The Daily Beast Podcast - The Absolute Dumbest Conservative Controversies of 2023

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Media Matters’ Rapid Response Director Andrew Lawrence joins The New Abnormal to rank the most brain-dead right-wing “controversies” of the year. Then, filmmaker Anike Tourse stops by to discuss her latest project, “American Family.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have for you today.

We're still on vacation, but that doesn't mean we didn't record some stuff in advance just for you. Today, the deputy director of Rapid Response for Media Matters, Andrew Lawrence, is backed as breakdown this year's biggest right-wing freakouts, boycotts, and not traverses. Then, filmmaker, Anika Torres, is here to talk about their new movie, America's Family. But first, let's have some fun. How about an album you really liked this year? Let's try to keep this one to one. Oh, my God.

I will do the most unexpected album of the year, which is Andre 3000's A New Blue Sun. That is for me extraordinary. I can't stop playing it. I love it so much. And it is one of those albums that either you love or you hate, but just the fact of this amazing, creative. you know, rapper, musician, like actor just opening up an entire new genre and path for himself is just something. And I don't know. I felt like he put music to the, you know, like a cinematic effect to the life we're living right now. I'm totally enjoying it. I think the two albums I

listened to the most were Guts by Olivia Rodriguez and Everything is Alive by Slow Dux. So make of that what you will. I'm going to plug Yuli Soft Scars and Health's new album Rat Wars. I was hoping someone would plug that. Hey, listen. Records top 20 this week. How about Best Account on Twitter? I'm not on it.

No, I'm just going to say it. That's not true. I am still on that death trap. I don't know. I still follow the usual cessation. A lot of journalists. I'm trying to think who is the best. I don't know because I don't go on as often as I used to.

So I can't think of the best. But I follow a lot of, I mean, Ellie, Mistle, like, his feeds are always a mix of, like, him talking about his kids and his family and how fucked up the Supreme Court is. It's a wonderful, wonderful balance. Yeah, I've been off Twitter for like a month now. so it's tough for me to say. Yeah, yeah, you're definitely off. You're definitely not reading. You want to know the only times I read Twitter?

Mm-hmm. Is to prepare for this show. Yeah, there you go. So, like, but other than that, I'm done with it. So I'll do my favorite blue sky accounts. Please do. And he's been a frequent guest on this show, Jeb Lund, who posts under the name Mobutei.

He just cracks me up. And I, like, back in the Twitter days, I very rarely bookmarked tweets, but for some reason I found myself bookmarking a bunch of his tweets just because they make me laugh every time I read them. So I'll go with it. As we're taping this Z-Ways tweeting out clips of her George Sandos interview, so I'm going with that just out of recent. I can't wait for us to be done for that reason to watch that.

Okay, worst account on Twitter. Elon Musk. Strong agree. Hands down. I'm going to go Ian Miles Chung. Well, Batman and Robin of Stupid. Musk adjacent. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Musk, yeah, Musk is the worst person on Twitter. Chung is just, he's so obsequious and so stupid. He is just, I saw the thing that, I can't remember who said it, but someone just basically called it, like, along the lines of the biggest loser in the world. And it was like, that's exactly what he is.

Yeah, I think that that's dead on. Okay. So this one we've asked before, but I think it's interesting if it's changed. because I think we're going to have a different answer. We're Supreme Court Judge. Oh, I'm going with Mr. Handout, the Oliver twist of it all. Fucking Clarence Thomas. Like, you know, please, sir, can I have some more? That's him. We should say we're taping this right after the latest pro-publica drop.

And I think another reason people should support journalism and pro-publica is all this stuff happened in the past. and yet. Yeah. We know it all now. No, they're the best. Look, I'm pretty sure. Jesse, I don't know why you thought our answers would change because I think that was Danielle's answer last time. I said Alito last time.

And I'm comfortable sticking with that just to be a little different. I mean, I figured it was heads down him now. But Alito really does rack up the points. But I remember we were also, we were wait and see on Amy Coney. I think we still are. On this court, on any other court, Brett Kavanaugh might have been the obvious answer. Mm-hmm. He's maybe top three on this court.

You know, Ellie Mistal, who you just mentioned in, you know, he has that really good point, though, that Amy Comey actually seems like she's trying really hard and actually wants to deliberate things, even though she's obviously doing it from a horrible bias. So she has been a wild card on some things. Right. Thomas, no questions asked ever, always the same thing. So that would be my, I can't believe I'm doing this, but defending Amy Comey Barrett. No, I think that's accurate. You know, Conviety

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Your period of Prueva per year in Shopify.comer Records. Last December, Deputy Director of Rapid Response for Media Matters, Andrew Lawrence,

joined me to go over the most absurd conservative quote-unquote controversies of the year. Things like Lizzo playing the flute, M&M's getting a makeover, and a same-sex kiss in the movie Light Year.

Thankfully, this year there were none of these conservative non-traversies, so there was no reason to invite. Andrew Beck. I'm joking, of course. He's here to give up his list of the dumbest conservative outrages of 2023. Thanks for coming back on, Andrew. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Andy. There's always fake controversies to discuss. I know. We could be doing this segment for 20 years.

Seriously. And it'd probably be some of the same things. So Andrew and I decided that there were so many of these, we'd put some of them in groups. And so the first group we'll talk about we've headed trans people existing or maybe more broadly, LGBTQ people existing. And we'll start, of course, with Bud Light. What's going on there, Andrew? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think if we were doing this as a top 10 non-traversy, I think Bud Light would probably be number one. Yeah.

I was thinking about this as we were kind of discussing what we were going to talk about today. And, you know, this all started with Kid Rock firing, I think it was an AR-15 at a bunch of Bud Light because he saw Dylan Mulvaney, trans-influveni, trans-influenced. was given a six-pack of Bud Light. And it turned into, you know, I'm sure people that are listening to this podcast are plugged in enough that they heard about this controversy surrounding Bud Light. And it just turned into this cause for the right wing. You know, it was all over just a trans influencer, getting a six-pack with her face on it and then doing a video about it. That's all it was.

Like you said, this is, you know, we're talking about these silly things. But, you know, I think it is important for your listeners to understand. that this is all part of a much more sinister campaign. And this grouping that we're starting out with the LGBT grouping, these are very silly things. But it is, you know, it is sort of the sinister plot by conservatives in right-wing media to sort of eradicate the LGBT community from public life at all. And I think that the wave, the tsunami of outrage that we saw over, over this, over just a video of a trans influencer, you know, I think it's a really good example of that.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I'm glad you pointed that out because one of the purposes of doing this is some of these are just so incredibly dumb that you literally can't believe you're talking about them. And so they're super easy to mock and we're going to mock them. But your point is a good one in that as silly as these individual examples are, as a whole, they are not silly in the sense that they're actually dangerous. They're dangerous to certain segments of society. They're dangerous to the culture in general. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. And the Dylan Mulvaney one is a perfect example of this.

As you said, she gets like a six-pack with her face on it, and she posts a video online. And all of a sudden, this is the equivalent of nuclear war being fired against, I don't even know who. CIS people. They didn't even do any ads with her. No. It was such a little thing. And by the way, I'm not suggesting they shouldn't do ads with her. Yeah, do ads with, you know, do ads with whoever you want.

I don't care. But this was such a small thing. him. But as you said, Kid Rock had to get out there and shoot up some Bud Light, which I guess he bought. So I can't imagine the company really cares what you do with it once you buy it. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, this one in particular, as silly as it is. It's still going. I mean, they're still upset about it. And they're still, you know, very proud of their boycott of Bud Light. And Bud Light sales did go down. But what's so funny is that conservatives are touting that when Modelo took over the top spot. And Modelo is owned by

in Bev, the same company that owns Bud Light. I don't know. It's very funny to see them celebrating Bud's light sales are down. Madelo sales are up. And all the money is still going to the same company. And you didn't really accomplish anything, really. If I didn't know any better, I would think they were just being performative. Right. Right. It almost looks that way, doesn't it? Yeah. So another one under this same heading was Target's Pride collection. Yes. Well, that was a big one, too. And that one, again, it's silly on its face. But it got a little scary because it got to the point where Target actually pulled some items from its pride collection because it got threats to what they call their team members and which I assume their team members call their employees.

And so, again, silly on its face, but also scary and dangerous. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, this one was even more sort of BS than the Bud Light one, at least with the Bud Light one, like, Dylan Mulvaney actually did get a six-pack sense. to her. But with the Target, they were complaining about what they called tuck underwear or swimsuits for children. And they were saying that these are swimsuits that are made for young boys who want to present as young girls and to tuck their genitals into these swimsuits. When in reality, it's actually just a regular swimsuit. They don't make tuck swimsuits for little kids like this.

Conservatives were showing up to Target, filming themselves, harassing the staff members that were working there asking about the pride stuff and Target pulled a lot of their pride merchandise and you're right the reason why the reason they cited is because they were scared of violence breaking out inside of their stores conservatives are still touting this as a victory but they're touting as a victory for Target is realizing that they can't go woke and really Target is scared that conservatives are going to get violent inside their stores I guess it is still a victory if Target pulled this stuff out but yeah again you know it's another example of something that's silly that isn't really happening, that isn't really a threat to anybody, that is being used to

sort of foment this extremism that we're seeing on the right. Yeah. And this was, like you said, there were a whole bunch of videos posted online of conservatives who seemed very proud of themselves for harassing minimum wage employees. And it just, the whole thing was so gross and disgusting. And again, the irony of harassing these minimum wage employees, you know, and you're the, You're the populists? Right. Yeah, exactly.

And over what? And it all comes back to like this hatred of the LGBT community as well. And I don't know. It's frustrating to watch it all kind of play out like that. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to move on to Disney. But I guess as you pointed out before we started recording, you can sort of put Disney under this heading. Yeah.

You know, I mean, I think that, you know, this past year we've seen conservative outrage really focused on Disney, pretty hardcore. And I think that, you know, there's a bunch of things. different examples of this. You and I were talking about when a black actress was picked the Play the Little Mermaid, which wouldn't really fit into the LGBT stuff. But, you know, this all this, this whole campaign against Disney really goes back to Ron DeSantis's don't say gay bill. And Disney coming out with a statement saying that they disagree with it. And from there, it was just sort of a full on assault on Disney by the state of Florida and the government of Florida

because Ron DeSantis didn't like that they spoke out against his don't say gay bill. And then, you know, last year you and I talked about light year. And, and it was a same-sex kiss, kind of more like a peck on the cheek in light year. Yeah. That brought out a lot of vitriol and stuff like that. But we've been seeing, I mean, the campaign against Disney from conservatives has just been nonstop. I mean, non-stop. And now, you know, we see it just sort of taking on a life of its own, I guess, to where it doesn't really matter what Disney is doing.

We're going to boycott it because it's Disney without really understanding why. And it's very confusing. I don't really understand it, especially this family company. They are what Americans think of when they think of family entertainment. It's fascinating to see conservatives think that they can win a fight with Disney, I guess, in the popular opinion. Yeah. And this is one that, you know, I don't think they've made a lot of inroads on. I mean, I know visits to Disney World and Disneyland were up this year. And I think people in general, even maybe some of the people who were willing to go ahead with a buzzer. light boycott because they have eight million other choices are not going to stop taking their kids to Disneyland and Disney World because Ben Shapiro has a bug up his ass. You know, I think this one, I think just Disney in general sort of like we're talking about, is just a really good example of that right-wing conservative bubble. You know, where you're inside of it and you know all of this stuff. But if you are not listening to the Ben Shapiro podcast, if you're not watching Fox News

prime time every night, you have no idea what the hell. of this is about. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. All right, let's move to a section I have headed non-Disney pop culture. And let's start with Barbie, the billion-dollar smash movie that I cannot believe how many brains on the right this movie broke. I think it's just like it's a movie made for women. They can't handle that, you know? And, you know, it's sort of like the Black Little Mermaid. It's like, if it's not straight white male, they don't really know how to understand it. And look, I haven't seen Barbie. I plan on seeing it. I mean, it looks like a fun movie. I understand that there's quite a bit of criticism of the patriarchy and, you know, stuff like that in there.

But, I mean, it's a movie about dolls. And, you know, they are freaking out about it. And this, you know, this is one that obviously failed catastrophically. I mean, in a very hilarious way because the Barber movie was one of the highest grossing movies of the year. And I think that also shows that this bubble, like a lot of this outrage is sort of constrained inside of this bubble. But that was a weird one just because there's not much to criticize. It's a movie about dolls. Why are you grown men getting this worked up and this upset that a movie about dolls for children isn't catering to your views in particular?

Yeah, I mean, this was a movie that, you know, Ben Shapiro devoted, I think it was like a 40-minute video. Yeah. Was supposed to be his epic takedown of Barbie that was just roundly laughed at. I believe I refer to it as shrimp on Barbie. That's good. That's good. I didn't see that. That's what it is. But yeah, no, you're right. As far as failures go, the conservative outrage over Barbie was probably probably the biggest of the year. The only one that might be bigger, although it's more recent, I think, somehow they decided that Taylor Swift was bad. Yeah. Yeah, which is interesting and kind of out of nowhere,

you know, and my understanding about this is that she is a woman popular with young girls, and she's on the TV during football games now. And I think that is where most of the outrage comes from right now, is that a woman's face is on TV while I'm trying to watch football. I think they're mad about that. But then, you know, you also have to add in, you know, her new boyfriend, Travis Kelsey, is doing ads for the COVID vaccine, which they're very upset about.

Taylor Swift is very involved in get-out-the-vote efforts with young women and her fans, which obviously skews more Democratic, which upsets Republicans. God, Taylor Swift is just a fascinating case study, just in right-wing media in general, because, you know, there's a lot of people on the far right that look at her as the picture of Aryan perfection, you know. And then now you have these conservatives just freaking out that she exists. I don't know if you saw Stephen Miller, the former Trump advisor, a couple of days ago. Just say that, like, what's happening with Taylor Swift is an organic, which is crazy, because that's like how she's famous is because her fans love her son. It's like the most organic star to ever happen, really, is Taylor Swift. So you're saying she is not a creation of the deep state?

I don't think so. I mean, I guess I can't say for sure. But no, I don't think she is a creation of the deep state now. Okay, two more quick ones in pop culture, because I want to get to the toys section, because for for some reason. I really love that. So we had Rihanna's performance at the Super Bowl and Sam Smith and Kim Petrus at the Grammys of the Sam Smith and Kim Petrus performance, which was of a song called Unholy, Liz Wheeler, who's a conservative podcast, she tweeted that demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. And Ted Cruz retweeted this and added, this is evil. Oh, God, I'm trying not to crack up laughing while you're reciting these.

Yeah, the Sam Smith stuff was good. That was really good. And, you know, we hadn't had a good satanic panic in a little while. So it was good to see that kind of pop back up. And, you know, for your listeners who aren't aware, Sam Smith did a performance where he stresses the devil and there's flames around and all that stuff. And conservatives got a hold of this one. You know, it's not the first time that a musician has used satanic imagery to be controversial and create a little bit of buzz, you know. But this one in particular really upset them.

I don't know what it is about Sam Smith that maybe pisses them off so much. But yeah, that was like a three or four-day story on Fox. It probably took up the whole week, you know, where we were getting segments talking about, you know, Satanism and the devil and this demonic performance and all that. And, you know, I mean, Sam Smith is laughing all the way to the bank. No, absolutely. And the other one I mentioned was Rihanna at the Super Bowl. And this also was sort of couched in biblical terms.

Grant Stitchfield at Real America's voice said, Do we know the story from the Bible where Satan fell from heaven and he's brought down those fallen angels with him? That's exactly what played out on our screens. This is because she was dressed in red and she falls from the sky surrounded by people dressed in white like angels. You know, I don't think that is exactly what played out on our screens. If I'm being completely honest with Mr. Stingfield, I don't think that was it. It is just, you know, and this common thread, as we're sitting here discussing this and the common thread between all of this stuff is, upset that they're just not a part of pop culture is what it feels like to me. And they just take it out by

getting outraged by just the dumbest stuff. Getting upset about that Rihanna performance, I mean, it just blows my mind the things that they find to get angry about. Everything scares them. Yes. It's absolutely amazing how everything scares them. And because we only have a couple of minutes left, I'm going to jump ahead to my toys segment. So we have Xbox and Lego in here. Xbox did a thing where they very evilly introduced a power-saving feature that was aimed at cutting down on carbon emissions and also reducing the cost for gamers' electricity bills. Ted Cruz responded to this by saying, first gas stoves, then your coffee, now they're gunning for your Xbox. Aisley Earhart on Fox said, so Xbox also announced they're going woke, you know, because of climate change. And Jimmy Falla on Fox said they're trying to recruit your kids into climate politics at an earlier age.

My favorite thing about the Xbox one is this is not a new feature. No. Game consoles have had this, I think, for decades, you know, and you have a rest mode so it can update while you're not playing. And, you know, there's cable news on left and right. But these people that make their money doing this, they need something 24 hours a day, seven days a week to get maddened out. And this Xbox one, it just blew my mind. And, you know, working at Media Matters, our job is to fact check and, you know, make sure that people are getting the whole truth and the whole side, but something like this, like people don't care about the truth or anything. They are just

looking for something to get mad at the left about. And, you know, my guess is that it was just a slow week that week. And there was nothing else out there because this is really, really stupid. Yeah. And the last one is Lego. Lego is going woke, according to Fox anchor Harris Faulkner. What they did was, again, this is just pure evil. They relaunched a Lego Friends product line to be more inclusive and represent people, this is from the company, with complexities like anxiety, limb difference, Down syndrome, and other forms of visible and non-visible representation. The nerve of this company, Andrew. Right. No, it's terrible that they think that people may want a Lego that looks like them, you know. It's mind-boggling to me that that's the case. But, you know, you have to

conservative to define woke and they can't really do it. And this is such a good example of what woke is. And this is, Lego was just like, hey, we're going to make some people that aren't like straight and white and, you know, maybe a little bit different. And that's woke, but like, how is that woke? I don't really understand. And, you know, the only conclusion that you can come to is the one that everybody comes to is that woke means straight, white, and male. And anything not that is not what is, is woke. And it's, again, these are toys. These are toys for children. And I don't understand what they think the Lego's endgame is with something like this. You know, that's the biggest thing. What is Lego trying to accomplish, really? You know, if it's not, if it's not selling toys, you know,

to be more inclusive and to sell more toys, I don't know. I don't get it. It's very weird. It's very weird. It's really weird. And I'll just sum up by saying that in both these cases with Xbox, you can toggle that setting on and off. And with Lego, if for some reason you're really offended by a Lego that's missing a leg, you can not buy that Lego. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. Not that any of it is a problem in the first place, but if for some bizarre reason, you do think it's a problem, you can avoid it. You don't need to make it into a Grail quest. I don't even know why I said a Greil Quest, because I'm thinking of video games now. What's so interesting to me, though, is the majority of these things that we have talked

about in the last half hour, I would have had no idea they existed if it wasn't for right-wing media. I wouldn't have known about these Legos. Sam Smith's performance. I never would have seen it if it hadn't been for right-wing media pretending to be mad about it. Yeah, and you and I were talking before we started recording, and we realized we were like, how many of these we forgot about? because they go balls to the wall and steam is coming out of their ears on most of these for like a day or a week, and then it's on to the next thing.

With a few exceptions, mainly the ones we talked about at the top, Bud Light and Disney. But all of these other things, probably most of our listeners forgot about them. I know we did. But that's what we're here for. And Andrew, thanks so much for being here. And I am sure we are going to need you to come on again next year and do this all over again. Of course. Yeah, no, I love doing this with you, Andy.

It's always fun. And yeah, I hope you have a great holiday, man. You too, man. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal for the very first time, I believe, which is the filmmaker, writer, and star of the film America's family, Anique Torres, who I had the wonderful, wonderful pleasure of seeing the New York premiere and then doing the talk back to delve more into this incredible story. You know, I was so just excited when I watched it and thought it was such an important

story that I don't feel like I had seen before. So I want to give you an opportunity to give folks an overview as to what is behind America's family. Sure. And Danielle, you did a beautiful job as our moderator. We could not have asked for someone better. You were just amazing and we're so grateful that you were able to be with us that might Thank you. So sure, I'll lunch into what America's family is about.

And as you said, I am the writer and director acted in the film and was one of the producers. So I'm very close to the project. And essentially, the story is about a typical American family. And in this case, this American family is a mixed status, mixed ethnic family. And on Thanksgiving, they are celebrating together when ICE comes to the door. and makes an arrest because immigration customs enforcement, they do raids 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and they do not exclude holidays.

So they come in and the family is raided and the family gets split apart. And really the film is their journey, both individually and collectively, how they reunify. I want to say, and I love the fact that you talk about America's family as a typical family, because it really is. And I think that oftentimes when we talk about immigration or we hear about immigration, we hear about a broken system, we hear about, you know, a migrant crisis. We see all of these headlines. But what your film did for me was to contextualize it in a day that we are normally with family, contextualize it with all of the, you know, the good, the bad and the indifferent that we experience when families gather together.

and the very idea that one action could tear apart an entire family that through the course of your film take months to be reunified. And so talk to us about why it was so important to tell this story with the lens of a holiday over it, but then also really why it's important for us to really understand the fears of living in a mixed status family? Yeah, well, I think just what you said previously, we really wanted this movie to focus on family because the reality is that there are millions of mixed status families in the country right now. And what people, when they think about immigration, they think about the political issues

that you were just stating. And really, most immigrants are like most Americans. they're thinking much more about personal things than they are thinking about political things. They're thinking about the future of their kids, about how to get affordable housing, about what their job situation is going to look like, about how they're going to go to school,

about whether their kids are going to reach their dreams or not. And that's what we really wanted the movie to focus on. I mean, really to draw in the audience with that idea in mind. We focused it around a holiday because Thanksgiving is a big holiday for a lot of people in this country. It's the time where, I mean, it's the most traveled time of year, as we know. Food is a big thing and people come together around the table. Obviously, it's a complicated history about what this holiday really is about.

And we addressed that very briefly in the film as well, as you might recall. But we really just wanted to get everyone to focus on this concept of like, okay, if your family was together, just like this family was together and they could blown apart in an instant, you know, how would you? you react, how would this affect you? What does this mean for your community? What does this mean for your relationships with each other? How are you going to persevere and manage to stay together in a phase of such trauma? We just really wanted people to relate to it very personally because ultimately it is personal, much more so than it is political, I think. And that's right. And I thought that that was what was so beautiful because not only do we talk about this in the context of family, but like when you said the word trauma, that we are readily breaking families apart in this country

and what that system, what ICE does, what detention does to the spirit of people. And that when you're taking one family member in your case in this film to three family members that are broken apart and finding their way back, it's how the community comes to rally together as well, I thought was really important, just moving people from being statistics into really telling their full stories as human beings that have jobs and aspirations and children and grandchildren that they are needed by. And so talk to us about, you know, there is this beautiful, you know, kind of relationship that we see that is formed when the father in the film needs to seek asylum. inside of a synagogue. Again, I thought that this part of your story was so important. And we talk about

sanctuary cities in this country and you see it in the headlines and you see the nasty things that both Governor Greg Abbott in Texas and Ronda Santis in Florida were doing with busing people into different places and saying, oh, you take them and using people as political footballs. Talk to us about the sanctuary space that you created in the film. Yeah. So the way the sanctuary movement works is that essentially ICE is not going to break down the doors of the synagogue or of a church or a mosque of another religious institution in order to make an arrest of an undocumented immigrant. They legally could do that if they want to do that. I mean, it's very difficult because ICE certainly manipulates their way into several people's doorways. That's something that we show in the film, as you know, even when they get in. on Thanksgiving, they're able to do that because they really manipulate their way in and manipulate the warrant that they have in order to do that and are not fully disclosing their information. But in a religious institution, it's a little bit different in that the public backlash that

would go against ICE for doing it is so much that they just don't really want to deal with it. So this is why you have so many undocumented immigrants across the nation seeking sanctuary in different religious institutions. We happen to choose a synagogue as opposed to a church just because churches are normally spotlighted within the sanctuary movement. And in this particular case, it's really happenstance because he, the character Jorge, who plays the father, is he owns a bakery and it's an unusual thing for him to be doing. But he happens to be making a delivery because his regular person is out that day over the holiday. So he's going to a synagogue where he is dropping off Hala, the traditional. traditional bread that's served on the Sabbath. And when he gets in there, he gets the word that

basically ICE has been on the family's tail. They've already arrested the mothers. It put her in detention, which is the part that I play. They are looking for their firstborn son who was born in Mexico. And it happens to be his stepson because the father was actually born in El Salvador. And he then finds himself in the synagogue and happens the person who's really educated about the law in this particular case is the rabbi who has a relationship with him over many years because they've been ordering the bread for years from their bakery. So when he is suddenly stuck in there because he's realizing that immigration is now on them, you know, the rabbi offers him a place to stay and that's how sanctuary happens. It happens again because of something personal. It wasn't

really something that they were politically planning on doing. It's just something that this rabbi extends an offer to help and what happens. And then, of course, there's some resistance from the board at the synagogue to do this because they weren't prepared for it. But ultimately, they do say yes and an unusual friendship forms between the rabbi and the father and the film. Yeah, what strikes me, I think, about your film, but just in general of kind of the political climate and moment that we're in is how important community really is that these kind of headline stories can make you fearful of the people that live down the street. Like that is the point. Make you fearful of the of the person that is delivering your goods,

you know, whether that is from their bakery or from Amazon. I think that what I'm reminded of with your film is that community is at the essence of everything and that it really requires us to shut out the noise from everywhere else and to remind ourselves like, we need to know who our neighbors are. Not because like we need to interrogate them or turn on them, but because knowing your neighbors and caring about them makes your community better. And so can you speak to what in terms of like that aspect in the film and even, you know, we would know that the firstborn, you know, son will go back to Mexico and he discovers his family but also finds different community there.

That theme was very, it was so ever present in terms of obviously family being the first theme, but also community and why that matters so much. Yeah, so I think that one thing that's very, you know, kind of moving and unusual about what happens when Jorge ends up receiving sanctuary from the synagogue is that the rabbi's first response to this whole issue when she sees that, you know, ICE is really on her doorstep is like, okay, what are you doing here? And do you have a warrant? And if you don't have a warrant, then no, I kind of can't let you in here. Just really quickly, really enacting with her. her rights. And also when Jorge the father says to her, listen, I'm not a criminal and my wife is also not a criminal, the rabbi's response is that never crossed my mind. And I think that it's a really beautiful thing because they do have a relationship over many years, even if it's a somewhat informal or, you know, it's not a close relationship. They've just known each other

over a very long time through this buying and selling of this bread that she's like, there's no reason or evidence of me to be afraid of you or afraid for our situation here at the synagogue. And we know that what's happening right now is something very dangerous. So I think that that's something that was just, I think that people really resonate with when they watch the film. I also think that, yes, when Koke, the firstborn son is deported and it's such a shock to his system because he hasn't been back to Mexico since he was a small child. So he really has no frame of reference.

He has no relationships there. He has no birth certificate. he has to go. So then he's in a position of not having papers either in the United States or in Mexico and he has to go find his family. He goes and finds them, discovers that his ethnic background is much more complicated than he even realized. And he ends up being a part of a shelter, too, of men like himself who now have to build a new life over a decade. And in that community, he finds relationships, he finds friendship, he finds a counselor when he says, look, I think my life is over and the counselor's like, well, not really. You know, here you are and this is incredibly

painful, but there's opportunities here if you kind of can open yourself to them. And I think that community is really what saves him. You know, it's what gets him a job. It's what just finds him. It's a very painful way to go, but it is what supports him. And I just think also, ultimately, the concept of organizing, you know, becoming activist, which is something that this family kind of slowly learns about and kind of becomes in different ways. That's a whole other community, community, a digital community, online, that community during protests and demonstrating. Yeah.

So community is certainly very powerful. And I think I'll just say last not, but not least, you know, community is in this film. We have so many people and so many families who are from mixed out of families that are directly acting and participating in playing background actors in the movie because they wanted to be a part of shaping their story as well. And why was that important to you? Because that was something that you absolutely sought out, that you, it seemed to me that it wasn't just about, oh, I'm making this film and I'm and I'm hiring, you know, whomever.

You were very intentional about that. So can you just speak to a bit of that intentionality? Yeah. I think that every story has its context and has its way that it needs to be told. This particular story really was always for me going to be. something that was a product of community members, activists and professional artists, you know, professional actors, professional musicians. And it's like the artists get to become agents of social change.

They get to become activist. And the activists get to understand about artistry and how a good story is really needed to kind of move folks and to change hearts and minds before people can do anything political. And the community members really understand that there is a lot of, a lot of people here to help and to support them. And community members have to also help themselves, too. I think that sometimes there's a feeling of like, oh, I'm a good person or, oh, I have a strong faith ethic.

And faith is a big piece in this movie as well. But also people have to learn how to fight, how to speak for themselves, how to be articulate, how to stand up for themselves, how to stand up for their families. And I think that this kind of collective network really does that. It's not the way, I mean, I am by trade, an actor, and a director and a writer. I don't necessarily think that the next film, you know, whatever that's going to be, be told in the same way. But I think with this piece, it was really important.

Also, I would be remissified, I did not say that this has always been in partnership with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Chirla. So there was always an active. of a core, cheerily is an organization that advocates for immigrants across the nation. And that's a big piece as well. I mean, I just loved it so much. I loved, you know, being able to talk with you in, you know, in depth about it. And I just, you know, the last question for you is, is what are you hoping folks take away

from this film and then, of course, tell people where they're able to see it. Oh, yeah. Well, I think the first thing is something that's quite simple, which is that we just really You hope that the film will really generate a sense of empathy with audiences everywhere, empathy for mixed status families and what they're going through. And of course, this is an American problem, but this goes far beyond that. I mean, there's people dealing with undocumented status in countries all over the world. And in many ways, the stories are similar.

So I would say that's first and foremost. We really hope that people will share the movie with other people, that people will write reviews about it. Because ultimately, there's also information that helps make status families, really inform them about how to protect themselves and how to protect their families. And the way that that happens is by word of mouth, by people saying, hey, there's this awesome movie. You should go check it out. There's a lot of information there.

And then I would say that at a political level, there is something called the registry bills, registry campaign. And that's about fighting for green cards, not about temporary protections that make immigrants vulnerable to the whims of an anti-immigrant president or Congress. And it means that those with DACA or TPS or without any status that they would be eligible if they've been in the country for seven years. And it's a national campaign. There are two bills, both in the House and the Senate. And there's a lot of being support that it's happening among immigrant rights advocates across the country. And they're simple. They don't engage in trade-offs like more enforcement. They offer security for long-term residents who have

toiled and contributed so much, including during the pandemic. So those are really the three things. And then in terms of where to see it, it's available on all major platforms in December and moving forward from there. So on some of the ones that quickly come to mind are Apple TV, Voodoo, Amazon, Google Play. But I mean, pretty much anywhere. It's just available for rent or purchase on demand. And someone can just do a quick Google search and they can find it. Amazing. And, E.K., thank you so much. for making the film, for making the time to join The New Abnormal. Folks, it is America's family.

Go check it out. Go stream it. Share it with your friends. It's super important to support independent filmmakers, art that really sparks conversation about where our politics are today. Really appreciate you. I appreciate you too, Danielle. Thank you so much.

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