Sway: Exercise, and Accept Your 'Inevitable Demise'

Matter of Opinion

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Ross Douthat, News, New York Times, Journalism

4.2 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're off this week! So we're bringing you an episode of another great Times Opinion podcast, Sway. The fitness industry has exploded into a nearly $100 billion sector, and Alison Bechdel is among the exercise-obsessed. Bechdel, the cartoonist whose comic strip inspired the Bechdel Test for female representation in Hollywood, says she has found transcendence in everything from yoga and karate to weight lifting and biking. Her new book, “The Secret to Superhuman Strength,” examines the exercise craze, and what it exposes about our attitudes around self-care, the booming fitness economy and even our mortality. In this conversation, Kara Swisher and Bechdel discuss the evolution of workout culture (“yoga boom” included), the politics of art (especially during the Trump era) and how mainstream cultural norms have finally caught up to, as Bechdel puts it, “where lesbians were back in the ’80s.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jane Kostin and this is the argument.
0:07.0	Actually, my team and I are off this week, but we've got something here we think you're
0:13.4	really going to like.
0:14.7	It's an episode from another opinion podcast hosted by my colleague, Cara Swisher.
0:19.3	The show is sway and in this episode, Cara's talking to cartoonist, Alison Bechtel.
0:23.9	I love Alison's work and have for a long time.
0:27.2	Dikes to watch out for, to fun home, and she and Cara get into things I also love to
0:32.1	obsess a bit.
0:33.5	Exercise, fitness, or what it all means for how we think about ourselves and our bodies.
0:38.6	I'll be back next week with a new debate.
0:41.0	In the meantime, you can subscribe to sway wherever you get your podcasts.
0:44.3	And don't break anything while I'm gone.
0:46.4	I'll know.
1:07.8	I'm Cara Swisher and you're listening to sway.
1:10.9	My guest today is Alison Bechtel.
1:13.9	She's an author and cartoonist, but her name perhaps is most recognizable because of the
1:18.3	Bechtel test.
1:19.6	It's become the litmus test for gender representation in Hollywood, asking whether a film features two
1:24.7	female characters that one have names of their own and two discuss a topic other than a
1:30.0	man.
1:31.2	The idea was born out of one of Bechtel's early comic strips, Dikes to Watch Out for.
1:35.9	It's the kind of thought-provoking, observational comedy that has come to define her work since.
	...

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