7: Bret Easton Ellis - The Dark Laureate of Generation X
The Portal
Kast Media
4.7 • 7.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2019
⏱️ 115 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eric sits down with Bret Easton Ellis; the two Gen X’ers graduated from rival high schools in a disaffected 1982 Los Angeles that inspired Ellis’ first novel “Less Than Zero”. In this conversation, they reflect on LA, Generation X, and the different notions of childhood held by Gen x and Millennials.
Sponsors:
Phlur: phlur.com/portal for 20% off
Boll and Branch: BollandBranch.com $50 off with promo code: PORTAL No risk, 30 day trial period with free shipping
Four Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PORTAL and use discount code PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all orders
Skillshare: Skillshare.com/PORTAL for 2 months of Skillshare free
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, you found the portal. I'm your host Eric Weinstein, and today we're here with a fabulous |
| 0:15.6 | author who many of you will know, Brett Easton Ellis, famous from less than zero in American |
| 0:19.9 | Psycho, and now the book White. Welcome. Thank you for having me, Eric. So I don't know exactly |
| 0:26.8 | how to approach this, but one of the, one of the frames that I have is that we're sitting here |
| 0:33.2 | in a very unusual city that many people don't understand how important it is and what makes it so |
| 0:39.1 | unusual. And one way I might frame that is that because Los Angeles is the home of the entertainment |
| 0:45.0 | industry, there's a weird way in which this is the only city in the world in which I could make the |
| 0:49.3 | argument that everyone somehow partially lives here whether they know it or not. They've consumed |
| 0:55.1 | the street scenes, which are used as backdrops for movies and TV, and they have an idea of what |
| 1:00.2 | the ethos of the place is, which sort of seeps into the screenwriters, mindsets, no matter who |
| 1:06.5 | they are. And in any way that LA is different, it does broadcast itself to the world. Does that |
| 1:11.6 | resonate with you and can you add anything? Well, I think it may be resonated that way for me, |
| 1:19.7 | maybe 10 or 15 years ago, a lot more. I think the entertainment industry is not centralized |
| 1:28.3 | just to Los Angeles anymore, or at least that's the way we look at entertainment. It seems to be |
| 1:35.1 | this kind of global thing and not wholly concentrated in Los Angeles where it used to be. |
| 1:42.1 | Though now you might have to say that it is because Disney is the entertainment business. |
| 1:50.3 | Disney now owns everything. That's the conglomerate that is going to produce an |
| 1:54.3 | northern amount of content for the rest of the world. So maybe it actually has come back here and |
| 2:01.0 | is centered here. But it's strange. The entertainment business or the notion of the entertainment |
| 2:09.7 | business is now this global thing, whether it's China, whether it's India, has a massive, |
| 2:16.9 | has the biggest entertainment complex in the world, the highest-grossing movies. I mean, the biggest, |
| 2:23.9 | but that's a different consumer base for Bollywood. It's very different. So if you're in Indonesia, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kast Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Kast Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.