Ep 843 ｜ Is 'Barbie' Secretly Conservative？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per Minute
168.63663
Summary
On this episode of Relatable, we're talking about the backlash to Jason Aldean's new song, Try That in a Small Town, and the myth that Governor DeSantis in Florida is somehow pro slavery.
Transcript
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The long-awaited Barbie movie is finally here and apparently it is way more insufferable than
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people expected but we've got an analysis for you from producer Brie and from me on that. Also
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we'll be talking about the backlash to country music star Jason Aldean's song Try That in a
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Small Town. Why is he being called pro-lynching? Also the myth that you see circulating that
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Governor DeSantis in the Florida curriculum is somehow pro-slavery. We've got to debunk all
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that. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code
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Allie for a discounted checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie. GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie.
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Hey guys welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far. Had
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a wonderful weekend. We've got a lot of pop culture stuff to talk about and also debunking some myths
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about the state of Florida being pro-slavery. What what what? I'm so glad to be back in the studio so
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hopefully it sounds and looks as normal to you guys. It's Monday so do the next right thing in
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faith with excellence and for the glory of God that is always enough always sufficient no matter
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what you're facing no matter what you're feeling that is always the commitment we can make just do
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the next right thing. All right just a reminder before we get into all of this we've just got a
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few weeks until my maternity leave. Guys can you believe it? I'm going into my ninth month of
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pregnancy. I am 35 weeks and so I'm going to start maternity leave before my due date a little before
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my due date because you know you just never know and just want a little time to prep and nest and all
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that good stuff but because we at Relatable love you all so much because we care so much about this show
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we didn't want to leave you hanging. So we have pre-recorded since the beginning of the year to
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today so many amazing episodes for you guys so you will have something to listen to Monday through
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Thursday. Most of these are going to be interviews with really fascinating guests and oh my gosh I've
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been wanting to put so many of these episodes out because I cannot wait for you to hear them just
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like some of the most fascinating conversations I've had. And then we've got some Q&A episodes too.
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A lot of the just FYI a lot of the interviews because they're so long you guys know I could
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talk to most of my guests for like hours and hours because I just find them so brilliant and
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interesting. They're going to be split into two parts. Man we're talking about all kinds of theological
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issues all kinds of like health medical things that I didn't know about before talking to a lot of
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people. A lot of controversial topics and takes that you guys are going to enjoy listening to
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during the 12-ish weeks that I will be gone from August to whenever that ends. And I will be popping
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up on social media and things like that. I'll let you know when the baby arrives but I just wanted to
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give you an FYI. And during that time I know that we're not going to be talking about the news stuff and
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I'm not going to be able to catch whatever is going viral or whatever everyone is talking about
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at the time. It's really helpful for the show if even during that time when we're not talking about
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the news and what's going on in the moment. If you could not just listen to and faithfully
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watch those episodes but also if you could share them. If you could talk about them on social media
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it helps because we love to be talking about you know what other people are talking about what you
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guys are asking me about. Can you comment on this news story this social media post this issue that's
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happening right now obviously because I want to give myself my family and our team a break we won't be
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able to do that. But if you could still just stay as dedicated as you are and then share it with other
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people too that really helps and continue to leave your five-star reviews if you love the show. All of that
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helps so much. It just sets us up well for when we come back for maternity leave. So appreciate you
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guys so much. All right let's get into the three things that we're going to talk about today. Let's
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start with this Jason Aldean story and then we'll get into the Barbie stuff. Okay I know that you guys
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probably saw this last week but I just had to talk about it because it is so ridiculous. It's so
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ridiculous that this is even a thing and if you don't know you will. So Jason Aldean is a country
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singer and he performed a song or he released a song in May called Try That in a Small Town May 19th
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of this year and then the music video premiered July 14th 2023 and it was after the music video
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premiered I guess a few days after that that the song started stoking a lot of controversy
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because of its content because of its lyrics. Now right now it's got over 15 million views on YouTube
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the music video. It is also the number two most played song in the U.S. on Apple Music. It's climbing
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the charts largely because of this controversy. People are calling the song racist, white supremacist,
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pro lynching and I'll tell you why and obviously explain to you why that is absolutely ridiculous.
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So let me read you some of the lyrics of this. Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk, carjack an old
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lady at a red light, pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store. You think it's cool, well act a fool
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if you like. Cuss out a cop, spit in his face, stomp on the flag and light it up. Yeah you think
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you're tough. And then here's the chorus. Well try that in a small town. See how far you make it down
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the road. Around here we take care of our own. You cross that line. It won't take long for you to find
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out. I recommend you don't. Try that in a small town. Got a gun my granddad gave me. They say one day
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they're gonna round up. Well that bleep might fly in the city. Good luck. Try that in a small town. So
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basically that on repeat. And then you've got the music video that in the background you do see
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some different riots that are reminiscent of 2020, 2021 and the different reports of violence that
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we've seen. It seems increased dramatically over the past few years. And here is a clip of that music
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Suck a fuck somebody on the sidewalk. Carjacking old lady at a red light. Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store. You think it's cool. You'll act a fool if you like. Cuss out a cop, spit in his face. Stomp on the flag and light it up. Yeah you think you're tough.
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Okay so there it is. In the background you've got a lot of the things that were happening in
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2020. The disrespects towards police officers. The burning of the flags. The riots. The protests. The theft happening at convenience stores. People didn't like that. People also noted that he was standing in front of the building apparently that has some racist historic significance. And so people are as I said calling him a racist.
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So here's some of the backlash that he's received. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action. She blocked me on Twitter a long time ago. I think like 2017.
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She took issue with the lyrics since Aldean survived the Las Vegas mass shooting. She posted the lyrics and said Jason Aldean who was on stage during the mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert in 2017 that killed 60 people and wounded over 400 more has recorded a song called Try That in a Small Town about he and his friends will shoot you if you try to take their guns.
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That's that's not what he said. Police reform activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham accused the singer of not telling the truth about shootings in small towns saying that most mass shootings occur in small towns. She said Uvalde, VA Tech, Newtown, Parkland all of these were small towns. Most mass shootings occur in small towns. Your listeners are dying. Now this is not true.
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She may have been referencing an AP report in 2018 that said that nine out of 10 of the deadliest school shootings in the U.S. took place in a town with fewer than 75,000 residents and the vast majority of them were in cities with fewer than 50,000 people.
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But as far as mass shootings go, it is not true that most of those are happening in small towns. According to CBS, for mass shootings in which four or more people are hit by gunfire, that's how it's defined.
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In all of the United States, Chicago has the greatest number of any city, large or small. There have been 24 mass shootings in Chicago this year alone. This was in 2022, which have left 12 people dead and 101 people injured.
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We know this. We know this. OK, this is gaslighting. We know where the violence is happening. And by the way, if you adjusted the definition of mass shooting to be three or more, the number of mass shootings that would be recorded occurring in those large cities would spike drastically.
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Philadelphia comes in second with 14 mass shootings last year, followed by New York City with 10, Baltimore with eight and Houston with seven.
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And of course, we know that just run of the mill gang violence, gun violence happens frequently in those cities.
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I mean, who are we kidding? We know where the majority of gun violence is happening.
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Now, I'm not saying that violence never happens in small towns. I'm not saying that it's not a problem.
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But we understand what inner cities look like. Like we understand how dangerous it can be to take public transportation in those areas.
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We understand that the downtowns of most of those major cities have been absolutely decimated by the progressive social justice,
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pro-drug, pro-crime policies that have been implemented by Democrats.
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We understand that. And so they can try to gaslight us. They can try to manipulate us.
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They can try to say that Jason Aldean doesn't know what he's talking about. We all know the truth.
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So, again, he is also being accused of being pro-lynching.
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Mississippi Free Press News editor Ashton Pittman criticized Aldean for choosing a controversial location,
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the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee.
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Apparently, there was a white lynching mob that killed a person there in 1927.
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As if I'm sure that Jason Aldean, I'm sure that he knew that piece of history and he decided,
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oh, I am I'm going to commemorate this terrible, awful thing that happened in 1927 here.
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OK, the company that produced the music video, Tacklebox Films,
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responded with a statement saying that Aldean did not choose the filming location.
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Of course, of course not. The production company says any alternative narrative suggesting the music video's location decision is false.
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Alternative narrative to what they said that this is a popular place to film different kinds of videos.
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The women at The View weighed in with Sunny Hostin claiming Aldean's hometown is one of the most racist places ever.
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And she doesn't believe he didn't understand the symbolism. Here she is.
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Do you agree that he should be allowed to say whatever he wants?
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Because as a lawyer, when I put my legal hat on, I don't believe in censorship.
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My father's from Augusta, Georgia and Macon, Georgia.
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It is one of the most racist places in this country.
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So don't tell me that he knew nothing about what that imagery meant and what he...
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But I'm saying along with him, more people should also be held accountable.
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The other thing is, and unfortunately, this became the number one song on U.S. iTunes.
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Like, how do you decide that a city is one of the most racist places?
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Is it just because it's in the South and there's a lot of white people and at one point there were slaves?
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Like, how do you decide what city in the United States is the most racist?
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This does not stand for the racist capital of the world, by the way.
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That just happens to be where they hold the masters every year.
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But Sonny says that they're the most racist places in the world.
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And so because of where he's from, because Jason Aldean is from Macon, Georgia, he understands the symbolism of a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, because that makes a whole lot of sense.
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This is her apparently with her, like, lawyer hat on, she says.
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Okay, so the country music industry is also criticizing him.
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They are also throwing him under the bus because of this apparently racist song.
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And I just want to pause for a second and say that the lyrics never mention race.
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They never mention the color of someone's skin.
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And in fact, in the music video, if you saw, like, there are white women, there are people of all different ethnicities, of all different melanin counts represented in the music video.
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The common theme was disrespect and destruction.
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Now, maybe the people who see this automatically as some kind of racist dog whistle should ask themselves why they automatically think of black people when they hear the term carjacking.
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Why do you automatically think of black people when you hear lyrics about theft or burning the flag or causing destruction and disarray and committing those crimes?
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Race is never explicitly mentioned in any of these lyrics.
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And yet all of your minds immediately go to black people committing those crimes.
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And so you accuse Jason Aldean of being a white supremacist when he never talks about black people.
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Maybe you should ask yourself why that is where your mind so quickly automatically goes.
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So as I said, CMT, country music television, the country music industry, they are also saying, oh, my goodness, this is just an awful song.
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I can't believe that Jason Aldean is doing this.
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OK, so CMT, country music television, pulls the controversial Jason Aldean music video so they won't play it.
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CMT confirmed that after initially airing Jason Aldean's music video, the network pulled the video from air.
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Sheryl Crow, Grammy Award winning artist, she added her disgust to the commentary, to the dialogue.
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Even people in small towns are sick of violence.
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There's nothing small town or American about promoting violence.
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He's sick of criminals getting away with violating the rights and the safety of vulnerable people.
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She says you should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting.
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Jason Isbell, he is a Grammy Award winning singer songwriter.
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He said, dare Aldean to write his next single himself.
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And then you've got Jake Owen, who is also a country star.
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And he said, Jason, to this Jason Isbell person, you're always the first to get behind your keyboard and spout off with this stupid bleep.
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In my small town, you just walk up to the guy and be a man to his face if you want the smoke.
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A lot of people criticizing Aldean online over the weekend.
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And this probably wouldn't have been a controversy in country music a few years ago.
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But because country music has gotten more liberal, because it's moved to the left, just like every other institution, every other industry, now saying something like, yeah, we're going to take care of ourselves, our families, our friends, our community in a small town.
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We're going to be anti-exploiting the weak and the vulnerable.
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We're going to be anti-destruction and chaos and anarchy in my small town.
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Now that's apparently very, not just controversial, but also outright racist.
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Now the Aldeans have been the center of controversy in the past because they're very outspoken about not liking Joe Biden.
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And Brittany Aldean, Jason Aldean's wife, is very popular on social media, and she has merchandise that is anti-Biden.
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They're very conservative, anti-Democrat, and all of that.
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And so Maren Morris is another country singer, and she has called Brittany Aldean insurrection, insurrection Barbie, accused them of being transphobic, whatever the heck that means.
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Maren Morris was also one of the artists, along with Sheryl Crow, along with Jason Isbell, and some other country singers, to announce their participation earlier this year in something called Love Rising,
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which was a benefit concert taking place in Nashville to support Tennessee-based LGBTQ organizations.
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The event was held in response to two laws passed in Tennessee, one that bans so-called gender-affirming care on minors,
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and the other prohibiting drag queens from performing in front of minors.
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And so all of these country stars decided that they were going to perform a concert to support kids getting chemically castrated
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and girls getting double mastectomies because they are supposedly confused about their gender.
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They performed a concert to support the idea of drag queens, a.k.a. grown men, in scandalous outfits, reading books in front of kids, dancing, twerking in front of kids.
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That's what they wanted to make sure that you knew they were on the side of.
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So that's where a lot of country music is going.
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You'll also remember that Kelsey Ballerini, that she performed a song we reacted to at the CMAs earlier this year.
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Her song was, or is, If You Go Down, I'm Going Down Too.
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She basically is describing the loyalty of her friendship, that if she decides, if her friend decides to kill her husband,
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that Kelsey Ballerini is going to be on her side and keep her secret.
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So these lyrics apparently are totally fine, can even be performed at the CMAs.
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She said, I keep all your secrets by the dozen.
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Hypothetically, if you ever kill your husband, hand on the Bible, I'd be lying through my teeth.
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Talking about killing your husband and then lying about it, that's fine.
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But talking about defending yourself, self-defense in a small town, that's just too far for the country music world.
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She also sang the song on stage at the CMT Awards, the CMA, earlier this year.
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Surrounded by a bunch of drag queens from RuPaul's Drag Race.
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Again, it seemed like she was taking a stand on the Senate Bill 3 in Tennessee, which prohibits drag performers in front of minors.
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Like, we should allow men in prosthetic breasts to twerk and to shimmy and to dance in front of children.
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That's where the country music industry is now.
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And I guess the Aldeans are outside of that because they're sane people.
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And so because they're outside of that, they have to be ostracized or they have to be criticized.
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They have to be demonized by all of these woke, super progressive country music stars.
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Like, this is where the country music world is now.
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Jason Aldean has a response to all of this craziness.
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He does talk about how he never brought up race in the song.
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Try That in a Small Town for Me refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief, because they were our neighbors.
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My political views have never been something I've hidden from.
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And I know that a lot of us in this country don't agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night.
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But the desire for it to, that's what this song is about.
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So, whether you like the song or not, whether you're a fan of country music, whether you think the song is cool or corny, it really doesn't matter.
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He does not deserve the backlash that he has received.
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He definitely doesn't deserve for the music video to be taken off country music television.
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He's also talked about cancel culture and how, you know, it's ruining our country, how it's not allowing us to get to a place of unity anymore.
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And I've also seen a lot of people point out just how hypocritical the criticism is of Jason Aldean here.
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There are a lot of comparisons going around between Jason Aldean's lyrics and the rap lyrics that are literally destructive to black Americans.
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So, compare what we know from Jason Aldean's song to songs like this and tell me what you think is more detrimental, is more deleterious to black people in America.
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Here's a song, rapper Jeffrey Young Thug Williams.
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It might surprise you to learn that I don't regularly listen to rap.
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But it was in the top 100 on the U.S. singles chart.
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Like, oh, F, little bruh, sister and his cousin.
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And, obviously, if you've listened to any rap music at all, like, you will know that murder is a theme.
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All of these are very prominent themes in rap and hip-hop music.
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While you inward stacking bread, I can stack a couple dead bodies.
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Rape a pregnant bee and tell my friends I had a threesome.
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And she's got a music video out that I can't, it's been circulating on Twitter.
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I will show you this full screen, though, in this awful music video.
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That will just make you want to burn your eyes.
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And around her are a bunch of nearly naked people twerking.
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I F with the boosters and the Bs that sell they stamps.
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And Bs that sell they P word with they legs on a ramp.
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So, here's some, those are some popular songs that are circulating right now.
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And I think it's pretty explicit that they are promoting violence.
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You cannot tell me that the same people who are promoting songs like this are really, truly offended and harmed by Jason Aldean's song about not tolerating carjacking.
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If, like, because I know people get so offended when you say, oh, well, rap music and a lot of hip hop music, like it's really degenerate.
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It probably doesn't have a great effect on the people who are listening to it.
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This is probably not the best influence on young people.
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No matter what your race and ethnicity, people get so offended by that.
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People can listen to this and it's just great and it's edifying.
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Like, we should just accept this and celebrate this.
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And if you criticize this at all, you're racist.
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Those people who have just, I guess, such like an objective sense of what makes for high quality art,
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all of a sudden believe that song lyrics from Jason Aldean are going to become humans and start a lynching mob in front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee.
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Are they a real reflection of culture and people's morality?
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Are they really impactful and really dangerous?
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Can they really make a tangible difference or do they not?
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Because if so, I think we can find far more examples of the explicit promotion of violence and degeneracy in a lot of the rap songs that are promoted than we can in any of Jason Aldean's songs.
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So, again, let's just be, let's be real about that.
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It's just because you're not allowed to promote self-defense.
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You're not allowed to promote whatever small town values are.
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But songs like the ones that I just read the lyrics from, those are not supposed to make us angry.
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We're supposed to ignore that and pretend like those are indicative of healthy culture and healthy morality.
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Now, I did not see Barbie myself and I will not see Barbie.
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But producer Brie has been wanting to see, or yeah, she's been talking about Barbie for a long time.
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She's like, oh my gosh, this is one of my favorite directors.
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And I was like, no one says that unless you went to USC, which she did.
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That's a very USC graduate thing to say, that I went to the University of Southern California, and I lived in Southern California, and up there we have favorite directors.
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So, Greta Gerwig, right, is one of your favorite directors.
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She has directed, well, the most notable thing she directed was the new adaptation of Little Women, which I thought was brilliant.
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I think she added really beautiful touches to it.
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So, you were hopeful for Barbie that it would be good?
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Well, other people saw it before you did, and I'm sure you saw some of the commentary online
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that it was, you know, a very explicit progressive agenda, which we'll get into.
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But the marketing for it, leading up to it, you've got Margot Robbie, and you've got Ryan
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And they did a really good job of making you think this is just going to be a fun movie
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I'm like, we don't produce as a country those kinds of movies anymore.
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Everything has to have an underlying progressive message.
00:31:00.040
There's no way they're going to put out a movie that's just a bunch of pretty people
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having a good time with a normal rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion type arc.
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There's just no way that they're going to do it.
00:31:17.000
So I didn't know, you know, what it was going to be.
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But I just had the expectation because so few, so few movies or shows nowadays come out
00:31:29.080
So let me play, let me play a little bit of the trailer first because I just want to show
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people if you didn't see the many, many ads for this that have been coming out leading
00:31:49.520
I want you to see that any kind of political messaging was very carefully excluded from any
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of these teasers or trailers or clips that we saw.
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If this got out, this could mean extremely weird things for our world.
00:32:14.520
We haven't played with Barbie since we were like five years old.
00:33:00.560
Okay, so you did kind of see an indication of what it was going to be right in that last
00:33:07.260
conversation with Ryan Gosling, but okay, if I just saw the trailer, I would want to see
00:33:13.480
Not knowing everything that I know now about our entertainment industry, 2010 me would have
00:33:19.080
loved that movie because the 2010 version of that movie would have been just funny and
00:33:24.260
sweet and maybe pushing the boundaries a little bit when it comes to sexual promiscuity
00:33:28.860
and whatever and suggestive language and things like that.
00:33:31.860
But back in 2010, like honestly, 2006 to 2012 had some really, no, 2004, because I've got
00:33:41.540
2004 to like 2012 had some really great entertaining movies.
00:33:45.860
This would have been a really great movie then.
00:33:52.380
And then what were the obvious themes that were being portrayed?
00:33:57.980
I've seen some people who really hated the movie saying how outrageous it was that this
00:34:11.560
People may argue that people are going to take their kids anyway.
00:34:19.740
But so Margot Robbie plays stereotypical Barbie.
00:34:24.440
Each Barbie in Barbie land has their own like, you know, Dr. Barbie, lawyer Barbie, etc.
00:34:33.120
And it's a matriarchal society where women are in charge of everything.
00:34:42.760
And they don't do anything really except for just kind of go to the beach.
00:34:46.560
And then one day, Barbie suddenly is like stricken with these worries about mortality.
00:34:53.060
And she doesn't know where they're coming from.
00:34:54.960
And she is told by Kate McKinnon's character that she has to go into the real world.
00:35:00.940
There's a rift and she has to go into the real world.
00:35:08.300
And she has to go into the real world and find the little girl who's playing with her.
00:35:13.380
Because her like feelings, her sad feelings are seeping into Barbie land.
00:35:18.320
They don't explain why no other Barbie has ever dealt with this.
00:35:21.600
Because surely there are other sad kids, right?
00:35:29.540
And their arrival in the real world alarms the Mattel CEO.
00:35:34.160
Um, he's, he's alarmed by this, who's Will Ferrell.
00:35:40.540
Barbie tracks, Barbie tracks down, uh, her owner, which is a tween girl named Sasha, who
00:35:46.500
criticizes her for encouraging unrealistic beauty standards.
00:35:50.260
And then she finds out it's not Sasha that's her owner.
00:35:53.820
It's Sasha's mom who picked up the Barbie one day and like to try to find a sense of like
00:36:02.120
And again, she started like making these drawings of like cellulite Barbie and depression Barbie
00:36:11.180
Um, and that's why this Margot Robbie Barbie is like feeling those things.
00:36:18.360
Um, they have to rescue the, they have to rescue Barbie from Mattel, who's trying to put
00:36:25.000
her in a box and send her back to Barbie land, which is what she wants.
00:36:29.600
So I was confused why she didn't want that also, but.
00:36:35.680
So she goes into the world to try to figure out why she's sad.
00:36:41.460
So she goes, she finds out why Mattel wants to put her in a box and send her back to Barbie
00:36:48.520
She says, no, I, instead I'm going to go back to Barbie land with these two, with the
00:37:00.680
Meanwhile, Ken has learned about the patriarchy.
00:37:07.340
Is it just like a random insertion or do you see that throughout?
00:37:09.980
It's a whole, it's the plot, which you'll see in a second.
00:37:14.060
Um, he, meanwhile, while Barbie's doing this is walking around and he's realizing, wow,
00:37:20.420
People think I'm like in charge of things here.
00:37:26.840
Because in Barbie land, it's girls, girls rule.
00:37:32.900
So, and he's kind of seen as a secondary character in Barbie land and not as important.
00:37:39.840
And so now he goes to the real world and he realizes that the patriarchy exists where
00:37:46.540
He's seeing businessmen and he's seeing doctors who are men and he's like, wow, men can do that.
00:37:53.320
So he takes the, the patriarchy, which it's actually called that back to Barbie land.
00:37:59.400
So they don't even, why do you think like, let me just pause.
00:38:02.180
Like, why don't you think they even try to come up with like a clever name for it?
00:38:06.900
I think it's intentionally on the nose because a lot of the gags are, I just don't think it
00:38:17.960
So, um, he goes back to Barbie land, turns it into the patriarchy.
00:38:23.380
And when Barbie and the mom and daughter get back there, they've realized Ken has completely
00:38:28.860
And now Barbie land is Ken dumb and it's just run by men.
00:38:34.580
Um, so they have to hatch a plan to take Barbie land back and make it a matriarchy again.
00:38:41.640
Um, and they do this by completely manipulating the men in a very toxic way, um, by each Barbie
00:38:53.780
She goes off and flirts with a different Ken and that gets the Kens all riled up and then
00:38:59.120
they start fighting each other and get distracted.
00:39:00.820
And that's how they went back Barbie land for the women, female empowerment.
00:39:06.120
Um, and then at the end, Barbie meets with, um, the creator, the ghost of the creator of
00:39:13.340
Barbie, Ruth Handler, and asks her if she can become a human because she's still struggling
00:39:27.400
And, um, and so she does, as she becomes a human, it's not really explained how she's
00:39:32.340
And the last scene is Barbie going into a gynecologist appointment.
00:39:42.800
But she doesn't have really friends or family or anything.
00:39:49.500
So they, when they take over again, Barbie land, when the women take over, um, Barbie
00:39:54.060
apologizes to Ken for kind of sliding him and, you know, but she says, I'm still not
00:40:00.420
You have to figure out who you are apart from me, but like, sorry for not paying attention
00:40:07.020
And he's like, okay, I'll find out who I am on my own.
00:40:12.040
He's still in Barbie land under the matriarchy.
00:40:14.600
And she goes to the patriarchy where she has to get a gynecologist.
00:40:21.220
So, um, here are some of the ideological issues that I found.
00:40:28.100
Um, in the, first of all, in the opening scene, I haven't seen a lot of people point
00:40:33.300
It's an homage to, um, 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it's all these little girls playing with
00:40:40.480
And the narrator's explaining, um, you know, little girls have always played with dolls,
00:40:45.220
but they've always been baby dolls until Barbie came around.
00:40:48.340
And then there's the slow motion scene of all these little girls, like smashing their
00:40:52.640
baby dolls, like on rocks and like destroying their baby dolls because now Barbie exists.
00:40:59.460
And I just thought it was kind of, it was a little, like a little on the nose.
00:41:03.240
I don't think they were going for like, this is about abortion, but it's, but it's still
00:41:10.440
And also it's like not true because girls still play with baby dolls.
00:41:14.880
Um, another thing, that teen girl, she has a speech when Barbie comes up to her.
00:41:26.380
You represent everything wrong with our culture.
00:41:28.680
You destroyed the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.
00:41:38.940
I'll ask this question because it, I'll ask this question later because it could apply
00:41:43.720
The other thing I found funny was there, there's a man playing a woman, playing a Barbie in
00:41:58.540
Um, so this is actor Hari Neff, I think is his name, but he's playing Dr. Barbie, which I thought
00:42:08.280
Um, and I just, this whole movie is about patriarchy and feminism and, and whatnot.
00:42:13.160
And I just thought it was really ironic that they hired a man and took a woman's job for
00:42:34.280
Um, she doesn't really want anything to do with him.
00:42:37.800
All he wants is to be treated decently and to be respected.
00:42:43.360
Um, but I found it odd because he, Ken was created to be a companion for Barbie, like the
00:42:50.440
Um, and the whole movie, he's just, his moral is he has to learn to be apart from her.
00:42:56.800
Um, so it's just, it's over, the overwhelming point is that women don't need men.
00:43:02.380
Um, and women don't enjoy men and it's because of patriarchy and in the end, men are still
00:43:09.600
subservient to women and that's how it's intended to be.
00:43:14.280
So my question is, do you think it's a promotion of that idea or a critique of that idea?
00:43:19.720
Because I've seen both takes because it's so on the nose, because it's so obvious, because
00:43:25.320
everyone does, or it seems like a lot of people do end up feeling bad for Ken.
00:43:29.720
And because she goes back to the patriarchy, the so-called patriarchy, um, by going to the
00:43:36.000
real world, some people are saying, no, this has a conservative message.
00:43:40.380
Like in that Sasha speech, they're making fun of young people for saying things like
00:43:44.600
that when young people are super consumeristic and then calling someone else, calling Barbie,
00:43:49.720
like the reason for consumerism, the reason for fascism, whatever.
00:43:55.840
Do you think it's a promotion of those ideas or a critique of them?
00:44:02.400
People saying that it's critiquing those progressive ideas.
00:44:07.420
There are, there, there are a couple lines where I'm like, oh, they like almost got it.
00:44:12.100
Sasha at one point is talking about Barbie and she's like, why are you like following
00:44:17.260
And then she stops herself and she goes, I mean, like, um, intellectually challenged.
00:44:25.260
But, um, so it might be played with like a little bit of humor, but the overall message
00:44:30.420
of the story is, is not that it's not, we're making fun of this.
00:44:36.040
So why do you think they have her going back to the patriarchy then?
00:44:39.920
And basically showing the matriarchy is not fun.
00:44:42.480
And it's like the way that it was achieved is through manipulation.
00:44:46.820
I mean, they don't point those, those things out though.
00:44:50.520
She goes back to, to the patriarchy, back to the real world because she now has these
00:44:57.660
So it's more of a, like, now I'm a human and I need to grapple with like the good and
00:45:04.160
But at the end it says, you know, in, in Barbie land, the men have asked for some leadership
00:45:10.440
roles now that, you know, at the end of the movie, they ask, you know, can maybe we have
00:45:14.960
one man on the Supreme court in Barbie land and president Barbie says, no, but we can maybe
00:45:20.840
put one of you like at a lower circuit court position.
00:45:24.020
And the narrator says, maybe one day in Barbie land, um, the men will have just as much power
00:45:32.020
And so, I mean, it's pretty obvious what they're trying.
00:45:38.400
I saw this tweet from someone who, a progressive, lots of flags in their, in their Twitter.
00:45:44.500
And they said, um, two quibbles, raging heteronormativity and gender essentialism, but near perfection
00:45:52.720
So they really loved, they didn't love the gender.
00:46:14.020
Some people saying it was a conservative message.
00:46:19.480
Why is the impulse of feminism to leave women alone, unmarried, childless, without close
00:46:23.320
friends, without community, the reframing of what women want as identifiably male ambition
00:46:29.020
And it's fully exemplified in the Barbie movie.
00:46:31.980
I mean, it does sound like that's what they showed.
00:46:34.320
Like that basically the pinnacle of womanhood is to have power, to be working and to be in
00:46:40.780
positions that have been traditionally held by men, to be, I guess, without kids, smashing
00:46:46.300
your baby dolls, whatever that was supposed to represent, alone, unmarried.
00:46:51.980
And we know from every data set that's available to us that that's not what makes people happy.
00:46:57.500
Being alone, being childless in general is not what leads to supreme happiness.
00:47:04.520
I'm not saying that no one in that position can be happy.
00:47:07.800
But being without community, without purpose, without any sense of like belonging is not
00:47:22.060
And men are still men and women are still women.
00:47:24.280
And whether you like it or not, we still have different inclinations.
00:47:30.760
Uh, we still have, uh, different abilities that drive us to occupy different spheres.
00:47:38.160
There is, do we have the clip of Snow White and the reaction to the Snow White girl saying,
00:47:44.680
uh, Snow White is also another movie that's being reproduced to be more woke, to be more
00:47:51.120
liberal, to be more diverse, and to change the narrative that women need men.
00:47:56.580
And I guess also that the Seven Dwarfs were all these like white men.
00:48:02.540
Now they're this array of genders and colors and all of this stuff.
00:48:06.480
But here was a, uh, a red carpet reaction from the girl playing Snow White about how this
00:48:14.420
version of Snow White is an improvement on the archaic Snow White.
00:48:19.980
You said you were bringing a modern edge to it on stage.
00:48:24.100
I just mean that it's no longer 1937 and we absolutely wrote a Snow White that is, yeah.
00:48:31.520
She's not going to be saved by the prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true
00:48:35.300
She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her
00:48:39.060
late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true.
00:48:43.020
And so it's just a really incredible story for, I think, young people everywhere to see
00:48:57.840
And it depends on what you think about the one.
00:49:00.820
And if you think there's just one person or whether you think there's lots of people that
00:49:06.800
But the fact of the matter is the goal is to find the one person that you want to share
00:49:11.200
life with forever that you're totally and completely committed to.
00:49:16.900
I agree that that's not always the only aspiration or the highest aspiration.
00:49:29.760
God may or may not have marriage promised for you, but it is still a worthy goal.
00:49:34.620
It is a worthy thing to long for and to put some form in some healthy form of hope and work
00:49:48.080
That's something that people cared about in 1937, but don't care about anymore.
00:49:59.000
I don't care what kind of tough exterior a woman is portraying to the world.
00:50:04.260
I promise you, she doesn't want a feminine, flimsy man who just does as he's told.
00:50:12.300
Does she want a compassionate, kind, sensitive man who is willing to, you know, support her
00:50:25.800
Does she want this guy who doesn't care about her feelings?
00:50:28.360
Who's just this macho guy who pretends, who patronizes her, belittles her, pretends like
00:50:38.640
Now, I think some women have deceived themselves into thinking they want a weak man, but they
00:50:45.960
And unfortunately, our society doesn't praise strength in men, doesn't praise masculinity,
00:50:51.420
doesn't praise responsibility and provision and protection and all of these things that
00:50:58.620
And so it's getting harder and harder for women to find those kind of men.
00:51:01.700
But I promise you, deep down in our heart of hearts, women want strong men.
00:51:13.760
And movies like this that completely get wrong people's hearts, that completely get wrong
00:51:25.540
Traditionally, Disney movies over the past couple of years have not done well because
00:51:29.420
people don't want a diversified, woke-ified version of their favorite movies from the
00:51:38.580
They would rather watch the 1937 version of Snow White than get this new and quote-unquote
00:51:45.440
improved version that just makes them feel bad and confused about the world.
00:51:52.340
Just like so many other companies, they don't care about making money.
00:51:56.140
If they cared about making money, then they would have kept Sound of Freedom.
00:51:59.100
They dropped Sound of Freedom, which is still number three in the United States right now,
00:52:04.100
Still raking in tens of millions of dollars, despite all of the theater issues that are
00:52:07.620
happening across the country, to, I guess, try to inhibit people from being able to watch
00:52:17.740
It goes back to a lot of what Justin and I were talking about last week.
00:52:21.420
So make sure you go check out those episodes about why this radical and huge transformation
00:52:26.720
of every sector of society is happening, what it is tied to.
00:52:30.600
Yes, it's a spiritual war, but there's also a lot of other things behind it.
00:52:38.900
I'm not going to be able to get into all of this stuff about the Florida slavery curriculum,
00:52:49.840
But basically, what you're hearing is that Ron DeSantis and the state of Florida, because
00:52:55.240
they're trying to change education from just being progressive indoctrination to being based
00:53:00.340
on facts and encouraging critical thinking, that they are now introducing a pro-slavery
00:53:06.480
You're probably seeing people on your timeline say that Florida, the new curriculum, is promoting
00:53:13.580
the idea that slaves actually benefited from slavery.
00:53:19.160
And so therefore, slavery was nuanced or it was good.
00:53:22.420
And you had Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States, going down to Florida
00:53:34.040
Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught
00:53:45.060
They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.
00:53:53.960
She wasn't in Florida, but she was giving that speech about the state of Florida.
00:53:56.940
There are some other people who criticized him on this.
00:54:03.500
Several people, several headlines saying, New Florida Standards teach students that some
00:54:08.900
black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills.
00:54:11.700
CBS, Florida schools to teach personal benefit of slavery under new black history curriculum.
00:54:16.360
DeSantis, according to Washington Post, seeks to whitewash slavery in Florida curriculum.
00:54:21.640
But if you actually read the 216 page document, which we will put in the description of this
00:54:27.320
episode, you will see that that's not what's going on at all.
00:54:37.100
It might take you a long time to go through all of the bullet points, but it's very transparent
00:54:43.160
It's going to be teaching these students everything about slavery, how horrific it is, the methods
00:54:49.760
used to to buy these people from Africa, bring them over to the West, enslave them, what
00:54:57.980
shadow slavery looked like, how harsh the conditions were.
00:55:00.900
But they're also going to teach them about the different forms of forms of slavery that
00:55:06.380
was happening that were happening in the world.
00:55:08.060
And by the way, teaching them that these Africans sold into slavery were sold by other Africans
00:55:14.140
who were also enslaving them, that slavery, that shadow slavery is not unique to the United
00:55:22.040
It's certainly not unique to white people or any ethnicity that unfortunately, this was
00:55:27.060
a very tragic and absolutely disgusting practice that happened throughout the world, basically
00:55:32.420
in every society that has ever existed and is still prevalent in parts of the world.
00:55:38.060
I don't know if they were going to teach that last part, the prevalence of slavery today,
00:55:43.120
which people seem to be much less incensed about, but they are going to teach the history
00:55:50.060
of slavery and all the different aspects of it.
00:55:53.160
One part of this slavery curriculum is to say that some slaves, because of their own resilience,
00:56:01.700
because of their own character, because of their own work ethic, were actually able to
00:56:06.400
use some of the skills that they gained through the disgusting practice of chattel slavery to
00:56:17.460
So you have people, I've even seen conservatives, they try so hard, some of these conservatives,
00:56:26.780
I see some points at the left, I'm going to call out my side when I need to call out my
00:56:32.540
And because they're so desperate to do that, they won't even look at the facts of a situation.
00:56:37.260
They just want to put their commentary out there so they can like score some point from
00:56:41.180
the other side or pretend like, you know, I don't know, like they're fair and impartial
00:56:47.300
But they almost always get it wrong when they try to do that.
00:56:49.800
And so I saw some people, some Fox News commentators, some people on the right, some conservatives
00:56:54.720
saying, oh, yeah, you know, I like DeSantis, but this is awful.
00:56:58.020
I can't believe they're trying to whitewash slavery.
00:57:01.980
There's nothing about this curriculum that we can see from the link that's provided for
00:57:09.960
Like, understand how the propaganda machine works at this point.
00:57:12.900
If anything sounds too good or too bad, as we have talked about before, about the opposing
00:57:24.840
There's probably something that you need to look into yourself, especially when it comes
00:57:31.320
Why do I say especially when it comes to Republicans and the right?
00:57:34.340
Because the mainstream media, most of the institutions in this country are dominated by leftism.
00:57:40.360
And so, of course, they're going to have a bias against the right.
00:57:43.120
Of course, you're not going to be able to trust a headline from The Washington Post or
00:57:53.740
You really think that you can believe Vice President Kamala Harris when she says that Florida
00:58:02.960
You really think that you could take her at her word?
00:58:06.240
She can't even put a coherent sentence together.
00:58:10.860
So you think that she is going to be able to tell you the truth?
00:58:18.160
Most of what comes out of her mouth is just a completely incoherent, rambling mess of a
00:58:27.240
Like you should know that at this point, no matter what side of the aisle that you're on.
00:58:30.980
So no, this curriculum doesn't promote the benefits of slavery.
00:58:38.300
Let's use our critical thinking skills or just use that thumb.
00:58:41.600
Just use that thumb that you have to click a couple links and to read things yourself.
00:58:49.040
We've all said things that we shouldn't have said.
00:58:52.980
We've all believed what we want to believe because we have preconceived notions of what
00:59:00.700
I see this way too much though when it comes to Christian women and race, Christian women
00:59:05.560
and race, Christian conservative women, when it comes to these racial issues, they are so
00:59:10.540
quick to jump on whatever narrative is being pushed out there.
00:59:15.420
The black people are being marginalized by curriculum or laws or whatever it is because they want
00:59:20.520
to be seen as at least in this area, progressive or an ally or whatever.
00:59:31.920
It's bothered me so much since 2020 because I see this gullibility and this naivete and
00:59:38.720
maybe this like purposeful ignorance because you want to be accepted by this group of people.
00:59:48.000
And so you don't do the work to actually look into a headline like this because saying that,
00:59:52.680
Ron DeSantis promotes racism and white supremacy through Florida curriculum will score you some
01:00:11.580
This is a great curriculum as far as I can see.
01:00:15.260
I haven't seen every single page of the curriculum.
01:00:17.560
This is just a summary, this 216 page document.
01:00:26.980
Like we should be teaching kids about Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass and Thomas
01:00:35.200
Like that should all be a part of black history.
01:00:37.980
What they really want is the People's History of the United States, which was a propaganda
01:00:43.700
book that pushed the narrative that America is exclusively a vessel of oppression and white
01:01:00.760
Really, they want history to propagate the lie that white people have always been oppressors
01:01:06.540
of black and brown people and that we still are not out from under those effects today
01:01:12.160
because this allows the government, specifically progressives in power, to have more power.
01:01:19.960
And Florida is saying we're not going to be a part of that.
01:01:31.680
Is it true that some slaves, because of their own resilience, benefited from some of the
01:01:37.460
skills that they gained while they were under the tyranny, the oppression of slavery?
01:01:48.620
Okay, I didn't know that we would be spending that much time on Jason Aldean and on Barbie,
01:01:55.500
It's a longer episode, but a little bit more of a lighthearted episode, hopefully infusing
01:02:05.180
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01:02:07.660
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