Go to ground.news/jacksaint to escape the echo chamber. Sign up for free or subscribe through my link for 30% off unlimited access (please use the link to make my sponsors go 🙂) no i am not removing the errors at 17:19 and 21:19 i already tried to render this a dozen times and actually its an aesthetic choice support links: 💰 PATREON @ www.patreon.com/jacksaint 🔴 TH-cam @ th-cam.com/channels/dQKvqmHKe_8fv4Rwe7ag9Q.htmljoin 👛 TIPS @ ko-fi.com/lackingsaint ✍ BLUESKY SOCIAL @ lackingsaint.bsky.social 👥 PUBLIC DISCORD @ discord.gg/BjVfT4JR66
Hey Jack, audio engineer here. Some bookshelves in your office will help with the echo. Also some acoustic foam paneling placed almost at the ceiling along the walls will really cut down on those metallic resonances that can happen in rooms with a bunch of echo. Lastly, a dynamic mic instead of a usb condenser will help a ton. An over sensitive mic in an echo-y room is always bad news. Try an SM7b or SM58.
@@flytrapYTP but not in a room like that. ever. why would you write things you dont fully understand? leading this poor guy down a senseless path. you know, im going to take this occasion to mention that no amount of home studio education will ever fill in the blanks that 6 years of physics fill. you guys need to back up with your youtube fun facts.
@@flytrapYTPimma work that line into the title of my first book, or the title of my first psychedelic fuck rock fusion album. "No echo can be achieved" I like it. Maybe the title of my next poem....idk. But imma use it
Why did you move here? Why didn't you stay in Jamaica. The majority of the country don't want you here and all your family, links, history, culture is in Jamaica. Why would you leave?
@@lukeet331 it's your social responsibility to educate yourself especially when explaining may require someone to be vulnerable about experiences for the benefit of your learning. You don't have the right to understand everyone's life experiences, it is already a labour to share some of it in the first place - however many many creators on the internet talk extensively about racial discrimination in the uk and how it works. My advice is just listen to black people, brown people, any people with a story not promoted in mainstream media ❤
Trapped in these bubbles they wanted to be part of? Reminds me of Serena Joy from the Handmaid's Tale; Serena Joy was a conservative, anti-feminist and anti-liberal activist who helped created the theocratic dystopia she dreamed of, only for all power and recognition taken away from her, including the power to read and write. She has become a prisoner of her own ideal 'Utopia'. And worst of all, she refuses to accept that she did wrong. She would rather wallow in her misery and find company to be miserable with, so long as she's the top dog in this prison she created.
To be fair, I would say that Don Draper is much less of a Serena than the other characters mentioned in the video. Don’s situation is, at its core, more about a fight or flight response to the trauma of his early life. I’m not sure Don is trapped in a bubble he wanted to be a part of so much as he’s trapped into the most advantageous bubble he could escape to. Your point stands tho, very well said!
Serena Joy was based directly on a real person: Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-ERA, anti-feminist, anti-choice activist who was significantly responsible for raising the visibility and influence of the religious right, particularly around the issues of abortion and women’s rights, and was very instrumental in getting Reagan elected. Like Serena Joy, once the right wing men had solidified their power, they discarded her.
I think with Tony a lot of it comes down to the feelings of power and entitlement, unsurprisingly. He doesn't actually want to hang out with the country club guys that much and doesn't really enjoy it, he just wants to know that he could if he wanted. It seems to be his driving force for a lot of things, he's very uninterested with actually doing anything but loves the idea that he could do anything. Take the cinema they have installed, and the pool, he barely uses them because it's just to reassure him that he could if he wanted. He is obscenely rich, the only things that it brings him a thrill to get are ones that can't be easily bought. Being excluded from the club is upsetting to him, because it's a realisation that money can't buy everything he wants, and there are some things that will always be off limits to him. The same is true of Melfi refusing to sleep with him. The thing you want but can't have is the one that sticks in your mind.
This goes for a lot of characters mentioned in the video. Don starts his own ad firm, gets the younger wife, the penthouse apartment and he still becomes a miserable alcoholic who drives everyone away, because he's literally living someone else's life. Working at Waystar causes Kendall to compromise all of his beliefs, abandon his family, and makes him suicidal.
I don’t think it’s cope over stereotypical taste. A lot of people will see these shows as unambiguously good endorsement of the pursuit of status. They won’t see the shows as deconstructions. I mean come on the men are miserable most of the time. Basically “I think the show is good but I’m not affiliated with that guy who also likes it. He doesn’t understand Fight Club.”
@Antonio-Gransci I think you are right that the "literally me" thing started as a meme but trust me, I've been recommended shorts glorifying these characters by the algorithm and none of the top comments have any kind of irony in them.
@Antonio-GransciOne of the guys from Cinema Therapy (a TH-cam channel) literally started a fight club in college right after the movie came out. In the TH-cam video where they dissected the movie, he talked about he and his buddies started it because they did not get what the movie was criticizing. They’re main takeaway when they first watched it was: fight club manly and cool. There are men out there who genuinely missed the point.
@Antonio-Gransciyou must you're coming off as a bit of a mong right? I dont understand why you're still going on do just you not notice when you start embarrassing yourself or something or do you actually think you can turn it around still?
I feel like a lot of the things you mentioned in this video could be applicable to American Psycho as well. Just this whole theme of constantly prioritizing this “in-group” over individual happiness, just for the sake of being allowed to tell others they’re not allowed in. (SPOILERS FOR AMERICAN PSYCHO) Patrick Bateman’s whole thing is he’s constantly treading on eggshells to be allowed to remain in his “in-group” and because of it, he’s so boring that even if he committed several murders and admitted to them nobody would care. Just a thought’
Couldn't agree more! The card scene, though turned into a meme recently, really shows this aspect. Like, it's a bunch of guys trying to be better than the others by comparing some cards that look almost the same and that are all misspelled, it's very silly and funny but also very critical
@@sojalemmi1515 they are! It has "aquisitions" where it should be "acquisitions", and, as a matter of fact, all cards are basically identical with the same information, changing only the name for the characters and the fonts
@@tinyspongebob funny. It's like the power of conformity. Nobody has the courage to go against the group to correct the error, or possibly even notice it.
I also think sopranos handles race the best as a bipoc person as a black person. They’re ability to look wholesale racism in the face and say give it language like few shows will is really powerful. Especially compared to shows like breaking bad which is awful at race and portraying bipoc characters, mad men is fine, and successions is absent minded and aloof with it’s takes on racism. To me, Spoilers: Tony’s, Carmela’s, and the rest of the gangs racism is not sugar coated. Tony and his wife hate that they’re daughter date a biracial black man it angers them and the show is not subtle like it should be.
I think it helps that David Chase, the creator and mastermind behind Sopranos, is speaking from his own experiences being raised by blatant racists. He's able to give it language because he's seen it out in the open. David Chase has said the Sopranos is at times an open diary about the people he comes from, warts and all. The writers and creators of the others shows, I wouldn't be surprised if they've never really seen it like that and thus aren't able to give it the blatant language that it needs. I can tell you as a white man, I've never seen it like in the Sopranos in real life. When I was growing up, race was just simply not mentioned or thought of. Ever.
That scene with the gun going off when those the gangsters were shot was over the top. I feel that the Wire and Snowfall show how bipoc characters in the street life are. Sopranos showed bipoc from their own perspective, with the black gangsters being shown as incompetent. They really put that on display! As a black person myself I'm just thinking "damn lol".
People obsess over race way too much these days. Attention is power, as long as people keep giving it such incredible attention, it will have incredible power.
@@sojalemmi1515 These days? More like forever. We killed off the neanderthals my dude. Likely just because they were just a different race than us. Human history is filled with many sins, racism most certainly included a big driver of a LOT of human conflict throughout history. This is merely a continuation. One positive note, however, is that on a global scale, violence of all kinds and motivations has been on a slow, but steady decline since World War II. You're not wrong about giving it attention gives it power, but it cannot be ignored either. Ignorance will only lead to more bolder forms of racism. Putting our head in the sand isn't going to solve anything.
@@sojalemmi1515 attention isn't power, control over attention is, there is just as much power, if not more, in getting people to ignore the things you want ignored
reminds me of the white voice scene in "Sorry to Bother You" "it's not really a WHITE voice, it's what they wish they sounded like, its like what they think they're supposed to sound like" "sounding like you don't have a care, you got your bills paid, happy about you're future, you're ready to jump into YOUR FERRARI after you get off this call..." even the characters in these shows, that are very privileged in some ways, are chasing that image. destroying parts of themselves in the process.
Also, the very best employees at the call center can earn the chance to become "power callers", but they can never become one of the managers. They're excluded from the (all white) club from day one and no amount of success or sucking up will ever actually change that. When Cash gets the chance to hang around the club, he's treated as a novelty to entertain them with his "differences", just like the disabled kid with Tony's friends and Tony with the country club guys.
Wait…. So am I understanding correctly…. “High Society” sucks for everyone? Obviously, it sucks to be excluded from it, which is most people. Then, if you have the misfortune of being accepted into “High Society”, you have to sacrifice your humanity for the club; This in turn propagates a “trolley problem” wherein current members require the future humanity sacrifices of future club members. Perhaps the worst fate is those who would never be admitted to this vile club, but sacrifice their humanity in an effort to belong nonetheless.
I think that’s one way to look at it, but I think he’s specifically focused on not just “high society”, but the absolute top tier that is the straight white rich man with no type of disability and no type of deviance from the status quo. The point is that often times people (mainly straight white men) who are the absolute epitome of privilege and wealth remain dissatisfied and discontent if they sense that they have not reached that absolute top tier of society-and in their pursuit of top privilege, in their little bubble, they feel as if they are the ones who are being discriminated against, they are the victims and the ones who are oppressed-not because they actually are oppressed, but bc when you are blinded by that much privilege and that much status, not being at the absolute top FEELS like oppression and prejudice, when in reality it is anything but. And what’s sad is that this same standard that these men chase, this system that they uphold in hopes that they will reap the rewards at the top….it’s a system that enforces a strict code of masculinity, a code that rebukes any sign of weakness or femininity, a life that tells these men to push down their struggles with mental health etc…and in the end, they will still be miserable, except it’s because of an environment of their own making. Every one else (minorities, women, the poor, the lgbqt) don’t have the privilege to be responsible for their own oppression, that lucky title belongs only to white men, who continue to uphold a society that isn’t healthy for any one. This is why we see so many white straight men have such a strong response when they hear that they are privileged. Because in their bubble where they have not had to deal with real oppression, their feelings of insecurity or frustration at not being at the top, feels just as much like oppression as any minority, women, etc… who have faced REAL stigma.
One day I woke up and realized that I am white. It was a strange feeling. But because I'm also a Slav I feel like my whiteness is a sham. It's more of Wish grade of whiteness. Comes with privilages but you just know it's cheaper and likely to break
I think slavs (especially in a European context) are a very good example of whiteness being about a position within society that's based on a number of things and not just your literal skin colour.
@FuzzyKittenBoots In Europe we've been fighting each other for too long to believe in "white brotherhood". The thing is that we humans love to excuse our horrible behaviours. So in the past it was ok to kill and or enslave other people because they were pagans, not the right kind of Christian, not European, not the right ethnicity... There's a reason why to this day the question where Europe ends is highly political. Europe = civilization for as long as the concept of Europe has existed With the development of "race science" Europeans found "rational" explanation for their bigotry. N@zis didn't see Slavs as a part of the same race as Germans the same way we now see black people as seperate. It wasn't just a made up idea - it's been built on long history of exploitation. Slavs were a nice source of slaves in Middle Ages. When Poland got particioned Germans came to understand Poles as subjects who needed to be controled and culturally asimilated. Germanisation was an official policy of German state The same arguments used for the supposed inferiority of black people could (and were) be used against Slavs (apparently white people) Tl;dr Whiteness is so fragile. Ridding on the waves of white privilage can be a tricky game because you never know if you're interacting with a casual racist or a competetive racist. "Oh you're white? I'm Anglosaxon white, you're nothing to me"
I'm an American who grew up in England, inasmuch as this might sound impossible, I know exactly what you mean. Despite being raised on English values, in English School, the fact that I spent 3 of my 32 years of life in the United States is enough to make the local populace see me as a "lesser" white person. I have been the butt of jokes, then forgiven for being an American. People comment on my accent, ask when I'm going back home, or how long I'm visiting for when ironically I live within my true ancestral homeland. I will never be seen as an equal, nor feel welcome here.
@IlIBonesIlI People will always find a way to make themselves feel superior by putting down others. It's so petty and stupid. Those people are bullies so it doesn't matter what you do they'll always find some kind of flaw in you At school they would make fun of you because you either never smoked or because you did it once. Your "sin" doesn't really matter. They just marked you as an outsider Embrace your partial American identity. Make it into your strenght. Ask the people around you when they're going to do circumcision to their toddlers or some crazy stuff like this. Honestly finding new friends might be the best option
as a woman i relate to don and kendall mostly based on them having had shit childhoods and the issues that come with it. i’m also white-skinned even though i’m mixed so i guess that makes their experiences, or lack thereof, more relatable to me as well
I'm not white but I also relate to Kendall the most. In a show where almost every character is an asshole that gets on my nerves, his failures, mental challenges and vulnerability resonate the most with me
there is a video by emplemon on the same topic; its called "American Psychos". i thought i had a deja vu watching the first 2 minutes until i figured out i hadnt ^^
I had the opposite school experience to you, I moved from London to Essex as a teen and went from having multiple classmates with parents from "brown countries" (South Asia, Africa, Caribbean etc) to sometimes being the only non-white kid in class. I had always considered myself mixed-race, but I found that the majority of people in my new school would call me black. It didn't bother me, but you could tell it really caught some people off guard when they saw me with my blonde, blue-eyed mum. I'd say "duh? I am black, I'm just white too!" but I don't think people got it, the concept of the brown kid being white is apparently a lot harder to get over than the brown kid being black lmao
When in the finale Kendall talks about how he is a cog designed for this one machine and if he can't be in that machine he doesn't know what else he could even be, I fucking FELT that. I was laid off from my teaching job recently and I felt so trapped, because teaching is the only thing I know how to do. I am a cog only designed for one machine.
5:26 I do find that interesting I'm from the North West of England and went to school that was 50% white, 50% asian (asian in UK meaning India and Pakistan) and I also never thought about my race as well people of other races were my friends we had the same interests, etc. So there was never really a distinction apart from religion being Muslim. So I never felt confront by it. It does sort of show how racism is taught, as neither of us ever thought deeply about our whiteness until we were older, but were in opposite situations.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio (nearly the same as Cleveland in most ways) in one of the only neighborhoods with mixed income levels and a fairly even mix of black and white folks and I had a similar realization as you recently. My perspective and prejudice is based strongly on involvement rather than lack of. Which means I’ve further realized (usually white) people in the US seem to expect that I grew up in a white neighborhood and never talked to or hung out with a black person or something. They have a hard time understanding what my childhood was like. It’s pretty f’ed up
This reminded me of that controversial paper on professionalism as white supremacy, especially the part where Don has to strip away the parts of himself that make him...him. I think this also applies to tech bros who want to "biohack" and make themselves autonomous systems. They're so willing to become robots for the American Dream.
I'm a black man and when you were talking about having stereotypical taste and then just came out and said you loved Atlanta took me out. Great formatting and very captivating keep up that good work.
Woow. You ever have like a non post nut clarity, clarity. Like a brain fart that gives revelation. Literally me when I read that. It clicked and is a perfect parallel honestly. I always saw the sopranos as a metaphor for the end of America. But Tony himself is a very good depiction of its assumed glory and hidden evil.
This is a very interesting take. I’m Greek-American, and growing up, every adult migrant Greek person I knew loved the Sopranos. I’m realizing it now that it’s because they resonated with Tony’s feeling of exclusion. Even being fourth generation but raised in the Greek community, I don’t feel like I can say at all that I feel like I was raised like a White American, but I recognize very strongly how many Greeks across the board benefit from white privilege, especially if they are white passing- this experience actually ranges drastically depending on how dark a Greek person’s skin is, as many get profiled as middle eastern. Thing is, many Greeks are not fully integrated in America, even though a lot of us are able to reap the benefits of white privilege. However, there is definitely this pressure to let go of our heritage, and so a lot of the community tends to stay very insular. I didn’t even realize how insular it was until I grew up, having grown up in the Greek community and among migrants, and realizing that there are two factions to American Greeks: those who are atheist/non-religious and largely have let go of their Greek heritage, and those who tied into the Greek community which largely revolves around the Orthodox Church. There are not many other spaces for Greeks to continue associating with Greeks in American society otherwise, because our religion is so tied to our culture. And yet, among the religious, there is this urgency to drive exotic cars and attain wealth. I’m religiously related to a man who owns a city. The language is lost anywhere between the 2nd and 4th generations. The only places to receive Greek language lessons are through the church. In many ways, the pressure to assimilate is there, it’s just a lot slower if you’re tied to the church. Either you keep your culture and stay religious, or you leave it behind and assimilate. There is an angst. I don’t know how to conclude this, just wanted to share how this relates to my cultural experience and observations I’ve made of Greek migrants as it applies to assimilation and relationship to whiteness.
This was a very interesting comment and I enjoyed reading it. It’s kind of sad that people who aren’t religious are losing their culture and have less of a connection to other Greek Americans, as not everyone is religious but everyone should be able to participate in their heritage. I am curious how this person you mentioned owns a city? Does he own all of the real estate there or the land or something? This is a new concept to me. Thank you for such an interesting look into your experiences 😊
I think most of what you said applies to the Armenian American communities in the US as well. Most of my family immigrated in the 80s and 90s, and they loved the Sopranos. Our community has gotten a lot bigger since, but I can imagine at the time they immigrated here how ostracized they must've felt.
Mad Men is my favorite show in the world, but I feel like I don’t see a lot of these kinds of videos about it. I understand why tho, but love seeing this kind of analysis for my favorite series. Thanks Jack!
As a Clevelander, I remember seeing you at the July 2020 BLM protest but it didn't feel like the right moment to say hi. Best wishes in the U.K.! I used to live near Buckeye so it's wild to see it in one of your videos.
8:53 "He must eliminate the things that make him strange, the things that make him different, so that he can be a part of this group that exists only to exclude those who are different" The assimilation machine in a nutshell. It can be hard to talk about with nuance, since obviously Don Draper * can * efface himself to a point that he is accepted by his white peers, as could Tony Soprano, by virtue of the color of his skin, and Black and Brown people (mostly) do not even have that option. Sometimes talking about how Whiteness affects White people can feel a little bit like missing the entire point, a sort of "wah, racism hurts white people too" whine -- and yet it's becoming increasingly accepted (even encouraged) to talk about how toxic masculinity hurts men, and I think a full understanding of racism really does need to incorporate an understanding of the way white people are corralled into our place in the hierarchy even against our will, and how destructive that can be to the human spirit, while acknowledging that it is in no way comparable to the suffering of nonwhite people under racism. Also, the way you talk about not even noticing your own whiteness at 5:25 -- I don't think that's isolated to you, your town, or white towns generally. I remember my own early experiences with race as a white person in the '90s and '00s, and there was always a sense that race was something that happened to other people. I think it's something like the academic concept of the cishet white male default -- While I would think of a Black person as Black, I would think of White people as just people. I think I remember reading someone somewhere saying something along the lines of "white people have to first confront the Black man before they can know the man," and that really rings true for my psychology then, and I genuinely think there has been something of a "great awokening" where, across the past decade, white people have shifted more and more towards thinking about themselves as white. With understandings of white privilege (and resurgent reactionary white identiry), whiteness has started to transform from this empty category of exclusion, this invisible thing, into a real identity that white people in the anglosphere regularly grapple with (for better and for worse). Basically, I think white masculinity studies which go beyond the toxic attitudes and behaviors we've been illuminating across the past decade are ripe to be undertaken. How do white men understand ourselves, how we've been welcomed or molded into our place in respectable, patriarchal, racist society? And how do we build out from here? What does good allyship mean, beyond elevating nonwhite and other marginalized voices? Most controversially of all: How do we progress "whiteness?" Or is such a thing even possible (or desirable)?
I don't know about this (I'm a woman of color). I think it probably is a good thing to point out that the status that white men cling to so hard actually make them miserable. Why hang on to a power and status that ... well ... sucks. It might help white men to let go of this thing they are fighting so hard to keep. I've long been thinking something about privilege coming at a high price for the privileged, that it does something ugly to the soul, and this isn't a function of whether they value that status or are moral people or other things. It is inherently corrupting but for some reason we should never point that out. But that's part of the corruption, that gaslight. You have everything, shut up, don't question that (because you might want to take the whole structure down and once the powerful start defecting the system is really done?)(huh)
@Antonio-Gransci You’re bonkers. I said nothing of the kind and you have no idea what my politics are. I bet you are just projecting your own views onto me.
@@angeliprimlani9389 I'm not really sure how that's possible to be honest. A white guy cannot just wake up one day and simply decide to stop being a white man any more than you can choose to stop being a woman of color. Not as long as society continues to perceive him as one and treat him as much. And to be quite honest, there are plenty of white men who aren't that particularly privileged anyway, and for a plethora of reasons, such as poverty and disability. What "status" in this particular context do they really have that they can relinquish? We see white men as the avatars of privilege and thus, anything said about them goes because they have all the power. But I don't think someone who's out of a job, incarcerated, severely disabled, addicted with little to no support network, generally poor, etc, necessarily needs to hear this sort of thing. It would certainly be condescending and offensive towards anyone else, no? And fr, there are frankly a lot of people whose politics are as simple as "white people bad" and don't really care to see them as anything more than demonic oppressors. Certainly, there are people who do not even perceive white workers as being an entity worth organizing at all, as they feel their whiteness ultimately aligns them more with the actual ruling classes of the country rather than the of-color working class and thus, revolution and social change is not for them and is actually materially against them. You see this point of view expressed most prominently in "Settlers", by J.Sakai. If you were a white guy and took this to heart, what more could you really do except to double down on it?
Succession isn't really about maintaining status (no one in the show is in danger of losing their wealth), it's about the cycle of abuse and dysfunctional family relationships. Kendall's and his siblings' obsession with becoming CEO of Waystar Royco (a failing media conglomeat marred with debt and scandals and with a TV station infamous for political views Shiv and Kendall have both shown distaste for in the past) doesn't really seem like such a huge prize, but for them it's a substitute for validation they never got from their father (or mother, since she was not even present) and for a sense of identity and self-worth. This is the reason why we can relate to and sympathize with them - they may be fully grown adults but their story is that of abused children who are continuing to retraumatize each other and themselves and cannot escape the vicious cycle. Another thing: you are selling those shows short by not mentioning the amazing female characters who are front and center - the last season of Succession was as much Shiv's story as Kendall's (and Roman's too), THe Sopranos had a number of interesting but very different characters like Carmela, Melfi, Adriana, Janice... But there are also 'prestige TV' dramas with only women as leads (such as undrerated Damages) or a male/female duo such as The Americans (certainly a candidate for the best show ever) or the main cast is half male half female (incredibly underexposed Halt and Catch Fire, which really should have gotten so much more attention). Female characters in these shows are great anti-heroes that are as complex and flawed as the male characters.
Your first two paragraphs describe whiteness in a nutshell. It's an exclusive club, that abuses even it's own members. However, the perks seemingly outweigh the harm. And thus a vicious cycle, which is beautifully portrayed from different angles through the three shows analyzed in the video, continues. If only the members of said club, male and female, would take the advice you give in your comment. The world would be a much, much better place.
Correction, @robertfreitage687 (a few comments above you) gave the advice I was referring to. They wrote: "Neither of these guys [Tony and Don] has enough courage to just abandon these stupid ideals and to form goals of their own, goals that aren't measured by the approval of their peers."
The Sopranos hit too close to home because once you remove all the Mafia aspects of the show. It's about a downward spiral of a dyfunctional family and how the toxic behaviors of untreated childhood trauma create an all consuming black hole. The family of the Sopranos was pretty similar to mine especially since I'm a first generation polish american born and raised in NYC so I grew up in that middle class immigrant world. The show as fucked as it may sound was relatable. Especially the blatant racism. Every immigrant family will have that one deep rooted racist and anti-semite and unfortunately for me it was my entire family.
Zizek is the go-to guy on this topic. So much of his work is about the psychological barriers we erect to protect ourselves from over-identification with some kind of ego formation. I've thought quite a bit about the specific problems we vanilla white men have, too. We're in the strange position of having no credible excuse for our failure to be happy. Allegedly, all the cards are stacked in our favor. Class doesn't matter because we're not allowed to admit it exists. That's not factual, but it's phenomenologically true in the sense that it falls outside of the parameters of our meritocratic self image. Tony Soprano is a jackass. He's not a member of some kind of Italian immigrant underclass. He's just a buffoon who talks with an affected accent. He was educated in a normal American school with kids from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. He just needs to make believe he's a victim in order to justify his criminal lifestyle. Don Draper is too supernaturally gifted with personal charm for his actual class background to have an appreciable effect on his progress up the ladder. In his position, I could see survivor's guilt being a real problem for anyone who isn't an outright sociopath. But he kind of is a sociopath. Or close enough to one to keep him in constant danger of a disastrous over-identification with this ideal of untrammeled upward mobility. All he really has are his phony "artistic" pretensions to creativity in his profession to separate him from the other plastic drones that inhabit his social circles. Neither of these guys has enough courage to just abandon these stupid ideals and to form goals of their own, goals that aren't measured by the approval of their peers.
I'm confused. Is the takeaway for me to emphasize with these filthy rich, self-absorbed, woe-is-me, people? Because I don't, and I see zero point in doing so. Of the three shows mentioned here, I've watched The Sopranos, and I enjoy it not because i 'feel' for Tony or any of his mob friends and family, but because their idiotic shenanigans that ultimately bring themselves harm, is amusing to me. Same reason I prefer Barry over any of these 'manly man' shows.
It has little to nothing to do with race and everything to do with class. There are many non white people who live with these issues and countless white people who don’t.
I'm a dirty american with a british partner who also would like to move back to the UK but money and the insane difficulty of it has put us off of it, would love to know how you went about it at all to do the same maybe!
Money and insane difficulty, mostly! (Serious answer: we spent considerable savings on a spouse visa and I as the British sponsor just barely made the income requirement, currently we're living at my mums place)
I know it wouldn't be popular or algorerythym worthy but i would actually LOVE a full length opinion piece on Zizek. I have my problems with him too, but his books are the only pieces of literature i've ever had to put down out of sheer wtf astonishment. The Parallax View changed how I interact with others permanently. Guy is definitely problematic but I am glad he exists.
After the episode of Succession where they gang goes to Norway came out, this is some of what I had to say about it - "To me (one of) the most upsetting thing(s) about succession is that these people are constantly going to the most amazing luxurious places in the world and they show absolutely no regard for any of it. Obviously it’s largely in part because they have nothing to compare their lifestyles to because they’re constantly in expensive places, but it’s also because there’s this unspoken rule that like, if they remark that the hotel suite is nice, they’ll be made fun of for obviously never having been to the vastly superior X Hotel in Luxembourg, and THAT’S the only actually nice hotel in the world, everything else is just meh in comparison. And this episode took it a step further being set in Norway - if one of them sees a spectacularly dramatic mountain and shows An Emotion, they will lose street cred over it for being vulnerable." I think this ties into the idea that Kendall is constantly reaching for something he can't grasp. He's not ALLOWED to be happy where he is because liking the things he has/gets to do/is as a person is like. Settling. Because in this alternate reality that billionaires live in, there is always something better, but you can't be content with the better thing because when something better than that comes along, you'll look like an idiot for having liked something not as good.
For real though Jack, you gotta make a part 2 featuring more heavily on Better Call Saul as it makes for a much more contextual and overt link to your conclusions and beyond
This is a good insight, but I can't help feeling these shows are also, at some level, fantasies of power. In other words, "smash the patriarchy" is NEVER the message of these shows. But if they uncover the existential horror of the straight white man, you'd expect them to say, maybe we shouldn't live this way. But I think they're doing the opposite. They're saying, look at what this power does to us BUT ALSO this power is just who we are meant to be. They function as a paradoxical apologetic for that power. Which is very fucking weird.
I agree and disagree. On the one hand, I fundamentally agree that these shows do not have progressive messages and are interacted with by audiences primarily by sympathizing with (and fantasizing about) powerful white men, and that's what makes them problematic. But I can't get behind the idea of art having a single "message." If a book or film is didactic enough that you walk away feeling like you were receiving moral instruction... it just isn't very exciting art to me (see: Don't Look Up, a movie whose message I can sympathize with but comes off as a lazy way to pat yourself on the back for believing in climate change). There's lot of ways to understand the Sopranos. There's even lots of ways to think about Joker! They offer windows into white masculinity that, honestly, fundamentally ring true for me, and that makes them interesting to me, even while I understand a lot of people might find them distasteful, unethical, even grotesque. I see the way society interacts with these works, and the way some shows are elevated and some are sidelined, and some languish in obscurity, and some never get made at all, to be important but fundamentally separate questions. You're right -- the Sopranos was as popular as it was, imo, primarily because white men liked to fantasize and identify with its grossest elements, and follow along the perverse thrill of every gutwrenching act of brutality. That's why the show got made, that's why it was as popular as it was, and that's a problem, as are the plenty of other problematic elements of the show that could be subject to critique (its representation of female characters, its lionization of gangsterism, etc.). But it is still an interesting lens to look at whiteness and white masculinity through.
@@sammosaurusrex I agree with all of this. I didn't mean to suggest that these shows are only, or even primarily, power fantasies. And I'm not saying the shows have, or should have, any kind of didactic point to make. What I'm thinking isn't easy to express, and it isn't simple. I'm trying to articulate something about these shows that's inherently paradoxical. So I'm not talking primarily about people who watch the shows just for the thrill of seeing a powerful guy do his thing, though that is related to my point. I'm talking about how the shows are presented and received by people who are aware of the negative messaging, i.e., the critiques of masculinity, capitalism, etc., that these shows have. When a normal person -- especially a straight white man, though really most others too -- watches a show like this, they get to feel good about seeing the flaws of the powerful, and they also get some of the thrill of being powerful. I just finished rewatching Breaking Bad, and it's a lot of fun watching Walter White be a scientific genius and get himself out of one crisis after another with grit and smarts. And it's also fun to watch him transform himself into a monster. So as I watch, I get to feel that I'm better than Walter White, because I'm not a monster. But as I'm caught up in this dynamic, there's one thing the show is never giving me: a critique of how power works, something that ever suggests in even the subtlest way that the world might not be a place where the most powerful and the most violent always wins. The message is that, even if it means your own death, and total disgrace, you have only one choice in life: strive to become the top dog, or be the disposable, mockable nebbish, like Walter White is at the beginning of Breaking Bad. That kind of ethos, which I think most people take for granted, leads to the kind of politics we have in our world today. And it's simply because no one knows how to imagine anything different. And by the way, I'm not attacking any of these shows. I've seen them all, except for Mad Men. I think they're great. But I don't think their implied politics is great.
@@harrybirchall3308 I agree, but your comment reminds me of something I forgot until just this moment: there's a scene where Carmela talks to an old rabbi, and he gives it to her straight. I haven't seen The Sopranos in many years, so I don't remember the details. But I remember I loved that scene, and I was disappointed it didn't become a bigger part of the story. The rabbi cuts straight through the bullshit with no compromise, and present moral truth in an unavoidable way. And of course Carmela is not interested in that. So at least for that scene, I think I'm wrong about this show. There could be other places in the show where that happens, but that's the one I remember. Edit: maybe Carmel was speaking to a therapist? I'm not sure now.
I really like this video, I think it's one of your better ones in a while. I don't really have anything insightful to contribute, just - your thoughts are well put together and your insights are very interesting to listen to.
It feels like a lot of this stems from the idea that when you're a white man who's been promised the world, but you lack something like ethnicity or class or mental stability, you don't get it. And this makes you go insane. It's a dissonance, it's a failure of what you expect from life. I never expected a happy relationship and a nice home and two good kids, i have expected fear and respect from the world. I wanted everything. But for most of us part of growing up from teen years is realizing that this is improbable, often literally impossible, and not even that desirable. This is not a goal you should strive for. Like as a pretty "bonkers" guy, ie mentally ill, "weird" and so on, the fantasy was that power will basically offset that and force people to respect me. But besides it becoming apparent that i wasn't born into the right geographical area and the right family for it, i have also noticed that you can't quite do this. Like it's literally impossible. People who dislike me for my odd mannerisms will always be unnecessarily mean. If i were in power, they'd just have an even bigger reason and a pretty good excuse to be even meaner. Even if you drown out these voices whether through force of state censorship or simply by surrounding yourself with terrified underlings who constantly reaffirm you, you cannot really force respect, and people will just dislike you for no reason, no matter your status. But beyond that, wealth and power are vacuous. They are a short term high that turns into something akin to a nicotine addiction. You just get used to it and it all becomes the same old boring thing. It's just not a good goal to have as a person. A much better goal in terms of power is genuinely changing the world. Don't seek out power for the sake of it, seek it out because you want change. People actually WILL respect public figures who stand by their principles and truly believe in things especially if those things are objectively good for the majority of people. Also, this doesn't need to be tied to you personally. Change the world for the better in general, support good causes, give money to the homeless guy, advocate for good things, be a good person, use your social political and economic dominance instead of power chasing to actually change things for the better for disempowered people. As for pleasure, again power is a drug, seek out love instead. Love romantically, love friends, love family, love your community, etc. It's a lifelong high and you never get fed up with it.
This is brilliant. I love that you made this video. I am writing a paper about something related to this and you are giving me inspiration. I will be citing you in the sources. Thank you
I feel the same about Sal from Mad Men- I was surprised and disappointed when he left so early in the show, and then increasingly incredulous when he just...never turned up again. Every other character just kept on popping back out of the woodwork sporadically, and he was the only one who stayed gone. It was a real shame.
These characters are interesting because we take pleasure in seeing their flaws because they have what we don't have or want. However, people don't relate to them because they are the exact same. I know in my life, I relate to these people because the world we are born into, no MATTER our status, we learn the hard way that all we are good for is our status, and that we never will have. I've spent most of my life being the typical left wing "status doesn't matter, kumbaya" type of person. However life does CONSTANTLY throw the fact that you don't matter, that you're never enough, and you must provide to be useful. And that this doesn't GO AWAY if you hang out in left wing spaces. it's almost worse in leftist spaces at times. Regardless, it's universal. I think part of why we also have movies like joker which show a nobody being crushed by the system and snapping and why those are lumped in with the "literally me" archetype that fits these big production shows is because of that universality. It does not matter whether you are dirt poor, or an ultra rich corporate best boy, we all have to slave away into this society that actively harms us. we are trapped, and these shows tell those stories.
@@franjkav I explicitly did, and if you have shit with me saying "we take pleasure" you should give jack shit for doing the exact same thing because he actually said the same thing.
feels really weird seeing the br**ish national anthem listed in the description as “god save the king.” you get used to one thing and suddenly it changes and you’re like •_•
While i think it is nice that these shows are good at describing a problem, i think a better show would also be able to describe some solutions. A better show would be able to take us out of the head of the protagonist and show us a world of consequence and importance beyond the bubble in which we trap ourselves. Until then, i feel like they are just feeding into our adoration of that bubble, both its lavishness and luxury, and its compelling pathos which can distract us from the unpleasant and difficult work of actually making the world a better place.
This video reminds of an idea I've had of there being a male targeting male gaze. Which I define as: The perpetuation, internalization, or awareness of male conceptions and understanding of masculinity, manhood, manliness, male gender norms/practices, male beauty standards, and other aspects of maleness.
@@krsouff I had not thought about how that would affect my theory. The patriarchy (or male dominance in general) would certainly be an influential aspect of a male targeting male gaze. The alpha male and incel communities believe that dominance is an inherent aspect of maleness and women are regarded as the fairer sex.
I'm a recent subscriber and the whole time I was watching a few videos I kept thinking, "This guy looks SO familiar but I've never seen his content before." Then you mention Cleveland and it clicks! Chances are high I've seen you in passing lmao. Hope the move goes well!
This view if the shows really helps me understand part of the appeal, as someone who hasn't seen any of them. I am learning to always strive to become a better version of myself, but not necessarily become high-achieving. I have a chronic illness that severely limits my freedoms and access to things like education and a full-time job. But I grew up thinking I needed to be a great achiever to deserve love, so when my illness manifested it forced me to dismantle my sense of self and create a new model. It's hard, but it's one I can feasibly live by.
I haven't watched the video yet but I just wanna say that Kendall is veeeeeery relatable to women. I don't know why but he is giving so many oldest daughter vibes, I love him so much!! He is a pathetic loser and women deserve more pathetic losers to relate to. I hope this point is brought up in the video somehow, if not that's ok. I just want people to know that the girlies adore Kendall. He will always be the number one boy!!
As a poor, disabled, leftist woman I cannot really relate to those struggles. I'm sitting here like: "Dude, just get a garden. Grow some food, make some clothes, and hope that climate change doesn't kill you."
@@mxmagpie7037I personally do not need lavishly produced television shows to see that. And it honestly kind of worried me that simply being self aware, empathetic, and seeing the world around us well into our adulthood doesn't seem to be a worthwhile path to take to see these systems for what they are for a staggering amount of people. Maybe even for most people if I'm being particularly pessimistic.
I don't think I've ever quoted the bible on youtube before, but these types of tv shows, the privileged white men who feel sad/mad genre, makes me think of this line from the book of Habukuk: Wealth is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied. And the characters don't necessarily have to be money-rich to be like this, sometimes it's the wealth of power, the wealth of privilege, the wealth of getting what you want. But they are never satisfied with little things, with little lives. They're looking for these Western measures of success which can never actually be obtained. The attempt is never sated. As in Buddhism, 'the root of suffering is in attachment'. It's that desire for external validation, for material validation, for entry into some kind of pinnacle of social level that makes these men so unhappy. Although they usually blame the people around them, or bemoan their 'bad luck' for not being universally loved and admired. I agree that these shows (like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos etc) are often REALLY great shows, well-written etc. But damn, I am EXHAUSTED by these stories and main characters, as I am exhausted by people like them in real life.
Theres something about the fact that so many queer people are so attached to succession and identify with the characters that feels like how straight white guys identify so much with movies like the matrix or american psycho. "fucked up meow meow" kendall roy vs "literally me" patrick bateman.
I'm sure somebody has already said this, but the creater of Mad Men has described the premise of the show as being about "becoming white." Succession, while not specifically about race, is frequently very racial. Considering the main (?) character fights to inherit a company that, as a Fox News expy, endangers the lives of his non-white wife and daughter and he thus has to actively ignore the consequences of fake news to attain his "birthright", and another character supports a racist politician in his rise to power and thus rationalizes the subsequent rash of hate-crimes he inspires, it's most definitely more than a figurative or accidental theme. Spot on.
even tho it's old seeing people with the most access to power being the center of these narratives, at the same time, i think many working class people have to make the same sacrifices in order to survive within our culture. in that respect, i think the issues discussed in such shows can be relevant to more than just rich white dudes.
Yeah, I found a lot of the talk about hiding the things that make you strange and different in order to fit into a club that is meant to exclude to be quite applicable to my experience of autistic masking, and especially as a trans woman. A lot of people say that we have 'male privilege' as if we are men until we flick a switch, but that's not true. It's not like being seen and treated as boys and men doesn't mean there aren't privileges we get or problems we avoid, but within male spaces, anything not sufficiently 'masculine' and especially feminine is seen as strange and threatening and disgusting. That 'privilege' is not a gift, it's a prison, because it's conditional upon a performance that is not that of an authentic self. Even though I've never had the kind of wealth or power these characters have, the way Jack described them is very understandable
didn’t realize you were here with us in CLE for so long! wonder if I ever ran into you! would love to hear thoughts on the region in a video sometime. I moved here around the same time from NYC and really love it.
Go to ground.news/jacksaint to escape the echo chamber. Sign up for free or subscribe through my link for 30% off unlimited access (please use the link to make my sponsors go 🙂)
no i am not removing the errors at 17:19 and 21:19 i already tried to render this a dozen times and actually its an aesthetic choice
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TBH I read the title of the video, this comment, then hit back and selected 'not interested in videos from this channel'
The one piece is real
@@timothybell5698 you seem to be giving a lot of engagement to a channel you are not interested in!
Are you going to duel anytime soon?
But I like the echo chamber. It cozy.
Hey Jack, audio engineer here. Some bookshelves in your office will help with the echo. Also some acoustic foam paneling placed almost at the ceiling along the walls will really cut down on those metallic resonances that can happen in rooms with a bunch of echo.
Lastly, a dynamic mic instead of a usb condenser will help a ton. An over sensitive mic in an echo-y room is always bad news. Try an SM7b or SM58.
Chasing no echo. Is that like chasing “the dream”?
@@AtheistEveno echo can be achieved.
@@flytrapYTP but not in a room like that. ever. why would you write things you dont fully understand? leading this poor guy down a senseless path. you know, im going to take this occasion to mention that no amount of home studio education will ever fill in the blanks that 6 years of physics fill. you guys need to back up with your youtube fun facts.
@@AtheistEve or creating the nightmare.
@@flytrapYTPimma work that line into the title of my first book, or the title of my first psychedelic fuck rock fusion album. "No echo can be achieved"
I like it.
Maybe the title of my next poem....idk.
But imma use it
Growing up in Jamaica blackness wasn't a distinguisher. I became 'black' in a political way when I moved to UK for 5 yrs at 26 yrs old for school.
Why did you move here? Why didn't you stay in Jamaica. The majority of the country don't want you here and all your family, links, history, culture is in Jamaica. Why would you leave?
I've never thought racial politics was really a thing in the UK tbh
@@lukeet331It very much is but the narrative and dynamics are much different from the US.
@@mxmagpie7037 I'm from England but now live in Malta, could you explain the differences I'm interested?
@@lukeet331 it's your social responsibility to educate yourself especially when explaining may require someone to be vulnerable about experiences for the benefit of your learning. You don't have the right to understand everyone's life experiences, it is already a labour to share some of it in the first place - however many many creators on the internet talk extensively about racial discrimination in the uk and how it works. My advice is just listen to black people, brown people, any people with a story not promoted in mainstream media ❤
Can’t explain the laugh that came outta me when the “I also love Atlanta” had the same energy of “I have a black friend”
Yeah it was the delivery for me
So wait, the Sopranos wasn't just about funny italian american men eating gabagool?
All gaba and no gool
Gabagool?
Ovah heeeerrree
... and hanging out / letting it all hang out with their goomahs.
@@tomisaacson2762the way this comment said “translate to English” underneath just about killed me lmao
It is. Always has been.
Can't believe he's British... screaming, crying throwing up, etc
Bri*sh
@@angelikaskoroszyn8495the B word with a hard T
Bri'ish
@@sherman8907 Jack Saints doesn't have an accent that sounds like that, that's like one tiny bit of London that has that accent
@@Alex-cw3rz Yes, but, counterpoint:
It's funny.
this is clearly just a cope for Jack not having the makings of a varsity athlete
Varsity footballer.
@@pikachuuprising637
*Uni soccerer
Poor man wants to be rich, rich man wants to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.
Even then he never will ever be satisfied, much to the dismay of the people he oppresses
Badlands! I discovered that song recently and I love it everytime I hear it.
Trapped in these bubbles they wanted to be part of?
Reminds me of Serena Joy from the Handmaid's Tale; Serena Joy was a conservative, anti-feminist and anti-liberal activist who helped created the theocratic dystopia she dreamed of, only for all power and recognition taken away from her, including the power to read and write. She has become a prisoner of her own ideal 'Utopia'. And worst of all, she refuses to accept that she did wrong. She would rather wallow in her misery and find company to be miserable with, so long as she's the top dog in this prison she created.
Thank goodness there aren’t *real* women supporting conservative movements that are openly opposed to women’s rights and autonomy! /s
To be fair, I would say that Don Draper is much less of a Serena than the other characters mentioned in the video. Don’s situation is, at its core, more about a fight or flight response to the trauma of his early life. I’m not sure Don is trapped in a bubble he wanted to be a part of so much as he’s trapped into the most advantageous bubble he could escape to. Your point stands tho, very well said!
Serena Joy was based directly on a real person: Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-ERA, anti-feminist, anti-choice activist who was significantly responsible for raising the visibility and influence of the religious right, particularly around the issues of abortion and women’s rights, and was very instrumental in getting Reagan elected. Like Serena Joy, once the right wing men had solidified their power, they discarded her.
The "House Negro" Syndrome.
Man, that book was the biggest pieces of shite I have ever read.
I think with Tony a lot of it comes down to the feelings of power and entitlement, unsurprisingly. He doesn't actually want to hang out with the country club guys that much and doesn't really enjoy it, he just wants to know that he could if he wanted. It seems to be his driving force for a lot of things, he's very uninterested with actually doing anything but loves the idea that he could do anything. Take the cinema they have installed, and the pool, he barely uses them because it's just to reassure him that he could if he wanted. He is obscenely rich, the only things that it brings him a thrill to get are ones that can't be easily bought. Being excluded from the club is upsetting to him, because it's a realisation that money can't buy everything he wants, and there are some things that will always be off limits to him. The same is true of Melfi refusing to sleep with him. The thing you want but can't have is the one that sticks in your mind.
This goes for a lot of characters mentioned in the video. Don starts his own ad firm, gets the younger wife, the penthouse apartment and he still becomes a miserable alcoholic who drives everyone away, because he's literally living someone else's life. Working at Waystar causes Kendall to compromise all of his beliefs, abandon his family, and makes him suicidal.
I don’t think it’s cope over stereotypical taste. A lot of people will see these shows as unambiguously good endorsement of the pursuit of status. They won’t see the shows as deconstructions. I mean come on the men are miserable most of the time.
Basically “I think the show is good but I’m not affiliated with that guy who also likes it. He doesn’t understand Fight Club.”
@Antonio-GransciWhat an insane amount of copium lmao
You don’t speak for anyone but yourself. Your anecdotal evidence is worthless.
@Antonio-Gransci I think you are right that the "literally me" thing started as a meme but trust me, I've been recommended shorts glorifying these characters by the algorithm and none of the top comments have any kind of irony in them.
@Antonio-GransciOne of the guys from Cinema Therapy (a TH-cam channel) literally started a fight club in college right after the movie came out. In the TH-cam video where they dissected the movie, he talked about he and his buddies started it because they did not get what the movie was criticizing. They’re main takeaway when they first watched it was: fight club manly and cool. There are men out there who genuinely missed the point.
@Antonio-Gransciyou must you're coming off as a bit of a mong right? I dont understand why you're still going on do just you not notice when you start embarrassing yourself or something or do you actually think you can turn it around still?
I feel like a lot of the things you mentioned in this video could be applicable to American Psycho as well. Just this whole theme of constantly prioritizing this “in-group” over individual happiness, just for the sake of being allowed to tell others they’re not allowed in. (SPOILERS FOR AMERICAN PSYCHO) Patrick Bateman’s whole thing is he’s constantly treading on eggshells to be allowed to remain in his “in-group” and because of it, he’s so boring that even if he committed several murders and admitted to them nobody would care.
Just a thought’
Couldn't agree more! The card scene, though turned into a meme recently, really shows this aspect. Like, it's a bunch of guys trying to be better than the others by comparing some cards that look almost the same and that are all misspelled, it's very silly and funny but also very critical
@@tinyspongebob See this comment? *Taps comment* that's bone. Mm. Bone white.
@@tinyspongebobthey are all misspelled? Never noticed that. What do they all spell wrong?
@@sojalemmi1515 they are! It has "aquisitions" where it should be "acquisitions", and, as a matter of fact, all cards are basically identical with the same information, changing only the name for the characters and the fonts
@@tinyspongebob funny. It's like the power of conformity. Nobody has the courage to go against the group to correct the error, or possibly even notice it.
I also think sopranos handles race the best as a bipoc person as a black person. They’re ability to look wholesale racism in the face and say give it language like few shows will is really powerful. Especially compared to shows like breaking bad which is awful at race and portraying bipoc characters, mad men is fine, and successions is absent minded and aloof with it’s takes on racism. To me, Spoilers:
Tony’s, Carmela’s, and the rest of the gangs racism is not sugar coated. Tony and his wife hate that they’re daughter date a biracial black man it angers them and the show is not subtle like it should be.
I think it helps that David Chase, the creator and mastermind behind Sopranos, is speaking from his own experiences being raised by blatant racists. He's able to give it language because he's seen it out in the open. David Chase has said the Sopranos is at times an open diary about the people he comes from, warts and all.
The writers and creators of the others shows, I wouldn't be surprised if they've never really seen it like that and thus aren't able to give it the blatant language that it needs.
I can tell you as a white man, I've never seen it like in the Sopranos in real life. When I was growing up, race was just simply not mentioned or thought of. Ever.
That scene with the gun going off when those the gangsters were shot was over the top. I feel that the Wire and Snowfall show how bipoc characters in the street life are. Sopranos showed bipoc from their own perspective, with the black gangsters being shown as incompetent. They really put that on display! As a black person myself I'm just thinking "damn lol".
People obsess over race way too much these days. Attention is power, as long as people keep giving it such incredible attention, it will have incredible power.
@@sojalemmi1515 These days? More like forever.
We killed off the neanderthals my dude. Likely just because they were just a different race than us.
Human history is filled with many sins, racism most certainly included a big driver of a LOT of human conflict throughout history. This is merely a continuation.
One positive note, however, is that on a global scale, violence of all kinds and motivations has been on a slow, but steady decline since World War II.
You're not wrong about giving it attention gives it power, but it cannot be ignored either. Ignorance will only lead to more bolder forms of racism. Putting our head in the sand isn't going to solve anything.
@@sojalemmi1515 attention isn't power, control over attention is, there is just as much power, if not more, in getting people to ignore the things you want ignored
reminds me of the white voice scene in "Sorry to Bother You"
"it's not really a WHITE voice, it's what they wish they sounded like, its like what they think they're supposed to sound like" "sounding like you don't have a care, you got your bills paid, happy about you're future, you're ready to jump into YOUR FERRARI after you get off this call..."
even the characters in these shows, that are very privileged in some ways, are chasing that image. destroying parts of themselves in the process.
Also, the very best employees at the call center can earn the chance to become "power callers", but they can never become one of the managers. They're excluded from the (all white) club from day one and no amount of success or sucking up will ever actually change that. When Cash gets the chance to hang around the club, he's treated as a novelty to entertain them with his "differences", just like the disabled kid with Tony's friends and Tony with the country club guys.
Wait…. So am I understanding correctly…. “High Society” sucks for everyone? Obviously, it sucks to be excluded from it, which is most people. Then, if you have the misfortune of being accepted into “High Society”, you have to sacrifice your humanity for the club; This in turn propagates a “trolley problem” wherein current members require the future humanity sacrifices of future club members. Perhaps the worst fate is those who would never be admitted to this vile club, but sacrifice their humanity in an effort to belong nonetheless.
2 million years of evolution and that's the best we can do, climate change can't destroy us soon enough
Wtf is “high society”
I think that’s one way to look at it, but I think he’s specifically focused on not just “high society”, but the absolute top tier that is the straight white rich man with no type of disability and no type of deviance from the status quo. The point is that often times people (mainly straight white men) who are the absolute epitome of privilege and wealth remain dissatisfied and discontent if they sense that they have not reached that absolute top tier of society-and in their pursuit of top privilege, in their little bubble, they feel as if they are the ones who are being discriminated against, they are the victims and the ones who are oppressed-not because they actually are oppressed, but bc when you are blinded by that much privilege and that much status, not being at the absolute top FEELS like oppression and prejudice, when in reality it is anything but. And what’s sad is that this same standard that these men chase, this system that they uphold in hopes that they will reap the rewards at the top….it’s a system that enforces a strict code of masculinity, a code that rebukes any sign of weakness or femininity, a life that tells these men to push down their struggles with mental health etc…and in the end, they will still be miserable, except it’s because of an environment of their own making. Every one else (minorities, women, the poor, the lgbqt) don’t have the privilege to be responsible for their own oppression, that lucky title belongs only to white men, who continue to uphold a society that isn’t healthy for any one. This is why we see so many white straight men have such a strong response when they hear that they are privileged. Because in their bubble where they have not had to deal with real oppression, their feelings of insecurity or frustration at not being at the top, feels just as much like oppression as any minority, women, etc… who have faced REAL stigma.
One day I woke up and realized that I am white. It was a strange feeling. But because I'm also a Slav I feel like my whiteness is a sham. It's more of Wish grade of whiteness. Comes with privilages but you just know it's cheaper and likely to break
I think slavs (especially in a European context) are a very good example of whiteness being about a position within society that's based on a number of things and not just your literal skin colour.
@FuzzyKittenBoots
In Europe we've been fighting each other for too long to believe in "white brotherhood". The thing is that we humans love to excuse our horrible behaviours. So in the past it was ok to kill and or enslave other people because they were pagans, not the right kind of Christian, not European, not the right ethnicity...
There's a reason why to this day the question where Europe ends is highly political. Europe = civilization for as long as the concept of Europe has existed
With the development of "race science" Europeans found "rational" explanation for their bigotry. N@zis didn't see Slavs as a part of the same race as Germans the same way we now see black people as seperate. It wasn't just a made up idea - it's been built on long history of exploitation. Slavs were a nice source of slaves in Middle Ages. When Poland got particioned Germans came to understand Poles as subjects who needed to be controled and culturally asimilated. Germanisation was an official policy of German state
The same arguments used for the supposed inferiority of black people could (and were) be used against Slavs (apparently white people)
Tl;dr
Whiteness is so fragile. Ridding on the waves of white privilage can be a tricky game because you never know if you're interacting with a casual racist or a competetive racist. "Oh you're white? I'm Anglosaxon white, you're nothing to me"
I'm an American who grew up in England, inasmuch as this might sound impossible, I know exactly what you mean. Despite being raised on English values, in English School, the fact that I spent 3 of my 32 years of life in the United States is enough to make the local populace see me as a "lesser" white person. I have been the butt of jokes, then forgiven for being an American.
People comment on my accent, ask when I'm going back home, or how long I'm visiting for when ironically I live within my true ancestral homeland. I will never be seen as an equal, nor feel welcome here.
@IlIBonesIlI
People will always find a way to make themselves feel superior by putting down others. It's so petty and stupid. Those people are bullies so it doesn't matter what you do they'll always find some kind of flaw in you
At school they would make fun of you because you either never smoked or because you did it once. Your "sin" doesn't really matter. They just marked you as an outsider
Embrace your partial American identity. Make it into your strenght. Ask the people around you when they're going to do circumcision to their toddlers or some crazy stuff like this. Honestly finding new friends might be the best option
I can't really recall a moment in history where being born Slavic was a privilage. Perhaps you can provide context?
as a woman i relate to don and kendall mostly based on them having had shit childhoods and the issues that come with it. i’m also white-skinned even though i’m mixed so i guess that makes their experiences, or lack thereof, more relatable to me as well
I'm not white but I also relate to Kendall the most. In a show where almost every character is an asshole that gets on my nerves, his failures, mental challenges and vulnerability resonate the most with me
there is a video by emplemon on the same topic; its called "American Psychos".
i thought i had a deja vu watching the first 2 minutes until i figured out i hadnt ^^
Gonna watch that next. Thanks!
I had the opposite school experience to you, I moved from London to Essex as a teen and went from having multiple classmates with parents from "brown countries" (South Asia, Africa, Caribbean etc) to sometimes being the only non-white kid in class. I had always considered myself mixed-race, but I found that the majority of people in my new school would call me black. It didn't bother me, but you could tell it really caught some people off guard when they saw me with my blonde, blue-eyed mum. I'd say "duh? I am black, I'm just white too!" but I don't think people got it, the concept of the brown kid being white is apparently a lot harder to get over than the brown kid being black lmao
When in the finale Kendall talks about how he is a cog designed for this one machine and if he can't be in that machine he doesn't know what else he could even be, I fucking FELT that. I was laid off from my teaching job recently and I felt so trapped, because teaching is the only thing I know how to do. I am a cog only designed for one machine.
Just did a rewatch of The Sopranos. So dang good I got through it in an unhealthy amount of time.
5:26 I do find that interesting I'm from the North West of England and went to school that was 50% white, 50% asian (asian in UK meaning India and Pakistan) and I also never thought about my race as well people of other races were my friends we had the same interests, etc. So there was never really a distinction apart from religion being Muslim. So I never felt confront by it. It does sort of show how racism is taught, as neither of us ever thought deeply about our whiteness until we were older, but were in opposite situations.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio (nearly the same as Cleveland in most ways) in one of the only neighborhoods with mixed income levels and a fairly even mix of black and white folks and I had a similar realization as you recently. My perspective and prejudice is based strongly on involvement rather than lack of. Which means I’ve further realized (usually white) people in the US seem to expect that I grew up in a white neighborhood and never talked to or hung out with a black person or something. They have a hard time understanding what my childhood was like. It’s pretty f’ed up
The elusive fractal of privilege. There will always be someone above you.
This reminded me of that controversial paper on professionalism as white supremacy, especially the part where Don has to strip away the parts of himself that make him...him. I think this also applies to tech bros who want to "biohack" and make themselves autonomous systems. They're so willing to become robots for the American Dream.
and this is what Spock and data from star trek are, just in a more fantastic idealized form. And less...villainous, dominant, etc.
I'm a black man and when you were talking about having stereotypical taste and then just came out and said you loved Atlanta took me out. Great formatting and very captivating keep up that good work.
Tony is a metaphor for the USA itself.
"You ever feel like you got in at the end of something?"
The end of white dominance in USA, for better or worse is the question.
Woow. You ever have like a non post nut clarity, clarity. Like a brain fart that gives revelation.
Literally me when I read that. It clicked and is a perfect parallel honestly. I always saw the sopranos as a metaphor for the end of America. But Tony himself is a very good depiction of its assumed glory and hidden evil.
Screams in terror of seeing a British flag*
This is a very interesting take. I’m Greek-American, and growing up, every adult migrant Greek person I knew loved the Sopranos. I’m realizing it now that it’s because they resonated with Tony’s feeling of exclusion. Even being fourth generation but raised in the Greek community, I don’t feel like I can say at all that I feel like I was raised like a White American, but I recognize very strongly how many Greeks across the board benefit from white privilege, especially if they are white passing- this experience actually ranges drastically depending on how dark a Greek person’s skin is, as many get profiled as middle eastern.
Thing is, many Greeks are not fully integrated in America, even though a lot of us are able to reap the benefits of white privilege. However, there is definitely this pressure to let go of our heritage, and so a lot of the community tends to stay very insular. I didn’t even realize how insular it was until I grew up, having grown up in the Greek community and among migrants, and realizing that there are two factions to American Greeks: those who are atheist/non-religious and largely have let go of their Greek heritage, and those who tied into the Greek community which largely revolves around the Orthodox Church. There are not many other spaces for Greeks to continue associating with Greeks in American society otherwise, because our religion is so tied to our culture.
And yet, among the religious, there is this urgency to drive exotic cars and attain wealth. I’m religiously related to a man who owns a city.
The language is lost anywhere between the 2nd and 4th generations. The only places to receive Greek language lessons are through the church. In many ways, the pressure to assimilate is there, it’s just a lot slower if you’re tied to the church. Either you keep your culture and stay religious, or you leave it behind and assimilate. There is an angst. I don’t know how to conclude this, just wanted to share how this relates to my cultural experience and observations I’ve made of Greek migrants as it applies to assimilation and relationship to whiteness.
This was a very interesting comment and I enjoyed reading it. It’s kind of sad that people who aren’t religious are losing their culture and have less of a connection to other Greek Americans, as not everyone is religious but everyone should be able to participate in their heritage. I am curious how this person you mentioned owns a city? Does he own all of the real estate there or the land or something? This is a new concept to me. Thank you for such an interesting look into your experiences 😊
I think most of what you said applies to the Armenian American communities in the US as well. Most of my family immigrated in the 80s and 90s, and they loved the Sopranos. Our community has gotten a lot bigger since, but I can imagine at the time they immigrated here how ostracized they must've felt.
Applies to all non-WASPs I feel
Mad Men is my favorite show in the world, but I feel like I don’t see a lot of these kinds of videos about it. I understand why tho, but love seeing this kind of analysis for my favorite series. Thanks Jack!
“Its just about sad rich dudes.”
**consumes media heavily inspired by BRIAN DE PALMA’S SCARFACE**
As a Clevelander, I remember seeing you at the July 2020 BLM protest but it didn't feel like the right moment to say hi. Best wishes in the U.K.! I used to live near Buckeye so it's wild to see it in one of your videos.
I was working on a breaking bad puzzle when I got your notification and hearing you mention it made me feel so seen, thank you Jacholas Saintreo
8:53 "He must eliminate the things that make him strange, the things that make him different, so that he can be a part of this group that exists only to exclude those who are different"
The assimilation machine in a nutshell. It can be hard to talk about with nuance, since obviously Don Draper * can * efface himself to a point that he is accepted by his white peers, as could Tony Soprano, by virtue of the color of his skin, and Black and Brown people (mostly) do not even have that option. Sometimes talking about how Whiteness affects White people can feel a little bit like missing the entire point, a sort of "wah, racism hurts white people too" whine -- and yet it's becoming increasingly accepted (even encouraged) to talk about how toxic masculinity hurts men, and I think a full understanding of racism really does need to incorporate an understanding of the way white people are corralled into our place in the hierarchy even against our will, and how destructive that can be to the human spirit, while acknowledging that it is in no way comparable to the suffering of nonwhite people under racism.
Also, the way you talk about not even noticing your own whiteness at 5:25 -- I don't think that's isolated to you, your town, or white towns generally. I remember my own early experiences with race as a white person in the '90s and '00s, and there was always a sense that race was something that happened to other people. I think it's something like the academic concept of the cishet white male default -- While I would think of a Black person as Black, I would think of White people as just people. I think I remember reading someone somewhere saying something along the lines of "white people have to first confront the Black man before they can know the man," and that really rings true for my psychology then, and I genuinely think there has been something of a "great awokening" where, across the past decade, white people have shifted more and more towards thinking about themselves as white. With understandings of white privilege (and resurgent reactionary white identiry), whiteness has started to transform from this empty category of exclusion, this invisible thing, into a real identity that white people in the anglosphere regularly grapple with (for better and for worse).
Basically, I think white masculinity studies which go beyond the toxic attitudes and behaviors we've been illuminating across the past decade are ripe to be undertaken. How do white men understand ourselves, how we've been welcomed or molded into our place in respectable, patriarchal, racist society? And how do we build out from here? What does good allyship mean, beyond elevating nonwhite and other marginalized voices? Most controversially of all: How do we progress "whiteness?" Or is such a thing even possible (or desirable)?
I don't know about this (I'm a woman of color). I think it probably is a good thing to point out that the status that white men cling to so hard actually make them miserable. Why hang on to a power and status that ... well ... sucks. It might help white men to let go of this thing they are fighting so hard to keep.
I've long been thinking something about privilege coming at a high price for the privileged, that it does something ugly to the soul, and this isn't a function of whether they value that status or are moral people or other things. It is inherently corrupting but for some reason we should never point that out. But that's part of the corruption, that gaslight. You have everything, shut up, don't question that (because you might want to take the whole structure down and once the powerful start defecting the system is really done?)(huh)
@Antonio-Gransci You’re bonkers. I said nothing of the kind and you have no idea what my politics are. I bet you are just projecting your own views onto me.
@@angeliprimlani9389 I'm not really sure how that's possible to be honest. A white guy cannot just wake up one day and simply decide to stop being a white man any more than you can choose to stop being a woman of color. Not as long as society continues to perceive him as one and treat him as much. And to be quite honest, there are plenty of white men who aren't that particularly privileged anyway, and for a plethora of reasons, such as poverty and disability. What "status" in this particular context do they really have that they can relinquish? We see white men as the avatars of privilege and thus, anything said about them goes because they have all the power. But I don't think someone who's out of a job, incarcerated, severely disabled, addicted with little to no support network, generally poor, etc, necessarily needs to hear this sort of thing. It would certainly be condescending and offensive towards anyone else, no?
And fr, there are frankly a lot of people whose politics are as simple as "white people bad" and don't really care to see them as anything more than demonic oppressors. Certainly, there are people who do not even perceive white workers as being an entity worth organizing at all, as they feel their whiteness ultimately aligns them more with the actual ruling classes of the country rather than the of-color working class and thus, revolution and social change is not for them and is actually materially against them. You see this point of view expressed most prominently in "Settlers", by J.Sakai. If you were a white guy and took this to heart, what more could you really do except to double down on it?
Jack. Im trying to quit smoking. For crying out loud
It's astounding just how much smoking there is in these shows! You can quit, though, I'm sure! It's a great thing you're doing
“well i also love Atlanta”
was perfect lol great video
Succession isn't really about maintaining status (no one in the show is in danger of losing their wealth), it's about the cycle of abuse and dysfunctional family relationships. Kendall's and his siblings' obsession with becoming CEO of Waystar Royco (a failing media conglomeat marred with debt and scandals and with a TV station infamous for political views Shiv and Kendall have both shown distaste for in the past) doesn't really seem like such a huge prize, but for them it's a substitute for validation they never got from their father (or mother, since she was not even present) and for a sense of identity and self-worth.
This is the reason why we can relate to and sympathize with them - they may be fully grown adults but their story is that of abused children who are continuing to retraumatize each other and themselves and cannot escape the vicious cycle.
Another thing: you are selling those shows short by not mentioning the amazing female characters who are front and center - the last season of Succession was as much Shiv's story as Kendall's (and Roman's too), THe Sopranos had a number of interesting but very different characters like Carmela, Melfi, Adriana, Janice...
But there are also 'prestige TV' dramas with only women as leads (such as undrerated Damages) or a male/female duo such as The Americans (certainly a candidate for the best show ever) or the main cast is half male half female (incredibly underexposed Halt and Catch Fire, which really should have gotten so much more attention).
Female characters in these shows are great anti-heroes that are as complex and flawed as the male characters.
Your first two paragraphs describe whiteness in a nutshell. It's an exclusive club, that abuses even it's own members. However, the perks seemingly outweigh the harm. And thus a vicious cycle, which is beautifully portrayed from different angles through the three shows analyzed in the video, continues.
If only the members of said club, male and female, would take the advice you give in your comment. The world would be a much, much better place.
Correction, @robertfreitage687 (a few comments above you) gave the advice I was referring to. They wrote: "Neither of these guys [Tony and Don] has enough courage to just abandon these stupid ideals and to form goals of their own, goals that aren't measured by the approval of their peers."
@@krsouff
Wow you're racist. How is whiteness any more an 'exclusive club' than any other race? How does the mere act of being white hurt anyone?
The Sopranos hit too close to home because once you remove all the Mafia aspects of the show. It's about a downward spiral of a dyfunctional family and how the toxic behaviors of untreated childhood trauma create an all consuming black hole. The family of the Sopranos was pretty similar to mine especially since I'm a first generation polish american born and raised in NYC so I grew up in that middle class immigrant world. The show as fucked as it may sound was relatable. Especially the blatant racism. Every immigrant family will have that one deep rooted racist and anti-semite and unfortunately for me it was my entire family.
Zizek is the go-to guy on this topic. So much of his work is about the psychological barriers we erect to protect ourselves from over-identification with some kind of ego formation.
I've thought quite a bit about the specific problems we vanilla white men have, too. We're in the strange position of having no credible excuse for our failure to be happy. Allegedly, all the cards are stacked in our favor. Class doesn't matter because we're not allowed to admit it exists. That's not factual, but it's phenomenologically true in the sense that it falls outside of the parameters of our meritocratic self image.
Tony Soprano is a jackass. He's not a member of some kind of Italian immigrant underclass. He's just a buffoon who talks with an affected accent. He was educated in a normal American school with kids from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. He just needs to make believe he's a victim in order to justify his criminal lifestyle.
Don Draper is too supernaturally gifted with personal charm for his actual class background to have an appreciable effect on his progress up the ladder. In his position, I could see survivor's guilt being a real problem for anyone who isn't an outright sociopath. But he kind of is a sociopath. Or close enough to one to keep him in constant danger of a disastrous over-identification with this ideal of untrammeled upward mobility. All he really has are his phony "artistic" pretensions to creativity in his profession to separate him from the other plastic drones that inhabit his social circles.
Neither of these guys has enough courage to just abandon these stupid ideals and to form goals of their own, goals that aren't measured by the approval of their peers.
I'm confused. Is the takeaway for me to emphasize with these filthy rich, self-absorbed, woe-is-me, people? Because I don't, and I see zero point in doing so. Of the three shows mentioned here, I've watched The Sopranos, and I enjoy it not because i 'feel' for Tony or any of his mob friends and family, but because their idiotic shenanigans that ultimately bring themselves harm, is amusing to me.
Same reason I prefer Barry over any of these 'manly man' shows.
Your great Jack, amazing content and you are very entertaining
Working in an attic in Summer. Sounds cool. Or like the exact opposite.
Knowing how poorly insulated most British homes are, it's most likely the opposite, I.e. hell.
I love your videos Jack, you are an amazing creator and (it seems like) a person. Read your tweet about being sad recently, I hope it gets better!
masculinity is a prison and I'm proud of you for addressing the topic without making a single Foucault joke.
It has little to nothing to do with race and everything to do with class. There are many non white people who live with these issues and countless white people who don’t.
16:20 it sucks that the rest of us live and or die based on rich people's egos.
I'm a dirty american with a british partner who also would like to move back to the UK but money and the insane difficulty of it has put us off of it, would love to know how you went about it at all to do the same maybe!
Money and insane difficulty, mostly!
(Serious answer: we spent considerable savings on a spouse visa and I as the British sponsor just barely made the income requirement, currently we're living at my mums place)
I know it wouldn't be popular or algorerythym worthy but i would actually LOVE a full length opinion piece on Zizek.
I have my problems with him too, but his books are the only pieces of literature i've ever had to put down out of sheer wtf astonishment. The Parallax View changed how I interact with others permanently. Guy is definitely problematic but I am glad he exists.
I literally just got back into watching the Sopranos. What a masterpiece
i started watching it this week. i’m already writing a fan fiction about it hahah this video is a cool coincidence
After the episode of Succession where they gang goes to Norway came out, this is some of what I had to say about it - "To me (one of) the most upsetting thing(s) about succession is that these people are constantly going to the most amazing luxurious places in the world and they show absolutely no regard for any of it. Obviously it’s largely in part because they have nothing to compare their lifestyles to because they’re constantly in expensive places, but it’s also because there’s this unspoken rule that like, if they remark that the hotel suite is nice, they’ll be made fun of for obviously never having been to the vastly superior X Hotel in Luxembourg, and THAT’S the only actually nice hotel in the world, everything else is just meh in comparison. And this episode took it a step further being set in Norway - if one of them sees a spectacularly dramatic mountain and shows An Emotion, they will lose street cred over it for being vulnerable." I think this ties into the idea that Kendall is constantly reaching for something he can't grasp. He's not ALLOWED to be happy where he is because liking the things he has/gets to do/is as a person is like. Settling. Because in this alternate reality that billionaires live in, there is always something better, but you can't be content with the better thing because when something better than that comes along, you'll look like an idiot for having liked something not as good.
dislike for mentioning norway
For real though Jack, you gotta make a part 2 featuring more heavily on Better Call Saul as it makes for a much more contextual and overt link to your conclusions and beyond
This is a good insight, but I can't help feeling these shows are also, at some level, fantasies of power. In other words, "smash the patriarchy" is NEVER the message of these shows. But if they uncover the existential horror of the straight white man, you'd expect them to say, maybe we shouldn't live this way. But I think they're doing the opposite. They're saying, look at what this power does to us BUT ALSO this power is just who we are meant to be. They function as a paradoxical apologetic for that power. Which is very fucking weird.
I agree and disagree.
On the one hand, I fundamentally agree that these shows do not have progressive messages and are interacted with by audiences primarily by sympathizing with (and fantasizing about) powerful white men, and that's what makes them problematic.
But I can't get behind the idea of art having a single "message." If a book or film is didactic enough that you walk away feeling like you were receiving moral instruction... it just isn't very exciting art to me (see: Don't Look Up, a movie whose message I can sympathize with but comes off as a lazy way to pat yourself on the back for believing in climate change). There's lot of ways to understand the Sopranos. There's even lots of ways to think about Joker! They offer windows into white masculinity that, honestly, fundamentally ring true for me, and that makes them interesting to me, even while I understand a lot of people might find them distasteful, unethical, even grotesque.
I see the way society interacts with these works, and the way some shows are elevated and some are sidelined, and some languish in obscurity, and some never get made at all, to be important but fundamentally separate questions. You're right -- the Sopranos was as popular as it was, imo, primarily because white men liked to fantasize and identify with its grossest elements, and follow along the perverse thrill of every gutwrenching act of brutality. That's why the show got made, that's why it was as popular as it was, and that's a problem, as are the plenty of other problematic elements of the show that could be subject to critique (its representation of female characters, its lionization of gangsterism, etc.). But it is still an interesting lens to look at whiteness and white masculinity through.
the sopranos does have progressive messaging wtf
@@sammosaurusrex I agree with all of this. I didn't mean to suggest that these shows are only, or even primarily, power fantasies. And I'm not saying the shows have, or should have, any kind of didactic point to make. What I'm thinking isn't easy to express, and it isn't simple. I'm trying to articulate something about these shows that's inherently paradoxical. So I'm not talking primarily about people who watch the shows just for the thrill of seeing a powerful guy do his thing, though that is related to my point. I'm talking about how the shows are presented and received by people who are aware of the negative messaging, i.e., the critiques of masculinity, capitalism, etc., that these shows have.
When a normal person -- especially a straight white man, though really most others too -- watches a show like this, they get to feel good about seeing the flaws of the powerful, and they also get some of the thrill of being powerful. I just finished rewatching Breaking Bad, and it's a lot of fun watching Walter White be a scientific genius and get himself out of one crisis after another with grit and smarts. And it's also fun to watch him transform himself into a monster. So as I watch, I get to feel that I'm better than Walter White, because I'm not a monster. But as I'm caught up in this dynamic, there's one thing the show is never giving me: a critique of how power works, something that ever suggests in even the subtlest way that the world might not be a place where the most powerful and the most violent always wins. The message is that, even if it means your own death, and total disgrace, you have only one choice in life: strive to become the top dog, or be the disposable, mockable nebbish, like Walter White is at the beginning of Breaking Bad.
That kind of ethos, which I think most people take for granted, leads to the kind of politics we have in our world today. And it's simply because no one knows how to imagine anything different.
And by the way, I'm not attacking any of these shows. I've seen them all, except for Mad Men. I think they're great. But I don't think their implied politics is great.
@@harrybirchall3308 I agree, but your comment reminds me of something I forgot until just this moment: there's a scene where Carmela talks to an old rabbi, and he gives it to her straight. I haven't seen The Sopranos in many years, so I don't remember the details. But I remember I loved that scene, and I was disappointed it didn't become a bigger part of the story. The rabbi cuts straight through the bullshit with no compromise, and present moral truth in an unavoidable way. And of course Carmela is not interested in that. So at least for that scene, I think I'm wrong about this show. There could be other places in the show where that happens, but that's the one I remember.
Edit: maybe Carmel was speaking to a therapist? I'm not sure now.
@Antonio-Gransci are monstrous qualities actually monstrous if they aren’t manifested due to free will?
I really like this video, I think it's one of your better ones in a while. I don't really have anything insightful to contribute, just - your thoughts are well put together and your insights are very interesting to listen to.
the existential horror of touching grass
I relate a lot to jimmy McGill so seeing he never change in a good way is heartbreaking.
Bro just become a sopranos channel. The people want it. Just remember to kick up to borko.
Watching this video helped me guess a quiz night question right. Thanks Jack 👍
It feels like a lot of this stems from the idea that when you're a white man who's been promised the world, but you lack something like ethnicity or class or mental stability, you don't get it. And this makes you go insane. It's a dissonance, it's a failure of what you expect from life. I never expected a happy relationship and a nice home and two good kids, i have expected fear and respect from the world. I wanted everything. But for most of us part of growing up from teen years is realizing that this is improbable, often literally impossible, and not even that desirable. This is not a goal you should strive for.
Like as a pretty "bonkers" guy, ie mentally ill, "weird" and so on, the fantasy was that power will basically offset that and force people to respect me. But besides it becoming apparent that i wasn't born into the right geographical area and the right family for it, i have also noticed that you can't quite do this. Like it's literally impossible. People who dislike me for my odd mannerisms will always be unnecessarily mean. If i were in power, they'd just have an even bigger reason and a pretty good excuse to be even meaner. Even if you drown out these voices whether through force of state censorship or simply by surrounding yourself with terrified underlings who constantly reaffirm you, you cannot really force respect, and people will just dislike you for no reason, no matter your status. But beyond that, wealth and power are vacuous. They are a short term high that turns into something akin to a nicotine addiction. You just get used to it and it all becomes the same old boring thing. It's just not a good goal to have as a person.
A much better goal in terms of power is genuinely changing the world. Don't seek out power for the sake of it, seek it out because you want change. People actually WILL respect public figures who stand by their principles and truly believe in things especially if those things are objectively good for the majority of people. Also, this doesn't need to be tied to you personally. Change the world for the better in general, support good causes, give money to the homeless guy, advocate for good things, be a good person, use your social political and economic dominance instead of power chasing to actually change things for the better for disempowered people. As for pleasure, again power is a drug, seek out love instead. Love romantically, love friends, love family, love your community, etc. It's a lifelong high and you never get fed up with it.
"well I also love Atlanta so..."
=
"By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could."
This is brilliant. I love that you made this video. I am writing a paper about something related to this and you are giving me inspiration. I will be citing you in the sources. Thank you
the opening sent me, im definetly using this for my class this summer
truly a testament to the times
Great video! If you're going to continue this theme, you gotta bring Barry into the discussion 😁
I don't watch tv that much. I've never seen any of these shows. Still really glad i watched this!
He watches these things so you don’t have to.
just here to say that this one is a banger as usual! full support for our boy Jack Saint (now back on the Isles)
I feel the same about Sal from Mad Men- I was surprised and disappointed when he left so early in the show, and then increasingly incredulous when he just...never turned up again. Every other character just kept on popping back out of the woodwork sporadically, and he was the only one who stayed gone. It was a real shame.
whoa, the one black guy in my senior high school graduating class was also named Dave
17:55 "Mom! You're embarrassing me in front of my fans!"
- Jack Saint. Probably.
😜😘
These characters are interesting because we take pleasure in seeing their flaws because they have what we don't have or want. However, people don't relate to them because they are the exact same. I know in my life, I relate to these people because the world we are born into, no MATTER our status, we learn the hard way that all we are good for is our status, and that we never will have. I've spent most of my life being the typical left wing "status doesn't matter, kumbaya" type of person. However life does CONSTANTLY throw the fact that you don't matter, that you're never enough, and you must provide to be useful. And that this doesn't GO AWAY if you hang out in left wing spaces. it's almost worse in leftist spaces at times. Regardless, it's universal.
I think part of why we also have movies like joker which show a nobody being crushed by the system and snapping and why those are lumped in with the "literally me" archetype that fits these big production shows is because of that universality. It does not matter whether you are dirt poor, or an ultra rich corporate best boy, we all have to slave away into this society that actively harms us.
we are trapped, and these shows tell those stories.
Here's hoping climate change puts us out of our misery soon
“WE take pleasure…”
No, WE do not. Speak for yourself
@@franjkav I explicitly did, and if you have shit with me saying "we take pleasure" you should give jack shit for doing the exact same thing because he actually said the same thing.
This but with the first seasons of Breaking Bad.
@@jeffreychandler8418 People see "we" and think you're literally saying everyone lol. I appreciate your analysis though
feels really weird seeing the br**ish national anthem listed in the description as “god save the king.” you get used to one thing and suddenly it changes and you’re like •_•
@Antonio-Gransci i guess god couldn’t save the queen, rip bozo
Should be "queen" all the time. It's a generic term and male queens are included.*
* this comment is funnier when you're German
While i think it is nice that these shows are good at describing a problem, i think a better show would also be able to describe some solutions. A better show would be able to take us out of the head of the protagonist and show us a world of consequence and importance beyond the bubble in which we trap ourselves. Until then, i feel like they are just feeding into our adoration of that bubble, both its lavishness and luxury, and its compelling pathos which can distract us from the unpleasant and difficult work of actually making the world a better place.
"Very excited for my British arc" is a combination of words that no person should ever be forced to utter...
I only just found out you were in Cle!? So many artists and poets here, hope you got to be in the scene!
I wonder if the spiders are also enjoying his attic video
They are happy that finally something interesting happens. They are now gathering every time he films and they bring popcorn.
This video reminds of an idea I've had of there being a male targeting male gaze. Which I define as: The perpetuation, internalization, or awareness of male conceptions and understanding of masculinity, manhood, manliness, male gender norms/practices, male beauty standards, and other aspects of maleness.
Patriarchy
@@krsouff I had not thought about how that would affect my theory. The patriarchy (or male dominance in general) would certainly be an influential aspect of a male targeting male gaze. The alpha male and incel communities believe that dominance is an inherent aspect of maleness and women are regarded as the fairer sex.
I'm a recent subscriber and the whole time I was watching a few videos I kept thinking, "This guy looks SO familiar but I've never seen his content before." Then you mention Cleveland and it clicks! Chances are high I've seen you in passing lmao. Hope the move goes well!
This is great stuff
This view if the shows really helps me understand part of the appeal, as someone who hasn't seen any of them. I am learning to always strive to become a better version of myself, but not necessarily become high-achieving. I have a chronic illness that severely limits my freedoms and access to things like education and a full-time job. But I grew up thinking I needed to be a great achiever to deserve love, so when my illness manifested it forced me to dismantle my sense of self and create a new model. It's hard, but it's one I can feasibly live by.
I haven't watched the video yet but I just wanna say that Kendall is veeeeeery relatable to women. I don't know why but he is giving so many oldest daughter vibes, I love him so much!! He is a pathetic loser and women deserve more pathetic losers to relate to.
I hope this point is brought up in the video somehow, if not that's ok. I just want people to know that the girlies adore Kendall. He will always be the number one boy!!
At first I thought you were talking about Kendall Jenner and I briefly lost faith in humanity
is that why i relate the most to kendall’s relationship with logan 👀
#1 baby girl
@@kshamwhizzle6544 me but with roman
Ew? Like yes I relate to him but he's also probably one of the worst people morally speaking on the show.
As a poor, disabled, leftist woman I cannot really relate to those struggles.
I'm sitting here like: "Dude, just get a garden. Grow some food, make some clothes, and hope that climate change doesn't kill you."
@@n.552 Forgive me when I have not much compassion for well-off guys who feel unfulfilled.
I think it's worth understanding because it's a great example of how the patriarchy fails everyone.
@@mxmagpie7037I personally do not need lavishly produced television shows to see that. And it honestly kind of worried me that simply being self aware, empathetic, and seeing the world around us well into our adulthood doesn't seem to be a worthwhile path to take to see these systems for what they are for a staggering amount of people. Maybe even for most people if I'm being particularly pessimistic.
I don't think I've ever quoted the bible on youtube before, but these types of tv shows, the privileged white men who feel sad/mad genre, makes me think of this line from the book of Habukuk:
Wealth is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied.
And the characters don't necessarily have to be money-rich to be like this, sometimes it's the wealth of power, the wealth of privilege, the wealth of getting what you want. But they are never satisfied with little things, with little lives. They're looking for these Western measures of success which can never actually be obtained. The attempt is never sated. As in Buddhism, 'the root of suffering is in attachment'. It's that desire for external validation, for material validation, for entry into some kind of pinnacle of social level that makes these men so unhappy. Although they usually blame the people around them, or bemoan their 'bad luck' for not being universally loved and admired.
I agree that these shows (like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos etc) are often REALLY great shows, well-written etc. But damn, I am EXHAUSTED by these stories and main characters, as I am exhausted by people like them in real life.
It blows my mind that Jack used to live in Cleveland! I would’ve never expected that
🎵Come on down to Cleveland town everyone
Come and look at both of our buildings 🎶
@@sammosaurusrex See our river that catches on fire
Theres something about the fact that so many queer people are so attached to succession and identify with the characters that feels like how straight white guys identify so much with movies like the matrix or american psycho.
"fucked up meow meow" kendall roy vs "literally me" patrick bateman.
So glad you made the TH-cam shorts video
the attic set up is perfect for the guerilla style recording and editing in your videos
I'm sure somebody has already said this, but the creater of Mad Men has described the premise of the show as being about "becoming white." Succession, while not specifically about race, is frequently very racial.
Considering the main (?) character fights to inherit a company that, as a Fox News expy, endangers the lives of his non-white wife and daughter and he thus has to actively ignore the consequences of fake news to attain his "birthright", and another character supports a racist politician in his rise to power and thus rationalizes the subsequent rash of hate-crimes he inspires, it's most definitely more than a figurative or accidental theme. Spot on.
I gotta be honest and admit literally every time Tony tells the story of Jimmy Smash I can’t help but laugh my ass off.
I don't like your politics, but this video was very helpful for me personally.
Thank you.
i can’t believe you were my neighbor for five years and i had no clue. terrifying really
your haircut looks so fire, lookin great!!
Congratulations on escaping ohio
MEDIA OFFLINE was my favourite part :)
This was incredibly astute in a manner I wasn't expecting! Thank you!
Lol i didnt see you in the thumbnail before but it see it now amd its so iconic
I feel like this commentary could work for Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders too!
Is the missing media a meme or an accident or copyright
Can't wait for Jack's video response to the videos responding to this video.
British? That's like some sort of German, right?
At least when it comes to their royal family, yes.
it’s dutch but on island time
We got 5 fucking Länder, and some fucking pygmy shit over the Nordsee
even tho it's old seeing people with the most access to power being the center of these narratives, at the same time, i think many working class people have to make the same sacrifices in order to survive within our culture. in that respect, i think the issues discussed in such shows can be relevant to more than just rich white dudes.
Yeah, I found a lot of the talk about hiding the things that make you strange and different in order to fit into a club that is meant to exclude to be quite applicable to my experience of autistic masking, and especially as a trans woman. A lot of people say that we have 'male privilege' as if we are men until we flick a switch, but that's not true. It's not like being seen and treated as boys and men doesn't mean there aren't privileges we get or problems we avoid, but within male spaces, anything not sufficiently 'masculine' and especially feminine is seen as strange and threatening and disgusting. That 'privilege' is not a gift, it's a prison, because it's conditional upon a performance that is not that of an authentic self. Even though I've never had the kind of wealth or power these characters have, the way Jack described them is very understandable
didn’t realize you were here with us in CLE for so long! wonder if I ever ran into you! would love to hear thoughts on the region in a video sometime. I moved here around the same time from NYC and really love it.
I worked at a Brentwood care home as my first job in 2020 and it radicalised me