The Matt Walsh Show - December 21, 2022


Ep. 1086 - The ‘Fat Acceptance’ Death Cult Claims Another Victim


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

169.59004

Word Count

9,269

Sentence Count

671

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary

Jamie Lopez was a fierce advocate of fat acceptance and body positivity. Her public brand centered around the basic message that everyone is beautiful no matter their size, and we should accept and celebrate all body types. She was the founder of a well-known beauty salon called Baby Doll Beauty Couture, and she was the star of a reality show called Super Size Salon.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, the death cult known as the Fat Acceptance Movement has claimed another victim, and she happens to have been one of its more visible advocates.
00:00:08.320 Also, it's always been bad news when Democrats and Republicans agree on something, which is evidenced by the disastrous bipartisan spending bill.
00:00:16.200 Researchers supposedly discover a new cure for long COVID, but what the hell is long COVID? Is it anything?
00:00:21.640 And Media Matters names their top misinformers of the year.
00:00:24.680 I could not be more honored to have made the list. All of that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
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00:01:37.120 You may not be familiar with the name Jamie Lopez.
00:01:40.400 I certainly wasn't until this week when she died.
00:01:43.040 But her death is worth discussing, whether you'd heard of her or not before now.
00:01:48.400 Now, Lopez was the founder of a well-known beauty salon called Baby Doll Beauty Couture.
00:01:53.480 And she was the star of a reality show called Super Size Salon.
00:01:57.860 Now, as the title of the show indicates, the salon was focused on providing services to obese people, proudly billing itself as the world's first plus-sized salon.
00:02:07.940 Lopez herself was a plus-size model.
00:02:10.540 And as media reports about her death have characterized her, she was a, quote, fierce advocate of fat acceptance and body positivity.
00:02:19.460 Her show and her public brand centered around the basic message that everyone is beautiful no matter their size, and we should accept and celebrate all body types.
00:02:29.440 She was only 37 when she died this week.
00:02:31.320 And they've not released a confirmed cause of death, but the Daily Mail and other outlets report that she was suffering from heart complications, among other potential maladies.
00:02:40.520 Now, there's a reason why I bring this all up.
00:02:43.300 But before I flesh that out, it may be enlightening to watch a brief sneak peek of the Super Size Salon show,
00:02:49.660 which was posted on WeTV's YouTube channel a few months ago to promote the show.
00:02:53.360 And the problems we're going to talk about are all illustrated, I think, very explicitly in this clip.
00:02:59.620 And here it is.
00:03:04.060 I've just always loved beautiful things.
00:03:06.800 It's just a part of me.
00:03:08.380 I've been doing makeup since I was 13 years old.
00:03:10.720 I just have always just loved making women feel beautiful.
00:03:14.060 Oh, my God.
00:03:16.200 I am a social media influencer in the plus-size community.
00:03:19.460 I want to inspire big girls all over the world.
00:03:21.560 This is what I manifest every single day.
00:03:24.320 Jamie in the big girl community is like an icon.
00:03:28.040 She's very beautiful, confident.
00:03:31.260 She is really a ghost.
00:03:32.740 Jamie's just a fabulous gamazon.
00:03:34.600 She loves to just see people happy.
00:03:36.880 You're gorgeous.
00:03:38.300 It's so cute.
00:03:41.580 I am the owner and creator and the HBIC of Babydoll Beauty Couture.
00:03:46.360 Welcome to Babydoll.
00:03:47.760 Welcome to Babydoll.
00:03:49.000 My dream was to create the first ever all-inclusive salon by plus-size girls for plus-size girls.
00:03:56.860 You're in a good hand.
00:03:58.420 Society makes you hate yourself if you don't look a certain way.
00:04:02.380 And I am damn determined to change that.
00:04:06.280 Babydoll is about embracing who you are.
00:04:09.120 Yes, girl.
00:04:10.640 Yes.
00:04:11.220 You might have fat-ass people come to your salon, but you don't have a plus-size salon when cheers for big asses like ours.
00:04:17.600 All this is for all it is.
00:04:20.400 So, it's a message that's a sermon that we hear all the time in our culture.
00:04:26.960 We should not make obese people feel bad about themselves.
00:04:29.520 Everyone is beautiful.
00:04:30.800 Fat is beautiful.
00:04:31.720 Everyone should be accepted.
00:04:33.320 All weights, all sizes.
00:04:36.100 Indeed, fatness is now its very own identity group.
00:04:38.920 There is, as we heard in the clip there, a community, a sisterhood of fat women.
00:04:43.320 And this community deserves to be included and tolerated, even as they kill themselves in front of us.
00:04:50.820 Now, the tragic reality here is that Jamie Lopez was apparently trying to lose weight towards the end of her life.
00:04:56.220 At her heaviest, she had reached 846 pounds and found herself unable.
00:05:01.280 She was bed-bound.
00:05:02.040 She was unable to support her own weight enough to move around without assistance.
00:05:05.920 And she had apparently dropped a significant amount of weight.
00:05:09.260 I think maybe like half her body weight, but was still, you know, 400 pounds, extremely morbidly obese.
00:05:14.920 And it would seem the damage had been done because our bodies are not meant to carry around that kind of weight.
00:05:21.740 Our bones, our internal organs, our hearts, none of it was built to support hundreds of pounds of excess fat.
00:05:31.360 That's why morbid obesity will kill you.
00:05:34.080 It's not an if here.
00:05:35.060 There's no if.
00:05:35.820 It's not like a maybe.
00:05:36.740 The only thing that will stop a morbidly obese person from dying of their obesity is if they die from something else first or if they lose the weight before the clock runs out.
00:05:47.240 Neither of those two things happen, and they will die of obesity, will, 100% of the time.
00:05:53.180 Jamie Lopez was one of thousands upon thousands of obese people every year who perish from the condition.
00:05:59.960 The clock runs out.
00:06:00.680 Something like a quarter of a million Americans die from obesity-related causes every year, which makes up 10% of all obesity-related deaths globally, in spite of the fact that the U.S. only comprises 4% of the global population.
00:06:13.340 Now, Lopez may have tried to lose weight at the end, but she was a part of and a victim of also a movement that tells obese people that they don't need to lose weight unless they want to.
00:06:28.240 Like, if you want to, then go ahead, but you don't need to.
00:06:31.340 The fat acceptance movement, body positivity, has killed countless people in this country, and now it's killed one of its more prominent advocates.
00:06:41.220 And that's the point we should be focusing on.
00:06:43.880 Now, this is not about exploiting, certainly not about making light of a woman's tragic death.
00:06:48.240 It's about confronting the fact that the fat acceptance movement, typified by nearly everything you heard in that promotional clip, is a suicidal ideology.
00:06:58.200 I mean, it is a death cult.
00:07:00.040 Fat acceptance is a death cult.
00:07:01.980 It's one of the most dangerous ideas in the world, and that's not an exaggeration.
00:07:06.100 At a time when we're so focused on the alleged harms inflicted by, you know, quote-unquote misinformation, it's probably time that we start thinking about the misinformation that tells people like Jamie Lopez and so many others that morbid, suicidal, self-destructive obesity is something to be celebrated, that it's beautiful.
00:07:29.360 Lopez will not be the only body positivity influencer to die an early death.
00:07:33.060 They will almost all suffer the same fate.
00:07:35.720 Fat acceptance became a mainstream phenomenon with its own slate of advocates and stars and influencers in just the past 10 years or so.
00:07:43.240 We're reaching the point now where we might expect to start seeing many of them succumb to their obesity.
00:07:49.260 But then again, if 280,000 obesity-related deaths every single year isn't enough for a wake-up call, I imagine that every single, quote, fat acceptance celebrity could die, and that wouldn't be enough either.
00:08:02.200 Still, whether people want to hear it or not, we need to start speaking some hard truths.
00:08:08.660 Truths such as this.
00:08:12.000 Obesity is not beautiful.
00:08:15.000 It is not beautiful for the same reason that we don't call alcoholism beautiful or anorexia beautiful.
00:08:22.260 If somebody engages in self-harm and cuts themselves, we don't say that the scars are beautiful.
00:08:28.900 If a crazy guy self-immolates, we don't stand around the fire talking about how pretty the flame is.
00:08:35.500 It's not because we hate the alcoholic or we hate the anorexic or we hate the cutter or we hate the self-immolator.
00:08:41.380 Exactly the opposite.
00:08:42.820 We love them, and therefore we hate what is destroying them.
00:08:47.580 You should hate the things that destroy, threaten to destroy, the people that you love, including obesity.
00:08:58.160 Now, some people will undoubtedly criticize me for talking about this right now.
00:09:01.300 Only a couple days after the woman died, they'll say that it's exploitative, disrespectful.
00:09:05.180 And yet, if she was a member of the alcoholism is beautiful movement and then died of liver disease stemming from alcohol consumption,
00:09:13.600 we would all agree that it would be absurd to not talk about the connection.
00:09:17.540 What else are you going to talk about?
00:09:19.300 To ignore it would be ludicrous, even reckless.
00:09:23.960 The same applies here.
00:09:26.800 Now is not only an acceptable time, but the most important time to point out that there is nothing beautiful about self-destruction.
00:09:33.240 There is nothing beautiful about an early grave.
00:09:36.920 These are ugly, horrid things.
00:09:38.660 They are brutal and grotesque.
00:09:41.700 Fat acceptance as a movement, as an ideology, is brutal and grotesque.
00:09:47.460 It is a celebration of death.
00:09:51.000 We shouldn't just oppose it and disagree with it.
00:09:52.980 We should hate it.
00:09:53.620 We should hate it for the deadly, sinister propaganda that it is.
00:09:57.480 Now, I think the problem, in part at least, is that we've bought into this lie that lifestyles are sacrosanct.
00:10:10.040 However a person chooses to live is automatically above reproach, simply because they're living that way.
00:10:17.280 To criticize a lifestyle, such as a lifestyle of overeating, gluttony, lethargy, laziness, that is to suggest that a person should live differently from how they're currently living.
00:10:28.600 But that's the ultimate heresy in our culture.
00:10:30.500 Because for us, the only thing you are meant to say or that you can say about a person's lifestyle is that it's courageous and inspirational.
00:10:40.920 We're at a point now where all lifestyles are courageous by default.
00:10:45.840 Simply to live however you feel like living is an act of courage.
00:10:49.300 Whereas to live differently from how you feel like living, to make purposeful changes with the intention of becoming a different sort of person, is somehow an act of self-betrayal.
00:11:03.560 And to encourage others to live differently is bigotry, prejudice, hatred.
00:11:09.860 But this is all nonsense.
00:11:12.380 And it is getting people killed.
00:11:15.020 Lots of people, every single day.
00:11:19.300 When will enough be enough?
00:11:21.980 That's the question.
00:11:23.780 Now let's get to our five headlines.
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00:12:30.420 This is from the Daily Wire.
00:12:32.700 Lawmakers on Capitol Hill touted a $1.7 trillion funding package on Tuesday, with both Democrats and Republicans claiming victories.
00:12:40.940 And it's designed to avert a government shutdown when the current funding expires at midnight on Friday.
00:12:46.480 The text of the legislation is some 4,000 pages long, leaving very little hope for lawmakers, even with the help of aides,
00:12:53.020 to get through the text prior to voting on the massive package.
00:12:56.300 And according to the Heritage Foundation, the Omnibus bill, they may not have the time to read, is packed with woke pet projects.
00:13:05.340 Among them are a number of LGBTQ projects, from pride centers to museums and anti-racism initiatives, according to a thread shared on Twitter on Tuesday.
00:13:14.900 This is the game, of course, you know, as always, is to have these bills that are thousands and thousands of pages long that nobody could hope to read through.
00:13:25.100 And then right before it's passed, and even after it's passed, I mean, infamously, of course, it was Nancy Pelosi who said we have to pass it to find out what's in it.
00:13:32.580 And that has been, you know, that, I believe, at the time she was talking about Obamacare, but that's how it works with all legislation now.
00:13:42.200 You just pass it, you get the gist of it, and then you pass it, and then later on you find what's in it.
00:13:48.960 And there's always this false sense of urgency.
00:13:52.860 It's like, why can't we take a little bit of time?
00:13:56.420 There's no reason why any bill needs to be 4,000 pages long to begin with.
00:13:59.960 There's no reason why that should be the case.
00:14:02.860 You only do that because you're trying to sneak through all these kinds of things you don't want people to know about.
00:14:08.880 But if it is 4,000 pages a week, why can't we take some time and look at it first?
00:14:14.420 There's always this false sense of urgency.
00:14:17.760 The Congress, they sit around doing almost nothing for most of the year, and then out of nowhere,
00:14:23.480 we've got to pass this thing right now, right now, or everything, we're all going to die.
00:14:26.620 In this case, they say, well, we've got to pass it because, of course, we have to avert the government shutdown.
00:14:33.640 And what exactly is the problem if the government shuts down for a bit?
00:14:37.480 We've been through that before, promised catastrophic consequences, and they never materialize.
00:14:45.740 Anyway, the thread began with a headline in all capital letters, Woke Priorities in the Omnibus.
00:14:50.160 It says, here are just a few earmarks, a.k.a. your taxpayer dollars set aside for special interests or projects we found in the 1,455-page spending bill
00:15:01.080 that are funding the left's extreme agenda using your money, it read.
00:15:04.800 An addendum to the letter later noted that the number of pages had been a typo of the actual size of the bill was much larger.
00:15:10.380 It was actually 4,155 pages.
00:15:12.540 Anyway, it says, so just a few examples, $1.2 million for LGBTQI plus pride centers,
00:15:21.700 $1.2 million for services for DACA recipients, a.k.a. helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds,
00:15:28.500 $477,000 for the Equity Institute in Rhode Island to indoctrinate teachers with anti-racism virtual labs.
00:15:36.220 More projects were listed in the following tweets, including $1 million for Zora's House in Ohio,
00:15:43.260 a co-working and community space for women and gender-expansive people of color.
00:15:49.540 Well, that's good.
00:15:51.300 You know what?
00:15:51.860 All this other stuff I'm not really on board for, but I was, I had, I just think about this the other day.
00:15:57.480 In fact, I was wondering, I was talking to somebody about it,
00:15:59.580 and I was, and I was concerned about the fact that gender-expansive people of color in Ohio
00:16:04.400 don't have enough co-working spaces available to them.
00:16:09.860 I was really worried about, so they're putting a million dollars in that.
00:16:11.780 That's a very good thing.
00:16:13.940 $3 million for the American LGBTQ plus museum in New York City,
00:16:18.580 $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama trail in Georgia.
00:16:22.420 New York State Capitol is set to receive three quarters of a million dollars for LGBT and gender non-conforming housing.
00:16:29.580 Baltimore will rake in a cool $2 million for a wax museum dedicated to African-Americans
00:16:34.880 tentatively named Great Blacks in Wax.
00:16:41.680 Great Blacks in Wax.
00:16:43.500 And New York will get over $800,000 for an LGBT center.
00:16:47.380 I mean, none of this is actually funny, but it's, but like, what else are you going to do besides laugh about it?
00:16:53.000 We have, this is just, we have no control over it.
00:17:00.380 We have no, no way to stop it because this is both Republicans and Democrats.
00:17:06.420 We're on board for it.
00:17:07.640 So there's almost no, for those of us who do not agree with 4,000 page pieces of legislation that just become this bonanza for funding LGBT pet projects all over the, all over the country and all over the globe.
00:17:26.080 Those of us who don't agree with that, we have almost no representation at all in Congress with a few exceptions.
00:17:31.760 Rand Paul is one exception.
00:17:33.060 So Rand Paul had his reaction to the bill yesterday.
00:17:37.040 Let's watch some of this.
00:17:38.980 I brought with me the Omni, 4,155 pages.
00:17:45.460 When was it produced?
00:17:46.580 In the dead of the night, 1.30 in the morning when it was released.
00:17:49.640 Now, people argue that it's conservatives' fault, you don't have the Christmas spirit, somehow you're holding up government.
00:17:57.880 Well, whose job is it to produce this?
00:18:00.720 The people in charge of spending, the people in charge of both of the parties.
00:18:05.580 When did they know that this would be necessary?
00:18:08.600 Well, it's in the law, September 30th.
00:18:11.440 You got nine months, almost 10 months, to produce a plan, to have a spending plan.
00:18:17.660 They weren't ready on September 30th, so they voted themselves 90 more days.
00:18:22.680 They weren't ready last week either, so they voted themselves another week.
00:18:26.580 And now we have it at 1.30 in the morning this morning.
00:18:30.620 But what's the clamor?
00:18:31.880 The clamor is to vote.
00:18:33.480 Vote now.
00:18:34.300 Let's get it done.
00:18:35.520 Why are you standing in the way of spending?
00:18:38.340 Well, the real question is this.
00:18:40.440 What is more dangerous?
00:18:42.260 What is more dangerous to the country?
00:18:44.180 1.1 trillion dollars in new debt, or as Republican leadership likes to say, oh, but it's a win.
00:18:52.100 It's a big win.
00:18:52.980 We're getting 45 billion dollars for the military.
00:18:56.060 So which is more important?
00:18:58.400 Which threatens the country more?
00:19:00.620 Are we at risk for being invaded by a foreign power if we don't put 45 billion into the military?
00:19:06.480 Or are we more at risk by adding to a 31 trillion dollar debt?
00:19:12.140 I like Rand Paul a lot.
00:19:13.440 I've always liked him.
00:19:14.400 I mean, if he ran in 2024, I would consider him a really interesting option.
00:19:19.660 And he's one of the only good ones in the Senate.
00:19:22.880 And he's more libertarian than I am, but that's okay.
00:19:26.400 He's also consistent, much like his father, saying the same things, you know, standing for the same things.
00:19:35.900 One of the only guys you can trust on foreign policy.
00:19:38.420 He's one of the only Republicans that will say what he just said there.
00:19:42.660 Which is like questioning, at least questioning the idea.
00:19:45.460 No one's saying that we're not going to fund the military.
00:19:47.280 But we've got to send another 45 billion dollars there right away, or what?
00:19:52.780 Like, what's going to happen?
00:19:54.000 Russia, they're going to invade us, really?
00:19:55.380 Are they going to be, is Russia going to storm the beaches?
00:19:59.740 As for the bill, listen, as the senator points out, there is just no interest among Republican leadership
00:20:05.500 and among most rank and file Republicans to actually cut spending.
00:20:09.360 This is one of the most absurd, you know, one of the most absurd falsehoods that we hear all the time
00:20:16.660 is that Republicans are, you know, the party that stands for cutting spending.
00:20:21.260 They've literally never done it.
00:20:23.560 So just, they've never, ever done it.
00:20:26.280 It's a total misnomer.
00:20:29.920 We're not interested in it.
00:20:32.000 Very few of them are.
00:20:34.400 Because what, I mean, what does cutting spending actually mean?
00:20:38.120 First of all, it's politically difficult to do.
00:20:41.540 You know, because it means you're going up to these special interest groups and so on
00:20:45.080 that have their own little pet projects and you're saying, no, we're not giving you that money.
00:20:48.320 That's a politically difficult thing to do.
00:20:50.680 And it also means less power.
00:20:52.580 You know, the more the government spends, the more of our money they spend and the more power that they have.
00:20:56.980 That's what the spending really is, about exerting more of their power.
00:21:00.420 So to cut spending is also to cut power and influence.
00:21:02.900 And what happens, big coincidence, you know, so often you have these people that run for Congress
00:21:11.080 and they want to go to D.C.
00:21:12.200 And they say, we're going to rein in the government.
00:21:14.460 We're going to shrink government.
00:21:15.540 We're going to, government's too powerful.
00:21:17.060 And then they get into the government and they say, well, now that I'm here, it's a little bit,
00:21:20.940 it's okay now to have all this power because I'm here.
00:21:24.280 So it is all just a game.
00:21:27.360 Okay, there's a new HBO documentary about January 6th that's out.
00:21:31.140 And I have no interest in watching it, but I did enjoy this moment from the director when he was,
00:21:36.980 this is the director of the documentary, and he was being interviewed on CNN.
00:21:41.420 And this was a lot of fun.
00:21:43.020 Here it is.
00:21:44.220 The movie's not just about, like, the Capitol riot and all that.
00:21:47.760 It's also about, like, media echo chambers.
00:21:50.960 You know what I mean?
00:21:51.980 And, like, the dangers of the 24-hour news cycle and how I think mainstream media, like Fox and even CNN,
00:21:59.640 like, competes for views by running constant 24-hour news cycles based upon fear,
00:22:05.480 division, outrage, and panic, probably to, like, sell ads.
00:22:09.740 So it's not just about the Capitol riot.
00:22:12.020 Yeah.
00:22:12.280 I'm not exactly sure.
00:22:14.420 First of all, I don't agree with what you're saying,
00:22:16.120 but I'm not exactly sure of how that played into people going into the Capitol and rioting on January 6th.
00:22:24.460 There's nothing fake about CNN.
00:22:26.580 Oh, I'm not saying, like, fake news.
00:22:28.820 I'm just saying ramping people up and increasing division during that period of time.
00:22:32.380 You know, Don Lemon was nodding along, you know, because when the guy was talking about cable news,
00:22:38.900 he thought he was talking about Fox, you know, cable news, and Don Lemon's nodding.
00:22:42.740 And also CNN.
00:22:43.500 Well, no, no, no, that's not.
00:22:45.080 There's nothing fake about CNN.
00:22:48.340 He doesn't see how anything CNN did prior to January 6th could have contributed to January 6th.
00:22:57.380 And, well, I'm happy to explain that to you, Don.
00:23:02.180 There's quite a lot, actually.
00:23:04.880 Yes, the sensationalism for ratings is a big part of the story.
00:23:10.460 As the guy there points out, this is the problem with 24-hour.
00:23:18.560 I mean, 24-hour news just really shouldn't exist.
00:23:22.280 24-hour cable news shouldn't exist.
00:23:24.160 Because there's just, like, there isn't, there's not urgent news to report 24 hours a day every single day.
00:23:35.040 It's like nobody needs to know all of that all the time.
00:23:40.500 And what that means is they have to generate interest.
00:23:43.620 And, of course, it all comes down to ratings and advertising dollars.
00:23:45.960 But even before that, what did CNN do that might have helped contribute to the events of January 6th?
00:23:56.100 Those events that this was not an insurrection.
00:24:00.160 This was not, you know, the American way of life hanging in the balance.
00:24:04.380 And they almost overthrew the government.
00:24:05.720 It was not that.
00:24:06.560 It was a riot, though.
00:24:08.320 No question about it.
00:24:09.160 So how could CNN have contributed to a riot?
00:24:12.480 Well, maybe because they spent months and months and months prior to that defending and encouraging rioting.
00:24:22.460 When it was BLM doing it anyway.
00:24:26.380 Maybe that's how CNN and the rest of the corporate media played a role here.
00:24:31.420 Because that wasn't happening in a vacuum.
00:24:36.000 You're sending the message out that, like, it's okay to act this way now.
00:24:40.020 It's okay to, if something happens and you don't like it, you can do this.
00:24:45.580 You can just, you can riot and it'll be fine.
00:24:48.920 And not only can you riot, but you can even attack government buildings.
00:24:55.420 Which, as we know, the BLM rioters, they actually attacked.
00:24:58.180 It was an actual attack, like, as in setting police stations on fire.
00:25:06.820 Which is something that, by the way, the burning, as I've been saying for years now, I'm not the only one, of course.
00:25:13.660 But the burning of the police station in Minneapolis, that actually was, that's like the real January 6th.
00:25:20.680 That is actually the moment that should live in infamy.
00:25:24.080 That, that's, that's the moment that we should be talking about every year when we get to the anniversary of it.
00:25:31.180 A time in a major American city.
00:25:34.260 The United States of America, which is supposed to be an advanced, civilized society.
00:25:39.220 And here we have a major American city where a bunch of animals invaded a police station.
00:25:45.980 The police went running for the lives and they burned it to the ground.
00:25:48.800 But on the, on the sensationalism end of things as well, you know, talking about the sensationalism, sensationalism and dangers of 24-7 news.
00:25:57.780 Someone on, on Twitter, in response to Don Lemon's claims there, posted this.
00:26:03.420 And I just thought, like, it's just a, it's a good, good to remember this.
00:26:07.580 We may remember, we may remember this, this episode from semi-recent history.
00:26:12.380 Probably the most egregious example of CNN sensationalizing and trying to keep a story going.
00:26:19.860 This, of course, was the Malaysian flight 370.
00:26:23.500 And, anyway, let's just go back and watch this clip again.
00:26:28.000 What if it was hijacking or terrorism or mechanical failure or pilot error?
00:26:31.680 But what if it was something fully that we don't really understand?
00:26:35.080 A lot of people have been asking about that, about black holes and on and on and on and on and all of these conspiracy theories.
00:26:40.500 Let's look at this.
00:26:41.600 Noah says, what else can you think about black hole, Bermuda Triangle?
00:26:44.360 And then Deji says, huh, just like the movie Lost.
00:26:47.380 And, of course, it's also, they're also referencing the Twilight Zone, which is a very similar plot.
00:26:52.440 But, that's what people are saying.
00:26:53.860 I know it's preposterous.
00:26:54.900 But, is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?
00:26:58.320 Well, it is.
00:26:59.040 A black hole is about, you know, a small black hole would suck in our entire universe.
00:27:03.140 So, we know it's not that.
00:27:04.220 Bermuda Triangle is off in weather.
00:27:06.760 And, Lost is a TV show.
00:27:09.440 So, I think I always like things for which there's data, history, crunch the numbers.
00:27:14.140 So, for me, those aren't there.
00:27:15.920 But, I think it's wonderful that the whole world is trying to help with their theories.
00:27:18.960 That, I had forgotten about that particular moment.
00:27:22.940 I remembered CNN with Malaysian Flight 370.
00:27:25.740 While Don Lemon claims that they never sensationalized, they just would not let this go for months.
00:27:30.700 It was round-the-clock coverage.
00:27:32.520 And, I had forgotten that he seriously proposed the possibility that the flight flew into a black hole.
00:27:39.360 Now, what she said in response, a small black hole would not suck in the entire universe.
00:27:42.520 It would suck in the entire solar system.
00:27:45.060 That it would do.
00:27:45.680 So, pretty good indication.
00:27:48.480 You know, anything's possible, I suppose.
00:27:50.240 But, it's a pretty good indication.
00:27:53.300 I mean, it's like maybe, I don't know, maybe the black hole sucked in Malaysian Flight 370.
00:27:58.580 And, we were all sucked into the black hole, too.
00:28:00.600 We're in a black hole right now.
00:28:01.800 We don't even know it.
00:28:02.500 I mean, like that could happen in a sci-fi movie.
00:28:07.000 So, they just went crazy with this story.
00:28:08.720 And, meanwhile, there was never, there was actually never any real big mystery about the flight.
00:28:14.220 Because, the flight obviously crashed into the ocean.
00:28:16.740 Like, that's, they spent, they spent months saying, what happened to it?
00:28:20.820 Where is it?
00:28:21.320 It's, it's at the bottom of the ocean.
00:28:24.240 They crashed in the ocean.
00:28:25.520 That's what happened.
00:28:26.500 Why did it crash?
00:28:27.300 Well, that is a more interesting question.
00:28:29.060 But, not one that necessitated the coverage that CNN gave it, certainly.
00:28:32.800 All right.
00:28:33.020 Here's from, a story from the Daily Mail.
00:28:36.460 It says, two already approved drugs may effectively treat the millions of Americans estimated to have long COVID.
00:28:45.900 This is guanfacine, I don't know, an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug sold under the name Tenex.
00:28:54.220 And then, another drug that is abbreviated NAC that I won't even try to pronounce is a concussion drug that is branded mucomist.
00:29:03.020 We're found to reduce brain fog in two-thirds of patients.
00:29:07.140 So, you have the pharmaceutical companies now that are on the case trying to come up with drugs to treat what they call long COVID.
00:29:16.720 And, they've discovered, apparently, that, what do you know, ADHD drugs may do the job.
00:29:23.160 Now, it may interest you to know that this study where they made this discovery, you know, you want to just take a guess on how many, how big the study was?
00:29:33.980 Like, how many patients were included in this study?
00:29:36.580 Well, it turns out, 12.
00:29:38.200 This was a study on 12 patients.
00:29:40.820 And, that is what led them to the conclusion that you can give ADHD drugs for, quote-unquote, long COVID.
00:29:47.100 The article continues, doctors at Yale University believe the combination protects the brain's prefrontal cortex from stress and inflammation,
00:29:54.600 which can break down neural connections and cause the symptoms associated with brain fog.
00:29:59.900 While the study was small, only on 12 patients, the researchers believe they have found an effective treatment for the elusive condition,
00:30:06.400 one that is available at pharmacies right now.
00:30:08.160 Well, hey, they only tried it on 12 patients, but that's enough.
00:30:12.120 Just give it to, you know, you tried it out on 12.
00:30:14.900 It seemed to maybe work on a few of them.
00:30:17.360 So, let's give it to millions of people.
00:30:18.760 Why not?
00:30:20.200 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that around 8% of Americans are suffering long COVID,
00:30:25.160 and more than 3,500 have died as a result.
00:30:28.360 Okay.
00:30:29.220 You know, in a certain way, this actually makes sense, because ADHD is about as real as long COVID.
00:30:37.060 So, of course, you would treat them with the same drug.
00:30:44.080 Am I saying that long COVID doesn't exist at all?
00:30:53.120 I'm skeptical about it, but I feel the same way about it as I do about ADHD, actually.
00:30:57.680 So, actually, again, it does make sense that they're using the same drug.
00:30:59.680 So, ADHD, I mean, are there people who, we have the category of ADHD, and are there people who fall into that category?
00:31:12.060 Sure.
00:31:12.580 But the problem is that it's such a vague, all-encompassing concept that there's no way really to define it.
00:31:23.880 So, what is long COVID?
00:31:24.800 I looked up the official symptoms as they're listed on the CDC website for what qualifies as long COVID.
00:31:31.800 Remember, they said 8% of Americans have long COVID.
00:31:34.420 What does that mean, exactly?
00:31:35.500 So, here's a list of symptoms.
00:31:41.140 Tiredness or fatigue.
00:31:43.080 Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort.
00:31:46.220 Fever.
00:31:47.580 Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath.
00:31:49.900 Cough.
00:31:50.720 Chest pain.
00:31:52.260 Fast beating or pounding heart.
00:31:54.740 Difficulty thinking.
00:31:56.840 Headache.
00:31:58.140 Sleep problems.
00:31:59.720 Dizziness when you stand up.
00:32:01.340 Pins and needles feelings.
00:32:02.480 Change in smell or taste.
00:32:04.320 Depression.
00:32:05.360 Anxiety.
00:32:07.120 Diarrhea.
00:32:08.000 Stomach pain.
00:32:09.620 Joint or muscle pain.
00:32:11.260 Rash.
00:32:12.340 Changes in menstrual cycles.
00:32:14.620 So, all of those, they are quantifying as symptoms of long COVID.
00:32:22.140 So, that's another way of saying that, like, if you have COVID, anything that happens to you physiologically after COVID could qualify as long COVID.
00:32:33.260 So, anyone could have it.
00:32:36.400 And that's particularly the case for these kinds of quote-unquote symptoms that are impossible to define.
00:32:43.760 Like, anyone can convince themselves that they have some of this.
00:32:49.000 It's going to be difficult to convince yourself you have a fever.
00:32:51.160 You either have that or you don't.
00:32:53.100 But brain fog?
00:32:54.740 It's, if you want to convince yourself you have brain fog, you can.
00:33:01.220 Brain fog is something that everybody experiences.
00:33:03.040 Whatever that means exactly, it's impossible to define.
00:33:06.100 But it's something that, whatever it means, people experience it probably every day.
00:33:10.140 I wake up, every morning I have brain fog.
00:33:13.480 That's been the case my entire life.
00:33:15.160 Have I always had long COVID?
00:33:16.300 Difficulty concentrating.
00:33:20.840 Have you ever gone through, have you gone through a day in your life when, at least for a period of that day, you didn't have difficulty concentrating?
00:33:29.180 Have you ever in your life experienced one full day where you were able to concentrate perfectly without any difficulty?
00:33:39.480 Have you ever experienced that in your life?
00:33:41.060 And then, of course, depression, anxiety.
00:33:45.600 I mean, this is what the pharmaceutical companies do.
00:33:49.580 This is how they, this is bread and butter for them.
00:33:52.980 When they can vaguely diagnose and prescribe treatments for symptoms that are incredibly ambiguous and that literally anyone could have.
00:34:07.320 And it's, it's the same thing that they've been doing in the, in the, you know, psychiatric world for a long time.
00:34:17.600 And now, this is what's happening with COVID as well.
00:34:21.300 All right, I was pretty honored by this, I have to say.
00:34:25.560 Media Matters lists the top 10 misinformers in 2022.
00:34:33.180 Well, not exactly.
00:34:33.980 These are, these are Tucker Carlson's go-to misinformers in 2022.
00:34:39.920 The top 10 individuals.
00:34:41.420 This is a Media Matters.
00:34:42.280 Over the past year, Fox News' Tucker Carlson, who is being named Media Matters Misinformer of the Year,
00:34:48.860 leveraged this platform to amplify the reach of these 10 individuals as they spread misinformation.
00:34:53.800 They push topics including bigotry against immigrants in the LGBTQ community,
00:34:58.460 misinformation about COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and general right-wing grievances.
00:35:04.780 So, Tucker Carlson did get the title of misinformer of the year.
00:35:09.580 They didn't even have like any, they didn't even list any runners up.
00:35:12.120 I, you know, I knew I wasn't going to, I probably was, you know, competing against Tucker Carlson.
00:35:17.380 It was going to be a tough competition.
00:35:18.840 I'm a little bit disappointed.
00:35:19.860 I mean, given the fact that me, I do have my own section on the site that they list on Google.
00:35:25.340 So, I, you know, I'd like to know how many votes I got at least.
00:35:29.440 But ultimately, they gave it to Tucker Carlson.
00:35:32.900 Although I was listed as one of his top misinformers.
00:35:36.260 So, I feel pretty good about that.
00:35:38.000 They listed his top misinformers, Jason Rance, Glenn Greenwald, Candace Owens, Tulsi Gabbard,
00:35:44.560 Shia Reitschick, who lives at TikTok, Stephen Miller, Alex Berenson, Douglas McGregor, and then also Matt Walsh.
00:35:53.000 Says the Daily Wire self-described theocratic fascist and anti-trans extremist.
00:35:57.760 Matt Walsh was a frequent guest on Tucker Carlson's Type.
00:36:00.820 Walsh who has helped lead a right-wing campaign of harassment against children's hospitals,
00:36:05.120 providing life-saving, gender-affirming care to trans youth.
00:36:07.960 It was previously slandered LGBTQ people as groomers, was on the show 12 times.
00:36:12.740 And, of course, the right-wing campaign of harassment against children's hospitals,
00:36:22.320 that entire campaign consisted of me and not just me, along with Libs and TikTok and Chris Ruffo and others,
00:36:29.680 simply pointing out that, hey, look, guys, look at what these hospitals are doing.
00:36:36.460 That's what harassment is.
00:36:40.360 And this is yet another article.
00:36:41.980 You could read the entire thing, and you see lots of people being labeled misinformer,
00:36:49.360 lots of claims that are labeled misinformation,
00:36:53.560 and yet they never even try to explain how or why we're wrong.
00:37:01.620 Like, what did we say that was wrong exactly?
00:37:05.700 What claims did we make about hospitals that was incorrect?
00:37:08.920 But we know, of course, that on the left, misinformation is—
00:37:15.700 it's not wrong information or faulty information.
00:37:18.700 It's simply information that they find inconvenient.
00:37:22.100 That's what it means.
00:37:23.340 All right, let's get now to the comment section.
00:37:25.080 I don't mean to brag, by the way, but I am feeling pretty good today, feeling a little bit accomplished.
00:37:42.960 I took all four of my kids out to eat at a sit-down restaurant last night—well, two nights ago, actually—by myself.
00:37:50.840 So just me and the four kids, I decided to do this, you know, because I've been traveling a lot over the last few months, lots of traveling.
00:37:57.880 It's been hard on the kids.
00:37:59.380 Hard on my wife, so I'd give her a break, take the kids out, spend some quality time.
00:38:02.940 And so I would take them all out to eat by myself, you know?
00:38:06.700 And this is parenting difficulty level set to expert.
00:38:11.600 Maybe—well, not quite, because expert level would be buy yourself four kids, and then you go to the kind of restaurant that doesn't even have a kid's menu, right?
00:38:20.220 That's not even expert level.
00:38:22.000 That's suicide mission.
00:38:23.040 That's a kamikaze mission.
00:38:24.260 Going to, like, a nice, quiet place with four kids, just you.
00:38:27.140 Um, kamikaze mission, and the casualties will be all of the nice people and the other patrons whose date nights you ruin.
00:38:35.280 So I wouldn't do that.
00:38:36.360 Instead, I made it easier on myself, and we went to Texas Roadhouse.
00:38:40.260 And Texas Roadhouse is great because it's loud, it's cheap, it's greasy, you know, it's not very clean, let's be honest.
00:38:47.560 They used to—you know, remember at Texas Roadhouse, they used to give you—I don't think—I haven't been to one in a while that does this,
00:38:52.260 but they used to give you buckets of peanuts at this place, and you would just—you'd just chuck the peanut shells on the ground.
00:39:01.440 And there's peanut shells all over the place.
00:39:03.360 And they stopped doing that when the peanut allergy issue finally caught up with them.
00:39:07.660 I don't know how they got away with it for so long.
00:39:09.340 It's like 10 years after they banned peanut butter jelly sandwiches in school cafeterias.
00:39:15.720 Texas Roadhouse was still decorating their restaurant in peanut shell confetti.
00:39:20.280 So they don't do that anymore, but there still is all other—you know, the people throw everything else on the floor at Texas Roadhouse.
00:39:26.900 Napkins, dirty diapers, just like buckets of barbecue sauce.
00:39:30.560 It's great, perfect for a night out with the kids.
00:39:33.400 And it went very well.
00:39:35.440 And it was one of those parenting all-star moments where you get the compliment from the old lady.
00:39:41.140 There was an old lady who was sitting next to us.
00:39:42.260 She got up to leave, and she leaned in and said, your kids are so well-behaved and sweet.
00:39:46.860 And I said to them, good job.
00:39:48.120 You fooled her, kids.
00:39:49.220 Just one brief hiccup.
00:39:53.060 I had my face buried in my country-fried chicken with gravy because I was doing low-calorie option, as always.
00:40:00.120 Wasn't paying close attention.
00:40:02.880 Look over, and my three-year-old had crawled under the table at the Texas Roadhouse and was sitting on the ground at the Texas Roadhouse.
00:40:11.180 Like, the ground that probably hasn't been cleaned since, like, the Bush administration.
00:40:14.560 And she's sitting there.
00:40:16.160 Pulled her back up.
00:40:17.100 She may have eaten something off the floor.
00:40:19.180 I didn't want to ask.
00:40:19.980 I didn't want to know.
00:40:20.760 This is one of those, it's better not to know situations.
00:40:23.280 But other than that, it was a good experience.
00:40:27.220 All right.
00:40:28.600 Gabe Smith says, I think calling a 12-year-old a kidult is a purposeful, sinister ploy to make the sexualization of 12- to 13-year-olds more acceptable.
00:40:37.980 Yeah, I was disturbed by that as well.
00:40:41.800 We were talking about the so-called kidults yesterday.
00:40:45.340 And they label that 12 plus is a kidult.
00:40:50.460 But as I said yesterday, it's like, if you're 12, you're not a kidult or an adult.
00:40:56.380 You're just a kid.
00:40:57.600 12-year-old playing with toys, not only fine, but I consider that that's a positive sign.
00:41:03.060 If, like, a 12-year-old's still playing with something like Legos.
00:41:05.600 Because the other option is what?
00:41:06.940 The 12-year-old's on the screens all the time.
00:41:08.800 You know, it's, it's, that, that would tell me that this is a child that still has some innocence and some, you know, childlike wonder about them.
00:41:15.080 And I consider that a good thing.
00:41:17.180 Adults buying toys is a different deal entirely.
00:41:22.100 Paige says, Matt is 100% correct.
00:41:24.060 Growing up, my family never ate at the dinner table.
00:41:26.200 We all ate different things at different times.
00:41:28.660 I watched TV more than I went outside.
00:41:31.100 I first got a device with the internet when I was seven years old.
00:41:34.080 My most cherished memories of my childhood are from my grandparents' house when I would go to see them and all my aunts and uncles and cousins.
00:41:40.800 But after they moved away, my parents got divorced.
00:41:42.580 I spent every, even more time staring at screens, eating alone.
00:41:46.280 I feel very little nostalgia from my childhood.
00:41:48.760 All the toys and movies and TV shows aren't a replacement for family.
00:41:52.240 I think this kid-alt trend is very disturbing.
00:41:55.620 And this is the story that so many people in my generation, if this is your generation too, millennials, this is how they grew up.
00:42:03.480 Just staring at screens.
00:42:04.780 And if you think about, like, that was the case in the 90s.
00:42:07.260 How much more is it the case for kids these days?
00:42:10.800 Another comment says, I'm always flabbergasted by how many adults without kids flood Disneyland and Legoland, making it an unpleasant experience for those of us who bring our kids to these playgrounds.
00:42:24.520 And I will never understand that.
00:42:29.160 Like, it's not only, of course, immature to go just as an adult to a place like Disney World.
00:42:35.020 But also, why would you want to?
00:42:36.580 If you're, you know, like, if you don't have any kids and you want to go with your wife or someone to a vacation somewhere, without kids, you could go anywhere you want.
00:42:47.840 And if you've got the money to go to Disney World, it means you've got some money to spend on the vacation.
00:42:51.240 So you have money to spend on a vacation.
00:42:53.900 You don't have kids that you need to worry about.
00:42:57.100 You've got some time off.
00:42:58.880 You can go anywhere.
00:43:00.340 And you decide to wait in lines at Disney World?
00:43:04.540 Doesn't make any sense to me.
00:43:07.620 Dormition says, I'm 40, fully employed, happily married, have a son.
00:43:11.400 I still collect toys, 70s to 90s mainly.
00:43:14.420 It's a hobby of mine.
00:43:15.740 Plenty of people collect things that make them happy, and I see nothing wrong with that.
00:43:18.880 We're not hurting anyone, and it's one of the many things my son and I bond over.
00:43:22.440 I love introducing him to toys and cartoons I grew up with.
00:43:24.800 And luckily, I still have a lot of the toys I grew up with that I get to share with him.
00:43:28.840 Yeah, a lot of comments like this, people claiming that they are an exception to what I said about adults buying toys for themselves.
00:43:35.760 And these responses always frustrate me because, look, if you know yourself to be an exception, then fine.
00:43:41.180 Then you are.
00:43:43.040 There's nothing to worry about.
00:43:44.020 I guess I'm not talking about you.
00:43:45.340 What I said doesn't apply to you.
00:43:46.740 That's fine.
00:43:47.380 I never said that it applies to absolutely everyone in the world.
00:43:50.760 In fact, I specifically said that if we're talking about fully competent adults who are contributing to society, and they have families, and they have responsibilities, and they're well-rounded, mature, intelligent people, and they also happen to have a toy collection, that's not my thing.
00:44:07.500 But then it's more of just a quirk or an eccentricity.
00:44:11.260 And if that's your thing, then fine, whatever.
00:44:14.000 But the point is that the $9 billion adults spend on toys in a given year for themselves, that's not all or mostly being driven by collectibles, okay?
00:44:26.960 These are not mostly people buying collectibles.
00:44:29.520 And the greater point is that we do have a major problem of adults stuck in perpetual adolescence, refusing to grow up, refusing to accept responsibility.
00:44:39.040 This is not really deniable.
00:44:41.340 I don't think you would deny it.
00:44:42.360 We obviously have that problem in our culture.
00:44:45.320 And the toy thing is a symptom of that, and I think contributes to that, except in cases when it doesn't.
00:44:53.880 So that's how you break it down.
00:44:55.160 Our small but mighty team in South Florida is growing, and we're in need of a new associate producer to make it even mightier.
00:45:01.220 The AP will assist and support our show producers with general oversight of show production.
00:45:06.400 Technical production skills are a must for this role as well.
00:45:08.780 Candidates who have strong experience with operating cameras, microphones, and other audio equipment are preferred.
00:45:13.780 Additionally, you'll be responsible for tasks such as helping to schedule and set up various shows, assisting in coordinating and producing special show segments, prepping material for guest interviews, and more.
00:45:24.740 The needs change every day, so you have to be good at adapting.
00:45:27.660 This is an in-office position in Southern Florida.
00:45:29.960 Local candidates are strongly preferred, but we're open to considering exceptional candidates who are eager to relocate to South Florida.
00:45:35.260 If this sounds like you, go to dailywire.com slash Walsh and click careers for more info and also to apply.
00:45:42.000 Now let's get to our daily cancellation.
00:45:43.340 The Avatar sequel, Avatar 2, The Way of Water, was released this past weekend, 13 years after the original came out, 12 and a half years after everyone forgot that the original ever existed.
00:45:56.240 It was a brief moment in time when millions of people were somehow duped into believing that Avatar was a good film, but the fever broke rather suddenly.
00:46:01.880 And most of those who had fallen under its spell quickly realized the whole thing was just Fern Gully as reimagined by the Blue Man Group.
00:46:09.340 Not exactly a plot twist, therefore, to tell you that the sequel fizzled at the box office on its first weekend of release.
00:46:15.060 It fizzled with $134 million over the weekend, to be precise.
00:46:20.580 Which seems like a lot of money to qualify as a flop until you realize that they spent a billion dollars making this thing and poured hundreds of millions into marketing.
00:46:28.360 So that anything less than a historic box office haul would be a disappointment.
00:46:33.980 And in this case, the movie fell under even the most modest projections.
00:46:37.840 Now I, for one, am quite pleased with this result.
00:46:40.520 I like it when bad movies perform poorly, and this is a bad movie.
00:46:44.080 It may have impressive special effects, but then there really isn't anything that is actually impressive about special effects anymore.
00:46:51.720 I'll never understand people these days who are like, well, great special effects, so what?
00:46:56.040 If you have a billion dollars to make a movie, we expect that the CGI will be top of the line.
00:47:01.760 That's like, that's just basic level stuff.
00:47:05.060 What matters is the story.
00:47:07.000 And if the first Avatar was a rehash of what a dozen other films had already done and done better,
00:47:12.100 then Avatar 2 is a rehash of a rehash.
00:47:14.900 There's nothing new about this kind of cynical recycling, of course, but it's always worse coming from James Cameron,
00:47:22.880 because although he hasn't had an original idea in like 30 years, he still considers himself to be a genius storyteller.
00:47:31.680 And so both the first Avatar and this reheated version are epically, absurdly long.
00:47:37.300 Like, this one's almost three and a half hours long, as Cameron indulges every narcissistic, showy impulse,
00:47:45.220 refusing to cut a single scene or a single line of dialogue,
00:47:48.820 because he believes that the entire thing is a work of staggering genius,
00:47:52.700 even though it's literally just Pocahontas, but not as good.
00:47:57.420 On top of that, Cameron happens to be one of the wokest directors currently working in Hollywood.
00:48:01.960 Avatar is, of course, an environmentalism allegory about the perils of colonialism.
00:48:07.220 It's not my interpretation. That's what he says it is.
00:48:10.020 And if the wokeness wasn't clear enough, Cameron's been out on the trail promoting the film by ranting against the evils of testosterone,
00:48:18.000 as we covered in a recent Daily Cancellation.
00:48:19.700 He claimed that testosterone is a poison that must be purged from the bloodstream.
00:48:23.460 And then on Friday, in an interview with Variety, he bragged that Avatar is setting a new standard for female empowerment
00:48:31.300 because it features a pregnant female warrior.
00:48:34.780 So on the Daily Wire, it says,
00:48:35.600 Director James Cameron said in a recent interview that his upcoming movie, Avatar The Way of Water,
00:48:39.240 is the most empowering movie for women because one of the characters is a pregnant warrior.
00:48:43.360 The movie, which debuted in theaters across the U.S. on Friday, continues where the first movie left off.
00:48:48.620 And in this film, one of the main characters, Nightiri, is pregnant.
00:48:52.580 And Cameron made the remarks about Nightiri during an interview with Variety
00:48:55.540 when he was asked why it was important to have Nightiri and another character be pregnant in the movie.
00:49:00.740 He said, quote,
00:49:01.400 Everybody's always talking about female empowerment,
00:49:03.480 but what is such a big part of a woman's life that we as men don't experience?
00:49:07.400 And I thought, well, if you're really going to go all the way down the rabbit hole of female empowerment,
00:49:11.960 let's have a female warrior who's six months pregnant in battle.
00:49:14.980 I thought, let's take the real boundaries off.
00:49:17.260 To me, it was the last bastion that you don't see.
00:49:19.740 Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, all these other amazing women come up,
00:49:22.580 but they're not moms and they're not pregnant while they're fighting evil.
00:49:26.900 Yes, he's gone down the rabbit hole of female empowerment.
00:49:30.440 But is this really all the way down the rabbit hole?
00:49:33.020 What about a pregnant female in a wheelchair in battle?
00:49:36.420 How about a pregnant blind trans woman with one leg, epilepsy,
00:49:41.040 and a diagnosed anxiety disorder in battle?
00:49:43.580 Now, it's not clear how any of this actually would be empowering.
00:49:47.860 In fact, it's not clear how the exploits of a fictional character in a CGI universe could ever empower anyone,
00:49:54.200 regardless, pregnant or not.
00:49:56.040 But this is what empowerment has become.
00:49:58.760 For the record, even if this is a fictional universe,
00:50:01.540 there is actually nothing empowering about sending pregnant women off to fight battles.
00:50:04.920 A truly empowered pregnant woman is going to prioritize protecting her unborn child
00:50:10.020 and therefore is not going to put herself in a situation where both she and the child are very likely to be hurt.
00:50:15.620 But this is the Hollywood idea of empowerment.
00:50:19.300 The empowered person is the person who acts like anything other than what they are.
00:50:24.300 The person who rejects their fundamental duties and responsibilities.
00:50:27.280 The empowered woman is then the woman who acts like a man,
00:50:31.040 while the empowered man is the man who acts like a woman.
00:50:34.140 This is the empowerment they sell us, which is empowerment turned on its head.
00:50:37.500 It's the opposite of empowerment, which is the essence of wokeness.
00:50:41.200 Everything is the opposite of what it ought to be.
00:50:44.040 And yet, even with all this effort to be woke, the film still is not woke enough.
00:50:50.640 Here's the headline from Newsweek.
00:50:52.140 Avatar faces calls for boycott over accusations of racism.
00:50:57.280 The article then explains,
00:50:58.780 Director James Cameron is facing allegations of Native American and indigenous cultural appropriation
00:51:03.200 over the themes and imagery in his latest blockbuster, Avatar, The Way of Water.
00:51:07.180 Like his predecessor, the sequel centers on a story about colonizers taking over land from tribes.
00:51:11.480 And Cameron's telling the colonizers are humans who need a new inhabitable planet
00:51:15.260 because Earth's resources are becoming increasingly depleted.
00:51:18.320 Also, like its predecessor, the new Avatar film is being accused of using an amalgamation of histories
00:51:23.780 of various indigenous cultures for a film that features a largely white cast.
00:51:28.500 Among those upset by Cameron's film is Hugh Begay, a Native American influencer and co-chair of
00:51:33.360 Indigenous Pride LA.
00:51:36.120 Do not watch Avatar, The Way of Water, Begay wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
00:51:40.620 Join natives and other indigenous groups around the world in boycotting this horrible and racist film.
00:51:45.840 Begay also said that indigenous cultures were appropriated in a harmful manner to satisfy a white man's,
00:51:50.900 quote, savior complex.
00:51:52.740 Another Twitter user whose critiques of Avatar have gained attention is Autumn Asher Blackbeer,
00:51:57.760 an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver.
00:52:02.280 Why watch a movie about blue aliens when you could just support actual indigenous people
00:52:06.480 and our struggle for clean water here on Earth?
00:52:09.140 Yes, we do exist, Blackbeer wrote.
00:52:11.400 She followed up with a thread listing sci-fi films made by indigenous people.
00:52:15.840 So that's right.
00:52:17.120 Avatar commits appropriation.
00:52:19.100 They do have a point.
00:52:20.820 I mean, after all, James Cameron, he does cast mostly white actors to portray people of color
00:52:26.800 in the film.
00:52:27.740 Now, it's true, the color of the people in this case is blue, and they're not even people,
00:52:32.480 but that's irrelevant.
00:52:34.180 He could have at least, here's all I'm saying, he could have made the effort to try to travel
00:52:40.020 to another solar system and find actual blue aliens to fill these roles.
00:52:44.360 He could have tried.
00:52:45.560 Didn't even try.
00:52:46.060 Instead, he just took the easy way out, put actors in blue face instead.
00:52:50.760 Now, the criticism here is obviously ridiculous.
00:52:53.860 What's more, they're attacking James Cameron for somehow negating or minimizing the struggles
00:52:57.780 of, quote, indigenous people, when the entire movie is one long, overly simplistic, childish
00:53:03.660 retelling of the settlement of the new world, wherein white man bad, native people good.
00:53:08.260 This is exactly the version of history that these activists want us to accept.
00:53:12.860 They demand that we accept it.
00:53:15.060 And James Cameron has spent billions of dollars creating not one, but two pieces of overwrought
00:53:20.620 propaganda to deliver just that message.
00:53:23.520 And they're still mad.
00:53:26.460 That's how it works.
00:53:28.140 Of course, the game is rigged, especially if you're a white man.
00:53:31.480 The woke are never satisfied.
00:53:32.880 Whatever you do, it will not be enough.
00:53:34.400 Whatever you do, you should have done something else.
00:53:37.820 The woke are never happy.
00:53:39.780 They make demands that cannot be satisfied.
00:53:42.600 That's because they don't want to be satisfied.
00:53:45.340 They just want the demands.
00:53:46.860 They don't want the satisfaction of those demands.
00:53:48.560 They want the demands.
00:53:51.100 Trying to please them, then, is a fool's errand.
00:53:53.440 And James Cameron is just that sort of fool, which is why he is canceled for, I think, like,
00:54:00.340 the second time in a week.
00:54:01.840 And that'll do it for this portion of the show as we move over to the members block.
00:54:04.860 Hope to see you there.
00:54:05.560 If not, talk to you tomorrow.
00:54:06.960 Godspeed.
00:54:07.280 Godspeed.
00:54:09.220 Godspeed.
00:54:09.340 We'll be right back.