The Daily Zeitgeist - It Trends With... Controversy?! 8/14: 'It Ends With Us', Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Horses: Smart As Hell?, Mr. Beast

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

In this edition of It Trends With... Controversy?, Jack and special guest Pallavi Gunalan discuss the Ryan Reynolds/Blake Lively/'It Ends With Us' drama, horses being smarter than we originally thought (because humans are arrogant as hell), Mr. Beast's many, many controversies and much more! WATCH: Serenading the cattle with my trombone (SFW/Classic Youtube)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions,

sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar. Just kidding, I'm Amber Reffin. What? Okay, everybody, we am Lacey Lamar. And I'm also Lacey Lamar. Just kidding. I'm Amber Revin. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey,

Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. This season, we make new friends, deep dive into my steamy DMs, answer your listener questions and more. The more is punch each other. Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and amber show on will ferrell's big money players network on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts just listen okay or lacy gets it do it hello the internet and welcome to this episode of it trends with controversy a play on it it ends with us but we've already done it ends with us as a trending title. But now we're not talking about it

ends with us. We're talking about the controversy, aren't we? Yes, we are. I'm going to be joined by my very special guest co-host Holly Gunale! I am so excited. I have so many questions. I need to know what is going on with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds oh so they're

married yes is that is that what you mean okay i'm done see you all right good so that's it they're married they have four kids four kids she had the fourth one in like january or february of last year which plays into this controversy actually oh okay so blake reynolds uh or blake lively ryan reynolds they both have movies coming out or have come out they had uh ryan reynolds had deadpool um and wolverine which was very funny and i am gonna see it again um and i did really think it was funny and there was like people in theaters were laughing so hard i missed some of the extra jokes. So I'm going to separate the art and the artist for the purpose of this controversy explanation. So in,

I think in like 2019, Justin Baldani, who you may have seen in, in Jane, the Virgin. And he also has like an anti-toxic masculinity podcast with a large Instagram following. And he kind of promotes like men being vulnerable and gentle and stuff. He bought the rights to this Colleen Hoover book. Colleen

Hoover is also a controversial figure, um, in, in 2019. And then they adapted it. And then he, it was supposed to be like his kind of like, not vehicle, but like his project. Um, and then he brought Blake Lively in, but then people started noticing on the press tour he was kind of doing it a lot of it alone or like independently of the other castmates like he was often featured alone and then people noticed that the other castmates had like unfollowed him and there was this interview with jenny slate where she was like oh my god like he was directing and acting in it at the same time because jen Slate is also in the movie and they were like, what do you think about that?

Like, isn't that wild that he was doing both. And then, but they kind of meant for it as like, what was it like to work with him? But the way she answered was, Oh my God. Yeah.

Like I've thought about doing two things at once, but I think I'm okay with one. Like she fully avoided what it was like to work with him. Yes. And so people were are like this is weird and then on the the the press tour blake lively made this comment about the rooftop scene having been written by ryan reynolds like he was fully invested in her work and also they noticed that the press tour was kind of like her it kind of became like a deadpool and wolverine press tour as

well like they kept referencing that or bringing that in so they were doing like husband and wife press tour together and so she said that he wrote this rooftop scene um at this event like she he wrote a full scene and people were like that's fucking weird like he's not in the movie. Not a writer. Not in the movie. Yeah. So at the New York premiere, Blake told E that they help each other. We work together so much. The iconic rooftop scene. My husband actually wrote it.

Nobody knows that he wrote it. He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does. So his wins, his celebrations are mine and mine are his. He's all over this film. But then Christy Hall, who's a screenwriter for the movie was like at the same event was like as she told hollywood reporter as a writer probably the most difficult scene for me to crack was the rooftop scene i have to say colleen wrote it perfectly i wish i could have just lifted it from the pages and put it in the film but it's a

little too long for film languages and then people came back to christy and was like hey like ryan what about what like she yeah she made these comments about ryan and and christy went i'm very proud of my work and i do feel like the beats that needed to be honored in that scene are preserved and they're there again colleen did it best she did it first and it's from her i do think that that scene is a really beautiful reflection of what she penned from the beginning um and that she wasn't aware of any input from ryan she was like there are a couple little things that i thought had been improvised blah blah blah when i saw the cut i thought that was cute that must have been a cute improvising so if i'm being told that ryan wrote it that's great how wonderful there are a few little

flourishes you know yeah and if ryan it came from ryan that's wonderful so it's kind of weird that blake is like my husband's in this my My husband did this. My husband, my husband, my husband. And another thing that Blake has been criticized for on this press tour is that, I don't know, I feel like she has like a side business. I forget what it's for or something, but she's kind of been like plugging it and her relationship with her husband and then like the Deadpool Wolverine. Instead of talking about domestic abuse and instead of having like a serious tone about what the film is about

yeah yeah yes justin baldani had like is like the villain in the film like he's like it starts as this like romantic thing and then turns into abuse which is often how these relationships start and so justin baldani has been going around having the correct and appropriate tone being like less than what the movie is it's it's why we made it and i'm and if there is someone who is like her character blake lyley's character who sees it and makes a different choice for herself that's what this movie is about and he he does it in a really like eloquent way and you know like and and blake's just been like haha like kind of not been like haha like kind of not exhibiting that she's suffered in any way right at any point in her life and so people are taking sides people are confused there was also like a tmz article

about how blake lively felt that the kissing scene lasted too long and she's told multiple people there are a lot of reasons he made her uncomfortable um there was one scene where he had to yeah baldani where he had to like lift her up and he went to his, and he has back problems. So he went to his onset trainer and asked how much she weighed and how he could train himself to protect from his back injury. And she felt self-conscious about that because she just had a baby. And so she was like, is he fat shaming me?

When really he's like, I have a medical issue. And so people are trying to like, yeah, I'm back shaming. Back shaming me when really he's like i have a medical issue and so people are trying to like yeah yeah i'm back shaming back shaming myself trying to take sides yeah he was doing it for himself so people are trying to take sides it's very weird i think it's one of those things where blake and ryan's kind of hollywood couple time is like in terms of like being in the limelight in a positive way time is up like people are starting to find them annoying now yeah yeah they're hitting the and disconnected and like i've been side eyeing them since they had that plantation wedding and they had a plantation wedding yeah people are also like all of them are zionists including baldani so like what are we

doing they're like why are you so invested in these celebrities and taking sides and stuff I'm very interested to see what else comes out especially like once the movie is like done and they're off the press tour I want to see like how if we get any more nuggets from like Jenny Slate you know right yeah yeah I feel like those stories come out in like the books that they write after they're famous, you know, like when they're,

when they're aged. Um, yeah. All right. Uh, any, any, have you seen it ends with us?

No, I'm not sure if I'm going to. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if I do. I don't know if it's like a movie that i'd see in theaters yeah i don't know okay um well you did see the superhero movie so you are contributing to our descent into an ip fueled hellscape yeah it's pretty fun it's a raucous ride into this hellscape um hey speaking of animal superpowers right wolverine has kind of

animal based superpowers uh horses are they're not like that smart but they're like smarter than we thought they're like pretty pretty smart they built the pyramids guys horses built the pyramids, guys. Horses built the pyramids. They're starting from a very low, like with a very low bar. But so based on their performance in a game where they were trying to earn treats by touching a card with their snout, horses just leapt up a couple levels in terms of our understanding of how smart horses are.

I think it's pretty fucked up that we came up with money and then we're trying to force that on other animals we're like work for your treats it's no longer a barter system or foraging you have to earn this shit and we can tell they're smart because they're responding to our money um yeah but yeah so basically the added level of complexity so the way it had been going before they touch card they get treat um and then there was also a stoplight that if it was on they wouldn't get the treat and they were trying to determine if the horses would notice that the stoplight was not getting them the treat. And the horses just kept hammering the card with their nose.

And they were like, well, these horses are fucking idiots. Move on to the next animal. But then somebody added a new step where you had to basically do a time in the penalty box if you hit the card with your nose when the stoplight was on so they added a penalty okay to the game i am dumber i'm learning that i'm dumber than a horse the other night i had to play a jeopardy themed show yeah like on stage oh and the buzzer would punish you if you press the button before the host finished this question and pressed his button and i just kept pressing the button sure yeah i was too

excited i was like i have the answer and then i wouldn't get the answer because i got penalized by the buzzer system it was like the start starting a mario kart race where like you get penalized for touching it before it starts you have to hit it like right at the moment i can't hold it back at that show someone told me after from the audience they were like you really represented well for the adhd community and i was like i haven't been diagnosed with adhd is this my diagnosis were were you like pressing the button really hard is that why you can all see but also i was being a comedian and yelling out silly things and stuff but yeah that was that's there and like a lot of my friends interpretation of my personality right i refuse to be diagnosed with one more thing

i'm holding off we've got plenty full diagnosis um it's so anyways they instantly switch strategies in ways that indicate horses have a higher level of cognitive reasoning than previously thought possible suggests that rather than failing to grasp the tenets of the game the horses had understood the rules the whole time but astutely had not seen any need to pay more attention to the rules in the second stage until there was like penalties so yeah um yeah i don't know they're like the smart kid that like coaster high school and only and or like or doesn't care about the results in high school because they're too smart for the subject and then once they get to college they're like oh i actually have to pay attention again right i'm actually learning yeah so this uh brian the editor points out that this is highly reminiscent of clever hans uh which was a horse whose owner claimed they were able to perform arithmetic

and after a formal investigation do you know that story like they would like ask a horse how much like three plus two is and then the horse would answer by like kicking it like five times and people were like this is amazing this horse is a fucking genius but then they realized that

the horse just had like the way that people say that like dogs have an incredible like innate knack for reading what we want from them like they read human faces really well they realized that like the it could tell when its human owner wanted it to stop kicking basically and like knew when it was like right answer time this is like cop dogs like being told to freak out yeah yeah they're racist because the cop is not because yeah the dog is racist um but anyways i don't know i find horses very uh kind of mysterious and magical and so i'm glad

to hear that there's a lot going on back there because like the way they described what the horses what they thought uh horses were there like previously research had suggested that horses simply respond to stimuli in the moment they don't proactively look ahead think ahead and plan their actions they're just like that is such a like a human thing to think though like i swear with every every animal we as soon as we just like give it a benefit of the doubt and try to think outside of how we would think about like dominating and like because like they don't they don't know what like that they have to play a game you know what i mean right they don't this is like when they put the bear up against kobayashi the hot dog eater and they were like kobayashi's winning he's winning and the bear's like i don't even know that i have to eat these hot dogs right now like maybe i don't fucking feel

like it you know right and then in one swoop he like beats him but i always feel this way about animals like i watch i like am um part of like a dog rescue and i watch a lot of rescue videos of just other animals as well and like cows are fucking smart pigs are really smart like all of these animals have their own motivation and their own intent and we don't like generally allow them to have that we expect them to perform according to our standards but they're all individuals and so the more you pay attention like cat like cows love playing just like dogs love playing you know like yeah i don't know i'm always i'm always like yeah that that fully makes sense for for us you know yeah but cows when they play with us can just

destroy us can crush our skulls so we're like ah let's just pretend that they can't yeah well i mean they're just fucking chill out, Brian was saying that the horse is being gracious for letting us ride on their backs. And it's like, literally like animals are so sweet and so loving. I mean, obviously there's predators and everything like that, but like the amount of shit they let us get away with because we have

negative intentions, but they don't, it's crazy. Like fucking wild that like great white sharks have even be been discovered to be like much nicer than anybody thought yeah it's literally the guy who's like yeah i just have like generally good vibes and i like can swim with great white sharks and they don't hurt me like but we have to create movies where it's like oh no this bear is i mean bears will fucking eat your ass but like you know uh i mean especially

in west hollywood they'll eat your ass you know am i right and that is the joke we're going to the break on we'll be right back i've been thinking about you I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110.

120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the biscuits.

It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On segregation academies, when the civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be

ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos!

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. and we're back wow uh brian the editor is revealing himself to be a real cow lover cows love music some of the best youtube content is cows just vibing to music i definitely read that as best because he said yt and i definitely read that as the best white content. Best whitey content. Yeah. Some of the best content that whiteys are making is Cow music. More cowbell?

Hey, speaking of content whiteys are making on YouTube, MrBeasts. Oh my god, that was incredible. Thank you. Give it up for that transition, everybody. Thank you. So, he is doing a real world squid game. He saw squid game and was like damn that

is great content uh just the game part fully missing the entire point of everything ignoring the dystopia morale detail uh that was the whole point he's like wow those rich guys had a great idea for content um so he brought 1 000 contestants from uh ages 82 down to gen z to las vegas to fight for a five million dollar prize uh round one um to the death actually yeah don't know this they have to murder each other so they all got there and he was like psych it's actually 2 000 of you so it's like i've changed your odds like made them way worse right off the bat without telling you um then the games began and it apparently had more in common with like fire fest thing you might expect uh two of the contestants who were on a team that got eliminated uh said that it was a challenge to get adequate sleep food water and medication

for dinner quote I had gotten a hard boiled egg two slices of cucumber and basically one third of a stick of celery that was also cut in two thirds two carrots and a quarter cup of plain oatmeal which sucks

water was not readily available they were given cans of liquid death to they're giving cans of liquid death to drink on camera though because they were a sponsor uh and of course feastables mr beast's snack brand uh to eat in front of the camera i'm sorry mr beast is like what 24 or something like that yes there he should not have 2,000 children to take care of like 2,000 dependents in your home or wherever the squid games warehouse is like he should not be in charge I know it's like it's insane he's the head of like a big giant corporation you're never gonna guess that you'd never guess that it's a total

disaster like the there's all sorts of like harassment and he was just like oh i guess i'm gonna hire like a head of hr um that's like a big multi-million dollar company he hadn't even had somebody um he there's a lot of stuff coming out about him. There is a part of his con a contract that, or part of like the, the information that people read when they join the team. And one section said, no, doesn't always mean no. And it wasn't in reference to like the type of consent that you would expect, but it was in reference to like getting their YouTube content. Like if you go in and you ask to use a place or you ask somebody to do something like they may say no right away but keep trying to get them to participate in the

youtube content or something like that yeah which is problematic in and of itself but also the fact that this individual became such a megacorp type person like that should be no that phrase should be nowhere near any any orientation materials you have like that is insane and then it's also like what drives the content like if you've watched his content it is people doing terrifying things uh or just like grueling things for money it's it's it's coercion like it's manipulation of manufactured consent in a way almost yeah which is why people like it so much they're like hey this is like what my parents have to do every day there's also um another individual who was interviewed in kind of like its own weird youtube

video where it was like edited in a weird way by the person interviewing, but there was a person, Jake, something who had done a lot of content with him like a few years ago. And then like asked for more money for his friend who's a father. And like, they both got fired when they asked for more money and he felt really guilty about that. But like he did, he, he kept being desperate to be featured in the videos. And he got finally he got his break and they put him in solitary confinement. And it wasn't like full solitary confinement in that like they occasionally he would ask like there was like very limited interaction. But they kept the lights on, which fucked up his sleep because they wanted to get enough video. They did it for like 30 days they were supposed to do for like 30 days he didn't last that long because he was becoming like mentally

more and more unstable which it is like geneva conventions like warfare shit yeah he does war crimes to you for money like yeah and you try and win money and he was like asking for things they weren't giving him he like didn't like like a lot of youtube videos are fake so it's like insane that they couldn't just like fake this one too because that's all also come out that the mr beast videos are fake but we all kind of knew that they're gonna actually excerpt this for an advertisement for mr beast like us being like i can't believe they're not fake yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I accidentally signed something by joining. Um,

but he like really basically like tortured the friend. He was supposed to get like however many hundreds of thousands of dollars. He got less than that because he didn't last the whole time. He made him complete just like horrible challenges. Like one was him running a marathon in solitary confinement. And that I think was like his breaking point. Cause he didn't any training he was in this fucking room you know um and and he did it because like he like he was out of he was mentally like broken down and also all this money was dangled over him like the longer he stayed the more challenges he did the more money he got so it was just fucking insane and then brian is

also bringing up there's a pedophile association uh with mr beast and his like group of friends and stuff i don't his co-host yeah yeah i don't know left the company that's like the big thing that they're you know in crisis mode on they have like a external law firm that is like looking into it but the person who uh is this um you know the source of the or the person who's uh alleged to have committed the acts is like one of the main people on camera and like a big person at the company uh ava chris tyson so that's yeah it just seems like there's a lot of it seems like there needs to be like a proper yeah like hr proper legal proper whatever but yeah proper like unionized shoots like that's the other thing is that he goes out of his way to like have

non-unionized shoots and like the shit is like people are getting hurt on the in these challenges like according to the new york times more than a dozen people were injured while filming filming the first portion of the beast games in las vegas that we were talking about uh where they were fed like carrot sticks one contestant told the times that she left bruised and bleeding and the consolation prize was like they each were given one thousand dollars but they were only given it on camera and then asked to give give it back like off camera and they were like you'll get your money later we just i'm sorry dude we just like don't have the money on us right now the main ethos of the show has nothing to do with helping people like when i i didn't know anything

about mr beast when i saw that he was giving like a thousand people there or a hundred people their vision back whatever it was like for cataracts and i was like that's fucking great like i don't care about charity in public as long as those people consent and as long as like good things come from it but it's very obvious that especially from this conversation with that jake person that like mr beast would come in and say like what he thought like a human should say in order to get the like to feel like he's on like he's not going to get in trouble or be like on the right side of things or not have people say he didn't say or do certain things you know but it seems like the main thing is to like get his content. He's been making YouTube videos of him, like,

like doing shit to himself and his friends since he was a child. Like, this is not a normal Avenue or like a normal motivation for a career to like fuck people over on camera essentially. So like the amount of empathy he has, I'm very unsure of. on camera essentially so like he's like the amount of empathy he has i'm very unsure of he's the most famous person with like kids who are like 10 to 15 like they're just like my nephews are obsessed with really like he's yeah yeah he's like the biggest celebrity in the world

that is so and i feel like yeah the on one hand yes it's cool to um that he is like helping certain people if if he is you know um on the other hand i also feel like it sends that yeah it's and it makes it like who needs taxes when you have mr beast you know he's just it's like the lottery uh you know just people being like well i'm just gonna like win a mr beast challenge and then we'll be good and like what's promised isn't given and like yeah it's just so gross yeah the thousand dollar like that really seems to undercut the whole thing is like he's giving people money on camera and then asking them to give it back off camera is pretty wild so if that's true uh i think that was in time at time magazine has been on the mr beast beat uh so

we'll be keeping an eye on this corner um of the internet uh palavi what a pleasure having you as always where can people find you follow you all that good stuff i'm at palavi ganalan p-a-l-l-a-v-i g-u-n-a-l-a-n i am. I am online too much now since I am currently unemployed. And I also am gonna have shows at the comedy store. I have a monthly show called facial recognition comedy. Our next show is August 20th at 8 PM in the belly room. No, maybe not 8 PM. I don't know. Um, it's in the belly room. And then we also have one in September. I'm also going to be going to Arizona for the Big Pine Comedy Festival at the end of September. So I will be there. All right.

Around cacti or whatever. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself. Get the vaccine. Get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow.

Bye. Bye. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,

iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio appiffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following me on social media, you know I love to cook or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies, like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyk, Alison Roman, and Ina Garten. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste to share recipes, tips, and kitchen must-haves.

Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash goodtaste. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did.