July 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 3 of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show dives deep into the intersection of culture, media, and masculinity, with Clay Travis leading a passionate monologue on the state of American values and the role of fatherhood in society. The hour opens with a lighthearted update on Buck Sexton’s family travels and a push to grow the show’s YouTube presence, highlighting the shift in media consumption from traditional radio to video-based platforms.
Clay then transitions into a viral marketing story involving actress Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle, using it as a springboard to critique the fashion industry's pivot away from traditional beauty standards. He argues that the return to aspirational advertising—featuring attractive models—is a sign of cultural healing, contrasting it with past campaigns from brands like Victoria’s Secret and Nike that embraced body positivity and inclusivity, which he claims were commercially unsuccessful.
The conversation evolves into a broader cultural critique, where Clay draws parallels between advertising trends and the decline of traditional family structures in pop culture. He laments the disappearance of strong father figures in modern television, contrasting it with the nuclear family portrayals in classic sitcoms like The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Growing Pains, and Home Improvement. He argues that the absence of dads in media contributes to a crisis of masculinity and a lack of aspirational role models for young boys.
Clay also reflects on the impact of social media, likening it to a “carnival funhouse mirror” that distorts reality and has led to misguided cultural shifts since 2014. He ties this distortion to rising teen depression, the collapse of race relations, and the influence of movements like BLM. He asserts that society is beginning to reject these distortions and return to more grounded, traditional values.
Listener call-ins and talkbacks add humor and support to the discussion, including a satirical message from “Hunter Biden” and a defense of Kurt Warner. The hour closes with a tribute to the late Malcolm-Jamal Warner and a nostalgic look at the cultural impact of The Cosby Show, reinforcing Clay’s call for a return to media that celebrates strong, present fathers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back in final hour of the week, Clay Travis
buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. Buck.
We'll be back with me on Monday. He's celebrating his
dad's birthday, traveling with his three month old baby, and
we just posted photos of that chunker of a kid.
(00:21):
Babies chubby babies. Is I just I think they are fabulous.
The pictures are up if you want a smile. I
believe they're up at clayanbuck dot com and you'll be
able to check them out there. By the way, I
haven't mentioned it yet today, but yesterday Bill O'Reilly came
on and he dunked on us and said, hey, I've
got a million YouTube subscribers. And he wasn't even trying
(00:43):
to dunk on us. He was just kind of just
dropping it in there, like, Hey, no big deal, million
YouTube subscribers and we don't even have a hundred thousand yet.
And I don't know he's still gonna be dunking on
us at a million to one hundred thousand, but at
least it's a really bit more respectable. And eventually we're
gonna have all three hours of the show up on
(01:04):
the site, and I would appreciate if all of you
would go and subscribe. Today. You type in my name
Clay Travis, you type in Buck Sexton. You can get
the latest videos. We're posting clips from the show constantly.
If you want to be able to share clips with
maybe your kids or your grandkids, or you are young
(01:24):
yourself and you're out and about on the road. Maybe
you don't get to listen to the show every day,
but you think to yourself, boy, you know what I'd
really like to do. I'd like to see what T
shirt Clay Travis is in today. The only way you
can do that is to be on YouTube. Maybe you
want to know what T shirt Bucks in. Only way
you can do that is to be on YouTube. So
let's get over one hundred thousand subscribers and we will
(01:46):
make Buck do a TikTok dance for over one hundred
thousand at some point in time. And look, you can
just catch up with the show and you can watch
it on video. We want you to be subscribed to
the podcast as well. This is crazy, I was reading recently.
This is why I've gotten so fired up about the
YouTube channel. More people now watch videos of radio shows
(02:08):
than actually listen to podcasts. Is that kind of crazy?
And I understand if maybe you're not in that community
that you're listening to the radio five hundred and fifty
five stations nationwide. We love all of you, all fifty states.
Thank you, but people are busy, and I was kind
of blown away that more people watch podcast video now
(02:33):
than actually listen to podcast audio. So look, we want
to catch up with the where the world is going,
and I would ask that you would go and join us.
It's free. Just click like and subscribe, and you can
put some questions in on the comments there, and we're
going to start to do YouTube focused videos where we
(02:54):
respond Buck and I to your questions and you can
only find that on YouTube. So go subscribe Clay, Travis,
buck Sexton, click subscribe and also like the channel. So
we appreciate all of you. Okay, I don't know how
many of you saw this, but I was over yesterday.
I was scrolling through and I don't even know how
(03:17):
the algorithm works, but somehow my social media algorithms saw
Sidney Sweeney in a tank top and tight jeans at
a car and they were like, hey, let's feed this
to Clay. I don't know what could. I don't know
how that happened. I really, I have no idea how
algorithms work. I don't know why they thought a girl
(03:38):
in a tight shirt and tight jeans would somehow that
I would be like, Oh, I'm gonna that video just
ended up on my timeline and it turned into a
huge story yesterday because a store called American Eagle decided
that they were going to sign Sidney Sweeney as their
chief spokesperson, and this thing went megaviral. The stock was
(04:00):
up like a couple one hundred million dollars since they've
announced it, and I was laughing about it because basically,
the very first job I ever had was working in
an American Eagle clothing store and yesterday going viral somehow.
I don't know how it ended up on my timeline. Again,
I don't know how algorithms work. I don't know why
(04:20):
they thought that I would be interested in an attractive
woman and not very much clothes. I don't know how
that happened. But so Sidney sweeney stock is skyrocketing, thing
goes megaviral, somehow ends up on my timeline for my
very first job, when I was like sixteen years old,
and you know what they've decided to do. They replaced
(04:41):
fat on attractive models with attractive models. And you're gonna
think this is ridiculous, but I actually think it's evidence
of the culture healing. And let me explain why, and
I'll share some funny stories about that job that I
used to have back in the day. But you remember
when a few years ago, Victoria's Secret decided, Hey, I
(05:04):
know the whole Victoria's Secret model thing. You walk it
by in a mall and they have a gorgeous woman
not wearing very much clothes. And it turns out that
putting gorgeous women in not very much clothes convinces women
to go buy more underwear than they otherwise would, and
like body lotion and whatever else, Victoria's Secret, it sells.
(05:25):
And I'm not putting myself out of this category either.
My wife still makes fun of me. I watched the
Victorious Secret, like the Christmas special that they have, and
then I went and bought like two hundred dollars of
lingerie like the next day, So yes, I am susceptible
to advertising. My wife was like, I like, you bought
(05:46):
everything in the whole store. Basically I was a lot.
I think you're going to look amazing in it. And
she was like, you watched the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show,
didn't you? And I said yes, and it was incredibly useful.
And there's a lot of men out there that know
exactly what I'm talking about. You see an attractive girl
in that outfit and you're like, I want my wife
or my girlfriend in that attractive outfit. Boom. It works
(06:06):
because advertising, by and large, is aspirational. People want to
look better than they actually do. You ever watch a
romantic comedy. It's never the case that the guy and
the girl in the romantic comedy are both ugly, because
nobody would go, I don't know why. You just don't
(06:27):
believe that two really fat people should get together and
spend money to go watch it. You want to watch
a guy that's typically sometimes better looking than you, a
woman who's always better looking than the guy deserves. That
is like the romantic comedy writ large, and Hollywood knows it,
and that's why it works. Somehow, Victoria's Secret decided, you
know what, I think we'll sell more lingerie if we
(06:50):
put fat people in lingerie. I just gotta tell you
it didn't work. In fact, the company almost went bankrupt,
and then they went back and they said, hey, you
know what, we should put more attractive people in our
clothes because people want to think that they're going to
look more attractive. I'm fat and not particularly good looking.
(07:12):
I don't see somebody in the underwear store and think, hey,
I want them to look like me. I wish I
was in better shape. I wish I was more ripped.
That's how everybody is. Okay, So American Eagle, where I
used to work, they went with the fat model thing,
and basically the entire brand collapsed, and so now they're
pivoting and they should fire everybody who said, hey, you
(07:33):
know what, we need fat models, unattractive women. Nike did
the same thing. Hey let's put Dylan mulvaney in a
sports bra. Hey let's put fat people in yoga pants.
That'll make people want to buy yoga pants. No, it
doesn't work. Okay, throughout history, attractive people, women, in particular
in clothing makes people want to buy more clothing. So
Sidney Sweeney is now the spokesperson for American Eagle, and
(07:56):
this happens almost identical with Nike suddenly deciding did you guys. See.
Scotti Scheffler won the British Open, the Open Golf championship
over the weekend. His insanely cute toddler kid, he's like
ten months old, eleven months old, you're roughly a year old,
was crawling around on the green. And Nike's new advertisement
(08:19):
replacing trans people in women's gear, men pretending to be
women and fat people in yoga pants is Scotty Scheffler
with his son crawling, and it basically says, you've already won,
but now you've won again. Hey. Fatherhood is good, it's
good to aspire to win a championship, but ultimately the
(08:42):
most important job, I certainly feel this way, is when
you have kids, raising them to be productive members of society.
So looking at that Sidney Sweeney ad, because again I
don't know how it happened, but it ended up in
my timeline, and it's reminding me of the nineties when
I worked in the American Eagle store and in the
(09:03):
Abercrombie and Fitch store. Back in the day, I made
four dollars and fifty cents an hour at American Eagle,
Rivergate Mall, Goodletsville, Tennessee. Four dollars and fifty cents an hour.
Probably the most fun job I've ever had, because I
was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old and all I had
to do all day long was fold shirts and talk
(09:27):
to pretty girls when they walked into the store. I
had an excuse to talk to every pretty girl on
the north and the east side of Nashville that came
to Rivergate Mall. In fact, if you are listening to
this right now in Goodletsville, Tennessee, if you were a
cute girl that went into that store between nineteen ninety
six and nineteen ninety nine, there's almost one hundred percent
(09:47):
chance I hit on you because I had an excuse
to walk up and talk to you. That was the
best job ever. Four dollars and fifty cents. Got to
eat Chick fil A every day for lunch, on my
lunch break or my dinner break. Got to just hang
out in them all. Every teenager in America is there
at that point in time. And do you know how
they sold gear at both American Eagle and Abercrombie and Fitch.
(10:09):
Good looking people in the ads wearing the clothes. And
then we entered this weird world, this weird world where
we were supposed to pretend that, hey, instead of everybody
aspiring to be bigger, stronger, faster versions of themselves or
in better shape versions of themselves, that we should all
(10:31):
just be body positive, that there should be no aspiration anymore,
that the meritocracy shouldn't exist, and that we should just
take people as they were and put them in ads.
And it failed utterly. And I was actually thinking about
this not only in the context of what American Eagle
is doing and how successful it already appears to be,
(10:53):
but in the way that society shifts. It feels quite
clear to me that we are trying to turn back
time and go back to the eighties, the nineties and
the early two thousands, after a generation where we tried
to pretend things were not real right, that your grandparents'
(11:16):
world didn't exist anymore, that your parents' world didn't exist anymore.
And now we're turning back the clock and going back
to the era of the eighties and nineties and even
the early two thousands, when by and large most people
got along. And I was thinking about this in the
context of social media, because I shared over this week
(11:37):
race relations suddenly collapsed about twenty fourteen, I'm saying, what
caused all this? Why did we suddenly decide, Hey, let's
put fat people in spandex, let's put fat people in
BRA's in the windows at Victoria's Secret. Social media. Social
(12:01):
media came close to breaking this country, and everything that
social media advocated for actually made things worse. Starting about
twenty fourteen, overall happiness in this country collapsed. Thirty percent
of teenage girls suddenly want to commit suicide. Why They're
(12:22):
looking at Instagram. They've got zits and braces and they're
looking at Instagram. They're like, I'm so unhappy. They're seeing
this world that doesn't actually exist. And it's not a
faraway world like celebrities have always existed. It's hey, whatever
your life is, somebody in your school has a way
better life. They went on a better vacation, They've got
a better car, they look better in that dress. Gratitude
(12:45):
is the enemy of competition, and suddenly everything is collapsing.
Black people, white people, Suddenly, race relations are collapsing. Why
BLM comes up and say, hey, the whole world's racist
cops are unnecessary? Murder rates skyrocket, violent crime skyrockets. All
(13:08):
of it I think is connected directly to social media,
and I think it broke the brains of lots of people,
and I think society as a whole is paying the price.
And we're slowly coming out of that fever and recognizing
that everything that happened before twenty fourteen was actually pretty
(13:29):
good in this country and we were on a good trajectory.
And I think what Trump represents is that acknowledgment that
America is the greatest country that's ever existed, and what
we were sold was a bill of goods. Now, I've
got a big theory on this. I think the problem
was people tried to be too responsive to social media.
(13:50):
Except social media is to real life. What a carnival
funhouse mirror is. You know, you stand in front of
a carnival funhouse mirror back in the day. It makes
you look fatter or skinnier than you actually are. It
isn't reflective of reality. But we all know that, and
that's what makes the carnival funhouse mirror makes sense because
(14:11):
it's humorous, because it's showing you what you actually aren't.
My argument is social media is the carnival funhouse mirror.
Imagine if you adjusted your diet entirely based on what
you saw in a carnival funhouse mirror, you would actually
be making worse decisions for yourself than if you had
(14:33):
never stood in front of the mirror at all. My
argument is we're starting to come out of that Carnival
funhouse mirror era because the nation as a whole looked
at the reflection we saw in social media and we
thought it was the real world, and we started adjusting
policy as a result. And I think it explains almost
(14:55):
everything over the past decade, and that's why we got
so much wrong, and that's why we're starting to fix
so much right now. I want to talk about that more.
We'll take some of your calls. Also want to tell
you the IFCJ does incredible work. I want you to
go to check out with the work that they're doing
right now. They're doing something very simple. They're just putting
bomb shelters to try to save people from bombs. People
of Israel have to constantly be rushing to bomb shelters.
(15:18):
I saw it for myself. They constantly need so much,
so much in the name of just basic safety and security.
That's what the IFCJ does. They are absolutely incredible. They're
on the ground providing much needed supplies and resources, also
letting them know they've got friends in America. All you
need to do is go to support IFCJ dot org.
(15:41):
My bad, that was the old website. IFCJ dot org.
It's even easier. IFCJ dot org. Give the gift of
safety to the people of Israel who need it desperately.
You can call them to eight eight eight four eight
eight I CJ. That's IFCJ dot org eight eight eight
four eight eight if cjt or. Sometimes all you can
(16:03):
do is laugh, and they do a lot of it
with the Sunday Hang Join Clay and Buck as they
laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. I actually
go to some of these carnivals just to make my
analogy about the crazy mirror, the funhouse mirror, because I
(16:26):
don't know how many kids actually still go to funhouses.
So here's a challenge for you, if you want to
make that analogy really stick, take your kids to the
local state fair or the local county fair and find
one of those funhouses. Because I don't know how many
of them actually even understand that analogy. I think most
people growing up would have been in there at some point.
(16:46):
But I think if you stand in front of it
and say, hey, that's social media, get off your phone, knucklehead,
don't pay as much attention to it, they'll get it.
There you go, solving the world's problems. A bunch of
people want to weigh in. I'm going to play some
of these. Podcast listener Max, he's got a message for me.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Gg Clay, Bleeping Travis. This is Hunter bleeping Biden. How
dare you talk about mine bleeping dad that way? And
that's right. I cook my own bleeping cocaine and crack
and whatnot. Deal with it, man, bleep you.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
That is great. Make me laugh with the talkbacks. Here
is podcast listener Tampa Todd FF. He can't believe I
compare Dwell listen.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Clay, what's up, brother, Tampa Todd?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Here?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Did you actually compare my favorite quarterback Kurt Warner of
all time to Hillary Clinton?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And listen?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I know Tom Brady is the greatest and Trump is
the greatest president. I get that analogy, but come on, man,
Kurt Warner, it's not Hillary Clinton. I'm a big Rams fan.
Go Rams anyway, great job with the show, Have a
good weekend and keep rocking. And let's hope this Russia
Gates stuff really takes off.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Apologies to Kurt Warner. That probably wasn't fair. But if
Tom Brady is the goat, somebody has to and that's Trump.
Somebody has to be Hillary, and I think it's got
to be Kurt Warner in that analogy. Since nine to eleven,
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at T two t dot org. That's t the number
two t dot org. Welcome back in Clay Travis buck
Sexton show. Let's check in and see how the op
position to Trump is going. Rashida to Leave is on
the steps of the US Capital. This is what it
sounds like. How, seeing people, this is off for you?
(19:17):
Did we play that again one more time? Here? This
is the opposition. I don't know if Trump's gonna be
able to overcome the guys. Rashita to Leave just had
a press conference. This is what it sounded like. Well,
seeing people, this is off for you. This is real.
(19:37):
Come on, hey, I'm gonna get all the media together
and I'm gonna bank some pots and drums, pots and pans,
not even drums. I could have played a flute. I
could have at least she could have at least gotten
me out there with my incredible flute playing skills to
try to get some attention on the Capitol steps. All right,
So I was talking about Sidney Sweeney and the way
that culture is pivoting in a big way, and I
(19:59):
think it's basic repudiating everything on the internet. Social media
for the last decade, which has actually made things worse.
And much of Trump two point zero is about reversing
the awful decisions that have been made over the last
decade as the woke virus has taken over. That's my
big thesis here. I also think it's time for culture
to go back to things that used to work. And
(20:20):
I was thinking about this a lot because unfortunately, Malcolm
Jamal Warner died this week, tragically drowned in Costa Rica.
He played THEO on The Cosby Show. And I think
The Cosby Show, because of the allegations against Bill Cosby,
has actually not been as widely distributed as it should
have been. You know, young kids today, they love friends.
(20:41):
They're going back and finding a lot of older shows
which are representative of how life was before they were around,
and they're envious of what they see there from the
eighties and the nineties. I have young kids. We have
been watching all the eighties and the nineties movies. They
love them. So America's good. Hey, there's an aspirational goal
(21:01):
to them sitcoms. I wanted to play this cut. This
is from The Cosby Show, going back in time to
I think nineteen eighty four, and I want to talk
about what we've lost and why I think we have
to regain it using the cultural prism of sitcoms.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Listen, Dad, when I wear this on my day with Christine,
Oh she is gonna die.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Un fence? Does it again?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
How much is it?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
See the label Gordon Guardtrail.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
This is the shirt Gordon Guartrail.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
This big design. Check out these details, hidden buttons, flap
on the back, two tone pockets.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Work of heart?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How much? What real thrill? Pure silk?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Are your hands clean?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Doctor's hands are always clean?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Why they're always washing them?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
How much? How much? How much? Dad? If you want quality,
you have to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Oh well there must be a pair of pants.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
In there too.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Okay, that's a funny clip for those of you that
remember watching it. Ninety five dollars I looked it up.
Would be the equivalent of two hundred and fifty dollars
for a shirt today. But I wanted to talk about
this because I know there are people out there. We
have a big audience in la for instance, and I
wanted to talk about it because it tied in with
to me what I'm seeing with Sydney Sweeney and the
(22:37):
way that we are going back in terms of how
we're selling goods. Most of us, and I would put
this in my camp. In the nineteen eighties and nineteen
nineties when we grew up, we watched shows like The
Cosby Show. And The Cosby Show was a revolutionary show
because Bill Cosby's character was a doctor and Claire Huxtable,
(22:57):
his wife, was a lawyer. You had high powered dad
and mom, highly educated, raising families and dealing with the hijinks.
And the cultural importance of The Cosby Show was what
it showed us, which is all families, white, Black, Asian,
and Hispanic actually have way more in common than we
(23:18):
do a part. And I think this is so important.
I was thinking about it because I've been watching current
pop culture shows. There's almost no dads. Think about it
for a minute. There is almost no dad present in
a nuclear household, nuclear family household, in any pop culture
(23:39):
shows today. There are lots of strong moms, they tend
to be single moms, but in terms of pop culture,
just think about this. I grew up. Many of you
grew up either raising your kids or watching these shows yourselves.
The Cosby Show, Nuclear family, Fresh, Prince of bel Air,
(24:00):
Nuclear Family, Family Ties, Nuclear Family, Growing Pains, Nuclear Family,
Full House, Dad, Mom had died. Think about all of
the shows that we watched in the eighties and nineties,
Even while there was a lot of divorce out there,
we understood that the aspirational goal of a healthy household
(24:24):
was a dad at home raising kids. All of these
shows that I could run through as you think about
them in your own life, Family Matters, and I might
repeat some Growing Pains, Family Ties. All of the most
popular shows had dads at home with mom raising kids. Dads,
(24:45):
while they might have been the butt of the joke,
as oftentimes happens in sitcoms, were still integral tim Allen
with home improvement back in the day, even up to
Modern Family, where you had non traditional in some ways
family but also still very strong parenting father in the
household raising kids. Where is dad gone? Is it any
(25:11):
wonder that boys are struggling in society today when we have,
even in pop culture, eliminated all of the dads from
the stories that we tell on television. And I've said
this before, Buck and I have talked about this. Look,
there's lots of shows that I think if I had
billions of dollars and I ran a media company, I
(25:33):
would greenlight the Lewis and Clark Expedition show. Just make Undaunted,
courage the book into a huge streaming series. It would
be the most popular show in America. I'm telling you
if it was done well, going into American history finding
strong characters being successful, there's a huge demand for them.
(25:55):
I would submit to you because I asked about this
on social media. Yellowstone. Really the reason why Yellowstone was
such a huge success was Kevin Constoner's father figure. Look,
he's got a lot of flaws if you watch that
show spoiler alert, lots of murders, everything else, But innately,
what he's trying to do is hold the family together.
(26:15):
He's a strong male character. They almost don't exist in
the context of family today. Why Why has Hollywood written
men out of most of their comedic dramas and most
of their movies and most of their streaming success shows.
(26:36):
And really is that representative of what America wants? Or
is it another example of the carnival funhouse mirror of
social media deciding that men are toxic white men in particular.
And I'm thinking about this a lot because my new
book that's gonna come out called balls. Yes, balls, and
I'm raising three young boys. No one wants weak men.
(27:00):
If the culture creates weak men, then there are no
aspirational goals. And you can say, well, if you have
to look to television to raise your kids, you're jo Yeah,
I agree, that's not good. But you know what's worse
not having a male figure in your household and not
even having an aspirational father figure that you see on television.
(27:20):
You may think it's ridiculous, but I guarantee you there
were lots of young kids, black, white, Asian, Hispanic that
watched The Cosby Show back in the day and thought,
I want to one day be like Bill Cosby. I
want to be married and I want to have kids
in my house. And they thought, I want to be
like Tim the Toolman Taylor, or I want to be
on Home Improvement, or I want to be like Jason
(27:42):
sever on Growing Pains. I'm going to be the dad.
I'm going to raise the kids. That's my job. I'm
going to provide for a family, and I'm going to
give them a better future than I had. That, guys,
is what men want. We are innately wired to provide
(28:02):
for a family. To protect a family. What happens when
you write men fathers out of all of the Hollywood stories,
you create weak men. You don't even create aspirational figures
that dad's young men can aspire to be. And it
(28:25):
feels very intentional to me. Looking at social media, you
would think men don't matter, dads are worthless. Moms are
celebrated all the time, and I wish no single mom
had to exist, because, trust me, I can only imagine
how hard it is to have to try to fulfill
(28:45):
both roles. And I wish there were no men that
walked out on homes all those things right, And I'm
not disparaging moms who are busting their ass having to
do two roles. But I just come back to one
of the and this is in the new book, but
I was thinking about it in the ACA THEO. I
was going back and watching old Cosby show clips. I
(29:07):
was thinking about it in that context. One of my
son's friends came in recently and he said, you know,
we're being taught that white men have all this power.
This is a couple of years ago, ten year old
kid and he's going off on, you know, just being
a funny kid. And he ultimately comes to the punchline,
which is basically this, mister Clay, they tell me that
(29:31):
boys and men we have all this power and everything else.
My mom doesn't even let me pick what I get
to eat for dinner. And imagine for those young boys
out there, what that disconnect is between, Hey, you're the
cause of all of the problems in America today. You men,
(29:51):
you're awful, and simultaneously you don't maybe have a father
figure in your household and you don't even see one
and pop culture, is it any wonder that young boys
are lost? And I just implored you, Hollywood, how about
just make a show where a dad is a dad
(30:13):
like they were throughout the eighties and the nineties two thousand.
Do not have to be a perfect dad, just a
dad so that people can see, Hey, this is what
I could aspire to be someday. I'd like to have
a family. I'd like to live in a household. I'd
like to get married and help raise kids. We used
to see that lifestyle all the time. It does not
(30:36):
exist now. That is a flaw, and I would submit
it's coming from the whole fallout of me too, which
basically went from hey, don't commit crimes to men or
evil men are wrong, and I think Hollywood followed that
on social media and intentionally wrote men out of starring
(30:57):
roles in the family Unit. So we got a lot
of people in LA listening to a lot of smart
people in the creative space. How about you just make
a good, old fashioned sitcom with a good dad. It
dominated the ratings in the eighties and the nineties and
the early two thousands. I got a crazy idea for you.
I think you can dominate streaming in the twenty twenties
(31:20):
because people are desperate to see it. The world's not
as different as you want to think it is. Whether
it's putting a hot girl in jeans and a tank
top and starting to sell gear again like American Eagle
is doing, or just finding a great American dad, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic,
putting them into a sitcom and letting America recognize particularly
(31:41):
young boys. The biggest, most aspirational goal that you should
have is to one day be a good dad. Look,
I want to tell you, speaking of aspirational goals, I
wish my Braves weren't so awful. I wish that when
I watched the Atlanta Braves play I didn't have to.
In the back of my mind, think, boy, you know what,
I hope Ronald Acune has playing tonight because the team's
(32:03):
probably gonna lose, but at least he's gonna make a
bunch of big plays. He's fun, he's an unbelievable athlete.
Maybe you've reached that situation with your favorite Major League
Baseball team. You get to August. Maybe they're not contending
for the title like you hope they would, but you
can still have fun with it. At Price Picks, all
you have to do is use my name Clay. You
(32:23):
play five dollars. You pick more or less on athletes.
Teams aren't involved. You just pick your favorite players. How
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(32:44):
And when you sign up right now, you get fifty
bucks Pricepicks dot Com Code Clay. That's Pricepicks dot Com
code Clay. Five dollars, turn it into fifty dollars prize
picks dot com, Code Clay. You can play in California,
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hooked up now. NFL training Camp season is here. I
promise you're gonna have some fun. All you have to
do is go to pricepicks dot com. My name Clay,
(33:07):
that's pricepicks dot com. Code Clay. Keep up with the
biggest political comeback in world history on the Team forty
seven podcast play and book Highlight Trump. Free plays from
the week Sundays at noon Eastern. Find it on the
iHeartRadio ASP or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back
(33:27):
in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Please go subscribe to
the YouTube channel. We'll put up a bunch of these
clips from the show if you like them. I know
a lot of you reacting to what I just said about, Hey,
let's put some dads back in culture. And again, I
understand if you're responding, you're saying, well, if you have
to rely, yeah, I get it. In an ideal world,
what kids seeing culture would not impact them. I agree
(33:50):
it's far more important to learn from your own parents.
But what if you don't have a dad in your household,
maybe seeing somebody that is a dad could be aspirational
to you on a sitcom.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Look, the world.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Didn't change in twenty fourteen when social media just arrived.
It is a carnival funhouse mirror going back to things
that worked in the eighties and nineties, in the early
two thousands, It's still gonna work today. I'm willing to
bet on it. Heck, my whole career has basically been
a bet on it. A lot of people reacting. Let's
go to Tom in Tennessee. What you got for is Tom? Hh?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Hey, Clay, this is Tom and Tennessee. Let's not forget
about the fabulous Al Bundy with married with children, nuclear
family to the ends love.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Even when it was being played for laughs as the
Albundy character was, the dad was still home, Peg Bundy
was still there. I'm not saying that's the most ideal,
even heck Homer Simpson, but dads were still all in
the story. Now they almost don't exist. Ronda, cedar Hill, Missouri.
What you got JJ?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Hi, Clay, This is Randa from Cedar Hill, Missouri. Loved
the show. Just thought i'd let you know my husband
now refers to low team men as flute players. I
love it, gotta love it.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Flute players. They're gonna come. I mean, at some point
in time, I'm gonna be dead and you're gonna be like,
who killed him? And the number one suspect is gonna
be some guy walking around with a flute. This is
from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. They sent this to me.
I think it ties in with what we're just talking about.
Jay Leno, trying to explain why Colbert got canceled, says
nobody wants to be lectured to cut twenty good job
(35:41):
by the Reagan Institute.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Funny is funny people. You know, it's funny when someone
who is not when you make fun of their side
and they laugh at it. I just find getting out.
I don't think anybody wants to hear a lecture, you know.
To me, it's just when I was with Rodney. It
was also the Economy Awards. Get to the joke was
quickly as high. Why shoot for just half an audience
all right time? You know, why not try to get
(36:04):
the whole? I mean, I like to bring people into
the big picture. I don't understand why you would alienate
one particular group you know, or just don't do it
at all. I'm not saying you have to throw your
support or whatever, but just just do what's funny.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Amen, Just do what's funny. Just do maybe what's worked
for generations and look at what has worked in the
past and build new things on top of them. That's
kind of the way capitalism works. Maybe get back to it.
I love all of you. Have fabulous weekends. Please go
subscribe to the Clay and Buck YouTube channel. Videos of
everything we've been doing all week will be up. Be safe,
(36:43):
have fun, Buck. We'll be back with me on Monday.
Thank y'all for listening.
Welcome back in final hour of the week, Clay Travis
buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. Buck.
We'll be back with me on Monday. He's celebrating his
dad's birthday, traveling with his three month old baby, and
we just posted photos of that chunker of a kid.
(00:21):
Babies chubby babies. Is I just I think they are fabulous.
The pictures are up if you want a smile. I
believe they're up at clayanbuck dot com and you'll be
able to check them out there. By the way, I
haven't mentioned it yet today, but yesterday Bill O'Reilly came
on and he dunked on us and said, hey, I've
got a million YouTube subscribers. And he wasn't even trying
(00:43):
to dunk on us. He was just kind of just
dropping it in there, like, Hey, no big deal, million
YouTube subscribers and we don't even have a hundred thousand yet.
And I don't know he's still gonna be dunking on
us at a million to one hundred thousand, but at
least it's a really bit more respectable. And eventually we're
gonna have all three hours of the show up on
(01:04):
the site, and I would appreciate if all of you
would go and subscribe. Today. You type in my name
Clay Travis, you type in Buck Sexton. You can get
the latest videos. We're posting clips from the show constantly.
If you want to be able to share clips with
maybe your kids or your grandkids, or you are young
(01:24):
yourself and you're out and about on the road. Maybe
you don't get to listen to the show every day,
but you think to yourself, boy, you know what I'd
really like to do. I'd like to see what T
shirt Clay Travis is in today. The only way you
can do that is to be on YouTube. Maybe you
want to know what T shirt Bucks in. Only way
you can do that is to be on YouTube. So
let's get over one hundred thousand subscribers and we will
(01:46):
make Buck do a TikTok dance for over one hundred
thousand at some point in time. And look, you can
just catch up with the show and you can watch
it on video. We want you to be subscribed to
the podcast as well. This is crazy, I was reading recently.
This is why I've gotten so fired up about the
YouTube channel. More people now watch videos of radio shows
(02:08):
than actually listen to podcasts. Is that kind of crazy?
And I understand if maybe you're not in that community
that you're listening to the radio five hundred and fifty
five stations nationwide. We love all of you, all fifty states.
Thank you, but people are busy, and I was kind
of blown away that more people watch podcast video now
(02:33):
than actually listen to podcast audio. So look, we want
to catch up with the where the world is going,
and I would ask that you would go and join us.
It's free. Just click like and subscribe, and you can
put some questions in on the comments there, and we're
going to start to do YouTube focused videos where we
(02:54):
respond Buck and I to your questions and you can
only find that on YouTube. So go subscribe Clay, Travis,
buck Sexton, click subscribe and also like the channel. So
we appreciate all of you. Okay, I don't know how
many of you saw this, but I was over yesterday.
I was scrolling through and I don't even know how
(03:17):
the algorithm works, but somehow my social media algorithms saw
Sidney Sweeney in a tank top and tight jeans at
a car and they were like, hey, let's feed this
to Clay. I don't know what could. I don't know
how that happened. I really, I have no idea how
algorithms work. I don't know why they thought a girl
(03:38):
in a tight shirt and tight jeans would somehow that
I would be like, Oh, I'm gonna that video just
ended up on my timeline and it turned into a
huge story yesterday because a store called American Eagle decided
that they were going to sign Sidney Sweeney as their
chief spokesperson, and this thing went megaviral. The stock was
(04:00):
up like a couple one hundred million dollars since they've
announced it, and I was laughing about it because basically,
the very first job I ever had was working in
an American Eagle clothing store and yesterday going viral somehow.
I don't know how it ended up on my timeline. Again,
I don't know how algorithms work. I don't know why
(04:20):
they thought that I would be interested in an attractive
woman and not very much clothes. I don't know how
that happened. But so Sidney sweeney stock is skyrocketing, thing
goes megaviral, somehow ends up on my timeline for my
very first job, when I was like sixteen years old,
and you know what they've decided to do. They replaced
(04:41):
fat on attractive models with attractive models. And you're gonna
think this is ridiculous, but I actually think it's evidence
of the culture healing. And let me explain why, and
I'll share some funny stories about that job that I
used to have back in the day. But you remember
when a few years ago, Victoria's Secret decided, Hey, I
(05:04):
know the whole Victoria's Secret model thing. You walk it
by in a mall and they have a gorgeous woman
not wearing very much clothes. And it turns out that
putting gorgeous women in not very much clothes convinces women
to go buy more underwear than they otherwise would, and
like body lotion and whatever else, Victoria's Secret, it sells.
(05:25):
And I'm not putting myself out of this category either.
My wife still makes fun of me. I watched the
Victorious Secret, like the Christmas special that they have, and
then I went and bought like two hundred dollars of
lingerie like the next day, So yes, I am susceptible
to advertising. My wife was like, I like, you bought
(05:46):
everything in the whole store. Basically I was a lot.
I think you're going to look amazing in it. And
she was like, you watched the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show,
didn't you? And I said yes, and it was incredibly useful.
And there's a lot of men out there that know
exactly what I'm talking about. You see an attractive girl
in that outfit and you're like, I want my wife
or my girlfriend in that attractive outfit. Boom. It works
(06:06):
because advertising, by and large, is aspirational. People want to
look better than they actually do. You ever watch a
romantic comedy. It's never the case that the guy and
the girl in the romantic comedy are both ugly, because
nobody would go, I don't know why. You just don't
(06:27):
believe that two really fat people should get together and
spend money to go watch it. You want to watch
a guy that's typically sometimes better looking than you, a
woman who's always better looking than the guy deserves. That
is like the romantic comedy writ large, and Hollywood knows it,
and that's why it works. Somehow, Victoria's Secret decided, you
know what, I think we'll sell more lingerie if we
(06:50):
put fat people in lingerie. I just gotta tell you
it didn't work. In fact, the company almost went bankrupt,
and then they went back and they said, hey, you
know what, we should put more attractive people in our
clothes because people want to think that they're going to
look more attractive. I'm fat and not particularly good looking.
(07:12):
I don't see somebody in the underwear store and think, hey,
I want them to look like me. I wish I
was in better shape. I wish I was more ripped.
That's how everybody is. Okay, So American Eagle, where I
used to work, they went with the fat model thing,
and basically the entire brand collapsed, and so now they're
pivoting and they should fire everybody who said, hey, you
(07:33):
know what, we need fat models, unattractive women. Nike did
the same thing. Hey let's put Dylan mulvaney in a
sports bra. Hey let's put fat people in yoga pants.
That'll make people want to buy yoga pants. No, it
doesn't work. Okay, throughout history, attractive people, women, in particular
in clothing makes people want to buy more clothing. So
Sidney Sweeney is now the spokesperson for American Eagle, and
(07:56):
this happens almost identical with Nike suddenly deciding did you guys. See.
Scotti Scheffler won the British Open, the Open Golf championship
over the weekend. His insanely cute toddler kid, he's like
ten months old, eleven months old, you're roughly a year old,
was crawling around on the green. And Nike's new advertisement
(08:19):
replacing trans people in women's gear, men pretending to be
women and fat people in yoga pants is Scotty Scheffler
with his son crawling, and it basically says, you've already won,
but now you've won again. Hey. Fatherhood is good, it's
good to aspire to win a championship, but ultimately the
(08:42):
most important job, I certainly feel this way, is when
you have kids, raising them to be productive members of society.
So looking at that Sidney Sweeney ad, because again I
don't know how it happened, but it ended up in
my timeline, and it's reminding me of the nineties when
I worked in the American Eagle store and in the
(09:03):
Abercrombie and Fitch store. Back in the day, I made
four dollars and fifty cents an hour at American Eagle,
Rivergate Mall, Goodletsville, Tennessee. Four dollars and fifty cents an hour.
Probably the most fun job I've ever had, because I
was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old and all I had
to do all day long was fold shirts and talk
(09:27):
to pretty girls when they walked into the store. I
had an excuse to talk to every pretty girl on
the north and the east side of Nashville that came
to Rivergate Mall. In fact, if you are listening to
this right now in Goodletsville, Tennessee, if you were a
cute girl that went into that store between nineteen ninety
six and nineteen ninety nine, there's almost one hundred percent
(09:47):
chance I hit on you because I had an excuse
to walk up and talk to you. That was the
best job ever. Four dollars and fifty cents. Got to
eat Chick fil A every day for lunch, on my
lunch break or my dinner break. Got to just hang
out in them all. Every teenager in America is there
at that point in time. And do you know how
they sold gear at both American Eagle and Abercrombie and Fitch.
(10:09):
Good looking people in the ads wearing the clothes. And
then we entered this weird world, this weird world where
we were supposed to pretend that, hey, instead of everybody
aspiring to be bigger, stronger, faster versions of themselves or
in better shape versions of themselves, that we should all
(10:31):
just be body positive, that there should be no aspiration anymore,
that the meritocracy shouldn't exist, and that we should just
take people as they were and put them in ads.
And it failed utterly. And I was actually thinking about
this not only in the context of what American Eagle
is doing and how successful it already appears to be,
(10:53):
but in the way that society shifts. It feels quite
clear to me that we are trying to turn back
time and go back to the eighties, the nineties and
the early two thousands, after a generation where we tried
to pretend things were not real right, that your grandparents'
(11:16):
world didn't exist anymore, that your parents' world didn't exist anymore.
And now we're turning back the clock and going back
to the era of the eighties and nineties and even
the early two thousands, when by and large most people
got along. And I was thinking about this in the
context of social media, because I shared over this week
(11:37):
race relations suddenly collapsed about twenty fourteen, I'm saying, what
caused all this? Why did we suddenly decide, Hey, let's
put fat people in spandex, let's put fat people in
BRA's in the windows at Victoria's Secret. Social media. Social
(12:01):
media came close to breaking this country, and everything that
social media advocated for actually made things worse. Starting about
twenty fourteen, overall happiness in this country collapsed. Thirty percent
of teenage girls suddenly want to commit suicide. Why They're
(12:22):
looking at Instagram. They've got zits and braces and they're
looking at Instagram. They're like, I'm so unhappy. They're seeing
this world that doesn't actually exist. And it's not a
faraway world like celebrities have always existed. It's hey, whatever
your life is, somebody in your school has a way
better life. They went on a better vacation, They've got
a better car, they look better in that dress. Gratitude
(12:45):
is the enemy of competition, and suddenly everything is collapsing.
Black people, white people, Suddenly, race relations are collapsing. Why
BLM comes up and say, hey, the whole world's racist
cops are unnecessary? Murder rates skyrocket, violent crime skyrockets. All
(13:08):
of it I think is connected directly to social media,
and I think it broke the brains of lots of people,
and I think society as a whole is paying the price.
And we're slowly coming out of that fever and recognizing
that everything that happened before twenty fourteen was actually pretty
(13:29):
good in this country and we were on a good trajectory.
And I think what Trump represents is that acknowledgment that
America is the greatest country that's ever existed, and what
we were sold was a bill of goods. Now, I've
got a big theory on this. I think the problem
was people tried to be too responsive to social media.
(13:50):
Except social media is to real life. What a carnival
funhouse mirror is. You know, you stand in front of
a carnival funhouse mirror back in the day. It makes
you look fatter or skinnier than you actually are. It
isn't reflective of reality. But we all know that, and
that's what makes the carnival funhouse mirror makes sense because
(14:11):
it's humorous, because it's showing you what you actually aren't.
My argument is social media is the carnival funhouse mirror.
Imagine if you adjusted your diet entirely based on what
you saw in a carnival funhouse mirror, you would actually
be making worse decisions for yourself than if you had
(14:33):
never stood in front of the mirror at all. My
argument is we're starting to come out of that Carnival
funhouse mirror era because the nation as a whole looked
at the reflection we saw in social media and we
thought it was the real world, and we started adjusting
policy as a result. And I think it explains almost
(14:55):
everything over the past decade, and that's why we got
so much wrong, and that's why we're starting to fix
so much right now. I want to talk about that more.
We'll take some of your calls. Also want to tell
you the IFCJ does incredible work. I want you to
go to check out with the work that they're doing
right now. They're doing something very simple. They're just putting
bomb shelters to try to save people from bombs. People
of Israel have to constantly be rushing to bomb shelters.
(15:18):
I saw it for myself. They constantly need so much,
so much in the name of just basic safety and security.
That's what the IFCJ does. They are absolutely incredible. They're
on the ground providing much needed supplies and resources, also
letting them know they've got friends in America. All you
need to do is go to support IFCJ dot org.
(15:41):
My bad, that was the old website. IFCJ dot org.
It's even easier. IFCJ dot org. Give the gift of
safety to the people of Israel who need it desperately.
You can call them to eight eight eight four eight
eight I CJ. That's IFCJ dot org eight eight eight
four eight eight if cjt or. Sometimes all you can
(16:03):
do is laugh, and they do a lot of it
with the Sunday Hang Join Clay and Buck as they
laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. I actually
go to some of these carnivals just to make my
analogy about the crazy mirror, the funhouse mirror, because I
(16:26):
don't know how many kids actually still go to funhouses.
So here's a challenge for you, if you want to
make that analogy really stick, take your kids to the
local state fair or the local county fair and find
one of those funhouses. Because I don't know how many
of them actually even understand that analogy. I think most
people growing up would have been in there at some point.
(16:46):
But I think if you stand in front of it
and say, hey, that's social media, get off your phone, knucklehead,
don't pay as much attention to it, they'll get it.
There you go, solving the world's problems. A bunch of
people want to weigh in. I'm going to play some
of these. Podcast listener Max, he's got a message for me.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Gg Clay, Bleeping Travis. This is Hunter bleeping Biden. How
dare you talk about mine bleeping dad that way? And
that's right. I cook my own bleeping cocaine and crack
and whatnot. Deal with it, man, bleep you.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
That is great. Make me laugh with the talkbacks. Here
is podcast listener Tampa Todd FF. He can't believe I
compare Dwell listen.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Clay, what's up, brother, Tampa Todd?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Here?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Did you actually compare my favorite quarterback Kurt Warner of
all time to Hillary Clinton?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And listen?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I know Tom Brady is the greatest and Trump is
the greatest president. I get that analogy, but come on, man,
Kurt Warner, it's not Hillary Clinton. I'm a big Rams fan.
Go Rams anyway, great job with the show, Have a
good weekend and keep rocking. And let's hope this Russia
Gates stuff really takes off.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Apologies to Kurt Warner. That probably wasn't fair. But if
Tom Brady is the goat, somebody has to and that's Trump.
Somebody has to be Hillary, and I think it's got
to be Kurt Warner in that analogy. Since nine to eleven,
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at T two t dot org. That's t the number
two t dot org. Welcome back in Clay Travis buck
Sexton show. Let's check in and see how the op
position to Trump is going. Rashida to Leave is on
the steps of the US Capital. This is what it
sounds like. How, seeing people, this is off for you?
(19:17):
Did we play that again one more time? Here? This
is the opposition. I don't know if Trump's gonna be
able to overcome the guys. Rashita to Leave just had
a press conference. This is what it sounded like. Well,
seeing people, this is off for you. This is real.
(19:37):
Come on, hey, I'm gonna get all the media together
and I'm gonna bank some pots and drums, pots and pans,
not even drums. I could have played a flute. I
could have at least she could have at least gotten
me out there with my incredible flute playing skills to
try to get some attention on the Capitol steps. All right,
So I was talking about Sidney Sweeney and the way
that culture is pivoting in a big way, and I
(19:59):
think it's basic repudiating everything on the internet. Social media
for the last decade, which has actually made things worse.
And much of Trump two point zero is about reversing
the awful decisions that have been made over the last
decade as the woke virus has taken over. That's my
big thesis here. I also think it's time for culture
to go back to things that used to work. And
(20:20):
I was thinking about this a lot because unfortunately, Malcolm
Jamal Warner died this week, tragically drowned in Costa Rica.
He played THEO on The Cosby Show. And I think
The Cosby Show, because of the allegations against Bill Cosby,
has actually not been as widely distributed as it should
have been. You know, young kids today, they love friends.
(20:41):
They're going back and finding a lot of older shows
which are representative of how life was before they were around,
and they're envious of what they see there from the
eighties and the nineties. I have young kids. We have
been watching all the eighties and the nineties movies. They
love them. So America's good. Hey, there's an aspirational goal
(21:01):
to them sitcoms. I wanted to play this cut. This
is from The Cosby Show, going back in time to
I think nineteen eighty four, and I want to talk
about what we've lost and why I think we have
to regain it using the cultural prism of sitcoms.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Listen, Dad, when I wear this on my day with Christine,
Oh she is gonna die.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Un fence? Does it again?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
How much is it?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
See the label Gordon Guardtrail.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
This is the shirt Gordon Guartrail.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
This big design. Check out these details, hidden buttons, flap
on the back, two tone pockets.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Work of heart?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How much? What real thrill? Pure silk?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Are your hands clean?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Doctor's hands are always clean?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Why they're always washing them?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
How much? How much? How much? Dad? If you want quality,
you have to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Oh well there must be a pair of pants.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
In there too.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Okay, that's a funny clip for those of you that
remember watching it. Ninety five dollars I looked it up.
Would be the equivalent of two hundred and fifty dollars
for a shirt today. But I wanted to talk about
this because I know there are people out there. We
have a big audience in la for instance, and I
wanted to talk about it because it tied in with
to me what I'm seeing with Sydney Sweeney and the
(22:37):
way that we are going back in terms of how
we're selling goods. Most of us, and I would put
this in my camp. In the nineteen eighties and nineteen
nineties when we grew up, we watched shows like The
Cosby Show. And The Cosby Show was a revolutionary show
because Bill Cosby's character was a doctor and Claire Huxtable,
(22:57):
his wife, was a lawyer. You had high powered dad
and mom, highly educated, raising families and dealing with the hijinks.
And the cultural importance of The Cosby Show was what
it showed us, which is all families, white, Black, Asian,
and Hispanic actually have way more in common than we
(23:18):
do a part. And I think this is so important.
I was thinking about it because I've been watching current
pop culture shows. There's almost no dads. Think about it
for a minute. There is almost no dad present in
a nuclear household, nuclear family household, in any pop culture
(23:39):
shows today. There are lots of strong moms, they tend
to be single moms, but in terms of pop culture,
just think about this. I grew up. Many of you
grew up either raising your kids or watching these shows yourselves.
The Cosby Show, Nuclear family, Fresh, Prince of bel Air,
(24:00):
Nuclear Family, Family Ties, Nuclear Family, Growing Pains, Nuclear Family,
Full House, Dad, Mom had died. Think about all of
the shows that we watched in the eighties and nineties,
Even while there was a lot of divorce out there,
we understood that the aspirational goal of a healthy household
(24:24):
was a dad at home raising kids. All of these
shows that I could run through as you think about
them in your own life, Family Matters, and I might
repeat some Growing Pains, Family Ties. All of the most
popular shows had dads at home with mom raising kids. Dads,
(24:45):
while they might have been the butt of the joke,
as oftentimes happens in sitcoms, were still integral tim Allen
with home improvement back in the day, even up to
Modern Family, where you had non traditional in some ways
family but also still very strong parenting father in the
household raising kids. Where is dad gone? Is it any
(25:11):
wonder that boys are struggling in society today when we have,
even in pop culture, eliminated all of the dads from
the stories that we tell on television. And I've said
this before, Buck and I have talked about this. Look,
there's lots of shows that I think if I had
billions of dollars and I ran a media company, I
(25:33):
would greenlight the Lewis and Clark Expedition show. Just make Undaunted,
courage the book into a huge streaming series. It would
be the most popular show in America. I'm telling you
if it was done well, going into American history finding
strong characters being successful, there's a huge demand for them.
(25:55):
I would submit to you because I asked about this
on social media. Yellowstone. Really the reason why Yellowstone was
such a huge success was Kevin Constoner's father figure. Look,
he's got a lot of flaws if you watch that
show spoiler alert, lots of murders, everything else, But innately,
what he's trying to do is hold the family together.
(26:15):
He's a strong male character. They almost don't exist in
the context of family today. Why Why has Hollywood written
men out of most of their comedic dramas and most
of their movies and most of their streaming success shows.
(26:36):
And really is that representative of what America wants? Or
is it another example of the carnival funhouse mirror of
social media deciding that men are toxic white men in particular.
And I'm thinking about this a lot because my new
book that's gonna come out called balls. Yes, balls, and
I'm raising three young boys. No one wants weak men.
(27:00):
If the culture creates weak men, then there are no
aspirational goals. And you can say, well, if you have
to look to television to raise your kids, you're jo Yeah,
I agree, that's not good. But you know what's worse
not having a male figure in your household and not
even having an aspirational father figure that you see on television.
(27:20):
You may think it's ridiculous, but I guarantee you there
were lots of young kids, black, white, Asian, Hispanic that
watched The Cosby Show back in the day and thought,
I want to one day be like Bill Cosby. I
want to be married and I want to have kids
in my house. And they thought, I want to be
like Tim the Toolman Taylor, or I want to be
on Home Improvement, or I want to be like Jason
(27:42):
sever on Growing Pains. I'm going to be the dad.
I'm going to raise the kids. That's my job. I'm
going to provide for a family, and I'm going to
give them a better future than I had. That, guys,
is what men want. We are innately wired to provide
(28:02):
for a family. To protect a family. What happens when
you write men fathers out of all of the Hollywood stories,
you create weak men. You don't even create aspirational figures
that dad's young men can aspire to be. And it
(28:25):
feels very intentional to me. Looking at social media, you
would think men don't matter, dads are worthless. Moms are
celebrated all the time, and I wish no single mom
had to exist, because, trust me, I can only imagine
how hard it is to have to try to fulfill
(28:45):
both roles. And I wish there were no men that
walked out on homes all those things right, And I'm
not disparaging moms who are busting their ass having to
do two roles. But I just come back to one
of the and this is in the new book, but
I was thinking about it in the ACA THEO. I
was going back and watching old Cosby show clips. I
(29:07):
was thinking about it in that context. One of my
son's friends came in recently and he said, you know,
we're being taught that white men have all this power.
This is a couple of years ago, ten year old
kid and he's going off on, you know, just being
a funny kid. And he ultimately comes to the punchline,
which is basically this, mister Clay, they tell me that
(29:31):
boys and men we have all this power and everything else.
My mom doesn't even let me pick what I get
to eat for dinner. And imagine for those young boys
out there, what that disconnect is between, Hey, you're the
cause of all of the problems in America today. You men,
(29:51):
you're awful, and simultaneously you don't maybe have a father
figure in your household and you don't even see one
and pop culture, is it any wonder that young boys
are lost? And I just implored you, Hollywood, how about
just make a show where a dad is a dad
(30:13):
like they were throughout the eighties and the nineties two thousand.
Do not have to be a perfect dad, just a
dad so that people can see, Hey, this is what
I could aspire to be someday. I'd like to have
a family. I'd like to live in a household. I'd
like to get married and help raise kids. We used
to see that lifestyle all the time. It does not
(30:36):
exist now. That is a flaw, and I would submit
it's coming from the whole fallout of me too, which
basically went from hey, don't commit crimes to men or
evil men are wrong, and I think Hollywood followed that
on social media and intentionally wrote men out of starring
(30:57):
roles in the family Unit. So we got a lot
of people in LA listening to a lot of smart
people in the creative space. How about you just make
a good, old fashioned sitcom with a good dad. It
dominated the ratings in the eighties and the nineties and
the early two thousands. I got a crazy idea for you.
I think you can dominate streaming in the twenty twenties
(31:20):
because people are desperate to see it. The world's not
as different as you want to think it is. Whether
it's putting a hot girl in jeans and a tank
top and starting to sell gear again like American Eagle
is doing, or just finding a great American dad, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic,
putting them into a sitcom and letting America recognize particularly
(31:41):
young boys. The biggest, most aspirational goal that you should
have is to one day be a good dad. Look,
I want to tell you, speaking of aspirational goals, I
wish my Braves weren't so awful. I wish that when
I watched the Atlanta Braves play I didn't have to.
In the back of my mind, think, boy, you know what,
I hope Ronald Acune has playing tonight because the team's
(32:03):
probably gonna lose, but at least he's gonna make a
bunch of big plays. He's fun, he's an unbelievable athlete.
Maybe you've reached that situation with your favorite Major League
Baseball team. You get to August. Maybe they're not contending
for the title like you hope they would, but you
can still have fun with it. At Price Picks, all
you have to do is use my name Clay. You
(32:23):
play five dollars. You pick more or less on athletes.
Teams aren't involved. You just pick your favorite players. How
many strikeouts are they gonna have, how many hits are
they gonna get? Are they gonna score a run? More
or less? You dive in and you can turn a
five dollar pick into maybe one hundred dollars, maybe two
hundred dollars plus you'll just have a little bit more fun.
(32:44):
And when you sign up right now, you get fifty
bucks Pricepicks dot Com Code Clay. That's Pricepicks dot Com
code Clay. Five dollars, turn it into fifty dollars prize
picks dot com, Code Clay. You can play in California,
you can play in Texas, you can play in Florida,
you can play in Georgia. All over the country. Get
hooked up now. NFL training Camp season is here. I
promise you're gonna have some fun. All you have to
do is go to pricepicks dot com. My name Clay,
(33:07):
that's pricepicks dot com. Code Clay. Keep up with the
biggest political comeback in world history on the Team forty
seven podcast play and book Highlight Trump. Free plays from
the week Sundays at noon Eastern. Find it on the
iHeartRadio ASP or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back
(33:27):
in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Please go subscribe to
the YouTube channel. We'll put up a bunch of these
clips from the show if you like them. I know
a lot of you reacting to what I just said about, Hey,
let's put some dads back in culture. And again, I
understand if you're responding, you're saying, well, if you have
to rely, yeah, I get it. In an ideal world,
what kids seeing culture would not impact them. I agree
(33:50):
it's far more important to learn from your own parents.
But what if you don't have a dad in your household,
maybe seeing somebody that is a dad could be aspirational
to you on a sitcom.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Look, the world.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Didn't change in twenty fourteen when social media just arrived.
It is a carnival funhouse mirror going back to things
that worked in the eighties and nineties, in the early
two thousands, It's still gonna work today. I'm willing to
bet on it. Heck, my whole career has basically been
a bet on it. A lot of people reacting. Let's
go to Tom in Tennessee. What you got for is Tom? Hh?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Hey, Clay, this is Tom and Tennessee. Let's not forget
about the fabulous Al Bundy with married with children, nuclear
family to the ends love.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Even when it was being played for laughs as the
Albundy character was, the dad was still home, Peg Bundy
was still there. I'm not saying that's the most ideal,
even heck Homer Simpson, but dads were still all in
the story. Now they almost don't exist. Ronda, cedar Hill, Missouri.
What you got JJ?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Hi, Clay, This is Randa from Cedar Hill, Missouri. Loved
the show. Just thought i'd let you know my husband
now refers to low team men as flute players. I
love it, gotta love it.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Flute players. They're gonna come. I mean, at some point
in time, I'm gonna be dead and you're gonna be like,
who killed him? And the number one suspect is gonna
be some guy walking around with a flute. This is
from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. They sent this to me.
I think it ties in with what we're just talking about.
Jay Leno, trying to explain why Colbert got canceled, says
nobody wants to be lectured to cut twenty good job
(35:41):
by the Reagan Institute.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Funny is funny people. You know, it's funny when someone
who is not when you make fun of their side
and they laugh at it. I just find getting out.
I don't think anybody wants to hear a lecture, you know.
To me, it's just when I was with Rodney. It
was also the Economy Awards. Get to the joke was
quickly as high. Why shoot for just half an audience
all right time? You know, why not try to get
(36:04):
the whole? I mean, I like to bring people into
the big picture. I don't understand why you would alienate
one particular group you know, or just don't do it
at all. I'm not saying you have to throw your
support or whatever, but just just do what's funny.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Amen, Just do what's funny. Just do maybe what's worked
for generations and look at what has worked in the
past and build new things on top of them. That's
kind of the way capitalism works. Maybe get back to it.
I love all of you. Have fabulous weekends. Please go
subscribe to the Clay and Buck YouTube channel. Videos of
everything we've been doing all week will be up. Be safe,
(36:43):
have fun, Buck. We'll be back with me on Monday.
Thank y'all for listening.
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