Hey everyone, I want to tell you about another podcast that I love. It's called What Should I Read Next? And it is a show dedicated to answering the question that plagues every single reader. What should I read next? I mean for me it's like which of this like giant pile of books should I read next but I need help. What should I read next takes a personalized approach to the reading life and helps listeners understand their own taste so they can make the most of their precious reading time. What should I read next is hosted by a podcaster, author and listener.
Literary Tastemaker Anne Bogel. She helps guests understand why they love what they love, why some books that everyone else seemed to love just didn't work for them and what it means for choosing their next read. You'll get great ideas for books that you specifically will enjoy reading next plus you'll discover books that are absolutely perfect for you but that you would never find on the bestseller list on Instagram or on TikTok. One listener put it this way. There are so many books I didn't even know about or that I didn't know I wanted to read.
Not only is my reading life better, my life is better. So listen to What Should I Read Next every Tuesday and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Sarah can you open up Kevin Bacon's Instagram. Annie I have Kevin Bacon's Instagram open already. Have you had it open for several weeks as we've been talking about doing this? Kevin's Instagram has been giving me life through a lot of drama.
And I am so delighted to gaze at him and his zucchini and his white bottle and his wife. The amazing Kurosajwik. So we're looking at I'm looking at his grid right now. Okay. And especially of his like home photos. What would you describe the palette? The palette. It's rustic and muted with rich tones of red and plaid but a lot of black t-shirts. So it's like a comforting saturated colors.
But also like a lot of natural light and a lot of wood. So much wood. So there's wood in his barn. There's wood in his kitchen. In his kitchen where there's like a really we'll talk about this video later. There's like this really great video of him dancing with Kurosajwik.
There is his record player cabinet is regularly featured on the Monday Blues feature of the Kevin Bacon Instagram. And then like just kind of he has like a little bit of a tan like he has this glow of someone who like clearly spends time outside in some capacity. Yeah. Yeah. I mean he's not fussy Kevin Bacon. He just likes to be in the world.
This is the Culture Study Podcast and I am Anne Helen Peterson. And I am Sarah Mousley. I am a professor of writing at USC and I edit the web page Avidly which is a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books and I'm a cultural critic. And I write a lot about hair which is relevant to this topic.
I was going to say that you are a foremost scholar of hair studies. I actually Annie just today might books project publication announcement got launched. So I'm the author of the forthcoming tangled American racism and white women's hair which is both. And it's very good. So good. So stay tuned for my thoughts on Gwenf Paltrow and Julia Roberts and Elsa from Frozen.
Oh my gosh. We're going to have another. Going to exclusively be about this. Okay. So Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon is a movie star. I mean I would call him a list in our current taxonomy of a list movie star or stars whose names are like knowable legible like people know who Kevin Bacon is.
But if we go backwards until like the 80s and 90s this was not always the case like he was actually at least when I was growing up like I thought of him very much as like a person whose name I knew but not as like a leading man. How do you think about him?
So you are the celebrity expert and I am can only speak from my personal experience. I think it is the case that he had a couple of big leading man roles and then was not getting more and shifted to character acting and I think that's the scope of his career.
And I think of Kevin Bacon personally and I'm you know like this is I think in a really matter I your millennial the millennial and I am younger but definitely Jen X so I am imprinted deeply on the Kevin Bacon Footloose Dance movie that is the fundamental bedrock of his career.
And the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Kevin Bacon is when I was little and first or second grade my best friend and I our backyards connected and we had a pup tent and we all summer we'd have sleepovers and there were two soundtracks to those sleepover dance parties out in the backyard in the pup tent in rural Iowa and one was the flash dance sound truck and one was the footloose soundtrack.
So like and like pressing rewind you know we just need to it over and over again let's hear it for the boy holding on for a hero body Tyler so like Kevin Bacon brings dance to the people who need to be free. So that is the Kevin Bacon mission.
So can I confess something that like makes me so I think an interesting co host for this episode is that I've never seen footloose I have seen like every so many other Kevin Bacon movies I even recently re watched not for this episode just in life I rewatched diner which was his breakout role which I have not seen actually so go ahead.
So like I think we're a great great great pair to talk about this okay I want to talk to about the particular Instagram that made us want to do this episode which I think brings together this conversation so it's of him and his barn and it's after the end of the writer's strike.
Can you describe what happens in this Instagram so Kevin Bacon the current Kevin Bacon who is a current right of a comfortable live some and a brilliant middle aged man is in his barn doing the original choreography from the footloose movie in his t-shirt and his jeans and his cowboy boots to celebrate the end of the strike and also coincidentally the 40th anniversary of footloose which dates me coincidentally yes.
And a thing that was really genius about this for me and sent me into spasms of late J. at next is that Ethan Hawk commented on it was like looking great man. And I was in my heart filled with joy and I was like why can Kevin Bacon and Ethan Hawk stop making whatever likes German drawing end of the world movie and make a buddy dance movie that is what they need like maybe it's a love triangle with Julia.
That is what the people need at this time the people are me and I also say that this video like there's something about it aesthetically that is really striking to me so he has clearly in the way that I would do this put the phone on the ground like far away and then he is centered on his open barn doors so like there's he's almost backlit like he looks golden in this light right.
And he's wearing these incredible boots I mean they are very sexy in ways that like I don't entirely understand and then there's like this space which just feels like grand without being ostentatious like you can see the top of the barn and like you know it's not a finished barn it's an open barn like a hay barn yes. And you're like what a cool life that you get to just be Kevin Bacon and you still know the choreography.
So I will say I think that I really meant to go back and check but my life did not avail me the time to go back and fully rewatch the foot loose movie but the foot loose song everybody cut loose. And then they got your send issues that song plays in the final dancing when he like he has finally brought dance back to the town which I just watched and my mood grew three sizes that day like the Grinch.
So so but the plot of the movie is that dance is banned by the pastor right yes and then he brings dance back yes yes I mean we have lots of things to say about this in a very Reagan era.
Authorities and the mix of political authority and religious authority and he's going to liberate us from this and I have a lot of things to say about the idea of liberation but so he brings dance back but in my memory the barn dancing scene is actually him before he's brought back dance and he's just like so frustrated in the small town and he's like do it I think it might actually be to holding on to here I'm not sure.
But much more like swinging around he's expressing his freedom individually but it has not yet come to the collective which this connects with that feeling of like during the actor strike he couldn't do his craft in the collaborative way that he's custom and so almost this is like it still a celebrate it's like we can bring dance back now we can bring dance back now yes actually all Hollywood is a metaphor for the foot less.
But here's the thing I want to say about is I keep coming back to this idea of the key brings the dance back to the people who need to be free so this is really my big question for us to discuss which is that a few years ago actually think during in the midst of kind of the George Floyd activism I was talking to a friend of mine named Lisa Corrigan who is a professor of gender studies at the University of Arkansas and a true genius of social life I really really want to talk about this.
I really recommend everyone in the world following her and she was like the problem with white women she is very clear on this she has several problems with white women obviously but she's like one of them is that they keep thinking that Kevin Bacon made them free and I was like back up he did like dance movies are about freedom that's what they're about Lisa and she's like and she's like very dryly was like that's cool if you can find yourself to middle class semantics then I guess a dance movie does make you.
Dance movie does make you feel free and I was like oh. Oh no. I just really want to beat that if you can find yourself to middle class semantics a dance movie does make you feel free and I do feel like that is a big part of the fantasy of Kevin Bacon especially when he just scroll through the feed it's like he's so unburdened of all of these questions like he's making a recipe.
What's the recipe he doesn't know the recipe I don't even know that's called it's chicken all a kev literally that's what he calls it is like how many anchovies I don't know it just turns out good and then this beautiful woman is behind him like yummy so it's like he's free of all of these burdens of inter-crisis and rules but a lot of them like following the recipe I don't have really mixed feelings about this like a lot of those things he's like he's not worried about sending out the Christmas cards he's not worried about decorating.
And it's like so he's free this he's not worried about his social media as like an apparatus to actually promote himself which allows his social media to be what it is right absolutely he's like free from all of these strains of self presentation so it feels very good although looking at a lot of it at once I actually find kind of grading but like the dose of it feels very good but a lot of the things that he feels like he frees us from our things that.
And I'll be careful about my we here but that people of my professional demographic choose we take on and then we have this glimpse of freedom and we feel like oh freedom but we haven't actually made any collective change. So I also want to talk about just for some more table setting why we are specifically talking about Kevin Bacon's Instagram and not just like celebrity Instagram or like some other celebrity Instagram and the reason that I want to talk about it is that I want to talk about it.
And I was struck by it is because he's doing something that is not entirely unique right but it does feel different than what many other celebrities on Instagram are doing particularly younger celebrities right I think he has peers in this arena I think you can connect him to Jennifer Garner's Instagram I think you could connect it to Ethan Hawks Instagram as well. And you can connect it to Mandy Patinkins Instagram although his is so I think crafted and led in many different ways by his son.
Oh that makes sense too and also in it you can feel I live in LA I have various friends who are actors and especially comedians and being social around them is a lot of enjoying them working out their bits.
Yeah so yes you're right definitely and you would know much more about this than me it's crafted by this but also just their whole vibe is in a constant joyful state of performance for each other and I think Kevin and Kira although definitely it is it's so internal to them that it doesn't it doesn't have a staged quality that would not be pleasurable for them in the way that the intuitive relaxation.
Kevin Bacon is married to Kira Sedwag who is a massive star herself they got married I spent some time in Wikipedia just to like confirm these things they got married in 1988 when Kevin Bacon was actually sort of a bottoming out in his career a little bit because he was in diner which led to him being in Philly's and then kind of struggle to find what his role would be because he was typecast in that way throughout the late 80s
and it wasn't until the 90s that he figured out oh I'm a character actor yeah and that is when 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon which is like a trivia game that essentially has been a supporting actor in so many movies that you can connect any actor in Hollywood to any other actor in Hollywood through starting at Kevin Bacon essentially like using him as a connective node I think of all of these different supporting roles whether it's like Mystic River
Flatliners was a really big one for me personally yes really important also more Julia Roberts keep yourself more Julia with givers on which was I mean all of the lots of good hair and that one yes an amazing moment in gossip history actually because that was like right preceding when Julia Roberts
like Lev Keith or Sutherland at the altar and then went to Ireland with Jason Patriot like I'm obsessed with that moment in gossip history but we can return there later right I'm but yeah so he I think is also positioned as someone who is
Gen X who is using social media in an interesting way yes do you have anything else to add to that besides like how we're thinking about it yeah no I think I have a pretty mostly recreational relationship to Instagram I don't keep track of too many celebrities on it so
but he what a different life so interesting to him but even I didn't follow Kevin Bacon until recently but the algorithm just knows that if they post a good video of him dancing I'm gonna send it to all of my Gen X lady group texts and I do so I mean like I
didn't even have to follow him for them to know immediately do you feel like there's something to about like how he's performing being a certain agent Hollywood yes definitely has kind of casual silver foxing both of them in this very relaxed way and here I do think the Ethan Hawk comparison is really good and it's interesting because to me Kevin Bacon feels older them I mean I think he's 10 years he's a yeah a little more present so he's like 10 years older than me and Ethan
Hawk is five years older than me so Ethan Hawk is much more frisiany for me because he's like he reminds me of the guy I'm matty dated for so long or without you know like he's really like he's a very 90s relationship try dire try dire that's his character in reality for others who don't who are familiar yeah but no that makes sense yes so last year and I have this very frisiany relationship to Ethan Hawk it's a real point of contestation between me and my best friend who loves him
and I was like I hate him why is he getting these rules but last year he gave this very charming interviewer I was like okay I'm coming around but one of the I mean it was great like he was just like so generous who was saying these great things about everybody but the thing he said about himself was well for a long time I was the oldest young guy in Hollywood and I've just decided that now I'm going to be a young old
yeah my friends and I had this great conversation and my friend Katie was like no I'm going to stay being an old young and I was like no no no this this helps me I am now a young old I'm like over it all 10 dresses from here on out and Ethan Hawk does strike me as a young old and Kevin Bacon is definitely an old young like he's just like listen to his records and he's like well you know like there's no he's not playing old at all right it's a real it's really you so interesting
so interesting okay I'm going to save my comparison then I have to a star of classic Hollywood for our questions which we should start with okay and all of them are essentially in the same vein I want to prepare people for this and it's basically like why do I like Kevin Bacon's Instagram
okay Kevin Bacon's Instagram okay so our first question comes from Angel and Melody's going to read it why do I love Kevin Bacon's Instagram so much when I get annoyed with other celebrities accounts is it his long term relationship with his wife is it because they seem quote-unquote down to earth
and what makes them come across that way on Instagram my initial response and I'm so curious to hear yours there is this video of Kevin Bacon and Kira Sedgwick dancing in their kitchen and it's like a normal kitchen yeah it is not Stanley Tucci's kitchen right like we are there are no $10,000
ranges in this kitchen there are definitely not nope there's something about the way that it's arranged the way that they're dressed also the way that they look that really reminds me of this very famous photo shoot of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward at home like and Paul Newman's in like some khaki shorts and socks and loafers and he is like flipping eggs standing in the kitchen I'm going to hold on I'm going to send it to you this is worth sending it okay all right send it to me Paul Newman
oh my god the shorts are in the cat you're right I encourage anyone listening to Google this may also how we will put it in the show notes like her pants are the perfect crop yeah aspirational every single one has originally hemmed pants and he's making
he's making the meal right right yeah and I think that those photos are part of this larger cluster of meanings that circulate around Paul Newman as like a great wasp husband who loves his wife and his wife is so talented right and this is the same thing with Kira
Sedgwick like and also they've been married for a really long time and there's a love story for the ages but it's not like super grossly demonstrative it's just like a relationship of mutual admiration and respect and love yes do you see where I'm going with this like that's the vibe I get
yes from the performance of the relationship on the instrument yes and the loose jointed easiness of how they move to each other which is this again like back to the middle class semantics right this sense of you could have the confidence of white
middle class authority without any uptightness or ambivalence or anxiety or need to over perform it so that the kind of low hip then he's like bendy knees and the shoulders it's a such a I mean definitely different generations of the thing but it's such an easily held relation to authority which is such a privilege right it's right complete privilege and very beautiful yeah and it effaces that privilege to I think like absolutely the other thing too is that so Kevin Bacon grew up in a
super liberal household like that's always been part of the politics that he grew up in and he and Kira Sedgwick are also not like massive liberal activists but very much on the forefront of progressive causes which reminds me of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
yes and also like so Kevin Bacon is from Philly like I just there's something about this like liberal waspiness that really sticks with me and I think this too I know that they have a home in Manhattan and then they also seemingly have this farm situation it just seems very
like yeah yeah a type a type do you know what I mean yes yes definitely I do with this kind of California vibe too yeah describe the California vibe because I see when I think of you I think of you I think I think I think I'm going to vibe but also I mean in a good way my husband
always points out that I am you know I don't think of it strategically but I'm very strategic about when I tell people that I'm from Los Angeles and when I tell people that I'm from Marl Iowa so I'm both at this thing I'm from Minnesota I'm from Idaho
I live on an island off the coast of Washington state all of these things works but it's partly the sunness of those pictures that is a little bit what it's like to live in L.A. and why I do really love it despite my deep Midwesternism is just like this low light and there's always enough of it there's a the living room with the big windows and the light streaming in there's a real abundance and a casualness and a sense of like are you awesome you're probably awesome
like things you gotta work out it's great yeah that's just like oh I don't have to like there's no like time you have to go to work it's just like maybe I'll do some work right or there is for three months of year and it's like oh six a.m. call times but the rest of the time
you're like oh yeah so I took a meeting you know like and I don't I worked out I live in a very casual I don't live in the Hollywood industry part of thing but it's still a lot of writers around so the coffee shops are amazing it's just everyone looks so chill
like like I always say the L.A. coming from a cold place there's always the first day when it gets warm and all the girls like put on their little sunglasses and they're so full of joy L.A. like is like that all the time but then you don't know you don't get appreciated
as much it's just kind of like an underlying ease but it turns out that being happy all the time is nice and just to bring it back around as I mean I am a serious Midwestern I was always like that is such a deprived way of living but actually being happy all the time is nice and that is really what I see on the Kira Cafe web page for sure just to bring it around.
Yeah yeah so his record corner he does this feature where once a week or Sundays I think it's Monday blues yeah so he like puts the camera up and I I'm so curious like does he have a tripod for his phone like right but you don't in my head he does not have a tripod in my head right he's just like sets it up and then he's like hey let's just talk about some of my records. Hey guys it's Kevin. Let's just talk about some records and it feels filled with ease as you said.
Yeah. Like here's someone with time to listen to music. Yeah. What a lovely thought and I think when we think about the history of celebrity like one of the ways that we consume celebrity one of the reasons is for their performance of leisure. Yes and I think that he's really good at it. The particular form of leisure that he is like there's nothing noxious about it.
There is nothing either that screams privilege right even though we've been talking about all the ways that this is like an ease of navigating the world that is privileged. There's nothing that is like a big ticket item like it all is very stars are just like us. Mm-hmm. Inspirationally. Mm-hmm. Yes. With this perfect beauty and perfect casual relation and their kind of snarky but clearly affectionate kids and a great house and a lot of goats we have not there's a lot of goat content.
Oh, so many goats. So many goats. Goats are kind of the perfect content due because they're kind of funny. I know. But they're not. It's not like overly precious. I can't. It's not like it's horses. Yes. I think he does but it's him like goofing around with his goats is really different than like here's my show horse. Are there other. I feel like the question was why do I like this so much is there are more versions of this question? Are we pursuing this because I have more questions.
Well, okay, let's go on to the next question which is from Gretchen which I think will open up some description for us. Why is Kevin Bacon's Instagram so comforting and delightful? I like him way more now than I did at the height of his fame. I can't help but wonder how much of it is Kira and cute farm animals and guy with the guitar vibes. Everyone especially celebrities cultivates their images to some extent but Kevin Bacon seems pretty genuine and wholesome kind of Jennifer Gardner ask.
Also, why is he always a tune aim guy in my mind? It's never just Kevin always Kevin Bacon. Oh, that's the last part of that question which at least for millennials Kevin is something and I think this has a lot to do with home alone. One name Kevin is a rascal. Right. Yes. Always a rascal. And this also to do with my very good friend who I grew up with my next door neighbor was a real Kevin. Like his name is Kevin and he was a real Kevin.
And so I think that Kevin Bacon situates him as a professional in some capacity. But where were you going to go for the first part? Yeah, I was just thinking also this is really nerdy. Eddie puts just like the double trokey the Kevin Bacon name really good. Just to do some scansion on Kevin Bacon's name. Yeah. And he earns out there for the nerds out there. Right. For the poetry. So one thing to say about this is like the relation to Kira is really important.
The last question too is like is this the long term relationship? I have an interesting relationship to this as somebody who is now remarried but exceptionally happily divorced. That was a really positive thing for everyone involved. So the fantasy of the we've been together forever. I'm a little bit immune to like I don't really believe in famous marriages. I feel like like the actually the performance of the perfect marriage. I'm just like what's going on?
Are they really doing a Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith behind the scenes? Yeah. Which is great. Totally great. But I'm really in favor of whatever people work out. But the investment in the relationship is always like a little bit of a red flag for me. Yeah. And yet the same time that he recently in September, I wrote down the date, posted a picture on September 4th. They're 35th wedding anniversary and it's a picture of them. Oh, yeah.
And he is sitting at a kitchen table and he has no shirt on and he is very slim and very tan, very boyish body. And he, she is leaning on his lap. So he's facing the table and her and she's facing the camera and she's got a tank top ton and her hair is in a messy bun which I am clearly aspiring towards at this moment. And a tank top and like a jean mini skirt and she's just like super comfortable and she's like being held by the sky.
He's doing a really good job of it even though he's not paying a lot of attention to it. Yeah. That is such a fantasy. And to get further nerdy, I actually was thinking there's a particular fantasy here. I went and pulled up the opening pages of a wonderful book of criticism called Cruel Optimism by the queer theorist Lauren Berlond which is talking about the kind of genres that we get attached to to try and help us get us through a hard time.
She's also interested in the way that some of our attachments are counterproductive. They stand in the way of us getting what we want. That's what Cruel Optimism is is when the thing that you think is going to solve the problem actually impedes accomplishing it. But she says that this feeling of attachment is really powerful right now because so many fantasies are framed.
Yeah. And the list of the fantasies that are framed include particularly upward mobility, job security, political and social equality and lively durable intimacy. And that phrase, the frame fantasy of lively durable intimacy is what Kevin and Kira offer us. So beautifully like that easy way of being together that like it seems so in live and meaning for them and it makes it they seem so happy in their bodies together.
You know to take that and translate it or map it onto star theory, Richard Dyer the father of star studies as we know it like his theory was that every celebrity you can look at them and look at their image, look at all of the different meanings that circulate around their image, all the photos, all of the conversations, all the gossip, everything that they've appeared in right and you can understand if they're incredibly popular that they are embodying an ideology that is under threat.
Yes. Right. Like they are proving that it is still possible. Right. And still aspirational. Right. Yes. And maybe that you shouldn't necessarily like worry about it too much right but like if we're connecting it to this idea that this is something that people are actually like is absolutely under threat and people feel no small amount of anxiety about that then clearly this is something that feels soothing in this moment. So I think that's really powerful.
Yeah. A small thing about this that I very curious your thoughts on it's also effortless and they're just always in their kitchen they're making those great food and they're like chatting and they're dancing and they're eating and they're very thin people. Yeah, like I speaking as a paramanopausal woman myself it's like I'm like what's she doing? Like I'm very curious right like they're just eating the chicken alaqav. So like there's some we're going on this.
Cool girls it's like a cool girl thing right like that you can eat whatever you want and still have the ideal body and like you know women's bodies are wild. Like the things that everybody can and doesn't doesn't eat and how bodies react to those things like cash. That is the one thing that I have learned is like you don't know. You don't know what someone is doing or don't do it. To their skin to their body.
Yes. Anything and I don't say that in any judgmental way and I think there are zero okay ways to be have a woman's body in public like it's you know it's so but I do think that is I feel like a part of what I see when I look at them like it's possible like she's
they're just she's wearing his t-shirts from animal house you know like his cast t-shirt from animal house and it just looks so good and loose on her and she just they they're just carrying the tank top existence whale into their 50s and I was like that's what I want. How long do I have to. I also think maybe there's something and I would love to hear your thoughts.
As a parent of an older child like they've navigated the emptiness moment and their kids seem to like like them right like doesn't that seem nice. It seems so nice they like each other their kids like them. They seem to have gone through pretty smoothly which is nice. So yes so that I do think is why it feels so good to look at it. Is there something specifically about like his boots I feel like you really liked looking at all of the different boots that he wears.
So I want to give you an opportunity to talk about either his boots or his hair in more detail. Right. Yes yes. So well I too like boots and I think and I have I wear them a lot I did not wear them out when I was growing up in an actual world space but now that I'm in last like Los Angeles. I have some great work wear boots that I got in an actual work wear farm and I get complemented on them all the time.
And he has the same thing that it's like they look great but also he clearly wears them when he's out with the goats. So like the fantasy of that of like this kind of boot masculinity just makes him seem really capable and relaxed like my husband does this thing where he just like hooks his thumb in his gene pocket like in this rural town way I don't know if you have this. And it just like I'm like yeah you are a man. And but he's also like definitely does that. Right.
It's like just his and he's not rural but he has this kind of like country way which we're partnered with the like you can have this fantasy of American white manhood that's like and it's benevolent it's purely benevolent. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. So it that you don't have to think about colonial extraction or you know right but that maybe not though that's what it is but you don't have to think about it or it's stripped of all potential trumpiness or just embattledness.
Yeah. He's not he's completely unembraced. Yeah his masculinity is not under threat. Yes. Yes but he is confident in where his masculinity resides.
Yes I was noticing that there is a on this is September 24th a photo of him and the caption of the Instagram photo is any suggestions on how to cook this and he's leaning towards the camera in a white tank top and he's he's not like buff it's kind of loose on him he's not doing Marlon Brando levels of like white tank top victory right but it's like it's still really his body is on display and you can kind of see this a little tattoo and he's holding this huge huge this is a teeny.
The one who was ever a vegetable garden knows this is a mid September zucchini that is and my advice to him is zucchini pancakes that's what I would yes that's what I would say but it's just totally like he's like here's my hot body and I'm leaning forward offering
to you this huge to messant tuber to mess and it's just like he's like that's how masculine is like look I got it in my hands I'm not stressed about it it's like I can make light of it and that's so great right it's like barely double on tundra he's like he's
gonna cook it right so it's like well okay I'm looking at this right now too what's going on with his hair here oh right it's so like again it's like I think he has ear buds in his well very yes he has some beats in yes yes yes and this is an interesting kitchen
slot as well like you can see it's like nice but not fancy and so you know it's not to he seems to have a lantern hailing from the ceiling but the hair I mean he's going gray he hasn't lost it I recognize this hair like I have seen this hair in many a 50 year old
man yeah I think that it's similar to my dad's hair it's incredibly straight and there's like a little bit of grease going on a little bit like he doesn't wash very recently like he like this is a and you can see by like just the bags under his eyes and that sort
of thing yeah this is a man who has like rolled out of bed it's also looking at the wrinkles in his forehead like this is also a man who has not gotten Botox yeah like maybe he's gotten some work done I don't know but like it's not this sort he doesn't have the smoothness
that I have come to a like with Tom Cruise say yeah yeah yeah yeah or John Travolta yeah it's a really like um scared of aging it's a bless I mean well and both of those men that to me they increasingly look like almost like Grieschen like death masks of themselves
right yes yes yes oh my god in a way that is very uncanny yeah and that people understand as I'm canny and I don't think that's like you know people do whatever with their faces but this is what happens is that you increasingly look like I don't know like a memory of yourself
and he seems to be like this is what I look like and I think that sort of comfort is also what when people are like always so like silver fox hot part of what they are articulating is like this is a man who is at ease with the way that he looks with the way that his body
is with the place that he resides in the world with this place in Hollywood even right like he is not trying to be the king of Hollywood still the way that Tom Cruise is yeah yeah although I did see this morning that he is now going to there's a new more nostalgia Beverly Hills cop coming out
next spring that was the most the current in which he will play the bad guy so it's Kevin and Eddie oh he's such a good bad guy yeah and that's like he's partly good at this okay but one thing a word that I'm not sure we have said at all but even if so we have we should just like qualify
that all of this luxury and middle classness it's really about a vision of whiteness and whiteness and the hair too is really whiteness so I mean that in the way that we're saying that the privilege is really latent in this you know like the account is not about race overtly it but it's a real
performance right benevolent whiteness like you can have this you can have all of this success and all of this stuff and do so in a way that looks relaxed and pleasant and I think like that is particularly soothing to I mean I don't I won't speak for other people but certainly for me as a
middle class white person who wants to feel like I am doing good in the world and could also maybe have nice stuff yeah and who also really struggles with the question of what's an ethical relation to things like it's a real vision of whiteness right and of reconciling that tension right and
because these are two things that yes like you said I grapple with this all the time like how do we dismantle prevention and the and the things that privilege afford well also being like oh but also I want nice things right exactly and yeah I mean it goes back to the thing that I said at
the beginning about well this looks like freedom and if you're like I'm constraining myself to an uptight version of whiteness then here is a model of how I can free myself from that and so it has an effective tone of liberation but my friend who made this point to me about how Kevin
Bacon not any but never got anybody free has a much more socially collectiveist idea of freedom that's based on a certain levels I mean like broad levels of accountability and recognition that a dancing might be related to but also can stand in for in a way that might be problematic.
Hey everyone it's Ann just popping in to say we're recording a bunch of new episodes in the next month and we want and need your questions we're working on shows about Sephora teens online shopping culture like all of the weirdness that's around shopping for things online contemporary trends in
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to the front of the line okay back to the show can we quickly before we go to our last question you at the very beginning you said like you had some things to say about Kevin Bacon, Footloose and how this resides within like a reganest America and I really I wanted to make sure that we had
time to talk just a little bit about that yeah well um so like this uh early 80s moment when was the moment which I think was the moment of his biggest stardom yes so there's Footloose where there had been a moment of kind of cultural liberation and then a huge retreat from that from the election
of regan and the deep alignment of Christian values with corporate impulses and militaristic impulses so a very territorial and capital hungry politics aligned with the Christian ethos which my my grandfather was a minister I think this is a very debased version of Christianity but
that's a separate point but all of those things were aligned and he regans appeal of this like 1950s version like fantasy of American World War II masculinity was kind of attached to the rural spaces of America specifically and so the Footloose plot of I'm coming from a city to a
little town that has bit fallen under this very oppressive regime and I'm going to teach everybody to dance and so then we'll be free of the politics right so like what do you need to get like what would change the world prom yeah and like prom when you're 17 can feel really significant and when
I like and I actually I like I'm not saying that we can't learn lessons about freedom from movement I actually really think that we can but it's also a substitutional logic and the other movie that I will say quickly that really stands in as a regan era movie that's very implanted in my plane
Kevin Bacon starring role in Quicksilver where he plays a stockbroker who loses all of his money gives it all up becomes a bike messenger and he's like I don't care anymore and he gives this amazing speech to one of his old stock oboe friends about how free he is and he's like the
science says go left and I go right you know it's like total again a somatic freedom like he's body doesn't have to follow these rules but at the end Kevin Bacon's friend who wants to start a hot dog stand loses all of his money to a loan shark so Kevin Bacon takes the remaining money
and guess what Annie guess what he does he goes back to the stock market and saves his white ethnic friend from the loan shark with capitalism right so right so there's I mean and I have not seen that movie in a long time but I really remember this speech so he's like both free of capitalism
but he can use it to be benevolent okay this is a horrible transition but we're gonna we're gonna run with it yeah and go into our last question which I think as a way for us to wrap up our discussions specifically of the Instagram okay we're gonna roll with that so it's from Caitlin
my only question is isn't this exactly what you would do if you were low-keyed stone to enrich us how well I think this goes into that question of like how this is offering a solution to this this like difficult reconciliation of like liberal values and like acquisition right it's like
oh I would just I would not have the $10,000 stone but I'd still have a pretty sick property right and I would just like play my records all the time like that would be records yeah yeah I was just read listening to like one of the what believes Monday it's from the W's
he's listening to all these records up above Hickley so he's listening to the who and he's like long live rock and he's like like like guys like devil I just like love and life the inhaling man I think that we answered this in a lot of ways but I think that that is in some
ways a gradient encapsulation of like why we gravitate to this content on like a pretty surface level yeah way yeah of course this is how I would want to live my life it's aspirational but once we start to unpack it a little bit more we can see what that means right what does it actually mean to be
aspirational and why is this particular account aspirational in all of these different ways yes definitely I kind of a way to maybe wrap this up I was watching a little reel where it's Kevin and Kira talking with the director of their foundation about why they do charity work and Kevin
was really sweet with Kira he's like you are always really into causes like more than me you know it which is also this fantasy of like I was just this bro and like you made me better yeah and Kira gives this very sweet and not wrong account of change doesn't have to be big it you like I really
believe in grassroots we have to make these small changes and they build up and that's not wrong but also how comforting right how comforting to the specific audience of white middle class middle-aged people like myself to know oh you could just make these small changes and that is what we need
and that itself precisely the truth in it makes it a somewhat pernicious narrative what not that we shouldn't make the small changes but like that you know it's not revolution it's not revolution I don't think any celebrity can offer us revolution no no no no no but I want to know who are your
favorite gen X celebrities oh my gosh Annie I have to prepare my favorite Jedi you know I guess a thing that I will say is that I recently watch with my kids who are both teenagers high fidelity the John Kuzak movie and before we watch it they had never seen a John Kuzak movie so I so
them the scene for say anything or he's like I know when this is anything that's been bother process process anything and I was like okay so this is John Kuzak you haven't seen all the other movies but this is the thing he's holding the boom box in your eyes Ioni sky amazing and then
we watched high fidelity and high fidelity is really itself a reference John Kuzak doing a referendum on gen X on John Kuzak yeah yeah yeah absolutely and I knew that and that's why it was so charming right it's like super Chicago it's great but watching it I was like oh my god like I mean I
mean it's not that I didn't know he's terrible because that's the plot of the movie but it is an astonishing just memoir of horror and it really made me feel like all these things like the tough guy in a breakfast club so I'm like like the rebels like that's what appeals to me I was like
they all sucked and I'm so glad that the kids today are like no we don't need that that's toxic um so I don't feel I'm like Ethan hot great we can just leave them all behind I'm really happy to turn towards the gender queer future and follow the the children in our future they will lead us
all right I think this is a wonderful place to stop paid subscribers are about to get the ask and anything segment after this melody and I are going to answer a question about gardening if that sounds like something you need to hear head to culturestudypod.substac.com and support the show your subscriptions make this show sustainable. Sarah where can people find you online if they want
more of your work? um so my social media handle is sunset and echo which is the corner where I catch the bus here in Los Angeles and you can find me at sarahmesley.com or at avidley.com awesome thank you so much this is a real delight. Thank you.
Totally. Thanks for listening to the culturestudy podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them if you want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture that surrounds you
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