The Culture We Deserve

Critics are absolutely gleeful that Tom Cruise's new movie Digger seems to be crashing at the box office. And in an era where we demand healthy, moral, ethical actors, do we really have a place for complicated, dark, tortured Tom Cruise? Jessa and Nico discuss how his reputation got so bad in the first place (cult member, negligent father, etc), and why we'll never see another star like him. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

From Stranger Danger to Pedo Hunting on YouTube, we have long projected our fears onto the outsider, rather than the people within our family who are much more likely to do us harm. (Maybe not the best week to make this argument as the Philadelphia serial killer's house is still being investigated, but oh well.) Jessa and Nico discuss Primetime and our moral panic around child safety, and our eagerness to replace justice with entertainment. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

In this episode, Nico and Jessa discuss one of the weirder ideas championed during feminism's Second Wave, including by Gloria Steinem: the idea that pre-history's civilizations were matriarchal with a goddess culture at their center. The idea didn't originate with the feminist movement, they were based on a confused interpretation of 19th century archeological finds. But they sure did run with it, nearly 75 years after the idea had been discredited. Today you still see people repeating these ideas in spirituality circles, the more woooo end of feminism, and also the neo-Nazis. Jessa and Nico discuss the wish for the idyllic past, why feminism's ideas keep accidentally overlapping with those of Nazi Germany, and why we probably shouldn't let artists write books about archeology. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

It takes a certain kind of deranged mind to look at the Lindsay Clancy case and think, "Well, we're never going to get a female president now!" but that is what a lot of the rightwing ladies have been doing. Everything is a Gender War now. Jessa and Nico consider how we think about men and women who kill their children, by looking at two films: Alice Diop's Saint Omer, based on the real life case of a Senegalese-French woman who drowned her baby daughter; and, The Shining, everyone's favorite Family Annihilator film. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Amanda Knox has written a memoir. And another memoir. And made a documentary. And another documentary. And a fictionalized adaptation of her life story. And she has a podcast. And now she's written a one-woman-show for Fringe. All while the family of the young woman who was murdered begs her to stop. The true crime industry gives a lot of young women the opportunity to endlessly create content about the one bad thing that happened to them. Or, near them? Because some of these women, like the BTK Killer's daughter, or now the granddaughter of Charles Manson, have monetized proximity to bad people while the survivors and the families of victims beg for privacy. Jessa and Nico look at the main character syndrome of true crime, and how certain women have built empires out of suffering and death. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Everyone is looking for love, and no one can find it. That's the message from the inside look at matchmaking services, where both men and women are locked in an endless cycle of first dates and "there has to be something better." The rich men want women with degrees and robust fertility but no hobbies or interests of their own, and women want men who are six feet tall and at least half a million a year. Finally we find gender parity somewhere: both men and women are entirely delusional about what kind of partner will make them happy. Jessa and Nico discuss the dating hellscape, where the apps have gotten so terrible those who can pay (or put down a credit card) run to matchmakers, and romantic disappointment is a major form of reality show entertainment. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Katie Porter, fresh off a loss in the California governor's race, has announced she is going to be a book influencer now. Come join her book group, it recommends all the same books that the others do, too! As President Obama releases a new podcast about books, Dua Lipa interviews Booker Prize winners, and the daughter of President Bush tells you which slop books to read, we have to ask, why is everyone a book influencer now? Nico and Jessa chart the evolution from the Parisian salon to BookTok and every horrific stop along the way, to figure out why, in a time when no one can read, having a book club is the chicest thing you can do. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

They debate a wave of sex-themed films and whether newer releases signal a trend or a momentary blip. They argue about studio cuts, audience squeamishness, and how nudity is being handled. They compare different filmmakers’ approaches to erotic material and place these movies alongside TV, books, and AI-driven shifts in creative culture.

About five years ago, there was a conversation between journalists who had done years of work under precarious conditions and the YouTubers who used that work to create monetized content that made them a ton of money. If someone spends ten years of their life covering a story, and then some 22-year-old reads a simplified version of that work to the camera while doing their make-up and makes 10x as much money for it, is this a fair distribution of resources? Now the conversation is about YouTubers being pushed out and losing income because of AI. Science YouTuber (a word thoroughly lacking in elegance) Hank Green was caught using AI to help with research and note taking, and his audience is furious. In the content industry, the demand is for authenticity, originality, and endless productivity. And AI -- the solution to all these problems -- is the siren whose song must be resisted. Jessa and Nico posit that in the future, the only job in the creative field will be feeding the machine. But what does the backlash say about creator anxiety? Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Elon Musk is going to save Western Civilization from migration, Sharia law, and Christopher Nolan films. He bravely offered up Grok as the tool to generate a woke-free version of The Odyssey, after spending months of his life complaining about casting choices and insults to traditional Greek culture. Jessa and Nico rehash how The Iliad and The Odyssey became culture war flashpoints, how Elon became such a RETVRN guy, and why weirdos look to the past to shore up their identities so they don't have to deal with what disappointments they all are. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com