Episode 230: Be Happy (Lars von Trier's "Melancholia")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist Dave Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:16] I don't understand how people live. It's amazing to me that people wake up every morning and say, yeah, another day, let's do it. How do people do it? I'm a very bad man. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you? Brains than you have.

[00:01:04] Pay no attention to anybody who can have a brain. You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:19] I believe whoopie Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks from ABC's The View for saying that the Holocaust was about race, wasn't about race. I'm not sure which one is supposed to be bad. Which one's the right? Yeah, which one's the good one?

[00:01:36] But it's a week we can figure that out. Do you think her suspension should have been longer? Yes, if only to give her more time to be a guest on the Picard Star Trek revamp that she's going to be a part of.

[00:01:49] I feel like it was just a long play to get some leave, some short time to be in what really matters. Just say something about the Holocaust. You're bound to get suspended for two to four weeks. Yeah.

[00:02:03] Joy Behar is the only one who can say anything about the Holocaust. All right, so here's what we're going to do today. In the second segment we're going to talk about Lars von Trier's director. I don't know that well. Mellon Kolia is about depression and severe depression.

[00:02:24] And then along the way we'll talk about an article that you suggested by Sigmund Freud called Morning and Mellon Kolia. So that should be fun. That should be fun, which I suspect played a role in Lars von Trier's movie.

[00:02:38] But in the first segment we're sort of clearing out of the opening segment box, trying to talk about a bunch of stuff that's come across our radar. PTI style. We have a list, like a to-do list. We got to scratch them all off, clear the Slack channel.

[00:02:53] PTI for those who don't know is pardon the interruption, something we mentioned like back in episode six or something that we were going to steal the conceit. And so I'm going to actually do a timer like they do. So you got the timer going? Timer starting.

[00:03:05] So Whoopi Goldberg, okay, yes, she says it wasn't about race. I got received a lot of pushback from people like Jonathan Greenblatt of the anti-defamation League, not my favorite organization. No Whoopi Goldberg. The Holocaust was about the Nazi systematic annihilation of the Jewish people who they

[00:03:28] deemed to be an inferior race. They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering six million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous. I mean, she wasn't denying that they were targeting the Jewish people.

[00:03:43] Yeah, yeah, you can select on things without it being about race and, for instance, they're targeting of disabled people or gay people. Gypsy. Right? Or we don't say that anymore. Do we not? No. Two weeks. Paul Bloom guest hosting next episode of Very Bad Words.

[00:04:07] Right, so it's not actually denying the Holocaust. And she said, I think what she said right afterwards, this was about man's in humanity against man. And I think part of what you were referring to the opening question is that the

[00:04:21] question as to whether Jews are a race is one that seems to have a different answer depending on the sort of context in which the question is asked, right? But nobody's denying that white, most Jews are white people.

[00:04:31] And so if that's, if you're coming with the framework of that as race. Yeah, like skin color. Yeah, but then there's also an old timey version of race where like the Germans were a race for Hitler and obviously that's not like the way we use race now.

[00:04:46] So you could have a reasonable discussion I think and have reasonable positions on both sides. Certainly they used racial rhetoric when they were talking about the Jews and exterminating the Jews. But here my issue with this is I don't believe anybody is truly offended by this.

[00:05:02] This is especially since her name is Goldberg. So I say, you know, she really has a love for the Jews. She made up a Jewish name. Well, the last thing that Jonathan Greenblatt got mad at her for was

[00:05:16] she had a charity cookbook containing a Jewish American princess fried chicken. So I mean, these people are just perfect. You can have fried chicken, but you can't have a Jewish American. Right, exactly. The fried chicken is fine for black people, but I can't say jab.

[00:05:37] It's like these people are paid to just get offended and to cry anti-Semitism for like the slightest possible provocation. All culture war stuff is bullshit as we'll see. But this one I really don't like this one because I don't buy that anyone really believes it.

[00:05:58] I don't buy that anyone was really hurt by what Wipi Goldberg said. Kim Godwin, president of ABC News said, I've asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. There's no fucking... This is your duty for two weeks.

[00:06:13] The entire ABC News News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, families and communities. It's just like don't... It's all like such transparent bullshit. Like I can't even believe these people can live with themselves. Do I get last word? Yes.

[00:06:31] So I think there's one way in which there might be a complaint, but it's really, really reading into what you're saying. And that might be that if what you took her to be saying is that the colorism

[00:06:42] associated with anti-black prejudice is like somehow worse or better or whatever she wants to claim. Like if that's what she was saying then maybe. I guess, yes. But like you really have to read it in the most uncharitable way possible. Yes, absolutely.

[00:06:56] People aren't doing that because they true... I mean, you know, maybe there's like a scattered few who are truly upset by it. But I... It's hard for me to get in the head of that person as a Jew, as a person who lost family in the Holocaust.

[00:07:09] And I'm not gonna question your lived experience. So if you say it... All right. Next segment we're going to talk about what the term last word means. That's true. Let my people get the last word. We are silenced by... How can you be mad at Whoopi Goldberg?

[00:07:30] Seriously, like of all of your wrath, what energy are you bringing to the world if what you care is that Whoopi Goldberg said something on the view that you didn't quite agree with? Exactly. What energy are you bringing to the world?

[00:07:43] That's such a good way of putting it. All right, let's turn to an even dumber controversy if that's possible. These are a lot... Yeah, we gotta get culture worst stuff out of the way. The Eminem characters, Mars Corporation decided to give them the characters, our beloved Eminem characters,

[00:08:00] a modern makeover for a more dynamic progressive world. Yeah, so this includes redesigning the characters so that some of them, like the one that was wearing go-go boots, now wearing sneakers... Yeah, the green Eminem. Cool laid-backs sneakers to reflect her effortless confidence.

[00:08:21] The green Eminem will also be better represented to reflect confidence and empowerment as a strong female and known for much more than her boots because obviously every time... You think of the green Eminem. Yeah, I'm like a Gershpher boots.

[00:08:34] And now the brown Eminems, her heels got shortened to a more professional heel height. And the orange Eminem... This is one of my favorites. ...who has an anxious personality will quote, embrace his true self, worries and all.

[00:08:49] But the orange Eminem shoelaces will now be tied to represent his cautious nature. According to Mars, the orange Eminem is one of the most relatable characters with Gen Z, which is the most anxious generation. This is like that branding bullshit.

[00:09:03] Like they got paid like a million dollars to come up with the documents about this. Oh, I'm sure at least. Yeah, this is like that University of Oregon branding thing. Just you can't even believe it's real. Like I genuinely can't even believe it.

[00:09:15] What does it say that this is not just a trolley fake document? Who has thought about the Eminems in any way? Like that they were representing anyone other than just a fucking handful of chocolate candies.

[00:09:28] Like this is the question, is do they even believe this at any level? Or like there's a couple of alternate possibilities that are more plausible to me. Number one, that this is just free advertising. This is a new way to get people to think about Eminems.

[00:09:43] And then when they go to the store, they're like, oh yeah, I haven't gotten Eminems in a while because they've read all these articles about the Eminems and generating all this culture war like people making fun of it or being angry about it

[00:09:55] or celebrating it if that person exists. So maybe it's just a new way to get advertised. They must have read all that shit about outrage, getting shared more. Here's the one that really perplexes me. Mars will also include imagery of Eminems of all shapes and sizes

[00:10:13] moving away from only one body size and it will remove the prefixes from the characters' names in order to focus on their personalities rather than their gender. But they're all the same size. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, am I to be offended that my whatever you know

[00:10:31] and ectomorphic body is not represented in the Eminem lineup? My non-spherical body. That's right. Spears get all the attention. The green Eminem and the brown Eminem will have a more friendly relationship showcasing a force supporting women. They will be throwing shine, not shade because they've been at odds.

[00:10:54] That is so cringy. It's one of the cringiest things I've ever read perhaps until the next thing. Did you hear that meanwhile, at the time that all this was going on, Mars' company was sued for child slavery? No, I did not. Yes, like Mars and Nestle.

[00:11:11] So that's the other thing. The real conspiratorial side of me thinks this is also maybe true about the Whoopi Goldberg thing right when the Amnesty International comes out with this damning report about Israel and comparing it with apartheid. Everybody's talking about Whoopi Goldberg

[00:11:29] and then this, the child slavery lawsuit but now everyone's worked up about it. I think of the first explanation is more... I was going to say you think Whoopi took payola to say something about Jews? It's a problematic analogy because Jews are not a corporation.

[00:11:49] I totally, I don't even think you have to... It's not even a conspiracy. I didn't know that I'd put money on that they... If they didn't redesign it for that reason they released it at the time for that reason. Oh, the next one is what are we have?

[00:12:01] Brainwaves. Oh, brainwaves. We could have devoted a whole opening segment to this but it is so stupid. So this made all these headlines was this new PNAS Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences article presenting data on that a randomized trial where they give poor mother's money

[00:12:22] they just gift them money. Some like a significant amount the other half like a small trivial amount to see how that might affect basically just randomized trial about poverty. They showed that in this paper they claim to show that the mothers who got more money

[00:12:39] in the non-poverty condition their baby's brainwaves changed and that's it, I guess. They didn't assess their cognitive functioning in any other way. They strapped them to EEGs they ran a whole bunch of analyses and they said like we have proof that this trial is working because

[00:12:59] there's like fewer theta waves in the baby's brains than Delta and Gamma and Alpha waves. So there's a lot of problems just right statistically with how they interpreted the results. There's also the minor issue of why we should care about brainwaves or what does that possibly correlate with

[00:13:18] or lead to and why wouldn't you just measure that if there's something better for the babies that happens if the parents have more money then it seems like that's the thing we should care about rather than their brainwaves. I read the paper for this

[00:13:33] and I'm annoyed because I actually read not all of the, there's like a longer version but it's usually in the format where they give the intro results in the discussion. I read all that they even really bother to try to tie those brainwaves.

[00:13:45] They like cite one thing that's just like bullshit and just leave it to us to assume that it must be the case that these brainwaves are associated with good shit. Like it's ridiculous. There's so many problems with it

[00:14:00] but the main problem is that it's not even a finding as you say. They ran like 100 analyses and they just reported the significant ones and that's not a finding. That's just what we call p-hacking. Yeah, but I do think like that's,

[00:14:15] it's a real problem that we are turning to these kinds of things. People were talking about this, this is why we need to have the child tax credit because of a study like this. This is huge for that. It's such a bizarre backwards

[00:14:30] and I think like indicative of the sickness of how we view poverty that this is the way that you would rhetorically try to convince people. Yeah, it's terrible and it's just leveraging that like what I thought, I thought that years of being on the air

[00:14:47] you and I had disabused the public of thinking that this kind of data matter apparently we have not had that. We still have work to do. Alexander Lazzani, one of our listeners had a good tweet about this. He said, for centuries policy makers have wondered

[00:15:03] if we could increase the gamma waves of poor babies. Thanks to EEG, we no longer have to rely on silly proxies such as the baby's overall health, their vocabulary development, subjective stress levels, etc. I think that says it pretty well. Yeah, it would be a more informative study

[00:15:19] if they had just like measured taking pictures of what kind of clothes they have. At least that's a meaningful, like they have better clothes after they got money. I think a real concern is how this got into such a prestigious journal.

[00:15:32] That's what Stuart Richie had a tweet storm about this, basically ending with like, who is reviewing this? It's basically like an invited submission and it's just getting fast passed through because it's sexy. But it's not even sexy. Hey, don't knock invited submissions.

[00:15:49] That's the only way we publish that. That's true. This is the last one? Well, Rogan is the next one. We had another one with a Jedi, but maybe we'll save that. That one made me so mad that Rogan is a calm space for me.

[00:16:08] So this one I'm confused a little bit by, like I don't totally get why people all of a sudden are worked up about Joe Rogan on Spotify and like, it's not clear to me exactly what he did that people are like,

[00:16:23] all of a sudden one of the like, either deep platform for him or just like put up warnings or something. Yeah, so you could see this coming a mile away when Spotify paid him all that money to put him exclusively on Spotify.

[00:16:39] They're all of a sudden taking their responsibility for this. Not really, but in some way, right? Because if you're on Apple, if you're like us and you're on every platform, nobody has any responsibility for it. Rogan, I'm not even mad at Rogan.

[00:16:53] Of course I think that he has stupid people on and in this case, who are actively pushing, I think wrong, like the bad information. But honestly, I can't get behind the outrage. So whatever 250, whatever people signed this thing saying like Joe Rogan is the reason

[00:17:11] why Omicron is killing people or something and putting pressure on Spotify and to Spotify's credit there like, sorry, too bad. But what exactly? Because it's because you had these two so-called experts who were like, you know, they were like, I don't think it's a good idea.

[00:17:31] But it's so hard to get the right information that's been going on for three hours and push information that clearly was. But what? What? That's the thing. That alternative treatments work better than they do that vaccines are not gonna problem at all.

[00:17:48] Like that basically discouraging people from getting vaccinated. One of them claims to have been one of the key inventors of the vaccine. And so Rogan had this video on Instagram where he said and I completely believe him, like I just have these people on.

[00:18:03] I do a three hour podcast. I don't prepare for this shit. Like, you know, maybe I should have more people on who disagree, but like, you know, I'll try to do better, but I didn't think I was going to get this influential. He just said that. Yeah.

[00:18:16] He's like, I'm a dumbass, right? And but I think people get that. Like they're talking about him like he's the fucking one of the people that just love listening to the podcast, but that's not something you need to pull down

[00:18:27] or you just need to assume that like if somebody goes on his podcast, all these millions of like 24 year old men are going to not be able to think for themselves and weigh evidence. It's kind of fucked up that people are thinking of it this way. Well, so,

[00:18:46] but there are plenty of like 24 to 34 year old men who do believe all of the experts he brings on and who are doing harmful things because Joe Rogan said, but I, but I don't, I mean like I still, that's life. Yeah.

[00:18:59] I don't understand what's to be done here. The minute you start asking people to take down something like wrote, you know, whatever we could debate forever about Alex Jones and whether he should be deep platform by Apple, but Rogan isn't that. No, not even close.

[00:19:16] And so it's like, I don't know, they're there for the great sake. That's like, it's like people who complained about Stern back in the day. They wanted to get Stern off the radio because they didn't like that people were whatever. Yeah.

[00:19:29] I'm not somebody who gets worried obviously about cancel culture and obviously Rogan is not getting taken down and he's probably just getting more free publicity, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me take it, you know, the concerns about it a little more seriously.

[00:19:44] Once they came for Rogan then Tamla just did. Yeah. And so like I've never listened to like a whole Rogan. Evergreen. Evergreen. Yeah, I've listened to plenty of Rogan. He said he can be a dumbass, but there's something about the guy that doesn't bother me.

[00:20:02] There are people in my life who hate him, but he doesn't bother me and I think he's inquisitive and he's, you know. Yeah, that one honestly is just weird to me. Like I don't fully get why like he's always had people I think that people don't like him

[00:20:16] because he reminds them of like these bro kind of guys that they hate. You know what I mean? Like these like well actually guys, these. I mean he does have a ton of idiot conspiracy loons on his show. It's not like he's bringing, but he does,

[00:20:33] the thing is he brings everybody on his show. Yeah. You know, did you see the clips of Jordan Peterson on Rogan? I mean, I just saw that like his pictures of himself, Jordan Peterson. Oh my God, just the first two minutes. That's all you need to watch.

[00:20:48] Like those two, like that's the thing is those two together, like they have the same ire directed at both of them. Like they remind people of the kind of person they hate and they're so successful doing it. Yeah, but I'll put like Peterson,

[00:21:05] he is the person I hate. Like he's not just the kind of person I hate. Like he's really just gotten terrible. But he's crazy. He is crazy. I mean, hates a strong word. But he's not, it's not like family resemblance to crazy people. It's just actual crazy.

[00:21:22] Rogan is like, you know, Rogan at his best, I watched like I like it. You know? Yeah. I didn't know you were a big bro bro. Dude, whenever I watch it, Nikki gets so frustrated at seeing me watch it. Yeah, I will say this.

[00:21:37] I respect Neil Young and Johnny Mitchell for actually putting their money where their mouth is and saying, well, Rogan's on Spotify. I don't like it. So I'm gonna pull my music. It's much to me that's a much better response than signing a letter and sending it to publicly

[00:21:51] saying like, we think you should put a warning. And bitching about it. Yeah. He knew that Spotify wasn't going to be like, oh shit, Neil Young. I'm surprised. Like a lot of these old rockers are like anti-vaxxers. You know, like Dan Morrison, totally anti-vaxxer Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton.

[00:22:10] He's got a very problematic. Seriously, you're going after Whoopi Goldberg and Eric Clapton has just been having a career for the last. Some of the shit that he said like in the 70s and 80s is like, you can't even believe it. No, no, I know.

[00:22:27] People don't really know that about him. Somehow he's managed to escape this like, you know, just openly racist anti-immigrant. Like we should get out of England. Eric Clapton's greatest hits. All right, we're going to have to save the Jedi for some other time. Yeah. All right.

[00:22:47] We'll be right back to talk about Melancholia. I'm going to talk about his therapy sessions. And one of the things that he valued was just getting an objective point of view, just from a third-party perspective, somebody who is able to reason,

[00:23:19] you were telling me you were in a situation where you might have a third-party point of view might help you out. Yeah, exactly. I went through something when we were recording that I was like, am I the fucking, it's like the am I the asshole?

[00:23:34] You know, like, and I, you know, I can't figure it out. And it would be nice to have a third-party. Just tell me, yes, you are the asshole. No, they're the fucking addict. Better help, you might want to check it out. Better help is customized online therapy.

[00:23:52] It offers video phone and live chat sessions with your therapist. You don't have to do video. You don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's more affordable than in-person therapy. And you can be up and running, talking to a licensed professional therapist

[00:24:05] in under 48 hours. So if you want to unload some of those stressors in your life, get some unbiased feedback about whether you're the asshole or not. Try better help, and you just might be surprised at what you might gain from it.

[00:24:19] It's not like you're committed to it forever. But it really might help you in ways that you have no idea that it could help. That's right. So give it a try and see if it's free. Once again, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Very Bad Wizards listeners

[00:24:35] get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash VBW. Again, that's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash VBW. Our thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards. You at make me laugh, I'm crazy ass and I don't give a fuck with your soul I see this trap.

[00:25:13] You at make me laugh, I'm crazy ass and I don't give a fuck with your soul I see this trap. You at make me laugh. Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time where we like to take a moment

[00:25:44] and thank all the people for interacting with us in all the different ways that you do. You can email us, VeryBadWizards at gmail.com and we read all the emails and we feed off of them. That's right. You can tweet to us at peas at tamler

[00:26:07] or at VeryBadWizards. You can follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook. You can join the subreddit, the VeryBadWizards subreddit the lively subreddit where we sometimes pop on there ourselves I've been doing that a little less lately but it seems like there's some interesting stuff going on there.

[00:26:31] And you can always give us a review on Apple Podcast. That always helps. Five Star Review on Apple Podcast is a big thing to spread the word and you can subscribe to us on Spotify. Speaking of Spotify. We recorded that opening segment on Rogan

[00:26:52] back when the controversy was still a little bit of a problem but the controversy was still regarding his stuff on COVID for the most part. Oh, so long ago. Oh, so long ago. Three news cycles ago, like three days ago. You know, now we have,

[00:27:15] neither of us have really looked into this much but there was, as I understand it, a leaked memo where the Spotify CEO sent something to employees reaffirming their decision to keep Rogan on Spotify but also saying, you know, they're sorry if people are hurt

[00:27:36] or offended by it and also that Spotify had removed at Joe Rogan's request according to this memo a bunch of episodes from a while back and people knew about these episodes before where he had used the N word in various contexts, which I don't know when the joke

[00:27:56] and jokes and a couple other like, you know, referring to a black neighborhood as it's like Planet of the Apes down there. Just kind of ugly stuff like that but in context I have no idea. In any case, Rogan kind of apologized for that too, kind of not

[00:28:15] but they took those down. I don't know, I could just take a second and say, does that change your view about, you know, based on what we said in our very brief and also uninformed discussion about him? Not for me and weirdly,

[00:28:35] maybe I'm just too much of an optimist about this. I believe that Rogan put it this way, I believe that Rogan really did feel like he had egg on his face with his use or mention of the N word before.

[00:28:55] I believe that they were probably all in the context that people used to mention the N word in conversation, risky conversation and I agree with his decision to take him down and I think that he was embarrassed by them

[00:29:10] and he probably should have taken him down a long time ago. I don't think that Spotify ever considered censoring him or censuring him because of those things. It was the COVID stuff really and I agree, I think it's dangerous to start taking shit down. Yeah, I do too.

[00:29:32] And I don't even know about what he's taken down so I won't weigh in on whether that was a good thing for him to take them down or not or for Spotify to pressure them if they did and to take it down.

[00:29:47] I think, you know, I wish people were more focused on the important things and not this kind of stuff, you know. Like what? Actually addressing structural issues and actually addressing that. Yeah, I mean, like you said, I don't know, Joe Rogan might be a racist, I don't know

[00:30:09] but I don't know. I don't think that changes my view of whether Spotify should do about it. And he might be inclined towards wild conspiracy theories, he might be tempted towards various anti-vac... you know, whatever. That's the price of living in a free society

[00:30:31] is that people are going to get exposed to this stuff. I don't think you should start focusing your energies, your political energies on stuff like this. Yeah, another question is, I think our listeners might ask is, are we being inconsistent at all

[00:30:48] in our defense of Rogan and our... I don't think we've ever advocated for takedowns. No. Right, so... I don't think so. Really our position has been more that free speech isn't as much a threat in academia as people think it is. It's not under threat, yeah.

[00:31:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. I mean like, and I think when it has been we have stood up for it in most cases when you know it was appropriate to stand up for it at least as we sit, as we see it.

[00:31:24] And really the biggest free speech story is that University of Florida story, really. Like do you know this story? Oh, of the professors not being allowed to testify? That's like a blatant violation. Yeah. No, there's a handful right now of legitimate free speech stories

[00:31:44] where I think the people who are concerned, the fires of the world, you know, are concerned about academic freedom and stuff like that. It is, you know, you have to keep reminding yourself that it's a huge, enormous country and there's so many instances,

[00:32:04] there's thousands and thousands of instances every day where one of these could flare up and they don't but you know that doesn't mean that the ones where it does are unimportant or you should support them. And it doesn't mean that there are true dilemmas

[00:32:20] and conversations to be had about whether or not somebody should be yanked of their whatever, YouTube channel and all that. It's burdensome to have a society where we value free speech. It really is. It's not. And it's unfortunate, I think, that some people

[00:32:36] really do focus more on this stuff because it seems more doable. Like oh my God, look, we got Rogan to take down all these episodes from like seven years ago that nobody was listening to anyway. Like that's a victory for social justice but it's really not.

[00:32:55] It's just not. Like at least in my view, that's not how this changes. No and that's why I respect, you know, India R.E. is a singer-songwriter who's black who she posted this super cut of Rogan using the N-word and she pulled her music from Spotify

[00:33:10] and again, you know, if what you're trying to do is tell a company that you don't like what they're doing pulling your music and being the one to put your money where your mouth is, is the way to do it. Like I have nothing but respect for artists

[00:33:24] who say, eh, I don't like Spotify. I just want to make sure that there's, that that's their decision. Right. Exactly. Yeah, totally agree. And all right, well then, I thought when you were going to say what our listeners might be wondering is how they can support us.

[00:33:45] That was really what they've been waiting for with faded breath. They're going to get to the tears. They're going to get to how we can give them money. Yes, if you want to support free speech in a more tangible way, you can support us.

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[00:34:57] for the $10 and up subscribers. But what we're doing is after a month, we're going to release the audio for everybody at the $2 and up tiers. Not the videos, but the audience. Not the videos. Nobody wants to see us anyway. Exactly. At $5 and up,

[00:35:13] you get to be one of the people who votes on an episode topic. Oh, do we have a winner? We do. Oh, yeah. That's it. All right. Let me, like, unless something has changed. Unless something has changed. No. So it was really, I don't know,

[00:35:31] somewhere between a two and four topic race. Sandman and Strange Loop never really had a chance. Common consent argument for the existence of nature spirits did much better than I thought it would. I didn't even put it on the Twitter poll that I, or maybe I did.

[00:35:51] I don't remember. I think that one was one, but... But really it was, and then ActiveKilling also had a few that came in fourth. But it was really between Disco Elysium and Panpsychism. And Panpsychism squeaked out a victory 49 to 45. So we are obligated by law and morality

[00:36:18] to do an episode on Panpsychism, which I'm actually kind of excited about. Like, I mean, I don't know. I haven't really dived into that. I haven't really dug into it. Neither have I. It's a great opportunity to read about something

[00:36:33] that I've kind of wanted to read about before but never really had a reason to. And I want to talk to, like, I mean, I'll try to contact Galen Strassen and ask him, you know, what he recommends. We can even possibly think about having him on.

[00:36:49] We'll have to talk about that. But anyway, yeah, that's it. Like, that's the winner. So thanks to all the people who just gave a bunch of suggestions, Disco Elysium we're going to end up doing. We've both got it. Yeah, we both got it. I've started it, although...

[00:37:03] Yeah, I started it already too. So we'll definitely do that. I'm sure I'd like to do the common consent argument. That seems pretty interesting to me. So I'll try to convince you of that. And the act of killing is something that I've always wanted to do.

[00:37:18] Yeah, we're going to call from these lists for a while. Yeah, and thanks to everybody for their suggestions. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, and if you're $5 and up, you also get Tamler's lectures on Plato Symposium. Yeah, maybe a couple others. And maybe a couple others coming.

[00:37:37] And my intro psych lectures that will be up for another six months, add one every month. And finally, at the $10 and up, you get the aforementioned video version of the Ask Us Anything where you get to ask us a question.

[00:37:52] And I have to say so far we have answered every single question that has been asked of us. And I found myself looking forward to those. Like... I do too. Yeah, in fact, I got to point... Right after we finished recording,

[00:38:05] I'm going to post the next call for questions. Yeah, good. Awesome. So yeah, thank you to everybody for all your support. We really, really appreciate it. And yeah, also tell a friend. Tell a friend. All right, let's turn to the end of the world.

[00:38:20] All right, let's talk about depression, melancholia, a movie written and directed by Lars von Trier and then Freud's Morning in Melancholia as well. Melancholia opens with an eight minute poetic prologue set to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde with these really gorgeous apocalyptic images, these kind of Kubrick-like space shots

[00:38:48] and a lot of slow motion images of our main characters, some of which, some of these images we'll see later in the movie. They're like scenes that we'll see throughout the film. But then there's also these dream-like supernatural elements. Birds are falling from the sky behind Justine,

[00:39:07] played by Kirsten Dunn. She's trying to walk in a wedding dress, but being held back kind of stopped and she refers to this later by this like web-like thing. It's like a giant spider web that's weighing her down and then she's floating in a pond like Ophelia

[00:39:23] and then there's also these pieces of art that are put in. Brogles, Hunters in the Snow. The prologue culminates with the Earth's destruction after it collides with this other planet. So then after that the movie divides into two parts. The first part, Justine is the story of Justine,

[00:39:42] played by just absolutely remarkable Kirsten Dunn. Her wedding to Michael at her sister's, Claire's, husband's, some sort of rural estate that's also on a golf course. And basically the first part is the wedding ceremony from hell. As Justine during the wedding is sliding deeper and deeper

[00:40:01] into just a depressed haze and she's abandoned by her amiable but drunk and worthless dad. Her mom, there's definitely no help there. She's got this horrible boss and his like weasley nephew not leaving her alone. I have something to say about the nephew, but I'll say that.

[00:40:20] And the wedding just won't end and it's just like you feel the weight of just the misery that Kirsten Dunn's this feeling throughout it and she engages in a couple of self-destructive acts and finally Michael leaves and the wedding comes to an end.

[00:40:38] And then there's part two, which is entitled Claire. Claire is Justine's sister. That begins with Justine, I guess coming back from what I take it, it's never fully made clear but some sort of psychiatric hospital that she presumably spent some time after a depressive episode after the wedding.

[00:40:55] So she's in a kind of a stupor at the beginning of this and meanwhile Claire is getting more and more anxious about this planet called melancholia that's hurtling towards earth and she's worried about what might happen but Claire's husband, John played by Keith for Sutherland

[00:41:10] in a performance that I've appreciated more and more, the more I've seen this movie. He tells Claire to trust the science. It's just a flyby. He says trust the science. He says like you, but as it turns out it isn't just a flyby.

[00:41:23] The planet fly does kind of pass by earth but then in some orbit I don't fully understand comes back, I guess and collides with earth. John has already killed himself by then. Claire loses it and Justine is eerily calm about the whole thing

[00:41:41] and also is the only one to really think of Leo, her nephew and what he might need and she builds a magic cave and her and Leo and Claire all hold hands in this magic cave, which is just some branches all put together when the planet hits

[00:41:59] and the earth is destroyed. So it's kind of bleak. Not necessarily the kind of movie I like in general but for some reason this movie captivated me I loved it even more rewatching it and I think it's the most vivid and kind of visceral portrayal

[00:42:15] of depression that I've ever seen. Yeah, what did you think about it? I liked the movie. You did add some superlatives that I don't think I'd share. I only saw it once but I want to hedge what I'm about to say because I don't have a negative reaction

[00:42:35] to the movie as art. I didn't enjoy it that much but I think that is explained by discomfort and anxiety and the depression. I think I would enjoy it on a second viewing. I do think that there's a lot to talk about and it's worth watching

[00:42:54] and maybe this is Lars von Trier's thing. We talked about this, I don't think I've watched a Lars von Trier movie. I know him by reputation as sort of a gloomy dain but... Who suffered from severe depression himself? It makes sense, yeah.

[00:43:11] I feel like you have to know it to depict it that way. I think the performances were great. I think Kirsten Dunce is utterly unlikable in a way that I think depression really pulls people into. Depictions of depression as feeling sorry for the person who is depressed

[00:43:32] are more common. I think this is a more realistic depiction of it but the movie is also just gorgeous. It's a beautiful movie and those shots, those opening shots that you were talking about, the final shot like the opening, the space odyssey shots sort of in the beginning,

[00:43:52] really an homage I think the planetary shots are an homage to space odyssey and that final shot. It's so easy I think to fall into the trap of these tropes about the end of the world and showing destruction and chaos and people going crazy

[00:44:11] and this just shows in a real, I gotta say a real anxiety inducing kind of calm to the end of the world. Yeah. Well, from Justine, not from Claire, right? No, it's well, Claire's anxiety has turned up to 11. So really that second portion of the film

[00:44:33] is showing anxiety and depression I think kind of coexisting in a very uncomfortable way. Claire's anxiety played by the way by Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of Jane Birkin and French mega pop star from the 60s, Serge Gainsbourg. Someone's been on Wikipedia.

[00:44:55] I just have, I've sampled Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Oh really? That's what I do, yeah. But I did not know until looking it up that that's who that was. That anxiety, she does a good job of portraying that anxiety and combined with the depression,

[00:45:11] you know anxiety is trying to fix things and the depression is being dejected and not wanting to do anything. So the frustration and the dynamic between the two was as you say visceral in a way because they want to help each other

[00:45:23] but they're both also not a helpful complement to what the other is feeling and so there's a kind of tragedy to that because I do feel like although there are some moments where they're pretty mean to each other that they love each other

[00:45:39] and that they would like to if they could help them. They're not equipped to do it. Like they clearly don't have the tools and they are I think in the moment they're experiencing whatever emotions or mental illness that is so incompatible with the other ones.

[00:45:59] One of the things I really liked throughout the whole movie is that everybody is trying to get cursed and done who as you say is falling into a deeper and deeper depression such that on the second half of the movie she can barely walk.

[00:46:14] For the first part of the second half, yeah. For the first part of the second half she's like looks like she's physically disabled but she's really just in such a severe depression that they're having to manually assist her to move around. Everybody is doing that stupid thing

[00:46:30] that people still would do if that was your family member just saying like can't you just be happy? And it's like how could you even think that but I get it. Like I get why you would get to the frustrated

[00:46:40] point where you'd be like I did all of this stuff for you and you can't fucking be happy. Yeah. One of my favorite things about this performance and if I didn't love Kirsten Dunn's before which I did, I just like she's my favorite American actress but

[00:46:57] the way she when she is trying to put up a good front you know a happy front is at times almost convincing you know and so you can see that people might think look like you know how to do this you can be happy but you see like

[00:47:14] how strained it gets. Like when she's in the wedding and she's listening to her like doofus husband make a toast or you know like listening to her parents and they're very funny like just completely inappropriate speeches and then the boss trying to

[00:47:32] get a tagline out of her like you can see the strain in it and yet she is kind of convincing as someone who has the potential to be happy it seems like so you could see why they might think can't you just take that extra

[00:47:46] strap and actually be happy. Yeah right and you said it but I don't know if it was clear but by the end of the wedding which you pointed out drags on forever so much so that as I was watching I was like is this

[00:48:00] supposed to be in real time? It really feels like it's gone on forever. The person Dunn's character Justine is being a insufferable bride. She's clearly not taking into account anybody's feelings she shows you know she's two hour late two hours late doesn't apologize to anybody.

[00:48:18] That's kind of not her fault though I don't think. Well not apologizing is her fault. You know it's the sort of thing that if you walked in and you had been if you had had your guests waiting for two hours you would explain it you know she's

[00:48:30] not even trying. And then she'll just disappear from the ceremony like when it was time to make sure she's just completely disappeared. She fucks Tim. We got it. Yeah I want to get to that because I think that might be the single luckiest

[00:48:48] thing that has ever happened to a human being in human history. But let's go through it a little bit. I think I might read her behavior differently a little bit than you do. I do feel like you're a little tainted by your love for person Dunn's

[00:49:05] because I think she was very much being depicted as somebody who is completely inconsiderate of everybody else around her. But of course because she's depressed but nonetheless. Well yeah okay well let's go through it a little bit and then we'll see where I agree obviously she's

[00:49:22] inconsiderate at times like she leaves everybody waiting to cut the cake while she has a bath. Yes we'll just wander off in the golf cart for no reason it seems like right in the middle of dinner. I know that she didn't really want this

[00:49:36] wedding it's very strange dynamic between the two of them like it's almost like they've just met and we get no background none. All we know is that he's his friend is also her boss but that's pretty much all we know about how

[00:49:52] they got together how long they've been together anything like that but the way they're interacting is like they're getting to know each other. He's like he is so eager he's trying to get her to be in love with him in a way that seems like

[00:50:10] they haven't ever really even had sex with each other. Yeah so they come in after there's this weird scene where they're in this like just impossibly long limo like to stretch limo going up this to the limo driver is worried that they're gonna like wreck

[00:50:26] the car and they each take times and she seems like at this point she's laughing at the way she thinks like there it seems she seems inconsiderate like kind of a rich like just a rich I don't care about other like poor people kind of way. So then

[00:50:40] like you said they wander in maybe she says like sorry her sister is very angry because her husband Kieferthes Sutherland has spent a lot of money to put up this reception and And clearly they're filthy rich I mean it's a gorgeous location. Where is that

[00:51:00] I was gonna ask you I'm looking it up right now Sweden. Sweden. Yeah Now I wonder where it's supposed to be is it supposed to be in England at like a lake district or... It's unclear I assume that it was supposed to be in the United States

[00:51:18] in some way. So they go in there's this bean bottles all these like beans that are in a bottle that guests are supposed to guess how many and there's like a prize this turns out to be like Chekhov's beans in a bottle it will come back later

[00:51:32] in the movie. But Kirsten Dunst just walks right by it and the husband makes kind of a joke about how many there are he says like six million and five then there's like the dinner and people making toasts her mother Justine's mother played by Charlotte

[00:51:48] Rampling one of the worst possible toasts you could make in a wedding What a load of crap For those who don't know who I am I'm Claire and Justine's mother Yes I wasn't at the church I don't believe in marriage Claire

[00:52:09] who I've always taken for a sensible girl you arranged a spectacular party till death do his part and forever and ever Justine and Michael I just have one thing to say enjoy it while it lasts I myself hate marriages Can be pleased

[00:52:31] especially when they involve some of my closest family members What is your living for the coming Terrible why did they let her say everything Yeah Well she didn't even they didn't ask her like it was during the father's speech Play by John Hurt

[00:52:51] Yeah John Hurt character just with the two beddies that he loves and then as this is going on it's a little awkward but you know weddings are awkward and there are always these uncomfortable moments during speeches There's a moment where he captures so well

[00:53:05] that cringiness that comes from from some weddings where you're like no one cares about you like this is it's just so fundamentally narcissistic sometimes you know So Claire kind of notices that Justine is losing it during this and she just like that she's slipping away and she

[00:53:27] asks her it just says can you please you know you promised hold it together and this is one of those very unhelpful things Yeah exactly You know just can you just try harder and meanwhile Justine's like going out to the golf course and pissing on like

[00:53:45] In her wedding dress during the little crouch Yeah doing the little crouch Yeah the husband The husband is kind of interesting because he's just such a nothing and I like I think this movie is from her perspective Yeah in a lot of ways and so

[00:53:59] we're not getting realistic portrayals necessarily of how these people are but at the same time there's so many elements that you feel real and that you can relate to Yeah that's a good juxtaposition This is completely none of this could ever happen the way that it happens

[00:54:15] but nonetheless there's this feeling that this is a real thing Yeah he is um Michael The husband is so forgettable that when I was watching it Nicky asked a couple times wait is that the same guy because he disappears into this yeah he doesn't

[00:54:33] you don't get the sense that he has a rich mental life He's played by Alexander Skarsgard who often plays like the really like unapproachably hot like Scandinavian guy but in this he's like a buck teeth just kind of no he's not exactly a loser

[00:54:49] he's just nothing like there's these vacant kind of yeah and he's still in Skarsgard's son which I did not know until I watched this film the boss, the Justine's boss who is I feel like he is such a good dislikable guy he's a villain in this

[00:55:07] he's like the one true villain in the movie such a douche the dad you know like he's getting drunk and like insulting the staff but just playing games with the staff and trying to hook up with these two beddies but also like clearly he loves his daughter

[00:55:27] you know and she clearly kind of needs him to step up for her and he doesn't yeah when you were saying about how long it is there's this scene where she's putting the nephew to bed and then she kind of falls asleep on the bed and Claire's like

[00:55:47] you gotta come down what are you doing and she says I'm so tired Claire says you're not even halfway through yet it's like oh my god and then here's where she says it's like I'm trudging through this gray moldy yarn it's really heavy to drag along

[00:56:05] I know you hate to hear it and that's what's so sad this movie does such a good job of conveying that like I feel like I know what that or not that I know but I can relate more to what that might feel like that heaviness

[00:56:21] the yarn that just it's a great image it really is she says woolly yarn by the way which I guess is from the opening that image it is from the opening yeah it's a great visual to try to explain what such severe depression would be

[00:56:43] you can barely move the physicality of trying to move when that nobody can see all that stuff holding you back but it's still holding you back and they still haven't cut the cake yet incredible and then this is why so it's after the cake scene

[00:57:01] when she comes down and you're right she's not apologizing but she is toughening it out to the best of her ability I feel like even as she's becoming more and more removed from anything that's going on yeah I think that's right and I think that

[00:57:17] what's happening is she's getting worse at going through the motions which as we'll see she's going to get to a new very low low that she's not yet yet but she's definitely worse at doing the smiling and meanwhile this boss has tasked his nephew

[00:57:35] who he keeps just insulting to get a tagline out of her do we ever know what's the tagline for no I'm trying to remember she just refers to it so she works in advertising and he really in a really tacky fashion in his speech

[00:57:51] he announces that he's promoting her like in the wedding speech and so she's the art director in an advertising agency and he tasks her with coming up with a tagline and I think the only thing she says is that it's an expensive inferior product

[00:58:05] and she's trying to sell to young people a substandard product so now she has this like slithering creepy nephew following her then the husband gives her this picture of a plot of land that he bought like to make her happy yeah how did you read

[00:58:23] like my initial reaction I don't know if it's the right one because we don't know the back story like you say it's very weird to even imagine that there's a back story there but you know he shows her this picture and he's like

[00:58:35] keep the picture with you always so that you can look at it and always be happy and I read it as like did she even ask her like what she wanted and did he really think that was gonna work it's so sad because he's trying

[00:58:51] I guess hard but very overtly and the first thing that happens is she walks up and leaves the picture there after promising him that he'll always keep it with her yeah and putting his hand in the holiest of holies in the 19th hole in the 19th hole

[00:59:11] yeah and then she just walks out is this I don't know if I'm getting the sequence right but she comes in to see the nephew and Kiefer Sutherland's character is there he's kind of throwing it in her face how much he paid for the wedding

[00:59:23] and she kind of thanks him and he says you better be goddamn happy and he says yes I should be and he says we have a deal that you be happy yeah it's just a kind of an ugly scene

[00:59:37] but at first it seems like it's gonna be uglier like you almost think that the deal is that he gets to have sex with her but he's not saying that but what he's saying is in some ways you know almost as bad

[00:59:49] you're gonna have to do something that I know you can't do yeah yeah it's a very weird dynamic bargaining that's going on with all these people around her bargaining to try to get her to as if your word or whatever incentives an apple orchard or a wedding

[01:00:07] is gonna be the thing and it feels like that must be a sort of desperation that you reach that can't be the first response that people have to you being depressed it must be and Kiefer Sutherland's character sort of betrays

[01:00:23] it must be something that has been going on for a while that they're at their wit's ends about but they're also just not good with people and so they don't know how to yeah and if you think about it as also like we're looking at them

[01:00:37] through her eyes that's the lens that we're seeing all of it it could be that from her subjective perspective that's how they're being but maybe they're not being as overtly awful and also just stupid about the whole thing as they are I'm sure I've mentioned this multiple times

[01:00:57] but there's a study that always stuck with me that was asking, it was looking at relatives of schizophrenic patients and getting their moral judgments for their behavior and one of the findings was that the family members seem good at discounting blame for what they call

[01:01:19] positive symptoms like hallucinations and delusions they were very bad at discounting blame for the negative symptoms which is depression and a flat affect it's as if we're just we have this natural reaction that I can fix that like if you're sad then let me help

[01:01:37] because if you're seeing shit well then what the fuck am I gonna do but like you're sad come on like yeah I've been sad it's like because you know that's how it is it's like that I know I've been sad I've even felt

[01:01:47] heavy you know don't you have days where you just feel heavy and just you're in a total funk but I got out of it right so I think that's the that's the big disconnect yeah but I've never seen like I've never hallucinated it like I've never had

[01:02:01] these other elements of psychosis but we've all had elements aspects of the depression and that you know that gets to the Freud article a little bit which is Freud Freud's article Morning in Melancholia starts with this comparison between the two he says look it seems as if

[01:02:19] the symptoms of both morning after you lose somebody who you love and of depression seems like they're kind of the same but like one of them we don't call pathology and we get over it we just expect that people are going to go through that

[01:02:33] what's going on with this other one why does it look so much like the kind of sadness that you would be in when you really lost somebody that you love and that's you know what we're what you're I think you're saying we're doing

[01:02:45] we're trying well like yeah I know I know it's what sadness is and I know it got me out of it and I've certainly been I don't I've never I don't think had major depression but I in retrospect I'm like yeah I was probably depressed

[01:02:57] after like I split up from my marriage and I wasn't doing well and you do feel heavier um so much so that I kind of could that image of the gray woolly thing holding her back like I have some measure of having felt that

[01:03:13] getting up in the morning on some time sometimes in my life but nothing nothing as bad it seems incredible that you wouldn't be able to just walk like why can't she just walk Taylor right it's her wedding I can't just drag her ass downstairs and

[01:03:29] get through the night and if there's something you know like it's significant to deal with do it in the next day yeah and that's what's so sad is that that's the expectation and she she can't like she just really can and I do think she's

[01:03:43] she's trying yeah she's she's broken in a deep way another another part that of the what I feel is going on is a dynamic of the kinds of families that don't deal head on with anything like mental illness you know this they seem like the kinds of

[01:03:59] upper-class European rich folks that would would find it unseemly for the bride to be depressed it's a funny thing in terms of like what's the country that they're in it's just a bourgeois like you know one percent kind of more than one percent

[01:04:19] kind of life but it could be anywhere and even the accents the fact that Claire and Justine, Claire has a British accent and Justine has an American accent not totally clear why that would be not at all and then you get this the scars guard father who has

[01:04:37] the nephew is just a normal so there's this great scene where they all go outside to put up balloons and I think it's this where she notices that some of the constellations aren't looking like they should be looking yeah maybe this is another big big weird thing

[01:04:57] about everything that's going on presumably the whole conceit of the movie is that earth is under the threat from this like a literal planet from some other system has come hurtling towards earth and that there wouldn't be more concern so that's what I wanted to ask you

[01:05:13] because I was reading a couple of reviews and in Roger Ebert's review he thinks that everybody knows that this is happening but I didn't I didn't think that I took it as people really not knowing or having been misinformed about what's going on

[01:05:29] so the weird thing is like it was 2011 even then and I would have a ton of news coverage but purposefully this is an island of complete they're cut off from the world it really does seem that they're cut off they're isolated in some weird way

[01:05:47] I didn't read it that way especially since the second part of the movie comes you know it clearly takes place a couple months at least afterwards so they're at this thing where they put out these balloons and now they're all gorgeous gorgeous shots but they have

[01:06:05] in the way like this just dread is just dripping from all these images beautiful and romantic as they are it's just this sense of like a sickness that's pervasive which is really I felt it well and imagine the challenge of a filmmaker trying to show you

[01:06:25] beautiful scenes and give you at the same time that emotional loneliness right he's done this through the performance of Kirsten Dunst he's made it so that we're not even feeling the beauty in what are objectively beautiful shots if they just showed him to us yeah exactly

[01:06:43] he's managing to make us feel like someone would feel in the face of all this beauty and she talks to her mother or mother just a mean old bitch so mean just horrible she's like I can hardly walk and her mom

[01:06:59] says well you can wobble wobble the hell out of here it's like who hurt her I assume that this was that her mother must just be all so depressed yeah yeah so then she takes a big big swig of henny at the wedding it's so disjointed

[01:07:19] also how like she'll be gone and then she'll suddenly back on the dance floor and the way it's edited it really is just sort of dreamy in the sense all of a sudden she's back there taking swigs of henny with the husband and then it's this weird thing

[01:07:35] where it seems like the wedding's gotta be over because they're going up to have sex now and as one does as one does yeah as one does on the wedding night and I don't know like I can only speak for my own wedding but like that was it

[01:07:53] like we weren't going back out there wasn't another meal like french onion soup served on the ground but which I guess I thought this was clear indication that this was kind of dreamy subjective and all that but I guess it's a tradition in some places to do that

[01:08:13] yeah but in any case it has the same effect of being like you like there's no way after all that's happened that this is still going on that they're having another meal but the sex scene it doesn't go well she doesn't want to he's got his pants

[01:08:29] off she asks to zip up her dress he's in his little skivvies and clearly thirsty as fuck you know and he starts getting it was uncomfortable like he's starting to get a little rapy there yeah does he know I think he knew maybe all along

[01:08:49] he gives this like haunting look at that point like oh shit this is over yeah it's hard to know it seems in retrospect it seems like he has must have been through some heavy doses of self deception thinking that this was just meant to be

[01:09:05] somehow or that it was the they were the perfect couple I can fix her which we hear from Tim yeah right so speaking of Tim she goes out after that and into a beautiful night a beautiful shot of her going out and he and this

[01:09:21] creepy nephew follows her and then like I alluded to earlier the luckiest thing that has ever happened to anyone happens to him this loser this and this like creep who's done nothing but eat shit his entire life and all of a sudden needs like

[01:09:35] fucking Kirsten Dunst on the sand trap she's fucking him she's fucking him yeah like name me a luckier thing that's happened to him well I my like I have a I think that is one of the worst things that could ever happen to him but what's important

[01:09:49] here is her odd of him she rides him like a horse and so so I think that there's some some some parallels there with world Abraham Chekhov's riding him like a horse exactly who would use who would use the sex as the preview of the horse

[01:10:15] can't have a woman riding a guy like a horse without then the woman riding an actual horse later in the movie that's the first rule of screenwriting he's no noob clearly he knows his craft no you're right it's not a sexy scene it's not something he seems very

[01:10:37] like a bewildered and shocked although I feel like he appreciated it you know well really just if you're that guy like your life is kind of redeemed maybe it's the it's so mean of her to do that to him you know and she's been mean to him all

[01:10:53] night and that is an act of a feel of aggression because she knows how how much he will have thought that it might mean something you know then she has a showdown with still in scars guard she says you know here's your tagline

[01:11:09] I thought instead of the substandard product will make it about you but I still came up with nothing and then she says nothing is too much for you Jack I hate you and your company so deeply I couldn't find the words to describe them

[01:11:21] you're a despicable power hungry little man Jack and he's cold yeah it's pretty cold but he is all those things at least we think he is that's how he's presented to us this is kind of the end of any semblance of you know propriety

[01:11:37] at this point like this is when people start to leave right yeah like eight hours later in this weird wedding everybody everybody just leaves and again weirdly not with the sort of drama that you might expect in a Hispanic or a Jewish wedding where there

[01:11:57] might be more yelling at people they're just casually get in their cars and leave but then also Michael is leaving as you said and they have this exchange where he says things could have been different he says things could have been different and she says yes

[01:12:17] things could have been different but Michael what did you expect yeah yeah like what do you make of that like the things could have been different I mean I read it straight forwardly as him really thinking that if she had merely chosen to not be depressed this night

[01:12:37] or these past few weeks in their courtship it really could have worked out we would have been the perfect couple don't you see that and for her the counterfactual is yeah I guess if you're fucking saying I guess this world could exist with me not depressed

[01:12:51] in it I suppose I could have been a different person but you knew that he's been obviously ignoring all of the to the point where he's trying to have sex with her he's ignoring all of the things that she's giving out yeah

[01:13:05] she couldn't be giving out more obviously she was in a bath for like an hour during her the wedding reception and so when they go back in it turns out that there are 678 beads and the wedding planner who's actually very funny comic character

[01:13:23] he's so pissed at Kirsten Dunst and he that he won't even look at her and those are very funny and then the father leaves he said he would stay but he and Kirsten Dunst said she really needed to talk to him and like how do you not stay

[01:13:37] if you're lucky enough to have Kirsten Dunst as a daughter I mean he does a good job of leave the baddies he does a good job of portraying that sort of he is charming maybe that's what makes me like the character he's a very charming drunk

[01:13:53] but he's like you know he can't get himself to do the right thing but she can't get herself to like do anything really he can't get himself to do the right thing but he wants to if he could like her and then there's this

[01:14:05] haunting shot of her just sitting on all these piled up chairs after she reads the note that her father left and then Claire just she admits that Justine tried you know and they go horse riding they go riding their horses through the clouds

[01:14:23] and it's another really gorgeous scene and here it's also where she notes that there's a star missing from Scorpio and yeah we know two things one she has a very she has her favorite horse in the stable named Abraham that she really loves we're supposed to think

[01:14:41] that she really loves but the other thing I didn't mention in my being cruel to Kirsten Dunst was that the one exception to her being so mean to everybody is to Leo she really seems to love her nephew and she's really good with him

[01:14:53] at least as good as she can be to anybody and he's also kind of a nothing yeah you know like it's not clear what Leo brings to the table as a kid this film really is two characters you know as the subtitles might might lead us to believe

[01:15:09] yeah all right well part two one of the things I thought was really interesting first of all like just a portrayal of just a real nade deer of depression where you're just not a functional human being is I think you know very effective and hard to

[01:15:27] watch really hard to watch and it's not the kind of depression that people portray that much you know but this it happens and you know these are the severe cases of depression where you have electroconvulsive therapy is like a the resort that you get to where

[01:15:47] it's you know it's it's a form of psychosis at that level like it's just severe it's she's sleeping it seems like 24 hours a day and they have to drag her to the bath and that scene of her just not even being able to get into the bath

[01:16:03] it's hard and you're right I've never seen a movie deal with depression like this movie deals with depression I've seen a lot of movies with characters who suffer from it what's interesting about this part is that as it goes on she gains strength and composure and actually

[01:16:23] becomes it's almost like as the threat of the planet melancholia you know becomes the central part of the plot she seems pretty calm about the whole thing yeah I mean and it makes sense given that that she's probably suicidal she's probably been suicidal

[01:16:43] for a while at that point and she expresses her disdain for existence and this world so as it's ramping up as the threat is ramping up it must be sweet relief the thought of sweet relief for her yeah she says if you think I'm afraid of a planet

[01:17:05] like you're too stupid but I also think it like it brings everyone down to her level kind of like she's already feeling like you said she's already feeling this just dread this existential dread at the deepest level and there must be something

[01:17:21] almost comforting about the fact that now everybody has to experience right now you all get to see the meaninglessness of existence the meaninglessness and yeah the hopelessness of existence I remember talking to somebody about COVID and how they were going through it

[01:17:39] and they said and it was really sad and I don't think the person is actually that depressed but she said like I don't mind it before everybody was going out and going to bars and listening to music and I wasn't and now I'm still not doing

[01:17:57] it but neither is anybody else you know right and that's sort of how like what's happening here you know yeah it's like the vah to get story where everybody gets weights put on them right and now it's that's oversimplifying it but it really is kind of

[01:18:17] you know as Claire gets more and more worked up it's because she has stuff to lose she thinks life is worth living and there is a kind of freedom for justine that she doesn't and she really hasn't for a while it seems like

[01:18:37] I really do think that even though this movie and you know Vontrere has trilogy of movies about depression the anxiety that we see in Claire I think is also a good depiction of somebody who is even in the wedding seeing her sister dealing with people

[01:18:55] in the way that she is she's racked with anxiety about everything she is so much so that Keith for Sutherland is clearly handling her he's clearly gaslighting her keeping her away from seeing anything that might ramp her anxiety up and then he takes the fucking coward ass

[01:19:19] that's the most cowardly thing I've ever seen portrayed on film so here's a question like what's the it doesn't seem like our technological world in some ways like they're using some fucked up search engine Google yeah it's weird because the it's an old timey kind of guy

[01:19:43] that Keith for Sutherland is playing where he's in a three piece suit making notations of the planetary movements so you get this sense that it is out of time she obviously has access to the internet because it's not supposed to be out of time

[01:19:57] but even then when she types in what must be a very deliberate choice she types in keywords melancholia death and she only gets like one hit explaining the trajectory of the planet is it supposed to be is it just as simple as this is the 90s

[01:20:13] or something like that I think that he's pulling us out of time I think it's just that sense of isolation you know even there's something almost a direct appeal to like the late 1800s kind of gentlemanly let me check my pocket you know she even amateur scientist

[01:20:33] even the way that the little kid fashions that makeshift device to track the path of the planet how close it's getting it's almost steampunky it's pulling us out and I think it's just giving the isolation it's making it even clear disconnected from the technology that obviously exists

[01:20:57] in the world although clearly people can leave because people come back with supplies and stuff like that Abraham can't leave it seems like certainly Claire and Justine in the second part don't seem to be able to leave the property so there's a bunch of just scenes

[01:21:17] we don't have to go through them but the scene with the horse if you want me to not like cursed and dunced like this is one where Abraham who's already shown in the beginning that he doesn't want to go across the bridge that would leave the property

[01:21:29] she tries to get him to go and he won't and she just keeps whipping him it made me want to like look up to make sure that the horse hadn't been entered especially since she declares that this is her horse and they have a

[01:21:43] special bond and then she's just violating there you go that imagery she's just violating that bond that they have if that's true okay so here's where I where the illusion I was making to poor Tim getting ridden like a horse and it's a sadistic act in the article

[01:22:05] Morning in Melancholia Freud is trying to in his terms explain what might be going on with depression melancholia and he's talking about how there is in all relationships there's a fundamental ambivalence that we have with other people even people who we are really really connected to

[01:22:29] when they die part of what makes us sad is that we think that somehow this is all unconscious it's not obviously something we think that somehow our thoughts might have had something to do with why they died that are our negativity our hatred of the people

[01:22:49] and that ambivalence might have caused their death and he tries to say that depression is essentially the object in normal relationships being the other person has turned inward and now the object is the self and so the unconscious bond that you're making with your own self is also

[01:23:11] wracked with ambivalence and so you both want to devour yourself you want to be with yourself so he likens it to a form of narcissism but you also hate yourself and he thinks that the depression is that hatred part really feeding on itself that deep

[01:23:27] deep hatred of your own self and he speaks of the sadism that comes from this wanting to harm your own self sadism because normally it would be directed to somebody else but interestingly the person who gave Freud notes about that very dynamic was a psychiatrist named Abraham

[01:23:53] and he credits him in a footnote so I really think that there is a very Freudian thing going on in Bonterrier's analysis of depression that's interesting so how would that translate into the film besides Abraham yeah I think that he is showing the sadism that might be present

[01:24:13] in a very depressed person and yeah and the energy that she has to harm other people is more than the energy she has for anything else that's true yeah like a light goes into her eyes she becomes alive when she feels that kind of cruelty

[01:24:33] that little cruelty streak like when she's telling off her boss or when she's telling Claire like fuck you I'm not drinking wine and listening to Beethoven as the planet hits like she just looks all of a sudden like she's been infused with life

[01:24:49] exactly and the energy with which she's beating poor Abraham is sad but it's the most physically active that we see except for when she's writing Tim which I think again was a sadistic act because she knows how pitiful he is she knows that this is

[01:25:03] you know his desire aside is a mean thing to do may we all experience such sadism and I think on maybe one for reading what's going on is that all of that hatred is directed at the self so much during depression that what you're getting is a

[01:25:25] respite yourself is you're getting a respite from your own hate when you directed outwardly yeah it's one like this was an interesting line from the piece if one listens patiently to a melancholic many and various self accusations when cannot in the end avoid the impression that

[01:25:45] often the most violent of them are hardly at all applicable to the patient himself but with insignificant modifications they do fit someone else someone whom the patient loves or has loves or should love every time when examines the facts this conjecture is confirmed

[01:26:01] now I took this as more thinking directing her hatred of others at herself but I think what you're saying and that makes sense is it's actually and sometimes can be the reverse where the self-hatred like turns into the hatred of others yeah and you know and it might

[01:26:23] I'm sure it goes both ways but one of the things I think that Freud is trying to say here is the thing about depression is that because all of this is unconscious we just tell what's going on like who who the object of your hate is like

[01:26:39] where did that energy come from that you turned on yourself there is just no clear he says in melancholia I'm sorry in in mourning it's in your pre-conscious in other words you can pull it up you can know what you're sad about you can know but the

[01:26:55] depressed person just doesn't know themselves what they're sad about yeah right then that's that's what's so hard about it if they don't even know how are the people around them exactly as opposed to now yeah by the way in this article

[01:27:11] just because I don't know when else we'll say it there's a great there's such a great quote where Freud is talking about the way that depressed people feel about themselves he says when in his heightened self-criticism he the melancholic patient he describes himself as petty

[01:27:27] egoistic dishonest lacking in independence one whose soul has been to hide the weaknesses of his own nature it may be so far as we know that he has come pretty near to understanding himself we only wonder why a man has to be ill before he can be accessible

[01:27:41] to a truth of this kind wow yeah Freud has this pessimism about human nature that I really love yeah it's this kind of pessimism and like almost like fatalism yeah yeah absolutely so I want to ask you a couple of things

[01:28:03] and I have a question for you too the dynamic as we've described is Justine is sorry Claire is just getting more and more anxious she goes on this like rudimentary like proto-internet and sees that that there is this what they call the dance of death

[01:28:21] where the earth and melancholia are going to pass each other but then collide afterwards she floats this to Justine meanwhile Justine is just at this point growing in confidence and just eating chocolate and she bathed herself which was the first time that she had

[01:28:39] done that and clear clearly a while because Claire is surprised and Justine tells her like look yeah of course you're anxious but there is this evil we don't need to grieve for it what? nobody will miss it but where would Leo grow all I know is

[01:29:14] life on earth is evil there may be life somewhere else but there isn't how do you know because I know things oh yes you always imagined you did I know we're alone I don't think you know that at all 678 the bean lottery

[01:29:45] nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle oh that's right but I know 678 she has a kind of clairvoyance here and the other piece of clairvoyance that comes right at the end of this scene is when the little kid says stay up and watch the planet come

[01:30:09] tonight and the mother says well I don't know if you can stay up you haven't been sleeping much she says no I can I can auntie whatever he calls her steel breaker and Kristen Dunst won't reply and she knows he's not going to stay up

[01:30:29] oh yeah I didn't catch that he's just never awake for it it's another very weird thing until the very end but he sleeps through even when they're trying to wake him he sleeps through the really cool thing where the planet is passing them by

[01:30:45] and even when it's shaking and there's a noise like clearly just completely out what do you make of this seeming clairvoyance or like this I know things that's interesting because obviously the bean thing I had thought of was not with the boy thing

[01:31:05] this may be a loose connection but that phrase that I just read from the Freud paper where he says what came to be known as this hypothesis of depressive realism that depressed people actually are accurate about themselves more than other people

[01:31:21] it seems as if what he's saying is something similar that she in this depression what she's gaining is a clarity about life it comes from the depression the problem is that nobody else has it right all the rest of us are deluding ourselves and so she's like

[01:31:39] diagnosed the sickness of the earth it seems like exactly and the bean thing is just a kind of cool way to let us know she's not the one who's she's not the sick one we're all unwelled see that's what's so interesting about this movie

[01:31:57] and I remember maybe even reacting to this for the first time but Kirsten Dunst is deeply depressed but everybody around her there's something wrong with everybody around her there's something wrong with Kiefer Sutherland there's something wrong with her parents obviously there's something wrong with her boss

[01:32:13] like everyone is kind of awful right and if you had to live with those people it seems like the appropriate the apt response is to be deeply depressed and hopeless and similarly Claire there's a variety about the planet which the husband treats as oh no you're just crazy

[01:32:33] you've been listening to Rogan like you can't listen to him it turns out to be absolutely appropriate an apt so there's this idea where these people who are anxious and depressed they're the ones who are right and we're the ones that are wrong yeah, yeah it's the kind

[01:32:51] of thing that a depressed person would write like you get what that perspective and the whole time it wasn't really until you said this at the beginning where you're talking about it all being from her perspective the entire narration really the entire narrative really does seem like

[01:33:11] all of these people are crazy they're treating her like she's crazy but no, at the end it seems like she's been redeemed all of those people in the circle are fucked up but they're all fucked up in the normal way they're all normal kind of bad

[01:33:31] and they can't deal of all of the people to be criticized, they can't deal with Kirsten Dunst's not participating in the charade of a charade exactly, the charade it's like a cheer I don't know why that came out the most pretentious thing that you've ever done

[01:33:55] but no, that's right exactly, they're all kind of sick and crazy but in the way that is conventionally appropriate the way that is socially acceptable absolutely and that's why there is a kind of clairvoyance there is a kind of clarity like you said that the depression

[01:34:13] is giving her access to and it's like, I don't know I would say, well, Von Trier who suffers from depression himself would love to think that but there's something about this movie that seems pretty timely in that you don't totally know at this point who's kind of

[01:34:33] who's crazy and who's not who's wrong in the world, right or wrong who's just kind of what the right attitude to have to life is you know that's what we need is the epistemic certainty of somebody who can clairvoyantly determine how many beans we're in a jar

[01:34:53] because then we would know at least Von Trier is giving us a clue that she knew all along but the person who is the most cocksure or the keeper of Southernlander, at least we think he is gets so mad at Claire for having bought the suicide pills

[01:35:09] and then just so does he take so he takes them it seems like also maybe gives them to the horses to calm them down because they're all worked up about you know, they also sense that impending doom I don't know because at first I was worried

[01:35:29] that he'd given them to the horses and that they were killing the horses but then I wasn't sure if they were just calm because of his presence just because he died and his presumably he was their owner and his presence might have calmed them down

[01:35:43] and then Claire lets Abraham go to make it seem like the husband she's trying to just pretend it didn't happen pretend she's in denial at that point and again Kirsten Dunn is just not having it and this is some of her like

[01:35:57] Claire needs her so much at this point and she's not giving her what she needs she does give Leo what he needs I guess where all she wants is is well, she needs her help, Justine's help I was going to say there is something deeply

[01:36:17] distressing to me about this portrayal not in a bad way and just the way that art is supposed to make it seem in that she is the hero in the end because she is the only one who can face up to the reality of what's happening

[01:36:33] she ends up being right, she ends up being brave everybody else falls apart Mr. Cokscher commits suicide dies by suicide Claire can't fucking handle it which I would be just like Claire and she has the presence of mind to build the little thing and the little boy

[01:36:53] she tells him close your eyes and he's calm as it happens and it does seem a little twisted in the direction of it's the depressed ones who are the right ones we've said this but there is something distressing about the imagery of the very end

[01:37:11] she's the chill one, she's the only one who is it might be celebrating a kind of nihilism not even a nihilism that also hurts other people including people that you love that's what I'm trying to get out there and which is fine again, it's fine because

[01:37:31] this is his take on depression but I can see how it would be a take on depression that a depressed person might want to put out Claire I didn't take it as self aggrandizing like on his part in any way I took it as this is how

[01:37:49] one way that a depressed person might think of their illness and maybe we can talk about this right now, some people feel like the planet colliding with earth and the end of all life is a metaphor, it's like the depression has now entered, it was just

[01:38:09] in her and now it's in the movie I'm not tempted to read it that way for whatever reason even though I tend to like dream like or metaphorical readings of things but metaphor in the sense that it's not still happens in the movie it's just

[01:38:31] a more unrivaled narrator it's like a personification of earthification of her it's like the opposite of a personification it's like all of a sudden it's a projection, that's the word that the movie has now saddled with the weight that she was saddled with during the first part

[01:38:53] I'm not tempted to read it that way I think like if you did maybe that would address that concern a little bit it's like the earth is now sick nobody's getting glamorized here or romanticized it's just given that this is from her perspective and given that she's projecting

[01:39:13] this is what a depressed person would project on the world yeah that everybody will fall apart except her that's it I don't know I guess one possibility for me was that it was the sweet release what is impending doom for everyone else is welcome

[01:39:37] and so she's happy while everybody else is freaking out is just that that's what she needed if she wanted all along she is essentially self-destructive and this is the ultimate self it combines her masochism and her all getting off this you know I was even

[01:39:55] I even thought well okay what if he meant this to be so unreliable a tale that this is just imagery in the head of somebody who's deeply deeply in the throes of a psychotic depression and is fantasizing about the end of the world which again

[01:40:15] and we've had this discussion before which would be fine it's not like a helpful way of understanding the movie for me it was like did the top spin an inception did it stop spinning it's not like that it's not like a puzzle that can be solved

[01:40:33] but I do think it's given that a lot of it is pretty subjective and from her perspective I can see why somebody might be tempted to go in that direction just as the husband that's not going to be that vacant as vacant as he was

[01:40:51] and Keith for Sutherland who seems otherwise kind of a decent person just a vein in a way a lot of people are but just to be in the scene from the godfather sitting in the dark room talking to her that way that's filtered through her lens

[01:41:11] maybe you could expand that to the sky I don't like to explain details or anything it's not like oh there was never actually an internet print out of it it is though satisfying emotionally for me to view this all as a very dark place that one mind went

[01:41:33] and whether that's a very dark place that the mind went who then wrote this film about the end of the world or whether the person wrote this film depicting the very dark place that that character's mind goes to be fantasizing about the destruction of the world

[01:41:49] yeah either way it doesn't seem like it's adding anything to say that it's all in the character right exactly it is a satisfying way to view what is going on inside the head of a depressed person somebody who's that severely depressed it is a metaphor

[01:42:05] of course it's a good metaphor for the destruction of yourself which is a Freud thing that this is an ego that's turning on itself right and in that article he does talk about this narcissistic tendency which I thought was interesting again you know I'm not endorsing

[01:42:21] I say this without endorsement but it is an interesting idea that there is some form of narcissism that is causing you to make yourself the object of your of your hatred and love at the same time I really regret not seeing this in the movie theater

[01:42:41] like I think it would be an incredible experience to see this in the movie theater I do yeah I have a good TV I have a decent sound system with it and cranking it up you might get a sense of it but still like it's not the same

[01:42:59] I've been so enjoying going to the movies lately like I've been appreciating it more since I had to stop being just like I don't know enveloped by the movie and also just that the movie can't pause you know focus you're just half you're just there and

[01:43:15] that's all you're doing if you go to the bathroom you can but the movies going on is going on you're not checking your phone you're not like the movies still yeah so I think this one as much as I loved it

[01:43:27] and I really loved it the second time through like audio visually and also the sound is just something like it would be great to experience in the movie theater it's incredibly visually stunning Kubrick is obviously a big influence and also Tarkovsky

[01:43:43] there's a lot of Tarkovsky when she's sitting on the fence Claire has to carry Leo back and and justine is sitting on the fence that's just like a scene right out of Tarkovsky's mirror oh interesting okay last thing because I think we've got to wrap up is let's

[01:44:01] we kept putting off talking about the levels of cowardice of the coward key for Sutherland yeah but his there was I don't know how to describe the disappointment that I had when I saw him turn and run he literally ran away took the sleeping pills

[01:44:23] and the whole time he's been telling did we see him run like no maybe not he was just like really in our you know like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland with his three piece suit running fast to get to the pills before you see him

[01:44:37] at the telescope and and then you just see in his face like that something's wrong and that his calculations and the scientists calculations were off and then I think Claire at this point just kind of falls asleep and when she wakes up he's gone yeah and

[01:44:53] yeah that's just finds his body in the stables yeah and there's nothing about this character that makes him seem suicidal up till that point so the fact that he just did that he took her pills yeah and and I like

[01:45:09] to think as a grace note that at least he gave he calmed the horses down by giving them some horse tranquilizers or something maybe man maybe they were just calm because the fucker is finally gone yeah but yeah it is just an unbelievably despicable act

[01:45:25] after all his shit you know trust the science he's like a like Fauci you know like if Fauci just was like stop bringing that into this you know sometimes scientists are right um if it weren't for science he wouldn't have known that his calculations were wrong

[01:45:43] what do you think why did it make her so angry justine why did it make her so angry that Claire poor Claire right when she realizes they're all gonna die just wants to do it right and have wine on the deck with Leo pretty much begs her just

[01:46:03] just like as the world ends can we have a glass of wine on the porch Kirsten Dunn just looks at her with such hatred and like says you know what I think if you're playing it's a piece of shit so mean I was angered by that

[01:46:17] reaction but I think that it is of the theme that are you trying to hold on to something beautiful when I've told you it's all ugly it's all bad but weirdly you know ironically they have a beautiful moment at the end a beautiful human moment where they connect

[01:46:37] and I think it's cause justine finally was able to do something this is relates to the narcissism point for somebody else she couldn't do it for Claire but she could do it for Leo the one person that was innocent in her eyes and because of that

[01:46:55] it allowed her to actually do something that's effective and helpful and you know in that convoluted way she gave Claire what she needed in that moment that's right but you're right it's like she was just trying to hold Claire up to like look at it

[01:47:13] like she'd be like slapping her if she was like what more do you need to see to see that this world is unredeemable and that it can't be saved and that we're all fucked at the deepest possible level don't try to make this pretty cause it's not

[01:47:27] I can see why that would be your sentiment when you're like is this the depths of self deception that human beings will go to to like you know for the band to keep playing as the titanic is sinking is just fucking stupid you know

[01:47:45] that's probably where I'll be that's why I liked that it's nonetheless ended with them not alone it still ended with them like you say coming together maybe for Leo or their two pathologies meeting halfway crossing each other's paths like the planets did

[01:48:05] and like they have this moment where this is an optimistic ending actually the most optimistic ending for the destruction of the entire planet that could possibly and like yeah the kind of the most hopeful part of the whole movie is when the world ends that's right

[01:48:23] definitely the happiest moment I think aside from maybe Tim getting rid of like a old horse lucky son of a bitch alright we should definitely wrap this feel sorry for your editing oh god that's gonna I'm gonna spin into like a depression just have a glass of wine

[01:48:47] and edit it on the balcony like Jen's gonna have to like drag my like prone just limp body over to the keyboard she'll be like or you'll be more you'll be like Jack the boss I need that edited alright join us next time

[01:49:13] we're gonna be very bad with