Author Andrew Klavan joins Stephen and Jon to discuss his new novel, Werewolf Cop, and why he thinks the entertainment industry is dominated by leftist writers. Plus, a look at why the left is so hard to read and why the right is hard to understand.
00:00:23.000So glad to have this next guest on with us.
00:00:26.000We've had him on before, but we haven't had him on via Skype, so you can go to loudwithcredder.com if you're listening terrestrially to see his cute little punim, author of Werewolf Cop, Andrew Klavan.
00:02:29.000So it's kind of the same thing with Andrew Klavan.
00:02:32.000You've done so much that it's tough to just sort of pick a topic.
00:02:36.000So, I mean, you write a lot of fiction.
00:02:37.000So let's talk about that because there aren't many conservatives, I guess, out there or who are as outspokenly conservative, more so in the creative realm, you know, in writing fiction.
00:02:48.000Why do you think it's so dominated by leftists?
00:05:53.000And during the Bush years, the small talk would...
00:05:55.000We'd literally sit, you know, you'd come in with your material to sell, your script or your idea, your pitch, and they would start off like, is that Bush an idiot or what?
00:06:05.000And because I'm a loudmouth, I would say, well, actually, I sort of support him.
00:06:09.000And it was like, hey, don't let the door hit you on your way out.
00:06:12.000I mean, you are not selling that script in that room.
00:06:14.000And it's just, it is very, it's not a blacklist, it's a graylist.
00:09:28.000But the point that comes with this is Stanley's response, which was fantastic.
00:09:33.000And I think he's just sort of gotten to that age where he doesn't care anymore because he just said, listen, you wouldn't make the Black Panther Swiss.
00:09:41.000He said, okay, I don't see why you have to change something that already exists.
00:10:05.000And I think it's like, you know, it started at an all-time high, you know, when you had like, remember the Titans, and everyone's thinking, great, this is a great film, we need this.
00:10:13.000And obviously, you know, everyone should be allowed to play football on the same team, and these race riots are terrible.
00:10:18.000And now we've, you know, now that, you know, slavery's been abolished, everyone has the right to vote.
00:12:17.000No, I think you're right, Clavin, and I think it's gotten to a point, and I'm seeing a turn culturally with younger people, but not fiscally.
00:12:25.000But culturally they're going, gosh, I mean, we're limiting ourselves and our ability simply to speak on anything.
00:12:32.000And I feel like this is sort of emblematic of the left with the Spider-Man issue.
00:12:36.000You know, instead of creating new characters, they want to complain about one and hijack it.
00:12:41.000And I think political correctness – you can correct me if I'm wrong because you're the expert here with fiction.
00:12:44.000I think political correctness has really sort of kneecapped creativity to the point that leftists are for the first time having a hard time creating new stories.
00:12:56.000I mean, you know, this werewolf cop, not to plug the book too much, but when I brought it out, it has a character in it, a main character, who is politically incorrect and who's always pointing out that this one only got her job because she's a Latina and women shouldn't be doing this.
00:13:44.000I mean, that is going to start coming here, too, if we don't stop it.
00:13:47.000The only difference here is as long as we've got the First Amendment, until John Roberts decides it doesn't mean what it says it means, as long as we've got the First Amendment, you know, I think there can always be somebody who'll create a new publishing house, a new movie company, that makes the movies that no one else will make, and overrides those protests.
00:14:06.000And if you When you do that, I think you win.
00:14:24.000The daddy of them all said he wouldn't play college campuses.
00:14:31.000I mean, look, we conservatives have said all along that leftism is fascism with a human face, but they didn't listen and now they're finding out.
00:14:45.000I mean, what you also raise is a point that I think a lot of people miss.
00:14:49.000And I've talked about this with Sargon of a cat and Milo Yiannopoulos over there in the UK, who's also super gay.
00:14:56.000See, I was going to say what a good guy Milo is.
00:16:37.000And it's a tough sell for a feminist...
00:16:39.000Who's, you know, who's so unattractive that she has convinced herself a compliment is some kind of a microaggression to tell your beautiful wife or my beautiful wife that they should be ashamed to be with men who treat them like princesses.
00:17:53.000I mean, the Western system of law is something, you know, remember those old pictures of like the ape evolving into the human being?
00:18:00.000I mean, the Western system of law is at the very pinnacle of that process.
00:18:04.000It's something that you had to come out of the swamps to get to that place and to hand that over in any area, as they sometimes do in France and in England, to Sharia, which is savage law, is despicable.
00:18:18.000You are going to get letters, my friend.
00:18:23.000I've been giving out your address for years.
00:18:27.000Yes, I'm comparing Muslims to Australopithecuses on this subhuman chart.
00:18:52.000If you are listening terrestrially, go to ladderwithcrowder.com for an extended uncut interview where he's incredibly profane and anti-Semitic.
00:20:43.000And so then you have the influence on English Canadians, and Jared's gonna have the censor button raised, because my audience will be offended.
00:20:49.000I'm like, okay, what's a language warning?
00:20:51.000It's true, though, where you'll have English-speaking Canadians who will punctuate their sentence with a cuss word, so they'll be like, oh, the stupid soundboard's broken, f***!
00:21:02.000And you're laughing, but Canadians don't even realize how silly it sounds.
00:21:05.000Well, why don't they say the stupid soundboard's broken tabernacle?
00:21:10.000I guess they have some level of pride to like...
00:21:25.000Yeah, the Sharia law is a gross abomination of anyone who...
00:21:29.000if they want to be consistent in caring about human rights.
00:21:32.000To me, that's one of the great sort of dichotomies of the left where I'm going, well, I mean, you hate Americans because they think that giving Bruce, Caitlyn Jenner, an ESPY is kind of silly.
00:21:56.000See, I think what people are offended by now, or at least what I am offended by, what I think most of the conservatives I know, it's not, nobody cares what Bruce Jenner does with his body parts.
00:22:05.000He can fling them out the car windows he drives down Main Street, as far as I'm concerned.
00:22:37.000My theory on the whole process is just accept people no matter how different they are, as long as they're not cutting people's heads off and, you know, blowing buildings up.
00:22:48.000Well, I have almost the same philosophy.
00:22:50.000I might just mock people relentlessly no matter how different they are.
00:23:34.000People who suffer from any kind of condition, let's call it, depression, social anxiety, schizophrenia, any of those, are generally the last people to recognize it.
00:23:45.000Now, when we tell those people, hey, listen, you suffer from depression, let us help you, recognizing it and saying let's help you with steps A, B, and C is not hateful.
00:23:56.000And the people who say, hey, you know what, I think, like Milo Yiannopoulos, I think this might be better treated through therapy and through counseling than a surgical procedure that comes with so many complications, you know, John Hopkins won't perform it.
00:24:43.000Well, that's the only way, when you have a narrative that is essentially false, and not everything the left says is false, but a lot of what they say is false.
00:24:50.000If you have a narrative that is essentially false, the only way to sell it is by keeping the guy who's saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes from saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
00:24:59.000And the only way to do that is to say, oh, that's a hateful thing to say.
00:25:02.000To say that the emperor is naked, you know, just because he happens not to have a stitch of clothing on, that's hateful, that's evil.
00:25:08.000And if you can intimidate people into saying that, then the emperor is dressed, you know?
00:25:12.000You know, I identify as a dressed person, the emperor said, you know.
00:25:16.000I never looked at it from that perspective.
00:25:19.000Using a fable to connect it is helpful.
00:25:23.000Well, that's how you become a fiction writer and throw your life away like this.
00:25:54.000And this is something, Andrew, I think that there's a lot of headway to be made with people who aren't inherently conservative.
00:25:59.000There is a rebound effect, I think, with the free speech issue.
00:26:03.000And that's why I'm always interested to see as someone who works in writing specifically, which is, to me, I mean, it's the pinnacle of free speech.
00:26:09.000In stand-up comedy, I think, you know, it's at the forefront of that.
00:26:13.000What about reading the weather on the radio?
00:26:21.000Comedy is where people say things that are purposely out there and are kind of the thing.
00:26:27.000Comedy exists sort of in that part of the brain that is thinking what you're not supposed to be thinking, which we all have, and you bring that out.
00:26:34.000It's funny, but if you get stoned for it, it loses a little bit of it.
00:26:40.000But if you get stoned first and then you go see the comic, that's better.
00:27:37.000When you talk about saying the thing...
00:27:38.000It's just out there that you're not supposed to say.
00:27:41.000The easiest thing to say is a four-letter word, and then people laugh and they giggle because you've exposed that thing.
00:27:46.000A harder thing to do is to bring out that idea that you're not supposed to be thinking, that politically incorrect or socially incorrect idea, and bring that out and expose people for it.
00:29:43.000I mean, David Mamet, who is famous for using the F word, like, you know, he continues to spill these.
00:29:48.000He does it with this beautiful poetry, and when he's on his game, it is really funny and intense, you know, and it's just like he's talking about the way men talk, you know, and that's great, you know, but you're right.
00:30:00.000If you throw it in, it just loses everything.
00:30:01.000I love how with David Mamet, everyone just thought he was sort of subversive and they thought he was cutting edge until he came out as a conservative and then everything he'd ever done was actually sexist.
00:30:50.000Cyrus, the guy who made the film, is a good friend of mine.
00:30:54.000And it's a beautiful movie, and it really is.
00:30:56.000But right after it came out, I was sitting in a bar, and I looked over, and there he was, sitting next to me, kind of staring into his drink.
00:31:02.000drink and I said, I said, let me guess, people don't want to go out on Saturday night and watch a woman get stoned to death.
00:31:09.000After all, you have to remind people, movies are things you do on dates, you know, so whenever you write a movie, you have to sort of think to yourself, hey, honey, want to go see a movie about a woman being stoned to death?
00:32:12.000That resurrection scene is so quick, I actually turned to the guy when the lights came up and I said, you know, the book had a happy ending.
00:34:48.000As someone who's trained my entire life, who walks around at two and a quarter, who has a 54-year-old father who is in the top single-digit percentile of people in his age bracket for strength, I know what it takes.
00:34:59.000Now, let me give you kind of the timeline.
00:35:02.000Most people who are in Hollywood were drama geeks.
00:37:17.000I got some stuff in Uganda I have to cover.
00:37:19.000Occasionally you'll get somebody that is aware and is intelligent, that's an actor that does something really good with their life, and then they serve two terms, and then you're followed up by a bush.
00:39:22.000You know, I get it on my blog at PJ Media when I make Christian points.
00:39:29.000I was very moved by the Charleston, the family of the Charleston victims coming out and forgiving the killer.
00:39:35.000And I was talking about what a beautiful moment that was in a moment that reminds us of what The whole thing is supposed to be about, you know, that it actually is a different way of looking at the world in a way that was...
00:39:45.000No one ever saw the world like that before, Christ, and I was talking about the beauty of that.
00:39:51.000A couple of people showed up and said, you know, like, you stupid ex...
00:39:57.000If you knew what suffering was, you wouldn't...
00:40:00.000That's actually very kind, just like stupid ex-Jew, considering I'm not Jewish in any way, shape, or form, and I get called a Jew fag every day.
00:44:22.000Hey, if you like this interview with Andrew Klavan, there's something wrong with you, but you might enjoy these interviews with other guests, or I don't know what's playing.