The H&H Podcast

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Rob Henderson joined me on a livestream today to talk about The Penguin, the miniseries that ended last night. See here for our discussion of episodes 1-4, and point eight here on the racial demographics of crime in Gotham.

I talk about my theory of the general message of the miniseries, which is that leftist revolutionaries are truly evil people who manipulate resentments for their own gain. I also argue that the rivalry between Oz and Sofia is the 2016 Democratic primary all over again. On one side, you have an establishment figure who suffers due to sexism, and on the other a fat folksy guy who represents a multiracial class-based revolution. One claim to victimhood is treated as clearly more legitimate than the other.

There’s a strange glitch in the recording where when I listen to it with my AirPods it’s choppy, but mostly fine when I play through my MacBook speakers. I’m not sure how it sounds on other devices or whether this is even a problem for everyone. This is the hazard of doing this through livestream rather than a normal recording.

To get notifications for future livestreams, download the Substack app.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Last night I had an AMA with Rob Henderson. The way I’m going to do these from now on is that the livestream is open to everyone in the moment, but only paid subscribers can listen to the whole thing. To join us for future episodes, you need to have the Substack app downloaded on your phone or tablet. Announcements are on X and Notes, and you get a notification when it starts on the app. I don’t want to email everybody because I think it creates too much spam in people’s inboxes. I’m planning to have a discussion with Alex Nowrasteh this Friday at 5ET, so join us for that if you can.

Rob and I begin by discussing a recent video of Jordan Peterson that has been making the rounds. See my criticism here and Rob’s defense. We also field questions on the upcoming election, women in politics, how and why we block on X, the few smart conservative institutions that are out there, and more.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Rob Henderson joins me to talk about the first four episodes of The Penguin miniseries on HBO. We discuss how it reminds us of and pays homage to other shows. To me, it seemed like HBO was trying to recreate the magic of Tony Soprano and using the DC Comics universe as a hook. We go over the similarities and differences between the two characters, both manipulative fat guys who get offended when you question their sincerity.

Rob and I also discuss Sofia Falcone, and the feminist plotline throughout her story. Cristin Milioti looks perfect for the role and plays it extremely well. Our conversation also covers race and gender dynamics in the show. I call it very 1990s in its themes and how it addresses, or more commonly ignores, identity issues. Whites are the default, whether as criminals or those in positions of power and influence, stereotypes don’t exist, and blacks mostly serve as sidekicks.

Overall, we both rate The Penguin as watchable but nowhere near the Pantheon of the great antihero shows.

Note that the Substack app doesn’t show the option for seeing the transcript. However, it is available if you access this page through a browser.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Some months ago, I had a tweet that went viral on what it means for a woman to say “I’m not going to sleep with you.” I followed this up with an article about the video, and Rob later responded to both.

Rob and I decided we needed to talk about this. It turned out to be a fascinating discussion, and one that provides a great deal of useful advice to young men.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation is when we get into how the sexual marketplace is in a way the last vestige of our prehistoric world of scarcity. As an individual living in a first world country, you can usually work and acquire food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, and healthcare in straightforward ways. The one need you can’t fill just by paying for it, at least not easily and without legal risk, is sex. And, as I tell Rob, I think most frustration that we think of as sexual is actually a deeper frustration towards the feeling of being unwanted and rejected. This is why even the best sexbots are not going to make incels happy. Whether women will sleep with a man is the most honest form of feedback he’s going to get in life on his overall worth, and this is something we are deeply uncomfortable with. That is not to say that the sexual marketplace is in overall less brutal towards women. In many ways, they have it much worse, in part due to the always lurking threat of violence. It’s interesting that as soft as society has become and despite the degree to which things like paternalistic regulations and the welfare state try to smooth out the rough edges of life, the sexual marketplace remains the one important area where a kind of red in tooth and claw approach dominates.

I also enjoyed talking to Rob about the ways in which society does not give people a script anymore regarding how to form relationships, and why this makes doing so difficult. This can be seen in a recent video of a young woman talking about how she has achieved career success and health but has no one to spend her life with. Not only are young people not instructed on how to form relationships, but even the idea of bettering yourself socially is seen as sort of weird. On many topics society tries to tell you how to think or behave, and people can either reject that advice or seek out other forms of information. When it comes to dating, there’s not even an “establishment” perspective on how men should meet women to rebel against.

Other topics covered include:

* Whether men are afraid to aggressively pursue women these days, and whether they should be

* The generation gap in how people responded to the original video

* How the online right exhibits resentment and bitterness towards women, and the way that they mirror many feminist critiques of men

* Dating apps, and whether you can still approach women publicly

* Why developing social skills and being comfortable in social situations is crucial for success

* The importance of college and living in an urban environment to facilitate social interactions

* What we think about the idea that men should focus on making money in their 20s and wait for their “sexual peak” that supposedly comes later.

* How taking care of one's appearance, grooming, and hygiene can make oneself more attractive.

* The importance of having a positive attitude and the need to avoid toxic people and communities.

See also my article “Black Guy Hitting on Girls,” my interview with Jazmen Jafar and Farha Khalidi, and Rob on making conversation.

I believe that there is a dearth of good information out there for men these days on how to attract women, and that this is probably the most important part of your life to get right. I highly recommend everyone listen to this podcast, but especially young men who would like to do better with the opposite sex.

A reader offered to pay Rob and I to review two movies: Zulu (1964), and They Live (1988), and here we take him up on it. Apparently, both of these films have cult followings among far-right types.

I happened to like Zulu. I’ve always enjoyed reading military history, and seeing how a siege works in practice, or at least a portrayal of it, is always a satisfying experience. The film was based on the Battle of Rorke's Drift, which was fought in 1879 as part of the Anglo-Zulu war. There, around 150 British and colonial soldiers held off 3,000-4,000 Africans.

The British soldiers are portrayed quite romantically, and there is little in the way of politics. You simply appreciate the heroism for its own sake, which is inherently conservative. Rob and I nonetheless have a bit of a disagreement about how justified we should see the right-wing affection for this movie.

They Live, in contrast, we agree has a standard leftist message. The lesson is that white people, capitalism, and western civilization are bad, and the multiracial poor are heroes. Rob and I talk about why antisemites seem to like the film. I argue it’s because their worldview is fundamentally not that different from that of leftists, in that there’s a rich elite conspiring to hold everyone down. So they see a movie with a conventional anti-white narrative, and decide it’s actually antisemitic, even though there isn’t a hint of anyone being Jewish anywhere in the film and the director explicitly disavows any such interpretation.

We touch on topics like the move towards more grittiness in art and culture, how attitudes have changed regarding how women should respond to sexual assault, how leftists have reacted to different Republican presidents, why you never hear about people “selling out” today, and much more.

Referencing our review of Blackboard Jungle, we once again go back to the idea that modern anti-racism has been there in art since at least the 1950s. If there are prominent counterexamples of works that have actually been “racist” in a way that term would be understood by a normal American, rather than someone who is a committed leftist, please let us know and we may check them out.

Since we’re getting paid for this review, we’re making it available for free. If other readers want to pay for us to watch and discuss any other movies or TV shows, reach out through Substack DMs and we’ll be open to your suggestions.

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Rob joins me to talk about the film Civil War. We both have already posted (spoiler-filled) reviews. I really didn’t like it, while he gives the movie a kind of lukewarm endorsement. The greatest weakness is clearly its lack of explanation of how the US got to the point where Americans were killing each other. The movie doesn’t simply ignore the question. It goes out of its way to be unrealistic by putting California and Texas on the same side. The film is also notable for the lack of texture with which it presents American society, or whatever America is supposed to be in this alternate universe.

For a sample of the conversation the film has motivated, see reviews by Tyler Cowen, Michelle Goldberg, and Ross Douthat, all of which we touch on here.

We discuss different ways in which the movie is politically correct, including the lack of sexual violence. This appears to be an aspect of reality that contemporary audiences are particularly unable to handle. This ties in to larger issues about what kinds of stereotypes this film either reinforces or tries to refute.

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The Sydney Sweeney saga continues. Rob joins me on the podcast to talk about her new film Immaculate, which I reviewed on X here. The conversation begins by Rob informing me that he thinks Sydney Sweeney is mid, and this leads to a heated debate about her appeal, which involves ranking various actresses and models over the years. We come to the conclusion that it’s a combination of her natural breasts, low class physiognomy, and nasally bored girl voice. The conversation then moves on to the film itself, its message, particularly on abortion, and Hollywood double standards when it comes to how it portrays different religions. We get sidetracked into me discussing some of my thoughts on the merits of Catholicism versus Protestantism. In the end, we didn’t find anything too deep or fascinating about the film, but it was a good 89 minutes of mindless entertainment.

Listen to the audio here, or watch the video below.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Rob joins me to talk about The Curse, Season 1.

Warning: spoilers in the show notes and also in the discussion. I highly recommend watching first, because it’s very good.

The first nine episodes were some of the most compelling TV I’ve ever seen. I tend not to like the premise of white liberals being hypocrites. It takes aim at an easy target and is too overtly political for my taste. But this show I think puts politics in its proper place. Asher and Whitney Siegel are human beings first, virtue signallers second, which is far more common than the opposite. Their main emotional investment is in their own financial situation and personal relationships.

Emma Stone as Whitney shines in her role. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The way she uses humor to deflect tension, establish connections, and try to but not really succeed at eliminating status imbalances is captivating. She’s the most compelling version of the liberal white woman. There’s a kind of fakery that takes itself so seriously that it becomes authentic, even romantic. Rob thinks she’s a completely unsympathetic character, while I see more nuance.

We observe her through the eyes of her adoring husband, who turns out to be a literal cuck. We discuss the meaning of this. I argue that Asher having a tiny penis is central to the whole story, while Rob seems to take pity on the poor man and see it all as a bit much.

We also talk about my idea of there being two kinds of white liberals: those who get into Native Americans, including Hispanics, and those who get into blacks. Leftists tend to gravitate to the minority group that is most similar to them in personality. The ones who are more extroverted, risk acceptant, and into showy displays of submission like blacks better. More sensitive and subtle souls take the other path. Part of this reflects how each minority group approaches identity politics. Black Americans are more likely to lean into their role as designated victims, while Natives are sort of puzzled by the whole thing. White liberals looking to play a savior role or indulge in racial masochism pick up on these differences and choose accordingly.

I was looking forward to the final episode, but ended up truly heartbroken by it. You don’t introduce arbitrary magic into a story that was so internally consistent up to that point. I remember the sinking feeling I got the exact moment I knew they ruined the show. A world that had been absurd because it stayed brutally true to the human condition suddenly became absurd due to a supernatural element. What a betrayal of the audience.

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In previous discussions on rewatching Breaking Bad, I’ve often talked about how our minds play tricks on us. Going over the final two seasons, I was shocked by how much I had whitewashed Walter White’s character. I remember him being a somewhat complex figure near the end, when in reality he was a kind of cartoon villain. I was most amazed to realize that I had misremembered how he killed Mike. I thought it was an accident! The fact that I got something so basic wrong indicates either that I was twisting reality in my mind at the time or I’ve done so over the last decade, probably influenced by the blaze of glory through which he went out.

Of course, the way Walt finally gets his revenge on the Nazis seemed ridiculous at the time, and it’s even more ridiculous in retrospect, given we were expecting that outcome and not experiencing the surprise and overwhelming awe one feels when seeing it for the first time. We also reflect on the famous jailhouse murders.

I present to Chris my theory of how the Nazis seem to show a remarkable number of virtues in a way that other criminals don’t. His interpretation of the series holds that individuals are often brought down by their fatal flaws. For Hank in particular, it might have been his toxic masculinity. But for the Nazis it was actually their compassion and sense of honor that did it! What were the writers trying to tell us?

Perhaps the most interesting part of our discussion is when Chris convinces me that Walt went back in the end to rescue Jesse from the Nazis. I actually hadn’t considered this, either during the original watch or this time around.

I realize that this is now the twelfth conversation I’ve released on Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. See below for the previous discussions, which are listed in chronological order, just above the video and transcript. There’s been a lot to explore in this universe, and I hope others have enjoyed this journey with us. I’m open to suggestions regarding what to watch next.

The Breaking Bad Universe

Better Call Saul: S6E7, Plan and Execution

Better Call Saul: S6E8, Point and Shoot

Better Call Saul: S6E9, Fun and Games

Nietzschean or Christian? Marc Andreessen on Breaking Bad and Saul

Better Call Saul: S6E10, Nippy

Better Call Saul: S6E11, Breaking Bad

Better Call Saul: S6E12, Waterworks

Better Call Saul finale with Chris and Marc Andreessen

Rewatching Breaking Bad, S1 and S2

Rewatching Breaking Bad, S3- S4E4

The transcript below is AI generated, and has not been checked for accuracy. I’ve added my own transcript because the Substack version doesn’t differentiate between speakers, which makes it seem useless to me. I hope they fix this, because it would be nicer to have actually usable transcripts integrated into another tab. But if you want to use the Substack version for whatever reason, you can.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Rob joins me on the podcast to talk about what it takes to become a writer, “public intellectual,” or however one wants to describe what we do. This conversation can serve as a guide for those who might try to follow a similar path. But even if you’re not going to be writing for a living, I think there’s still a lot you can get out of our talk, as it served as an opportunity for us to take a step back and reflect on our previous work — and really our lives — up to this point.

When we got to the topic of each of our writing processes, I came to realize that we have deep differences regarding how we get motivated, and our approach to life more generally. Rob says don’t romanticize the process, while my philosophy is that romanticizing everything is the key to joy and meaning. Writing is something he occasionally has to force himself to do, while I hate taking breaks and vacations, and wish family life didn’t pull me away from working even more. Rob of course is the psychologically normal one here, and which of us you decide to take advice from is going to depend on how exactly your mind works. Ironically, in the midst of our discussion about how we get ideas, I realized that I needed to at some point write an article on my romanticize everything philosophy. This is something I have thought about before but it’s been a while since I’ve reflected on it.

Other topics we cover include:

* How we describe our jobs to other people

* What it was like having one foot out the door of academia

* How we both sort of stumbled into our current positions

* The odds of actually making money at this

* How to build an audience

* The ways in which we use X

* Internet fame as a way for single young men to find girlfriends

* Avoiding audience capture

* Why we were both lucky to start our newsletters around the time that we did, rather than a few years later

* Dealing with book publishers and the prestige media

* Why journalists, academics, and independent writers all tend to share similar characteristics

* The ways in which various writers like Razib Khan, Scott Alexander, Freddie deBoer, and others have been able to make it on their own, and how their different backgrounds have contributed to their success

This ended up being one of the most inspiring conversations I’ve had in a while. It was fascinating to hear Rob’s story and invigorating to reflect on my own, and I felt a sense of overwhelming gratitude when considering just how much serendipity was needed for both of us to end up where we are.

Below, you can watch the video of our discussion or read the transcript, lightly edited for clarity.