Unconscious Cinema - The Secret Service
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 25 minutes
Words per Minute
160.05199
Summary
Kingsman: The Golden Knights of the Round Table is a film about a world ruled by a secret group of men who run rough shot across the world and have a license to kill and kill at will and apparently get a lot of girls in the end of the film. They are a group of elite men who project power and project power who are powerful who are assertive and active. They have a plan to eliminate the entire global elite class including the then President of the United States, Barack Obama.
Transcript
00:36:25.620
accept responsibilities uh or they don't accept
00:36:55.400
world power they should declare themselves kings
00:37:27.860
every uh society is a oligarchy and that was no
00:37:31.560
less true when uh kings were ruling us right or
00:37:35.680
ostensibly ruling us um really what determines the
00:37:44.640
yeah um but yeah and uh i think that um that is a
00:37:52.060
very uh interesting point and it's it's a point
00:37:54.900
that it also applies to it applies to 007 it applies to
00:38:05.220
who's who's both apollonian and phonic i mean in his
00:38:09.620
apollonian sense he's bruce bruce wayne you know
00:38:12.380
good looking philanthropist good looking um in some
00:38:16.360
variations he's good with the ladies and some not
00:38:18.720
but then he's obviously the ultimate phonic character in
00:38:24.700
you know dark vampiric uh you know he's almost like a
00:38:32.920
you know hades like figure you know operating in the
00:38:36.780
night you only see him you know you can only see his
00:38:39.020
eyes glowing from the corner i mean he becomes a devil
00:38:42.680
like figure sure and that's the only way he can operate
00:38:46.720
i mean the reference to uh vampires is explicit obviously
00:38:50.460
batman yeah um and the aesthetic the setting is gothic it's
00:38:55.820
gotham right so he's sort of he inhabits uh gotham as a
00:39:00.060
kind of gargoyle um so yeah so he actually takes on the
00:39:05.320
ugly appearance of uh this sort of degenerated setting of
00:39:09.080
gotham yeah rather and hides this sort of elevated
00:39:12.900
apollonian appearance in existence that exists kind of in a secret world
00:39:18.000
that he occupies among a kind of a social elite
00:39:21.280
or whatever the case may be yeah um so he ultimately
00:39:25.580
is not helping i mean he ultimately is a phonic figure
00:39:30.220
that he's that has carved up carved out a kind of a vampiric existence
00:39:39.320
um so yeah no i mean these are all interesting points um
00:39:44.460
what what is the the deeper like mythic background to
00:39:51.400
uh to this manners maketh the man it's it's the pygmalion
00:39:57.660
myth basically um is there's a george bernard shaw play called pygmalion
00:40:03.440
which um is the basis for very famous musical my fair lady uh which is
00:40:09.300
referenced explicitly in um in kingsman and uh it is this notion i mean it's
00:40:16.020
it's a it's a notion it's a very cynical notion and and a very
00:40:19.160
you could say like cynical leftist notion as well
00:40:22.920
that classes are all bullshit um all class really is is um is you know
00:40:32.380
obviously the money but then just a series of manners that one can put on like
00:40:37.320
putting on a cloak or take off um and that you know um harry hart uh or
00:40:43.960
you know professor higgins can just create an aristocrat you know
00:40:53.940
professor higgins's case and harry hart's case in order to save the world
00:40:57.820
um but that that one can kind of create a human being like a statue
00:41:04.680
but i mean again that that's almost like a greater that's like a more positive
00:41:09.240
quality quality to it um the more negative quality to it is this
00:41:13.900
you know again cynical leftist view of the elite
00:41:20.500
um but it's it's almost like harry hart or kingsman it wants to
00:41:25.900
take that egalitarian critique and and kind of turn it on its head and say yeah
00:41:32.480
but not all i don't know what what do you make of this
00:41:48.400
yeah and it's in it's not a uh implicitly it's a not a um
00:42:03.100
that's true though the changes in the second film
00:42:07.360
or at least in the uh they're sort of uh american edition that we'll talk about
00:42:12.040
yeah um but yeah so i would say look i mean i think that it's
00:42:16.660
it's an important topic to have i mean there is also uh they also say
00:42:21.260
at one point in the film they talk about how the aristocracy declined
00:42:25.440
and they all at some point they all got weak chins is how they put it in the film
00:42:29.260
yeah um look i mean that's all kind of real phenomena
00:42:36.600
you know in uh the greeks have this wonderful myth
00:42:41.340
about hercules now hercules i don't you know he is a half mortal
00:42:47.420
um he so he's only half descended i believe he uh zeus is his father
00:42:52.360
yeah uh so he's only half descended from the gods
00:43:01.060
performing these trials right and at the beginning of his life
00:43:05.320
um harrah hopes to kill him now ostensibly this is because she's jealous
00:43:16.820
where it's you might see it as kind of aristocracy
00:43:20.480
competing with uh you know sort of a rising or a nascently rising
00:43:25.120
group that is not necessarily of a founding stock for example
00:43:29.340
right and um so through these trials he's finally admitted
00:43:35.340
he's one of the few heroes he might even be the only hero as far as i know
00:43:41.240
and um so while we all you know we all believe in the in the power of heredity
00:43:50.880
heredity i don't think anyone the all right does not not believe in the power of
00:43:55.120
heredity and this sort of overwhelming power of
00:43:58.280
heredity we also know we also believe in the power of culture
00:44:01.980
obviously otherwise we wouldn't be offended by the
00:44:05.100
uh the complete garbage culture that we live in today
00:44:08.980
right um yeah because we know that the culture has a kind of breeding effect
00:44:13.780
on the people that inhabit the society right so culture in that way does determine
00:44:21.100
right it determines uh to some extent or another actually to a huge extent i would
00:44:25.760
say determines breeding choices right sure um so so yeah i mean it's a very
00:44:33.280
important and and and so the kind of oligarchies uh whether
00:44:40.880
they were called um monarchies uh or aristocracies
00:44:46.020
they you know there's never really been anything
00:44:50.340
called a meritocracy i mean that's never existed there's no such thing as a
00:44:58.020
um in in the way that you know democracy is not
00:45:05.100
or any in any kind of finite way it doesn't really describe it
00:45:08.580
democracy is a very different thing than a meritocracy like in theory it is it is
00:45:13.480
it is um but i mean you'll often you'll often hear uh jews for example talk about
00:45:18.980
you know one of the the great things about um the decline of the wasp
00:45:24.520
establishment was kind of the rise of this meritocracy right now we know that's
00:45:30.020
absolute horseshit i mean it's we don't live in any more of a meritocracy now than
00:45:35.360
we lived in then right um that all that has changed is a kind of
00:45:41.720
criteria especially a kind of outlook um that around uh that um by which people
00:45:49.820
are are allowed to kind of rise in this meritocracy
00:45:52.680
yeah all that's changed is who and whom sure and it but the ethnic nepotism that
00:45:58.800
existed before exists now it's arguably it's much stronger now
00:46:03.120
yeah um so so the idea of a meritocracy is something that's both you know describes
00:46:11.680
something very nebulous but it's also something that's always existed through
00:46:23.120
sort of arian group come in and you know conquer whatever natives were
00:46:26.680
or whatever the case may be um they would be interested in people that could do
00:46:31.960
things that were valuable to them right while still well still retaining a sense
00:46:36.520
of their blood and ancestry and and realizing that on some level they were
00:46:40.740
superior to the group that they had conquered right yeah um and so exceptions
00:46:46.040
are always made right and now the the question is how far do you take that right
00:46:53.700
and and i don't think you you have to take it necessarily that far
00:46:58.140
but i mean the where we take it the alt-right is my understanding is we we we extend that to all
00:47:08.000
europeans right right um so i mean i guess that's kind of that's how that sort of this that kind of
00:47:17.740
implicit um conflict that arises in uh kingsmen that's how i would characterize it or that's how i would
00:47:24.620
encourage people to think about it um yeah no i mean like i said i mean i think there are some
00:47:31.680
interesting themes embedded in the film that um that are worth kind of discussing or that are valuable
00:47:38.480
as discussions on their own you know the the other remark too that was kind of in this vein of
00:47:43.880
cultural determinism was uh there was this uh hemingway quote um that heart says to eggsy and it's uh
00:47:52.700
i just looked it up uh there's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man true nobility
00:47:57.980
is being superior to your former self it's a great quote yeah it's a great quote uh the first sentence
00:48:04.280
is false though uh the second sentence is great yeah true i mean sure we should be seeking to improve
00:48:11.800
ourselves and right becoming a kind of sort of the best form of ourselves that we possibly can be
00:48:17.560
um there's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man though is false on its face that's
00:48:23.160
nobility nobility is defined by being superior to someone effectively right right um so but you know
00:48:32.320
i do think the second part of that quote though is is valuable yes yeah we need to be the best form
00:48:38.520
of ourselves that we possibly can be right obviously the first half is is utterly um stupid and makes no
00:48:46.280
sense but i i would say maybe the from from a a certain kind of nietzschean perspective we could
00:48:51.840
say that you know becoming noble is a a personal project you know we we have to become in control of
00:48:59.800
ourselves we have to present ourselves as worthy of rule um that this is what it means to become noble
00:49:08.880
um you know even if we don't achieve ultimate power you know this is how we should act and how we should
00:49:18.240
view this project yes no and it's especially relevant in decadent times right yeah because we don't act
00:49:26.620
there is actually no nobility now right right so yes we have to be noble you know it's the uh it's
00:49:34.360
yaki's uh culture bearing stratum right it's down to us it's you know a couple of guys you and like
00:49:41.580
enoch and whatever we're the culture bearing stratum right and we're gonna rely on mike enoch for the
00:49:50.520
we i wouldn't underestimate i think i know i'm just yeah i'm uh i'm poking fun at him of course
00:49:59.240
and um well we all we all deserve that barb um oh yeah and i think that uh i think that um
00:50:07.900
all this is good it's gonna work out in my opinion uh we're all sort of just now finding ourselves in
00:50:16.380
the dark right so yeah um we we are the kind of that we are is kind of absurd and delusional as it
00:50:26.580
seems to say we are kind of a nascent aristocracy you know what we build what we save and what we
00:50:32.940
build and what we form especially is going to be the future because there is no other future
00:50:39.240
you know the future is is being kind of systematically destroyed by everyone else
00:50:44.680
right right so yeah so in that way we're kind of the seed and i mean to to extent i mean there
00:50:53.680
are men among us right now who are kind of these kingsmen in the sense that they uh they might be
00:50:58.480
donating to mpi or they might be um you know in the shadows assisting in ways that are not
00:51:05.180
apollonian in the manner that you are i mean that that is kind of your function you're kind of the uh
00:51:10.580
you are and i don't mean to give you a big head but you are or at least the idealized cinema form
00:51:16.940
of richard spencer is the apollonian version of the kingsmen right you're out there and frankly
00:51:23.480
more people have to get out there obviously but the people that are not out there should be
00:51:32.600
you're you're the machine gunners right now war will one was a bad scene and was completely dysgenic
00:51:38.880
but if you can imagine richard running with a fucking bayonet across the field you're the machine
00:51:44.700
gunner so you got to start laying down the fire and that that means donating money to these worthy
00:51:49.840
causes you know i mean whether it's you know enoch or richard or whoever yeah yeah i agree
00:51:55.760
i agree oh well you know the other thing i was going to say too is um this film is about looking good
00:52:06.340
right which is a very good and we've already talked about this a little bit uh in the idea of
00:52:10.720
the apollonian it's about looking good and you know i'm not one necessarily to talk because my
00:52:17.860
position might be a little different than yours but you guys need to fucking look good i i was telling
00:52:23.800
richard the other day that you know if he had 60 guys in suits like they're wearing in the film
00:52:29.260
it would be like it would be like cortez against the aztecs yeah i mean it's really that simple
00:52:36.660
because the we're in degenerate conditions which are terrible but that means that everyone is
00:52:42.400
effectively soft as well and that's what people need to start realizing right that we you know if
00:52:49.180
we just become sort of something closer to what our ancestors were but kind of refined by all the
00:52:57.420
knowledge that we have now um you know it's going to be a joke it's going to be a joke in my opinion
00:53:05.220
you know i'm saying um because there aren't really other powers out there that are kind of worthy of
00:53:12.100
contesting us on a psychological level right right because we're getting at something very deep and
00:53:18.020
we're sort of we're kind of what people want to be if once they start becoming honest with themselves
00:53:23.640
right so if they if they start seeing kind of an improved image in the alt-right you know when you go
00:53:31.720
to these events to support richard i mean obviously you know dress well don't dress don't bring your
00:53:37.600
fedoras don't dress like an idiot obviously but you know seriously right i mean and you know and if
00:53:44.520
you need some tips talk to richard i mean honestly and but i think that that is part of and i think
00:53:51.060
also i don't want to steal your thunder so you can pick up at any point when i just start this
00:53:56.240
description though but it's it's also a part of making uh the exterior as noble as the interior
00:54:02.820
right yeah exactly this this is a very important point and you know i there are lots of like modern
00:54:11.580
stereotypes or myths that we have that that i that that actually are quite destructive i mean
00:54:17.140
one of them is of the dumb blonde i think that's a very interesting one um and uh another one is of
00:54:24.360
the nerd and that basically the only type of person who is you know admirably intelligent
00:54:31.980
is socially awkward and almost extreme in his knowledge and skills you know it's like it's not
00:54:41.600
the renaissance man that is that is you know and i don't mean that in the sense of oh he's a dilettante
00:54:48.060
he's mediocre at everything no i mean in the sense of someone who really can do it all um that's not
00:54:54.160
our ideal for in terms of intelligence our ideal intelligence is the nerd the einstein the urkel
00:55:00.480
and so on it's it's the person with this just you know this bloated you know abilities in one area
00:55:08.120
and totally you know athrapied abilities in every other one and um that is the vision i i think it
00:55:16.040
probably there probably actually is even a jewish history to this vision of intelligence of the the
00:55:22.600
expert or the scientist as as uh adhering to a certain kind of you know jewish nebbish quality
00:55:29.640
um as opposed to the you know more aristocrat you know aristocratic uh apollonian qualities of uh
00:55:38.840
of of europeans uh but yeah it's it's like there's we we assume this dichotomy between
00:55:47.480
intelligence and appearance and it that and that that probably gets back to that dichotomy between
00:55:55.260
you know oh you know which is again it's a very christian myth of like oh you know they're ugly on
00:56:00.360
the outside but what a good soul this person has um but no i mean we the way we should view things is
00:56:08.460
that people should be beautiful on the inside and the outside i mean there should be a continuity and
00:56:13.580
direct equation between one's outer appearance and one's inner character and the the kingsmen for
00:56:23.140
all their faults and and for all the the movies faults and for all the movies kind of vulgar moments
00:56:27.720
um it does actually present that i mean the the kingsmen aren't duplicitous dissemblers you know in
00:56:35.860
their top hats and pinstripes i mean they they are ultimately noble-souled people um and and we
00:56:43.580
definitely should try to create that you know equation again yeah no i mean i in i you know i agree a
00:56:52.480
hundred percent with what you're saying uh it's the apollonian verse these more specialized types
00:56:57.360
effectively yeah um and what has happened in our culture is that um uh intelligence has become
00:57:04.420
riven from masculinity uh it's become riven from fashion um all these things and these are these
00:57:11.680
have had a devastating effect on us right um we need to become more these sort of polymathic types
00:57:19.340
these well-rounded i mean even the expression all-american all-american used to mean a guy who
00:57:25.460
was both good at sports and a guy who was a good uh you know student uh intelligent athletic good-looking
00:57:32.540
we want all these attributes these actually are uh requisite attributes for survival this is right
00:57:39.480
this is our type right um so this is the type that we have to kind of redesign in a way right um and
00:57:48.540
so that's part of our project and um the other thing i was going to say just to put it in kind of a
00:57:56.240
less heady a shorter term way um is there's a kind of wonderful metaphor that emerges in the film
00:58:03.640
where they uh refer to the suit that the guy's wearing as a suit of armor right and he's so the
00:58:13.220
kingsmen each of the kingsmen receives a suit right and there's a metaphor that the kingsmen
00:58:18.440
became tailors they went into the uh the clothing business um and they they give all their knights
00:58:25.880
as they call them uh or their agents they give them these suits and the metaphor they use in the
00:58:31.660
film is the each suit is a suit of armor right right now that's entirely the case right so and that's
00:58:38.560
how in just in a kind of utilitarian if you want to think about it in an entirely utilitarian manner
00:58:43.640
because i'm sure look there are plenty of guys out there who are you know intelligent guys that
00:58:48.960
are in the alt-right uh who are just like you know what i it seems a little elitist whatever i just
00:58:55.860
want to do whatever the fuck you know whatever yeah you guys need to get your shit together is what i'm
00:59:00.460
saying the suit of armor no no seriously the suit of armor is a perfect metaphor right right so if you
00:59:08.540
look good people don't fucking give a shit i mean the fact is our ideas are irrelevant to most people
00:59:16.580
they're relevant to us we're kind of the brain as it were of the movement so the brain is going to
00:59:22.400
value ideas right but the rest of the body doesn't value ideas it values commands and the way that the
00:59:29.580
commands are sent are by images right right so we need to send that image to the rest of the body
00:59:36.780
the rest of the body is going to get the fuck up that's how you do it you know i mean so it's all
00:59:41.620
it's not all about image obviously we need the ideas we have the ideas now we have to start
00:59:47.720
transmitting the ideas in the form of images right and one of those images if you're an activist
00:59:54.740
is looking good right now if that means you know and i you know you you guys are are walking down
01:00:03.480
an aesthetic which is great but at some point that aesthetic needs to be suits in my opinion
01:00:08.160
you just need to have suits right it needs to be at least 50 core guys with suits and then people
01:00:14.560
will be like what the fuck these guys are so badass honestly you know because who else is going to do
01:00:21.200
that out there no one is going to do that in fact explicitly the whole egalitarian anti-white thing
01:00:29.280
is against that aesthetic in that look yeah so they actually won't even have an answer for it i mean
01:00:34.360
they couldn't get 10 guys i mean they could probably get some of the neocon guys like
01:00:38.420
a from or whatever to get on a suit you get yeah to their credit in a way i i think it's also it's
01:00:45.080
extremely telling about silicon valley i mean what is the uniform for silicon valley you know mark
01:00:51.520
zuckerberg it's it's literally flip flops jeans and a t-shirt and even you know like the apple
01:01:00.780
executives who who dress up you know they they they don't wear much more beyond a sport shirt that's
01:01:09.160
about as dressy as they present themselves you know when they're presenting an image of themselves to
01:01:14.160
the world and sometimes they'll dress up like they look like they're working out or something you know
01:01:18.200
it's like a uh some kind of synthetic you know like workout clothing or something it it's never
01:01:25.460
they they never want want to present themselves as an elite i mean i guess we're returning to that
01:01:30.960
that um dichotomy where it's like the contemporary global elite wants to present itself as either
01:01:38.120
invisible or as effectually democratic or even prole you know yeah and there there's a there's an
01:01:45.880
need for ultimately an elite i mean maybe we'll have to act like this i mean there there isn't a
01:01:51.060
there is a phonic element to what we're doing where we we need to present ourselves as we need we need
01:01:56.580
to hide our power levels so to speak we need to present ourselves as toothless but then you know at
01:02:01.520
the at the end of the day we need there needs to be an elite that presents itself as an elite yes yes
01:02:08.280
and i think that um the advantage of that at least on the street level right uh which is where we have
01:02:14.980
greater access um is it will just it'll create a profound contrast between you and your adversaries
01:02:21.220
right you're wearing suits these guys are you know dressed like ninjas or whatever the fuck they're
01:02:26.600
doing you know i mean and it the aesthetic difference between the two i mean you'll immediately win
01:02:34.460
the support of uh you know of the public yeah it will be like yeah those guys are good looking guys
01:02:41.060
they're dressed well that's all i need to know that's all they need to know that's all they've
01:02:46.380
ever needed to know i hate to break it to you you know i mean all these ideas that you love i mean the
01:02:52.400
great idea is to share with one another and to cultivate and develop um but when the rubber hits
01:02:59.060
the road you know uh i mean in fact the only place where they're sort of maintaining the suits and stuff
01:03:05.940
is with the is in the news media right the news media is dying yeah the news media is in the
01:03:12.640
political class is dying too because the people that i mean you know the people that don't think
01:03:19.540
they're full of shit at this point are all boomers right yeah um so both the political class and the
01:03:25.820
mainstream media are dying those guys are wearing suits i think you need to grab those suits at some
01:03:30.560
point is is my feeling um but that not to counter signal your point that like i think that there
01:03:36.520
we need to be it needs to be we need to be moving on all platforms and in all shapes and forms right
01:03:43.200
so if someone has developed a different aesthetic or is looking for another approach it's fine by me
01:03:50.120
right you know it's not i'm just saying that there also needs to be people who are gathering you know
01:03:56.380
and in defense of mike enoch whom i poked fun at earlier uh maybe there needs to be a little bit of
01:04:04.060
both going on maybe we have to reach people where they are a little a little bit in the sense of
01:04:09.960
being more relaxed and down to earth you know his you know his you know his mike's uniform like when
01:04:17.040
we've done public appearances mike's uniform is you know like jeans and an eddie bauer vest and a
01:04:22.640
sport shirt or something he wears a jacket i think he wears a jacket right he has worn a
01:04:26.240
jacket as well yeah and then then my aesthetic is the um the suit uh so and not a boring black suit
01:04:34.200
like you see in washington all these boxy black suits like you see all these doofuses wearing
01:04:38.020
well yeah but one that has color and character to it yeah i'm describing this as a development
01:04:43.240
right so and i agree with you 100 i mean what mike is doing over um trs is really amazing in a lot of
01:04:51.420
ways but he you know so the way i think about it is kind of moving from the dionesian to the apollonian
01:04:59.220
yeah and that's what nietzsche describes he describes how the apollonian always rises um from the dionesian
01:05:07.080
and vice versa of course yeah um so i think that so he's sort of in some sense he's in this dionesiac
01:05:15.180
realm in the sense that he's making these vulgar jokes right it's a keck keck is like a totem of
01:05:21.580
dionises effectively yeah definitely right he's a chaos god he's clearly a dionesian figure yeah
01:05:26.300
and um and that's good that's how people you you do you have to go where people are right you have
01:05:33.520
to talk to them where they are you don't want to seem like a stuffed shirt you want to seem like
01:05:37.640
the guy uh you know you you cultivate the kind of bar room or uh locker room sort of camaraderie
01:05:46.440
yeah so but i see that as stage one right i see that as stage one and then you realize we have
01:05:55.660
fucking work to do right yeah to do work you put on a suit and you go to the job that's what people
01:06:01.720
used to do right and um everyone everyone's ancestor right in the 1920s you look at photos
01:06:08.420
everyone's wearing a suit right um so i think at some point it has to go in that direction
01:06:13.420
right now we're in this kind of you know i think the dionesian is is great for kind of the recruitment
01:06:19.740
phase of this but we're also in the process of cultivating men in the way that you know heart
01:06:26.140
is cultivating egzy in these films right right so we're we're seeing if some of these uh shavs work
01:06:32.620
out right so and sounding out the shavs with the tuning fork to see if they uh uh they can uh make
01:06:43.640
some noise um yeah yeah absolutely i i totally uh i totally agree um let let's uh let me do this
01:06:50.720
just to bring this to a to a head let's oh did you want to oh good please did you want to talk
01:06:58.760
at all about the second film uh where we see kind of these contrasting types of the american type and
01:07:05.180
the english type or were you yeah we can do that all right go on that all right yeah yeah so in the
01:07:12.720
film uh they're kind of or in the second film at least there emerges this uh two characters the um
01:07:18.500
or actually two branches of uh a super organization of which kingsman is one and i think
01:07:25.920
kingsman is the founding yeah element of the super organization and the other arm of the super
01:07:31.780
organization is called the statesman and they're based in america and uh all the the men in that um
01:07:38.860
in that section are kind of these sort of american these sort of mythic american stereotypes of these
01:07:46.080
kind of macho uh you know rural american types and they're contrasted with these aristocratic
01:07:52.540
english types or relatively aristocratic i should say english types and uh and so the film plays a lot
01:07:59.680
on kind of the cast uh the um the contrast between these two types and my my remarks to richard earlier
01:08:09.160
when we were discussing the film is that um i mean they both both types have their strengths um sure
01:08:16.320
the american type is a kind of robust masculine type and i think that that's valuable um the english type
01:08:23.940
is a less robust ostensibly less masculine type but is more a refined and mannered type and i don't
01:08:31.760
think again it i don't think these things are mutually exclusive right so i think that in other words we
01:08:37.540
could be reaching toward uh a kind of uh developing of a kind of ideal apollonian type among these sort
01:08:45.780
of uh now kind of fragmentary and disparate european types including the american european and uh
01:08:53.380
i that's sort of the direction our conversation went before but yeah i mean i think it's an interesting
01:08:59.060
contrast it's made i think it you know obviously it's a caricature and the uh the present-day american
01:09:06.060
a lot of his masculinity is is a kind of pseudo masculinity a lot of it is kind of squandered
01:09:12.240
on watching sports like a disgusting asshole uh and a lot of it is squandered on you know i think that
01:09:19.500
one of i i mean to a certain extent because i did listen to your conversation your last conversation when
01:09:25.080
you were talking about sports um i i am a proponent of sports um in kind of the uh you know the the
01:09:33.540
grecian roman greco sense of that where we are engaged in physical sports and i mean i think
01:09:39.880
skiing is a fine sport um but i think that all the sports uh that were practiced by our ancestors are
01:09:46.740
are also fine sports including some of the sports that will end up giving people uh you know uh
01:09:53.920
concussions and head damage like i like i don't for me that's a feature not a bug yes i like i don't
01:10:01.620
i'm less concerned like i think that we'll always have kind of these risk-taking male types
01:10:08.660
who want to be involved in sports where they're willing to kind of put everything on the line
01:10:13.500
or what like the uh um mixed martial arts i mean we could say it's an entirely inhumane thing but i
01:10:18.960
think it does there is it does sort of i think it continues this kind of flame of masculinity in our
01:10:24.820
race like these sports like you know yeah so this was my feeling towards kingsman as a as a bond fan
01:10:36.020
you could say someone who's oh i i really like fleming's novels i like most of the films um i've
01:10:44.000
you know bond is something that i've been in a way obsessed with for my life i mean it's a
01:10:49.420
um i i got into it when i was like i don't know like 10 or 12 or something like that we uh richard
01:10:55.440
we know we know we know i don't need to go into it uh so this film is remarkable in the sense that
01:11:05.640
it is both it's it's it's a it's not just both it's many things it is a pastiche of the bond films
01:11:14.300
it is in a way a critique of them as well a critique of them on multiple levels i mean any
01:11:20.480
time you do satire it's it's inherently a critique even if it's just simply to point out the ridiculousness
01:11:26.920
of the whole bond world and and that's you know ripe for criticism obviously uh but it was also a
01:11:33.680
critique you know at another level in the sense that you could tell that matthew vaughn
01:11:39.120
once different bond films you know there there's a moment where um there's a moment uh where uh harry
01:11:47.600
hart is speaking with richmond valentine and they talk about their favorite you know bond films you
01:11:53.200
know did you watch any of those old bye movies you know in his cernovich like accent and uh and harry
01:12:01.040
hart says oh i i loved the old ones where they had these you know outlandish plot and colorful villains
01:12:06.920
these megalomaniacs trying to take over the world and so on and clearly matthew vaughn is criticizing
01:12:13.080
the daniel craig era of the bond movies and what he's basically saying is that everything has become
01:12:19.740
personal daniel craig's bond has taken you know the the brooding angry aspect of of the the actual
01:12:27.920
james bond character which is definitely there and kind of turned it to 11 and dispensed with
01:12:32.340
the more flamboyant or or you know witty aspects of it that were turned up to 11 in the more air
01:12:40.320
the roger more air and um so what he's basically saying is these these movies aren't fun anymore and
01:12:46.800
there's nothing the big things are at stake aren't at stake anymore and so you know it's it's all about
01:12:53.560
these personal vendettas now so you know bond you know bond gets caught up in some poker match or bond
01:13:00.720
you know someone wants to kill him because m allowed him to get tortured in a previous
01:13:05.140
you know decade or something like that anyway they're they're not nothing's really at stake and
01:13:09.900
so what matthew vaughn did is that he recreated moonraker and he's kind of he recreated moonraker
01:13:16.060
in two films uh basically and that is this end times you know extreme megalomaniac in the case of
01:13:23.500
moonraker uh the film which is based on a book uh the book the person is a as a an actual neo-nazi who's
01:13:31.920
desiring to send rockets on london and get revenge and the film they they they they take that core
01:13:39.340
concept and they dilate it you know to the point that he's he's literally in a space satellite and
01:13:47.800
he is going he's a kind of nazi not literally but but metaphorically in the sense that he he wants to
01:13:54.580
depopulate the entire earth while maintaining the ecological balance of plants and animals and
01:13:59.860
and recreate a super race uh it's actually a multi-racial super race so there would be
01:14:05.360
you know the the um the japanese and africans and so on but it's very clear thank god yeah but it's very
01:14:13.760
clear that you know whites will rule and they will look up to the heavens and know that there is order
01:14:19.760
in the universe once again i mean it's these bold pronouncements um and roger moore of course thwarts
01:14:26.720
this um you know once again it's probably what everyone wants though yeah i know well that's part
01:14:33.620
of it you have to secretly you know you have to secretly sympathize with the villain for it to work
01:14:39.080
you know you have to love the villain the movie is only as good as the villain and when the villain
01:14:43.200
is just some kind of weirdo out for revenge it really does lose a lot and so i so anyway he's
01:14:49.140
critiquing the bond franchise i think he's pushing showing a way forward like i don't know what bond
01:14:54.880
is going to do now because it's been you know the films that are more fun and outlandish and wacky
01:15:02.300
even like kingsman how are having more cultural impact than at least the last bond film specter which
01:15:11.120
which was a bit of a dud i mean it's not a terrible film but it got away from the bond
01:15:16.600
elements it actually got away from it pretty seriously even to the point where bond isn't
01:15:22.040
willing to kill blofeld at the end which is totally out of character um and and the fact that you know
01:15:29.020
blofeld didn't escape you know his downfall you know they're you know calling in a bathos sub or
01:15:35.180
something like that but anyway um yeah so that's what this is about but it it also gets at those
01:15:42.020
you know again it it gets it i i do it gets it something true which is and this goes back to what
01:15:48.020
i was talking about at the beginning of the podcast which is that bond is at his best these bond movies
01:15:53.200
are are at their best when they show us something that scares us about the real world and they they let
01:16:00.540
us indulge in in in a kind of way out of that and so as i was saying in the beginning you know look
01:16:07.880
i don't obviously i don't like i would never agree to richmond valentine's plan um and i you know i
01:16:16.980
um you know that is totally horrifying just the imagine like walking out of your cave after you know
01:16:26.200
he created genocide on a global scale i mean they're just seven billion rotting bodies lying
01:16:32.180
around though i mean it the what he is trying to attempt is so grotesque it's just unimaginable
01:16:37.160
um but at the same time like i i do recognize that what he's getting at is correct i mean
01:16:45.440
the we cannot engage in endless population growth of individual of consumer individuals as consumers
01:16:55.260
who are all going to be grasping after this american lifestyle or even this european lifestyle even
01:17:02.300
worse of you know guaranteed security and pensions we can't do that going forward and there there you
01:17:10.100
know richmond valentine is is obviously utterly grotesque but he seems to be getting at something
01:17:16.400
and um you know he's got the kind of flip side uh you know of all this i think there is even a kind
01:17:23.860
of puritanical flip side to the drug use element with the in in the second kingsman where we you know
01:17:30.320
all the druggies are gonna um get their comeuppance um but but anyway that that that is the ultimate bond
01:17:38.240
villain is when he he he kind of like gets at the heart of a deep problem with the modern world
01:17:47.580
and then offers this radical alternative to it whether it's living in the sea like stromberg and
01:17:56.060
spy who love me or massive depopulation or or something yeah yeah those are the most intriguing
01:18:05.360
villains when when you have a certain sympathy with them yeah i mean i i think that the uh both films
01:18:12.460
contain this sort of idea of a uh eugenic cleansing or ostensibly eugenic cleansing of the planet um yeah
01:18:19.860
in the first uh kingsman film um this this is explicitly the goal of the samuel jackson character
01:18:27.720
of course the um the elite that he hopes to retain is kind of you know they're not olympian gods it is
01:18:34.200
some sort of degenerate like celebrity class yeah you know rich and i mean they might be wealthy
01:18:39.420
you know probably a lot of jews in there but it's just sort of this degenerate white you know oligarchy
01:18:45.720
effectively uh with some non-whites thrown in it seems like right um so the so what's retained is
01:18:54.560
not necessarily eugenic but what's eliminated is in a lot of cases ostensibly eugenic um and then the
01:19:01.100
other film is more explicitly it contains this more explicitly eugenic theme where all the drug users
01:19:07.980
die because the the drugs have been poisoned effectively um and then the president sort of
01:19:14.120
passively allows it to happen rather than and he becomes a sort of sub-villain because he's willing
01:19:18.780
to allow it to happen whereas the person who's doing it is actually hoping that uh the president
01:19:23.660
will call her bluff right and she'll make a lot of money and become famous she doesn't want to lose
01:19:29.060
all her customers yeah but in a way the president becomes this um yeah the president becomes the
01:19:36.620
ultimate villain because he he's pursuing the dastardly plan what yeah most dastardly yeah my
01:19:42.140
remark would be i actually don't think any sort of kind of eugenic i mean for the human race to go in
01:19:50.020
a kind of eugenic direction would not occur through kind of violent means i mean the only way that it
01:19:56.040
would occur is actually through kind of a gradual consensus break a relatively gradual uh consensus
01:20:02.680
building and then people just deciding at some point that they want to go in this direction right
01:20:07.500
yeah in other words i mean we we saw a very kind of uh you know arguably kind of deformed
01:20:12.900
a version of that in in germany with hitler right now hitler had a lot of flaws in his regime had a lot
01:20:22.140
of flaws uh but he was ultimately it does seem that he probably would have looked for a peaceful
01:20:29.140
solution yeah peaceful solution would have meant a kind of a eugenic uh revival in europe effectively
01:20:36.080
right we don't even have to look at hitler i mean the exactly what you were talking about in terms of
01:20:42.080
a consensus building leading to policy and so on that's what we saw in the united states yeah that
01:20:48.440
was occurring in the 1920s right in the 1920s we we were reaching a consensus what disrupted that
01:20:55.360
consensus was a big clusterfuck of a war effectively um where eugenics could be sort of um uh kind of
01:21:04.900
irrationally demonized as a cause of the war you know and it wasn't the cause of the war i mean you
01:21:11.960
you know the eugenicists were all against war for the obvious reasons war is dysgenic
01:21:18.300
especially in um you know with the advent of firearms right yeah i mean it was especially
01:21:27.040
dysgenic uh during world one when all the uh uh the nobles and elites died in world one i mean the
01:21:34.980
thing was a fiasco that was that was the end of the aristocracies in europe yeah so you know eugenics
01:21:42.820
is not pro-war and that's that's kind of a and i i guess in the film none of these i mean with the
01:21:50.960
exception of uh samuel jackson's plan i guess i guess that that would be a violent sort of culling
01:21:56.420
of the herd as it were um but that's not that actually doesn't describe the way that eugenics
01:22:02.060
would would occur if it were to occur though it though on the other hand it ostensibly might describe
01:22:07.980
eugenics if coming from a thonic source right um where one people are pursuing eugenics and then
01:22:16.520
creating kind of dysgenic connections uh dysgenic conditions for everyone else i'm not naming names
01:22:23.520
but you know what i'm saying so that no but that has more war potential than the former scenario
01:22:30.420
sure right because in that in in when people are pursuing eugenics in a thonic manner where it's
01:22:38.100
their group pursuing it but they're dissuading the rest of the population then they're incentivized to
01:22:44.000
say hey we got to kill off all these fucking people they're going to get on to us want to do
01:22:47.020
it themselves or whatever you know i mean so that creates a more violent situation um our idea of
01:22:56.080
eugenics is a peaceful you know apollo is a god of peace i didn't right uh you know but he's also
01:23:02.600
a destroyer you fuck with him uh so you know all these things are are things worth considering we
01:23:12.060
didn't you know we are obviously anti-war you know and we're anti-violence everyone knows this
01:23:16.980
we're anti-violence we didn't you know these movies these kingsman films despite themselves they they
01:23:22.620
still do offer a a vision of the changing of the world i mean they they all they are kind of alt-right
01:23:33.200
movies in their way and i i obviously don't think they're perfect films or that they encapsulate our
01:23:40.520
ideology but um again if you if you if you go beyond that false dichotomy of you know we need to save
01:23:50.120
the masses from these this evil chosen people and and and so on and you just look at what really
01:23:57.600
attracts uh young men to see these films uh it's not just about maintaining the social order you know
01:24:07.040
as it is uh it it is about becoming part of something that has to be that must be secret because
01:24:14.120
it's so reactionary and so radical and so aristocratic and so beautiful it's about you
01:24:20.600
know do you want to becoming a spy basically means becoming part of the elite and the the second film
01:24:27.460
is much more paused like you have like almost a george w bush character is the villain and you know
01:24:32.480
there's a half you know mulatto woman who joins the statesman all that kind of stuff is pretty paused
01:24:37.860
but but even that first film and i don't i i still don't understand how this got by the censors but
01:24:44.720
it does offer this vision of um of a change a changing of the guard basically um the global elite
01:24:55.560
the people who have led to the world as it is all get their heads blown off i mean it was which is
01:25:02.080
interesting getting one's heads blown off it's it's kind of 1789 but it's 1789 but we the jacobins now