S4E15: Jenny Slate and the Flight to Varennes

Everyone says like I could never join a cult, like I would never fall for that, in say, I'm too you.

Would.

I really love friendly groups. I love cooking.

I love it when people are like trying to help each other actualize their dreams. And I like it when people like are dedicated to each other. And a lot of times cults are like non violent, except I don't like having to be naked in a group of people, and I don't like having to do like oral sex to like the head of the cults.

That is, that's called bylaws.

There's usually some guy, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to SNAPO, the show about history's greatest screw ups. I'm at Helms, and more specifically, this is a show where we look at mishaps from history and wonder, oh, what what does this say about humanity? And I always bring along a very exciting guest. Today I'm joined by one of my dear friends. She's an actress, a writer, a comedian. She's been in so many incredible shows and movies like Its Borderline Annoying, just to name a few.

She's the author of two fabulous.

Books, Little Weirds and Life Form, and she recently launched her own podcast called I Need You Guys with Gabe Leadman and Max Silvestri. Please welcome, be Amazing. Jenny Slate, Hi, Hi, ed Hello. We were neighbors for a short time here in Los Angeles. I've known you her for a long long time, but then at some point in that you also were our neighbor, and my family began to call U Kramer because because of your wacky interests.

And also because it was like there wasn't a lot keeping me out, you know, like Kramer's always kind of busting through the door with some sort of really interesting concept. I'm not sure I had those interesting concepts, but I was coming through the door with big, you know, big energy in my hair and really coming over a lot.

And it was a full open door policy for Kram or Slate to just come on in whenever she wanted.

I missed those days.

I do too, I really do, and I will say that I feel that we're making up for it. As we were talking about earlier, but the fact that we now have become people who celebrate Thanksgiving together, not in Los Angeles at all, but it's just like something we do and it's really I love it so much.

I just love it.

Yeah, me too, I'm very grateful for that. Yeah. Well, we won't invite the world into our too deeply into our private lives. But I'm so excited for your podcast with Gabe and Max, who I also know and a door. Yes, obviously it's a very crowded space now. I'm now in the fourth season of Snafu. I'm like trying to box out everyone I can from also joining the podcast space because we need all the listeners we can get. So what are you doing? You're horning in on this format.

And what is it.

We we have a joke that it's like it's only it took us only sixteen years to finally do a podcast.

It just took us so long.

Like every other comedian in the world has had a podcast for many years now, and we just like, I don't know, what can I say. We like to chill, but Gabe and Max and I I don't know, fifteen years ago really started a stand up show in New York.

First it was in Manhattan at Rafifi.

In the East Village, and then it was in Williamsburg, and we finally got our act together to do what we kind of do on stage just on a podcast, which is that like on in our stand up show. We always started the stand up show with a Q and A like before anyone had any questions about our material.

We would just ask random questions and it was really fun.

And so now basically our podcast is like it's kind of like making our group chat live. It's called I Need You guys, because we don't live in the same places anymore and we still talk every day and we need each other. So we'll bring questions to each other about our lives and then we have a friend. Usually it's a comedian come and answer, like an etiquette etiquette etiquette.

It's like, I'm not reading copy.

I don't need to, you know, miss miss misspeak, like a question.

About etiquette at a quite edi.

Quite so, just so our listeners know this podcast is out, it is you can you can get into it right now.

Yeah.

It's really it's kind of like sitting at a dinner table with friends.

It's just a nice, easy, funny easy listen.

All right, are you ready to snap woo?

I'm ready to snaph.

Let's do it. We're going to jump into this.

We're going to adventure all the way back to seventeen ninety one. It was a tough year to be a French guy named Louis, especially if you were Louis the sixteenth, the French King. So today's topic is the French Revolution. Now I'd love to cover the whole thing, but that would take at least ten podcasts and like a gallon of espresso and a PhD in guillotine technology. So instead, we're going to just zoom in on this one really tiny but absolutely bonkers episode within the French Revolution, the

This is the flight to Vahren. Are you ready?

Hell?

Yeah? Man?

This is so cool. Yeah, expecting to learn so much. And you know, I love French stuff.

What is it you're like about French stuff?

I love all the jewels that I just stole from the Louver. I love the crown. I got.

I super bummed that I dropped out of the crown, but I love like the necklaces and stuff.

All Right, A quick crash course on the French Revolution before we get to our main event here. It all started because France was basically broke. The peasants were starving, and the monarchy was still out there throwing lavish parties. Picture an episode of Succession where they all go to a rave and powdered wigs. So the French people were just finally like enough, this is enough, and they stormed the bast deal and they decided maybe government shouldn't be run exclusively by rich douchebags.

Good good policy.

I feel like that have any rich douchebags like historically have they have any of them nailed it?

Not that I can.

I can currently think of. No one's coming to mind right now.

Oh it's rough. It's rough out there for the populations run by rich.

Duchemann, it's not great.

We'll cut to a couple of.

Years later and now, and the revolutionaries have taken power and King Louis the sixteenth, Marie Antoinette and their kids are basically grounded. They're under house arrest, in the Tuiiri Palace in the heart of Paris, and the revolutionaries are frantically trying to reinvent their entire system of government, which

I know, but I don't think she said that.

She didn't know.

I read this book that says she did not say that. You know, she didn't say that.

She didn't say it.

Yo, she didn't say that.

If you're gonna come at me like that, like, she did not say that, like check check your fat.

I'm so sorry.

I was going to all smarty pants and be like, but she did it, and you jumped on that.

And kudos to you for knowing that.

It originally appeared in Jean Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, which he wrote in seventeen sixty six. Marie Antoinette was ten years old and she was living in Austria, so obviously, so it's early seventeen ninety one. This is before the revolution had gone full just like guillotine chopping everybody's heads off, and France is now experimenting with this brand new idea, the constitutional monarchy, where the king will share power with

I'm too messy? Is it too complicated or too scary?

You know what I think it is? I mean not to be like so self.

Serious, but I actually think it has to do with like fear and trauma. The American Revolution, It's like a lot of those people were like wealthy landowners who were like we don't want King George, you know, like we want to do our own thing. They weren't really like we the people rising up, like they were like wealthy, you know, and and and then they they took like their education and their wealth and they like made you know,

You know, I don't know. That's that's my take on it. But you know, I'm a professional clown, not a historian. It's just how I feel.

I think that's a very very sharp take. Well, well said King Louis.

At this point, he's he's kind of kind of freaking out, and he's kind of stuck in the middle, pretending everything's fine and pretending like he has value and has power, but he's he's seeing it all slip away. So he and and he's feeling threatened. Also, he's feeling like his life and his family are very much in danger now in this in the middle of Paris. So he hatches

And thus begins the flight to Varen.

Wow, Okay, can I just ask, like, during this time when he's stuck in, when they're stuck in there, is he still you know, having like three glazed gooses a day, you know what I mean, Like he's still having those like crazy elaborate meals and wearing the stuff, just like doing all that stuff. Is he still just like all procedures are still those like three hour baths or whatever.

You know, Yeah, a three hour bath with three glazed gooses. Yeah, my sense of it, And keep in mind, I'm very much falling into the amateur historian category, but my sense of it is that this is a scaled back version of that. So in Versailles it was a mess, Like it was so decadent, the parties, all of the insanity leading up to this, right, there had been protest march where they actually grabbed the royal family and marched them

Okay, got it.

So the plan they hatch is quite bold. It's like total cloak and dagger stuff. Louis was planned to be disguised as a valet, Marie as a governess, and they would they were posing as the entourage of this fake Russian baron and they would slip out of Paris in the dark of night, then of course link up with their loyal troops and spark a royal comeback. This is in theory a flawless plan, but in reality it turned into a train wreck or as we will soon see,

Oh my god, that situation where you're like so rich, you don't know anything. It's like, just get out of here, man, Yeah, just don't pack a trunk. You don't need your like silver bugle or whatever, and like all your pantaloons, like, just get out.

I mean, the silver bugle might come in handy.

You don't get a bed pad, you don't get it. What do they call it? A little the thing that you don't get.

Yeah, there you go. You would have been such a better Marie Antoinette.

Oh my god.

This delays them like to a day or two.

And there are as part of the plan, of course, there are loyal soldiers, you know, soldiers that are still loyal to the king that are supposed to meet up with them along the route, and they've been stationed in these villages. But when the king isn't showing up, they're just these soldiers in these towns, and that's raising questions. The peasantry is getting real antsy and like what are all these soldiers doing here? This does not feel chill.

That would be really disconcerting and wrong and feel like maybe it's illegal or waiting for a judge to.

Say I mean yeah, so that's the same vibe going on in in these villages, and that wasn't the only delay. So it's finally time to ski daddle, and now the commander of the Palace guard has decided it's the perfect time for like an hour's long chit chat with the king. Fun fact, the commander of the guards was none other.

Than the Marquis de la Fayette, who.

Played a huge role in the American Revolution and now he's back home.

Yeah this is from Hamilton.

Oh my gosh, I haven't actually seen Hamilton, but I guess I should know that just because of like history.

I don't. It's I don't. I just I don't. I don't go to a lot of plays.

This is over. This is over.

I know, I know, I like, I don't know why I admit it that. I just I swear to God, like I haven't. I don't think I've ever been to a Broadway.

Are you serious? I'm taking it.

Yeah. I was supposed to go see Waiting for GOODO like two weeks ago, and our daughter got sick.

So we didn't.

So you're still waiting to see Waiting for GOODO.

I don't know if you're still him.

I don't.

I didn't know if they found him.

But yeah, no, I just like for a while when I lived in New York and I was a student.

I didn't have enough, like I don't have the extra.

Money to go to Broadway, and then time.

I just gave up, and then I don't know anyway.

The Marquisa Lafayette is played masterfully by Dovey Diggs.

Oh cool.

The Marquisa Lafyette is a fascinating he deserves his own podcast. He like basically went to America and was like, hey, George Washington, I'm here to help. I just think your whole cause is awesome. He was a major force in

He missed us.

Begin like this is where it becomes like Keystone cops.

Now.

So the original had called for fast carriages, right, they would get into like a little clump of carriages and be on their way. But this did not sit well with Marie Antoinette. She wanted to keep the family together, which is understandable. If they got separated it could get scary. But unfortunately this also changed the entire journey because they wound up in this enormous carriage. So the coach itself

Oh wow, look at those peepers. Yeah right, I mean what not sure? I'm not sure what I think.

The person that painted his picture did a pretty weird job. It looks like he looks like you know when sometimes people wear those George Washington masks, like like they have George Washington. You have your own face on the bottom, and then you like put George Washington over your like you know where a raccoon mask would be.

Those look like two different faces.

Yeah, no, you're right.

But what I do love about this he's so smug, Like he's like so smarmy and like you can get like the sex appeal of someone like that.

Oh my gosh, you could.

Get lost in those eyebrows.

That's a look of placid, perverted, deliberate entitlement.

Yeah, he just does not care.

This carriage was massive and extremely conspicuous. One historian called the paint job quite eye catching, yellow and black or golden, and there were three bodyguards also dressed in jaunty clothes. Basically, in today's terms, this would be like a limousine painted like a bumblebee. This is kind of a picture. On top of the pain job, that the carriage itself was so heavy that it required frequent stops to change horses.

Like was up, everybody, it's your king, high five. Oh this was not smart.

And even when they were rolling along, apparently he would like hang his head out the carriage window and just be like, what's up, it's me your fabulous dream. He kind of felt like he was the Beatles in the sixties. And I'm just I just I don't know if this was savvy. This feels like ego getting in the way of good judgment.

USh, what a dumb dumb like his whoever were his like devoted handlers must have just been like, oh my god, just try to keep him inside the thing. Yeah, Like, kid doesn't get it. He doesn't really get it, you know.

I think there is something like when we see that a lot of these tech titans today, you know that that have so much wealth and so much power and access there, does their behavior does start to betray Like you don't really know what's going on in the world, and you don't even really know how people behave anymore, Like you're clearly detached from a sense of like normal decorum or just normal kind of like people interface.

Yeah, yeah, like no sense of like what sort of on the ground risk looks like like in a social slash relational way, it's like, hey, whoa like a lot of us would not do that. You shouldn't do that thing that you just did, really weird touch.

The royal family was just to be a little more specific, they were heading to mont medi, which is a fortress town near today's Belgium, and that is where Louis was hoping to regroup and then negotiate safely with the French

People who don't actually support him.

Wow, and they're bold, right, Like, I bet they're really really angry.

Also, where are they getting the horses?

Like?

Where are they? Where are the horse people leave?

Yes, because it's like if the soldiers left, Like it's super weird for the horse reinforcements to stay.

Well, but horse reinforcement people they're not going to raise any eyebrows, Like that's just part of eighteenth century logistics, right, there's just always horses and people like taking care of horses.

They're totally they're flush with horses.

I get it, But it's just weird that if they're all on the same operation, why can't a horse person be like, wait, wait, I know you guys, I feel uncomfortable here, but just stay because he is coming, Like.

Or did they not? I mean know, that they were all part of something.

Well, here's another thing I don't know about horse logistics. Yeah, if if you pre plan all your horse changes, or if it's more like a gas station and you just stop and you're like, hey, can we trade you these like travel horses for your fresh horses?

I bet it was that. Yeah.

I bet they're just going being like, give me a gi give me the horse, like give it, give me your horse right now. We need it.

We can't say why.

But then the king would be like popping out of that royal.

Like Rolly Polly popping out with mustard on his.

Face in there.

Geez, get back in the bumblebee, louis all right.

Well, one of the people who recognized them was a postman who was furious that the king was escaping and jumped on his horse and dashed ahead of the carriage to the town of Varenn, which is only thirty miles from their final destination of Malmetti. It's so close. This guy got to Varenn ahead of them. He warned the town, and of course, so when the carriage rolled in u there was a roadblock and all of the local officials

Oh my god?

And were they dressed as a governess and a what was the other guy was? What was the king going to be?

He was going to be a valet, But it seems like he had a real hard time with that role, Like not only did he have no idea how a valet should be, a he probably was like these clothes are very uncomfortable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, can I just wear my royal robe?

Just? I mean, just, I mean, I'll still pretend to be a vout if anyone asks me, but I just need to be comfortable.

Comfortable. Yeah.

Wow, it's so stressful that they went in that big carriage.

It does reek of just a total misunderstanding, a misreading, a sort of like like I'm with you, like going back to just the prep, like don't pack.

Just by the way.

They're going to Austria, which is where Marie Antoinette is from. Her brother is the king of Austria, so like they're gonna be fine, just get there.

It doesn't make any sense, but you're right that it does make sense when it's like they're.

Really they're feeling fear, a fear.

That feels serious and that they're probably not used to feeling, but they can't exactly make them like sort of like cognitive leap, like the understanding to realize that that fear is also because a context has completely changed and they're still like operating in the old context. And that is really that's kind of like a lesson for all of us. It's like you actually just have to do a bunch of really new stuff, like just drop it and go, yeah, don't do any of your old stuff.

Oh, you are so on point, and you're actually like giving me like terror chills right now because I keep having this feeling that like America is changing and it won't ever change back. It's not gonna be chill. We're in this weird h Yeah, it feels like the storm clouds are gathering and they're just not going to go away totally.

And also I mean not to get to become too much of a bummer, but like that is the story of like half of my Like my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor because her family literally did leave Paris with nothing and went in like hid in the woods for years. But half of the family, like didn't do that because it's like in what when you're like you're just like middle class in Paris, like living in an apartment and you have a new couch and you run like a

It's like, it's really hard to.

Take action in a way that is completely uncharacteristic or disconnected from from everything that you've seen in life, even if you've seen it happen to other people.

You know, yeah, oh man, it's so hard to.

Compare on a bumblebee carriage or whatever, you know.

And if your life is so gilded as as as a royal person, like, it's that changes even harder. It's even it's so much more dramatic feeling, oh but all the more necessary.

All right, So now this is interesting.

They had they had at least taken the step of putting together some false papers in case they were stopped like this, so they did have past like passports, et cetera. But there's a final twist, which is that the officials, because of course they didn't this was pre photography, like they didn't they couldn't like positively I d the king unless there was someone that they that they could verify

Like, oh, I don't know, I don't know, maybe maybe it's not the king.

But when but when they brought him in, he was so overcome by seeing the king in the flesh that he actually bowed down on one knee and immediately gave it away. So they were like, yep, we got him, we got the king. He's positively idd darn it. The irony, of course, being that this is the treatment he'd been hoping for from all of us, right from all the country folk, the whole time.

But this is game over, this is it? And is this like the end. So when the royal.

Family was caught in varn they were held until revolutionary soldiers arrived to drag them back to Paris. Descriptions of their return to the city of Paris are very dramatic. Apparently it was just dead silent, like the mobs were out, but it was dead silent. I believe Ropespierre had warned everyone, if you cheer for the king, you'll be punished, or if you jeer or ridicule the king, you will also be punished. So people were.

Were dead quiet, which is spooky, right.

Oh my god.

First of all, there's nothing worse, I think than the silent treatment. It is such an insane power grab. It's absolutely so humiliating and obviously impossible to decipher except for that something is wrong. And then to have everybody like all of Paris, all of Paris.

You're rolling into town. Yeah, it's just like are you looking out the way?

They're like, hi, So we're sorry, We're just gonna shuffle forward a bit, We're gonna switch back.

Are you guys, Are you guys mad?

Or like? And it's such a such a message of control, like if you're you know, trying to say like you know, the power should belong to the people, and the people who are so impassioned are able to also control themselves and agree amongst themselves so much that they're all deadly still and quiet. That is that's extraordinary.

It is. It's sad.

It's a major move.

I don't think we'd be able to do that right now in ours purerect in our realm.

A group of royal supporters at this point were trying to kind of like spin the story to help the king save face, and they came up with this story that he'd been kidnapped by sinister foreign agents who actually wanted to invade France.

Not bad, you know, I mean, it doesn't seem like that's what happened.

Yeah, And it's a good try.

It doesn't really pass the smell test because the biggest problem with the foreigners kidnapped the poor king story is that before they left the palace, the King Louis had written a manifesto of sorts. He had said that all of his earlier agreements with the National Assembly that supported the Constitution, that all of that stuff was a lie, and that he had really just been buying time while he planned to retake the throne. And retake the entry

To negotiate with me.

We're going to restore the monarchy, right, But but he actually was just kind of humiliated, and this turned out to be one of the primary pieces of evidence against him at trial.

Look, you got to keep your paperwork straight.

You got to you gotta really think about when you're going to show your papers.

This was a huge turning point in the revolution because to the extent that there was a belief that they could make this constitutional monarchy work and that they could sort of share power between a figurehead monarch and representatives of the people.

This escape attempt.

Just blew that out of the water, and all of a sudden, now the revolutionaries are furious at the monarchy. They're furious at the king, and they want him, they want him gone, and the monarchy was fully abolished by the revolutionary government in seventeen ninety two. All of this, the escape attempt, and the letter that he'd left behind, were all used against him as evidence at trial, and he was of course sentenced to death.

Oh man, what do you think was that fair?

I don't know.

The guillotine is really really gross, really really gross.

You know. Yeah, not my choice, not my choice, death penalty.

The interesting thing the guillotine is that it was invented by someone opposed to the death penalty, and because their main beef with the death penalty is how inhumane it is. And the thought was that the guillotine was the most humane way to kill someone because it's so clean and fast, right, I don't know, Yeah, it's so gruesome, right, It's.

Just so scary.

It's not like whoever that executioner was was like the Temple Grand Ins of France or whatever. He wasn't the Temple grand in France, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you know, there's there's something also about the the beheading of Marie Antoinette that has always like made me feel maybe it's just all ladies that get beheaded like in history that I know about, which is like genuinely too. It's like Anne Bolin and Marie Antoinette and I'm just like, oh, you didn't have to do that.

Yeah, yeah, it's like.

Literally or somewhere else. Get her out of here, you know. If you don't like her, like I don't.

Well it brace my heart.

Yeah, it is upsetting.

I think even like wherever you stand on the death penalty thing, like did they deserve that in this moment? But it was I think for the revolutionaries such a symbolic gesture of like death to not just these particular people, it was death to monarchy as a concept. Yeah, we are, we are removing this and of course we're just like nixing the bloodline. We're making it permanent. Death is permanent. And yeah it's but it's grizzly, and this is not me defending it. I'm this is me just trying to

Well that's what I was going to say is like you do send a signal that this is possible if you go against what's happening. Like first it's like you behead the monarchy, and I get that, but then it's like this thing that we did is so extreme and it has to hold that if anybody even seems like they're not going to be with it, there, they also have to get their heads chopped off, and that is.

Not you know the way I mean.

This morning, I was actually listening to Ken Burns talk about his new documentary about the Revolutionary War, and like he was like, a country is born in violence, but like, eh, after a while, there's got to be another system that that steps up, like a you know, system of rule of law and that kind of thing.

I think.

I mean, at this point, don't we have a good grasp on like what works best?

Yeah? I think we do.

Isn't the data in?

I think the data actually is in. And then there's like five guys who are like, well, we don't, well, let me do my own research. Like the idea that I would ever quote unquote do my own research, like I don't know how to do that. You know, I don't think I'm an idiot, But I'm not like a scientist or a politician, like I don't know, I don't know, you know, I'd love to trust the experts.

Actually, there's one last little epilogue here.

This is kind of fun, a little post credit scene, if you will, because I know you're curious about the last big old danglin thread here. What happened to our Swedish boy toy axel Von person for sure?

Yeah, okay, well he himself was killed.

By an angry mob when he was mistakenly accused of poisoning the Swedish prince in eighteen ten.

Wow.

But yeah, angry mobs were a real big deal at this point.

They're really scary.

I mean, we had one recently in our nation. It's scary. Yeah, they're scary.

They don't generally make good decisions. No.

I read somewhere a quote I wish I could remember who to attributed to the intelligence of a mob is that of the dumbest person in the mob. So like the behavior, like an entire mob behaves as the dumbest person in the mob.

Actually, I was just thinking about like it.

For some reason, Americans were able to be totally silent while someone rolled through town that they didn't like that, Like when I said we'd never be able to do it, Like I was fully imagining myself in the in the silent crowd, not being able to stop myself from being like who fared?

Like just like.

That, it's so tempting to disturb, you know, the stillness. I think I would be the weakest there was, the dumbest person in the in the mob. I'm the person that changes us from a core cohort into like a freak out.

Could you ever see yourself being swept up in a mob? I think it's emotionally yeah, because I feel like.

It's one of those things that we all think like we're that were It's sort of like cults, right, Everyone says like I could never join a cult, like I would never fall for that, in saying I'm too.

You would.

I don't think I would be in a mob because I don't consider myself to be like an impulsive person and I don't have like a sort of you know, like the switchblade of a temper that comes out.

But I really love friendly groups. I love cooking.

I love it when people are like trying to help each other actualize their dreams.

And I like it when people like are.

Dedicated to each other, and a lot of times cults are like non violent. I used to have a stand up bit about this actually about how like I would totally get drawn into a cult because like, I like all the things that they do, except I don't like having to be naked in a group of people, and I don't like having to do like oral sex to like a very very elderly person who has a long beard, which I feel like they make you do like the head of the cult.

That is, that's that's in the cult bylaws.

There's usually some guy who's like, you know what, Actually, a lot of the more interesting members of the cult are doing.

Yeah, yes, oh wait, why haven't you you fallen into a cult?

Then there are lots of them out there. There are lots of great options.

Hey, I've got a strong family, really great friends that are like no no, no, no, no no no, don't don't go in there.

Good answer.

I also think that you are a inquisitive person, and you're someone who like you're you're not only very intelligent and uh and sort of like educated, and you've taken it upon yourself to learn about the world and learn about people, And I think that is some of the best armor against these kinds of group think or indoctrination

Like what's the reason? Like why are we getting?

Well? We have to do that though, you know, like if we're all going to transcend and like you know, have clear minds, like why would we need to do that?

Yeah?

And you know what is a good place to start for me? Sometimes it is like I will ask myself for sometimes other people, like if this were a movie, who would you be? And like what part of the story, Like would it seemed like a good story, if this were a parable, if this were like a religious text or a fairy tale, who would you be?

Who would they be?

Yeah? Who would they be? You know, it's a great question, who would be?

I think you're onto something really quite elegant, which is that stories, movies parables the sort of broad whatever gestalt of.

Hum and storytelling.

It is rooted in fundamental values, right like a sense of right and wrong. My kid loves the Lion King, and so I've gotten very deep into the sort of like Lion King universe. And and that is a movie where good and bad is so clearly delineated, and bad is portrayed with Nazi symbolism totally.

I mean stars when he sings be prepared, that is, those thos.

Are literally goose stepping.

Yeah, and it's and so it's it's so interesting to me that those kinds of stories that that obviously have an intent to kind of raise children with a sense of right and wrong and a sense of sort of trepidation towards that kind of behavior, towards Scar's behavior. Yeah, and yet we see a cultural swing to a greater trust in that. Like, I'm so confused. That's such cognitive dissonance for me that I'm trying to work through and understand.

Yeah, because you know, there's also the thing about the fairy tale, and I would include you know, the Lion King, and that is that like the thing that can be hard in adulthood is that you can feel that a fairy tale only functions as something to like a warning or a disappointment, because it's like, wait, but like the Jafar of my life didn't get stops, the scar of my life, didn't of my country, like didn't.

Get thrown off the cliff or whatever.

Like they they they're sitting on the on the chair, they're sitting on the throne whatever. But I think that that can actually be a distraction from the other thing about fairy tales or archetypes, which is like they're a template for us to compare ourselves to. They're not just like an outcome or sort of an immature, shallow warning.

It's like there's they're really used to.

They're really really useful because you don't get so scared about like having to really think about your own life.

You know, you don't short circuit or get overwhelmed.

But if you place it outside of yourself and you look, then you're like, oh, I guess I do see a lot of stuff, because I do see.

A lot of similarities.

And then you have to do, you know, the more difficult work of figuring out how to turn in a new direction. But if you do turn in a new direction, you shouldn't go in a big yellow, black bubble we carriage because and even if you do that, don't get out of the fucking carriage man.

Yeah, stay inside, right, just stay, keep your head inside and go as fast as you can. Change those horses and go as fast as you can. Jenny Slade, You're amazing and such a device. Thanks so much for coming on Snaffoo.

Thanks for having me. I loved this.

Snaffoo is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapoo Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Post production creative support from good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tory Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from

Just go to Snaffo dashbook dot com. Thanks for listening, and see you next time week.

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