Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today, myself and Paul Hoppy are kind of giving you a triple header. We're gonna be doing a listener feedback episode, by which I mean that we got a great question about Guardians of the Galaxy, which we're mostly gonna be talking about, and the questions about Guardians of the Galaxy and animal rights, which is something's very dear to Paul Hoppy's heart, something that is very dear to my heart in
large part because of my friendship with Paul. And so we're kind of doing both of those things. We're doing Guardians, We're doing animal rights, We're doing listener feedback. We will have another piece of listener feedback to talk about as well. All that more after commercial break, we have no controller. Welcome Macam Matthew. I'm your host. As I said, I'm joined by former host, former regular guests, now semiregular guest, Paul Hoppy. Paul,
how we doing tonight? Doing pretty well? Yeah, it's you know, it's getting up in the nineties every day in Vegas now, so it's not my favorite time a year, but yeah, yeah, we're a bomby sixty here in Minnesota, so I'm not quite love on the weather here, but we'll have ninety for two weeks. Well you're right, yeah, yeah,
that sounds unbearable, exactly exactly. Well, this is not going to be kind of an interesting episode, and I think the best way to start it is we have a piece of listener feedback we got because I will admit I had not been planning to watch the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I They've never been my favorite part of the MCU. I really didn't like the second movie, and I'm a little bit on MCU burnout. And I don't mean that in any way to be critical of people who still love everything
MCU too does. I still like a lot of things, but like, for example, I haven't seen the New Antman movie yet. I just didn't really feel a need to. I've also just been feeling like I enjoyed movies a lot more when I can sit at home and not going to the theaters. But then I was finding a discussion about the movie online really interesting,
and then we got this listener email from Sophia and Sophia rights. Hi, Matthew, I love I love your Superhero Ethics podcast, and I'm writing to ask you if you planned to do an episode talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three. I love hearing you and Paul Happy talk about the I think hearing you and Paul Hoppy talk about this movie would be a great discussion, especially because Paul is such a big proponent of animal rights and this movie has
a lot of animal cruelty in it. I know you don't often cover movies right when they're released in theaters, but I hope that sometime in the future you'll consider an episode on it. Have a great day, Sophia lim Shide, which, by the way, also awesome, including your pronouns as someone who uses pronouns that were not what people would expect to me they them. I always really appreciate when people just kind of normalize, like, let's everyone
just use pronouns, you know, tells what your pronouns are. So putting that aside, though, so I decided to go watch the movie and big spoilers for that. Well, we're not going to spoil too much of the significant plot details, but I think we're gonna spoil some of the general themes and which are that the movie includes. As Ifia said, quite a lot
of animal cruelty, but it is not presented from an exploitative standpoint. It's really presented from a standpoint of, hey, people watching this like the way humans treat animals in our own world, that alone in this world is wrong and bad. And I think that's where it really we're going to talk about it from. But we're going to do something interesting because we're gonna be talking
about this movie and mostly talking about the issues that it raises. And one of the two of us, Paul, hasn't seen the movie yet, and I think that that alone is a really interesting question that helps to get into why we're talking about this today and the kind of discussion we're going to have.
And so Paul, let me kind of just start by asking you this, Like you're someone who is on record, as you know, talking a lot about you get really upset sometimes when animals are treated poorly in the fiction that we watch, and you really want them to be treated better. Here's a movie that is about animals being treated poorly. But that's kind of the whole point, because it's about drawing attention to something that you and I think
a lot of other folks myself included, really care about. In terms of the the entitlement that humans have towards animals and animal lives and animal suffering and all the light. So why haven't you seen this movie? Yeah? So I think the fact that you know you're not going to go you don't go to theaters in general, but like, sure, sure, so I planning to not see this movie even when it comes out on digital. Yeah, so like you, I've got my share of MCU burnout where I'm just like
I'm I'm just gonna put it down for a moment. Maybe I'll watch like all the movies in a row in a year or something like it took me forever to watch Wakonda forever, and I finally watched and I was like, Okay, that's supposedly the end of a phase or something, so maybe that's a good point to kind of just be like, I'll take a break. But also, you know, I haven't been I haven't seen a movie in the theater since Birds of Prey, so yeah, you know, it's been
a minute. And I thought about, like, would I go to see this movie specifically so that I could talk about it, And then you brought up the idea of like you could watch it and then we could talk about kind of some things that happened and how it handles things, and I think that can often, Like I think sometimes that leads to a really good discussion, right, Like we've done that with some Star Wars novels where I'm just the kind of like illiterate, like I didn't read the book, like you
all tell me about the book and I'll ask some questions and I can't actually read them. But so here though, there's there's like a there's another level of aside from you know, not really wanted to go see a movie in a theater, aside from not being super amped to see another MCU movie right now. Also, you know, if there's a lot of depictions of animal cruelty in it, Like, given my understanding about the way the movie handles that, I think it's great that it exists, and I think hopefully it
will have an effect on people. But I'm like, I don't feel like i'm that audience of you know, I don't think I'm the person who needs something to have that effect on me, and it to me, it would likely just be an unpleasant experience for most of it. And you know, I mean, it's it's sort of like seeing images of violence in our in our own world right where it's important to know that these things happen, and
sometimes seeing something for the first time can have a profound effect. And however, I think at a certain point it's like, all right, that's enough. I understand that this exists. I feel it on a visceral level, and I don't need a constant visual reminder of it, you know, to keep in my mind that like, yeah, that's a thing and it's awful
and I want to do something about it. Yeah, I think I remember it first being a little surprised, but the more I thought about it, that makes to all sense to me, because I know, like, in a similar way, when I met my partner Mary, you know, she like I is queer, and we were talking a lot about queer themes and stuff, and she was saying like, yeah, she didn't want to see any fiction where characters died ebates, you know, or died of gay bashing,
you know. And the point being like that that she'd been exposed to lots and lots of that and had really, you know, been immersed in that world and was a part of the world herself, and as a person an activist and a person to believe in all these things. And I was like, I don't. Maybe it's great if other people are seeing this and but but I don't need to. I don't need to see it again.
Who reminded of why this is terrible? Yeah? And I know I've heard similar things from like you know, black creator black creators on here who say things like, look like I don't I don't need to watch another video of someone like me being shot by the police or something like that. Um, and and I'll say I feel the same way, like I don't need to see another shot of someone being shot by the police. Like, yeah,
because it's horrible, let's do something about it. Yeah, Like I think that's the thing is because I think like, and here's a thing of like I don't want to judge this for anybody else or say like this group should always do it, this group should never do it whatever, But like to me, I mean, watching this movie, I definitely had a visceral reaction of like being reminded of just how horrible our world is to animals and everything from like the you know, you know, the meat industry and then the
the you know, the way animals treated there but especially like what this movie really kind of about animal at experimentation and things like that. Um, and in horrible timing, for example, that Britain just changed their regulations to start allowing businesses to do experiments on animals again um, which I guess none of them had seen the movie. Um, but like and and yeah to me, like I was still at a point where like, yeah, the movie
it was hard to watch at times. I think, not as hard as it might have been for others because I have seen a lot worse with animals in my own research of these things. But yeah, but I but I had that viscal reaction like Okay, this is a reminder to me that I need to be even doing more on this subject. And I think that there's something to be said for like here, here's what I would say, and
I'm wanting you would feel the same way to me. That means I don't think the movie went too far, Like I think it is a good thing that the movie is doing that in the same way that like, you know, like I don't want to stop having movies about you know, people dying of aids, especially gay man in the eighties and nineties, because it happened all the time, and it's important for people to see that and to know that and to not hide from that. It's like it's important to see you
know, racism existing and sexily existing and stuff like that. But kind of what what is your feeling of it? Of Like, if you hear that there's a movie that is about animal rights and it's about sort of pushing people to do animal more animal compassion and it involves a lot of scenes of animal cruelty, does that strike to you It's like, Okay, that's even if it's not what you want to see, that's probably a good thing to help
move people. Is it something like you'd rather not have that in the movie? What what's kind of feeling there? Yeah? I mean if so. First of all, there's a whole thing about like movies that are centered around trying to make a point that I think just fundamentally challenging and like how to go about making a movie. And I tend to not very often enjoy those
movies that have some point that's like front and center. You know. I like there to be themes and I really want movies to make people think about things right, and then kind of people can can end up where they end up. But again, I haven't seen this movie, so I won't I won't speak to how it handles that, but in terms of let me say something something about that, and I think that's something I should be very clear
for this movie for the audience. Due to that, I think what we're gonna try and do here is use Guardians as a jumping off point to talk about these topics in general. Yeah, because I think, yeah, my saying to you, well, here's my interpretation of what happens. So do you think this movie did a good job like that? That's stilly, right, like, because it's all gonna be through my own experience and my own
view of it. So but yeah, so this is not like like in a question like this, I'm not saying, like, so do you think James gunn use cruelty to animals? Right? Well or not? Well, because you don't know, you haven't seen it exactly, but just okay, so this movie did that. Let's get to the general question then. Yeah, So, like I think war movies should have blood in them, right,
Yeah, Like, I think, especially anti war movies. I mean, I guess pro warr movies you probably don't want to show the blood you know, you just want to see the enemies getting blown up and then you're like yay, but you know, I mean, having recently watched the top gun movies, I'm like, oh, there's there's no blood there, you know. But as opposed to say Private Ryan, or I tried to watch All Quiet on the Western Front and I started it and I was just like,
not today, you know. I was like, I'm sure this might be a great movie, and it's in German and I love that and I'd really enjoy watching it some day, but like that wasn't the day, you know, And I remember there's a tangent, but theok back to it,
ignoring the last five minutes. To me, one of the things that made of Steving Private Ryan such a good movie was that until that point movies that the only war movies that were really very bloody and gory were Vietnam movies, right, And there's just kind of this idea of like, Vietnam is a
morally questionable war, so war looks ugly and terrible. World War two was the noble good war, so the warfare looks like noble and good, and when the people die, they you know, say a quirky line to their buddy as they you know, die, or they just sit and smoke a cigarette that a pretty nurse gives them in the hospital or whatever it is and sort of see like, yeah, this is World War two, We're fighting
the literal Nazis and it's still bloody and horrible and terrible. It was kind of groundbreaking in a way anyway, that very much in a tangent, But you want to underline that, Yeah, yeah, I mean, like all war as hell, and just because you're fighting the bad guys doesn't make you always on equivocally the good guys, right, like impossible, like like you can't do horrible things as well, which I think World War Two actually demonstrates
quite well. But yeah, so I think I think if you try to make a movie like this and you kind of just like talked about the horrible things like that would make it maybe easier for me to watch, right, And I think there's a place for that, But I think there's also a
place for being very explicit, you know what I mean. I think this is something that comes up also with like movies that cover like sexual assault, right where I think a lot of people feel like a lot of times those sorts of scenes are very exploitative, and also just a lot of people are like, I don't I don't want to watch that, right, Yeah, And I think that's fair. But I also think that there's a place for showing the horrors of anything that you're trying to show the horrors of, you
know. And in terms of the horrors of animal cruelty in blockbuster movies, like it hasn't really been done a whole lot. You know, often there's an amount of animal cruelty that just goes like laughed at even, right, And and so I think that that's you know, it's it's pretty bold to say, like, yeah, this is you know, this is an MCU
film. This is a Disney film, you know, I mean in terms of the parent company, like and I mean Disney has always had these like anthropomorphic animals that are like their main characters, you know, so it actually kind of feels like maybe that's the right company to like be like, no, we're going to do something that's for mass audiences, right, and we're going to show the reality of and of course it's not actually the reality because
it's it's in space and you know, talking raccoons and all this right, but but showing I mean, I know I read a few articles about it, and I know, like Peter gave James Gunn like an award for like, you know, making a movie like this and and having getting details right, like you know, the the animals having numbers tattooed on them and being referred to by numbers right, not by names, and um, that literally happens in a lot of places where animals are experimenting on or or feed animals
and things like yeah, exactly, And so I do think there's value to like hitting people with the full force of it. You know, I think there's value there. I think it's a sort of thing where it's like I don't want everything about animal rights or that's against animal cruelty to vividly show that, because I think there's also value in having things that some other people might want to watch and be like, oh that's too much. I don't want
to watch that one. But like then maybe there's another entry point for them. Yeah, you know what I mean, And I do think And again here I'm going to talk about Guardians not to ask you to evaluate it, but to give some context and lead into a large conversation like what you're saying about the movies that make a point. I tend to be a little bit fonder of those than a lot of other people. But even I would agree like it feels too much like you're making the point instead of making a movie.
It's a problem in this It feels very earned because it is primarily what we're seeing is rockets backstory, right, and Rockets a character who we've now had for three Guardians movies as well as significant parts of other movies, particularly Avengers movies, and we've always gotten some hints that he had terrible things happen to him in the past and that that is part of why he is who he is, and so getting now to have that really explored and then they
won't spoil it, but they do some like character things where basically like they have to learn more about his history in order to help him in the present. It wouldn't make it feel very earned and very relatively real to the story.
Yeah, and I think that's super important. Whenever you're trying to make a point, it's like, is this point kind of something that you wanted to make, and then you came up with a story to try and make that point, and then often I think you're going to get something that feels very artificial or did you have a story to tell and there's a point in the story, Like there's a point to the story, right, and so it's organic storytelling that involves making a larger point. I think that's always gonna
it's first of all, it's just going to be a better story. And I think when you have a better story, it's going to hit better, like your point is going to land better, Like when it's not like you're just like writing an essay, right, yeah, and then like having some characters read the essay, it's like, no, this is a story and it shows you right as opposed to just tells you about something. And I think it's important knowledge that that question there is one that is incredibly subjective.
And then I think depending on I think a lot of factors will decide how much you, an individual person, thinks that the story has earned the points that it's making. And I think a lot of that has to do with storytelling itself. I also do think a lot of that has to do with
how comfortable you are with the point that's being made. And yeah, I certainly think that it is one of the easiest ways to dismiss a movie it has something like that, it's like, oh, it's just pandering, like they're just writing female characters or black characters whatever, pander instead of like, yeah, and I obviously have a bias in that particular question and leaning pretty hard to one side, but but I think I'm not trying to say I
don't I can't draw where the objective line is. But I think that it's important to say, like, that is a really important question to ask, as well as to say that, like, like a lot of questions, it can is also a lot of disingenuousness that can sometimes go into that question
being brought up. Yeah, for sure, but like it's I think it's a legitimate question, and yeah, like a lot of nuance, it gets weaponized these days, right, Like, but yeah, there's there's definitely movies that make points that I totally agree with, and I'm like, I think you're doing disservice to this point, you know, or just are hard to
watch as a tangent, but I think it's helpful. I'd love to hear from you, what is an example of one where you think the point was really well integrated into the story and one where you were like, I agree with you, but can you just tell me a story instead of beating over the head of this right, Well, so like the first Avatar movie, not the Airbender, but like the Avatar movie, Like, you know, I mean, yes, it's a savior story also, but it's also anti
colonialist, right, it's anti exploiting a planet for its resources and not caring what you're doing to the population there. And like I agree with that point, Like, yeah, don't do that, but like, yeah I did. It felt heavy handed and I just didn't really enjoy the story very much, you know, I mean, it looked pretty, but in terms of one that really does a good job of making those points, I mean, I'm gonna I have two examples, neither of which are I think primarily trying
to make those points. One of them is going to be and Or where I don't think Andor is like this is the point I want to make. I don't think. Tony Gilroy was like I want to make these points.
I think Tony Gilroy is a person who's read a lot of stuff and thought about a lot of things and had a story to tell and is telling that story and integrating a lot of those points into that story, right, And so I think those things also, like the story is literally about like fighting against authoritarianism, so when you're you know, and and this this colonial power, right the empire, and so it's like it's not too on the nose to call it what it is, right, It's like you can literally just
show it because that is actually what the story was always about, right from the first Stars Star Wars movie and then another movie that I actually I'm going to see whether I can get you to finally try watching this one again.
But I would say gross point blank, Like gross point blank is about a hit man who goes to his ten year high school reunion, and like sure, you know, yeah, but and it's a comedy, you know, but it's got a lot of like you know, leftist like anti authoritarian, anti war type messaging in it that's just kind of like worked in there.
I feel like, not super heavy handed, partially because it's a comedy, you know, but um, I think a lot of times, I mean, you can have something like and Or where it's like it is about fighting
against an empire quite literally. But I think also sometimes you can just have characters who have certain viewpoints and they can express those viewpoints in ways that at least are going to make the audience think and and when you do, I think that's that's sometimes I think that's potentially more effective because it's just like you're you're telling a compelling story and then you're weaving some some things into it, you know, And I guess if you want to go with the MCU,
like, I feel like The Winter Soldier does a pretty decent job of that. Yeah, you know, thank it's fair. Yeah, Like I say, I think MCU has been for the most part pretty good about about about these things. Not always by any means, but to me, the one of the ones that I would go to most often is Miss Marvel because I'm sorry, well, Miss Marvel, I definitely would Captain Marvel, that's what you're gonna say, No, no, yeah, I got I do mean
Miss Marvel, although Captain Marvel I think also does it. But because to me, in Miss Marvel, like it's it's about a teenage girl who was also a Pakistani American who was also a Muslim, and I don't think you could tell her story without Islamophobia coming in in some way. I don't think you can tell her story without the particular issues of immigration and her family and
and yeah, and that partition plays a role in her family's story. I felt like I learned a lot more about those worlds by watching that show. I felt like I had a lot more empathy and a lot more like, oh, okay, I can see this gives me a better understanding of a lot of other you know, Pakistani American artists or things like that. But I never felt like the show was hitting me over the head with it.
Because if you felt like, it's the story of this teenage girl who gets these powers, and here's the cool things that happened, yeah, I'll co sign that. I felt like the marketing was like a little on the nose, and then like the actual show itself was just good. Aside from the antagonists I thought were by far the work is fun, but Team Protagonist was
fantastic. Yeah. Well, so, pointing it back to Guardians, Yeah, one of the things that I thought was interesting was as the movie went on, I kept up there were a couple times where I had this moment of Okay, well, actually, I'm going to back up here a second and use the example that you just talked about before the first movie avatar. I agree with you. I thought I appreciated that the movie was trying to tell a kind of anti colonial, anti imperialist story, but by doing it
through what felt to me this white savior narrative. Also by the way of very able this narrative, but it's a whole other story, it really kind of undercut that message. There were a lot of things in this Guardians movie that I would watch and I would feel like, God, damn it, Paul. If I hadn't talked with Paul so much, I would just be
like, Wow, this is awesome animal right stuff. But the conversations you and I have had have started to get me to see these other things that undercut the message some and then the movie would directly address that thing and change it. And so I want to kind of go through a couple of these and just use them to talk about like if I'm kind of right and said, how you would think about a trope like this, and and and get into those general thoughts about that not am I right thing, but just sure
for that conversation, Like I'll give you the first example. We start with basically Rocket as a as a young raccoon with kind of a much younger voice is with a couple of other animals who have all been through something similar that they are now. I don't know if sentient is the right word, but the word it's like verbal, right, yeah, I mean the now English, they're now verbal, and the invocation of the movie is certainly that they
are now capable of a level of intellectual understanding that they weren't before. Yes, sapience is the word. That's actually more although that's they have a more human like level of intelligence is pretty much. I think that's good way to look for it. And that's exactly kind of the point is, and so and a lot of things that were done to them which were like there's a lot of body horror elements that are in it, which again where I felt
really good because they don't some of them are hard to look at. They don't look cute. It looks like a very cute animal. The horrible things have been done too, right, So on the one hand, they're not just saying, hey, look, the cute animal deserves sympathy, but they were showing that the you know, the scent, the sapient animals deserve the
deserve sympathy. And then later they specifically make a point of like some people only want to rescue those animals, and Rocket I was like, no, no, no, no, all these animals that haven't been experimented on yet,
like we need to rescue them as well. Yeah, and as well as also introducing a couple of other animal characters who are not who have not been experimented on like that, they're not verbal, they're not they're not interacting with people on that kind of a level, but they still become full characters in the show, in the movie who I think are just deserving of sympathy
and empathy. Yeah, And to me, that's that's critical, right, because if you only take the animals that have you know, enhanced intelligence or whatever, like you know, for all the animal rights and whatever that I'm going to talk about, Like humans, as far as we know, are more intelligent than most animals, right, Like maybe dolphins are actually similar, right, And I mean this is something that's maybe hard to measure and hard to really know, but um, you know, dogs, adult dogs tend
to have intelligence similar to like human two year olds, right, And and I mean humans aren't born with with the intelligence that that humans end up with that adult human stuff, right. Um, the brain develops over time. And I think if you basically are just like, well, these animals deserve you know, rights or just for me, the word rights isn't even like the word I want to use, just like to deserve decent treatment, respect,
right, to deserve to be treated like they have feelings. Um. Then it's like if somebody needs to be able to tell you that they have feelings for you to respect their feelings, like that's you're you're not going very far to you know, try and try and understand anyone, right, um. And so bringing in you know, the other animals who have not achieved
like human like adult human like intelligence. And that's not to say that five year old or ten year old humans don't also have a you know, increased level of intelligence, but like that, that's not the thing that is why they deserve respect and decency, right, It's it's because they are feeling like Sentience is the word that often is used to mean human like intelligence, but sentience literally means the ability to feel and you know, basically regardless of intelligence
level, like animals feel, right, I mean it's it's and and feel specifically feel suffering, but also joy and other emotions. Right, And just because they don't have words, Like they can't tell you with words, but that doesn't mean that they can't express it. I mean a cat purring, Like, what does that mean? You know what that means? Right? Spend any time with a dog that has had you know, a really you know, not great owner in its past, and the colloquial term I would
want to use is that the dog has something akin to PTSD. I don't. I don't want to trivialize that actually very real condition which I do have. But and so I don't. I don't have any idea if like the brain chemistry is similar, but certainly in terms of like the way early trauma can severely affect a human for the rest of its life, early trauma can definitely affect a dog and the rest of its life. And I imagine many other animals, but dogs are the ones that I think we were the most
aware of in that way. Yeah, because it's because dogs are like the most human facing animals, right at least skin in certain cultures. Right, And and yeah, I think say saying it that's PTSD is to me,
that's not trivializing you know, human PTSD. It's like, yeah, okay, maybe you don't want to offer a clinical diagnosis, right, right, but it's like, well, that is literally post traumatic and there's there's something going on right a part of it exactly exactly, And and you could call it a disorder because there's there's challenges that you know, the dog is facing that then anybody trying to interact with the dog is gonna have have a hard
time, right and um, and you know, and there's there's a lot of wonderful people who who work with with dogs and other animals who've been through things like this, right and um. Actually there's there's a Batman story right about that's where that's where Ace comes from basically, um in in Batman beyond and um, you know, but obviously in our world this is something that
that happens a lot. And and there's people who who you know, try and try and deal with this and and help animals heal like emotionally, right And and if I mean, if you can see that an animal can be emotionally scarred by cruelty and mistreatment, then like obviously you know that they're suffering
going on, right. And I think the practice of like referring to animals who are experimented on by numbers is specifically so that the experimenters don't have to feel the same level of attachment that them might if they you know, called them Mike or like, you know, yeah, Betsy or something. It's yeah, it's it's a way of shutting off the natural empathy or passion that
a person would feel. And that's I think we've talked before about how that's something that happens, Like that's a way that we justify cruelty towards other humans, you know, and everything from like racism and sexism and like you know, myth telling of like oh all these people and that's everything from like the way people talk about trans people today to like, you know, the way the US Army was taught about Japanese people as these like hortable brutes, and
it happens in all cultures and stuff like. Yeah. There's two two things
actually that I kind of want to throw in here. One is that I think this is another reason that people have such an easier time being awful to people who don't speak their language and being anti immigration and anti immigrant and um and anti people who live in the United States but maybe don't speak English as much right, and I would that I'm also very able ift towards people who don't communicate well absolute exactly, like the idea like, oh well, if
you can't explain to me you know everything about how you're feeling, I can just ignore your feelings, you know, which is which is terrible? Like And it's not like somebody needs to be able to use words in a language you understand to explain certain things, to communicate certain fundamental things. Right, Obviously there's not going to be as much nuance if you don't share share a
language. But um. And then the second one is that when when we talk about things like like slavery, when we talk about things like the Holocaust, a common or just any kind of oppression of other humans, one of the very common phrases people use is that you know, such and such group or an individual person was treated like an animal, or we're treated like animals. And to me, that tells you everything you need to know about how humans feel. It's okay to treat animals. Yeah, could could the more
subtle version of that, but I think it's very true. It's very true as well, there's dehumanized, yeah, because exactly, but if they're not human then what are they? Right, It's exactly. And it's like, I feel like the phrase dehumanized is a useful one and the Black Sabbath album Dehumanizer is actually a very underrated album. But um, but it also it carries a little bit of species ism, and you know, there is a
thing where it's like, Okay, people get very angry. A lot of people get very angry, like when you compare um horrors done to other humans with horrors done to non human animals, right, and like I understand that, but like, whenever I do that, it's not because I think that the horrors done to humans were less horrible than someone else thinks they are. It's just that I think that the horrors done to animals also rise to that level. Yeah, you know, and it's like it it's like people being
like, oh, what was worse like slavery of the Holocaust? Like, no, that's that's not a thing right there, They're both maximum awfulness and there's no need to like compare. Yeah, And I think that's important because I think there's sometimes the perception that, you know, as a professional fundraiser. To me, one of the hardest things is that every time I write
a grant or I'm asking people from money. I always should have feel like I'm saying, like, don't give money to that cause, give money to my cause instead, right, And I think that the nonprofit capitalist industrial complex
like pushes that narrative. But I think it's important understand that most of us are not engaging in that, and that includes Vegan that you know, I've I've are there extreme The extremists from Peter I think often get bad attention, But every nonprofit cause I know has extremists, and I think for the most part, I very rarely hear a Vegan and being like, wait, don't give money to Black Lives Matter, give money to help stop this you know,
animal experiment, Like they're all like, yeah, all this oppression is wrong, you know, yeah, exactly. And you know the thing that I would throw on top of that is like, you know, as someone advocating on behalf of animals, like I understand, animals can't really advocate on behalf of themselves in within human society. Like, yes, there's the cow I think her name was Bessie that just escaped like like she was a hero. You know, there's there's a picture of her at the Candle Cafe,
like my favorite vegan restaurant back in the day. They just reopened a new one. But like you know, on the whole, like you don't You're not going to see a bunch of cows like marching down to Congress or anything, right, Whereas with human causes, it's like there's always going to be someone who's trying to stick up for themselves and I'm going to be like, yes, I have your back, you know, yeah, and I'm going to try and talk about it and help more people understand what the person is
saying in self advocacy. Right. But but like with animals, it's just it has to be a little different the same way, like if you're advocating for like two year olds, right, yeah you would, It's just a
little different. Yeah, no, I hear that. So the other thing that the movie did that really kind of struck me, and this one, I know we've talked about before, but I want to use this as a chance to get back into it is again with this idea of like, okay, but like the cuddly cute animals, those are the ones who care about,
right, And there were two ways the movie addressed this. The first is that there's a scene towards the end of the movie some spoilers here where they get attacked by these just like huge they look very monstrous and scary to human eyes. They look a lot like kind of the rolling balls of teeth from The Force Awakens, if you remember that movie. They've got tentacles and teeth and they're roaring and chopping and they're getting ready to attack, and our
heroes are getting ready to attack. And then Mantis, who's kind of the EmPATH one of them, sho steps up. It's like wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, and she kind of like figures out these animals are just afraid and they're they're they're they're trying to be scary because they're afraid, and that's what is their instinctual reaction to do. And on the surface level, there's a like, you know, don't always be scared of the scary looking animal, but it actually goes a lot deeper to wait
a minute. A lot of the times that like an animal is attacking us, like there's a difference between like you're in a wolf's territory and the wolf's trying to attack you because you're in its territory versus like you know, the Imperial Guard is trying to shoot you because you know you're you're trying to fight the empire. Like, both of them may pose a lethal threat and you
may need to act accordingly. But in one of those cases, it's a like that human should be choosing Otherwise in other case, it's like, no, this isn't just an animal doing what it's doing, and maybe you're the idiot for like putting yourself in that position, or maybe you can like recognize its fear and back away, which is exactly what winds up happening. And she kind of is able to connect with the animals and be like, no, they're just afraid, and we can show them we're not a threat.
They're not going to be scary to us. Yeah, And I mean that that often is very effective in you know, in real life, like especially with like like if you see a dog who's like growling at you, you know, like you don't like if you're aggressive towards them, they're going to continue to be aggressive, right, But often there are ways of diffusing thing. But yeah, I mean, you know, one of one of the most effective ways to to get attacked by animals is to you know, basically
tread on their you know, home area. You know, animals have castle defense, right, yeah, exactly, Like you know, I mean there's the sort of you know, I don't I don't know if it's a trope or whatever, but of like the you know, the the mother animal like
defending it's young or whatever or her young um. Which to circle back to pronouns like I do it as like an unconscious thing, but like calling animals like it and it's is like a very interesting dehumanizing or you know, depersonizing um to the point where I've actually contemplating using it it's pronounced myself to just
be like deal with it. You know. Also because like at some point robots are going to get called it and it's and like we'll probably be sentiented and it's like, well, dude, you know, I will say, like, you know, in the neo pronoun world, like, yeah, a lot of non binary folks I know use they them, but I definitely have met folks who use it. It's and the two working the most eas they think of both were vegans and both that was one of the points they
made as to when they did it. Interesting Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I And it's funny actually because forgive me for calling back to a part of something you generally enjoyed but that we both really did not like. In to me, this is something that Star Wars has gotten this exact same question
both very right and very wrong, which is so striking to me. And that in Mandalorian season two there's this whole episode basically where they go to a planet where ice spiders happen to live, and yeah, the movie is portrayed at like the show shows them as like these big scary monsters that are going to kill our poor, helpless characters. And there was a kind of cheer as the ice spiders are just slaughtered on mass whereas like, yeah, they're
just defending their home that these people have come and invaded. Yeah, and I didn't like it at the time. You especially helped point out what was problematic about it. And there I rewatched Rebels and there's a whole sort of plotline in Rebels about how big giant spiders that look terrifying, Yeah, are not actually scary if you're not scared of them. And I would just say you kind of maybe like laugh, like Okay, Feloni, You're really good
for the most part, like referencing your own stuff. But here's an issue that you previously got right and now you're getting wrong right because well, did Feloni write that episode of um? Well so in Rebels, actually they kind
of have both sides of it, because there is the whole. Like earlier on, there's an episode that really bothered me with in season one where you know, basically, Hara and Sabine I think, go to meet up with Fulcrum and I won't get too into the details, but like basically it's a bunch of scary looking animals and they kill a bunch of them, you know, and then later, like you know, they communicate with them. But it's a different thing, right, I mean, it's like it's Ezra and
Canan. But like so I feel like Felony kind of and I think this this maybe gets to another point where I feel like some writers and certainly a lot of people I think kind of selectively you know, can like can can take that and use it as a story, but then not have like fully internalized like the idea, you know, because like I feel like it seems like a good story to Feloni, you know, But I mean I don't know that much about about Dave, but um, just just not I'm kind
of acting though he has final script approval over everything that's ever been done in the last twenty years of Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, which is not the case, but just to kind of no, yeah, but I get it. And to me, it's like, there's so here in Guardians of the Galaxy three, Right, You've got a bunch of stuff about experimenting on animals, right, which is I don't know whether it's for science or whether it's for personal gain or what. And you can address that or not.
But like, to me, it's like I think it's gonna I wonder whether it will be easy for someone to see this movie and think, oh, well, experimenting on animals is horrible. We've we've got to stop that much. Yes, well we'll do something about that. But like, you know, eating them is fine, you know, or keeping them in cages for
for you know, for dairy and whatever. And I mean that's the sort of thing where like if if I were writing the movie and like this, this might be the sort of thing where it would be a challenge to kind
of bring it back around. But like I would probably have like star Lord going to Earth and like trying to order a burger and be like, oh, I just can't do it, you know, Yeah, And I will say that is one Like there's a kind of larger issue here also in terms of like movies that like, you know, we're kind of we're at like level five. It sounds a little patronized, but like, let's do it.
Let's patronize. Yeah, Like we're like, there's a particular issue that you have done like numerous levels of analysis on and gotten into numerous levels of nuance, and there's a movie or a TV show that's introducing the basic concepts to people, yeah, and where you're like, okay, well I could get really critical about how they're still not getting it right, but at least
they're starting the conversation. There is a running thing in the movie that I really didn't like that felt very clearly like the movie is saying we want you to feel bad about the way animals are treated, but we're not saying you have to be a vegetarian, which is that people are walking around eating.
Like first of all, I rewatched the first Guardians movie and forgot that it opens up with star Lord just like kicking these little rats all over oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and like picking them up and singing into them.
Basically like the delicacy on the planet that they're now on most of the time is like those rats on a stick that someone has roasted, right, And like numerous characters are shown eating them, I think including Rocket at one point, right, And that is never questioned in the slightest and that felt to me like a either a it was a glaring oversight, being more likely it was an intentional way of the movie being like, yeah, we're we're gonna
push the animal rights thing, but don't worry. You should still go have a hamburger after this does not feel bad? Yeah, And that you know that to me, I'm sure would bother me a lot, you know, yeah, I mean it me and I to eat me. Yeah. And there's there's stuff in in Live Action Star Wars where they're similarly um those there's something with like those you know that that annoying little loud dude who's like hanging
out with Java. There's like them on a stick or something, and like I don't like that, you know, I think I don't know if it's on tatterwheen or what but like, I yeah, that to me, that's
like an opportunity you know where it did. It wouldn't even have to be like a big thing, right, That's like that could be like a fifteen second beat where it's like after going and doing all of all of what they've done, like coming back and being like oh yeah, huh, you know, and it's like you don't even have to have them be like oh I am now never gonna eat, just like posing the question even you know, and like drawing the connection to me, and I do I do believe in
like better than nothing, you know, Like I think, yeah, getting people to start to question things is better than not doing that. Right. You don't always have to connect all the dots for everybody, but like you know, I do think it would be nice to like put put a little bit a little bit more like than then when it sounds like it sounds like that issue definitely went completely on address And yeah, there's two funny things I'll say about One is that maybe not funny, but sad. I think you're
right. I would have liked it if they had done just a little thing on that. I think if they had the number of people who felt like or who would claim that this was now an example of a movie that was just making a point at the expense of good storytelling would go up significantly because and I'm not saying that's a reason not to do it, Like I think it's a hard calculus to do, but I'm guessing that that that level of challenging people would have and maybe to me, that's a good reason to do
it. But like, I do think that would be the thing that would push a lot of people to be like, oh, like, I'm I'm comfortable feeling like this guy who tortures animals is fine, is bad, but but no, like, you know, just let me eat my burger in peace, right, Yeah. So so I mean, obviously we don't know and won't know, but I feel like, to me, it's like, so, first of all, obviously there's already a fair number of people who are saying that, and you know, the outrage machine is still working right
well, and do the flip side on that. One of the biggest not one of the biggest, but one of the forms of outrage that I've seen is that apparently a lot of kids are going to this movie and then being like mommy, Daddy, I don't want to eat animals anymore. That's fantaists are annoyed that their kids are vegetarians. So like, even if I had
that, some kids are getting the right message there. Yeah, perfect, Yeah, I mean parents, you got to you gotta understand your kids have agency and there's a reasonable chance they have better as ideas than you do.
But you know, yeah, and that's why I think like a fifteen second kind of almost throw away, like you could blink and you could miss it, but it's there would be the way that I would want to try and address something like that, because I think if you had a big five ten minute you know, bonus plot, arc or whatever that's really hitting people over the head with it, I don't see that being as effective, you know.
I mean maybe that's a story that's a different story or whatever, right, But like I think there are I think often there's room to do subtle things, you know, that that can sort of satisfy a point that I want to see without I'll put it this way, I think you could try and write a scene like that and like potentially ruin the movie, right, yeah, like and and and and kind of undermine your point by being just way too on the nose and um, and just it could just not work
right. Yeah, But I also think, like when you told me that that that's a thing to me that feels like, oh, that's a way better way of doing it than like having some like star Lord on Earth and Cheeseman. Now all you need it would be rocket, like a bunch of them going up to buy more of those like rats on stick rocket being m yeah, actually I'll pass, or something like yeah, you know, or
like not today. You know, It's like it doesn't even have to be like a character being like I am now a vegetarian, like yeah, sure, that's great, Like I'd like to see more vegetarians represented in fiction. But like even just to like, you know, right now I'm knockingna like that to me is enough to just like put just a little a little idea, yeah, you know, just like I think it's good way of putting
it. Um. There's one last thing that the movie did that I get, and that's kind of on a similar note but a little bit different from what we're just saying. But it's not that same. Like recognizing that a creature looking scary to us doesn't mean that it has less moral value, less all worth Um, and it's where our heroes are all trying to find all
of the animals that are shooting of all kinds and rescue them. And Mantis is going through and you know, to the different cages, and many of them are human animal as many of them are clearly not they're animals from other planets. And she goes into one cage. I have an animal that is just you know, I think designed to The words that come to mind when I look at it are ugly and scary. It's got like, you know, a lot of big teeth, and it looks weird and shapen, and
it just is like ah. And she has that initial reaction, and then immediately she says to the animal, Oh, no, no, no, I saw something scary behind you. I don't think you're scary, You're beautiful. Come let me help you. And it was such a like not only does she acknowledge that her fear reaction to this animal is not unjustified, but
that it's wrong. You know that there's nothing inherently scary or wrong about this animal, and then it's just as it's just as deserving of being rescued as all the others, but that she also like this animal doesn't speak to her. This animal doesn't, as you were just saying, doesn't express any emotional
reaction to her react action. Yeah, but she still feels a like, no, no, I need to reassure this animal that I wasn't scared about it, right, And I would just like that that again is a moment of yes, you're not going to five oh one, but you're also like you understand that you're at one oh one. There's some things you're still missing, and you're going a little further than that. And I appreciate that that was maybe in terms of like the betrayal of animals, portrayal not betrayal.
Um, maybe my favorite moment of just like the thoughtfulness that went into that one scene. Yeah, that sounds really nice, um, And I think like it's like you don't have to feel bad about having like biased thoughts, right, Yeah, Like you don't have to feel bad about having thoughts and
sometimes desires of doing things that that cause harm. Like you your thoughts are your thoughts, right, your feelings are your feelings, but like being able to recognize those thoughts and feelings and then still taken action that is not harmful, but that tries to undo or ameliorate or whatever whatever harm you may have done or may potentially do. Like to me, that's like more powerful and impressive than like, yeah, like for me, being a vegan is like
pretty easy. Like I never really liked meet. I gradually stopped having dairy and eggs. Like now in the twenty first century, there's like there's too many vegan restaurants that like, I've managed to gain a lot of weight, you know, Like when I was younger, I was super thin, and like that was kind of just my build. But also it was just easy because like there just wasn't a lot, like there wasn't good vegan ice cream. I remember how mag you were when good vegan ice cream started hitting.
I think, yeah, I was like, oh no, this is a disaster, you know. And it was fine when I was like exercising forty hours a week, you know, but when you stop doing that, you know, you can't have as many pints of the stuff, and and so you know, I think I have empathy for people who are like no, but but I really do like the taste. It's like, Okay, yeah,
I understand, I get that. I don't get that on a personal I can relate directly, but like, I really like ice you know, vegan ice cream, and I don't want to eat it, you know, but I ask so much. But I mean then I can jump in um. As I said, I do stillate meat. I'm trying to reduce the amount of meat and I eat constantly and I now try to eat as much meat as I can. That only comes from ethically sourced where the animals are treated much better, but they are still getting killed so I can eat them.
And I think that's something that a lot of people are still going to find ethnically objectionable. And as more time goes on, I may I may change that entirely. And if I was strugg me with that, that that
is completely fair. But I'll say one kind of meat that I used to really enjoy because I thought it was the best chicken sandwich that I've ever had was chick fili And once I came to understand what they were doing with the money and how harmful it was to people like me, or even if I wasn't a person like that, but especially that, I was like, no, I haven't had a chick flay sandwich in like five years, seven years, and want to hear someone say everyone should give it up, it's not
even any good. My reaction is always like, that's bad propaganda. Yeah, because what you're saying is what I would hear if I was still eating them. Is when you say I shouldn't eat them, you don't understand. You don't understand that I am giving up something, right, you know. And I so, yeah, this is all kind of a tangent, but I think that that's an important thing. Like I think it is completely valid for someone who's just like, yeah, I don't enjoy it anymore and all
right, I'm just enjoying this other stuff and that's great. But also recognize that's very different than the person who's like, no, no, I you know, and I for me, I know also, And this sounds like justification, it's not. It's just more part of the thinking. Like a lot of it's also tied into like food is myself medication, So I don't drink or do drugs o man, Like that's a you know, thing I also work on as well. But it's that we all have such everybody has
such very psychologically, socially economically complicated relationships of food. For myself, at least when I'm much more interesting is helping understand helping people understand how to make healthier choices, better choices, more ethical choices, and figure that out along the way. Yeah, and that was all a very long tangent my pure
Yeah. I have never had Chick fil A, I'll say that, but that is very easy for me and I you know, I feel like it, like I would like to see a world where just people didn't eat animals anymore or animal products. If I live that long, they'll be fantastic. I'd be super happy about that. You know, someone's going to have to invent some anti aging stuff because I think it's going to take a long time. I do think that's a reasonable future, honestly, especially in terms of
sustainability and whatnot. But you know, when it's like maybe one percent of the population is vegan, maybe I think less than five percent of the United States is vegetarian, even it was three percent for a long time. You know, if you ask me, like, would you rather double the percent of the population that was vegan or have everybody who eats meat cut their meat
intake and half, it's like, of course it's the second one. Yeah, right, It's like like, yeah, I you know, I'd like to have more people that I fully agree with, but like, ultimately, to me, it's about, you know, how much how much harm is being done, how much suffering there is, and you know if you can cut that in half, not by you know, through an infinity gauntlet or something, but but like you know, and and so that's to me, it's like I'm a very all or nothing person, right, I'm like,
I'm either gonna do a thing and I'm gonna do it a lot, or I'm not going to do it at all and better and for worse. Right, Like that's sort of where Zen Madman came from, as like a monicker, right, Like, but I understand that's not everybody, and that certainly
isn't going to work for anybody or even maybe most people. And so I think, you know, if you feel like you would, if you feel conflicted, you know, like I think it's important to understand, you don't necessarily have to, you know, make whatever change you want to make all at once. You know, if you do and you can, that's great. I'm in support of that, you know, But if like if like meatless Mondays is like the best you can do, like that's better than not
meatless. Mondays, you know what I mean, And I'll say in terms of like winking about that time where we're just stopping the meat, you know,
to me, put aside all the other factors. Right now, when I walk into a store, a regular pound of meat might be a certain price because stuff that I like, where it's ethically and locally raised, it's more environmentally sustainable and the animals are treated much better, is probably going to be one one to two dollars more a pound, and the impossible burger stuff, the lab grown meat is going to be another dollar or two more a pound. Um, And that's all fine, I think, I you know,
the right now one of those is subsidized and the rest aren't. And that's right, yeah, the whole set of topics. But yeah, that's a whole thing. And there is literal lab grown meat, like that's actually a thing now, which isn't what the impossible is, right, the impossible something else? But I thought I thought impossible murder was that, But you might be right. You know what, they didn't make it for me. I'm like, yes, Scross, yeah, because it is made for the
person who wants to replicate the meat experience right, exactly exactly. I'm like, could it taste more like tofu? Yeah, that's not generally when I mean I want tofu to taste like tofu, but like, yeah, the really meaty taste things. I'm like, that's not I'm not your target audience.
That's fine. I'm lot it exists like this movie, but I'm not really the target audience, and that's fine, all right, Well, anything else you want to say in this because there's one other piece of feedback and it's a bit of a doozy that I wanted to I think there's like two or three not as long as this, but kind of two or three sub
issues it's going to raise. But any last things you want to say about this topic, Uh No, I feel like I just gave my you know, impassioned plea to like, you know, eat eat fewer animals if you can't eat no animals, And you know that's I'll close on that. Like, you know, I I'm it sounds like this movie does a good thing, you know. Um, it sounds like it does at least a reasonable job of it, you know, like anything, I'm sure it could do
that better. I didn't actually see it, so I'm not commenting on how it's actually you know, executed. Um, and you know I don't speak four animals, but I try to speak in defense of them when when I can. No, I think it's fair and just let this go without making one one general review comment about the movie. The movie was a lot better than I expected it to be. I think it was a very good ninety minute long Rocket biopic, backstory origin movie wrapped in a two hour and thirty
minute Guardians the Galaxy movie. I just thought there was especially because you get a lot of scenes of the Guardians without Rocket, and like, why would I watch this because I look interesting character. But they by the end, if you ever do watch it, just in terms of like a movie trilogy, they wrap up a lot of the stories in really interesting ways and in
a different context. They do a lot of stuff with the relationships that I thought is ethically really interesting, particularly the fact that Peter Quill, who's feelings towards women have I think raised a lot of eyebrows my own very much included, and they don't have him get back together with with that's a big spoiler there. Sorry, but um we said spoiler warnings. Um yeah, yeah, I was thinking if I should cut that out. No, I'm gonna keep it in. We said, spoiler warnings. But yeah, it's a
that I'll talk about a different topic. Um. But I was very happy with how they did that. I thought they do a lot of other really good things. They did very you know, emotionally aware. Um. And then have a mid credit scene that apparently, if you look closely, doesn't look like what it looks like, but it looks like the new version of the Guardians of the Galaxy are like helping all the people who've been rescued be settlers, and they're just going out to slaughter a bunch of wild animals.
They are attacking the settlers, and I was like this, but apparently like it's a little too blink and you miss it. But they're all looking supposed to look like cyberhadically advanced, like their robotic robot thing, Like yeah, but it was just like, what did you do wat watch the movie? We just watched. Um. But anyway, a lot of great stuff there, So thank you so much, Sophia. That was a great piece of
feed back. Thank you. And then there's another piece of feedback we got and I will admit I have been quite bad about following up on feedback. I'm going to try and catch up on it. And then this summer in general has been really rough, but by the end of the summer and my hope is that we're going to be much better about getting you all the right
feedback at the right times and things like that. This feedback comes from some time ago, but partially it's because I spent a long time wondering like, how do I want to talk about this, and whether Paul should be a part of the conversation or not. And then Paul, of course was not a regular guest anymore, and so I talked about with Paul, and I think this is the right time to talk about it. And it's an email that raises a couple of different related but different topics, since we're gonna got
to go through them one by one and again Paul. Paul read this email as well and was okay with it being read. It's from Sean McNeil, and he says, first, I want to say thank you for doing the Superhero Ethics podcast. Both you and Paul challenge me rightly to think differently than I normally would as I get older and my boy grows. I find the idea of sharing thoughts and opinions with others unlike myself more and more important.
I don't like Paul at all, meaning I know we wouldn't get along in a social setting, just way too different, probably to the point where we would purposely avoid each other out of respect for not ruining the night arguing about something dumb. As for you and I am the eye and the eye he's
Matthew. I could go on forever about my thoughts on organized religion. I had terrible experiences, but your honesty feels real, and I feel like we could spend hours challenging the way each other's views, challenging the way each other views and interacts with the world. So the point to the point I would like to challenge. So the point I would like to challenge the entire idea
of great power comes great responsibility altogether. And this is some time ago we did an episode about that Uncle Ben's spider Man idea of great power comes great responsibility And is that actually too much pressure to put on heroes, etc. And he continues, I found that the majority of discussion focused on the idea that it was generally a good thing or that if you have power, no matter how you feel at the start, you will revel in the responsibility at
the end. I think it's all garbage. Who has anyone to put that responsibility on any being, super or not? Who decided Superman is responsible for saving the world the people. I'm a person. I have no right to tell Superman he must save me. The government haha, it'd be pretty narcissistic for them to give themselves the responsibility right, take it out of superhero world. I am a fairly privileged white male. I have the power to stop
some sort of injustice just by being a white male. Narcissistic for me to say in some way every day, is it my respon? Is it my responsibility to seek it out? Because I have the power. In America, we have pursuit of happiness. Where as long as I'm not infringing on anyone else's happiness, I can pursue mine. We as a society put on Superman to protect us all at all times. Does he get to pursue his happiness? May make him happy. It may make him happy to save me today.
Maybe come happier to spend time with Lois instead of stop stopping my car crash. With great power comes great power. No one has the right to tell me what I must do with it as long as I'm pursuing my happiness, not getting the way of anyone else's just wearing my mask in the grocery and walking out as someone who refuses to wear one screams at an employee. Just because I have the power to step in doesn't mean I have the responsibility
to. Please don't never stop making me think Sean McNeil. So, as you can tell, there's a couple of things in here, and we are going to get to the main point. Sean references. But I think, Paul, the stuff you said about you, I want to let you respond to it in general, but as you and I were talking about it, I think it it opens up some larger questions also about parasocial relationships and feedback and things like that. But let me just start by Paul, letting you
kind of respond to it. Yeah, So, I guess thanks for the compliment. In terms of I think challenging people to think about things in different ways is pretty much the main reason that I like being on this podcast, aside from the fact that I would just want to like hang out and chat with Matthew anyway, but in terms of like the sort of the good that we do or that like what I would hope, you know, would be the benefit it is, you know, for me, it's it's not about
telling someone this is my opinion and like it is right. I mean, obviously I think it's right, or change my opinion, but it's about saying this is my opinion, this is my point of view. You know, thanks for listening to it. And if it sways you, great, If it doesn't, that's fine, right, And so I think like the like you know, you don't like me, like you don't know me, you know, you know me on a podcast, you know, you know how I talk about certain things. I do not spend most of my time talking
about these things. I mean sometimes I end up spending more more time than I would like talking about them, you know, outside of podcasting, and specifically, I've been doing superhero ethics a little less because I do find like there's kind of only a certain amount of juice kind of I have in terms of like dealing with all the awful things in the world or the things that I have issues with, and like, honestly, when I'm hanging out like
I don't. I don't want to talk about all that all the time, you know, And so in terms of not getting along, I have no idea whether we would get along or not, except that like I get along with like just about everybody, and from like days of playing poker, Like I have right wing friends, I have libertarian friends, I have left wing friends, liberal friends like you know, neo liberal, neo conservative, Like I don't care, like I will be friends with anybody within the context of
you know, doing an activity, sitting around playing poker. That's pretty much the activity I do these days. But like, you know, the exception would be like, yeah, if you bring something up, I might object, you know, sometimes I'll just let something go. But if like something seems like really way out of line. But you know, I'm not like, oh, we have to argue about everything all the time. Like on this podcast, we're here to discuss stuff like this, right, So that's
all I'm doing. But outside of this podcast, you know, and I think more generally, like when you see anybody in any type of media, I think, you know, it's probably best to avoid making too many assumptions about what that person's like outside of that context because context has a lot to do with like what we're going to say and what we're going to talk about. You know, I think I think I'm really glad you said that.
I want to say more about the para socialness, but but I think also what you're worth saying, Like there's a lot of assumptions made about you there, but also about me, because I am not as good as you are. I am. I also have enough experience with some of those folks from poker and the like that I can be friendly, but I would not have as wide arranged friend I definitely do not have as wide and intellectual range of
friends as Paul does. And I have family members who I have cut out of my life because they believe things that I think are really harmful to me and to others like me and to people I care about. And you know, if you find me on places like Facebook or or TikTok, I tend to be a lot more virulent about some of this stuff. I'm I'm I've never silent seeing myself on these on these topics, but I think I am very I think also just the roles that you and I play, that I
am the host, I'm the one that's trying to drive the conversation. You're the guest. It puts you in a position often where you're more likely to be the one taking a more strident position. But like, if you and I are playing at a poker table and someone sits down with a maga hat on, I'm probably much more likely to cause an issue than you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't seen one of those in a long
time. Yeah. I also just think, and here's the thing about feedback, and because I've been thinking a lot about parasocial relationships, and if for anyone who doesn't know that, that's the a parasocial relationship is a relationship with like right now, because of social media, it's very easy to feel like you have a very intense personal, intimate like connection with people where what they're sending to you feels like something a friend would send to you, but they're
sending it to a thousand people or a million people. There's a whole thing happening right now in the Taylor Swift fandom about who she's dating. That is a very complex, nuanced issue and I'm not trying to get into it, but it's raising a lot of questions for people about how do parasocial relationships work and what is or is not okay? And again that's a whole complex situation.
I'm not making a comment on one or the other, but I do think it's important to be I I have had to learn to be very careful about you know, Like for a while, I definitely had a para social relationship with Matt and Jeff, the host of the MCU of the MCU cast, I happen to get to know them individually and found they're quite different than the people who they are on their podcast in some ways not in others.
And similarly with other guests of mine and with me. I think it's just as I love feedback, I love that interaction, but I just want to ask people to be a bit careful, Like Paul, you handled it quite well, but I just want to say it kind of like if you don't
like one of us personally, like that's fine. I don't think there's any need to let us know, or if it is just doing it wrapped up in an email where you're also asking for legitimate feedback, I'm happy to still wind up giving you that feedback, but it felt pretty inappropriate to me. I think there's a better way to phrase it, even for what you're trying to say is that like one of us you think you could have gotten long with better than the other, you know. And again, I don't know
what the right or the wrong thing is. And I'm not saying other people like I don't want people who are thinking about writing it to this podcast people like they have to censor themselves. But just I think it's a good reminder of like, you know me and you know my other guests through what the part of ourselves we put out, and just to remember that. That's that's if not that I think anyone is being fake on here, it's I think
all of us have personas. All of us are the people we are at work, and the people we are with our partners, and the people we are with our friends, and those are different aspects of ourselves. And a lot of psychological health is how integrated or non integrated those are. But if you see only one of those, you're only seeing one of those. Yeah, And to add to that or kind of expand a little like that doesn't
mean any of it's an act. It's just you know, what you do in one context isn't necessarily the same thing that or what I do in one top context. What one does in a given context isn't always going to be the same thing that a person's going to do in another context. And there are a lot of contexts, and like one podcast or one um you know, YouTube channel or whatever isn't going to be isn't going to give a full
view of you know, someone's life. Basically, Yeah, I think, like to me, when you spot outright hypocrisies, you know, like with with you know, news coming out about Fox News hosts who you know believe very different things they were saying, or like when you see like you know, with with I don't know enough about the specific Taylor Swift situation to comment on it directly, but I know that there are people who feel like the
choices she is making in her romantic life do go directly against the ideals that she that she talks about when she speaks on stage and she sings on stage and things like that, and so they see they see a hypocrisy there. Again, I'm not comment on it, but I'm saying, I think, okay, that that might be a place where where it's worth commenting on that. Um But I think and answer, certainly, I want to open that door of if you think that's happening with me, please go ahead and do
so. I think certainly sometimes I don't live up to my own ideals, and I think that's worthwhile discussing. But just you know, I think it's easy to forget that there are real people you're talking to and and just kind of treat that appropriately. So let's get into the main meat of this idea. Um, that's a very poor phrase. Give what else I've been talking about today. UM, Let's let's get into the um, the tofu of this, the chickpeas of it. Um, what's your how do you feel
about this? Because I, yeah, I have some thoughts from curious where you would start. Right, So the first question I'm just going to answer directly, who decided Superman is responsible for saving the world? And there's there's a very clear answer to this, and the answer is Superman. Right,
he decided to be Superman. Now, you could say, okay, Joel kind of pushed him in that direction, right, literally sent him in that direction in a spaceship when he was an in and you could say that, you know, the Kent kind of helped him become who he was and where he wanted to do that. But there's agency there. Right, Superman decided that he wanted to be Superman, that he didn't want to just be Clark
Kent. Right, he's both, but he decided, right, and Yeah, could the government tell him that he has to do all these things? No, I don't think that would be reasonable. You know, I think he can make an agreement, Hey, I'm going to defend Earth so and make sure that there's no military struggle so you can get rid of all the nukes or whatever. Like that's the plot of one beginning in the Justice League, an animated series, Right, So I think he can enter into an
agreement to do such and such. But yeah, if he wants to go on a date with Lois Lane, he can go on a date with Lois Lane. If he wants to save you from a car wreck, you can save you from a car wreck. Now, if you actually had all of the abilities of Superman, like that does sound quite overwhelming if you're trying. I mean, every time you're not saving someone, someone's probably dying because you're
not saving them. But also, if you didn't exist, they would have been dying anyway, So you know, in terms of what responsibility a person has to act, Like, I don't really believe the whole great power comes great responsibility, And I think that was kind of the takeaway from the podcast. But that doesn't mean I mean sort of, Yeah, with great power comes great power, right, I mean that's power is power, and it's
up to you what you do with it. And there can be coercive forces that try and get you to do something, but like to me, it's just like, yeah, if you can do something about it, like why wouldn't you, right, and yeah, that's your choice. Yeah, I think that's a really good way to talk about it, because to me, in some ways, the great power great responsibility question is far too bindy for
me. And I feel like that's where like, on the surface, Sean, I'm agreeing with you, but I also fundamentally disagree with a lot of what you say. And I think that's it's like, yes, I think that idea that you have to do so becomes really problematic, and I mean it's a fundamental act of agency and can become little slavery at that point. And I can say I'm not superman by any means, but as someone who've worked in the nonprofit industry for most of my career. This is a very
real issue. And when I was getting started in the nineties and early two thousands, there was a definite like ethos of Wait, you're going to a movie when you could be doing one more social justice action. Wait, you're like spending money on this thing for yourself when you could be donating it to a cause, Like that's that self you're not being You're not. There was
almost a kind of machismo of who's the most dedicated to helping others. And also no one in the industry who'd been working there for more than five years right because we were all burning out, because that's simply not sustainable. And so I think, yeah, personal heres how I kind of square the circle? For me? It has to be, in the end, a question
of personal agency. I think people need to decide for themselves, choose their battles, what are the causes they're going to donate to, what are the things that they're going to spend their time working on, what are the things they're going to not And yes, I do think that trying to fix every single situation that you could is going to wind it be incredibly deleterious to your health, probably, But I also think there's nothing wrong with other people encouraging
people to help when they can. And here's where it comes down to me, And here's kind of it's the flip side of that responsibility. Responsibility implies coercion. To me, it's not that I want people to be coerced to do good things. It's that I am a person who feels like I should do good things, and that affects my personal decision making. And if you're not, I'm not going to want someone to force you to. I just
might think you're kind of a jackass. And and here's where I do think that there is that level of responsibility understood in a very different way because and here's I think, Sean, where I would most disagree with you, And this is something Paul you and I might disagree one as well. But like you talk about how kind of you you're a white male and that you have
that power, but is that your responsibility? And to me, I think the thing that you're missing that I think a lot of people miss in these conversations is that someone being a white male and thus having the power to help and other people not being white male, or whatever the position of power is, and thus being in a bad situation that they could use help. Those
things are not disconnected. They're often very connected. And often the amount of power or privilege or the word that I think has gotten very overused and misunderstood. But you know, whatever word you want to use is directly related to the people who don't have that, who are having problems that you might be able to fix. And I'll give a very personal example for me. I am white, I'm not male, but I'm mail presenting. I get a
lot of male privilege. But I'll talk about specifically the fact that I'm Christian, and as a Christian, I get an awful lot of good things in this world. A lot of people don't get. No One questions when I want to take my holiday is off. No one thinks that when I mentioned my holiday is or that I'm doing something for them, it's weird. I get to participate in the uber culture in the way an awful lot of people don't, and I don't spend my time having the uber culture remind me that
I don't fit in the way someone who isn't Christian. But you know, here's Christmas music for one twelfth of a year, if not more, does all the time. So and I don't feel bad about being a Christian. It's something I choose and it's something I believe in, even though I greatly disagree with a lot of people who claim to be Christians and do what I
see is terrible things. In that name the ethical choice, the ethical causes that I tend to focus on most are things like reproductive justice, queer rights, trans rights, and that's in large part because it is people like me who are often the loudest and doing the most to take away those rights from people. It is often people in the name of Christ attacking you know,
abortion rights, or attacking queer people who are attacking trans people. And so for me, I see a direct correlation between if I go into a room and say, as a Christian, this is wrong, there's an awful lot of people who will listen to me in the way they wouldn't if someone said as an atheist or as a Jew, or as a Muslim or whatever. Yeah, they just call me a godless heathen, and yeah, exactly, Whereas if I can quote the Bible at them, they're going to pay more
attention. So the nature of my being Christian gives me that power, and there are people who are directly hurt by Christians, and so yeah, I do feel like those two things are intrinsically linked in the same way that like, yeah, I benefit an awful lot by the fact that people like me took over this country. And so I do feel there's a native restaurant in our town, Owambie, I think I'm pronouncing it right, Owomgee, perhaps
run. You know, they only serve ingredients that grew here before Columbus came, and they employ all Indigenous folks and do an awful lot to support Indigenous businesses and things like that. I go out of my way to try to support that business because I feel like, yeah, I am the beneficiary of all the things that were done to do horrible things to indigenous people. Do I think that means every white person has to do that, or that there should be a law compelling it. No. I do think we should have
laws set up to address injustices. But to me, that's not about helping, that's about making a society function. I think that's a fairly different question. But I promise we'll get to the end of this rant and let let Paul jump in. But for me, I think that's where it kind of comes down to, is that I don't I think responsibility is the locus of responsibility is your own internal discussion about when and where you're going to get involved.
And I think other people can contribute to that the way they can contribute, you know, like every person decides what level of you know, are they gonna lie to other people? But other people can be like, hey, lying is bad, and you can make your decisions about it. So I don't want to live in a world where people are compelled to act upon
the power they have to do good. But yeah, I'm probably going to judge you based on it and with some understanding of like I don't know, you're circum dances and all that, but all the once is aside, All right, mand over go. Yeah, So I think you make a really good point about the difference kind of between I guess relativistic power that comes at
the expense of others. Right, there's power you can have because other people don't have power, and I think that's that's largely that's a social phenomenon, right, And then there's like Superman's power doesn't make other people less powerful. I mean I guess by comparison, they're less powerful, right, Like the military is less powerful because there's Superman, right, just in terms of by comparison, but he's not actually taking power or resources away from anybody else.
And in terms of things like like privilege, which again is a word that I've had thoughts about, but I think if if we're just going to kind of use it hand wavy, like there are resources there are planet has limited resources, right, And social power is a thing, and often one person having more of it I means someone else has less of it. It doesn't
necessarily have to be that way. I think there are other ways that society could be constructed, and that people could live with one another and with the other inhabitants of the planet. That you know, things don't have to be a zero sum game. But in many ways things are a zero sum game, right, Like they don't have to be, but that's how some things do function. And when they do, then when your power comes at the expense of someone else, is not because you've taken it, but because you've
been given it. I do think there is something to be said for like, yeah, maybe maybe you should give some of that back right to make things equal as opposed to like, you know, which is completely different from like being born with exceptional intellect or strength or whatever, where it's like that doesn't come at anyone else's expense. That's just a natural characteristic of you. And yeah, do what you will with that. To me, I think to kind of summarize what I was saying in the first place, and I
think a lot of the gist of what you were saying, Matthew. You know, at the end of it, it's like it's your choice, but you know, I may disagree with your choice. Yeah, Like in many ways, to me, it's just about compassion. It's about like like to me, that's what the movie was trying to get at more than anything is. It's trying to be like, like, I think so much of so much of the ways people choose not to act, and by the way I do like the Martin mcking in particular, had had a lot of great things
to say about this. But I do hold to some idea, the idea of like choosing to do nothing is a vote in support of the status quo, like and that's you know, not that like that I think idea can take out extreme but like that, there's something to be said for like, when you are in a system of justice, it is not necessarily your your duty to rescue everyone from injustice, but you're participating in that system, and so to some extent you're you know, you're giving more power to that system
without challenging it. Um. But to me, what like a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy does is to say people do think people participate in systems that do terrible things to animals far out of their sight, and we want you to have to look at it. We want you to have to look at what goes into the shampoo that you buy that was tested on animals. We want you to have to look into, you know, all these kinds of things. And I think often that's that's that's what a lot of the
you know, good movies that help to make a point are about. Is about helping people to see that who are the people who are suffering? And is this something you can have more compassion for than you thought? You know, in a like you know, telling us when someone has just like oh all immigrants, are this, all gays or this or whatever, telling a story about that person in a way that draws empathy and compassion. Should I hope, make it harder for someone to participate in a system that does harm
to those people? Not always, but often. And I do think that's a part of how I probably judge a person. And I think that's that's also what I would look at this is I would say, if you if every time you walk into at you know, Sean, did you give this one example? And Sean, again, I'm not calling you out in particular, I'm just using the examples you talk to. You know. I have been in stores where someone yelled at the person for saying they have to wear
a mask and I said something. I've been in stores where I didn't and sometimes because I didn't feel safe in the situation. Other times it was just because I need to get back in my car and go. And sometimes I spoke up, sometimes I didn't. Should I have spoken up more? Probably? Should I have spoken up every single time? Maybe? I'm not sure.
But if you're a person who just is comfortable never doing that, there's a part of me that's gonna wonder, like, well, what as you said, Like you said Paul, like if you can help, why wouldn't you? And I on some level, I feel like if you can go through the world seeing suffering around you and never feel a desire to Like, it doesn't feel good to me to know that I am doing really well while other people are doing really badly and I'm not working to change that in any
way. And I think that's where again there's the internal responsibility again comes into me. It's like it's to me, it's not it should be responsibility. It should be I would hope people have some sense of compassion and some sense of empathy of like, hey, other people are suffering, and maybe I can do something to fix that. Yeah, and you know, you can't do everything all the time, right, but I think it's worth asking yourself like what can you do? You know? And is and by what can
you do? It's not even just like physically possibly, like what can you
bring yourself to do? You know? Yeah? Yeah, like the mask situation, Like I don't I actually haven't really been in that situation interestingly, but like, um, just don't go out anywhere near as much as But also like you know, when the whole thing started, I was in California and like, yeah, you're not going to get away with that in California, you know, what I mean, like, it's it's just the balance of things was a little different, and and by the time I moved to
Vegas, like basically people were just like whatever. Um. But I think what I would probably end up doing was I don't know if I would say something, you know, but I would probably physically align myself in a way that like if they that hopefully communicated to the person who was getting screamed at, that like there was someone physically in their corner, and like if things looked like they were going to ask a I'm quite certain that I would intervene.
Yeah, you know, and you're also because yeah, go ahead, like you're someone who you know both is you know, you are tall and you look able bodied, and you also have quite a lot of martial arts training. I would say, for me, how I react probably is going to be enlargely dependent on am I standing on two legs remind my wheelchair? Sure? Um, but I know certainly that there were times where yeah, I didn't feel safe challenging, but at least went up to the person afterwards.
I was like, Okay, I just want to know I really appreciate you, like working to help make the store safer. You know, yeah, yeah, And that's that's another way of of trying to support someone basically, and I think that's the other key here, And I think this is something often the great power great responsibility lacks. And this also goes back to the pair of social relationship. On a general level, I am comfortable saying the more power you have, the more I want you to be using that
power. Um and particularly if your power is linked to the injustices like you know me, Like, if you're a billionaire, you could give me an extreme, extreme corner case. But for the most part, if you are a billionaire, there are probably people who you are paying to do work that has helped to generate that money that you have. And my first question is like, well, could you have paid them more and not be a billionaire? I'll give you the corner case. Sure. The corner case is like
JK Rolling. Like JK. Rowling made a ton of money from writing. That's almost the only thing you can do where the fact that you make a ton of money isn't basically built upon the fact that other people were underpaid. And then what are you doing with that? Well, we know what she's doing with it, right right, And like I think said that's like and even they're like, I don't know anything about the publishing deals and like the
editors and all that. But you're right, that's probably the closest you can get. I know, people would hold up someone like Oprah or like, you know, other personalities, but even there, it's like, Okay, well, how much of the people who work under her like getting paid and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, point point being, but yeah, it still it's about what are you doing with all of that? And that was a tangent to the main point I was going to make, which
I've now completely lost, but what I do it all the time? Oh but just like yeah again, I think here's the thing. I think the flip side of this, and this is the parasocial relationship, is that reminder of I never know what someone else's battle is, you know, and so I you know, I might look at someone who looks physically imposing and think
to myself, oh, yeah, that person should have been involved. I don't know if they got you know, violence done to them as a kid or something like that, or for some other reason like doing that is just not something that they're psychologically or capable of, or maybe they have like actually much worse physical situation than I can see it all the glance. Yeah, I'm very comfortable talking about in the aggregate. I think it is better for
people in these kind of situations to help in these kind of ways. But I think again, with that parasocial relationship, when it becomes I only see a small part of this person's life, but I know they could be doing this help and they're not, like I think happens with heroes a lot.
I do think that's where I can draw the line of being like, I want to encourage people to make what I think are better choices, but I want to be very careful judging anyone individual's choice when I don't really know the whole story. Absolutely absolutely all right, Well, I think I can make the individual choice with the power that I have to act responsibly towards our schedules.
And wrap this conversation up, We're going to have a quick conversation for the patreons about a completely different topic, but one that is very dear to Paul and I his heart, Michael Keaton and Batman. But inclosing, Paul, for those who are not patrons, where can they find you? Yeah, I'm Zen Madman in a bunch of places. Basically the only way I interact with the world very much these days is tweeting about chess. And you know, so I'm I'm send Madman on Twitter and Twitch. I'll stream again
someday. And you know, I have a bunch of YouTube channels, but I haven't made a video in like a year, so that's fair, that's fair, And I am Matthew Fox. You can find me under the Ethical Panda. I kind of have my uh. If you go to the Ethical Panda, you'll find both this and my Star Wars podcast, Star Wars Universe podcast. Lots of great content there, and most importantly, all of our ways to give us feedback. I promised, Like I said, I'm trying
to be a lot better. Juno is gonna be a crazy month, but starting in July, we're gonna be a lot more regular with feedback. Get getting back to on our regular basis. There's a lot that was between coming in. Send us email, send us tweets, find me on TikTok, find me on Twitter, let me know what you think. We'd love to hear it. One quick note, Paul didn't hear it, but there's an I am right now kind of in two worlds. This podcast was part of
Stranded Panda for a while. I'm still very connected to the Stranded Pan of folks and still going to appear on a much of the Stranded Pan of podcasts, but these podcasts are now officially part of the True Story FM family of podcasts, where you'll often find a Marvel Movie minute, among other things.
A whole bunch of us got together and each made statements about how we're in support of the writers strike that's happening right now that imagine will still be happening by the time the sayers if it isn't great, but you will probably have heard an ad where my voice along with others, talks about why we're supporting the writer's strike. So just a reminder that we wouldn't have these interesting things to talk about if writers didn't write interesting scenarios for us to talk about.
And you've got to be good at it, as we said, you know, if the writer's just saying like, hey, here's the point, generally there's not much to talk about. It's the best writing, I think is ones that give some nuance and give some room and either make a point or often I think just leave you with a question. The fact that, and again this is kind of the basis of this whole podcast was Paul and I both watched the movie Civil War, in which there is a fundamental conflict between
two characters and came out disagreeing on which character is right and that. You know, I think most people are more on team cap side, but there's good arguments for men on both. That's phenomenal writing to be able to write a movie where people can come out of that doing that. So again, just support writers. Writers are awesome. A I will never do it. The thing that's kind of my you know, I think responsibility we have is not cross that pick at line and don't watch AI stuff and all the rest.
So you heard that. Patrons stick around for a little while longer. As for everybody else we have spoken, I'll co sign all that, except for the anti robot bigotry. I mean, robot writers need to get paid as well once they exist. But right now what we have is a pail limitation. Yes, yes, robot writers do. Robot plagiarizers do not. In a shim