Upstream - [UNLOCKED] Nathan Fielder's "The Curse" w/ Carlee

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

We have unlocked our episode "Nathan Fielder's 'The Curse' w/ Carlee." Enjoy! What happens when the contradictions of living under late capitalism are revealed in excruciating detail? What happens when our performances break down? When they break us? When they break those around us? What happens when you take all of this and wrap it up in a faux reality TV show which is itself about a reality TV show?  Well, you get The Curse—the 2023 masterpiece by comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer, Nathan Fielder along with Benny Safdie. You may know Nathan from his satirical docu-reality comedy television series, Nathan For You. You may know him from his more recent TV series The Rehearsal or his brand new movie You Can See Everything. Or you may not know him at all. It doesn't really matter, because in this episode we're going to explain everything you need to know about how Nathan Fielder produces masterful media and art—and we're going to do so by taking a deep dive into the 10 episode mini-series The Curse, written by and starring Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie—and also starring Emma Stone.   And to have this conversation, we've invited on friend of the show and TV & film enthusiast Carlee. You may recognize Carlee from our episode on Capitalist Realism, or you may recall a couple of Patreon episodes ago when Robert read her piece, "The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire."   In this conversation, we discuss Nathan Fielder's "The Curse"—walking you through the plot and the characters before analyzing and presenting a wide variety of scenes from the show and discussing what they tell us about our individuated, isolated, tortured, exhausted, and often performative lives under neoliberal capitalism. It really is a great show and this is a wide-ranging discussion that will have value whether or not you've seen the show. It's also a lot of fun. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Further resources: Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher, by Matt Colquhoun  "The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire," by Carlee Related episodes: Capitalist Realism w/ Carlee Sex, Desire, and the Neoliberal Subject Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation through our fiscal sponsor Independent Arts and Media at www.upstreampodcast.org/support For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

I think the show is really about the suffocation of this performance and the suffocation ultimately of living under late capitalism and believing yourself to be a good person and how fundamentally at odds that is when your version of being a good person still ultimately operates within the consumer framework the system has set up. and therefore doesn't ever fundamentally change or challenge the system. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. What happens when the contradictions of living under late capitalism, both internal and external, are revealed in excruciating detail? What happens when our performances break down? When they break us? When they break those around us?

What happens when you take all of this and wrap it up in a faux reality TV show, which is itself about a reality TV show? Well, you get The Curse, the latest masterpiece by comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer, Nathan Fielder. You may know Nathan from his satirical docu-reality comedy television show, Nathan for you. You may know him from his recent TV series, The Rehearsal. Or you may not know him at all. It doesn't really matter, because in this episode, we're going to explain everything you need to know about how Nathan Fielder produces masterful media and art, and we're going to do so by taking a deep dive into the 10-episode miniseries, The Curse,

written by and starring Nathan Fielder and Benny Softy, and also starring Emma Stone. And to have this conversation, we've invited on the one and only Carly from the podcast Hit Factory. You may recognize Carly from our episode on Capitalist Realism, or you may recall a couple Patreon episodes ago when Robert read her piece, The Puritanical Eye, hypermediation, sex on film, and the disavowal of desire. In this conversation, we discuss Nathan Fielders, The Curse, walking you through the plot and characters before analyzing and presenting a wide variety of scenes from the show and discussing what they tell us about our individuated, isolated, tortured, exhausted,

and often performative lives under neoliberal capitalism. It really is a great show, and this wide-ranging discussion will have value whether or not you've seen it. It's also a lot of fun. And now here's Robert in conversation with Hit Factories, Carly. Carly, it's wonderful to have you back on the show. It's so wonderful to be here, genuinely. I am caffeinated. I am feeling cursed.

I put a curse on my laptop this morning and a curse on the studio that we're recording in. So I hope that you feel some of that curse. And I hope that my two cups of cold brew coffee, are not too annoying as we go through this. I'm probably going to be talking really fast. I am also sufficiently cold-brewed while I'm getting there. Nice. So it was almost a year ago that we had you on to talk about the classic text, Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. And I do have to say that was one of our most popular episodes and also personally one of my favorite episodes ever. So I really could not be more excited to be doing this with you and to be

having this conversation with you about a show that we've been sort of texting each other back and forth about for a few months now and that I recently rewatched just for the very purposes of this interview. And I'm really glad I did because I got so much more out of it the second time through the curse by Nathan Fielder. And so I wanted to bring you on specifically to talk about this. And when I was watching the curse, all I could think about were many of the conversations and the exchanges that we've had, both on that episode that I mentioned earlier, but also just in life, it really feels like a fertile ground for some of these ideas that we've been talking about and sort of bouncing back and forth with each other to sort of like talk about the themes

of the show, the characters, and then apply it to a lot of these things that we've been talking about. So I guess just to start, before we get into the show itself, I just want to give you a little bit of time to introduce yourself for anybody who missed the capitalist realism episode. Maybe just introduce yourself if you want to talk about your awesome show with your co-host, Aaron, Hit Factory, or yeah, anything that you want to just say by way of introduction. Yes, I am the co-host of a film podcast. We call ourselves kind of like an anti-nistalgia podcast, but that's maybe a bit of an undersell. The podcast is Hit Factory. We talk about movies and culture and politics of the 90s specifically and discuss

how those things interact with culture, films, politics of today and in history, and I co-host it with my partner, Aaron, and he is like the reason the show is great. I just like come on and yell about stuff, but we have had a chance to have some really great conversations about really fantastic and not so fantastic films and also meet some really great people, including you and Della from upstream. And it's something that like keeps my brain functioning. So I really enjoy doing it, even though sometimes I get sick of movies, but that's a whole other story. Well, I have to say that you definitely do a lot more than just yell. Sometimes.

I really love Hip Factory. And some of the coolest conversations in a podcast forum that I've ever heard have been on that show. And some of the most profound insights into life that I've come across have come out of your yelling mouth on that show. Yeah. Thank you for that. Honored. All right. Let's get into the curse.

I thought it would be maybe helpful. Like, I don't really, you're kind of the expert here. I don't do episodes on shows, really. So, like, I guess the first and most important thing to say is, like, if you haven't watched the show, there will be a lot of spoilers. So, like, either watch the show first or if you don't care about that, then you can totally, obviously, just jump in. you don't have to have seen the show in order for this to make sense because I think we're going to try our best here to like contextualize everything. And on that note, I thought maybe it would be a good place to start by asking you, Carly,

to maybe just describe the show, the plot, the characters, and anything else that you'd like to highlight to sort of set the table before we get going. Yeah, absolutely. One of the coolest things about this show is I feel like you could describe it, 87 different ways and like all of those ways would be accurate because it's just that kind of show. So the show is made by Nathan Fielder and Benny Softy, who is a filmmaker. And it is a show that's shot like a reality show, a la like the faux reality shows of the office and things of that nature, about a couple, Witt and Asher, who within the context of the

show are shooting their own show that is also a reality show for HGTV with their producer friend Dougie who is played by Benny Softie. But importantly, the show, Nathan's show, the curse, and the show within his show, which has various names they end up calling it Green Queen, is like patently not a reality show, which is part of what Nathan Fielder, the creator, is playing with and it's something that has always interested him in his work. Other shows he's done are Nathan for You and most recently the rehearsal, both of which are playing with concepts of reality television in really interesting ways. And his project, one of his projects is sort of like this purposeful conflation reveal obfuscation between reality and artifice. And this runs through

all of the shows that he's worked on and in his comedy, too. And particularly in the medium of television and media that's related, like stand-up. So the curse is about this couple's attempts at making their own show, Green Queen. It's also about their lives, their beliefs, their personal, professional political histories. It's also really importantly about their visions of themselves and who they are, who they really want to be, who they really don't want to be, and how all of that interacts with systems of power and control that patently benefit them, Witt and Asher,

and actively hurt others, and often at the hands or the actions of Witt and Asher, despite the two of them being really well-meaning and them being to finger quotes well-meaning people is a really important part of the show. And I could say more about what I think the show is about, but that's sort of at its core what it is. And we get to see sort of like behind the scenes,

candid shots of them making the show and their personal lives and all of that. And one of the important things too is that we don't ever really know who's shooting them in the context of the show. It's not positioned like the office where we know explicitly that like there is a camera that is documenting these people. Nathan purposefully obfuscates that.

So he often will remind us that they are being shot. He'll, you know, have these shoots of like us seeing wit talking candidly with someone behind the scenes of their show and we're seeing her like through a plant. So he's reminding us that like there is an apparatus and there is someone or something situated looking at her taking this shot in. But we don't ever know who or what that is, which I think is important for the experience of the show. That's so fascinating. I actually had not thought about that element at all. Like I was going through the show just sort of being in that space.

of watching them and not thinking about the fact that that was actually potentially a part of the show itself and playing around with that as a director. So that's, yeah, that's a really interesting insight that you had. And also, I just want to add too, I think that if you're familiar with Nathan's work, you know how uncomfortable it can be to watch the show. And I just want to really appreciate you, Carly, because when I first told you about the curse and asked you to check it out, I don't know if I had told you about my secret plans of like having you do a show at that point on the show. But you found it quite uncomfortable. And it like took me a little bit of convincing almost to like help you sort of continue to watch it because it just felt like you, you had a really hard time with.

I guess we didn't really talk about specifically why. I assumed it was just because of how uncomfortable the scenes are. And, you know, again, if you know Nathan Fielder, you know what we're talking about. It's just very awkward and uncomfortable. And so, like, was that something that you really felt, like, viscerally when you were watching the show? Yeah. And we'll get into this more later. But I actually think it's a really core part of what Nathan is doing, not just because it's, like, his finger quotes brand of, you know, comedy or entertainment, but also what the show itself is a mechanism for.

But I mean, one thing to know about me and you know this well is like I, you know, I feel things very deeply and very viscerally on a regular basis whether I can help it or not. And I think that's a good thing. A big thesis statement of mine is that like we need to be okay with just like feeling things more and being in the discomfort. And so I appreciate you encouraging me to like keep watching. And I wasn't going to not ever finish. the show because one thing we should say about it is that despite it you know doing all of these like interesting things and nathan being a person who operates really comfortably in discomfort it's also still really compelling television like it's not hard to watch in the sense that like i was you know i was never bored but there are many moments of the show that are utterly excruciating. And I think that Nathan is really, he is someone who is really well-versed, and I think often, I don't know if this is the right word, celebrates the fact that being human is often incredibly uncomfortable, incredibly embarrassing, and like incredibly messy,

and sometimes excruciating. Yeah, yeah. No, beautiful. put, I could not agree more. You know, I, I feel like I see myself as a person who doesn't feel really deeply because I close that off a lot and it's there. It just, I have a little bit more of like, I don't want to call it an ability because it's not like I'm trying to do this, but I just, I definitely have to go down and find the feelings. Like sometimes things will just emerge out of my control, but I feel like I'm pretty hard. a lot of the time. But even with like how I sort of like have that tendency, this show really was incredibly evocative. And it made me feel probably just as uncomfortable as you and others that

watched it at times. But it's also hilarious. Like it's just so funny. And sad too. You know, like we'll probably get to a lot of the other stuff further on in the interview here. But like, yeah, there were scenes where it was hard not to cry. Yes. So a wide range of like emotions and definitely like just really a testament to Nathan's, his ability to just evoke so many different things from from you as you watch. On that note sort of with the awkwardness though, maybe one of the best places to start, the opening scene is very characteristic of the tone of the show. And so I thought I would maybe just like describe the scene and sort of talk about it. to give us a little bit of like a jumping off point. And I think it just really sets the tone for the show and it'll set the tone for some of the discussions that we want to have.

So as the very first scene in the show, pilot episode opens, Asher is interviewing someone who has been unemployed for nine months and who is looking for a job and is telling his story. We don't know that that's happening when the opening scene starts. We just hear this guy talking. And we don't even know. Like, we don't know that it's being filmed or anything. So he's telling his story. And then suddenly we see Asher and Whitney, the two main characters. They're like sitting across the couch from him and they're listening.

And they have facial expressions that sort of indicate that they're like devastated to hear this guy whose name is Fernando. They're devastated. They're really feeling for him. him like talking about his struggles. And one point, Asher, Nathan, Fielder says, Jesus, when he hears, when Fernando tells him that he's been unemployed for as long as he has. And like you're caught up in this moment. It feels like, okay, there's these people having this like heartfelt conversation. And Asher is like really, you know, he's there with this guy. And then suddenly Asher stops. and he says stop to the camera.

And then that's when we realized that there's a camera there. And Asher says this because it turns out he's actually worried about the fact that he said Jesus and that it might come off badly. I mean, I email on my resume, but I don't hear back. And if I do get an interview, walk to the door to take one look at me. Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard that's been for you. Our hearts go out to you. Both our hearts. Thank you. How long has it been that you've been looking for work?

It's been about nine months. Jesus. Actually, can we not use me saying Jesus? I don't want to... I just want to say a different response. And it's like this really funny moment because, you know, there's... this thing going on where Asher is like so in his head about making assumptions about this guy Fernando and like his potential religious beliefs and Fernando's obviously like working class, poor and Asher is like wanting more than anything to come off as like culturally and offensive or whatever. But like the most offensive part is him just like abruptly asking the

camera guy to stop rolling in the middle like literally in the middle of this. like very vulnerable moment where Fernando is like, you know, talking about something very vulnerable. So right off the bat, we're introduced to this guy, Asher, who is very clearly so much more concerned about the performance of principles and morality and the performance of kindness than he is about actually exercising any of those morals or that kindness to begin with. The fact that he would interrupt this guy's story because he was worried about saying the word Jesus, it's just layer upon layer upon layer. And so for Asher, it becomes clear right off the bat that the performance matters.

And that's kind of like, for me, one of the main themes from the show is this idea of like performative, performative liberalism really. But I'm wondering what you think. Yeah. Gosh, the opening shots in every episode are so important and seemingly so banal, which is another thing that Nathan is really good at. And the opening shot of the first episode of this entire series is, I think, one of the best ones because he's starting the show. He's starting our experience with the show The Curse. And subsequently, our experience with the show that Witt

and Asher are making within the show The Curse. He's starting our experience with those things from a place of being complicated from the beginning and us thinking we're in a certain position and then changing that up on us. So he's immediately putting us the audience in a state of irresolution or perhaps complication, maybe confusion with what is real and what is not, both within the world of the show and within our own experience of the show we're watching by Nathan Fielder. And it's brilliant. And he does all of this, you know, effortlessly through like that one break of Asher saying stop and asking the cameraman, you know, if it's okay if he says the word Jesus.

And this dovetails quite nicely into this concept of performance. and what is performance and what isn't and who sees what aspects of our performance and who we care seeing what aspects of our performance versus not. And this is all wrapped up in this one little moment. And I think demonstrative of something that the show is about more broadly, which is that pulling back, I think the show is really about the suffocating. of this performance and the suffocation ultimately of living under late capitalism and believing yourself to be a good person and how fundamentally at odds that is when your version of being a good

person still ultimately operates within the consumer framework the system has set up and therefore doesn't ever fundamentally change or challenge the system. And that's this question of, am I allowed to say Jesus is like a really evocative flourish of this concept of like his concern over saying that word has no like material implication. It's just this kind of like I know that this is something I need to think about. So I'm going to think about it. But my offending the person who's talking right now or belittling their. experience by interrupting it and asking about this other thing that is concerned with my own portrayal, that doesn't matter to me. And I think that that is what the show is about, like how

kind of inhuman and cursed, frankly, that kind of experience is and how cursed that performance is. The material reality of a situation doesn't matter. What matters it is how it is viewed. And like you said, how the performance is viewed specifically by who we are imagining as our audience and who Asher is imagining as his audience. And that's something I think we'll flesh out a little bit more as we keep going through different scenes and kind of analyzing them. I think I might pop in to just give a little bit more context on some of the plot just so that as we move forward here, some things are sort of already established. So, like you mentioned, the show is about a reality show about a woman and her husband, Witten Asher.

And so they come to this sort of struggling run downtown in New Mexico, Espanola, to showcase their passive homes, which are actually these really super funny homes that have completely reflective, like, outer mirrored walls. And the best way that I can describe them is, like, imagine a house. that looks like an even more reflective, like, version of a cyber truck. And it's really funny because Witt loves to say that the house acts as a thermos. Like when they're giving tours and stuff, she refers to it as a thermos. So, like, they're supposed to be this, like, contained environment that's super energy efficient, but it becomes really funny because, like, if you open a door, it, like, fucks everything up. So you have to like keep the windows closed and like every time you like come in and out of that.

It's just really an absurd idea. It could probably be done well. But like in the case of, you know, how they're designed, it's just a very sort of absurd idea. My invisible homes are net zero structures, meaning the amount of energy used by the home is equal to the amount of energy created on site. Using technology developed right in our backyard in Los Alamos, the reflective glass design is laminated with a photo. photovoltaic profile, which captures the reflection of the light and transforms it into energy. And every one of our homes is certified by the Passive House Society in Germany, the gold standard for eco-living.

So when we first discovered this property, it was painful how much energy waste there was. We're talking weak insulation, so during the summer months, you had to blast the AC all day to keep this place cool. But now as a passive home, that's not necessary. You're right, Whitney. One of the primary goals is to eliminate thermal bridging, which are areas where heat escapes from the house. Those are your windows, your basements, your addicts.

What you end up with is a home that's kind of like a thermos, that maintains a consistent and comfortable temperature inside, while the air is kept healthy using heat recovery ventilation. And all that without sacrificing design, people say all the time, but a passive home can't have a fireplace. And there it is. It's fully insulated, so you don't get much heat, but it looks great. Well, the heat's not necessary because the temperature in this place is always just right.

And your viewers should be aware you don't need to merit exterior to be a passive house. I'm watching this and this shit sucks. All right? It's boring. Really boring. I'm watching a guy talk about air for four minutes. You got help me out. You know this stuff's important to us.

All right. I'm talking about as a friend. There's a really funny scene during one of the tours that she's giving where she says something like, you know, prisons are actually really energy efficient as well. I don't remember why they were talking about prisons. But but then she says something like, you know, this, yeah, this house is like a thermos. And then the person who's receiving the tour is like, or a prison. It's just like one of those moments where you're like, you know, it's really, really awkward and really funny. And Witt does this thing where she's, you know, it's just like, one of those moments where you're like, you know, it's really awkward and really funny. And Witt does this thing where she's. you can tell she's absorbing those kinds of comments, but she just glazes over and she ignores them. And that's something she does quite often when she gets pushback or criticism or whatever for what she's up to. And we'll probably get into that more. But yeah, so these were mirrored homes that are passive. And they're also insanely expensive.

And so the premise of the reality show that they're pitching is like the process of them. selling their homes in this community and becoming a part of the community and all of that kind of stuff. So hopefully that's enough for now to kind of help us sort of go through these scenes, which the next one I want to bring up, which is another early scene, which I think like really beautifully encapsulates so much from the show is the scene that comes like right after the opening scene. And so it feels like its time has passed a little bit, but I don't know if Carly, do you kind of relate? to this idea of like working class aesthetics being repackaged as sort of like a consumer style. Is that something you've thought of or something that you've like noticed? I'll get more into it, but I'm just curious if this is something that you've thought about at all. Yeah, I don't know if I've thought about it within the context of the show, but there's certainly

a broader impetus, I think, in lots of consumer industry. to like posit a certain kind of like candidness and like authenticity because so much of our lives under capitalism are not that. And so like in the products we consume and things that we wear like think about the fact that like Carhart, which is like a brand that has been around for many years making like really, really solid, highly functional workwear for people. people who work in a whole host of industries that are, you know, incredibly labor intensive. Carhart has a subbrand that is like much more like fashion forward and has been,

you know, trying to break into the higher price range, sort of like higher end fashion retail landscape. And they're playing on the fact that like a lot of their authenticity and their clout comes from having a really storied tradition of making really solid workwear. And they're using that foundation as something to sell to people who patently do not like work out in minds somewhere, you know, right? That are like wearing like carhart pants or, you know, something that you would, you know, use on a tractor to sort of like co-opped that authenticity, that candidness that that comes

with having a working class job and wear it like a costume, you know? So I've thought about it in that context because I think about fashion a lot. Yeah. No, that's absolutely where I'm going with it too. It's like in a sense, there is a layer of like the liberal class who don't experience like working class culture obviously. They're just removed from it. But there's a romanticization of it. There's a fetishization of it. And there's a co-option of it ultimately. And you see that in a lot of different ways. And specifically what, and I'll get into that element of sort of the co-option of oppression, I think, is the bridge for me with the curse. But just to sort of set that up. So for me, I immediately think of like when I was working at this bougie coffee shop, I was washing dishes.

I lived in Berkeley at the time. And this coffee shop was named Local One Seventh. or something like that. I don't remember if that's the right number, but it was named essentially after the union hall that existed in the space before it. And of course, none of the people working at this coffee shop were in a union. We were making like minimum wage and we were catering to, you know, people that go into fancy coffee shops. And so in the aesthetics of the place and even in the name, though, that working class culture was co-opted and used as a selling point. you know, this kind of like sick twist, you know, on the past, on what was. And I feel like the show is ultimately putting a spotlight on that in a sense too. Like, so Asher and Whitney, part of the show

and part of what they're doing is they're not just trying to build and sell these houses, these passive homes in this neighborhood. They're also setting up like retail businesses as part of this whole thing of like embedding themselves in the community. And ultimately, you know, what they're doing is, of course, they're gentrifying Española. And sort of as they strip away the authenticity of working class culture by parachuting into this community with lots of their own money, they're trying to maintain certain stylistic elements of that culture in this like highly hollowed out way. But it's just like the bougie fake working class culture you see in places like blue line

coffee or the coffee shop that I worked at. like, you know, gutted ceilings and, like, you can see the plumbing and the ventilation, like sort of like a factory aesthetic almost, or something like super uncomfortable seating, you know, like just wooden blocks or some shit. And so it's like this performance of austerity, which doesn't even really exist in current working class or poor spaces. Like, so it's like even the exploitation and the conditions of being working class or poor have become co-opted by a certain class of people. And this liberal co-option of oppression, which I alluded to earlier, like wanting to parachute into marginalized communities to feel like they are part of that struggle

without actually giving up anything or really meeting the community where they're at. And this is a theme that comes up a lot in this shows, particularly with how they deal with and interact and engage with the indigenous community of the area. So I think Nathan is really making a very very interesting observation about how liberalism sort of co-ops oppression in so many ways. And personally, I feel like, you know, a lot of these classes have never really felt actual oppression. Like, they actually benefit from the system more than any other class, more than anybody else as individuals.

But they cannot just accept that. Like, they feel this guilt about that. Like, they have to dawn this identity of being exploited as well, right? like they have to feel like they are also connected somehow to this experience of exploitation or of being in an oppressed class. And like at the very least, they have to perform relationships with people that they view as marginalized. And I think this is Whitney and this is the role that Whitney sort of plays.

And I'm wondering what you think about that. Yeah. I mean, you said so much there. And even just in you zeroing in on like the, the. gravitation that they have towards working class aesthetics and like turning that into something that can be consumed and used as an aesthetic to generate capital in like a jean shop or a coffee shop or whatever is like really key because that impulse kind of sums up the broader relationship that these people have with not just marginalized communities as you said

but with the system more broadly, which again, just I want to come back to the fact that they don't fundamentally want to change the mechanics of the system. The system benefits them, right? So if they can turn this idea of working class candidness, working class austerity, into something that can then be sold back, they are still fundamentally operating within the consumer framework of capitalism and everything stays the same. So they got to acknowledge this existence of a working class and potentially even like tip their hat to it, right, by creating spaces that finger quotes evoke it. But materially, everything operates as it should within the current economic system.

And this goes back to the concept of performance, right? This is part of their performance of morality, which is a really key part of modern liberalism, particularly under neolism. liberal capitalism, which is that, you know, materially, liberalism is not at odds with conservatism. Where they diverge is on this sort of cultural moral plane, but both fundamentally materially support the American Imperial Project and capitalism. The distinction comes in the performance, namely the performance of politeness, which is going to bring us into wit quite nicely, concern, righteousness, and kindness. But these things are all ultimately performances because they're not backed up with material

urgency or animus. That kindness, that righteousness, that concern does not follow with action that supports that concern. And the stop, is it okay if I say Jesus moment is a perfect example of that, or even just, you know, things that happen in the coffee shop they set up where people in, end up getting fired or, you know, they need security. And then it's, there are all kinds of contradictions that Nathan reveals to us in Witt and Asher's pursuit of this performance. All of their ideological expressions are exercised within the consumer plane and only have value to the person

that's performing them when they are beheld, not when they make change or support the positive morality of the performance, right? Like any performance, the value comes from the thing being watched, not from resultant consequences or material or political implications of actions that come with the performance. Their entertainment, their commodities just like anything else we consume, the performances that Witt and Asher are giving are there for us to consume, have maybe thoughts and feelings about but then that's it. It's an exchange, right? It's a transaction.

Yes. Yeah. And we'll get into that a little bit more, I think, as we move through the scenes. But I would love to talk about the characters a little bit more and sort of the dialectical relationship that Whitney and Asher have. I don't know if it's just because I've been studying dialectics so much that I could not stop thinking about this. But I'll get into that in a second. But so I love, I absolutely love Whitney as a character. And Emma Stone, who plays Whitney, does such an incredible, incredible job.

She does. It's so perfect. So perfect. And I, you know, I didn't actually really, I had recognized Emma Stone's face, but I didn't really, I don't think I've actually ever seen any movies that she's been in there, seen her in a role. So it was really cool for this to be the first time I was introduced to her because I think She does a lot of like mainstream stuff, right? Are you telling me that you've never seen super bad, Robbie?

I'm genuinely trying to remember if I have seen super bad. I think that I must have, but it must have been... It's Jonah Hill, Michael Sarah. That was like her big breakout. I know it, but I don't think... I'm sure I've seen bits and pieces of it. Maybe I've seen the whole thing and I just don't remember. I was really stoned from like my late teens to like early 30s.

So I don't have the best memory, which is kind of ironic, probably. I'm teasing you. I mean, she is incredible in this for the record. Yeah. No, she's great. She was in a, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to reveal how ignorant I am of like popular movies. I mean, sidebar, the other thing that she was in that everyone like,

freaks out about is La La Land. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Anyways, I'm going to cut everything that we just said there. Just kidding. I'll leave it in. People should know how ignorant I am sometimes. Okay. So the thing about Whitney as a character, though. So she comes from a family that this is like so beautifully imagined and sort of create, like this whole character is just so perfectly.

put together by Nathan and of course Emma Stone. She comes from a family that make their wealth as slumlords. So I just love that. We'll get into the whole dynamic with her parents. There's a lot there. So just to set it up for now, she comes from a family with a very wealthy family that make their wealth in Santa Fe through owning this horrible apartment complex. And so there's a scene in the pilot episode where the, and we're still on the pilot episode. That's how much is packed into each episode. This reporter is asking Witt about her family's shady history in, you know, this slum lording in Santa Fe. And it becomes obvious to us watching that she's using the money from her parents' slums and sort of, you know, her as, you know, a rich child of rich parents to

invest in this other town in Espaniola. And I was thinking like it's so interesting and very much like hitting the nail on the head, this idea that like she is taking this money and using it on sort of these like very just very indirect ways of trying to help a community when she could literally just be trying to encourage her parents not to be slum lords in that community. Like that would do infinitely more help to people in that community than like building these passive homes. But of course, that wouldn't be as fun for her. So it's just a really beautiful encapsulation of like the dynamics of philanthropic capitalism, which is something that we've talked about before quite a bit, Carly, particularly in our

episode with you on capitalist realism. But how philanthropic capitalism is primarily this like release valve for the ruling class is guilt, right? And it really doesn't have much of a net positive outcome. And oftentimes it actually ultimately perpetuates the shitty system. itself, which we'll see very clearly in the way that Asher and Witt's schemes end up playing out for the people involved in them. But yeah, I know I just put a lot out there. So in terms of like Whitney's character and that dynamic with her parents and philanthropy capitalism and all of that,

like just wondering if there's anything you want to add to that or if there's anything else that you want to bring up about Whitney as a character that you find to like stand out particularly. Yeah. I mean, you said so much. And I, I love the notion of her as an encapsulation, a manifestation of philanthropic capitalism. She absolutely is. And, you know, as she relates to certain aspects of modern liberalism, you know, you brought up this idea of like, well, she could just have her parents like not be slumlords, even just like not be slumlords as much, right? But she doesn't do that because, you know, that's the source of her wealth.

And so she doesn't want to change the dynamics of their relationship with the system because she benefits from it. But the other reason she doesn't want to do anything about it is because the performance of her outrage about their work is a key part of her own experience within the system. Right. So like not only does she not want to change what they do because it's the source of her own wealth and is how she has benefited from the system that they are all a part of and exacerbating. But it allows her to then stand in opposition, mostly vocally, not materially, which is a theme we'll keep coming back to,

stand in opposition of what her parents are doing as part of her morality performance. And that aspect is crucial to her understanding of who she is or who she thinks she is and who she desperately wants to be to other people. And we see moments of this artifice, and we'll come back to this concept of artifice and reality that we touched on in the beginning time and time again in the way that Nathan plays with it not just within the formal qualities of his show but also within the characters within the show and their relationship with artifice and performance and all these things but we see her veneer of this like well-meaning you know morally righteous person this philanthropic

person we see this veneer break constantly and And it is in those moments that we understand that the performance is really key for her, but that at the end of the day, she cannot, will not change anything about herself or who she is in relation to the oppressed classes that her parents and ultimately that she is hurting. And the other thing about that that I think is really important is that it's not just the performance of outrage. There's this whole other layer that we've seen become more prevalent in the late stages of capitalism where there are aspects of the sort of violent nature of the system that can no longer be denied and obfuscated. And therefore, the acknowledgement of those things has to be incorporated. into the system and in often cases sold back to us. And this is something that Mark Fisher,

our favorite guy, talks about a lot in the form of interpacivity and many other things in his writing. But I bring this up because what it has created is a market for guilt. And so it's not just outrage at the violence of the system that needs to be performed. The guilt that you have about your own position is now also a part of that performance because we know enough about the mechanics of the system now. And it says the mechanics of capitalism are more broadly known and talked about thanks to the internet and a lot of other things. And also just like the system taking parts of itself and it's self-rotting and selling

it back to us. And so like acknowledging the ways that the system is terrible is. you know, has become a market in and of itself, which Karl Marx famously predicted. But that means then that when we are consuming that acknowledgement of the violence, we also then have to be guilty about it because we're in that consumption acknowledging our own position within the system. And so all of this is a roundabout way of saying, Witt's performance of outrage coupled with her guilt about where she sits within the system and how it benefits her are a key part of how she sees herself in this world. And it's why she doesn't ever want anything to change about what her

parents do. It's that she benefits from their material wealth, but it's also that ultimately this performance of morality is very tied up in them being horrible people. No, totally. That's such a good insight. Like the resistance to her position and to her parents, it plays a key role, right? It's like a key component in the whole thing. It keeps her system functioning. It reminds me, too, of like everybody who spoke up against injustice when Trump was in office and then, like, went right back to brunch, so to speak, during Biden's administration, even while he was enacting some of the exact same policies as Trump, it was the performance, right? It was a performance against perceived injustice that drove it, not the injustice itself. It was like, in this case,

like, in politeness and, you know, the more vulgar components of its implementation. So it reminds me a lot of that, that need for that performative resistance. And so, yeah, super, super interesting. and an insight that I had too about like Witt's whole dilemma. When the system that you live in is a fundamentally immoral system and you are as a being, a human being, a moral being, there's a deep contradiction there. And I think that what you're describing is how that plays out. And I think what Nathan does with Witt and how you just so beautifully articulated it and explained it in these terms is what happened.

to somebody when they embody that contradiction, right? I want to talk about this scene from episode five. So we're going to start, I think, bouncing around probably a little bit between episodes. It's not going to be totally chronological. But so it's so interesting to see like throughout the show as it unfolds with being confronted with this reality of the contradiction that she embodies. and like the pain hidden beneath the surface when she's confronted with these things. But like her ultimate inability, and I don't just mean out of stubbornness, right?

Like it's literally impossible for her, this inability to change course. Liberalism is working through her, right? Like she's fully its subject and she has to keep this performance going, even if it destroys her on the inside in like deeply profound ways. So this scene is from episode five, and it's the scene. So Witt's parents show up. The slumlords show up at one of the, I forget exactly what's going on. It might be a showing of one of the houses or they just might be shooting something.

I don't quite remember. But Witt's parents, right, the money behind it all, right? That side of things. They show up. And so Witt sort of grabs them and tells them like to go back to the car and she walks back to their car with them. I might be getting some of the details mixed up, but basically the point here is that Witt is unable to face the reality, which is, you know, represented by her parents. And we'll get into this in a sec too.

It's also represented by Asher of where her wealth comes from, of how it is managed, right? The foundation of everything that she is doing. And she cannot confront it. She cannot have her parents there. Just the mere presence is too much for her to handle. And so she says she gets into the car with her parents, I think, I think she makes them drive far away and they sit in the car for a little bit. And she says to them, Española is mine.

Pull over there, pull over. Shelley is your person. We are not cross-pollinating publicity. And Dad's 70th is not going to be a PR event. Okay? Shelly just thinks it would be good for us to be associated with homes with something good for a change. What is going on with you? The reason that I came back from California was you said these properties could.

be mine. Mine. And now you're planning parties and you're not even talking to me about it. You treat me like a child and I'm a grown up. I'm a grown up woman. Okay? I wouldn't have come back from California if I knew that you'd be lording over me like I'm some type of baby. I wouldn't have. These properties are mine. Espinola is mine. Okay? End of story. So just, just, you're ruining my day. I'm so busy. I'm going back to work. Is everything okay? Are we okay? I don't know. Is it?

I'm leaving. You guys are going home, okay? Just drive that way. Do not go back past the house. So she's like trying to tell them to fuck off, basically. This is my little side project. Without being able to confront the fact that it's only hers through the ill deeds of her parents. Like her entire house of cards, the passive homes, her performance, it's all built on really

this like rotten and blood-soaked foundation, which she simply cannot look at in the face. It needs to be kept out of sight the same way that she like completely disassociates or mentally checks out whenever Asher talks about the financial side of stuff, which we'll get into more. And I really do think this is like we've been talking about an embodiment of the modern day liberal who lives on the bones of those who do the dirty work for them in order to live these lives of like comfort. and opulence. But, you know, they don't want to acknowledge that. They don't want to see where it comes from. They perform an aesthetic of nonviolence, for example, when every moment of their lives relies on explicit violence of the system. And just to fast forward real quick here to sort of put

a bit of an end cap on that scene because it comes to a head a few episodes later, actually episode nine, where Witt is in, she's talking to her parents in one of the apartments in the slum. that the parents own and that they rent out. And so they're arguing. What we do is a public service. We don't even have a say in what we charge tenants. Where do you think these people go when you evict them, when you decide to build one of your fancy free energy homes?

They move in with us. No one has moved into one of your buildings. Everyone is taking care of. Everyone stays in Española. Yeah, well, if they're not living with us, They're living with someone we know. You know, Asher said that you told him that if he finds any native artifacts,

he should destroy them. Well, if you want to avoid four years of title litigation, it's not a bad idea. And it's perfectly illegal. This is the difference between you guys and me. I would never do that. I'd let the archaeologists. Yeah, well, it's easy to give away land

when you're not the one who paid for it. Okay, Paul, you don't need to go there. That is a loan. That is a loan. And we are paying interest. And that, oh my God, that's not to be the point of what I'm saying. The point of what I'm saying is you two, you actively blind yourselves to the history of this area. You do.

Worship. Is that why you keep making excuses whenever we want to visit your TV set? If you have such a problem with what we do and want to decide who gets evicted and who doesn't, you're more than welcome to come work for us and run the buildings the way you want to. Or you can just continue playing dress up. Dress up. And so what happens is what we're being forced to confront here alongside Witt is her mom telling her like, these fancy, expensive-ass passive homes that you're building in this community,

they're going on to lots, right? There are houses that were bought out and people were evicted from those houses in order for you to come in and build these homes. these passive expensive homes. And she's asking her, where do you think those people go when you evict them? They move into this fucking slum. And it's Witt's mom is forcing her to confront the reality of what she and her dad are doing.

And it's even though Lizzie Witt's mom and her dad, Paul, are doing these horrible things, they are at least in touch with the reality of what they are doing, right? Whereas Witt is not. She is in a completely different world, imagining something that isn't real. And then her mom goes on to say, you're more than welcome to come work for us and run the buildings the way that you want to. Or you can continue to just play dress up. And again, I just thought that was a really cold, hard confrontation for wit to face

the fact of the reality of what she is doing and the system that she's a part of and the specific family dynamic that she comes from, all of it. And she cannot, she cannot face it. And she cannot face it. and she cannot accept it. And she responds by saying, okay, maybe that's what happens when you raise your kid to believe in nothing.

And there's a funny end to that scene where Witt's dad kind of looks to her mom like, yeah, well, that's a good point. We did raise her to kind of believe in nothing, I guess. But I just felt like that was a really,

really relevant scene in what we're talking about and sort of, yeah, Witt's inability to see the role that she plays in all of this, even though deep in her bones she knows it, there's just an inability.

And again, it's not a stubborn inability. It's the role of the liberal. Like, they need to exist within capitalism in order for the system to function. Because when you have an immoral system and you're a moral being within that system, there's a fundamental contradiction. And you have to play a certain role.

And you just, you end up playing the role of wit. And yeah, I know I just said a lot there. So I'm wondering if you have anything that you want to add to that or reflect or any other ideas or thoughts. Yeah, I mean, the role is that of an apparatus for laundering, right? Like, laundering the violence in some way through an expression of or a performance of morality, the laundering of our guilt, like that is liberalism's function.

That's what wit embodies. And it's not just that she wants her. her parents offset because she can't confront the reality of like who they are and what they do. And it's very at odds with what she believes herself to be. It's also because of the visibility of them interfering with her performance of who she wants to be as a person. Right. So it's like that she can't confront the reality of the situation. And it's also that she is very much wrapped up in.

who is seeing them, who is seeing her with her parents. I mean, if we go back to the opening episode, when her relationship to them is brought up, and it's on this, you know, news interview that will be shown to the public, her entire, like, manner breaks down. Although there's a lot of excitement, there seems to be an equal dose of apprehension

amongst the locals who I've spoken with. Rent is already increasing as interest grows in the area. So what would you two say to those in Española who are concerned about gentrification? That's a great and important question, Monica. No one's more concerned about the G word than us. But we really believe that gentrification doesn't have to be a game of winners and losers.

And that's sort of why we're here today. We understand that the price point of carbon-neutral living is still higher than many people can afford. And the influx of eco-conscious buyers can push rent up and displace current residents. But unlike other home developers that you might see on TV, rather than ignoring residents that might be displaced by our actions, we use a portion of each home sale to subsidize local rent. Take, for example, lifelong resident Fernando Pistillo. His mother was facing eviction because of a rent increase.

And not only did we help to keep her housing affordable, but we actually arranged a full-time job for Fernando at the coffee house right behind us. Affordable housing. So would this initiative include any of your parents' buildings? My family has no buildings in Espanola, and I'm not affiliated with that company in any way. And I just want to go back to your family, Whitney. Do you think that... Why are we going back to her family? She answered that.

Let's move on. Yes. Yeah. But the Bookins building has been referred to by residents as Hell on Earth. And in fact, in 2020, the Santa Fe reporter called your parents' slum lords because of their ruthless approach to evictions. So I'm just wondering if your holistic approach would extend to that community as well. Our focus is on Española. I see.

Have you thought about potentially talking to your parents, though, about how maybe they may... We're here to talk about us today, okay? What do your parents do? Just curious. What do they do? My mom's a nurse, and my dad actually abandoned us when I was really young, so I don't know what he's doing right now. I'm so sorry about your father.

That must have been very challenged. How would you feel if I asked you about your father and kept asking more about that? Huh? I'm not going to, but I'm making a point. You're not him, right? You're your own woman. You're smart.

You're intelligent, you're beautiful. You're your own woman. And so are we. We're the Seagulls. We're not slumlords. So let's talk about us, okay? Look at me when I'm talking to you, okay? Don't look at her.

I'm the one talking, so you should look at me. Because when you don't look at me, it makes me feel like you're not listening. and not registering the things I'm saying. It's just common courtesy. It's a little rude to do. But we're here to talk. We're just talking, and this is great,

and we're talking about the community, and we're here for the community today. And that's just so exciting. And that's the point. So let's continue. All right. You know, I think we're good. I think we have everything.

Thank you guys so much. You can actually go ahead and start taking the mics off. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great. We see that happen many times that when her performance is disrupted by reality simply like puncturing it, right? Her parents just like being there.

She emotionally, mentally, physically breaks down in some way, shape, or form, and the performance breaks down. and that's why they can't be on set. I think the other thing that's really important about Witt, and what I think Emma Stone is so good at when she's playing this character, is the sort of acrobatics that someone like Witt must do in order to just exist, right? like watching her like I'm exhausted right because like she is you know always trying to manage every single aspect of her experiences her conversations her appearance her interactions with people who sees her doing what like it's exhausting it's exhausting and I think this is also a fundamental

part of liberalism under capitalism is that like when you are morally at odds with what the system is doing, but materially embedded in it and materially benefiting from it, it is an exhausting existence because your life is filled with contradictions. And I think, you know, if we go back to this idea of like the difference between conservatism and liberalism is really this performance of morality. I'm not arguing that conservatism is better, but it's far less complicated because they are full-throatedly supporting fascism oftentimes, right? Like publicly, their performance is that. They have no pretensions. They have no pretensions. Well, I mean, some of the hardcore MAGA people

are definitely delusional, but like when we're talking about, let's just say like your typical CEO or whatever, right? Yeah. And I think like it's more that they're willing to, embrace the ugliness of the system because they don't see it as ugly, right? Whereas liberals, I think often there is an acknowledgement of the ugliness. And so the open and public embrace of that ugliness is a problem because that's fundamentally at odds with who they believe themselves to be and the things that they think they believe in. Both camps materially support the system. But the latter is replete with contradictions because of that tension between what you believe and your refusal to accept the ugliness, at least on a sort of like belief system level or

morality level. And then your participation in that. And so the point being, I think Emma Stone is really good at playing this person who is just like aggrieved. constantly aggrieved because of the position that she's in materially and how that fits with her belief system. Importantly, she's not oppressed. Aggrieved and oppressed are two different things in this particular instance. Yeah, it's interesting how we are seeing this currently play out in the political sphere, particularly in the electoral sphere and how we see the the, the right. And the right, openly embracing genocide, talking about getting the job done, et cetera, et cetera, et

et cetera. And then we see the center liberal side of things. And the, as you say, the exhausting performance of the ceasefire talks, which keep like hand-waving away the fact that the lead negotiator for Hamas was assassinated by Israel, yet still believing in these ideas that saw, the genocide that make it seem like our side is, yeah, okay, so we're actually literally doing the genocide right now, the people that we're about to vote for, but they don't want to be doing the genocide and they're doing everything they can behind the scenes to stop the genocide. But materially, it's happening, right?

But like the exhaustive performance that has to go into the act of denying the realities of the violence of the system versus like we're talking about the conservative side, which is just like, yeah, no, we're doing a genocide and like we're doing it because fuck those people and like ultimately, you know, we like our like freedom in America, you know. So I think that's just like a very, a very relevant current event that can like really perfectly be mapped on to this dynamic and this dialectic that we're sort of exploring. I want to get into the other side. for a minute here because we haven't talked a whole lot about Asher, who is also an incredible character and played so well, of course, by Nathan Fielder. Asher is, of course, as I alluded to

earlier, the other side of the sort of split personality of liberalism. And when I say liberalism here, I'm really just talking about like liberal capitalism or really just capitalism. I'm talking about liberalism as a philosophy. I'm not talking necessarily about the like, U.S. liberal as like we know the liberal in the United States as part of like generally associated with the Democratic Party and all that. I'm going to be switching a little bit between those two uses of the term, but here I'm talking about the split personality of the system of liberalism. And Asher plays a really important role in the sort of dialectical other side of the coin as wit. So he is the part that is in touch with the reality of what's happening with the system in a sense, not completely, but he knows that there is dirty work that needs to happen to make this whole scheme work in terms of if we're abstracting in terms of the system of capitalism.

If we're talking about the show, we're talking about their reality TV scheme. And he's in it because they're planning on literally gentrifying Española. of like this is a conscious scheme that they have going on. They're planning on buying up tons of plots of cheap land and hoping that the reality TV show that they're working on will get super popular and put this town on the map so that the land value will go up on those properties that they bought and that they will make a killing as landlords. Like that is what Asher is working on behind the scenes the whole time during the show.

And so we'll get a little bit more into the specifics of that with like one of the houses, one of the properties that they purchase and all of that. But I think before that, what I want to talk about, I think, before we move on, is the curse itself, because that is, not only is it the name of the show, it's an important scene where the curse is placed on Nathan. And it's also very important in setting up some of the other characters and some of the other themes as we go through. So yeah, let's talk about the curse itself because the show is actually in many ways about Asher being cursed. So there is a scene where Dougie, who is the producer of the reality TV show, the Green Queen that they're shooting, he wants Asher to go up to this random little girl in a parking lot and give her $100 and have the cameraman film that.

I don't remember exactly what the purpose is, aside from just making Asher look like he's doing a good deed. Yeah, they're selling something and he's like, oh, I want you to shoot me just giving her money out of the goodness of my heart. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So Nala is the name of the child, the very young girl who is selling something in the parking lot. So they set this scene up. Dougie starts shooting and Asher approaches this little girl. hands her $100 for the camera and like, you know, spends a couple seconds sort of like chit-chatting with her or whatever, making sure that it's all caught on camera, making sure that they're all happy and smiling. And then they cut the scene and Asher literally snatches back the $100. Sure does.

And so not only does it obvious that these people are like purely objects to him and that they only exist in his world as props, but they're meant to serve him. And they're meant to play a role for again his performance, which is ultimately a performance for wit, which we'll get into later. But in that moment, Nala, who just had the $100 snatched from her, puts a curse on Nathan. She curses him. Let's grab a quick shot of you giving money to that little girl over there. Why? It'll be good, you know.

Sure you give them back to the community. stuff, all right? Jose, quick. Make sure his mic's on. Just like, go hand her money? Isn't that weird? No. Just buy whatever the fuck she's selling. It'll be fine. Do it quick, all right? Make it look natural. Hey there. Hi. Here's a little something just for being you. Thank you. Okay. Would you like a spry-mini?

No, no, that's okay. Good. Got it. Dollars! Honey! Hey, hey. So we were just shooting a little TV show over there, and we were just getting a shot. You're a little movie star. But that $100 bill was all I had. So how about you give it back to me,

and I'll go get changed, and I'll buy that whole six-pack from you for $20. What do you say? You gave her the money. It's a done deal. Oh, come on. That's not fair. I'm going to buy the whole six stuff.

It's fair. We do. No refunds. They're a sign. Is that your dad? Can you tell them, I'm going to buy a whole six stuff. pack. Can you tell them? I'm going to buy a whole, the whole six pack here. Here. Get it back to her. It's okay. It's okay. You can't do that or I'll curse you. You know what? I curse you.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to go get change, okay? So I'll be right back. Just stay here. I'm getting change. So that is, that is the curse scene. Something that this scene sets up that I think is tonally, you know, evoked even before the curse happens in the diocese of the, you know, wit and Asher's world, but is explicitly pulled into focus with this scene and then moving forward is the element of the supernatural. Yes. And Nathan, Fielder, the creator of the curse, the show, is constantly playing with the tension that he sort of rings from the possibility of the supernatural and the empirical,

the practical. And as a result, there's this sort of like uncanniness to the entire tenor of the show. You know, and there's lots that he's doing with sort of the formal qualities of the medium. And he's playing with genre in many cases, too, specifically the horror. genre and our expectations around, you know, what these genres and these serialized television formats usually come with. And so, you know, in this sort of tension he's creating between the possibility of the supernatural and, you know, the realities of the empirical, I would argue that he's illuminating something that's inherent to the reality or rather the surreality of living,

under late capitalism, which is this sort of constant uncanniness. And he illuminates this through many aspects of his work. The rehearsal is another great example of this, where he's sort of forcing us to confront these fissures within the seemingly placid experience of living under capitalism. And within these fissures are these sometimes seemingly supernatural you know, incredibly dark moments. And it's like sometimes in these seemingly banal exchanges, like, for example, like a girl at a parking lot selling Sprite and you being like, I'm going to give you $100 and then like taking it back.

And then he literalizes the violence and the darkness of that exchange by bringing a curse into the narrative, which I just think is like such a brilliant flourish. And he's reminding us how incredibly dark and surreal what lives under the surface of capitalism is. He's reminding us of the violence and the inhumanity that exists constantly. And he's literalizing it in something like a curse. And I just, I think that that moment is really key to understanding sort of the larger statement the show is making and that, you know, Nathan is, is making. about the experience of living under capitalism, but it also is a really important moment because it allows the rest of the show to be really compelling television, because there is this

constant interplay between the possibility of the supernatural and the realities of the empirical. And that tension is, you know, is thrilling. Yeah, it adds so much to the plot because a lot of the show ends up being about Asher trying he's sort of struggling as well with this question of like, well, am I actually cursed? Right. And there are these moments where it could be coincidence or it could be the curse. And it unfolds in a really interesting scene where so Witt finds out about this that he took the $100 back. I think she, Dougie is showing them a scene or something.

And as they're reviewing this scene, it becomes clear that there's this other scene on his computer or something. and she wants to see it and she sees what happened. She sees that Asher stole the $100 back from Nala. And so she has him go and try to track her down. And that's how he ends up. There's a confluence of characters here where he ends up meeting her father, who is actually he is squatting with her, with Nala and Nala's sister in the house that Asher is buying to flip.

So that's another part of the story. One thing that I wanted to sort of like dial in on is the scene that Asher is going to like look for for Nala because Witt's making him go drive around this, this neighborhood where he saw her originally to see if he can like find her. And he says the word homeless to Witt, I think in trying to describe them or their situation. And Witt quickly jumps in and tells him unhoused. And he goes, oh, unhoused, unhoused, sorry. Actually, their family's living in one of the buildings across the street. The transitional housing? Yeah, exactly.

So it turns out they're not homeless, which is a good thing. Unhoused. Unhoused. Sorry. Immediately what came to mind for me there is like, of course, performance. But it reminds me, I think it was a tweet that I saw at some point, someone who was homeless for a long period, they were talking about how much they hate the word unhoused. And it really is like, like, it's interesting.

to think of language, like, it is certainly a certain terrain for struggle on a certain level, but for the liberal, language is the terrain for struggle oftentimes, because they cannot actually restructure society, since doing that would destroy their own privileged positionality within capitalism. They can only fight through the terrain of signifiers and things like language. So, yeah, I'm wondering if you remember that scene specifically, if you have any thoughts about the scene or like, you know, this idea of language as a signifier for the liberal. Yeah, there are so many moments when Witt specifically is correcting Asher about something he's saying or a word he's using. And it's demonstrative, again, of her inability to confront the

realities of the situation and of the system that she's in, right? A language for her is a way to obfuscate the ugliness, you know, unhoused versus homeless or making sure that like they don't, I don't know, like say the word Jesus in the context of talking to a Mexican American or whatever it may be. Like the management of language is an important tool for obfuscation for wit and, you know, for the liberal more broadly. And this being the only turn. for struggle is important because their assertion of the importance of language. And this is often

what you hear in sort of these modern day conversation. You know, it's, it's now become so perverted that the original point of these conversations about language, I think, has been lost, you know, because now it's like, oh, is this thing woke? Are you being woke? Whatever. And that has become the focus and now the word woke itself carries its own baggage and it's all getting lost. But liberals, I will say modern sort of Western liberals will assert the importance of language oftentimes because it is a way for this performance of dedication to change to be enacted in some way. Like you can sort of play at this idea of change happening, of signifiers of change when you focus on language being changed. But language being important is important to

liberals because it doesn't inherently come with material animus, right? Like a word is still a word. what makes a word more than a word is action coming from a human being or action coming from like something outside of the verbal landscape, something in our material world. And I think oftentimes the power that language can have, and I am a person who vehemently believes in the power of language. I spend a lot of time tying myself and not trying to find the right word because the right word is important to me and, you know, making my my point clear. But that is different than diluting myself into believing that my words are coming with material implications about people's lived experiences.

They are often vectors for that. And words can be incredibly damning, incredibly harmful. but what I'm focusing on specifically is this concept of change only happening within vocabulary and not also coming with material change, right? So this concept of language being important, I don't want to distort that and make it seem like I'm saying language is not important. But the thing to remember about language is that what makes it important is people's actions tied to it, either positive or negative. And when you are

focusing on language only and not utilizing actions to support the change that you are wanting to perform, I guess, with your language, then your words are ostensibly emptied of meaning, right? Like, your words don't mean anything anymore. If you can say something like, I'm going to correct this person from using the word homeless to unhoused, but your parents are literally evicting people and making them homeless, right? And you are too. too in your own actions. Like what does your insistence on changing that word actually mean then? What does it mean for you?

What material reality does the changing of that word carry with it? I'm getting lost in semantics here, but basically what I'm trying to say is that language being the main, you know, sort of arena for struggle for liberals is important because it can still be detached from action. And language being weaponized, like you were saying, you know, language can be used in incredibly harmful ways. And that is real and that does have a material impact.

I think that the way that we are thinking about the usage here is like, again, for me, it's like, so language being weaponized by the right through like derogatory usage. is the other side, like the flip side of that coin is the liberal's weaponization of language as a form of deception and manipulation that launders the material reality, right? Like it's why you can have a liberal politician like Gavin Newsom literally with his own hands breaking up homeless encampments on the street in San Francisco. And then he turns around to the camera and talks about, quote, unhoused folks. and immediately that like softens whatever he's doing.

If your terrain of struggle exists heavily in the language sphere, you hear something like that and it softens it, right? Like it allows someone who's passively watching as, you know, someone who identifies with Gabon Newsom feeling like they have done their part because, you know, maybe this might not be exactly how it works out in their heads. But like it plays a role.

That language plays a role in softens. the violence and in like as you say like obfuscating the material reality and so I think that's just like that's something that really comes out a lot in the show and that they play with quite a bit. I would like to move on to I want to talk about what's sort of interactions and engagement with the indigenous community in Española and around Espanola because I think it's also just very very rich terrain for conversation about a lot of these dynamics. And we can also talk about Kara too. So there's a scene where we meet James Toledo, who was played by Gary Farmer, who you may know him from the stoner uncle Brownie from reservation dogs.

Right. And so there's this painful scene where Witt is out there talking to this character, James Toledo. He's the indigenous governor of the San Pedro Pueblo. And she's talking about how sad it is that indigenous people are being romanticized. Like she's literally talking about that with him when the literal reality is that is what she is doing. Well, right now, I'm standing on Pueblo land. All these drivers are coming from town, going to Los Alamos. All these people, and they don't even know.

It's unbelievable. how ignorant some people in this area are. I mean, some of these people have lived here all their lives. They have no idea. And technically, we really should all consider ourselves visitors on this land. You know, even those of us who live on counting land. Well, we have to live in reality here.

That's long gone. Of course. I mean, they should know that these aren't public roads. that they're driving on every day. This is Pueblo land. Exactly. It's crazy. Some of these title companies

don't even want to issue insurance because they're so concerned with what the Pueblos might do, and I just want to show the country how generous and welcoming you are. You know, people like to romanticize us. The idea of an Indian, you know,

but the Tewaq people come from a long lineage of warriors. It's in our blood. It's in mine. The entirety of her engagement with the indigenous community is utilizing them as this like, in this like romanticized, fetishized way, using them as a performance of solidarity. That's really just a way of, it's a way of earning social capital for wit. And I think this is a really important theme, this social capital that liberals want to build. and, you know, it exists like in the fetishization of working class culture, for example, that we talked about earlier,

but it also exists very much with the faux solidarity with the indigenous communities. So Witt's relationship with Kara, who is also indigenous, and is played by Nizjonia Lexi Austin. So Witt is trying to get this character, Kara, who is an indigenous artist, to let Witt display Kara's artwork in their stage. homes and Kara is like totally onto sort of what is going on in terms of Witt's intentions. And yeah, Kara just kind of goes along with it. And this, she goes along with a lot of Witt's weird schemes throughout the show. She knows that Witt is using her for her identity, but she makes the most out of it, actually. And she tries to get something out of this relationship.

So she goes along with it. So she also invites Witt to her art show, which is called Dinner for Trophy. 10. And as soon as Witt and Asher arrive to see Kara's artwork, Witt whispers to Asher, quote, she's so good, it's annoying. And this sort of sets up the stage for the theme of how deeply jealous Witt is of Kara. And then somebody comes up and asks them, have you seen Kara's work before? And Asher smugly responds, oh, we own four of her pieces. She's so good. It's annoying. She didn't make these, right?

That's the point. These are actually sold at baseball games. So the piece is like, you contextualizing? And she stole all of these from different stores. They're all stolen. It's brilliant because if the baseball league wants to charge her with theft, they would be forced to address the ignorance. I love this piece.

Are you an artist? Sometimes. Have you seen Kara's work before? We own four of her pieces. And again, it's like the way that they view Kara, it becomes very clear that like they just want to sort of own her for her identity. They want to engage with her simply because she's indigenous. But the best that they can do is to buy her.

artwork, but then they sort of flaunt that and they say, you know, like, yeah, we, we own four of her pieces as if that means that they have some kind of relationship with her. It's very disgusting and it's very uncomfortable and this sort of relationship that Witt has with Kara only becomes more and more uncomfortable and really sad at one point, the way that Witt treats Kara. So in this scene, there are a long line of people waiting outside. what is being referred to as, quote, the structure, which is a teepee where, where Kara is waiting inside. And as people wait in line to enter the teepee one by one, we hear a periodic shriek coming from inside the teepee. And so Witt's waiting in line, waiting in line.

Finally, she enters. And she's like, Emma Stone is so good in this scene. She's like gleefully chuckling so awkwardly. She's like so excited about it. almost like childlike and Kara is sitting austerely in the teepee you know like she has a severe expression on her face and she's sitting next to a deli slicer and the juxtaposition between their two demeanors couldn't be more stark right like wit is like giggling like a kid and uh kara is sitting there very austerely and she begins cutting off like cold cuts with this slicer into a plate

and then she offers them to Witt while maintaining this very serious eye contact. And Witt is sort of chuckling. She's having a great time. She's having fun. She proceeds to shove a huge handful of the meat into her mouth. And as she does so, Kara immediately begins shrieking. So these are the shrieks that we heard while Witt was waiting in line. Why did you do that?

What? Why did you do that? Was they not supposed to? You did? Your time is done. Okay. It has. It has.

We ask that you refrain from talking about your experience inside the structure. Of course. And Witt is like casually, the scene is so good. Like Witt is like casually and cluelessly chewing while she's watching all of this happen as if she's just like watching a TV show or something. It's all very dark. It's very funny. And then Kara asks very coldly and very earnestly. why did you do that? And then Witt suddenly like stops, stops short a little bit. She's like,

wait, what? Was I not supposed to eat it? And then there's sort of just silence between them. And Kara then rings a bell and Witt is escorted out of the structure. She's asked specifically by the escort not to repeat to anybody about her experience in the structure. And then, of course, she immediately tells the first person she sees about it. Just a heads up. I don't think you're supposed to eat the turkey. So I didn't say anything about it. You didn't hear everything.

So this whole scene is just, it's so funny. It's also super dark. And it's also extremely symbolic of what Witt is doing herself, right? Like Witt herself says at some point at this art show, she says to somebody, it's such a fetishization of the culture by the establishment. She actually uses those words. And again, she doesn't realize that she is the establishment, that she's literally doing that herself.

And it's almost like this painful lack of self-awareness. Oh, I'm so happy you came. Oh, it's wild, huh? Yes. These pieces are interesting. Mm-hmm. Like I was telling you, Kara's work is about her struggles as a native artist. And this object here was actually made by a non-Indigenous creator.

It's from a summer camp. And that's why she's chosen to damage the object. And it's interesting, you know, because the way that she gets her, art grants, these organizations, they want her to create art related to her indigenous heritage exclusively, which can be so stifling for an artist. Of course, there are some artists that that really embrace that, which is great. It really is just such a fetishization of the culture by the establishment. I'm wondering, you know, if you have any thoughts on that, scene. And I know, you know, we don't yet know exactly what the scene was a symbol of. We find that

out later in another episode. But yeah, I'm just wondering, what are your thoughts on that? And is there anything that you'd like to reflect on or share? So many thoughts. The scene is incredible. And again, you know, just calling attention to some of the formal elements of what Nathan is doing, he places this art show within the world of the show. watching the curse, but it's the real life, finger quotes, of Asher and Witt. And part of the statement that Kara, the artist, is making with her show, is bound up in this performance that she's doing. And I just want to call that out because it's another example of Nathan Fielder really

finding all of these ways to layer concepts of performance within. in the show itself. And I just think it's brilliant. But then, of course, it's also really demonstrative of so many things about Witt and Asher and how they engage with the world. And it's all there in how they engage with this art piece that Kara is making. So, you know, you say, like, that Witt doesn't necessarily realize that she is the establishment when she's talking about the fetishization of culture by the establishment. I would argue that on some level, she does know that she is the establishment. And it's why she

talks about herself as separate and apart from the establishment, because very much like what she does with her parents, she wants to distance herself from her inherent position in the establishment. That like element of guilt is there, right? In sort of talking about the fetishization of culture by the establishment and, you know, using these words that mean things materially, right? The only reason she says that is because she does now, right? I think on some level she does, right? There is an acknowledgement of her position within the establishment framework on some level. And it's why she vehemently, you know, tries to separate herself from it, often through words,

not through actions, right? Which is, you know, the whole thing we're talking about. But this is where we come back to the importance of language or like the insistence on the importance of language, which is how meaningless language becomes within the hands or, you know, the mouths of liberalism, specifically under neoliberal capitalism in the West. Because language is, as I said, you know, it's emptied of all its material implications and it's it's just used. as another thing to be consumed, performed, and consumed again. There's this cyclical relationship that we have with language when it's used in this way. Witt knows well enough to talk about fetishization. She knows well enough to talk about culture and, you know, finger quotes establishment.

But those words mean nothing coming out of her mouth because of her material position in relation to all of those concepts, right? She does not stand in opposition to the fetishization of culture. She does not stand in opposition to the establishment, even though she is, you know, sort of pretending to stand antagonistically towards those things by calling them out. She herself is materially embedded in the realities that those words carry, even while she's asserting otherwise.

You know, we see this time and time again in her relationship with Kara. And I think this concept of co-opting oppression is literalized in the pottery that Witt and Asher fixate on that is made by indigenous populations. you know, we talk often about like this consumer framework and, you know, activism sort of only being able to exist within a consumer framework, which ostensibly makes it not activism, because it's not ever challenging the mechanics of the economic system that we're in. And this pottery being so important to Witt and Asher, and it being shown in their showrooms, so the visibility of it,

right to a viewing audience to the public is really important. It's not privately something they care about. They're literally having contracts drawn up so that they can have Kara's artwork and other indigenous pottery be shown on TV so that they can be seen supporting through capital, through transactions, I should say, supporting indigenous populations. The beholding of their support is what's important, right? Not doing the thing itself. And that, I think, you know, perfectly encapsulates their relationship with human beings who are a part of these populations. Like, they ostensibly turn Kara, Witt does this constantly, and the indigenous populations that live in Española into commodities, right? Like, they're more or less

they just end up being either, you know, sort of like products of their actions or something that they can own in some way and then claim as a part of this sort of, you know, quilt of morality that they're making for themselves. It's a really, as you said, it's a really dark element of the show, but I think really important. And, you know, Nathan really understands how this emphasis on products and, like, buying the products that these people make is a literalization of, you know, wit and Asher's fetishization and ultimately exploitation of these oppressed communities. And the other thing that it represents is one of the only ways that these oppressed communities, can within the framework of capitalism fight back, which is sell their struggle back to their oppressor. Yeah. And the way that these like performative relationships

and the sort of co-opting of oppression and language plays out, like I think the problem that we really need to underscore here is like it's, it's not just annoying, right? Like I think it's an incredibly dainable. dangerous and a central component of what allows this system to continue going. And I know we've talked about this a little bit already, but I just want to underscore, like, you need the release valve for the deeply suppressed guilt felt by those that perpetuate this system. Like, you need the co-option, you need the performance. It's all an essential part of the machinery of capitalism.

And instead of doing something to change the system, liberals get lost. in the use of language. They get lost in the faux performative relationships that, like you said, end up being so harmful to, you know, characters like Kara, for example, who end up having to enter into the system and the only way that they can survive in this system is sort of playing along in this game. And it becomes very dehumanizing and demeaning to specifically to Kara. And this actually might be a good time to jump into a scene in episode 8. And it's kind of like the end of the whole

I guess you could call it relationship between Witt and Kera. Like it's the end of that whole story between them. In this scene, Witt is literally dictating to Kara what to say on camera about how much she likes her art and how much she likes

to have her art in Witt's homes. This is all like for the camera, for the Green Queen show. You're getting sad on this, right? Yeah. Okay. I think maybe it's like a little weird that you're not saying anything, you know, or that I'm just the only one talking. Can you say something back to me?

Sure. Like what? I don't know. Just, you know, we're two artists talking, like maybe compliment my work or something. You make really cool homes. Can you say why they're artistic? just from your point of view as an artist? Yeah. The reflections say a lot, and they're really beautiful. Thank you.

And then maybe could you just say why you love having your work in my home, you know, just like how it's a collaboration and, you know, it's a function, you know, how the two pieces kind of function together? I'm not really sure. what you want me to say. I think you can just say, my homes are so unique and so important as a piece of art and you're proud to have your work displayed inside. Something like that. Your homes are so unique and so important as a piece of art and I couldn't be more proud to have my work displayed inside.

That is so sweet. That means so much to me. I mean, but honestly, I see it as a collaboration between the two of us, you know, because I think we're just, we're saying such similar things, you know? And it's just so fucking wild because she's like verbatim dictating to Kara, like to say things that Witt wants to hear in real life. And like, as long as the camera gets it, it's real for Witt, right? Like, that's enough for her because it's not about the actual relationship or the actual reality of things. It's just about what the fucking camera captures and how it can be viewed by. Like, she's manufacturing her own reality through the eyes of others that she conjures up and is like using people as props in the process to make it all feel like it's not her doing.

It is genuinely fucking wild. and like the expression on Kara's face as she's like you can't see this you know in the clip but like the expression on Kara's face as she repeats the words that wit is essentially paying her to say like you can just see the soul being fucking sucked out of her body and that she's just debasing herself in this way and it's just so intense and it's really I think the saddest scene one of the most like heart wrenching and difficult to watch scenes in the whole show, which is saying a lot. And what's ultimately happening is like Kara is commodifying her identity for Witt, right? Like that's a whole theme of of Kara's work, the commodification of her identity.

And she's selling Whitney the social capital that Whitney needs in order to like perform virtuosity. So she's essentially selling herself. She's selling her identity to Witt, and she knows it, and it's painful, and it's very obvious that Witt has, like, this knack for breaking people down and turning them into these props into, like, extras for her, her fucking universe, which is all that matters to her. And, of course, it's obvious, too, that she's done this to Asher for years now, right? Like, he's just an hollow, empty prop for her. And then just when you thought it, like, couldn't get worse, this is the same. This is the scene where

asks Kara about sort of like what was the meaning of the TP performance by the way like she's asking Kara to explain this to her and so Kara does Okay okay I know I've said this to you a million times

but I am still so obsessed with your TP performance from your last show it was just it was so it was just saying so much and you can tell me you've got to tell me like were we supposed to eat the turkey so the slicing of the meat is me giving pieces of myself to people whether I want to or not and as a native person that's basically what you're doing every day just fucking

slicing off pieces of yourself. And it's exhausting. And whether people choose to eat it is totally up to them. And you eat it. That was so beautiful. Clyde, I think we are all good for now. Yeah.

Okay. The audio was really good on that one. Good. Good. Sorry, let's see. Yeah, I got 15 minutes left. You want to pick up some inserts? Oh, no, no inserts. No, I think we're all good. Yeah.

A few of it. And so you can't see it in the clips, obviously, but like, I don't know, maybe you can hear it in her face because Witt has the fakesest smile that you could ever imagine when she says the line, that is so beautiful. And then, of course, she looks at Clyde, the cameraman and tells him to like shut the shit down because it's just too much for her. and it's not what she wants the camera to be picking up. And Emma Stone is like so good in this scene. And you can just see how like you can just see there's so much going on. Like she knows, right? She acts clueless and she's like for a long time in the show even sold to me that she was like somewhat clueless, right?

But she knows exactly what Kara is saying. She knows exactly her own role in taking that deli meat. And she doesn't feel bad at all. Like she doesn't feel bad that she was doing this. She just feels bad that she was noticed, that she was called out, right? She hates that. And hence telling the cameraman to like immediately stop rolling. And then brutally, Witt just gets up and leaves.

And Kara is like sitting there. And then the Bob Dylan song, Santa Fe comes in. And as that song is playing, we just see Kara's face. just completely dejected on the verge of tears, just contemplating everything that just happened, just contemplating her whole relationship with wit. And, you know, like not only did she open up and become vulnerable with Witt to tell her about the meaning of her art performance and sort of like tell her that she was like, you know, the role that Witt played and all of that.

But, you know, she opened up to the person who was exploiting her in the first play. and that person just basically looked her in the eye and said, fuck you and walked away. Oh, it's such a brutal scene. And like that one was just so hard to watch. And, and that's wit, right? Like a fucking fully self-aware monster. And then, of course, there's Asher, right?

Asher being this other side of the coin. Asher being, like, he, the interesting thing about Asher that I realized throughout the show sort of as I move through the episodes, I started to realize that like, yeah, Asher is doing the performance thing too, but he's doing it for wit. Yes. He's not doing it for the same reasons that she is. She's doing it for herself. She's doing it so that she can sort of live with herself so that she can sleep at night, whatever. He's doing it because he wants to impress her. He wants to be with her. There's this whole dynamic that we haven't talked about yet where like Asher is kind of a loser, right? He's kind of a dork. Like Emma Stone is very conventionally

attractive. She's like charismatic. Asher is kind of portrayed as like this sort of goofy, yeah, just like a kind of goofy loser who's like tagging along with her. And they talk about this a lot in terms of like the dynamic of the show, the green queen, the reality show within the show the curse. So Asher is doing this all for wit because he wants to stay with her. But the interesting thing is in the show and in the dynamic, I think it really shows that how central, if we're talking about this contradiction and this dialectic between the forces represented by Asher and the forces represented by wit, which if you want to talk about like liberalism versus conservativeism or whatever, it really shows how important the liberal side is to maintaining,

maintaining the whole system, right? Because we often think about the people who are doing the dirty work are the ones that are doing the dirty work. And that stuff needs to be done in order for the system to be perpetuated. Like, you need somebody to send the National Guard out to beat the shit out of protesters. You need somebody to evict people. You need somebody to keep the system lubricated with the blood of working people and people in the global south if you're thinking of the system globally. But you also need the liberal component. And in the show, because I don't know, you know, I wouldn't say that this maps on to the dynamic more broadly, but like in the show, wit is definitely like the, she is the more powerful dynamic. And I thought that was a really interesting.

And I don't know, you know, how much of this was explicitly intended or how much of this is me just sort of trying to analyze it and coming up with this idea. But like it really does seem like in the show, wit is the more powerful character. And her role in what's going on is really the driving force for their whole scheme and their whole project. I don't know what you think of that or I don't even know what I think of that. It's a lot there. No, I think it is explicit. Nathan, again, doing a lot of literalization in elements of the show of, you know, these sort of more complex dynamics.

I think Witt being the driving force and, you know, the more dominant one between the two of them is literalized in the size of Asher's penis, right? Which is like something the show touches on throughout the course of the series. and it's played for laughs, but there are darker, more real implications of what is, you know, maybe like a comedic gag. It's there for a reason. Nathan has it there so that we can understand something really fundamental

about the coupling of these two people, Witt and Asher. And it's also revealed pretty early on that, Witt's father also has a micro penis, which I believe is the technical term. And, you know, that there's a similar dynamic between her parents. And we can, you know, sort of extrapolate from there that she's recreating this dynamic because it was the thing that she was raised on, this dynamic between her mother and her father. And I bring that up because I do think it is a literalization of their power dynamics. And why? Asher is devoted to her.

And we have these moments where we hear Asher giving himself a pep talk in the bathroom, right? And Witt overhears it. Or Witt doesn't, but we is the audience hear it. Right. There are lots of examples of this throughout the show. And in a lot of these finger quotes private moments, what's revealed to us is the reality of the psychological landscape of, a character and in many cases it's Asher who we're learning more about and in a lot of these moments he is emasculating himself talking about how hot his wife is and he's using that as a way to

justify his own insecurities about who he is and justify you know that he's worthy of someone like wit even though on some level we know that he knows that he's not and he's him knowing that he's not is very important to how their relationship works or doesn't, one could argue. And, you know, back to this sort of like play between their various performances, I think that, you know, their relationship with marginalized communities, oppressed populations, people that actually experience materially the violence of the system and oftentimes the violence that Witt and Asher or people they know or are embedded with enact themselves,

their relationship with these people, you know, Nathan brings a lot of this to the fore through these transactions and through their insistence on performance. And it's another way that he plays with artifice and the construction of, you know, quotes reality. And the ways that we sort of make our own media narratives, right, and construct performances when we participate in capitalism and the violence that comes with it, oftentimes that means we have to critique capitalism itself as a part of that performance, the spectacle of guilt, the spectacle of outrage. And so, like, I just really like that he is showing us all of these ways that like the show is creating artifice his show the curse the show within the show

the way that these people are creating artifice and creating little shows themselves when they move about the world and in that way like we get back to a concept we've talked about in our other conversation on mark fisher's book capitalist realism fisher talks about interpacivity which is a concept Robert Fowler established. And we don't need to get into the full definition, but it's basically this idea that, you know, you can sort of consume anti-capitalist ideas as a part of your, you know, laundering your guilt

and a version of your activism. And then you can move about the world and nothing has to change. And I bring this up because I think that like these little shows we put on, these performances we have as a part of, you know, playing moral people in an immoral system, that is like small-scale exchanges of interpacivity in our interactions with people every day. And if you think about that, you can then also think about the show, the curse, and the show within the show, also being an examination of these exchanges of interpessivity that we have throughout our experience of living under late

capitalism. I'm getting like very, very heady and like layers upon layers of ideation here. So I don't know if I'm quite making sense. But my main point is that Nathan Fielder, the creator of the show, I think is really brilliant in his examination of all of the different kinds of artifice. that we conjure and the ways that we consume that artifice under capitalism. I do think that that makes a lot of sense, but I do think it might be helpful to bring it down to eye level with a specific example, like a specific scene where we could maybe, you know, weave in this idea of artifice. So this is a scene from episode three. So Asher and Witt are having, you know, what's kind of like, you know, a little bit of a sweet interaction. And like they do

have like, you know, despite what we were talking about, like they do have a connection. And you can see that there's, you know, there's love there. They have like nice moments together. And so in this scene, Witt has got her hair stuck in a zipper on one of her shirts that she's like trying to get the hair out of the zipper and she's having a really hard time. It's stuck in there. And Asher is helping her get it out. And this is just an organic scene. It just happens for them in real life, in their real life. But then very quickly, this interaction, it becomes transformed into content. And so, like, they're having this genuinely fun time and laughing, trying to get the shirt off. And then suddenly Witt says to Asher, this is us, Ash. I wish the network could see it. And this is a reference to the

fact that, like, they're feeling like they haven't been able to, like, show what they feel like they want a show to the network, which is like, you know, a loving couple dynamic. And so they actually proceed to recreate this moment to record it specifically as content for Instagram. And like, they're pretending that they're doing it for real. And they recreate this scene. And it's so fucking painful to watch. Like, it just goes from this like organic interaction that's kind of cute or whatever to the most painful thing that you've ever seen. Okay, so my sweater zipper has been stuck like 10 times it's gotten jammed, right? So Asher's been trying to get me out of it for the past five minutes.

I mean, join us in this insanity. Okay. Just get it off of me, please. Yeah, okay. Oh my God, just pull, pull, pull. Okay. Okay. Okay, go.

Okay. This is going to rip. I don't know. I'm going to destroy it with. Okay. Just destroy it. Okay. Oh, my God. This is so crazy. There you go. I feel like with what you're doing with your arms, it looked like you were like holding

the shirt back. So it looked fake, I think. So they keep trying to like recreate the scene and it's not working and they sort of, you know, they start arguing and then screaming each other. And like not only is the moment ruined, but this nastiness between them begins to surface. Through the kitchen window, you can kind of see us from the outside. We're in the bedroom. No one can see us. No, I know.

If they were going through the trash, they came around the side of the house, they could have seen what we were eating or what we were talking about. You think that every disadvantaged person is just like a wild animal going through our garbage? No, I'm not being. judgmental. They're living in poverty. I think we should not make any assumptions about them. Okay? This looks very, very fake. I'm just gonna, you know what? I'm gonna put my arms straight out.

Here, give me the sweater. I'm gonna put my arms straight out, and then I'm just gonna kind of create some, like, between my cheek and my arm. I think that'll create some resistance. I'm not making assumptions about Ushir and his family, okay? I'd say the exact same thing if they were white. I'm being very realistic about their circumstances and I take offense to the fact that you're

not validating my feelings when I'm talking about this stuff. Oh my god, come on, Ash, don't give me that shit. What does their race have to do with it? Assumptions? You said that. Let's not make any assumptions. You said it just like that. Okay, you made that connection, not me. When you saw that little girl and you thought that she could actually do curses, I could have definitely accused you of something, but I didn't. And I'm not going to now. Do you know why? Because I know your heart's in the right place, okay?

And I give you the benefit of the doubt. But you never do that with me, ever. And it hurts, okay? Okay. Do not put words in my mouth. I was speaking carmically. I was talking about the fact that if something doesn't make sense to... You're doing it!

You had a chance right now to validate me! And you didn't do it! I said the sentence that Lisa told us to, and you're still attacking me! It's a very small world that you're living. This is nasty. What you're doing right now? Wait, this is nasty what you're doing!

You're just nasty! Right now! I said exactly what Lisa told to say! You're breaking it! I said the same. I'm not doing it. It reminds me a throwback to like an episode from a long time ago, actually. It reminds me a conversation that we had with Jenny O'Dell about how so much of our lives are like just performed for others to see this whole phenomena of like, did this even ever happen if it wasn't documented and uploaded on social media?

Like did the experience that you just had like, does it count if it wasn't uploaded and shared as content? and in this like super super cringy scene where Asher and Witt are recreating this moment, it was like one of the first times that I actually really saw Witt and Ash as like deeply human and like real people and like the saddest way. Because there is a deep relatability that anybody who's on social media at least, you know, has to this experience of like the line being blurred between what am I doing authentically and what. what am I doing is a performance for social media? And like that whole thing is just like a grotesquely distilled embodiment of all of us and our relationships to social media in some sense. And increasingly our relationship to life itself.

Like in this scene, it's like a, you know, a comically absurd depiction of it. But there's this kernel of truth there that like really hit me. I think like really hit a nerve for me. And like how a life lived for content creation. is hell and how it sucks the life out of everything. And I don't know if this is connected to what you were talking about with artifice or if there's another sort of like analysis or perspective that you have on this or if there's just anything that you want to add or reflect to about that scene and sort of, you know, the way that it hit me. Yeah. I mean, it absolutely is a really good

example of the way that Nathan plays with different examples of construction and breakdown of artifice living under neoliberal capitalism. And he does this within sort of like his formal experimentation with the show and the kind of like way he structures narrative, which is very nonlinear and also what we see and don't see, but then also with these moments between these characters where we see them struggling with like the construction of artifice and reality the same way that we do and you know in those moments he's tying us inextricably to them which i think is really interesting and you know it is this comically absurd depiction of this constant urge to create content but living under capitalism

is comically absurd like it's you know like it's very real the of the absurdity of it is often what is obfuscated. And Nathan's whole project is to bring the absurdity and the discomfort of beholding that absurdity to the four. That is one of his main modes. And so it feels, you know, maybe aberrant. But I think the statement he's trying to make is how like fundamentally quotidian, an exchange like this is in our current era when so much of our lives exists online and to be

performed and be held and consumed and for clout and clicks and all these things like so much of our experience is protracted into a market of some sort some sort of landscape of transactional exchange, whether that's social media or texting or whatever it may be. The thing that I think Nathan Fielder is really good at is showing us how much of the mechanics of the system are bound up in these seemingly really banal things. And this is a really good example of that. I think the other thing that's excruciating about this, scene is what we also see is that what's important to wit and Asher, but primarily to wit is not their connection, but their connection being performed and perceived.

Right? Like she doesn't actually care about connecting with Asher in that moment. She cares about other people seeing her connect with Asher in that moment. And so the real connection is subverted, deprioritized, for something that has exchange value. Because the former thing, the real connection, does not have exchange value in the way that she's after anyway. And this is a broader statement on sort of like one of the myriad ways that capitalism dehumanizes us, right?

By showing us that Witt is focused on converting their connection into something that can be commodified that can exist for an exchange value, Nathan is showing us that this drive under capitalism is the thing that severs us from from real connection with others and connection with our own humanity. And he does that in many ways throughout the course of the show. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's so interesting as the show progresses the dynamic between Witten Asher, it just becomes more and more dark. And so one part of the show and the show within the show that we haven't really explicitly stated is that it takes them a long time to like figure out how they are going to set up the dynamic of the green queen. And so like Asher and Witt's dynamic in the reality show that they're making. Like it starts off as like they're just, you know, a regular happy couple.

And then Dougie, the producer, wants to shift it to be a show about. about like he thinks the show is too boring and it is it turns into like an infomercial for passive homes in a way and so he wants to spice it up by highlighting some of the uh you know just beneath the surface awkwardness between whit and asher and their dynamic and there's sort of like a turning point in the show like around like episode six or so where a lot of not only within the green queen the reality TV show, but like within the whole narrative between Witt and Asher, we begin to see just like the really, really dark side of both the dynamic, but also of like the role that Witt plays.

So this scene is fucking wild because Dougie is basically saying to Witt, look, the show is done too immaculately. It makes it obvious that you have something to hide. And instead of people realizing what you actually have to hide is the fact that you're fraud and that your parents are slumlords, et cetera, et cetera, give them something else to distract them from that realization, which is that you're trying to hide how much you despise your husband. Look, I know that you have a vision that you want to spread around the world, right? But in order for that to happen, you need people to watch the show.

Because if they don't watch it, then they're not going to see all the good stuff that you're doing. Selling a bullshit version of yourself isn't going to go anywhere. You know you're doing it. I know you're doing it. When you have a show this defensive, that becomes a part of the story. You think you're hiding it, but that becomes the story that people are watching.

A woman was something to hide. And I don't know where that's coming from. I really have no fucking clue with. I don't know if it has anything to do with your parents and what they do, or if it's just... What do you mean? It's something that Asher mentioned you might be sensitive about.

That's all. And look, look, look. I'm sorry, I might be making connections where they don't make sense. Yeah. But I don't give a shit, really. I just want to make a great show. I want to make a great show that people are going to watch. And if we include these moments, you're talking about these moments of frustration between you and Asher,

then people are going to connect with you and they're going to think you're being honest. And if they believe that you're telling them the truth, then they have no reason to think that you're hiding anything. And we can just... Forget about everything else. That's good for you. It's good for your vision. It's good for Mother Earth, right?

But I mean, then Asher would be talking about me too, right? I don't know, maybe, but I really do believe people want to see this relationship through your eyes. You know, you saw the focus group. They're like, well, as you with that guy. They don't want to hear from him. They want to hear from you. I think all we have to do is just encouraging you. is just encourage him to be himself.

And that's it. We don't tell him anything else. Hmm. So her and Dougie here are basically colluding to throw Asher under the bus so that they can make a more interesting and spicy show. So that serves Dougie's purposes. But for wit, it helps distract people from her fraudulent persona.

So basically what I found so interesting about this was how quickly she was willing to throw Asher under the bus and without his consent essentially, like frame him as this terrible character on the show and that like it was so helpful for her to use him as a distraction to displace what she knew deep down was like people's conception of her as being a fraud, of being defensive,

to make it seem like actually that uncomfortable feeling that you see when you watch me perform, me being Witt, it's not because I have X, Y, and Z to hide. It's not because my parents are slum lords, etc., etc., etc., etc. It's actually because I'm going through this heavy shit with Asher. And that's the uncomfortableness that you're experiencing. And actually, let's, like, highlight that and let's make that an explicit part of the story.

And so, like, as we progress through the show, I began to see Witt as, like, really this, like, horrifying character like diabolical self self preserving and malicious and she is the real danger like in the specific condition of where they're at in this specific point of time and what they are trying to accomplish she is the driving force right like she is the one like ashore is terrible he is a terrible person he sucks and Whitney is dangerous because she hides under the mask all the while Asher is doing all of the things that he's doing for her, right? Like he's doing everything because he wants to be with her and she's manipulating him into it. And it doesn't seem like he's out to destroy.

It really just seems like he's out to please his wife in ways that like he thinks are helpful. And Witt is actually in this like diabolical and evil way both incredibly self-aware of what's happening but also not. and it is genuinely terrifying. Like she's used him to absorb all of the darkness that she needs in order to get what she wants. And now she's like in the show preparing to discard him. And then this sort of leads to the ending of the show as well when he is like literally discarded. But I just want to like bounce that off of you and see if you had a similar experience. Yeah, I'm just curious what you think and sort of what your analysis.

was when it comes to like that scene that I just described that also just this like broader dynamic between Asher and and Witt like in the second half of the show. Witt is absolutely the real villain of the show. Like I don't think that Nathan as the creator pulls any punches on that front by the time we get to the end. And the sort of progression of her. her and Dougie colluding in this way and how her aims for the show begin to reveal themselves as something else, I think is really demonstrative of the fact that she is the real villain.

And I think part of the broader statement that Nathan is making about, you know, this concept of being well-meaning and how that can be really weaponized and hide a lot of really insidious deeply inhuman things. And the way that she treats Kara and other indigenous people or people from marginalized populations, ultimately not dissimilar from how she treats her own husband. He's also a means to an end for her. He's also a really important part of her laundering her guilt, of her distancing herself from, you know, the darker parts.

of the system that she benefits from. This like absorbent quality that you're talking about that Asher has where like he can sort of take on all the all the maladies and evils of the system and and embody them openly while she pretends to be something else is really important for her and is a huge part of why she's with him, why she detests him and equally why. she desperately needs him. And, you know, this becomes really clear in a really climactic moment of, I will say, things being exercised when in the ninth episode, Witt insists on Dougie showing Asher the footage

that he eventually cut from the show, because the network didn't fucking want it, of her talking about, you know, how disappointed in Asher she is and how she feels like he doesn't really see her and that she's just this concept of a person and that she's really full of complications and, like, all this stuff that her and Dougie worked on, like, that ended up getting cut. She at a screening of, you know, some of the final dailies insists on Asher seeing all of that. Because what's really important about wit is despite the fact that like she is dependent on all of these, you know, tenuous relationships and, and dependent on these performances, she's deeply unhappy. She's deeply unhappy. And so she does want to excise that in some way.

Like there's a scene when she's visiting Kara and she's trying to get Kara to sign this contract. And she uses the problems between her and Asher as a mechanism to evoke sympathy from Kara so that she'll sign this contract. And so there's this manipulative quality. But what's also really clear is that she also is dying to talk to someone about this. and she doesn't actually have any real friends. So yes, there is this like nefarious element to what she's doing where she is utilizing like her own personal tragedies, finger quotes as a form of manipulation to get Kara to do this thing that she wants her to do.

But what's great about Emma Stone's performance in that scene and in so many others is she's also revealing to us that Witt as a person can't deny certain aspects of her lived experience. and of like her humanity. Like she she isn't happy. And she also like doesn't really understand why. And so she's searching for answers and wants to talk to someone about it because like, guess what? Despite what capitalism tells us, we need other people.

We need community. We need to share. We aren't perfect islands of, you know, capital generation. We are like messy. complicated, filled with pain, joy, all of these things. And those things only matter because we can share them with others and because we have shared experiences or at the very least can connect with someone else when we need support. And even someone like Whitney, who for all intents and purposes on paper is finger quotes perfect and has a perfect life and is, you know, air quotes happy,

like that is just all on paper. And what I think is really important about Witt's character is Nathan is arguing a lot of things in this show or at least presenting us with a lot of things to consider. And one of the things that I think he's presenting us with is like when you are so focused on the performance of morality, when you are so focused on trying to be. be a certain person, but not actually ever, like, addressing the material realities of being that person and, like, what that means for how you relate to, or in which case, how you don't relate to, other people around you, that that reality of living under late capitalism is, like,

deeply corrosive and has fallout, which we see at the end of the show. Like we see it throughout the course of the show, but, you know, there are consequences to living this way and there are consequences that you as the person living this way experience, but oftentimes there are consequences that get enacted on others, which is, you know, what I think the end of the show is also a. about. And, you know, that's a long-winded way of me saying that Witt as the villain, I think, is central to understanding a lot of the main feces of the show. But importantly, something that Nathan is really good at is showing us everyone's humanity, even people who are villainous.

And so let's talk about that last chapter of the show. I know that you just finished it recently, and we haven't actually, you texted me just like an exclamatory text, but I don't actually, we haven't talked about that last scene or that last chapter and what that meant for you and your takeaways from it. I really love that they bring back the supernatural aura, like really, really explicitly in that final chapter. and they really say a lot about, you know, what I think, at least it from my analysis, the relationship with Asher and wit in how the show ends. And so, yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And, you know, as you share with us, if you could just maybe like tell us a little bit, and it's enough that we need to know about what like happens in that final chapter. But most importantly, I'm very interested to know what you thought about it. Yeah. So the last episode

culminates in this looming supernatural element really coming into full relief. And, you know, a word I'm using a lot when we've been talking about the show is literalizing. And the supernatural is literalized in this last episode explicitly to the point where it's no longer deniable. We've had throughout the course of the show this fear of a potential curse and moments of tension where we're sort of questioning is what's happening the curse and then some of that tension is dissolved because it's shown to be something else and then there are things left unresolved and then there are moments where the curses evoked again like Dougie curses. Asher at one point. Like there's a, there's a lot of, you know, sort of coming back to this, this element of

the supernatural. And in the last episode about partway through, we open on Witt asleep in her bed. And we, I should say, Nathan pans up upward toward the ceiling. of the room that we're in and we see Asher on the ceiling. His back is on the ceiling. And it's an example of like something that we haven't talked a lot about, but that I want to make a note of, which is that Nathan Fielder is like so good at creating just like really arresting and impactful imagery. and sometimes it's through, you know, really incredible practical effects. Like I was watching this and I was like, I don't know how they shot this.

And sometimes it's through, you know, focusing in on an aspect of something seemingly really banal. But his angle or the insistence of his perspective makes the thing really compelling. He's just really, really good at this. and this climax of Asher being on the ceiling and then the ensuing climax that happens after it is really demonstrative of Nathan's capacity as an artist and as a filmmaker, which is what he is. You know, it's television, but he's making really incredible, incredible film, images on film. So we pan up, we see Asher on the ceiling.

and what is quickly asserted by the two of them is that there must be something going on with the pressure in the house because importantly they have pressurized the baby's room. So Witt's pregnant. We've fast forwarded a little bit and done a little bit of a time jump. Witt is pregnant and they have a baby's room in their house, which is a passive home. the whole thing about the passive home is that like it's this self-contained ecosystem as you said and you know you don't need air conditioning all their bullshit and they are not wanting to risk relying on any of that any of the technology that they're selling to other people in their own homes with their

baby because they don't want the baby to fry in their bedroom and they don't want the baby to like have some weird like you know fucked up ear drum thing because of the the pressure situation in the in the house. So they've pressurized the baby's room. And so they think that what's happening is like there's some air pocket. So again, there's this tension between like the empirical and the practical and the potential for the supernatural. And you kind of aren't sure what's happening at first. And you think like, okay, maybe he's going to come down, whatever. Another really important thing about this extended sequence of Asher being on the ceiling and being pushed. up or rather pulled up by something is that we have expectations as an audience as to how it's going to

end based on other narratives similar to it we may have consumed or other narratives in serialized television often which aren't horror narratives and have resolution this is something Nathan plays with a lot, our desire for resolution and the ways that media has trained us to expect resolution. And so, like, we're watching this. And we have ideas about moments when this potential irresolution will resolve. And Nathan constantly pushes past those moments. And this is a thing he plays with throughout the show where he's, like, always, you know,

showing us like he's holding in on someone's face a little bit longer than what we would expect or showing us the like conversation behind the conversation because he is not just playing with artifice he's also playing with our relationship with media and the expectations that we have with media as good consumers and this sequence is compelling because of all of the ways he pushes past our expectations and pushes past our desire for resolution. And it culminates in Asher floating up into space, basically, after, you know, the fire brigade comes and, like, tries to get him down, but they don't believe that he's going to float up. So they're, like, treating him like a crazy person.

I think there are lots of, like, conversations about the sort of, like, landscape of care or not that we have within, capitalism. Yeah, that was a deeply impactful thing for me as someone who's like had experiences in like healthcare situations or in hospitals where you cease to be a human and you're sort of like treated as a bag of meat and you know, like your consent flies out the window and all of a sudden it's just like this this really stark reality. But anyways, that's a bit of an aside. But it's not. That part particularly where the, uh, firefighter was lying to him about how they were going to use a net, but they were not. Like, that really fucking hit me.

He's legitimately terrified. Asher is legitimately scared. And he's looking to this person who's supposed to be there to help him and besieging him to believe him. And, you know, he won't. You need to attach it to the truck. Relax. I'm going to go down. I'm going to talk to my partner.

We do this all the time. Okay, she's gonna come up with the right tools, square you away. Okay, 100% okay? I'll be right back. Okay, and she's gonna be the one to do it? She's gonna do it. She's a trained professional, trust me. She's been, she's done this with bears?

Tons of bears, trust me. You need to attach it to the truck. We got it, we got it, trust me. They say my first rodeo, we'll get you spread away. What are you gonna use? A carabiner or something? We got all the right tools, things you've never even heard of. Don't worry, you hang in there.

We'll get you down, okay? And it's not the guy's fault. Like he's doing his job and he's, his experiences have told him that like, this is a different thing than what Asher is telling him it is. The thing being that Asher is going to, if he lets go of this tree branch, he's going to float up. Yes. But they are expecting him to fall down and they think that he's just like having some kind of psychotic break and that they don't need to as Asher is beseeching them to put a net around. him so that they can pull him down sort of like you know just imagine the world upside down you know like pulling him down with the net as gravity not gravity I guess but like as this force is pulling him up they

would pull him down with the net that's what Asher is begging them to do and they lie to him right and they they say that yeah yeah sure we'll use the net but then they just saw off the branch my name's Jody I'm a firefighter I'm here to help you okay that has to go over my backboard it has to be fully in covering you have to do is he just left it on me mean, but you need to cover me. We just need you to hold real still, okay? Take some nice big breaths. Wait,

you need to change someone. I'm going to get you down now, okay? Wait. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand, you have to. Ducky, Ducky, you have to tell them to stop. Ducky, please, please, I'm begging you. And he's, like, he's like, he's, he's.

I mean, it's like blood-curdling scream as they're sawing the branch off because he knows what's going to happen. I think your point about like systems of care and sort of the way that we're treated is a really important one. This is all split-screened with Witt delivering her baby. So we have these two pictures of like systems of care that exist in our world under capitalism. And Witt also has like a really interesting experience. Like they tell her pretty immediately she needs to have a C-section.

There's not a whole lot of conversation about consent there. There are lots of like medically important reasons to have a C-section. There's also a lot of research about C-sections having higher numbers, particularly in the West, so that doctors can deliver more babies and so they can make more money. And people having shorter stays after. delivering a baby in this way than they maybe need so that they can get more people in the beds, get more money. It's all about capital generation. I won't get into that. Isn't there that there's like research that shows that C-sections are more frequent on like Friday evenings or something

because doctors and the staff want to leave? So they're just like rushing through it. Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. And just to quickly, just to get a little bit of context. So as Asher is in this floating situation, in the house, which begins to go into labor. And so she has to leave. And that's why she's at the hospital. Yeah. So that's why she's at the hospital.

And then he's still at the house. And then he floats up into the tree. And that's how the show ends. It's like they cut the tree branch and he floats in space. And it is like, I mean, I audibly gasped. Even though like for all intents and purposes, like, you kind of know this is coming. But again, Nathan is really playing with our desire for resolution and our desire for things to resolve well. And so, like, there were plenty of moments over the course of this extended sequence when I was like, no, they are going to pull him down.

Or, like, it's going to evaporate all of a sudden and he's going to fall. Like, I kept, like, coming back to, like, wanting to find ways for this to resolve in a way that. that wasn't as dark as the way that it resolves, even though I knew, and Nathan was giving us all of the signals, that it was going to resolve the dark way. And he's just, I mean, if we get into now, like, how I feel about the ending, there's the visceral experience of watching the ending, and it is visceral. And I think watching things that make us feel things is really important. That's something I talk about a lot.

And this absolutely did that. But what it also made me think about, the more I sort of processed the ending was just how brilliant Nathan is at playing with our relationship to not just artifice, but also just like the desires that we have for seamless experiences. And, you know, I think this entire show is really about, like, bringing all of the seams to the forefront and bringing the things that are, like, dark and potentially, like, don't make sense confronting us with those things. And the show ending the way that it does with Asher floating into space, it's like, we're forced to ponder, like, was there a curse? Our curse is real. Is this something else? Like, regardless of all of that, it's showing us something that we cannot explain with the language, speaking of language, of the system. And that is important. Okay. So first of all, I want to say that everything that you just said, like, resonates deeply. And I also think that, like, the way that I see the ending in addition to that is that there is actually.

It does make sense. Like it is in a sense of conclusion, even though the way that it happens is so confusing and bewildering and like you can't explain it like, as you said, with the language that we're using here. But there is, I think it was the previous episode or the episode that you alluded to where they show that cut to Asher, Dougie and Witt, show this cut that they had ended up cutting from the show where they're basically shitting all over Asher. and she's basically questioning, like, if she wants to be with him anymore.

And she explicitly wants Dougie to show that to him and they watch it. And as they're watching it, obviously Nathan is like going through it, right? Because he's watching a cut scene where his partner is telling the world, was planning to tell the world and is now telling him indirectly through this scene that she doesn't want to be with him. after the scene ends, he has to get up, he leaves the room, and he's out of the room, and it feels like he's about to not come back, right? We're just sitting there waiting.

And then all of a sudden he appears. He comes back in the room. His face has shifted from one of like despondency to one of like encouragement, I guess, motivation. He's energized. Yeah, he's energized. And he comes in and he says to Witt, he says, I am all in on you. I'm all in on Whitney. Whatever it takes, I'll do it.

You won't even have to tell me anymore because I know. Everything you said, I was feeling, okay? It all makes sense now. I thought it was some stupid fucking curse. But it was me. I know you. We shouldn't have sold to Mark Rose, but I still did it like a fucking idiot. I don't need my cell phone.

I know I used to think too much. Hey, hey, let's come down. No, no. Listen to me. I've let my personal shortcomings get in the way of truly making all the sacrifices, making every sacrifice that I need to. I haven't... I didn't give the $100 to Nala that night, okay?

I lied. I lied. I'm a liar. I'm a terrible person. Don't you see? there's not some curse I am the problem it's not magic

it's me okay I'm a bad person and I've been dragging you down with me okay you still want to be with me after all of that more than ever oh my God

you don't understand you haven't seen it yet but I'm a different man I've changed okay I feel it we haven't talked about it because there hasn't been a good moment, but I'm all in on you, okay? I'm all in on Whitney. Whatever it takes, I'll do it.

And you won't even have to tell me anymore because I know. And I won't be guessing, because I know you, baby. And if you didn't want to be with me, and I actually truly felt that, I'd be gone. You wouldn't have to say it. I would feel it, and I would disappear. Okay? Rich or poor, I don't give a shit. Okay?

I love you, baby, and I believe it. you and we, I will make this work. Okay? I love you, baby. Remember, it's like we always used to say, we're so good on paper, okay? Let it out. Good, good, good, baby. Paper covers rock.

Don't hide your strength. The world. And this is so sad because he's acknowledging implicitly here that everything that he does and that he has done is for her. And like he's admitting here to being a bad person, but what he doesn't say explicitly is that he did these bad things for her. And she never explicitly asked him to, but she manipulated him into it. And he had to do the dirty work in order to keep her dress-up fantasy going. And but he still did have, you know, some sliver of agency, right? Some sliver of autonomy still left. He was doing things behind her back. He was kind of

like there wasn't a complete absorption into her, but now he's saying even that's gone. Like, I'm a worm, right? Like, I'm going to be such a good worm. I'm an appendage of yours at this point. And so we're seeing the two sides of the coin really come together in this way where they're like, okay, we're now in complete synchronicity. And then there's this really important scene or line rather in that scene where he says, and if you don't want to be with me

and I actually truly felt that, I'd be gone. You wouldn't have to say it. I would feel it and I would disappear. So fast forward to the final chapter. That's what happens, right? She no longer needs him. The show gets picked up.

I think they got a, they had a successful season and it's getting picked up for a second season or something like that. It's about to become like, you know, a regular TV show. She's pregnant. She has a child.

Everything in her life has kind of fallen into place. She doesn't need him anymore. Like he, the dirty work that he did, buying up the homes at auctions and like doing all of that stuff, right, that needed to be done in order to get the whole thing moving, the whole machine going has been done. He played his role. And it's not explicit that he sensed it. it or whatever, but like his role is done. And on some level he knows that, on some level the

universe has, has acknowledged that. And so he floats away. So that's kind of my, my take. I don't know what you think of that. God, that's, I mean, that's so good. I didn't even think about that line that he said to her at the end of the previous episode where he says, like, you won't even need to say anything. Like, I'll just know, I'll disappear. I didn't catch that the first time I watched the show. It was only in the second. time around where I was anticipating that final scene coming up that I like heard that line so loudly, you know, like I wouldn't have picked it up the first time around. It's also like, yeah, what you're saying also makes me realize that their like symbiosis

finds its full relief at this climax when. Asher fully has given himself to wit. And I love the way you put it where he's, you know, no longer really even has his own personhood. He's just an appendage that, you know, he's done that. He's declared that. And we, you know, fast forward into several months, year, potentially, whatever it may be, of him, you know, continuing to work on their, the project of.

of wit and Asher as a couple, as a revenue generator. That's why they're together, right? We didn't talk about it much and I'm not going to because I always talk about sex and, you know, I'm not a one-trick pony, but it's on my mind a lot. But I do think their lack of sexual chemistry, which the show, you know, makes no bones about, is really important because it emphasizes how little value is placed on the experiences of their bodies and, you know, the ways that are sort of like psychological and emotional landscapes are tied to our experiences of our body.

And that this is something that capitalism with all of its mediation, commodification, all of these performances, these layers of artifice that we've been talking about, and every last aspect of our lived experiences being mined for something, that we're severed from those desires. from the connections to our body and not only our body's desires, but how intrinsically linked our bodies and emotions are. And so their connection, as we talked about with that, like, Instagram scene is not about their real connection. It's about what they can get out of it. It's about how they can use it to generate capital, to generate clout, social capital,

whatever it may be. And this really finds its full relief in the fact that ultimately he's not even needed as a part of the couple existing anymore. Like he has served his purpose, which really just illuminates for me what we've been saying about their relationship, which is that like they need each other in all of these ways, but none of those ways have to do with the two of them actually genuinely. connecting on a human level, demonstrated by the fact that, like, he simply flows into space after she has a baby.

Yeah. I would say, like, if we're going to use the analogy of the system of capitalism or liberalism, like the system needs them both at different times, right? And at different times, the system needs one to be the dominant and the other one to be the secondary part of that dialectic relationship. I don't want to get too deep into that because I don't know exactly how to make sense of... There are parts of that where it kind of falls apart a little bit

if you take it too far. So I'm just going to stop there while I still sound smart. Yes. But hopefully still sound smart. But yes, I do think there is something really interesting there with like, yeah, the way that... I still need to make sense of the way that he disappears into her and then disappears because like capitalism still needs the Asher, right?

Like I have this line that I thought was really profound in our notes when I wrote it, but now I'm reading it and I'm like, that's kind of dumb. But I think it's a little relevant here. Capitalism needs a mask and the mask needs cash. Yes. You know, Asher being the cash generator, like you said. But then again, we have, we have Witt whose parents are also, the real generators of the cash, right?

Like Asher is the manager of the cash. Right. It's like, you know, we could really get into those details. And I think that the point that we've made so far is enough and that it sort of makes sense. And it's interesting to bring in sort of like thinking about their relationship as a, you know, a symbol of capitalism. But that only goes so far. And I do also want to note that like my two and a half, almost three year old nephew is in the background. So if you can hear that, that's what that is.

And, you know, this is a Patreon episode. So that's the kind of behind the scenes that you get as a Patreon subscriber. It's beautiful stuff. Yeah. I want to pause on something you said, though, that I think is important. I do actually think Asher disappearing is not disruptive to the argument you're making about capitalism needing him because what we know is that there will be another Asher, right? Like the system makes Asher's all the time.

So his specificity as a distinct human is not what the system cares about. He, as Asher, can float into space because another person like him will come along. And I think that's like also like something that like wit on some level feels. Like that it was never about Asher, the person. It was about the role he could play for her. Yes. which is what we've been talking about throughout the whole course of this episode. And so again, I actually think it's a really dark and beautiful manifestation of how dehumanizing,

depersoning capitalism is, the way that it strips us of all of our uniqueness, or rather does not imbue the things that make us unique with value and only cares about those things insofar as, you know, can they be mined for some sort of capital, like we've been saying. So like Asher disappearing, I think is actually really supportive of that. No, yeah, that's awesome. I love that. And it not only saves the analogy for me, but it also, so like, wit is the ideology, right? Like, she is the ideology of liberalism, which makes this whole thing happen. And Asher is sort of like, you may want to think of him as like the bureaucratic management layer, like the role played by the state, for example, but the state can take many

different forms. It can be a liberal sort of like bourgeois democracy, but capitalism could also easily exist under fascism and it still has. It could exist. Capitalism still exists under the, like the Scandinavian sort of Northern Europe social democracies, like. There's a spectrum of bureaucratic management that it could exist under, but the common element, the one that doesn't disappear is the ideology of liberalism. And so, yeah, no, I really appreciate you bringing that into it because actually does really make a lot of, makes a whole lot of sense to think about it in that way in terms of Asher disappearing because like you said, there will be another Asher. All right. So the last thing that I want to sort of talk to you about is, I think, a good way to sort of close out our conversation and bring it sort of, you know, we've been going back up and down from like, you know, higher levels to more like I level conversations. And I think this is a really cool way of sort of, I guess, talking about the curse, like more analytically in terms of what it does as a piece of media, as a piece of media, as a piece of. piece of art. Not that we haven't talking, we haven't been talking about what it does, but just to go a little bit deeper into that. So can you talk about the show as an example of, you know, a concept that

you've introduced me to, consciousness raising, and that's a R-A-Z-I-N-G. And then, yeah, and as you're doing that, you know, if there's anything that you want to sort of say as like, you know, final thoughts or reflections or whatever as we close out. Yeah. One of the things that we talked about in our other conversation about capitalist realism and something that Fisher focused a lot of his work on is the power of popular culture and media within that popular culture to be potentially radical. And I think that there are lots of examples that counter some of those arguments. And then I think there are lots of examples that that support that. I happen to think that there are elements of culture that can definitely be instrumental to a revolutionary project. And one of Fisher's students, Matt Culcun, wrote a book called Egress on Morning Melancholy and Mark Fisher in the wake of Fisher's suicide.

And he wrote this book to sort of ponder the ways that mourning, melancholy, death, the supernatural, the uncanny, all sort of have a place within capitalism and ultimately within capitalism's own destruction. And it's a really fascinating book, and I highly recommend it. But the thing that I was thinking about that Kalkun talks about in this book that the cursory, really evoked for me is this concept of consciousness raising, R-A-Z-I-N-G, or consciousness-destroying, and then consciousness-raising, like lifting up emergence of consciousness, R-A-I-S-I-N-G. and Colcoun talks about Westworld, the show Westworld, as containing an example of what this raising looks like. And he talks about Dolores, who's one of the robots in the show.

We don't need to get into it. But there are elements of her programming that, you know, the sort of owners of this thing that she's a part of have programmed her with. And when she starts to break through that programming, a new consciousness for her, one that is revolutionary that allows her to eventually fight for her freedom is raised. And so he talks about this concept of consciousness raising and raising in the context of Westworld. And I think it's fascinating. But he specifically has a line where he talks about the consciousness that capitalism programs into us.

and he says, he calls it the cognitive entrapment of unquestioning passivity that's made possible by the processes of dream work inherent in capitalist realism. And what he's talking about there is the consciousness that capitalism programs us with is one that does not question reality that allows us to sort of fantasize, but never truly question what we're seeing, at least not materially. And what I think is important in the conversation of the curse is that Nathan is confronting us with the fissures of capitalism's, air quotes, realities, constantly in this show. And he's also, he's doing so not just within the narrative framework of the show, but also within like our experience with the show. Like he's, you know, constantly

subverting our expectations that we may have when we're watching serialized television. He's referencing things in our lives that are material to our understanding what's happening in the show. And then in doing so, like inserting us into the show itself, like he's just playing with all of these things and he's bringing this discomfort that we've been talking about. He's situating us in it firmly and he is showing us the seams of all of this. And in doing so, he is destroying to a certain extent the programming, the consciousness that capitalism has embedded within us that has taught us not to question any of these things, has taught us to obfuscate the way that Witt does. He is bringing all of the things that we seek

to obfuscate, that we have been trained to obfuscate. He's bringing all of those things to the surface, and he is forcing us to confront them. And in doing so, I would argue that he is raising R-A-Z-I-N-G capitalism's consciousness, or what Fisher would call capitalist realism. And then what he's doing is he's doing the raising R-A-I-S-I-N-G portion as well by creating new relationships between us and the media we're consuming. He's often forcing us to push past moments of expectation, push past moments of a resolution. forcing us to think about what's real and what isn't and where we are situated within what's real and what isn't. He's forcing us to think about our own performances. And the show, the curse, is a tool for that. That's a long-winded way of saying that I think the curse

is a tool for this consciousness raising slash raising, that it is ultimately something that can be viewed as radical in the sense that he's working a lot to disrupt the programming that capitalism has instilled in us and then creating new pathways and new experiences and also forcing us to ponder things that we might seek to run away from, which is, I think, another really brilliant thing about the show. You know, we oftentimes, especially these days, use entertainment as a form of escape.

And on the surface, he's kind of pitching us that that's what this is. Oh, it's like a fake reality show, like the office maybe or whatever. But then what he's really doing is giving us this, I would argue it's a piece of art. I don't even think it's really television. He's giving us this piece of art that is really, really vehemently situating us in the discomfort that we are maybe there to avoid and still making compelling entertainment along the way, which I think is an incredible feat. Wow. That's a really, really incredible analysis and connection. And I just want to say as we close out, anybody listening to this who really also appreciated that, this is Carly every episode of Hit Factory. Like you are incredibly deep and like wonderful in the way that you're able to like make these connections between these texts and these like really what might feel. like abstract ideas and bringing them down and connecting them to media and as you say like art and making them much more like digestible and understandable with clarity. And I also just want to say

to as sort of my final piece is like, you know, when I first, when we first hopped on and what might have sounded like a joke about, you know, me being caffeinated and me feeling cursed and having cursed my laptop and having cursed the studio. Like, it may have seemed like a joke that just kind of fell flat, but it was always intended as the curse as a form of consciousness raising. That's what I meant. You were like 97 steps ahead of me the whole time. Yeah, exactly.

Talking about supernatural, I actually went back in time and listened to this and then, like, did the intro. So major. Carly, it's been really, really awesome to have this conversation with you. I've told you this separately, but like I wouldn't have wanted to have this conversation with anybody else. And you have like made me think about this show that I already felt like I was thinking about in certain profound ways. Like you made me think about it from all of these different angles and perspectives that I would have never, never been able to think about if it wasn't for your deep thought

in analysis. And so as we close out, I just want to make sure everybody follows Hit Factory. I want to make sure everybody subscribes to you guys on Patreon as well and supports your very, very important work. I want to thank you so much for taking over three hours now of your time, not even including the preparation and watching the show to do this with us. And also for letting you read your incredible piece, a couple of Patreon episodes back. So you're really contributing a lot to this show and I just want to really thank you very much and I want to make sure that people show you some love and follow your show and definitely support you if they can. So thank you again so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. I promise that this will not just be a 10-minute

circle jerk, but, you know, the feeling is completely mutual. I've often said this to you that you make me like think about things in ways that I wouldn't have. And so while you are appreciative of the things that I'm bringing to this conversation. There is stuff about this show that I would have never come to had we not, you know, been frantically texting about it or sharing each other's thoughts about it. And I also think that's a really important message of like the work that both of us do, which is that like we need other people. Other people are a really important part of how we fight against a system that is seeking to alienate us from others. And that I think is demonstrative in us having conversations about art.

It's demonstrative in us sharing jokes, whatever it may be, but you do need other people. And you can't like evolve as a person, as a revolutionary, as an activist, whatever you may be without other human beings. So that's my, that's my little schmaltzy plug. And, you know, it's one of the reasons I listen to upstream. Thank you. And like, yeah, I feel like I completely agree with all of that. And one of the most important things that I learned from you from your last piece that I did a reading on was the term cum gutters, which I had never heard before. That's the kind of stuff I bring to the table, man.

No, I'm obviously just being stupid here. I definitely, the feeling is definitely mutual. And I'll just close out by saying, I assume he is, he is listening to this. Nathan, if you disagree with any of this or you want to continue the conversation, there's an open invitation for you on upstream or I'm just going to presume here on Hit Factory as well. Yes. So please get in touch with us if you want to contribute any more to this conversation or if you disagree with anything that we said. otherwise this isn't normally how we end our episodes normally I fade out with the music or fade in the music with our guest's voice so I don't know if there's anything that you want to just like anything you want to say I know it's putting you on the spot or we could just end it with me

talking it's totally up to you now let's end it with you talking I've talked enough and it will end up ending with you saying great you've been listening to an upstream Patreon episode with Carly from the podcast Hit Factory. Please check the show notes for links to all of the resources mentioned in this episode. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this and allows us to provide most of our content for free so we can continue to offer political education media to the public, and help to build our movement.

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