Unclear and Present Danger - Blown Away (feat. Clare Malone)

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

What do you get when you mix Boston, bad accents and a lot of explosions? The 1994 thriller “Blown Away” starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones! Jamelle and John are joined by Clare Malone of The New Yorker to talk Irish-American identity, Irish nationalism, the racial politics of Boston and much, much more.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieUnclearPodAnd join the Unclear and Present Patreon! For just $5 a month, patrons get access to a bonus show on the films of the Cold War, and much, much more.

All right, here's what we've got. We are being bombed. Fet, you're coming up with zeros. Looks like our boys are mystery, man. There's no mystery. His name's Ryan Garrity. According to the report, the guy can build bombs out of biscuit. I've come here to create a new country for you called Chaos

and a new government called Anarchy. All for you. All for you. You know what I'm going to spend and beauntled, the monk-and-a-long-said he is in the world. We can't be the fire-true, you know, my son,

I can't believe, must be bullish-grinkin. The world and can be able to be Who I'm supposed to see? My mind and can't be For you One of us and me We're going to be.

Welcome to Welcome to Unclear and present A podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a substack newsletter called Unpopular Front, and I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 1990s. We have a guest for this episode.

We have Claire Malone of The New Yorker and the podcast Just Like Us, the tabloids that changed America. Welcome, Claire. Hi, it's great to be here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching this movie, which I like. The movie we are discussing this week is blown away, a 1994 action thriller directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Lloyd Bridges, Forrest Whitaker, and Susie Amis. I'm not quite sure how you say her last name. This I need to make clear for listeners, this is not the 1993 erotic thriller starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Both chorus. So if you watch that, you may have made a mistake.

I have never seen it. I don't know if it's good or not, but that is not the film we are discussing. Here is a quick plot synopsis of Blown Away in 1994. Blown Away tells the story of Jimmy Dove, who works for the Boston Bomb Squad. Shortly after Dove leaves the force, his partner is killed by a bomb

that Dove thinks might have been made by someone he knows. The movie had three taglines. the first, the fuse has been lit. The second, boom baby, sweet dreams. And the third, five, four, three, two, one times up. I kind of like that one. That one's good. The other two, I could do it though, but I like that one.

It's available to rent the film on Amazon and iTunes. And as always, I recommend that you check it out. It's pretty straightforward. So I hope you watch it. We always look at the front page of the New York Times for the day the film was released. So let's see what was happening on July 1st, 1994. John, please take it away.

So this new front of the New York Times is maybe one of the most generic 90s covers possible. We're getting into the – well, there are some very interesting things going on, but it's very much in the height of the Clinton era. High Court backs limits on protests and abortion clinic. Buffer zone upheld 6 to 3. Support for heart of a Florida court's injunction keeping protest. protesters in distance. The Supreme Court today upheld the core of Florida State Court injunction and tended to keep disruptive protesters from blocking access to an abortion

clinic. The 6 to 3 ruling written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was greeted with relief by abortion rights groups and with sharp disappointment by abortion opponents. So, yeah, the 90s had a lot of abortion politics being fought out in the courts, some important protections remain. Some were rolled back, and this is one of them. Clinton wins one, loses one, and two votes on health care bills. Fierce debate and House signals difficulty ahead. In a major victory for the White House, the House Committee on Ways and Means approved legislation today that promised

health insurance to every American requires their employers to pay for the bulk of its cost. But the narrow 20 to 18 vote achieved without the support of a single Republican after fiercely partisan debate, single difficulty ahead for President Clinton and a struggle to overall the health care system. And there's another bad moment for the president from the Senate. The finance committee still at work on its own bill, solidly rejected the eye of putting a new requirement on the employers to pay for

their workers' insurance, even as backup if voluntary measures fail to meet the goals, expanding coverage. As you may know, Clinton's efforts to overall health care were unsuccessful. We're still struggling with this problem. And Obamacare, from my perspective, was a step in the right direction, but has not entirely solved America's health care crisis. GOPA studies offered by Perrault, Ross Perra, one of the worst enemies

of Republicans in the last presidential campaign may soon become his friend. Mr. Perrault has offered the GOP $1 million to produce a nationally televised program to critique President Clinton's health care plan, Republican officials said. The arrangement could have benefits for the Texan and the party, which lost many voters to Mr. Perrault in 1992.

Ross Perot, as you might know, was a billionaire who ran a third-party candidacy, a maverick third-party candidacy, promising to clean up the government and fix this, that, and the other thing. In some way, it's a precursor of Trump, in other ways not, but many Republican supporters are very intrigued by Perot, and they figure out a way to get his voters back, which is stuff that's in my book, so I'll wait for that. And here's something, Grizzly discovering Rwanda leads French to wide and roll.

This is the middle of the Rwandan genocide the date we're in. 400 sick and frail Tutsi, including scores of people suffering from grenade, machete, and gunshot wounds who were rescued today from marauding Hutu forces by French troops near this town in western Rwanda. One survivor indicated that this group was the largest remnant of the 10,000 Tutsi who lived in the region before the Rwandan Civil War opted again in April. Fewer than a thousand survive, he said. Some Tutsi said they had been on the runs. since April with little to eat other than a few potatoes and unriped sorghum for the last 10 days. They said they've been under daily attack from forces aligned with the Hutu-dominated government, regular soldiers, paramilitary units, and pro-government militia.

Actually, we're coming to the end of the Rwand and civil war on this date. I think it ended in the middle of July with the defeat of the Hutu government by Paul Gagame's forces. But I think I'm not sure what the figure is of how many were killed, but I think it's at least one million in the short period of time between April and July. This French intervention that they're talking about is very controversial. It was a French-led UN intervention, which a lot of people criticize for failing to stop the killings. And some even accuse French complicity and cooperation with the Hutsu government. I'm not sure where the investigation is on that question, but that's something I'm

I think that was an accusation posed by the RPF, which was Paul Gagame's military force that ultimately overthrew the government of Rwanda and became its own government. Yeah, the Rwandan genocide was sort of another tragic refutation of the end of history thesis in a way that liberal democracy was essentially. and the kinds of catastrophes of the 20th century witnessed were behind us, and that clearly was not the case. It also had a lot of influence, I think, on American foreign policy and not to intervene and went not to.

What else is there? Trump. Where is he? Trump is in the very, sorry, I clicked away from this for a second. Trump is in the very bottom left hand. It's like a little stump that says, inside, Hong Kong. money for Trump. A group of Hong Kong investors stepped in with money that Donald J. Trump needs to begin building Riverside South. Shocking. He needed. Yeah, he always needs.

You need old cash. Yeah, this is interesting. In the early 90s, Trump was, some people thought were finished because of his bankruptcy and his irresponsibility. But yeah, somehow he always found new investors. Even after, you know, he took a huge bath in Atlantic City and he didn't never declared personal bankruptcy, but the Trump organization was bankrupt. So he's finding, once again, is always finding some way to sneak out of every bind he gets himself into. What else? Arafat is coming to Gaza.

The chairman of the PLO will cross into the Gaza Strip and a motorcade, formerly ushering a new era of Palestinian self-rule. Anything else looks interesting to you, Jamel, or Claire? I mean, did you already talk about the O.J. Simpson trial? No. It's like right there in the middle. Simpson lawyers seek to exclude bloody evidence. found at home when four homicide detectives arrived at O.J. Simpson's home early on June 13th

to tell him that his former wife had been slasted death the night before. They found blood on the door of a white fort Bronco parked at the curb and a trail of blood leading to his front door a police report shows. Did you guys? I really followed the O.J. Simpson trial when I was whatever I, how old is I? Like. You had been like seven or eight. But like, Jamel, maybe you'll believe this. We, my sister, one of my sisters and I bought something at a bookstore called O.J. Simpson's legal pad. Because remember, he was always during the trial, like, scribbling on the legal pad. I found it when I was, like, maybe in my early 20s.

It was so inappropriate. It's just, like, a total early 90s creation of, like, these terrible spoof cartoons about, like, what OJ's, like, doing. But I, like, followed the trial, which is looking back crazy. But I guess everyone did. I was vaguely aware of what was going on. Yeah, I don't think I don't think I was super aware of what was going on. I know my parents followed it. But I don't have any, like, memory of their reaction to his acquittal.

I will say that when you, you know, when you read news reports from the trial, from the whole thing, and it's like, yeah, he obviously killed, he killed those people, right? Yes. That's why I was laughing. Like, you read, you read this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this lead, they found blood on the door of a white Ford Bronco parked at the curb and a trail of blood leading to its front door. that's like that's the equivalent of like showing up to the police me like yeah I did it I obviously I obviously killed the people so the evidence seemed pretty overwhelming I mean this is sort of the general I think the general takeaway if the LAPD hadn't been so damn racist yes they would have gotten them yes but when one of your key witnesses is the

detective who has like Nazi memorabilia in his house you well yeah that's like an issue that's an issue for your prosecution that would never happened in the Boston bomb dissolution squad I never of racial harmony that's something we'll have to talk about

because there are scenes in that movie and I was like this is in Boston when they're at the the cops funeral and all the white cops were hanging out

with the black people like this doesn't seem right to me this seems this seems like a fantasy that's actually a good

transition point for talking about the movie real quick And just going through some some quick basics. There's not a ton to say about this film or it's director, director very much kind of like a Hollywood journeyman type. Interestingly, this is Jeff Bridges' first action film.

He was 45 when this was released. He's 44 when it's shot. He looks terrific for being a man. He looks great. He looks great. So congratulations to Jeff Bridges in the 90s. Very handsome. I think he's fine in this movie.

I think everyone's fine. All the accents are terrible. Tommy Lee Jones's accent is Nick was supposed to be so crazy but like so crazy It's insane. He's like he's like the Lucky Charms Leprocon. I know There's a young Forrest Whitaker

As a character officer Anthony Franklin always loved Forrest Whitaker when he shows up And then there's a you can see a young Cuban Gooding Jr. in here as well So a lot of actors, this is very clearly mid-budget action thriller did pretty well at the box office, big opening for MGM, kind of, you know, didn't have many, didn't have legs because it wasn't particularly well reviewed. But it totally sort of hits that sweet spot of movies that

don't really get released in theaters anymore, kind of big actors, a decently sized budget, small scale thriller. And so we're saying that blown away was kind of part of a, it was it was in line with what was coming out of Hollywood at the time. Speed actually had been released a little bit earlier and was rushed to release to get ahead of blown away. In retrospect, I'm not sure they really had to worry about that because speed is the far superior movie. But audiences would have seen another kind of bomb thriller. Hollywood still churning out films about the IRA. A couple years earlier, they're in the crying game, which we have not watched for the podcast because I kind of forgot about it, but we may actually watch for the

podcast. And then as far as what is actually happening in the conflict in Northern Ireland, the previous December before the movie was released, there had been the Irish leader, Albert Reynolds, and Prime Minister John Major signed an agreement affirming the right of the Irish people to self-determination. There were still plenty of fighting, though. And a few weeks before this film was released, three members of the Ulster Volunteer Force were killed by members of the Irish National Liberation Army. And a few weeks after this film was released. The provisional Irish Republican Army shot down a Royal Air Force helicopter wounding those on board. I don't think anyone was killed. The PIRA issued a ceasefire in August and then I

think another collection of Republican groups issued a ceasefire later in the year. And then in the following year, there's more negotiations and such. So makes sense that there is Hollywood still producing movies about this conflict related to this conflict because it's still ongoing and There are, you know, there's a big appetite. There's a large appetite for this kind of stuff in American pop culture. So that's sort of a little context for the movie. What did you guys think of this? What do you think of blown away?

I wasn't blown away. I'm sorry. That was cheap. First of all, the accents are ridiculous. The playing up of the Irish ethnicity of the Boston Irish to a leprechaun. Darby O'Gill and the Little People level is borderline offensive. But, you know, it's a serviceable action flick that keeps you going through all of it. I mean, I think we can talk a little about the politics of it or lack thereof.

I did not find particularly believable that Jeff Bridges' character was in the eye, was an IRA bomb maker. Well, they're very specific that he was too radical for the IRA, which I also thought. was very interesting. Like, maybe they mean the PIRA? I don't know. But, like, his, was it Jeff Bridges who was too radical or? He's a follower of Tommy Lee Jones's in something. Tommy Lee Jones.

He was like a splinter group. Yeah. Which did happen. They did exist. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Especially after the Good Friday Agreement, there were groups that went on to continue IRA, real IRA, who tried to continue the armed struggle after the peace negotiations.

Two points, four years in the future from this movie, 1998, Good Friday Agreements, and the Big Lebowski, which I was like, it's kind of crazy that Jeff, I don't know, I just like, I found, I found the Jeff Bridges of this movie like jarring to me just because I'm so used to like the dude, right? I don't know. Yeah, and there were parts in the movie, I mean, it's interesting because he's trying to be an action hero. And so there are definitely scenes where he's very much that. But then when he's just kind of like with other characters hanging out, he's very much the dude. Yeah. And I think, I mean, my understanding is that the dude is pretty much the closest thing to Jeff Bridges' actual personality that is on screen.

Like that is very close to how the real life Jeff Bridges is, just very charming, very chill. And that kind of comes across in the film. But the whole action persona doesn't really fit. Because he's so chill and so visibly chill, it doesn't really fit him all that well. But I think what carries the movie, such that it's carried, is Tommy Lee Jones' sort of insane performance, which we've seen him in a couple movies so far on the podcast. And this was, I mean, we've talked about this, but it's so interesting to me that, you know, men in black comes down in 96. And in men in black, Tommy Lee Jones is the straight man to Will Smith's sort of like young, hot, hot. shot um total deadpan and after men and black that's kind of those are kind of the roles jones is

doing mostly kind of straight man dead uh dead pan serious person the fugitive right well the fugitive is a little bit before this um and that's another movie we were sort of in that role but he's much more of his work is along these lines as like a madman uh as sort of a crazy person so under siege he plays the villain, the terrorist, and he's kind of, it's a very similar performance to this or vice versa. This is a similar performance to that. Um, in the package, he plays an assassin, uh, who is unstable. He's just, he shows up a lot in that particular role.

So I think it's, I just think it's interesting how much he's moved, how much in, in the 90s, he moves away from that. One thing he's like not, he's not stereotypically handsome, right? He's, he's kind of got a face, like in a good way. Like, he's got a great character face. He's got the voice. Um, I thought the scenes where he's making bombs to U2, to a U2 soundtrack, was pretty great.

I mean, my sort of like impressionistic takeaways of it were, one, the opening scene is on this sort of like cliffside prison in Northern Ireland. And I was like, great real estate for this lockdown, like really, really bougie. Tommy Lee Jones also murder someone within the first like three minutes of the movie. which is a plus for me I mean when someone gets gets killed in the first five minutes that's like immediate extra star for me yeah it wasn't I mean so okay so

great real estate for the prison a big moment for the Boston Pops the female romantic lead I think is a is in the Boston Pops and they're like they're like one of the final scenes is them doing you know the William Tell Orchestra

William Tell Overture on the 4th of July but I mean to John's point about sort of like the sort of like ambient background politics of like Boston and the era and like the the Irish, Irish American tie-in. It was interesting. I was, I was thinking about, you know, when they, when they talk about the, there's a couple scenes where there's like this indication of people

in Boston, like giving support, financial support to like Irish, Irish Republican Army fugitives. And that's, that is a dynamic that existed in the sense of like people. in usually Boston, New York or other kind of like Chicago, other hubs. There was a lot of money that was going back to Ireland that I think was more prevalent in like the 60s and 70s before the kind of like official IRA and provisional IRA split. And like there was more of a, you know, some of us really want to do peace and others want to keep on with the sort of actual violence. But like, you know, Peter King, the congressman from Long Island, Peter King was like,

a big part of... He was an IRA fundraiser, essentially. Yeah. He worked for what's that group called? Shit. Well, anyway, yes, but you're right. He was an IRA fundraiser. So I thought that was...

I mean, obviously they play it up and like, blah, blah, but like... And I think it's, like, very important to distinguish between, like, Irish identity and Irish American identity. And actually, coincidentally, I started this past weekend, this new book from Fenton tool called We Don't Know Ourselves. It's a personal history of modern Ireland. It's really interesting because it's mostly about how from the 1840s on, Ireland was just like suffered for, and particularly in like the 1950s, suffered from like an emigration crisis. And so the Boston Irish are also just, they're connected, but very different. And so obviously it's like, you know,

it's a sort of leprechaunish caricature. But like the financial ties, I think, are really the American, the Irish American and the Irish financial ties, especially pre-Celtic Tiger, I guess, are really interesting and important. Yeah. Well, that's a great point. I mean, Peter King, the group he was involved with is Norade, which, you know, which was basically a way of financing the IRA. Peter King is interesting because, yeah, he's a Republican in the American sense, not in the Irish

sense, but both. actually, a fairly conservative one, but a supporter, you know, a vocal support of the IRA into the 1980s and 90s where he asked President Clinton to have Jerry Adams at his inauguration, which they didn't go for. But there is a, it's interesting, the Irish-American support for the IRA. What is that? I mean, obviously there's ties of kinship and, and, and, ethnic solidarity. But I think what this movie points out also, and especially by the 1990s, is that there's a sense of nostalgia among Irish Americans and a sense of being integrated into United States mainstream white culture and perhaps like these connections to, you know,

these political struggles, these connections to Ireland or a way of preventing, you know, Irish identity from becoming completely effaced and losing its meaning and becoming, you know, vocally pro Sinn Féin and IRA was a way of kind of doubling down on one's Irishness in the, you know, a society that sort of didn't care anymore about it or only cared in a very kitschy way. I mean, I think the way this movie relates to Irish American ethnicity is very 90s in the sense that there's a fascination with it. It's slightly kitched up, or it's very kitched up in this movie. And this is related also to, we talked about this before. I insist, but I have no evidence of this, that there was a weird thing. There was a weird 1990s obsession

with Boston as some kind of like holdout of like white ethnic working class authenticity, which is related to the Irish identity thing and as a kind of like place that was more rooted than New York City and homogenous in New York City yeah those things seem completely turned into nostalgia

and you know I don't think that Irish Americans in Boston would have looked quite like this movie portrays them I think this really as we've said, paints them in overly vivid, almost caricatural way. Can I do an ethnic mapping for a second? Yes, please. What you said is really interesting, and I think a lot of this does go to like,

like probably for the purposes of our conversation, sort of the white ethnic identity of Americans in the 1980s and 1990s as people start, like I think this is also tied to how people started to relate to, like, the Democratic Party as well. But let me start from the purpose. personal, which is, um, I am probably from a family and a community that identifies as Irish American, but not in sort of the way it's portrayed in this film. So, um, you know, both my parents are Irish, I'm Irish, you know, Irish Catholic, big family. We did Irish dancing.

We went to Fesh's, which are these Irish dance competitions. Interestingly, during the 90s, when you would go to Fesh's, there would be bumper stickers everywhere. it would say, like, a United 32, you know, referring to, like, unification of the North and South. And, like, I think that probably my childhood, it wasn't so common, although pretty common in, like, you know, like Cleveland, parts of Chicago, parts of New York, parts of Boston to have people who are very Irish Catholic and sort of a classic sense.

But there are also, like, two, and this is where class divisions come, lace curtain versus shanty Irish, not very nice terms, But I think this movie is trying to portray like shanty Irish. So Southie Boston versus like how I grew up, which is more like, you know, my parents both went to college where professionals had kind of moved from certain neighborhoods in the, let's say, 1950s to certain suburbs. Like there is this kind of there is an assimilationist white ethnic and then there's the white ethnic who probably ended up. voting for Trump, let's say, who keeps a certain kind of, yeah, like ethnic class identity. But I feel like in the 80s and 90s, we all know this, like a lot of them were still Democrats who had like senses of white grievance to use the overused term, but who hadn't like extrapolated

it out. But there's definitely like a, well, I'm not white. I'm Irish American, right? Because it's tight. And I think a lot of that also has to do with like the dissolution of Catholic identity. but, like, that's also another thing. Well, there's a thing going on in the 90s, and I have memories of this just from my dad

listened to a lot of talk radio. This is a very talk radio thing to talk about, but sort of like the anger at like hyphenated Americans. And there's both in the 90s to sort of like outsize anger about, you know, people, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, blah, blah, blah. But then also as African Americans in particular took, I think a greater visibility in American culture,

not just as sort of athletes and actors and musicians, but as like, you know, members of political society and so on and so forth. And as people taking ownership of their cultural products and as sort of black pride or black power becomes a little more commercial in the 90s, I think there's this sort of, maybe I'll call it a reaction or whatnot, but there's this thing that happen where white Americans of like ethnic background, I'm like, well, I'm going to claim that as well. I'm going to claim sort of the hype-needed thing as well. So I'm Irish-American.

I'm Italian-American, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sort of really emphasizing that even if they themselves were no longer in any kind of ethnic enclave or fully assimilated, right? And yeah, no speaking the language, not any particular, you know, connection to cultural traditions, but just sort of claiming that background. Before we move further along on this, we have not actually said anything about what this movie is about. And we should probably do that real quick. We jumped into a very good conversation, but I feel like we do need to at least say a little bit about what the movie's about.

And that is basically that, again, Jeff Bridges' character, Jimmy Dove, is a former IRA bomb maker who feels very guilty after he stops Tommy Lee Jones' character from dead-neying a bomb. saves a bunch of lives but ends up killing a woman he loves and other kind of comrades and so he flees to Boston remakes his life as this member of the Boston bomb squad he ends up in the beginning of the film

stopping a bomb from detonating in MIT and a sequence that is very dumb, very silly I mean it's sort of like someone puts a bomb into a computer to kill their ex-girlfriend and it seems very controlled as like a scenario, but he successfully disarms the bomb and Tommy Lee Jones, who's escaped

from prison and is now in Boston as well, sees him on the news and it's like, I'm going to, I'm going to ruin this guy's life. I'm going to make this guy miserable. And so that kind of sets off, no fun intended, the plot. And basically throughout the course of the runtime, Tommy Lee Jones is kind of picking off members of the Boston bomb squad one by one with explosive devices, picking up members of or people close to or trying to pick them off closest up bridges and that's that's the film I actually just put it on right now we're about to get to the scene where his first partner is killed by a bomb and then his partner is replaced by Forrest Whitaker's character

who's very suspicious of him and all this stuff two things occurred to me about it now that you talk about it is that in terms of like an Irish-American support for the IRA or you know vestigial support for the IRA It's interesting that he's a reformed IRA character. Can you even imagine any other terrorist organization being represented as something that you could like come back from and make amends for it? Could you imagine like, well, I was in Al-Qaeda, but, you know, or Hamas, and I decided that wasn't, and now I'm a member of, you know, the police to make amends for it.

That would be crazy. So I think it speaks to the sympathies of many Americans, Irish Americans in particular, still had, you know, some Americans with left-wing sympathies too, had for the IRA as sort of legitimate. And we, of course, we don't like violence. Of course terrorism is bad, but we can understand why a young person would be involved in that sort of thing. And we can imagine a pathway for their redemption. No one could, no one would do the same for an Islamic terrorist group or Palestinian terrorist group or whatever. So that's interesting to me. The other interesting thing to me is both antagonists and protagonists in the movie completely leave behind

their political motivations. He's just done with the Irish liberation struggle. I mean, you know, and he moves the United States. He, and he starts to, you know, he becomes an American cop. And the other guy, well, he seems to have continued his IRA career, you know, from the point to to land him in prison. But he becomes totally, and this is something we've talked about in a lot of the pockets, totally obsessed with personal revenge, right? He's ended his interest in politics. And the movie can't even imagine in a way that people could be motivated by politics. He's motivated by guilt and need to make amends. The other guy is motivated by revenge. But there's no, the whole idea that they, the whole idea that they could have once been, you know,

part of a political struggle interpolated by political ideologies or whatever you want to say about it is just in the past which kind of again situates maybe this movie in an end of history moment because it's just like what is politics really except for

a place where people's personal motivations are kind of become revealed so I thought that was interesting just real quick on the the ability of Liam to become Jimmy and kind of escape his past. There is something obviously all implicit, like not essentially not intended,

but you can kind of see it there. There's something of an observation there about how what enables this, and this is similar to what we talked about with the fugitive, right? Like what enables this is basically their whiteness, right? He's a white guy. That just as much as there is maybe some, you know, understanding Americans might have about the Irish liberation struggle, viscer to the British, specifically, we have our own, right?

Our own history is entangled up with separation and independence from the British. So just as much as there's that. There's also the fact that just by virtue of being white and being able to sort of drop the accent for the most part, right, drop the accent, change his name to something, you know, conventionally, maybe Anglo sounding, right? And joining an institution, which the Boston PD, which is sort of like tied up, play this way I can put, it's tied up in a kind of whiteness, Irish-American whiteness, that enables him to reform himself and not raise any suspicions about his background. And that's not an option. I mean, if we're thinking about other terrorists who would want to take advantage of that, that's just not.

an option to anyone else, right? That racial difference or perceived racial difference, it's going to be the thing that prevents a Palestinian freedom fighter or, you know, a member of, you know, name, name a terrorist group. Hell, a former, you know, a former militant Black Panther, right? Like, the FBI kept tabs on Black Panthers well into the 80s and 90s. You can imagine an extremely stupid movie where there's a. former black nationalist who becomes a cop. Also, by the way, the FBI definitely knows if you are a former IRA member and move to the United States.

Yeah, you're not going to, like, slip, like, where did he just appear? Like, also, like, this is a highly tight-knit communal world. Like, families know each other. Like, the police is fairly tight-knit community, and especially in Boston. Like, they're not going to be like, oh, this guy just appeared out of nowhere. Nobody knows who he is. Like they're going to kind of pick up, maybe they're recovering for him because he's a, he's a countryman, but like, I just don't, yeah, that's just completely not believable that he just creates a new identity for himself and becomes a cop. Yeah, if he had become like, I don't know, he ran a store or something, you could imagine that.

But it's just, it's just not, I'm not buying it. I do not disagree with the argument of like, yeah, the reason why this guy blends in and is forgiven is because of his whiteness. And we, now I'm having flashbacks to like another 90s line where, where I can't remember who wrote it, but it was like, the book, I think it was a book where it was like, the Irish used to be the black, the black of America. Do you remember this? I don't remember. It was basically, um, this, this idea that like, when the Irish moved to America, they were like the lowest on the totem pole. Right, right. And they were, and I think someone specifically used this argument of like the Irish were, you know, the Irish were, you know, the lowest.

discriminated against. Anyway, that obviously is a very complicated thing. But I'm also thinking about, as you guys were talking, like why Irish Americans were so accepting of, if not the violence of the IRA in the 90s, then the ideology and like the motivations behind it. And like, maybe Ireland and Israel are the two countries that are coming to mind where, and I count, you know, like Northern Ireland and all this too. where people who have been violent or, you know, participated in sort of like rebellious or like covert actions have been, have then progressed into legitimized politics.

And like for the Republic of Ireland, the 19, was it 1922 or 26? I think 1922, the state, the free state of Ireland, Amon del Valera had been part of, you know, an armed rebellion six years earlier. And then Jerry Adams is obviously, although he denies that he ever participated in Republican activities or violence, it's pretty obvious he did. And he becomes legitimized. And I'm sort of wondering if that just like history of legitimizing violent players in Irish politics also makes Irish Americans who are viewing the conflict from a distance feel more comfortable. with that idea, that like sort of prolonged idea of like, well, it's a righteous struggle.

And like, you know, to the point of going to Fesh's and seeing like United 32 at this like dance competition for little girls. I mean, it's like pretty interesting. And I would say, by the way, I would say I think, I don't think it's going to happen. But I think there's a very legitimate theoretical case for Northern Ireland being a part of Ireland. But like there's I mean, I mean, I, maybe I'm only speaking for myself, but this podcast is very much pro-Irish unification. Yeah, we're all, we're all Irish Republicans here. We support the liberation of the Irish people from the British yoke.

Yeah. We've not necessarily through arms struggle, but we are sympathetic to, you know, the anti-colonial struggle of, of the Irish. I think what I agree with what you're saying, but it's almost a reverse. I feel like the immigrant support for the Irish, for the IRA and for Irish struggle lent a lot of legitimacy to the figures you're talking about and actually helped turn them into quote unquote mainstream figures. And this had concrete effects because Peter King, you know, it's very, he's a real asshole.

It's very and transparently a racist. but he, and it's very funny to joke about him supporting the IRA, but in fact, you know, he performed some constructive role during the Good Friday Agreement because he actually had contacts with the IRA and, you know, he could be relied upon to act as a go between between the United States and, and Jerry Adams and so and so forth. Another source of support for the IRA was, of course, the East, Soviet Union, Libya, you know, countries involved with their own form of anti-imperialism, you know, armed and offered political support to the IRA, which was a, you know, a political detriment in terms of gaining

legitimacy in the eyes of Western publics, right? But I think that it by having, you know, it was a source of tension for them, but by having, you know, Irish-American support and sympathy, This made the acceptance of Jerry Adams and the Sinn Féin. It made their integration into the peace process and therefore into politics much easier. And it had not been for the diaspora in the United States that was plugged into U.S. politics, supporting them, and sort of making it, you know, acceptable, as you say, as you said, you know, there's people at this, you know, kind of suburban, cultural thing where, you know, United Ireland, Irish republicanism is just sort of another, another harmless thing. And it becomes, it's association with terrorism.

It's just becomes, you know, toned down by, you know, so I think American, Irish Americans played an interesting role in their conservatism, preventing the IRA from. becoming just associated with, I don't know, Libyan, extremism in general. Yeah, it's a good, it's a great point. And I actually, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about this book, this Fenton O'Toole book about modern Ireland. And basically, like, because of the economic depression in post-war Ireland, they really tried to gin up tourism from the states.

Because obviously, I mean, you know, we had, like, I think my family is perfect where, like, my grandfather and father went to Ireland a ton to visit family farms in the 60s and 70s, whatever. And they were trying to get people like that to come. And in fact, like a lot of the, there's this famous festival called the Rose of Charlie. It's a beauty contest. It's called the Rose of Charlie. In this book, I realized that it was, this guy talks about how it was a creation of Pan Am, the airline, to be like, we need to bring these, you know, the Americans and their money back. So let's hold this like beauty contest for the Irish and for the Irish American. And so there's this like the economic ties, I think, the idea that like they really needed American money, not just for

the IRA, but just in general, made it so that, like, my great grandparents, my dad took, my dad grew up in a household with his grandparents, one of whom was like an Irish speaker, and they hated Ireland for, you know, like, it was a terrible country. It was poor. It was, it was politically repressed. It was, I mean, obviously they were Catholic when they moved here too, but like the church was despotic. And two generations later, it's a little bit disnified, right? It's like, let's go back and do it. So that, I think that, that distance of the diaspora is really important because the people who were off the boat did not like the country. Yeah, I think and the nostalgia is a fake, is a, well, fake or yeah, it's an imaginary

idealization of past substance, past identity and belonging, which I think is like a lot of people feel especially in the 90s when everything is becoming kind of corporate and homogenous they're losing yeah but white americans wanted to feel differentiated in a they wanted to feel ethnic again yes totally as you guys are speaking i keep thinking of another movie not really in the wheelhouse of this podcast but it's very much um attuned to kind of ethnic irishness and that is a couple years later in the decade or maybe the beginning of the new millennium, the gangs of New York, the Scorsese picture, which is, you know, this dramatization of Irish gangs in the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, and it too, I mean,

it too has bad accents, but Leonardo DiCaprio must unconvincing looking Irish person I've ever seen, but it too, I think, reflects this sort of nostalgia. yearning for a time when you were ethnically differentiated. And you were ethnically differentiated not just in your culture, but in sort of your relation to the rest of the society. You lived in enclaves. You were separate. You had your own political machines, your whole sort of thing.

And because the Irish integration is a little older on sort of, of the timeline of like various European immigrant group being assimilated into the American mainstream like it predates like getting the 20th century like versus Italians who really don't accomplish that kind of integration until after the second world war like that's kind of when it begins for Italian Americans which the movie like The Godfather is great about right and Michael Corleone is a veteran is a war veteran and he is supposed to be the one who assimilates into the mainstream. But that, I think the distance from, like, the fact that most Irish-Americans can probably

trace their histories, like, quite well into the 19th centuries when their ancestors arrives here, also plays into the nostalgia because you're, there's not, there's not the same kind of immediate living cultural memory that there might be for Italian-Americans or more recent, right, European immigrant groups, Russian Americans, Armenian Americans, and so on and so forth. Like, the Irish are, the Irish are interesting as an American group because they've been here in large numbers since about the 1840s. And I think the, I think the massive numbers is also an important thing, right? Because the exodus after, or during the famine was so huge and just lasted for, you could make the argument, like a hundred years. Canada, Australia, and the United

States have just like massive numbers of Irish people who, you know, if things hadn't, you know, if there hadn't been a quasi-genocide via blight and starvation, they would have stayed on the island, right? So I think just like the, the sheer numbers is pretty important too. Yes, absolutely. It's not, it's so unique because I'm thinking about the Italian American experience and like even there, right, like Italian unification is in the 1860s. So it's not, it often seems as if Italian American identity is very much forged in the United States by virtue of the fact that prior to, for many Italian immigrants in the 19th century and early 20th century, it's like they weren't Italian. Yeah, they're from different political. unisical. They speak different languages. Yeah. Sicilians, Neapolitans.

Yes. But whereas Ireland, right, like Ireland has always had this, like quite, quite, if not unified, like coherent national culture for a long time, in part because of its long history with British colonialism going back to the 17th century. And so I, it's just, I have no, I have no larger point here. But it is just like an interesting observation to kind of compare, I think, this, this real difference in how Irish-American identity is experienced compared to other white European ethnic groups in the United States or their descendants. The one thing they do get right is the Irish cop, though, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should probably talk about, you mentioned this at the start, Claire, about how this movie's depiction of the Boston PD is like racial utopian. I mean, I think the thing to just say right up. up front is the Irish American has historically been quite racist. And a lot of that goes back to, you know, like when you get to, when you get to America, you are competing in northern cities for jobs with probably free blacks or, and that makes you, and just in general to have just the racism, like there's economic competition and

And then there's just like the otherness of like wanting to other the other poor person. But like the history of racism in Irish America is like deep and fundamental. And I don't think you can quite lie about that. And I would say, I mean, the best joke in 30 Rock, in my opinion is Jack's mother is this kind of old Irish Catholic lady. And she talks about playing cards down at her local parish, Our Lady of Reluctant Integration. And like, like, no shade to Boston, but like, listen, all American cities are racist. But, like, I think Boston also has a particular reputation. And just in the movie, like, what's his name, John Dove?

Like, Jimmy Dove? Jimmy Dove. Yeah, I mean, Jimmy Dove's partner is black. And then is the young, you know, Anthony, his new. me, his young, new partner, Black, they're all, like, sitting there at a funeral, like, watching a baseball game together. And it's just not realistic. But, like, the stereotype of the Irish cop is, like, that also goes back to, like, you know, Irish political power, right? Like, Tammany Hall and, you know, Honey Fitz, JFK's great-grandfather, they were getting people

jobs who came off the boat in city government. And what's a great job for an English-speaking immigrant cop and then the cops become you know two generations later the cops become lawyers or whatever it is you know and then they um so it's an interest that that i think is like the stereotype of the irish cop is true like it that is that is a thing that happens in like northeastern cities but man they i don't i don't know about the racial harmony of that police department god bless but yeah i mean there isn't really a thing i think we've seen in some of these movies um that involve you know interracial cast and and an attempt to kind of um depict uh less overt racial hostility

is that there's sort of like a you know part of how this is communicated is that people might make like racist jokes and no one's offended by it sort of like oh yeah we're just a little kid and we're kind of past the ideological struggle over race and so now we can kind of make fun of each other on the basis of racial stereotypes

and interestingly there's not even any of that in this movie he keeps on calling him Tony that's the only thing that I was like what's the point of this like little bit right did you notice that yeah I noticed I don't think I think it's just sort of like being annoying. That's the only like weird dynamic between the two characters. One character calls Forrest Whitaker Michael Jackson, but that's sort of like if you're

gonna, if you're gonna insult a black person about dancing, like no one's gonna take that as an insult. So it doesn't even really register as anything. But in a way like there's like he's a successor in the police department and the movie kind of is like, oh, you know, like the guy who's replacing you might be a black guy, but you could. can be cool with that, right? Like, you don't have to get racist about it. And like, so it is sort of like suggesting that integration is happening without any serious problems and like integration of police departments, you know, has happened, but it's become, it's been extremely fraught and it continues to be fraught. And this movie just doesn't dramatize that at all. I mean, it's not that

serious of a movie. But like, I think another drama, another drama would be, would show that there were, And there are racial tensions that occur within, you know, police departments when they're being integrated. It does feel very 90. It feels very 90. It feels like very much like my childhood of like, oh, we're all. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Let's just not talk about it. And like, and also everything's going to be fine. You know, these problems are sort of in the past. Right. And we're moving past them. And, you know, we're all different, but we can all exist. you know, and cooperate and be. Which is, I mean,

it's not like this on admirable. It's very admirable. No. It's, it's, um, ignoring actual problems. Right. And it's one of the things that I think makes the movie, like you say, Claire, feel very much of the time. Yeah.

Very 1990s and kind of it's, it's, um, almost ostentatious lack of any kind of racial politics. You know what? And if this movie was made, I think, in the 60, Well, not, but if this movie was made in the 60s or 70s, I think that, you know, like the ethnic stuff, not that they would have included it, but like if you even look at the way, like, I don't know, if you look at the way ethnic humor was set up, like, you can imagine like someone watching this movie from that era that was very conscious, especially about like urban ethnic politics and tensions and being like, yeah, right, like the Irish cops are friends with the black cops. Give me a break. Like, you know, like I don't. I don't. believe that for a second. And there was more of an almost cynical acceptance and, you know, realization that those racial tensions existed, especially in cities. And then by this 1990s movie, like, the movie just doesn't pay attention to it anymore, which I think changes when

you get to later. My friend has a, excuse me for saying this, my friend has a word, a name for this kind of movie, which he calls mixed exploitation movies, which is like movies that are extremely play up Irish American ethnicity in order to, you know, garner some kind of reaction from the audience. And he includes the departed in that, which is funny. But the departed is, like, a little bit more open about, like, look, these are Irish cops in Boston. They're going to be very racist. And the Irish mob of Boston is likely to be racist. But I have a question for you, Claire, as an Irish American, speaking as an Irishman.

American. Speaking as an Irish American, and you describe, I'm very interested because you describe your childhood as being involved in a lot of these Irish cultural things. Do you think that's still happening? Is that happening with your relatives or is that fading out? Um, I mean, that's a great question. Yes. I think like, here's what I'll say. Like, I think in some ways the fact that, the fact that I am in, well, I was born in 87 and the fact that like I am 100% like ethnically, like whatever, genomically Irish is rare in America. At this point. Yeah, at this point.

And I think my, I'm trying to think, no, I don't think any of my nieces or nephews do Irish step dancing, but you know, it's funny. Like, I think I would have my daughters do it. It's just like, yeah. And it's, I mean, it's, that's also partially one of those things were like, by, by, I was, I was number six and my mom had gotten very frustrated with Sheila Murphy of Murphy's Irish dance and did not allow me to step dance, which I was heartbroken over. So I think that's more as to do with me trying to replace it, you know, this, fulfill this childhood dream. But, I mean, I think, um, like there are certain things that I think of as being, uh, part of. that like Irish Catholic identity that probably my siblings kids still do that are more that

probably have more to do with being Catholic like playing CIO sports like like that's a thing in Catholic Catholic Catholic America which doesn't I don't think to anyone if they were to hear it they would be like that's not like playing basketball on Saturday mornings isn't like an ethnic identity but like little things that are still that like people you know that people do but I don't I don't think any of them do Irish step dancing um right I mean we we would miss school on St. Patrick's Day, like, you know, you'd go to all the holy days of obligation. Like, there was, I think I still did have a very, in a lot of ways, probably more strict than other people, kind of Catholic upbringing. But yeah, I don't think, I think, you know, my siblings

and I are all, you know, one more generation, college educated, bougie assimilated into America. And also, I just don't think people are Catholic. of my generation, a lot of them don't practice, right? Like, that's, I don't think we can underestimate how big of an identity that was in, you know, bigger than being Irish, you know, it was like the church really hung people together in neighborhoods. I mean, you know, like, yeah, and Irish, Irish and Italian, like, both of my parents grew up in parishes where the two ethnicities were Irish and Italian.

Right, right, right. But, you know, like. Yeah. I think I see my theory is that there was like a last our last flowering of this interest in around this time in the 90s and it goes into the 2000s with Irish American Irish Catholic American identity and belonging and then it's and now we're sort of like it's not as big of a thing anymore I think that's true yeah you know it's funny I was I watched I was watching Home Alone with some children in my life recently, and the McAllister's are a perfect example of assimilationist Irish-Irish-American. The McAllister's-Carton-Irish. Yeah, they're classic Chicago Lace Curtin-Irish, five kids, but they're like going

to Paris on a vacation and like those kids, whatever, they're all probably our age at this point or a little older if they were real in the movie. They're not going to mass. Their kids aren't in step dance. Like, you know, like, and I think that that's, but that was the McAllisters, I'm sure, felt a sense of ethnic identity. I'm sure they went to, you know, they went to, you know, mass every Sunday. But, like, I do think that that has really, really fallen off.

And also, like, it's if people don't marry within their parish community anymore, right? Like, like, I think a mixed marriage in, like, mid-century white Catholic America was, like, Italian and Irish. And I'm not joking, by the way. Yeah, no, I think I think that's probably right. I mean. And that was, like, kind of okay because it was both. Both Catholic, but still. Both Catholic, but like we prefer the, we prefer that it be.

You mentioned, John, that you can imagine a movie like this being made in the 60s or 70. It's like I can think, you know, a movie like this could have easily been made in the 78 or 79, and it would have had many more of those dynamics when that stuff was very much sort of like still in the culture, right? Not just racism where, like, for a taste of that, you can watch a movie like 48 hours with Eddie Murphy and what's his name? Yeah, that guy. Oh, why can't I... I can't remember here there, hold on a while. Why can't I remember his name?

By the way, if this movie had been made in the 70s, Katie the violinist would be like a prostitute who was strung out the whole time. Right. Nick Nolte, there you know. Is Nick Nolte? If you watch... So that's 82, right?

So I think even later than I realized, but you watch 48 hours and you'll be shocked by the open and explicit racism that characters use in that film. Like you'll, you'll, you'll, you, in your mind, you're like, yeah, Nick Nelty Eddie Murphy Buddy Cop, it's going to be like funny and light. And when you watch, you're like, absolutely not. This is, this is not funny your life.

But that's a kind of movie that you could imagine there being that kind of acknowledgement of these dynamics of ethnic life in urban areas. And, you know, just to maybe speculate a little about, why that's changed. Beyond education and simulation, just the sense to which people don't live their lives in those kind of enclaves anymore, even where they exist is it can't be, can't be overstated, right? People don't just move from city to, from northeastern city to northeastern city or Midwestern city to Midwestern city. But, you know, if you, if you grew up in an Italian Long Island, maybe you move down to Florida or you move down to Georgia.

You moved to Texas, right? And you're kind of by virtue of being in these places that attract lots of migrants from around the country. You end up kind of being very much a part of this more sort of like general American culture. And probably the only places where these, I live in New York City. So I'm, I think I'm biased by the, like, the proximity of these very, like, I would say, booming white ethnic enclaves. But, like, I think the only place is, like, I can think of what the Irish Riviera and Queens, right? Where, but that's also like, what's the famous community, like, shady, is it Shady Point? What's the place where it's like a gated community?

Breezy Point. Thank you. Yeah. There's, like, literally a gated community where all the, like, basically, like, Irish cops and firefighters live. Retire, yeah. And it's, and it's like, but it's obviously, it's like, you know, upper middle class, New York. And I think the reason why, but even in those like ethnic, white ethnic enclaves in New York, like if you're a college educated kid who grew up in Bensonhurst and you're Italian, you probably don't buy a house in Bensonhurst. My guess is you buy a house in like Flatbush or wherever, you know, like somewhere else in Brooklyn.

Like you're not going to be in that same neighborhood necessarily. People leave those neighborhoods and new waves of immigrants come in, you know, areas that work. Bensonhurst is was the like most Italian place on earth and now it's very Russian and you know so on and so forth you know Flatbush was Jewish and Italian now it's very Caribbean Pakistani and Caribbean well you see it's even moving faster than I can I can follow Flapish is definitely Caribbean yes yeah so so these these waves of immigration change things and I think there's a there is a sense of like especially in the 90s where multiculturalism was coming a thing.

There was a hope, I think, to kind of keep the pluralism and the hominess and the identity that these ethnic enclaves gave to people. And they could kind of be preserved forever in time. And also people would fully integrate as Americans and we'd all be, you know, like, you know, one happy community. So it would be like old New York where everybody. has their own neighborhood, but, you know, for the most part, everybody gets along and so and so forth. But something would be preserved, sort of forever of ethnic, of the vibrance

and, you know, wholesome parts of ethnic life. And I think that, you know, a lot of films that play up white ethnicity are kind of playing into that showing Irish pubs like this movie and so forth. I guess this movie says a very old ideological thing to Irish people in a way, which is if you want to be American, you got to be a cop first. You know, like, you know, so it is like the oldest way of making, of turn, of how the Irish became white is like, oh, well, this guy was, was an IRA member, but he became a cop. So now he's an American Boston cop.

So now he's okay. which is just such an old story. One that we, if you're genuinely a person who's setting aside terrible ideologies, like obviously they tried this in Europe in small experiments with like trying to rehabilitate Al-Qaeda, people who had left for like ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Like I believe in rehabilitation, right? Oh, I don't really have a problem with somebody having been in the IRA to speak perfectly frankly.

Yeah, but like that's an interesting. That's actually an interesting, moral, realistic moral question. I think I'd, I think I'd want to ask some questions. Well, look, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, there's a certain amount of amnesty that happened with the piece, uh, you know. Yeah. So let's, let's be, it was a bad time. A lot of bad things happened.

Have you guys watched dairy girls? No. No, I've heard it's really good. It's really good. And like, very funny about the troubles. if that's possible, like very funnily tongue and cheek about the, like, I think some of the like saccharine stuff that people have about like the peace process and like growing up in a troubled war zone, basically.

It's funny, which I think is hard to do. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, I think we should start wrapping up here. Any final thoughts on the movie? Final thoughts on topics of conversation? No, not really. this is not this is not such a terrible movie it's not great but you're not going to be mad after watching it i think not my favorite tommy lee jones vehicle but did make me want to go watch

the fugitive which is just just like you know if you're if your peak 90s hotness is tommy lee jones in a weird way plus harrison ford and like this movie will make you want to watch that other movie um i like this movie uh because i like trash and it has things Trash Things I like. I'm actually, I mentioned before, I have it on right now, and I'm glancing at the scene where they disarm the bomb

that's on Forrest Whitaker, which is actually kind of a very well shot and interesting scene. And later in the movie, there's my favorite part where Lloyd Bridges gets blown up and after the bomb detonates, cuts to Tommy Lee Jones,

who's been watching the whole time and he has a little smirk on his face afterwards. Classic, hilarious. No notes. Five out of five stars. So that's my that's my take. on this movie and that is it for our show if you're not a subscriber please subscribe we're

available on iTunes Spotify Stitcher Radio and Google Podcasts and wherever else podcasts are found if you subscribe please leave a rating and a review it really does help people find the show you can reach out to all of us on Twitter I am at Jay Bowie John you are I'm at vinyl underscore trolling I'm currently on holiday break from social media, but maybe by the time this comes out, I'll be back. So who knows? And Claire, you are. Claire Malone, C-L-A-R-E, in the Irish fashion.

You can also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, we have an email from Christopher titled Stephen Hoffenberg-Ponzie scheme in a previous episode we, during the New York Times section, We discussed a Ponzi scheme, a major Ponzi scheme from the period. Christopher writes, I'm surely not the first person to point this out. You, in fact, are the first person to point this out. But Stephen Hoffenberg's Ponzi scheme, which he mentioned is having fallout in the front page of the New York Times, was one place where Jeffrey Epstein worked.

He left in 1989, a few years before it blew up. But in court documents in the aftermath of the failure, Hoffenberg described Mr. Epstein as intimately involved with the fraud. So somehow, a $400 million fraud that was the largest, U.S. history until Bernie Madoff wasn't the worst thing this did, this dude did. Wow. That's really interesting. I love, I mean, I don't love, but I'm fascinated by these kind of criminal milieus

where all these kind of creeps end up coming from. So that's really interesting to me. Episodes come out every other Friday. So we will see you in two weeks. It's actually very appropriate. We'll see you in two weeks with true lies. The 1994 film directed by James Cameron Here is a quick plot synopsis

A fearless globetrotting terrorist battling secret agent Has his life turned upside down When he discovers his wife might be having an affair With a used car salesman While terrorists smuggle nuclear warheads into the United States I like this movie quite a bit I also always think of the 2002-4 Republican National Convention

Where Schwarzenegger gave a speech and I think you said something to the effect of, I know the democratic, I know the democratic message is going to be true lies, which is very funny to me. That's all I have to say about that. So we will

catch you with true lies in two weeks. You can watch that on Amazon or iTunes. I mentioned it's appropriate because James Cameron has a new film out, Avatar 2, The Way of the Water. We're not going to discuss. that. But if you're on a James Cameron kick, here's an opportunity to continue it. Also, do not forget our Patreon. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on Carol

Reads film The Third Man, script by Graham Green, also starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Wells. It's a great conversation, a great movie. And you can listen to that episode and many more at patreon.com slash unclear pod. It's just $5 a month to sign up. And it's totally worth it in my opinion, in our opinion. Claire, do you have anything you want to plug? Oh, um, listen to my podcast and I guess read me? No, I don't have any to plug. You should, you should, you should, people, people, you should read Claire, listeners.

She is, um, a terrific writer, terrific analyst of American politics. So, um, uh, I'm not just saying that because we're friends. I very much strongly believe that I've been a long time reader of Claire so I highly recommend listeners read her as well Our producer is Connor Lynch And our artwork is from Rachel Eck For John Gans and Claire Malone I am Jamel Bowie

And this is unclear in present danger We'll see you next time Thank you.