March 22, 2023 • 42 mins
Two Internet sensations shame Hollywood for ignoring VP Kamala Harris, a new Climate Change screed gets skewered by critics and OutKick's Bobby Burack shares why he avoids 'hot takes' on the latest headlines (and why that's such a smart idea).
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(00:04):
Welcome to the Hollywood and Total Podcast. Entertainment news and reviews without the book.
Hollywood narrative, free speech, freeexpression, Now that's entertainment, and
here's your host, award winning filmcritic Persian Total. This week on the
(00:28):
Hollywood and Toto Podcast, wish Igot dueling Kamlas and what they say about
the state of political satire. Wewins over the brutal reviews for a new
climate change screed from Apple TV Plus, and we talk with Outcakes Bobby Borek.
He's dead set against sending out hottakes. He'd rather take a beat
and give his readers something meaty andworthwhile to read. That's why he's becoming
(00:51):
an essential voice on both politics andpop culture. Now we all talk about
Donald Trump, and there's a lotof disag greeve it's about Donald Trump.
But what's the truest statement you cansay about the real estate mogul. He
was a gift to political satirists.Absolutely. Now it's their fault, not
his, that they took that giftand made it look terrible. Too.
(01:14):
Many comics couldn't hide their rage againstthe forty fifth president, and it infected
how they mocked him. Over thepast few years. Just look at Alec
Baldwin. He's a brilliant comic actor. I don't care what you think it
was politics. He is a genius. I've watched some thirty Rock recently and
gosh, he's so good, sotalented. He gets it on so many
levels. It's a wonderful talent.But his Trump never made me smile,
(01:36):
never made me laugh, that's forsure. It was too much rage in
it. You need some humanity whenyou're making an impression like that. It
was missing entirely. You should havewent back and studied Dana Carving his old
SNL buddy there. Dana Cardy wouldmock President Bush and others. He'd get
their elements just right. He wasn'tcowtelling to them. He was exposing them.
(01:57):
But he did it with a smileand a laugh. And it made
us, of course smile and laugh. Which brings us to the current Vice
President, Kamala Harris. The Trumpwas a gift to the political satirist.
She is gold amazing, so muchcontent, so much material, have at
it now. Politically she's a disaster. She pulls badly. She's pulled badley
(02:19):
forever. It seems she's given impossibletasks like overseeing the southern border, and
she does nothing with them. Now, I don't fully blame her, but
gosh, at least give it agive the old college try. Of course,
she's got that nervous cackle that shouldbe echoing across late night TV screens,
and she appears I don't know howyou say this delicately less than bright?
Is that fair? Just google KamalaHarris even diagrams or Kamala Harris word
(02:45):
salad. That's a rabbit hole.Trust me, you might have come back
to the show maybe twenty twenty fiveminutes later. So bring on the impersonators.
This is gold. Except there aren'tany Saturday Night Live ignores her,
So to late nine comedians named Godfeldnothing Well, someone is enter Esther Paltilova
(03:06):
aka st Palti and Elsa Kurt.These intrepid women imitate VP Harris on their
respective platforms, TikTok's social media YouTube, and they are crushing it. First,
here's Esther, also known as StiPalti, for her take on Kamla.
I think of this moment as notjust a moment, but it's on
(03:30):
a moment with great momentum. Behindit, right, and it is inspiring
to feel inspired, inspired by yes, optimism, but inspired by criticism as
well, inspired by a crisis rather. Now, here's Else's rendition of the
(03:54):
women who could be president sooner thanlater given President Biden's mental state. Well,
hello, and welcome to another episodeof Around the Kitchen Island with Elsa.
We have a very special guest today. I am so excited. We
have the Vice President of the UnitedStates, Kamala Harris. Kamala, Welcome
(04:15):
to the show. We're so excitedto have you here today. It's a
huge honor. It's sure. Ohhow about we get started? So the
first question I love to ask you. You know, Elsa, when you
(04:38):
said that it was an island,I thought we were going to be on
an island. Okay, We're sorryfor the confusion we thought with the word
kitchen. We will take that intoconsideration for future shows. Thank you.
(05:00):
Not bad, right, And theysound like her. They've got the cadence
down cold. The cackle is deadon. It's funny. Now for comparison's
sake, here's a professional late nightcomedian, Greg Gutfeld. Here he's describing
Harrison a way you'd never hear inany other channel. I'm so jealous to
be able to feel drunk all thetime without ever drinking. I mean,
(05:21):
every time you listen to her,she sounds like a woman at a bar
on her fourth skinny margarita. Yeah, and she never has to pay.
It's like in her bloodstream the wholetime. How hard is that to speak
truth to power? To make funof her, well, very hard.
Apparently comedians will go near Harris forthe same reason Tina Fay kept imitating Sarah
(05:43):
Palin again and again during the twentyeight election cycle. They feared doing the
political damage to Harris that faded toPalin back then. It's that simple,
you know. Comedy can leave amark, can change the way we think
about a politician or an issue,and it leaves us with a different,
maybe a fresher understanding of the peopleinvolved, the politics involved, the legislation.
(06:04):
Today's comedians don't want to be honestwith Kamala Harris, so they potentially
doesn't exist. Who's that never heardof her? Moving on to the next
subject. It's all partisanship, ofcourse, and it's one of the reason
why alternative comedy platforms are thriving rightnow. Rumball just signed Russell Brand and
Stephen Crowder, Louis c k andAndrew Schulza putting up their comedy specials on
(06:25):
their own and they are crushing it. It's amazing. I think there's gonna
be a lot more to come.I just heard about Only Fans as a
video platform, not what you're thinkingabout Only Fans, but it's dedicated to
different subjects and they've got comedy there. And of course Compound Media has been
around for a while now as AnthonyKomia's channel. That's a no hold barred
place where you can just say whatyou want, tell the jokes as you
(06:47):
want. It's a subscription service.You'll like it, you sign on.
If you don't, you don't.Simple as that these platforms are doing well
because there's a hunger for them.They're thriving, and thank goodness for that.
By the way, now, Ijust spoke with Esther recently for a
story that's going to be on HollywoodIntoto dot com, and she's thinking about
how she can turn her impression intoa possible revenue stream. She's a mom,
(07:10):
she's got kids, but why notthe country needs comedians who can poke
fund of the most powerful people inthe country. That's what they do,
that's what they used to do,it's what they should do. If Colbert
and Company won't go there, thensavvy folks like Esther and Elsa, they're
going to show them how it's done. You're listening to my dad's podcast.
(07:31):
He cried like a baby watching SnoopyCome Home. A friend sent me a
YouTube trailer for a new Apple TVPlus series, and after a few seconds
my gag reflex kicked in pretty hardextrapolations. Just a title itself is really
pretentious. It's an anthology series withsome of the biggest stars in the Hollywood
galaxy. That's no exaggeration. Sowhy hadn't they heard about it before?
(07:56):
Look at the lineup of people inhere, Meryl Streep, Edward Norton,
Can Irington, Diane Lane, ForrestWhittaker, Carrie Russell, Toby McGuire,
Spider Man, and many more names. As a stacked lineup, the series
tackles climate change from multiple angles,thus the anthology approach, and that's where
the trouble begins. You know,I think maybe the last fifteen twenty yearsually
(08:16):
been just bludgeoned by climate change storyafter climate change story It's like a genre
until itself. You can go lookingthrough Netflix and say, oh, don't
want horror tonight, don't want sciencefiction, romance, thrillers. Climate change
Now it sounds like the show isa screed, and according to the critics,
I think that's exactly what it is. Here's a quick peek at it.
(08:41):
I think it helps to look atclimate change like a bear. The
whole planet's been rescued the bear fordecades, so part of the bear has
been kicking our house. What ifwe were able to develop technology that would
allow us to survive. Maybe evenyou don't know what's going to happen,
(09:03):
it won't go the way you want. It never does. No. I
haven't personally seen the show yet,but the professionals out there, professional critics,
of course, you lean almost universallyto the left, sometimes pretty high
core, as they say in Boston, and they are not impressed. Read
just some examples. Here's the farleft a V Club and boy, they
(09:26):
far left weighing in on extrapolations.Apple TV's bloated, boring anthology test Patients
and Willpower over eight excruciatingly long episodes, no amount of prestige drama shenanigans,
and there are plenty can save thischore of a TV show. Good luck
finding a quote to put in yourposter from that, right The Guardian,
which is also left of center forsure, reliably soap, proudly so,
(09:50):
said even Meryl Streep can say thisconvoluted eco drama that was kind of kind
how your reporter called it stagy theend of pended, patronizing and predictable.
Now lectures aren't entertaining and a projectmeant to change hearts and minds, which
is clearly what's on the minds ofthe people behind extrapolations. They could just
(10:11):
chase viewers away if they get tosanctimonious. You could stuff every major movie
star into a project and think aboutmovies like Babylon and Amsterdam. It did
just that didn't go. It didn'twork. So well, it's not going
to guarantee you success. And Ithink that's what's going to happen with extrapolations.
I call it eat your vegetables viewing, and even vegans know what I
mean. Thanks, but no thanks. Bobby Borak bugs me a little bit.
(10:48):
It's not his writing. His workfor OutKick dot com is smart.
It's thoughtful, it's engaging, it'sreally strong material. I often agree with
what he's saying, and when Idon't, I really respect where he's coming
from. Smart guy, for sure, But he's just too young to have
all this wisdom about pop culture andpolitics. He's a young ended boy.
Is he savvy? Of course,there's no excuse to keep him from the
(11:09):
Hollywood in Total podcast. So andactually I had to invite him on the
show. I spoke with him recently. It's learn more about how he got
into this business. I'm always curiousabout that because journalism is changing so rapidly
days these days, how do youget started? How do you work for
a website? How do you makea career to It's it's kind of a
it's a weird trick. I'm barelyable to do. It took me quite
some time, but I think Bobbywas a much quicker study. And also
(11:33):
we talk about some of the culturalitems that are bubbling up around us that
we haven't given enough attention to.Reporters aren't really focusing on them, but
Bobby spotted them, and he knowsthere's much much more to say about them
coming soon. The Bobby shares somegreat insights during a conversation and a better
if you're not reading his stuff atOutKick right now, you're going to change
that pretty soon after to hear ourconversation. Here's my chat with the wary
(11:56):
Wise Bobby Barrek. Bobby, thanksfor joining the show up and reading your
work and enjoying it quite a bitfor a while now. But I'm always
curious about the origin story of peoplelike yourself. You know, we live
in such an odd time. Themedia is changing, journalism is changing.
I don't want to get the wholestory, bel I've living about a time,
but how did you get to thispoint where there are key events alone
(12:18):
the way that helped you become acontributor, a full time contributor to OutKick.
I appreciate you having me on,yeah for the smart spark Notes version
of it. It really started whenI think just out of curiosity mostly,
I've always been fascinated by the news, but more importantly about the dishonesty of
(12:41):
the news and the questions that arenot being asked. And that's what always
fascinating to me is not only whatis the news, but what part of
the news are we not hearing?What part is being buried. So those
are always the questions I had.So when I was going into college,
I thought, you know, Ihave so many questions and so many interests
(13:03):
that a lot of times college doesn'treally bring those, Like you're stuck in
these certain classes that have nothing todo with what you want to do with
your life or what you might wantto do with your life. So I
just said, like, I'll goto college and whatever and we'll see where
it goes. But I'm gonna startasking the questions that I want answers to
right now. So I just starteddoing a podcast. Hopefully it's not still
(13:24):
on the internet because I'm sure it'sso bad, so poorly produced. But
I really just did it on myphone, like put it on speaker or
recording it on some random app onlineand then I uploaded it and I just
started reaching out to media people atthat time, mostly sports because that was
my main interest at the time.That has shifted quite a bit since then,
(13:45):
but then it started interviewing people andgetting their advice, and one thing
led to another. I eventually landeda job at the Big Lead. They
were owned by USA. Today atthe time, they're actually one of the
more influential sites covered me at thistime. And this was some five sixty
years ago now, and so Iwas there for three years and I started
(14:07):
to have interest outside of sports,and I think that manifested into some coverage
of sports adjacent at the Big League, maybe talking about the biases of way
certain subjects are covered. And thatput me on Clay Travis's radar, and
he and I had gotten to knoweach other for a while. We probably
spoke for six months, you know, see if something could happen. Nothing
(14:31):
did happen, just timing wasn't right. And then one day, I believe
it was three years ago about now, believe it or not, just some
random Sunday morning, I got uplate and I got text from him again.
He's like, he's like, hey, I'm on Expan OutKick. I
want to build something here. Iwant you to be a part of it.
Can you come with me for threeyears and you know, help build
(14:52):
something and here's my vision. Hehad a couple other people on his radar,
including Joe Kinsey and Ryan last peGoal. So I took that opportunity
and here we are three years later. Fox had bought purchase OutKick. In
that time frame, we had agoal of selling it within three years.
I mean it was sold within oneyear. We sold in May of twenty
(15:15):
twenty one. So yeah, herewe are, and it was in March
twenty twenty three, and that wouldbe the short version of the journey.
Interesting. Interesting now you were youwere frustrated by journalism, what was being
told, what wasn't being investigated,the stories being ignored. I'm going to
take take a wild stap at thisand say things have gotten much much worse
(15:35):
since then in your studies in talkingto people within the industry. Is the
obvious answer just bias? Is theresomething else going on behind the scenes that
we're not aware of because it drivesme to distraction and we'll get a little
I want to dig a little bitdeeper into it later in the conversation.
But any any revelations from that kindof work early on? Yeah, I
(15:56):
mean remember when I probably first getout fresh straded with the way the media
was and maybe branched out. Thatwas before COVID, because I enjoined out
kick um right at the beginning ofCOVID. I joined in May one of
twenty twenty. COVID had just startedreally spreading At that time we were all
locked down. I think the mediaand the way news has been covered since
(16:17):
then is obviously taking such a swiftdownfall in the past years. To answer
your question, is it just biasesyou know Christian or a column about this
maybe early January I called the suppressionof curiosity because journalists and newsrooms and news
anchors and media executives, who Ibelieve are the biggest culprit of all of
(16:41):
this, they lack curiosity and they'reintimidated by those who were curious. We
saw all through COVID. It wasn'tjust opinions that got these people riled up.
It was really the questions, like, for example, we have young
adult collapsing and suffering heart attacks atreally unusual rates. And during a CBS
interview and anchor asked doctor Faucci,you know what do you say to those
(17:03):
who question if the vaccine is mayberesponsible for this? And he said,
well, that question is horrifying.Well, how can a question be horrifying
when you're working in the science orjournalism or anything like that. Questions are
the foundation of your trade. Sono question should be off limits or horrifying
or dangerous. But that is themindset that I believe journalists have adopted over
(17:27):
the past really five six seven years, the probably way before that, but
it's been so noticeable recently, particularlysince Trump took office in twenty sixteen,
that they don't want to know thetruth. They don't want to discuss the
truth, they don't want to digin deep to what's going on. They
mostly just want to pair at thetalking points of their bosses, who tend
(17:49):
to pair at the talking points ofpolitical leaders and donors and other elites and
big cities. So I think thatit's just an industry now where the curiosity
is so suppressed that the truth hasbeen sacrificed for that. Yeah, I
want I'm gonna I may bungle thisphrase, but I love it and I'm
gonna say it anyway because I thinkyou get the point. It's something akin
(18:10):
to if your mother says she lovesyou. Check your sources. I mean,
you really have to have that kindof skepticism as a journalist and be
curious, and if something comes alongthat matches your predisposition, you're thinking,
double check, a triple check it, think about think around it. Why
does this fit what I thought itwas going to be? So succinctly.
Is there an issue? Is ittoo good to be true? And I
(18:32):
think all that's kind of that.I'm from New York, so I mean
I kind of it's a little bitbuilt in with me. But I think
everyone should have that kind of thatradar built into their mindset. Now a
lot of cultural voices are there,a lot of pundits, There's a lot
of good stuff to read. Ialways enjoy what you have to say,
and I was kind of curious.I know, when I write a story
about Hollywood, I try to dotwo things. I try not to say
(18:53):
the obvious, and they also tryto connect dots with what I do,
because I don't think writing a storyabout this celebrity said X is always fascinating.
It's more about how it fits intothe bigger picture. So from your
perspective, when you write something,do you have sort of a principle,
a guiding light, maybe just atemplate you have in mind for running a
column? Well, so Christian.I think one of the criticisms that maybe
(19:18):
I've gotten, and I think it'snot unfair. I think maybe people are
looking at it wrongly, is thatI tend to be late to discussions,
meaning like the Tyree Nickel situation.I believe my first column came on that
topic a week or so after thebodycam footage. I know it's our industry.
There's always this rush to be firstand be twenty four hour news cycle.
(19:41):
I can't really operate like that.It takes me a long time to
look at something, gather the facts, and really gather my opinions. But
what I usually do, particularly onsome of the longer form columns I write,
is I go back to that basisof here's the story, here's what
we don't no, and here's what'snot being asked, and you build a
(20:03):
circle of those three things, andthen at the end of that, when
that circle comes together, you tendto find a thesis. So for me,
like let's go to Tyree Nichols.To me, it was like,
okay, here here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and
here's what is being told. Andwhat was being told was that this was
a case of white supremacy, whichwas odd to me. I mean,
(20:26):
he was a black man. Thefive cops who beat him to death,
essentially we're black. But what wewhat we knew was that those were the
facts. Here's what we were beingtold, and what we didn't know is,
Okay, what was the root causeof this, or moreover, what
is causing the reaction to this tosay, well, this is a case
of white supremacy. So when Iput those three things together, I concluded
(20:48):
his death is not a proof ofwhite supremacy. It's proof that the media
and politicians desire this need to inflamethe fear of white supremacy. So once
I established that thesis, it justbecame so obvious to me, like,
oh my gosh, so many peoplebenefit from the fear of white supremacy.
BLM leaders, the media, celebrities, cancel culture. All these people can
(21:14):
benefit if people are afraid of socalled white supremacy. So that was my
conclusion from it, and that's howI arrived there again a week or eight
day after the bodycam footage. Ithink you're terrible at hot takes, and
God bless you forward, because that'spart of the worst things in social media.
When something bad happens, all ofa sudden, people are rushing to
their keyboards thinking I've got a commentright away, even though it's not really
(21:36):
well thought of and we don't haveall the facts. So I appreciate that,
you know. One of the questionsI get a lot is if I
face discrimination for being a rite ofcenter film critic, And I'd say mostly
I don't. I mean, there'salways a chance I don't hear about things
or opportunities go by me that Iwould have had otherwise. And I've had
a couple of instents where it clearlyimpacted me, but not significantly. I
think I've been fortunate that way,and I hope I continue to be that
(21:57):
way. Have you faced any anyblowback for the work you do just having
a right of center or just anatypical perspective? Do you mean from critics
or from I mean, not justnaysayers, but some sort of professional Maybe
you'll lose a gig, a columngets spiked, m a professional opportunity,
(22:18):
doesn't happen that you really should havehad happened, That that kind of a
thing. No, Unfortunately that hasn'thappened. And two things go together in
some way. Because I always saidonly a few places that I would work
for. Um, there's just nota lot of places that i'd want to
work for, and the ones thatI would work for, and people can
probably guess what they are and whatones they aren't. But it's that they
(22:41):
give their writers and personalities and employeesfreedom autonomy, and they're tolerant of I
would say, independent opinions or opinionsthat run a foul of the mainstream narrative.
So um, No, I've neverfaced that at OutKick. You know,
if I ever did, it wouldn'tbe a place for me. I
don't believe OutKick would ever get tothat point. So no, I mean
(23:03):
I've been fortunate where you know,I haven't worked for a place that would
do that, and I just neverwould because to me, my opinion and
my perspective is so much more valuablethan anything else a company can provide as
far as backlash from like critics ornaysay or yeah, quite a bit,
especially coming from sports Originally, sportsmedia particularly is very exclusive, believed or
(23:27):
not in their way of looking.So I mean, they just hate me
for what I say and people I'vecriticized. So I get that all the
time. I don't react to manyof it now. I mean, I'm
pretty active on social media, butyou know, I don't really engage in
too many like Twitter back and forth. I don't really respond to too much
criticism. But but as far asworking, no, I've never I've never
(23:49):
had a column or opinion spiked,believe or not. And I would say
that I have wrote about a lotof controversial issues over the past three four
years, so I would credited peoplethat I've worked with for you know,
allowing that. I mean, Ibelieve that all of it was rooted really
and honesty and merit. But otherplaces would disagree based on the reaction I
(24:11):
get. And that's okay, bythe way, Pheel, I mean,
I a welcome debate, contentious debate, hopefully civil debate, and if someone
disagrees with your opinion, that's perfectlyfine. But of course, when it
goes to the next step, thenwhen it's that's when it's an issue I
want touch briefly an OutKick. Youknow, it's growing, it's a big
site, its presence is expanding.Obviously, I've been able to be a
small part of that, much muchless than you are, obviously. But
(24:33):
for someone who doesn't really know aboutautkak yek, and there are still people
who are kind of just not awareof it, what its purpose is,
how would you describe it? Becauseit to say it's a right of Center
site, I think is a veryincomplete portrait of it. How would you
how would you kind of capture it? I think I would kick Um.
I don't know how long you wantme to go on this, but I
would right now. I would describeOutKick as a website that at probably has
(25:00):
a sports origin, but it's alsocrossed over in a lot of lanes,
including what I do, maybe whatTommy Laron does, what Clay does,
a lot that are pretty independent ofsports some of the times. You know,
I don't cover sports all that frequentlynow, but we touch and everything,
whether it be media, culture,politics, sports. We have people
(25:22):
who do cover insigram, models,all sorts of things. So I would
say OutKick is is a throwback tomaybe the conversations people used to have but
are no longer allowed to have becausethey're afraid too. We're very open,
not only about what we like totalk about. We're not afraid of the
backlash, at least I'm certainly not, and the bosses are not, and
(25:44):
the editors or not. I can'tspeak for every employee, but I would
say that is what separates outkicked froma lot of other sites is that it's
very authentic and honest to the writers. And I like to think that we
have the conversations that people want tohave and are haven't amongst themselves, but
are not seeing represented in the media. Yeah, you know, I think
in a way that overlaps with thecomedy scene, because mainstream comedy is giving
(26:07):
us X and then you have theserebels like Ryan Long and Tim Dillon and
Joe Rogan, and they're doing somethingwildly different. They're fresh, they're original,
they are controversial at times, they'resaying things that don't go with the
narrative. Do you think that themainstream media, a sort of the mainstrem
comedy culture, are they going tofigure this out and maybe embrace a Ryan
(26:29):
Long higher a Rogan in a moretraditional capacity, or they're going to let
all that money just kind of flyby. I feel like they're losing a
lot of cash by ignoring these voices, by ignoring the audiences more importantly,
for these voices. Where do yousee comedy in twenty twenty three? Is
it? Will it kind of continueas people outside the mainstream really crushing it
and then the mainstream itself telling Trumpjokes. Still, What's what's ahead for
(26:53):
us? Do you think how wesay, and I wrote about this and
know of maybe Octoho Burn November.There's never been more time, never been
a better time to practice or performcomedy. There's just so much fodder from
the oddities of society. But there'snever been fewer people willing to make jokes
about society because they're afraid of gettingcanceled or broadbeaten or fire or whatever.
(27:18):
You're starting to see some cracks init. Chris Rock when after I think
vocism and Mega Marco and all thatstuff, he showed a lot of bravery.
I see a lot of people say, oh, he's a trader.
He's a trader now going after blackwomen and all that stuff. But Christian,
I go back to what happened twentytwenty one November. Netflix released a
(27:38):
special call to clothes or Dave Chappelle, and it ignited Ferce backlash of smear
campaign because they said that he wasquote unquote transphobic in his comedy and his
remarks were inappropriate. I mean,you had Netflix employees staging walkouts, you
have people calling her Netflix to fireDave Chappelle. There was boys for Netflix.
(28:00):
It was something that we really hadn'tseen come after a comedian before.
But what happened. He survived,Netflix stood by him. He didn't apologize.
Netflix didn't apologize. They've sensed doubledown on Chappelle. And what they
did is they showed the vulnerabilities ofthe outrage mob, because if you don't
listen, if you don't succumb totheir commands, they really don't have any
(28:22):
power. Cancel culture is a completeproduct of compliance. It only works if
the people in charge listen and bowto their demands and commands that didn't happen.
And because Chapelle was able to takethat wrath and show them how limited
they are in power, I thinkother comedians are going to be more willing
to say, hey, if hecan survive, I can survive. I
(28:44):
think Chris rocks On that some ofthe other people you've named. Joe Rogan
just opened a new comedy club inAustin, Texas, which he calls anti
comedy culture, where he's going toallow comedians to come in and make jokes
and not worry about the backlash oroutrage or feelings. So I'm confident that
comedy is not going to recover,because never going to recover. But I
(29:06):
believe there's going to be more comedianswilling to step out and make fun of
all groups, regardless of race,dad as, sexual orientation, and a
bunch of other terms that lead topeople being deemed the bad guy. I
couldn't agree more. I think therewere two pivotal comedy moments in the last
ten years. One I think waswhen Tina Fey impersonated Sarah Palin. I
(29:27):
think that was very powerful. Itwas very good, it was very sharp,
it was on point, and Ithink that showed comedians that, oh
my gosh, what we do,the jokes we tell, the impressions we
make, it can really impact thesocialia political scene. It can change poll
numbers, it can change impressions.And I think that comedy really veered aggressively
to the left after that. ButI think a second pivotal point is exactly
(29:48):
what you said about Dave Chappelle.If Netflix buckled, and they could very
well have buckled, I think we'dbe living in a different world right now,
and not a good word. AndI think that's a really important thing.
It's not enough for Dave Chappelle tostay and tall, and it's great
that he does. But when Netflixdid, and Netflix essentially told its employees.
If you don't like our show,as you can pounce in and I'm
paraphrasing but almost slightly. That washuge, So I'm very happy about that.
(30:11):
I was gonna curious. You know. One of the things that you
do, I think, well,is you got to get a sense of
things that maybe are bubbling up andeat the surface that really haven't exploded yet,
topics, concerns, conversations. Isthere anything else either? I mean,
I know we're a pop culture show, but even politically speaking, you
can kind of go there too,that you think is not getting enough attention
right now that deserves it, thatyou think maybe in a couple of months
(30:33):
we'll be talking about it much moreaggressively than we are. Appreciate you bringing
that up, because I do reallypride myself and try to really find the
stories that aren't getting enough attention andnot necessarily talk all the time. Maybe
where the news is today, butwhere the news is going to be a
month from now, two months fromnow, etc. Something that coming up
(30:56):
that I just don't believe has gottenenough attention. But we've crossed over it.
But there's been so much talk Christianabout Twitter files and what the suppressionist
censorship did there, And it canbe politics or pop culture or anything,
but so oddly people don't focus onthe other tech overlords who are so much
(31:18):
more powerful. The other day,I looked up Joe Rogan because I was
really curious about his new comedy club. In the first ten twelve results I
got were overtly negative, like JoeRogan is going to promote homophobia and Nazism
and transphobia. And it's like,well, that's odd. Everybody online is
(31:41):
writing negative about Joe Rogan. Butthe more you look deeper in Google,
No, a lot of people,including OutKick and others, did not cover
him negatively. But why is Googleonly showing the negative results? Same thing?
Likewise, you type in Tucker Carlson, Well, not every website on
the internet is calling him all thesenames, but all the ones that resonate
(32:05):
high on Google or rank high onGoogle are. And that first page of
Google is so important. We canthen overstate how important at first pages.
Yeah, I don't have the numbersnow, but I believe it's like ninety
six percent of click through rates aredetermined by the first page, which essentially
means outside of four percent of usersnobody else is clicking on the second,
(32:25):
third, and fourth page of Google. It's all about how high an article
link rakes ranks on Google. Sothat to me is not only a social
media problem that's going to affect peopledaily lives. Because not everybody's on Twitter,
Christian, you know that, butalmost everybody, which is to everybody,
but most people under a certain ageat least search something on Google.
(32:49):
It might even be for medical adviceor whatever. But Google is so all
mighty powerful that if they are determiningwhat information we see that influences voters in
everyday life decisions, that's frightening becauseI don't believe they are doing this from
a moderate lens. I think there'sabsolutely a bias, whether it being the
(33:10):
algorithm or whether it's functioned by aperson anonymous employees. I don't know.
What I do know is Google ismore powerful than Indie individual or any entity
in this country, and it's noteven close. So if Google is suppressing
information, burying facts and deciding whatwe see translation, Google is deciding what
(33:32):
we know. Just think about thatout loud, this search and with no
competitors being Yahoo, they're not competitors. It's all Google Google is deciding precisely
what we see when we see it, and that carries over to politics,
life, pop culture, health,whatever. Google has its fingerprints in it.
(33:52):
So the fact that we're focusing allthe time on Twitter, files and
Zuckerberg, we're not focusing our attentionon the story in all of this,
which is Google, which runs thesearch engine and really the hub of video
platform online in YouTube. Yeah,the YouTube connection. If you don't,
If you don't, if you thinkGoogle's big as is, it's also YouTube.
(34:13):
So that's that's amazing, one twopunch. You know. One of
the things I get depressed about iswhen I think about current events and the
news, and I always bring updoctor Anthony Fauci's an example. You know,
I could turn to my wife andI could say something negative about him,
and I can guarantee we've had theseconversations. She has no idea about
anything negative associated with doctor Faucci,about his lies, his misdirection, is
(34:37):
changing positions, his inability to callout a natural immunity. I could go
on for days, but the bottomline is that my wife is very smart
and very kind to very dear,and she has no idea because she lives
in a different media bubble and thatnever penetrates her world. So I guess
my question to you, and thereis no answer to this. But you're
a smart guy, so I wantto even I just want to throw it
at you. How do we stopthat? How do we help that?
(35:00):
How do we get people like mywife who a doesn't listen to my show
because she's very liberal and b isa smart, kind person. How do
we get that information to her becausethe news that she consumes will never share
it and it's important. And youcould still like doctor Faucer. You could
say, Okay, he's very flawed, but I think what he did was
good for the country. I haveno problem with that. I have no
(35:22):
problem with a debate or different takeson certain issues. But if they don't
get the information that we all getbecause we look at alternative news sources,
then we've got We've got a burneda country that's not gonna last because we
have to have people who get allthe information and then they can make the
right choices, or at least makeeducated choices. How do we get to
(35:42):
them? Because I have no clue. So I want to take a quick
step back. What you just describedis actually the thesis of my latest column
Looking In because what I what Ilaid out is the average news consumer,
those who don't seek allternative opinions,which just comes from people like you and
I or Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro. Just the average drive by news consumer
(36:07):
returns on local or broadcast news,maybe checks Yahoo, checks your email,
checks Facebook. What they were subjectiveto subjected to during COVID during the pandemic
was essentially a literary of lies.It was all false. They were told
that mass stop stopped to spread,that the vaccine would prevent infection, that
(36:30):
the booster would guarantee no hospitalization,that plexiglass work that standing six feet away
made sure that you weren't gonna spreadthis virus. That if you take your
mask off in between bites and putit back on, that you're going to
be saved. Everybody else in therestaurant is going to be, say's my
personal fild. Those were all lies. But for people like you or me,
(36:52):
or Clay or Tucker Well, we'renot surprised to find out a year
later those were lies, and thatthe virus likely originated from the Wuhan labs.
Because we thought of that right awaybecause Ay, we either had independent
opinions or we saw writers on substackor just you know, outlets that are
(37:15):
in the mainstream, maybe be DailyWire or Blaze. But the most people
they didn't have that, so they'reunaware that they were duped and they were
unaware of the alternative opinions that endedup being the fact. And that is
it to me is scary because likeyour wife, and like a lot of
people I know, they just hearover and over again that these people are
(37:36):
telling you the truth, that theyhave the best interests in mind, and
that doesn't be the case. Sothe answer is I would tell everybody to
consume media opinions and news sources withdifferent approaches. If you read CBS dot
com, also read the Daily Wire. If you read Foxnews dot com,
(37:58):
also read CNN. If you watchRachel Maddow, also watch Bill O'Reilly on
the first. The more opinions thatyou have that differ, the more likely
you are to arrive at the truth, because the truth often is in between.
But if you just consume the sametype of media sources, you're only
going to get that one side.And I fear, particularly during the pandemic,
(38:22):
that the vast majority consumed just thecorporate media because everybody else was vilified
as dangerous maga, conspiracy theories,anti science. So you have a group
that's promoted in a group that's vilified. That's pretty unfortunate because, at least
on the topic of COVID, thegroup vilified as a conspiracy theorist conspiracy theories,
(38:46):
they end up being far more accuratethan the group deemed as the experts
couldn't agree more. I think theone in Denemo add is that I thought
they'd be more anger in the generalcommunity when they realized all the stuff they
were told was inaccurate. But I'mnot seeing that either, which makes me
a little bit depressed. And that'san understatement, Bob. Before let you
(39:06):
go at this is my million dollarquestion as far as where we stand culturally
and where the woke situation goes.I feel like we've seen some progress,
we've seen some steps back. Ithink it'll go back and forth for a
while. But are you optimistic thatif we were to reconvene at the end
of twenty twenty three that we'd havemore hope than we have today less hope?
Any trend lines we're looking at here, I think a small step forward
(39:31):
away from woke and the progressive movementis probably likely, but not a noticeable
one. We didn't even talk Christianabout what I believe is the most damaging
conversation we have in the country,which is the race conversation. I think
that race and accusations of racism,as baseless as many of them are,
(39:52):
are still so frightening to so manypeople that it strips them away from their
bravery and courage to speak out onthese matters. People are so afraid of
being called a racist, and it'sactually escalated now because with what's going on
in schools, people are afraid ofgetting called anti gay and transphobic. So
(40:12):
these labels just frighten people and itmakes them just stick to themselves, and
I don't expect that to change fora while if ever, Like I would
that quite a bit of money thatmost people if you actually laid out what
Ron de Santists is doing in theschools, I think a lot of common
sense folks would say, yeah,that makes sense, that shouldn't be happening
(40:36):
in school. But you're not goingto get a lot of people publicly saying
that because of all the labels thatwould come by virtue of making that statement.
So what I've always said is Idon't think woke is all that popular,
but it seems that way because wokecontrols the messaging, They control the
media, they control Hollywood, theycontrol social media. At least they had
(40:58):
a monopoly on big tech until Elonmust bought Twitter. So it always appears
that progressives are more popular than theyare because they are over indexed in the
public conversation. And I think commonsense is under index because of fear.
Great point, and that's why Iread your work at OutKick dot com.
(41:19):
Bobby, thank you so much forjoining the show. Can again go to
OutKick dot com for his commentaries,politics, pop culture, the white world
of woke, sports, you nameit, Bobby's got it covered with great
insights. Bobby, all the best, And I do want to maybe reconvene
in a few months and just seewhere what we got right, what we
got wrong, and how twenty twentyfour is going to look. But I
appreciate your time. Yeah, Christian, anytime I enjoyed this, I enjoy
(41:40):
your work, So anytime you wantme on, just let me know what
would do it again? Sounds good? Thanks again for dropping by the show,
and of course a tip of thecap to Radio America for let me
be a part of their podcasting network. Personal favorite Chicks on the Right.
They're so smart, so funny,so spot on him when it comes the
pop culture. They will make yousmile and howl. Trust me, and
(42:04):
of course I hope you'll tell afriend about this show. Maybe squeeze out
a kind review over the old iTunesmuch obliged, as Chip Chipperson might say,
see you next time.
Welcome to the Hollywood and Total Podcast. Entertainment news and reviews without the book.
Hollywood narrative, free speech, freeexpression, Now that's entertainment, and
here's your host, award winning filmcritic Persian Total. This week on the
(00:28):
Hollywood and Toto Podcast, wish Igot dueling Kamlas and what they say about
the state of political satire. Wewins over the brutal reviews for a new
climate change screed from Apple TV Plus, and we talk with Outcakes Bobby Borek.
He's dead set against sending out hottakes. He'd rather take a beat
and give his readers something meaty andworthwhile to read. That's why he's becoming
(00:51):
an essential voice on both politics andpop culture. Now we all talk about
Donald Trump, and there's a lotof disag greeve it's about Donald Trump.
But what's the truest statement you cansay about the real estate mogul. He
was a gift to political satirists.Absolutely. Now it's their fault, not
his, that they took that giftand made it look terrible. Too.
(01:14):
Many comics couldn't hide their rage againstthe forty fifth president, and it infected
how they mocked him. Over thepast few years. Just look at Alec
Baldwin. He's a brilliant comic actor. I don't care what you think it
was politics. He is a genius. I've watched some thirty Rock recently and
gosh, he's so good, sotalented. He gets it on so many
levels. It's a wonderful talent.But his Trump never made me smile,
(01:36):
never made me laugh, that's forsure. It was too much rage in
it. You need some humanity whenyou're making an impression like that. It
was missing entirely. You should havewent back and studied Dana Carving his old
SNL buddy there. Dana Cardy wouldmock President Bush and others. He'd get
their elements just right. He wasn'tcowtelling to them. He was exposing them.
(01:57):
But he did it with a smileand a laugh. And it made
us, of course smile and laugh. Which brings us to the current Vice
President, Kamala Harris. The Trumpwas a gift to the political satirist.
She is gold amazing, so muchcontent, so much material, have at
it now. Politically she's a disaster. She pulls badly. She's pulled badley
(02:19):
forever. It seems she's given impossibletasks like overseeing the southern border, and
she does nothing with them. Now, I don't fully blame her, but
gosh, at least give it agive the old college try. Of course,
she's got that nervous cackle that shouldbe echoing across late night TV screens,
and she appears I don't know howyou say this delicately less than bright?
Is that fair? Just google KamalaHarris even diagrams or Kamala Harris word
(02:45):
salad. That's a rabbit hole.Trust me, you might have come back
to the show maybe twenty twenty fiveminutes later. So bring on the impersonators.
This is gold. Except there aren'tany Saturday Night Live ignores her,
So to late nine comedians named Godfeldnothing Well, someone is enter Esther Paltilova
(03:06):
aka st Palti and Elsa Kurt.These intrepid women imitate VP Harris on their
respective platforms, TikTok's social media YouTube, and they are crushing it. First,
here's Esther, also known as StiPalti, for her take on Kamla.
I think of this moment as notjust a moment, but it's on
(03:30):
a moment with great momentum. Behindit, right, and it is inspiring
to feel inspired, inspired by yes, optimism, but inspired by criticism as
well, inspired by a crisis rather. Now, here's Else's rendition of the
(03:54):
women who could be president sooner thanlater given President Biden's mental state. Well,
hello, and welcome to another episodeof Around the Kitchen Island with Elsa.
We have a very special guest today. I am so excited. We
have the Vice President of the UnitedStates, Kamala Harris. Kamala, Welcome
(04:15):
to the show. We're so excitedto have you here today. It's a
huge honor. It's sure. Ohhow about we get started? So the
first question I love to ask you. You know, Elsa, when you
(04:38):
said that it was an island,I thought we were going to be on
an island. Okay, We're sorryfor the confusion we thought with the word
kitchen. We will take that intoconsideration for future shows. Thank you.
(05:00):
Not bad, right, And theysound like her. They've got the cadence
down cold. The cackle is deadon. It's funny. Now for comparison's
sake, here's a professional late nightcomedian, Greg Gutfeld. Here he's describing
Harrison a way you'd never hear inany other channel. I'm so jealous to
be able to feel drunk all thetime without ever drinking. I mean,
(05:21):
every time you listen to her,she sounds like a woman at a bar
on her fourth skinny margarita. Yeah, and she never has to pay.
It's like in her bloodstream the wholetime. How hard is that to speak
truth to power? To make funof her, well, very hard.
Apparently comedians will go near Harris forthe same reason Tina Fay kept imitating Sarah
(05:43):
Palin again and again during the twentyeight election cycle. They feared doing the
political damage to Harris that faded toPalin back then. It's that simple,
you know. Comedy can leave amark, can change the way we think
about a politician or an issue,and it leaves us with a different,
maybe a fresher understanding of the peopleinvolved, the politics involved, the legislation.
(06:04):
Today's comedians don't want to be honestwith Kamala Harris, so they potentially
doesn't exist. Who's that never heardof her? Moving on to the next
subject. It's all partisanship, ofcourse, and it's one of the reason
why alternative comedy platforms are thriving rightnow. Rumball just signed Russell Brand and
Stephen Crowder, Louis c k andAndrew Schulza putting up their comedy specials on
(06:25):
their own and they are crushing it. It's amazing. I think there's gonna
be a lot more to come.I just heard about Only Fans as a
video platform, not what you're thinkingabout Only Fans, but it's dedicated to
different subjects and they've got comedy there. And of course Compound Media has been
around for a while now as AnthonyKomia's channel. That's a no hold barred
place where you can just say whatyou want, tell the jokes as you
(06:47):
want. It's a subscription service.You'll like it, you sign on.
If you don't, you don't.Simple as that these platforms are doing well
because there's a hunger for them.They're thriving, and thank goodness for that.
By the way, now, Ijust spoke with Esther recently for a
story that's going to be on HollywoodIntoto dot com, and she's thinking about
how she can turn her impression intoa possible revenue stream. She's a mom,
(07:10):
she's got kids, but why notthe country needs comedians who can poke
fund of the most powerful people inthe country. That's what they do,
that's what they used to do,it's what they should do. If Colbert
and Company won't go there, thensavvy folks like Esther and Elsa, they're
going to show them how it's done. You're listening to my dad's podcast.
(07:31):
He cried like a baby watching SnoopyCome Home. A friend sent me a
YouTube trailer for a new Apple TVPlus series, and after a few seconds
my gag reflex kicked in pretty hardextrapolations. Just a title itself is really
pretentious. It's an anthology series withsome of the biggest stars in the Hollywood
galaxy. That's no exaggeration. Sowhy hadn't they heard about it before?
(07:56):
Look at the lineup of people inhere, Meryl Streep, Edward Norton,
Can Irington, Diane Lane, ForrestWhittaker, Carrie Russell, Toby McGuire,
Spider Man, and many more names. As a stacked lineup, the series
tackles climate change from multiple angles,thus the anthology approach, and that's where
the trouble begins. You know,I think maybe the last fifteen twenty yearsually
(08:16):
been just bludgeoned by climate change storyafter climate change story It's like a genre
until itself. You can go lookingthrough Netflix and say, oh, don't
want horror tonight, don't want sciencefiction, romance, thrillers. Climate change
Now it sounds like the show isa screed, and according to the critics,
I think that's exactly what it is. Here's a quick peek at it.
(08:41):
I think it helps to look atclimate change like a bear. The
whole planet's been rescued the bear fordecades, so part of the bear has
been kicking our house. What ifwe were able to develop technology that would
allow us to survive. Maybe evenyou don't know what's going to happen,
(09:03):
it won't go the way you want. It never does. No. I
haven't personally seen the show yet,but the professionals out there, professional critics,
of course, you lean almost universallyto the left, sometimes pretty high
core, as they say in Boston, and they are not impressed. Read
just some examples. Here's the farleft a V Club and boy, they
(09:26):
far left weighing in on extrapolations.Apple TV's bloated, boring anthology test Patients
and Willpower over eight excruciatingly long episodes, no amount of prestige drama shenanigans,
and there are plenty can save thischore of a TV show. Good luck
finding a quote to put in yourposter from that, right The Guardian,
which is also left of center forsure, reliably soap, proudly so,
(09:50):
said even Meryl Streep can say thisconvoluted eco drama that was kind of kind
how your reporter called it stagy theend of pended, patronizing and predictable.
Now lectures aren't entertaining and a projectmeant to change hearts and minds, which
is clearly what's on the minds ofthe people behind extrapolations. They could just
(10:11):
chase viewers away if they get tosanctimonious. You could stuff every major movie
star into a project and think aboutmovies like Babylon and Amsterdam. It did
just that didn't go. It didn'twork. So well, it's not going
to guarantee you success. And Ithink that's what's going to happen with extrapolations.
I call it eat your vegetables viewing, and even vegans know what I
mean. Thanks, but no thanks. Bobby Borak bugs me a little bit.
(10:48):
It's not his writing. His workfor OutKick dot com is smart.
It's thoughtful, it's engaging, it'sreally strong material. I often agree with
what he's saying, and when Idon't, I really respect where he's coming
from. Smart guy, for sure, But he's just too young to have
all this wisdom about pop culture andpolitics. He's a young ended boy.
Is he savvy? Of course,there's no excuse to keep him from the
(11:09):
Hollywood in Total podcast. So andactually I had to invite him on the
show. I spoke with him recently. It's learn more about how he got
into this business. I'm always curiousabout that because journalism is changing so rapidly
days these days, how do youget started? How do you work for
a website? How do you makea career to It's it's kind of a
it's a weird trick. I'm barelyable to do. It took me quite
some time, but I think Bobbywas a much quicker study. And also
(11:33):
we talk about some of the culturalitems that are bubbling up around us that
we haven't given enough attention to.Reporters aren't really focusing on them, but
Bobby spotted them, and he knowsthere's much much more to say about them
coming soon. The Bobby shares somegreat insights during a conversation and a better
if you're not reading his stuff atOutKick right now, you're going to change
that pretty soon after to hear ourconversation. Here's my chat with the wary
(11:56):
Wise Bobby Barrek. Bobby, thanksfor joining the show up and reading your
work and enjoying it quite a bitfor a while now. But I'm always
curious about the origin story of peoplelike yourself. You know, we live
in such an odd time. Themedia is changing, journalism is changing.
I don't want to get the wholestory, bel I've living about a time,
but how did you get to thispoint where there are key events alone
(12:18):
the way that helped you become acontributor, a full time contributor to OutKick.
I appreciate you having me on,yeah for the smart spark Notes version
of it. It really started whenI think just out of curiosity mostly,
I've always been fascinated by the news, but more importantly about the dishonesty of
(12:41):
the news and the questions that arenot being asked. And that's what always
fascinating to me is not only whatis the news, but what part of
the news are we not hearing?What part is being buried. So those
are always the questions I had.So when I was going into college,
I thought, you know, Ihave so many questions and so many interests
(13:03):
that a lot of times college doesn'treally bring those, Like you're stuck in
these certain classes that have nothing todo with what you want to do with
your life or what you might wantto do with your life. So I
just said, like, I'll goto college and whatever and we'll see where
it goes. But I'm gonna startasking the questions that I want answers to
right now. So I just starteddoing a podcast. Hopefully it's not still
(13:24):
on the internet because I'm sure it'sso bad, so poorly produced. But
I really just did it on myphone, like put it on speaker or
recording it on some random app onlineand then I uploaded it and I just
started reaching out to media people atthat time, mostly sports because that was
my main interest at the time.That has shifted quite a bit since then,
(13:45):
but then it started interviewing people andgetting their advice, and one thing
led to another. I eventually landeda job at the Big Lead. They
were owned by USA. Today atthe time, they're actually one of the
more influential sites covered me at thistime. And this was some five sixty
years ago now, and so Iwas there for three years and I started
(14:07):
to have interest outside of sports,and I think that manifested into some coverage
of sports adjacent at the Big League, maybe talking about the biases of way
certain subjects are covered. And thatput me on Clay Travis's radar, and
he and I had gotten to knoweach other for a while. We probably
spoke for six months, you know, see if something could happen. Nothing
(14:31):
did happen, just timing wasn't right. And then one day, I believe
it was three years ago about now, believe it or not, just some
random Sunday morning, I got uplate and I got text from him again.
He's like, he's like, hey, I'm on Expan OutKick. I
want to build something here. Iwant you to be a part of it.
Can you come with me for threeyears and you know, help build
(14:52):
something and here's my vision. Hehad a couple other people on his radar,
including Joe Kinsey and Ryan last peGoal. So I took that opportunity
and here we are three years later. Fox had bought purchase OutKick. In
that time frame, we had agoal of selling it within three years.
I mean it was sold within oneyear. We sold in May of twenty
(15:15):
twenty one. So yeah, herewe are, and it was in March
twenty twenty three, and that wouldbe the short version of the journey.
Interesting. Interesting now you were youwere frustrated by journalism, what was being
told, what wasn't being investigated,the stories being ignored. I'm going to
take take a wild stap at thisand say things have gotten much much worse
(15:35):
since then in your studies in talkingto people within the industry. Is the
obvious answer just bias? Is theresomething else going on behind the scenes that
we're not aware of because it drivesme to distraction and we'll get a little
I want to dig a little bitdeeper into it later in the conversation.
But any any revelations from that kindof work early on? Yeah, I
(15:56):
mean remember when I probably first getout fresh straded with the way the media
was and maybe branched out. Thatwas before COVID, because I enjoined out
kick um right at the beginning ofCOVID. I joined in May one of
twenty twenty. COVID had just startedreally spreading At that time we were all
locked down. I think the mediaand the way news has been covered since
(16:17):
then is obviously taking such a swiftdownfall in the past years. To answer
your question, is it just biasesyou know Christian or a column about this
maybe early January I called the suppressionof curiosity because journalists and newsrooms and news
anchors and media executives, who Ibelieve are the biggest culprit of all of
(16:41):
this, they lack curiosity and they'reintimidated by those who were curious. We
saw all through COVID. It wasn'tjust opinions that got these people riled up.
It was really the questions, like, for example, we have young
adult collapsing and suffering heart attacks atreally unusual rates. And during a CBS
interview and anchor asked doctor Faucci,you know what do you say to those
(17:03):
who question if the vaccine is mayberesponsible for this? And he said,
well, that question is horrifying.Well, how can a question be horrifying
when you're working in the science orjournalism or anything like that. Questions are
the foundation of your trade. Sono question should be off limits or horrifying
or dangerous. But that is themindset that I believe journalists have adopted over
(17:27):
the past really five six seven years, the probably way before that, but
it's been so noticeable recently, particularlysince Trump took office in twenty sixteen,
that they don't want to know thetruth. They don't want to discuss the
truth, they don't want to digin deep to what's going on. They
mostly just want to pair at thetalking points of their bosses, who tend
(17:49):
to pair at the talking points ofpolitical leaders and donors and other elites and
big cities. So I think thatit's just an industry now where the curiosity
is so suppressed that the truth hasbeen sacrificed for that. Yeah, I
want I'm gonna I may bungle thisphrase, but I love it and I'm
gonna say it anyway because I thinkyou get the point. It's something akin
(18:10):
to if your mother says she lovesyou. Check your sources. I mean,
you really have to have that kindof skepticism as a journalist and be
curious, and if something comes alongthat matches your predisposition, you're thinking,
double check, a triple check it, think about think around it. Why
does this fit what I thought itwas going to be? So succinctly.
Is there an issue? Is ittoo good to be true? And I
(18:32):
think all that's kind of that.I'm from New York, so I mean
I kind of it's a little bitbuilt in with me. But I think
everyone should have that kind of thatradar built into their mindset. Now a
lot of cultural voices are there,a lot of pundits, There's a lot
of good stuff to read. Ialways enjoy what you have to say,
and I was kind of curious.I know, when I write a story
about Hollywood, I try to dotwo things. I try not to say
(18:53):
the obvious, and they also tryto connect dots with what I do,
because I don't think writing a storyabout this celebrity said X is always fascinating.
It's more about how it fits intothe bigger picture. So from your
perspective, when you write something,do you have sort of a principle,
a guiding light, maybe just atemplate you have in mind for running a
column? Well, so Christian.I think one of the criticisms that maybe
(19:18):
I've gotten, and I think it'snot unfair. I think maybe people are
looking at it wrongly, is thatI tend to be late to discussions,
meaning like the Tyree Nickel situation.I believe my first column came on that
topic a week or so after thebodycam footage. I know it's our industry.
There's always this rush to be firstand be twenty four hour news cycle.
(19:41):
I can't really operate like that.It takes me a long time to
look at something, gather the facts, and really gather my opinions. But
what I usually do, particularly onsome of the longer form columns I write,
is I go back to that basisof here's the story, here's what
we don't no, and here's what'snot being asked, and you build a
(20:03):
circle of those three things, andthen at the end of that, when
that circle comes together, you tendto find a thesis. So for me,
like let's go to Tyree Nichols.To me, it was like,
okay, here here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and
here's what is being told. Andwhat was being told was that this was
a case of white supremacy, whichwas odd to me. I mean,
(20:26):
he was a black man. Thefive cops who beat him to death,
essentially we're black. But what wewhat we knew was that those were the
facts. Here's what we were beingtold, and what we didn't know is,
Okay, what was the root causeof this, or moreover, what
is causing the reaction to this tosay, well, this is a case
of white supremacy. So when Iput those three things together, I concluded
(20:48):
his death is not a proof ofwhite supremacy. It's proof that the media
and politicians desire this need to inflamethe fear of white supremacy. So once
I established that thesis, it justbecame so obvious to me, like,
oh my gosh, so many peoplebenefit from the fear of white supremacy.
BLM leaders, the media, celebrities, cancel culture. All these people can
(21:14):
benefit if people are afraid of socalled white supremacy. So that was my
conclusion from it, and that's howI arrived there again a week or eight
day after the bodycam footage. Ithink you're terrible at hot takes, and
God bless you forward, because that'spart of the worst things in social media.
When something bad happens, all ofa sudden, people are rushing to
their keyboards thinking I've got a commentright away, even though it's not really
(21:36):
well thought of and we don't haveall the facts. So I appreciate that,
you know. One of the questionsI get a lot is if I
face discrimination for being a rite ofcenter film critic, And I'd say mostly
I don't. I mean, there'salways a chance I don't hear about things
or opportunities go by me that Iwould have had otherwise. And I've had
a couple of instents where it clearlyimpacted me, but not significantly. I
think I've been fortunate that way,and I hope I continue to be that
(21:57):
way. Have you faced any anyblowback for the work you do just having
a right of center or just anatypical perspective? Do you mean from critics
or from I mean, not justnaysayers, but some sort of professional Maybe
you'll lose a gig, a columngets spiked, m a professional opportunity,
(22:18):
doesn't happen that you really should havehad happened, That that kind of a
thing. No, Unfortunately that hasn'thappened. And two things go together in
some way. Because I always saidonly a few places that I would work
for. Um, there's just nota lot of places that i'd want to
work for, and the ones thatI would work for, and people can
probably guess what they are and whatones they aren't. But it's that they
(22:41):
give their writers and personalities and employeesfreedom autonomy, and they're tolerant of I
would say, independent opinions or opinionsthat run a foul of the mainstream narrative.
So um, No, I've neverfaced that at OutKick. You know,
if I ever did, it wouldn'tbe a place for me. I
don't believe OutKick would ever get tothat point. So no, I mean
(23:03):
I've been fortunate where you know,I haven't worked for a place that would
do that, and I just neverwould because to me, my opinion and
my perspective is so much more valuablethan anything else a company can provide as
far as backlash from like critics ornaysay or yeah, quite a bit,
especially coming from sports Originally, sportsmedia particularly is very exclusive, believed or
(23:27):
not in their way of looking.So I mean, they just hate me
for what I say and people I'vecriticized. So I get that all the
time. I don't react to manyof it now. I mean, I'm
pretty active on social media, butyou know, I don't really engage in
too many like Twitter back and forth. I don't really respond to too much
criticism. But but as far asworking, no, I've never I've never
(23:49):
had a column or opinion spiked,believe or not. And I would say
that I have wrote about a lotof controversial issues over the past three four
years, so I would credited peoplethat I've worked with for you know,
allowing that. I mean, Ibelieve that all of it was rooted really
and honesty and merit. But otherplaces would disagree based on the reaction I
(24:11):
get. And that's okay, bythe way, Pheel, I mean,
I a welcome debate, contentious debate, hopefully civil debate, and if someone
disagrees with your opinion, that's perfectlyfine. But of course, when it
goes to the next step, thenwhen it's that's when it's an issue I
want touch briefly an OutKick. Youknow, it's growing, it's a big
site, its presence is expanding.Obviously, I've been able to be a
small part of that, much muchless than you are, obviously. But
(24:33):
for someone who doesn't really know aboutautkak yek, and there are still people
who are kind of just not awareof it, what its purpose is,
how would you describe it? Becauseit to say it's a right of Center
site, I think is a veryincomplete portrait of it. How would you
how would you kind of capture it? I think I would kick Um.
I don't know how long you wantme to go on this, but I
would right now. I would describeOutKick as a website that at probably has
(25:00):
a sports origin, but it's alsocrossed over in a lot of lanes,
including what I do, maybe whatTommy Laron does, what Clay does,
a lot that are pretty independent ofsports some of the times. You know,
I don't cover sports all that frequentlynow, but we touch and everything,
whether it be media, culture,politics, sports. We have people
(25:22):
who do cover insigram, models,all sorts of things. So I would
say OutKick is is a throwback tomaybe the conversations people used to have but
are no longer allowed to have becausethey're afraid too. We're very open,
not only about what we like totalk about. We're not afraid of the
backlash, at least I'm certainly not, and the bosses are not, and
(25:44):
the editors or not. I can'tspeak for every employee, but I would
say that is what separates outkicked froma lot of other sites is that it's
very authentic and honest to the writers. And I like to think that we
have the conversations that people want tohave and are haven't amongst themselves, but
are not seeing represented in the media. Yeah, you know, I think
in a way that overlaps with thecomedy scene, because mainstream comedy is giving
(26:07):
us X and then you have theserebels like Ryan Long and Tim Dillon and
Joe Rogan, and they're doing somethingwildly different. They're fresh, they're original,
they are controversial at times, they'resaying things that don't go with the
narrative. Do you think that themainstream media, a sort of the mainstrem
comedy culture, are they going tofigure this out and maybe embrace a Ryan
(26:29):
Long higher a Rogan in a moretraditional capacity, or they're going to let
all that money just kind of flyby. I feel like they're losing a
lot of cash by ignoring these voices, by ignoring the audiences more importantly,
for these voices. Where do yousee comedy in twenty twenty three? Is
it? Will it kind of continueas people outside the mainstream really crushing it
and then the mainstream itself telling Trumpjokes. Still, What's what's ahead for
(26:53):
us? Do you think how wesay, and I wrote about this and
know of maybe Octoho Burn November.There's never been more time, never been
a better time to practice or performcomedy. There's just so much fodder from
the oddities of society. But there'snever been fewer people willing to make jokes
about society because they're afraid of gettingcanceled or broadbeaten or fire or whatever.
(27:18):
You're starting to see some cracks init. Chris Rock when after I think
vocism and Mega Marco and all thatstuff, he showed a lot of bravery.
I see a lot of people say, oh, he's a trader.
He's a trader now going after blackwomen and all that stuff. But Christian,
I go back to what happened twentytwenty one November. Netflix released a
(27:38):
special call to clothes or Dave Chappelle, and it ignited Ferce backlash of smear
campaign because they said that he wasquote unquote transphobic in his comedy and his
remarks were inappropriate. I mean,you had Netflix employees staging walkouts, you
have people calling her Netflix to fireDave Chappelle. There was boys for Netflix.
(28:00):
It was something that we really hadn'tseen come after a comedian before.
But what happened. He survived,Netflix stood by him. He didn't apologize.
Netflix didn't apologize. They've sensed doubledown on Chappelle. And what they
did is they showed the vulnerabilities ofthe outrage mob, because if you don't
listen, if you don't succumb totheir commands, they really don't have any
(28:22):
power. Cancel culture is a completeproduct of compliance. It only works if
the people in charge listen and bowto their demands and commands that didn't happen.
And because Chapelle was able to takethat wrath and show them how limited
they are in power, I thinkother comedians are going to be more willing
to say, hey, if hecan survive, I can survive. I
(28:44):
think Chris rocks On that some ofthe other people you've named. Joe Rogan
just opened a new comedy club inAustin, Texas, which he calls anti
comedy culture, where he's going toallow comedians to come in and make jokes
and not worry about the backlash oroutrage or feelings. So I'm confident that
comedy is not going to recover,because never going to recover. But I
(29:06):
believe there's going to be more comedianswilling to step out and make fun of
all groups, regardless of race,dad as, sexual orientation, and a
bunch of other terms that lead topeople being deemed the bad guy. I
couldn't agree more. I think therewere two pivotal comedy moments in the last
ten years. One I think waswhen Tina Fey impersonated Sarah Palin. I
(29:27):
think that was very powerful. Itwas very good, it was very sharp,
it was on point, and Ithink that showed comedians that, oh
my gosh, what we do,the jokes we tell, the impressions we
make, it can really impact thesocialia political scene. It can change poll
numbers, it can change impressions.And I think that comedy really veered aggressively
to the left after that. ButI think a second pivotal point is exactly
(29:48):
what you said about Dave Chappelle.If Netflix buckled, and they could very
well have buckled, I think we'dbe living in a different world right now,
and not a good word. AndI think that's a really important thing.
It's not enough for Dave Chappelle tostay and tall, and it's great
that he does. But when Netflixdid, and Netflix essentially told its employees.
If you don't like our show,as you can pounce in and I'm
paraphrasing but almost slightly. That washuge, So I'm very happy about that.
(30:11):
I was gonna curious. You know. One of the things that you
do, I think, well,is you got to get a sense of
things that maybe are bubbling up andeat the surface that really haven't exploded yet,
topics, concerns, conversations. Isthere anything else either? I mean,
I know we're a pop culture show, but even politically speaking, you
can kind of go there too,that you think is not getting enough attention
right now that deserves it, thatyou think maybe in a couple of months
(30:33):
we'll be talking about it much moreaggressively than we are. Appreciate you bringing
that up, because I do reallypride myself and try to really find the
stories that aren't getting enough attention andnot necessarily talk all the time. Maybe
where the news is today, butwhere the news is going to be a
month from now, two months fromnow, etc. Something that coming up
(30:56):
that I just don't believe has gottenenough attention. But we've crossed over it.
But there's been so much talk Christianabout Twitter files and what the suppressionist
censorship did there, And it canbe politics or pop culture or anything,
but so oddly people don't focus onthe other tech overlords who are so much
(31:18):
more powerful. The other day,I looked up Joe Rogan because I was
really curious about his new comedy club. In the first ten twelve results I
got were overtly negative, like JoeRogan is going to promote homophobia and Nazism
and transphobia. And it's like,well, that's odd. Everybody online is
(31:41):
writing negative about Joe Rogan. Butthe more you look deeper in Google,
No, a lot of people,including OutKick and others, did not cover
him negatively. But why is Googleonly showing the negative results? Same thing?
Likewise, you type in Tucker Carlson, Well, not every website on
the internet is calling him all thesenames, but all the ones that resonate
(32:05):
high on Google or rank high onGoogle are. And that first page of
Google is so important. We canthen overstate how important at first pages.
Yeah, I don't have the numbersnow, but I believe it's like ninety
six percent of click through rates aredetermined by the first page, which essentially
means outside of four percent of usersnobody else is clicking on the second,
(32:25):
third, and fourth page of Google. It's all about how high an article
link rakes ranks on Google. Sothat to me is not only a social
media problem that's going to affect peopledaily lives. Because not everybody's on Twitter,
Christian, you know that, butalmost everybody, which is to everybody,
but most people under a certain ageat least search something on Google.
(32:49):
It might even be for medical adviceor whatever. But Google is so all
mighty powerful that if they are determiningwhat information we see that influences voters in
everyday life decisions, that's frightening becauseI don't believe they are doing this from
a moderate lens. I think there'sabsolutely a bias, whether it being the
(33:10):
algorithm or whether it's functioned by aperson anonymous employees. I don't know.
What I do know is Google ismore powerful than Indie individual or any entity
in this country, and it's noteven close. So if Google is suppressing
information, burying facts and deciding whatwe see translation, Google is deciding what
(33:32):
we know. Just think about thatout loud, this search and with no
competitors being Yahoo, they're not competitors. It's all Google Google is deciding precisely
what we see when we see it, and that carries over to politics,
life, pop culture, health,whatever. Google has its fingerprints in it.
(33:52):
So the fact that we're focusing allthe time on Twitter, files and
Zuckerberg, we're not focusing our attentionon the story in all of this,
which is Google, which runs thesearch engine and really the hub of video
platform online in YouTube. Yeah,the YouTube connection. If you don't,
If you don't, if you thinkGoogle's big as is, it's also YouTube.
(34:13):
So that's that's amazing, one twopunch. You know. One of
the things I get depressed about iswhen I think about current events and the
news, and I always bring updoctor Anthony Fauci's an example. You know,
I could turn to my wife andI could say something negative about him,
and I can guarantee we've had theseconversations. She has no idea about
anything negative associated with doctor Faucci,about his lies, his misdirection, is
(34:37):
changing positions, his inability to callout a natural immunity. I could go
on for days, but the bottomline is that my wife is very smart
and very kind to very dear,and she has no idea because she lives
in a different media bubble and thatnever penetrates her world. So I guess
my question to you, and thereis no answer to this. But you're
a smart guy, so I wantto even I just want to throw it
at you. How do we stopthat? How do we help that?
(35:00):
How do we get people like mywife who a doesn't listen to my show
because she's very liberal and b isa smart, kind person. How do
we get that information to her becausethe news that she consumes will never share
it and it's important. And youcould still like doctor Faucer. You could
say, Okay, he's very flawed, but I think what he did was
good for the country. I haveno problem with that. I have no
(35:22):
problem with a debate or different takeson certain issues. But if they don't
get the information that we all getbecause we look at alternative news sources,
then we've got We've got a burneda country that's not gonna last because we
have to have people who get allthe information and then they can make the
right choices, or at least makeeducated choices. How do we get to
(35:42):
them? Because I have no clue. So I want to take a quick
step back. What you just describedis actually the thesis of my latest column
Looking In because what I what Ilaid out is the average news consumer,
those who don't seek allternative opinions,which just comes from people like you and
I or Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro. Just the average drive by news consumer
(36:07):
returns on local or broadcast news,maybe checks Yahoo, checks your email,
checks Facebook. What they were subjectiveto subjected to during COVID during the pandemic
was essentially a literary of lies.It was all false. They were told
that mass stop stopped to spread,that the vaccine would prevent infection, that
(36:30):
the booster would guarantee no hospitalization,that plexiglass work that standing six feet away
made sure that you weren't gonna spreadthis virus. That if you take your
mask off in between bites and putit back on, that you're going to
be saved. Everybody else in therestaurant is going to be, say's my
personal fild. Those were all lies. But for people like you or me,
(36:52):
or Clay or Tucker Well, we'renot surprised to find out a year
later those were lies, and thatthe virus likely originated from the Wuhan labs.
Because we thought of that right awaybecause Ay, we either had independent
opinions or we saw writers on substackor just you know, outlets that are
(37:15):
in the mainstream, maybe be DailyWire or Blaze. But the most people
they didn't have that, so they'reunaware that they were duped and they were
unaware of the alternative opinions that endedup being the fact. And that is
it to me is scary because likeyour wife, and like a lot of
people I know, they just hearover and over again that these people are
(37:36):
telling you the truth, that theyhave the best interests in mind, and
that doesn't be the case. Sothe answer is I would tell everybody to
consume media opinions and news sources withdifferent approaches. If you read CBS dot
com, also read the Daily Wire. If you read Foxnews dot com,
(37:58):
also read CNN. If you watchRachel Maddow, also watch Bill O'Reilly on
the first. The more opinions thatyou have that differ, the more likely
you are to arrive at the truth, because the truth often is in between.
But if you just consume the sametype of media sources, you're only
going to get that one side.And I fear, particularly during the pandemic,
(38:22):
that the vast majority consumed just thecorporate media because everybody else was vilified
as dangerous maga, conspiracy theories,anti science. So you have a group
that's promoted in a group that's vilified. That's pretty unfortunate because, at least
on the topic of COVID, thegroup vilified as a conspiracy theorist conspiracy theories,
(38:46):
they end up being far more accuratethan the group deemed as the experts
couldn't agree more. I think theone in Denemo add is that I thought
they'd be more anger in the generalcommunity when they realized all the stuff they
were told was inaccurate. But I'mnot seeing that either, which makes me
a little bit depressed. And that'san understatement, Bob. Before let you
(39:06):
go at this is my million dollarquestion as far as where we stand culturally
and where the woke situation goes.I feel like we've seen some progress,
we've seen some steps back. Ithink it'll go back and forth for a
while. But are you optimistic thatif we were to reconvene at the end
of twenty twenty three that we'd havemore hope than we have today less hope?
Any trend lines we're looking at here, I think a small step forward
(39:31):
away from woke and the progressive movementis probably likely, but not a noticeable
one. We didn't even talk Christianabout what I believe is the most damaging
conversation we have in the country,which is the race conversation. I think
that race and accusations of racism,as baseless as many of them are,
(39:52):
are still so frightening to so manypeople that it strips them away from their
bravery and courage to speak out onthese matters. People are so afraid of
being called a racist, and it'sactually escalated now because with what's going on
in schools, people are afraid ofgetting called anti gay and transphobic. So
(40:12):
these labels just frighten people and itmakes them just stick to themselves, and
I don't expect that to change fora while if ever, Like I would
that quite a bit of money thatmost people if you actually laid out what
Ron de Santists is doing in theschools, I think a lot of common
sense folks would say, yeah,that makes sense, that shouldn't be happening
(40:36):
in school. But you're not goingto get a lot of people publicly saying
that because of all the labels thatwould come by virtue of making that statement.
So what I've always said is Idon't think woke is all that popular,
but it seems that way because wokecontrols the messaging, They control the
media, they control Hollywood, theycontrol social media. At least they had
(40:58):
a monopoly on big tech until Elonmust bought Twitter. So it always appears
that progressives are more popular than theyare because they are over indexed in the
public conversation. And I think commonsense is under index because of fear.
Great point, and that's why Iread your work at OutKick dot com.
(41:19):
Bobby, thank you so much forjoining the show. Can again go to
OutKick dot com for his commentaries,politics, pop culture, the white world
of woke, sports, you nameit, Bobby's got it covered with great
insights. Bobby, all the best, And I do want to maybe reconvene
in a few months and just seewhere what we got right, what we
got wrong, and how twenty twentyfour is going to look. But I
appreciate your time. Yeah, Christian, anytime I enjoyed this, I enjoy
(41:40):
your work, So anytime you wantme on, just let me know what
would do it again? Sounds good? Thanks again for dropping by the show,
and of course a tip of thecap to Radio America for let me
be a part of their podcasting network. Personal favorite Chicks on the Right.
They're so smart, so funny,so spot on him when it comes the
pop culture. They will make yousmile and howl. Trust me, and
(42:04):
of course I hope you'll tell afriend about this show. Maybe squeeze out
a kind review over the old iTunesmuch obliged, as Chip Chipperson might say,
see you next time.
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