S20.E07: Kenneth Branagh; Frank Bruni; Batya Ungar-Sargon

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Quote

Bill opens this week's show by interviewing award-winning actor and director, Kenneth Branagh. On the panel, he is joined by Frank Bruni, a Professor of Public Policy at Duke University, and Batya Ungar-Sargon, Deputy Opinion Editor of Newsweek.

Original air date 2022.03.11

[sugarbaker design]

Thank goodness for Frank Bruni.

[revbfc]

So we started off with a great interview with Kenneth Branagh, that had the message of understanding people who are different from you.

Cool.

Then (on the panel) that message quickly got twisted into “These woke motherfuckers have to go,” and “Why don’t we just appease Putin?”  
 

OK, I get it: understanding is only for one side.

Thanks, Bill.  Your show is still awful.

 

 

[iMonrey]

Never heard of Batya Ungar-Sargon (what a name). Her book sounds like a bunch of hooey but it's got Woke in the title so of course Bill is all over it. I have no idea what she was trying to say about Putin.

[Hanahope]

Best line of Frank Bruni to Batya about how ok, she totally strung multiple independent thoughts together to come up with some batshit crazy connection.  that and telling her to stop making us the villain in putin's war.

[Pete Martell]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Never heard of Batya Ungar-Sargon (what a name). Her book sounds like a bunch of hooey but it's got Woke in the title so of course Bill is all over it. I have no idea what she was trying to say about Putin.

She's the new Bari Weiss. It's all rinse and repeat. Bill eats this stuff up...and of course people continue to be agog at this "liberal" man speaking their views. It's all a sham from rich, out of touch people who love to remind us how they are the common man because they can say "woke" and "liberal" 500000000000 times.

There is so much  to actually discuss about the Florida legislation, including  that it is so vaguely written, there is no real reason to believe that it is going to just apply to primary school children, including that the man who wrote the bill, when asked about his motivations, came up with word salad that seems to suggest kids will be lgbt because it makes them feel like a celebrity, which tells you just how little this has to do with the empty statements Bill Maher was making (and the others nodded along with).

Once upon a time Bill Maher's brand was talking about all angles of a topic with a panel of different views. I don't think that was ever entirely true (it was often just loudest voices, or whoever Bill liked most, having sway), but at this point his show is entirely safe, rote, and lined up to meet the easiest path on a subject, all while endlessly patting itself on the back for how brave and daring it is. 

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by Pete Martell

[Sharper2002]

If it were possible to stomp out a word from existence, it would be “woke”. I know it was born out of AAVE and it has been co-opted for the purposes of Bill and Batya to label anything they don’t agree with.  I rue the day that word became mainstream. 

I quit the show but the person I was visiting didn’t, so I was stuck listening to Batya’s word salad about why the west should de-escalate with Putin and wondering how this somehow became everyone else’s fault. Thank goodness Frank Bruni said something, because I knew Bill likely wouldn’t. 

[Hedgehog2022]

Sorry I missed this show...NOT. Haven't actually watched this show in two years. The term "woke" is so three years ago...figures a bunch of Boomers are just latching on to it now. No one under the age of 50 is using it anymore. Oh Bill...face it you're an old fart now and you're clinging on to right wing talking points as a way of trying to continue your dying career as some sort of pundit who takes on the right and left but lately you've swung more to the right...a lot more. I guess it's true...the older you are the more right wing you are. You're old and washed up...you really should be on Fox News. You have more in common with the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jesse Watters these days.

[aghst]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Never heard of Batya Ungar-Sargon (what a name). Her book sounds like a bunch of hooey but it's got Woke in the title so of course Bill is all over it. I have no idea what she was trying to say about Putin.

Yeah never heard of her either.

Her arguments among others is that journalists got too educated and they're elite so they can't understand the life of the working class.

Like she does.  Looks like she was wearing some kind of bling with the Star of David?

She also said something about how the educated elite media have been a very "corrosive" force.

Really?  It's the liberal educated reporters that's the problem, not Fox News, not Breitbart, it's the reporters at the NY Times, Washington Post which are causing polarization?  Because they are so woke or repeatedly wrote articles about people of color and other progressive concerns?
 

Again, nothing wrong with Fox News and similar ilk but it's the mainstream media that's the problem.

🙄

So she didn't go to college?

[deirdra]

I guess Bill never saw Kenneth Branagh staring in "Shackleton" about how the crew of the recently-discovered Endurance survived.

[tessaray]

Hmm... I watched my blue collar Iowa family go from strong union Dems to Reagan Dems to current QAnon, Fox News junkies and am pretty sure the college educated NYT reporters didn't have anything to do with it. That woman was nuts and God bless Frank Bruni for pushing back on her illogical conclusions. (Words I never thought I'd ever type.)

KB was good but Bill kept trying to use him to make his own points and it was a little uncomfortable.

[revbfc]

6 hours ago, tessaray said:

Hmm... I watched my blue collar Iowa family go from strong union Dems to Reagan Dems to current QAnon, Fox News junkies and am pretty sure the college educated NYT reporters didn't have anything to do with it.

I saw (among others) a successful, college educated business owner with the best critical thinking skill I had ever met fall into a Q-hole.  Obviously, I don’t have the same respect for his intellect anymore, but I used to.

[Pete Martell]

On 3/12/2022 at 8:40 PM, aghst said:

Yeah never heard of her either.

Her arguments among others is that journalists got too educated and they're elite so they can't understand the life of the working class.

Like she does.  Looks like she was wearing some kind of bling with the Star of David?

She also said something about how the educated elite media have been a very "corrosive" force.

Really?  It's the liberal educated reporters that's the problem, not Fox News, not Breitbart, it's the reporters at the NY Times, Washington Post which are causing polarization?  Because they are so woke or repeatedly wrote articles about people of color and other progressive concerns?
 

Again, nothing wrong with Fox News and similar ilk but it's the mainstream media that's the problem.

🙄

So she didn't go to college?

She got  a PhD from Berkeley. This is usually the case with people who go on about "elites." They are deflecting, and often, they are grifting. She gets money and opportunities galore to regurgitate empty lines that bear no resemblance to a life she lives. Bill Maher, who loves the same talking points, went to - rather than one of those working class journalists he and Batya so adore - Ben Shapiro, another very educated, very well-connected elite, for a puff piece interview recently. 

It's all a sham. It's rich, out of touch people pointing at an invisible enemy to remind themselves - and you, as long as you keep quiet and empty your wallet - of their endless, endless moral superiority. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Pete Martell

[StatisticalOutlier]

I realize it was on brand for him, but Bill's observation about boycotting Russian oil seemed to make a good point. 

Kenneth Branagh is aging very very well. 

 

 

[Welshman in Ca]

4 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I realize it was on brand for him, but Bill's observation about boycotting Russian oil seemed to make a good point. 

Kenneth Branagh is aging very very well. 

 

 

It's SIR Kenneth Branagh.

It really fucking annoys when people can't at least be respectful to people (not you Statisticaloutlier, you may not know) and we all know that BM has a real hard on about the Royal family. I get that he thinks it's a stupid system but that doesn't mean he should be disrespectful to someone who has agreed to come on his show, IT'S NOT FUNNY & IT'S NOT CLEVER.

I'm no royalist BTW but this really annoys me for some reason.

[aghst]

But who would look it up?

If Branagh wanted to be introduced as a Sir, either Bill's staff or KB himself could have asked that he be introduced with the title.

Seems like an honorary title, kind of like doctorates that famous people get from many American universities.

So pretty much all successful or famous people in the UK seem to get knighted.

 

It's basically the British Crown saying we approve of you for being successful.  Who the fuck cares?  Unless Liz was bestowing a stipend, like those who get the MacArthur Foundation Genius grants, it doesn't mean dick.

At least those give people who aren't necessarily rich a chance to pursue something they are interested in without worrying about making money for awhile.

Seems like most UK celebrities don't really insist on title when they appear on American TV.  They'd look stuffy too if they did, kind of like Dr. Cosby or other celebrities with fake PhDs insisting on the title.

 

[StatisticalOutlier]

Hey, even the thread title doesn't have "sir" in it.  And, really?  You can't give the person's name without putting "sir" on it?  That's ridiculous.  But then again, it bugs me that medical doctors always refer to themselves as "Doctor So and So."

And I wonder which of these SIR Kenneth Branagh would prefer:

(a) Kenneth Branagh is aging very very well, or

(b) Sir Kenneth Branagh is sure looking rough for his age.

Also, I forgot to mention Bill's comment about needing captions for Belfast.  I use closed caption devices at theaters, and some theaters have a sheet where you put your name and phone number to "sign" for them.  There's hardly ever any action on there, and I've been known to see my own name on that sheet, because so few people use them.  But not this time--there were a couple of Belfast caption users on there from the days before I was there--a new record.  I just thought, "Smart move."

[StatisticalOutlier]

7 minutes ago, aghst said:

Dr. Cosby or other celebrities with fake PhDs insisting on the title

I can't tell from your sentence construction, but if you're saying Bill Cosby has a fake PhD, that's not right.  He earned his. 

Many celebrities have honorary doctorates, and the use of "Dr." by those people can be controversial (Maya Angelou, for example).  Personally, I don't like anybody using "Dr" in nonprofessional settings, and I don't like Bill Cosby, but if people are using "Dr." for PhD holders, he shouldn't be excepted.

[tessaray]

18 minutes ago, aghst said:

Seems like most UK celebrities don't really insist on title when they appear on American TV.  They'd look stuffy too if they did, kind of like Dr. Cosby or other celebrities with fake PhDs insisting on the title.

Sadly, Bill Cosby really has a PhD in Education.

Oops, already addressed. But yeah, if someone remembers Picture Pages or Fat Albert they probably know.

[aghst]

Yes it was some sociology PhD and someone derisively described his dissertation as "why my show is educational" because it was about Fat Albert or one of his other early shows.

 

But you know what I mean, there are celebrities with all kinds of honorary doctorate degrees.

 

[deirdra]

Ever since Prince Charles' closest aide offered a Saudi tycoon a knighthood in exchange for $2 million, many celebs have stopped insisting on being called "Sir" 

[heatherchandler]

On 3/15/2022 at 1:49 PM, Welshman in Ca said:

It's SIR Kenneth Branagh.

It really fucking annoys when people can't at least be respectful to people (not you Statisticaloutlier, you may not know) and we all know that BM has a real hard on about the Royal family. I get that he thinks it's a stupid system but that doesn't mean he should be disrespectful to someone who has agreed to come on his show, IT'S NOT FUNNY & IT'S NOT CLEVER.

I'm no royalist BTW but this really annoys me for some reason.

How would anyone know?

[The Mighty Peanut]

On 3/12/2022 at 3:53 AM, revbfc said:

 

Then (on the panel) that message quickly got twisted into “These woke motherfuckers have to go,” and “Why don’t we just appease Putin?”  
 

 

 

 

And now we know why.