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The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Chelsea Handler Checks Her Privilege. (And spars a little with Meghan.)

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7855 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2021

⏱️ 79 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Meghan met actor/author/comedian Chelsea Handler several years ago when they attempted to develop Meghan's 2014 book, The Unspeakable (no direct connection to this podcast) into a television series. In fine Hollywood tradition, the project failed to launch, but the two remained friendly and Chelsea agreed to come on Meghan's podcast to talk about her own podcast, Dear Chelsea, which offers advice to lovelorn or otherwise tormented or confused listeners. Chelsea talked about the advice she's both given and received (and often ignored) over the years, her foray into psychotherapy, her interrogation of her own privilege, and the effect of Trumpism on her political consciousness and mental health. Along the way, she argued a bit with Meghan about progressive activism and challenged Meghan's assertion that seeing everything through the lens of race is itself a form of racism. Chelsea also discussed her views on parthogenesis, a form of natural asexual reproduction that's seen in certain reptiles and that might have surprising benefits in humans. Guest Bio: Chelsea Handler is a comedian, television host, and bestselling author. For seven years, she was the host of E!'s top-rated late night show Chelsea Lately and the only female late night talk show host on the air. She then launched a documentary series, Chelsea Does, followed by her talk show Chelsea on Netflix in 2016. Five of her six bestselling books have reached number one on the New York Times Bestseller list, including 2019's Life Will Be The Death of Me. Most recently, she released her first stand-up special in over six years, the critically acclaimed Chelsea Handler: Evolution on HBO Max, and launched her iHeart Radio advice-based podcast, Dear Chelsea. She is currently on tour with a new standup show, Vaccinated and Horny.

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's all about being a white man in this whole world.

0:07.0

That's what it's been about.

0:08.0

And now that we're changing the narrative, people are not into it.

0:12.0

Because people who are your age or my age or older are like, wait, well, what?

0:17.0

We have to come up.

0:18.0

What's the pro?

0:19.0

What's up with the pronouns?

0:20.0

What now can you be a furry animal? Can you be

0:22.4

identified as a furry animal? Everyone's so defensive about progress and change. It's not our

0:29.3

job to obstruct change. It's our job to embrace it. To say, oh, there's a new way of thinking.

0:35.8

Oh, these are different kinds of people.

0:37.9

And just because I didn't grow up experiencing this firsthand makes it even more important

0:43.6

for me to learn and do everything I can to have tolerance and acceptance for something

0:47.8

I know very little about.

0:52.2

Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.

1:12.0

I'm your host, Megan Down. My guest is author and comedian Chelsea Handler. You almost certainly know who she is. She was for seven years, the host of the late night comedy talk show Chelsea Lately on the E-Network. Her books, which include Are You There Vodka, It's Me, Chelsea,

1:18.2

and My Horizontal Life are bestsellers, and she's had numerous comedy specials and documentary series on streaming networks. So this is an interesting episode. Chelsea is arguably,

1:25.7

maybe inarguably, the most famous guest I've had on the podcast so far,

1:30.5

at least the most famous in the traditional media sense as opposed to the podcasting celebrity sense,

1:36.2

though she does now have her own podcast, of course.

1:39.6

She is an unusual kind of guest for this show and probably someone I would not have had on if we

1:45.9

didn't happen to know one another personally. We met several years ago in the context of trying

...

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