Socialism, Anarchy, and Pixar Movies with Jack Halberstam

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jack Halberstam, the author of The Queer Art of Failure, is someone I’ve wanted to talk to since I first started this podcast. As a professor and scholar, Jack has dedicated his career to dissecting the often-radical undertones of popular cultural media. Together, we look at how animated kids’ movies like Shrek, Finding Nemo, and Chicken Run offer critiques of a system that fails so many of us. We also talk about Jack’s experience as a queer child in England, since where we come from always informs where we go. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that calls into question the very essence of this podcast, as we examine what it means to be a failure in this world — and why Samuel Beckett’s phrase “fail better” isn’t all that inspiring when read in context. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. And if you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, join the My Lemonada community at https://lemonadamedia.com/mylemonada/ For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's morning in New York.
0:02.8	Oh, God.
0:06.2	Hey, everybody.
0:07.3	I'm Mandy Patinkin.
0:08.7	And I'm Catherine Grady.
0:09.8	And we have a new podcast.
0:11.7	It's called Don't Listen to Us.
0:14.1	Many of you've asked for our advice.
0:16.1	Tell me, what is wrong with you people?
0:19.2	Don't listen to us.
0:20.3	Our Take It or Leave a Device show every Wednesday out now.
0:24.7	A Lemonada Media Original.
0:36.2	I'm David DeKovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are.
0:42.9	Jack Halberstam is an author, scholar, and professor at Columbia University.
0:47.1	He's the author of multiple books, including the Queer Art of Failure, which is, of course, of interest to me and this podcast.
0:55.8	Jack's book has continued to be relevant since it was published in 2011, as it questions the values of traditional society
1:01.2	and systems and advocates for a kind of failure as a rebellion, a kind of alternative way forward.
1:08.5	We get into that a lot. It's for me just a fascinating discussion,
1:14.0	as well as fun, because we talk about kids' movies a lot. Jack has traveled internationally to
1:19.0	bring theory and ideas to lots of different audiences from Brazil to Berlin. Reminded me of my
1:24.5	graduate school days in ways both good and bad, but not because of anything Jack talked about, just kind of rigorous thinking that my soft mind is not able to do anymore.
1:35.3	Truly, though, I'm honored to be talking to Jack today, and just the 90 minutes or 100 minutes that we talked just flew by.
	...

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