An Incredibly Well-Timed Ben Affleck Episode

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jennifer Romolini is one of my favorite thinkers about ambition, and workism, and the stories we tell ourselves about what we must endure in order to find a modicum of security and pride — and she also happens to be a true scholar of all things Ben Affleck. Months ago, I asked her to come on the podcast to talk about the intersection of Affleck and ambition, but we held the episode for a bit to give it some distance from the (also excellent!!) J.Lo episode. But we’d had it scheduled for today for several weeks — and I’m writing this intro just hours after the news broke that Lopez had filed for divorce.The good news is that everything Jenn and I talk about re: Affleck’s star image, ambition, striving, his relationship to stardom just generally — all of that still holds true. Just ignore the part when I say that I don’t think they’re going to get divorced. And I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.Show Notes:Follow Jenn on Instagram (lots of good Ben content!)Buy Ambition Monster! It’s so fucking good!Subscribe to Jenn’s great newsletter:My BuzzFeed piece The Unbearable Sadness of Ben AffleckObsessed with this photo of Affleck and Paltrow from the Armageddon premiereAffleck being horrible in Chasing AmyTHE BACK TATTOOWe’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Why is Paul Mescal so hotSydney Sweeney (and Gen-Z Stardom)Learning to craft / make things / hobby-around-the-houseFor our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCEArtificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)Contemporary ideas of self-careBuy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand marketAnything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segmentYou can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)For today’s discussion: WHAT’S NEXT? Where does Affleck go from here? Were you invested in this relationship…and how does it feel to de-invest?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Anne. As you know, we fund the show almost entirely with listener subscriptions,
0:06.6	but I know not everyone has the room for that in their budget, or maybe you're feeling some
0:10.8	subscription fatigue. But if you love the show, there are a couple of things you can do to support
0:15.3	us without spending anymore. First, you can share it with a friend. You can post it on your
0:19.9	Instagram story. You can email it to your mom. The other thing you can share it with a friend. You can post it on your Instagram story.
0:22.4	You can email it to your mom.
0:26.1	The other thing you can do is rate and review us in your podcast app.
0:30.5	I don't think people really realize this, but those reviews go straight to Melody's inbox.
0:34.2	And we'd love to see some reviews that don't say, I'm a miserable professor,
0:38.2	or a pretentious asshole who is just using this podcast who talk to all of my friends. Basically, if you love this show, say so. Word of mouth helps us so much. Okay, thanks for
0:45.4	listening and on with the show. This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
0:55.8	And I am author and podcaster and Ben Affleck superfan Jennifer Romalini.
1:02.3	Okay, so the reason I asked you to be my co-host, like there was no one else in my mind, truly no one else, because you are at Ben Affleck officiantado. And I mean that in terms of
1:13.9	like, I just feel like you appreciate him and appreciate the multifacetedness of his like sadness.
1:22.0	You post stuff of him, you know, doing the typical, like we've seen all these images of him like
1:26.2	just sucking on a cigarette.
1:28.4	Stuffing McDonald's in his mouth in his car with, like, a face of ecstasy. Yes.
1:34.1	Yes. I'm a scholar. You're not, like, shaming him. You like it. Here's the thing. First
1:39.4	off, I'm a Ben Affleck scholar. I'm not really a fan. I'm a scholar. Yeah. And like I think that everybody,
1:45.7	I don't know if everybody has this, but a lot of people have a celebrity that you feel,
1:50.5	you just understand. Like if you were in a room with them, you could actually have a conversation
1:55.9	with them because they're very knowable to you. They reflect something back at you that is very personal
	...

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