Malcolm Gladwell: Do Fairytales Make Adulthood Harder?

What Now? with Trevor Noah

SiriusXM & Day Zero Productions

News, Comedy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2026

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell joins Trevor and Eugene for a conversation that starts with big social theory and then delves into whether Disney movies have been quietly gaslighting our childhoods. From the idea that your parents are basically just middle managers for your grandparents’ personalities to the invisible shortcuts and assumptions that shape how we see the world, Gladwell does what he does best, spotting hidden patterns in the ordinary. And Trevor does what he does best, poking holes, grounding theory in real life, and refusing to let a big idea off the hook too easily. Part pop culture autopsy and part intellectual rabbit hole, this episode makes us overthink the things we love and love the things we overthink.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This should be a business for the three of us.
0:05.0	I think you, all of us should contribute to the, to the reimagining of these flawed classics.
0:12.0	What, the Disney ones?
0:13.0	Yeah, but here, okay, but have you watched the newer ones?
0:17.0	Well, I've watched.
0:18.0	Moana?
0:19.0	No, because they have been reimagined.
0:20.0	We did. I didn't want to spoil it for you because I didn't know we did Moana the night yeah but it gets really violent I'm like that's what it's like that's what it'd be like to be young female and black when your friend is a chicken and one is a pig and you're're stuck with an older guy. A god. With a catamaran. And your grand is a ghost. And your grandfather ran away from your dad. And he's a spirit of the seas. The chicken. Eugene watches a lot of Moana. Do you, as you can tell. Juan, yes. How old? My daughter's turning 17 this year. Oh, seven. You're yours away from this. What? From Moana. We watched it the other day. Can you not tell? What do you mean? You're assuming that his daughter is the one who wants to watch it. Oh, you see. That was the one who has to put it on for him.
1:11.1	I'm like, Megway!
1:12.8	Yeah, she's the one who's putting it out for him.
1:17.0	This is What Now with Trevor Noah. In fact, here's another reason Malcolm Gladwell, you should be pro-pickleball.
1:37.5	I know your views on golf.
1:39.8	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:40.4	I know how much you hate the fact that like golf takes up inordinate amounts of spaces and it's like it's unfairly apportioned to the pickleball.
1:49.7	Yes.
1:49.9	Turns one tennis courts into four pickleball courts.
1:53.9	Wait, is that true?
1:54.8	That is completely true.
1:56.4	Four.
1:57.0	Four.
1:57.7	Quadruples the output.
1:59.1	It quadruples.
	...

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