years of Cinema
- CWChris Williamson
w- what do you think is gonna happen given your view from the lofty media critic mountain, what, wh- what do you predict for the next few years of movies? Are we gonna see more Top Gun or are we gonna see more She-Hulk?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah. The, I mean, Top Gun is such a great example of, of, um, content that these activist writers, you know, s- pseudo-writers, really they're activists that have sort of taken over, uh, various companies. They would, uh, they would have argued that, "Oh, no, there's no appetite for a movie like Top Gun because it's so oriented towards weaponry and, uh, and the Navy and military," and yet it did so well. And I think that, that's such a great indication, and I think even, uh, Spider-Man: No Way Home is such a great, um, indication that if you prioritize story and you respect the intelligence of your fans, um, then you, you will get a good result out of it. I think, um, this is going to go on for quite a while because there's, there are, there's all this goodwill that got built up, um, with good storytelling. With Marvel, they had 11 years of really good storytelling and great characters and great movies, so even though we know that Thor: Love and Thunder is an absolute abomination, um, it still made I think close to, I think and maybe it's crossed a billion dollars by now, I haven't checked in a while but, um, and it's, that was all based off of the, the goodwill from Thor: Ragnarok and, uh, and the rest of the series because people, there is an appetite to go see these movies. But does it have the kind of earning potential, earning power that, um, Top Gun did? Absolutely not. And will the next movie that Taika Waititi does, will it, will it have as, as, uh, great of an earning potential? It won't. I think everything is going to whittle off very slowly and I think it's, it's highly likely that for at least the next five years, we're going to continue to see this, um, domination by activist writers because they're also now, um, all installed in very powerful positions.
- CWChris Williamson
They're embedded.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.... and the cultures have, have really absorbed them, right? They've, they all believe in this and they think of us as, um, that we're on the wrong side of history, right? They think that they're, um, you know, they're Schindler and we're (laughs) you know, we're the Nazis or something. And, and that they'll, they'll win out in the end. And I think, um, as long as, um, as long as there are, there's an introduction of intelligent people that can see beyond all of this, um, into these kind of environments, which is not gonna happen, I think. I think all those people have gotten slowly kicked out. I think, um, uh, until that happens, we're not gonna see a change. More likely, I think we'll see new powers come up, new sources of content are gonna come up. Um, and I, I think it'll be, you know, in the form of definitely YouTube content or Netflix, because Netflix has already w- given out that word, right, that things are changing, that if you are woke, you can get out. I mean, that was a very brazen move, and I think Netflix knows that it doesn't have the kind of staying power that Disney does. Um, it needs to get its act together. It, i- uh, otherwise it's gonna be, it's gonna be gone. So, I th- I think with, from Netflix, we might start to see some major changes.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. I, I agree completely about not respecting the intelligence of the audience. I think that's, it's that patronizing pointing at the, the plebs down in the, the peasantry as they walk past and saying, "We know what's best for you." Um, but as well, you're right, you know, if you've installed a group of people that have a victimhood complex, that are dealing with this narcissism, if you do decide to get rid of them, they're gonna kick up a pretty big stink. And it's very easy to lay the issues of a poor performing series or movie at the feet of people who don't know what's good for them. I mean, Bros was a perfect, so perfect of an example of this, and I don't know how many times... It's like th- 2022 has just been a sequence of releases that have fallen flat on their face, and it's the same formula that gets rolled out to explain it. "Oh, it's because of bigotry. It's because I went to go and see movies with male leads, so can you come and see mine?" Like, are you really hoping to guilt me into watching your movie? Like, is that really the stage that we've got to? Like, is it not good on its own merits?
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it not sufficient, is it not sufficiently capable to actually get me to want to go and say, "No, I have to go, I have to go and see it with a gun to the back of my head because I don't know what's right for me"? Yeah, it'll be-
- BCBaggage Claim
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It'll be interesting. I really hope that that's not the case, um, but I, I suppose that there's so many different layers as well. The director, the producer, the execs, the studio, the publisher, the marketing, all of these people, the script writers, all of these people at different stages, you only really need one of those to have this sort of ideology for them to be the person that puts a stop on it all, right? Even if you had everybody else was on board with one particular thing, because you're always going to have the flag of victim or oppressed or marginalized, and everybody else that's around that is, "Whoa, I'm not gonna touch that. That, that is the sort of thing that I get canceled for, so I'm not even going to try and push back against this and say, 'Well, maybe what you think is right for people...' Maybe we should have a, a strong female lead who is strong in a feminine way. Maybe we should have a strong male lead who isn't a complete imbecile." It's gonna be very hard for them to get that through.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes. And, uh, this is l- sort of an unrelated example, but my, my friend who lives in Oakland, um, you know, he, there's a, th- the crime in Oakland is outrageous, if you're not familiar with that. So, Cal- California in general, um, has had a really intense surge in crime since, um, uh, since COVID hit. And San Francisco's one of those cities, we, you know, car break-ins are very common, but Oakland's crime has been, um, it's really intensely steady- steadily on the rise. And a big chunk of the population in Oakland is African American, so it makes it for, makes for a very sensitive subject. And there are a lot of shootings that have been taking place, um, and a lot of people have been losing their lives. I think they reported something like the hun- hundredth shooting that took place this year, um, that was fatal. Um, it, I, I might be wrong on that number, but, um, uh, and my friend plugged in, because he's, he's lived in Oakland for about five years now, and he plugged into a city council meeting, um, as it was happening live. And one of the people was making this argument that, "Can we please increase, um, police, uh, presence in particular neighborhoods that have high instances of murder and, um, and crime?" And immediately, the response from one of the other people was, "Uh, absolutely not. Those are predominantly, um, uh, areas with African Americans, so this is clearly a very racist policy to request that." And immediately, the argument was shut down. There was no more room for discussion. And I understand that. I understand because along with everything else happening, there's also the, you know, s- in- intense fear that everybody has at the idea of being canceled and to be labeled... I mean, we throw around the word racist so much, but if you think about it, it's like, that is one o- that is a very intense, um, insult to throw at someone, that you would be that, that, um, you know, you would be that terrible of a person that you would judge someone on, based on the color of their skin. But, so everyone is trying to protect their own reputations, but it comes then at the cost of the bigger vision, right? "I don't wanna be called racist," but at the same time, y- you know, one could make that argument that, like, African American people are dying as a result of this supposedly anti-racist, you know, discussion happening here, right? Um, and, uh, it's the same thing, I think, in these situations, that if anyone questions the making of Bros being a very, um, you know, very specific movie, which is fine. I think people can go and see movies about gay people. I th- I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But in the trailer, one of the people says, um, "Guys, remember straight people?" And someone else says, "Yeah, they had a good run." And it's- it's like, okay, do I really wanna go watch a movie where, um, it's (laughs) very clearly pro-gay and anti-straight people? And it's like, I don't wanna be scolded for two hours. Like, I would rather go do something else. And, um, and I think in, in a movie like, uh, in the production process of a movie like that, if anyone has a reasonable question even, then they're probably afraid to voice it at the risk of, you know, because they might get called anti-gay or bigoted or anything. And that's the biggest fear.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, you always have to pander to the wokest common denominator.
- BCBaggage Claim
Yes.
- 1:14:06 – 1:14:50
Where to Find Baggage Claim
- BCBaggage Claim
- CWChris Williamson
Baggage Claim, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go if they want to check out your stuff online? I absolutely adore your YouTube channel. It's blowing up at the moment. Where should they go?
- BCBaggage Claim
Uh, please, uh, search for Baggage Claim on YouTube, where I have a lot of my content. Uh, you can also follow me on Twitter, BaggageClaim11, and I'm also on Instagram, BaggageClaims with an S.
- CWChris Williamson
I appreciate you. Thank you.
- BCBaggage Claim
Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. (instrumental music plays)
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:14:51
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