Whether they're symbols of hope, sexual liberation, urban decay or violence, Dr. Gabriele Cruz says superheroes play a larger than life role in our lives. We talk the hidden meanings behind your favorite superheroes, what Batman really stands for and the most controversial/influential superheroes of all time. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Best Food You Put in a Bowl.
Dr. Gabriel Cruz: 01: 20
Pointless: 41:13
Top 5 Foods in a Bowl: 01:04:33
Interview with Superhero Researcher Dr. Gabriel Cruz
Nick VinZant 0:13
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode superheroes
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 0:19
and food bowls, when we think of like who your favorite superhero is, I promise you whoever you think your favorite superhero is, that is not an accurate representation of the character. Comics are the same thing and the influence of the comics industry would never be the same. Bill Marston thought that women had physiological Oregon's that produced more love than men, and that the salvation of society was going to be through women's empowerment,
Nick VinZant 0:45
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest study superheroes, the hidden ways that they impact our society, and what some heroes really stand for. This is superhero researcher, Professor Gabriel Cruz. So what is it about superheroes? What is it about it that speaks to us?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 1:24
That's a good question. And it's not an easy answer. The easy surface level answer is like, well, it's a way of playing with the fantastic, right. But it's a bit more to it than that superheroes have been are a continuation in some sense of the ways in which we tell stories, dealing with the fantastic whether that's have to do with the divine or whatever conceptualization that is, from a Abrahamic perspective, or a perhaps Buddhist or Hindu, we're bringing value any of those things, we always like this sort of beyond the human kind of stuff, right? But it's also about dealing with aspects of our own selves. In many ways. I like to say that superheroes are modern iterations of the future that have that are grappling with the past. And that is a way of sort of chewing on what's going on in the world, dealing with our anxieties and our fears, and hopefully having some degree of optimism, at least in modern superheroes, I say modern being like, you know, the last several decades.
Nick VinZant 2:19
Is it always a deeper metaphor for something or is sometimes like, Hey, man, it's just the Hulk, just the Hulk.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 2:28
It is what you get out of it. It's always one of those things where people are like, Oh, it's not that deep, right? It's not if you don't want it to be. But like, a colleague of mine, a friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Julian Chambliss up at Michigan State University, who is a historian who studies comics as historical artifacts points out like they are moments in time, right? They are bound up by things. And so yeah, some of them are just the Hulk smashing through Brooklyn and things like that, as he does a Godzilla style fight with another creature. Right. And sometimes it's, you know, the 1974, comic arc of secret empire with Captain America where prisoners were president, Richard Nixon kills himself, right? Like, some things don't get to just be surface level. But there's always more if you want there to be.
Nick VinZant 3:14
But it's just one of those things where the author writes it with those intentions, or we kind of create those intentions afterwards.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 3:22
Well, it depends on who you are. Which it's almost like asking the lawyers like the answer is always It depends. No. So like, in my field, we don't care about the author. The author is nice, the author created the work, right, but we engage in what's often referred to as the death of the author, where the intention doesn't matter. It's about how it lands. Right. So for example, in game, right, you have that scene where the the the heroes of Earth are fighting Thanos and his invading army and you have Captain America, you know, with the broken shield wielding the old near right, because he is worthy. Because if anyone's worthy, it's a white dude from 1940s. Right? And doing wrong I love cat but it is what it is. And he's wielding millionaire, Thor's hammer against an A wave of non white monstrous bodies, right, which is a time tested trope going back to like the cowboys and Indians western genre, or any of these sort of like imperialist colonialist propaganda that was put out in like the 18th and 19th centuries of these lone white European heroes fighting these faceless hordes of, again, non white bodies. Was it intended that way? No. And in the moment, I was totally engrossed in like, Man, this is super cool. And then there's a part of my brain that's going man the Nazis are gonna love this. Right. And so like that's, that's a part of the complexity did that is that what the Russo brothers meant? I'm very sure they did not, but it matters how it lands, not what the author intended.
Nick VinZant 4:55
But like for me, I would not think that right like I wouldn't think think that, but at the same time, I'm a white guy from Kansas, you know? So does that. Is there any kind of reading into something where maybe there isn't something really there? Or is it the other way is like no, something's there, you're just not noticing it.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 5:17
The problem is whether or not something is there is a matter of the construct of like your own brain and disposition. So for example, Did you ever watch The watchmen movie? Yes, yeah, yeah. So whether you watch the movie, or this is also the case with like the comic book to some extent. They're not counting the series on HBO that came out a little while ago, there was this this thing where like, young men thought that Rorschach was a hero, right? Where the so Rorschach was wearing the facemask with the with the Rorschach test, it's flooding out of inkblots, whatever, like where he comes across as sympathetic or a hero. And this happens all the time with heroes, or anti heroes that are meant to be satirical, or meant to point out that this is not positive that there's no negative things here. And so they find some degree of emotional resonance. In a case like Rorschach, it's because the backstory of poverty and suffering and also like a moral absolutism that is very comforting to particularly folks who are growing up, you know, having to deal with the complexity of complexities of society, like, yeah, that finds a degree of resonance. So when we say like, Well, I wouldn't say that, that's totally fair. That's a reasonable interpretation. At the same time, all of these texts are what we call polysemic. Which means that they're open to multiple interpretations that may at times be contradictory, right. And that's the weirdness of media. And that's part of the beauty and also the, I'll say tragedy, but like, the unfortunate side of superhero comics, because they get to be reiterated over and over and over again. And when we think of like, who your favorite superhero is, I promise you, whoever you think your favorite superhero is, that is not an accurate representation of the character. Especially they've been around for more than a decade, because there's been so many different versions of them, right? newer ones, obviously, if there's only a few issues to go off of, then you get a much smaller data size to extrapolate your own image of them from but like, I don't know, a Wonder Woman, right? or Batman or Robin, whichever Robin, you're talking about, all of which have had, like, most of them have had, you know, multi decade, publication histories. Diverse version you have in your brain is picking and choosing based off of what you've read what you've had access to, and also what you bring to the table, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 7:33
The first one that I think about in that regard is like Batman, who went from kind of campy jokey to serious to really dark to kind of like businessman like, and it just depends on how you interpreted at that time. Is that how that usually kind of works?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 7:48
Usually, yeah, it's the it's the generation right that you grew up in. It's like, how old were you? If you were 10 years old, and you saw like Batman and Robin or Batman Forever, then yeah, that's the version of Batman that like probably jives with you more. But it's also worth noting that Batman in his very first iteration was dark, and killed people. Not often, but it did happen from time to time. And then and I'm talking like in the less than a year old runs of Batman, right, like circa 1939, kind of stuff. And then you introduce Robin, and he softens a lot and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, so it depends on what area you grew up with. It's like, you know, Saturday Night Live. Yeah, whatever. Whatever version you grew up with, the version you grew up with, is the one you think is the best.
Nick VinZant 8:30
So obviously, you know, superheroes are very popular, you can't seems like a new movie comes out every week or every month. But do they mean more to us now than they have in the past?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 8:42
It fluctuates, it comes and goes. So for example, okay, if we trace like the first superhero comic, not comic book, but the first superhero comic to Superman, right, so that's 1938. Right? And he's wildly popular, mildly successful, and so is Batman. And so it was Wonder Woman, all those other like Golden Age heroes up until about the 1950s, when we see the dramatic drop off, because of anxieties surrounding them. There's a reason that comic books were intensely popular during the Depression. And in the years afterwards, right? It was a way for people to escape a little bit and to really grapple onto something. But over time, that changes in the 50s, you had a huge scare that they were part of the moral degradation of the youth, in particular, because Wonder Woman was setting an example for how women should not be according to these sort of dominant social norms at the time. Good news, great bill Marston. His name escapes me from Bill Marston who wrote Wonder Woman wrote Wonder Woman to be socially and in particular, sexually subversive at the time. And so when people were sort of reading, reading into that stuff, like the public pressure made the decline and so from the 50s into the 60s, you see, a precipitous drop in the number of titles that are being printed in the circulation. About like stuff. And then they boom, again, right into like the 60s and what we call the Silver Age, which is where, like Atlas comics becomes Marvel Comics, with the creation of Iron Man and Thor and all them. And they're hugely popular again, but they're popular among young people. Again, right? They, they've always been for all audiences, but they post like the 60s they tend to be more resonant with with young folks. And then they go up and they go down in the 90s. Like, the reason that we have spider man being made by Sony, and the X Men being made by Fox and the MCU in its current iteration, starting back in 2008, was because Marvel sold off their properties because they were going under, right, they hadn't made money. So again, it comes and goes,
Nick VinZant 10:45
was there ever a time that you would say that this was the peak, the peak of not the peak of their popularity, but their peak of their influence in society?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 10:53
Oh, the peak of the influence was probably pre 1954. Because the Comics Code Authority, which was a reaction to congressional hearings, that were concerned about the negative influence of comics, so you had horror comics, you had, you know, a lot of violence in comics, you had a lot of, you know, sexuality and stuff that was transgressive, and comics, in addition to the superhero comics, all this sort of stuff happening in the same like, time and in conversation with each other as these artists would bounce around from company to company and pick up freelance work, and that kind of stuff. You know, as early as, like the 1940s, you had national newspapers calling comics, a disgrace to our society. And then in the 50s, you know, this sort of ramps up and builds up over time 1954, you have Frederic Wertham seduction of the innocent, which is basically a very damning indictment of the comics industry. Admittedly, he was, he was a I think, was a psychologist who was reading a lot into the comics, and at the time, overplaying their influence. But he was doing it all the same. And so he Seduction of the Innocent was kind of like the tipping point. And so you have these congressional hearings that lead to what's called the Comics Code Authority, right, which was invented in 1954. the Comics Code Authority was the industry's way of self regulating. So they said, Look, you guys don't regulate us, like federally and will regulate ourselves sort in the same way that like the MPAA, right, the the motion picture. Association, and whatever the second A is kind of like how they did with like the the PG the G rated R stuff, right? As a way of self regulation. So comics did the same thing. And you saw a drop in like, there were some 650 Plus comics, titles, in circulation in or 650 publications in 1954. By 36, that drops to about 300 names. And the influence of the comics industry would never be the same up until maybe, arguably, you know, the early 2000s with the MCU, and later the DC you and stuff and things like that,
Nick VinZant 13:02
do you think it's dropped off? Or do you think that this people just aren't paying attention to the movies anymore? As much as they did a couple of years ago,
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 13:09
I think that the novelty has worn off, right? So depending on when you trace the beginnings of this, a case can be made the the X Men, the Bryan Singer excellent movies in 2000, were the start of kind of where we are in our current landscape with with superheroes, although I would point out that I argue that and I'm not alone in this. There's some others who argue that like blade was kind of the proof of concept, right? In the 90s. Because I mean, how cool was that? Right? Great
Nick VinZant 13:38
movie. It's such an underrated movie that it's my blade was awesome.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 13:42
It legitimately was and the other two were bad. Not as good, but at least my opinion, but they weren't bad. Yeah, I would, I would suggest that was like the proof of concept of superhero movies that got away from the Superman Batman movies that we'd had for decades up until that point. But if you trace even if you go like to the 2000s, right, as the start of our current wave of superhero films, if this is like the western genre, then we're halfway through because the Westerns lasted about 40 years in popularity, right. And so we might be about halfway through and that means we're probably due for some waiting, which I think is part of why Disney has said that they they're going to slow down the release of their of their properties and stuff because like I think they're concerned about over inundating people especially after like the the conclusion of endgame
Nick VinZant 14:31
I know we you know, a lot of the things that I was going to we're going to talk about kind of fit in some of our listeners submitted questions. So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Ready is I'm going to be most influential superhero of all time and influential, influential in the sense that like, a broader impact on society,
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 14:51
there is no one answer in my humble opinion. However, there are some top contenders will say, okay, Superman night In 38, we, you know, is the first, like declared superhero bearing in mind, we've been playing with those themes for a while, but he's like the first Super superhero prior to that you have, like pulp heroes like Doc Savage, or the Phantom or, you know, John Carter from Mars, right. And he, it's hard to overestimate or to overstate his significance. That being said, I would also put in that similar category, characters like Wonder Woman, who was dealing with a lot of interesting things, again, sexually subversive at the time, the lasso was meant to be a combination of the truth to detect the lie detector, right. The last one truth was a lie detector test, which Bill Martian was involved in the creation of was also aspect of sexual bondage and the flipping of gender roles and dynamics, which Bill Martian was a huge advocate for, right, although he had some unfortunate like, biologically reductive perceptions on that all the same, that's the kind of idea that was there. So that was a huge thing. I would also put in will Eisenerz the spirit because everyone if you like reading comics, if you like people who create comics, it is almost a shadow of a doubt they have like read Will Eisner because he was so foundational and so influential. And the spirit was a sort of detective kind of story, sort of, sort of like proto Batman a little bit. Who, who his his public persona, his civilian identity died. And so he became the spirit as a vigilante and all that kind of stuff. And so we see a lot of those are a tropes, he comes about 1940 And then you have like your Captain America's and folks like that, who are continuing on these. So I would say in that early group, but also if you want a more modern answer, Spider Man, it is hard to overstate the value of spider man there's a reason his face is has been on. Like the majority of Marvel comics since the 60s. It's because he's one of the best selling and therefore highly circulated and pop culturally known superheroes.
Nick VinZant 16:58
He's the most like a real person, right? Like he was an average guy.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 17:02
Yeah, in many ways, Peter Parker couldn't catch a break. Right? And even more so because legacies are such a big deal in superhero narratives right of who takes on the mantle next, all that kind of stuff. He has spawned some really successful mantle some really successful legacies like Miles Morales, like Miguel O'Hara, like Jessica Drew, like, it just the list goes on.
Nick VinZant 17:23
Is there a one that you would say is like the most influential in a bad way, in the sense that maybe they were co opted by this group or that group and kind of became like, a negative symbol?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 17:33
I'm starting to wonder if maybe your fans been looking at my CV because I just had a, an article come out that I co authored with Dr. Lindsay Kramer, about the Punisher and the Punisher logo. So they're like any, any, any idiot can take an image and then repurpose it right. And we see these sort of like reinterpretations of characters. It's not hard to find like, you know, white nationalist propaganda that uses you know, maybe like Captain America or hydro or something along those lines. But the Punisher phenomenon of the logo used by law enforcement and by people who are in support of law enforcement has since like, guys like 2014 2012, somewhere in there has been unreal. And actually, in our article that Dr. Kramer and I have published I think it's called a pleasurable marginality. I want to say, it's in the Howard journal communication, but we argue that like he legitimizes unintentionally, but he does legitimize a certain feeling felt among a particular demographic that is to say, you know, working class, white American males, particularly younger men, but you know, that sort of demographic by validating their conspiratorial ideas, right. And he has often been this image of like, when the law fails, this is what you do. And he is a variation of the Western cowboy trope, right of like, there is no law, but the man with the gun kind of thing. And so I find the Punisher stories really compelling. I enjoy them a lot. But also, I always like to tell folks like it's okay to like Frank Castle, if you understand Frank Castle doesn't like Frank Castle, right? There's a there's a comic where Captain America just, you know, beat him black and blue. And he did not fight back because it was Captain America. And also because on some level, the Punisher knows like he has it coming. Right. But that gets lost on the folks who have the thin blue line, Punisher logo, right and supported the plays or who are police themselves, which is a real concern.
Nick VinZant 19:34
Did publishers know this? The publishers kind of know this and buy into it like, Hey, we're really picking up some traction amongst angry teens. Oh, yes. Go ahead and push this forward.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 19:45
Oh, yeah. One of the CO creators of the Punisher because the Punisher was meant to be an indictment of the legal system. Right. That's the whole thing. Right. His family has killed because of the criminal element in New York City that is also working in conjunction with law enforcement. And the Punisher is therefore, as Archie Goodwin put it in an editorial note, in the one of the early puncher comics, he says the Punisher is a problem that is worth the Punisher is a solution that is worse than the problem that created them. Right? That's the whole ethos behind the character. But Jerry Conway, who co created the Punisher back in the in the 70s 60s 70s. said recently, when he saw that there were people protesting against Black Lives Matter by wearing the Punisher logo and the whole Blue Lives thing, said, like, you guys got it wrong. The Punisher doesn't support law enforcement. He's not that kind of guy. You don't need to stop doing and actually he did a fundraiser where he sold shirts in support of Black Lives Matter of where the logos were people, artists putting their own spin on the Punisher logo to sort of reclaim that contested symbol. To what extent it's effective, I guess, is anyone's guess we'll see what happens down the line. But one point, you know, like, there's a punisher comic, when I'm talking like circa 2018 2019, maybe in 2020, where Frank Castle confronts two officers who have the Punisher logo, like on their shirts. And he like he rips up the logo there. No, he takes it off of the cars, whereas he takes a decal off the car, and he rips it up. And he says, Look, if you are a role model, you look a Captain America, I do what I do, you don't do that. And if you do that, I'll put a bullet in you. Right. So yeah, they absolutely know, on some level these kinds of discourses, what do
Nick VinZant 21:30
you think about when they do it? And also the public's reaction to it, when this character who was a man is now a woman, or this character who was white is now Hispanic or black or something like that?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 21:42
I'll go first to the public reaction, because the why they do that it's a little complicated the public reaction of like, well, this is clearly some kind of agenda. My more cynical responses will Yeah, it all is, like, no one's writing these things, just for the art, the artists are doing it, but also because it clears a check, right? And this stuff is inherently persuasive. If for no other reason than to get you to buy more. So that is foundational to this industry, right? Like it is any other mass media, you know, art based industry. I love the MCU we had three white guys named Chris, lead it for a while, right? So so when people say like, well, they're putting politics in politics, the politics have always been there. Captain America debuted, like, there was published issue number one, like six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. And it's him punching Hitler. Right. Jack Kirby, on least one occasion is has been was known to try to throw down anyway with some Nazis. While he was a civilian in the United States, right? They were about not even counting his time serving overseas. So that's the thing is I think there's a lack of awareness, a lack of consciousness when it comes to like the political things that have always been integral to this and then you hit a point where you're like, oh, there are politics here. Why are they putting politics in my comments? Nah, bro, it's been there from the beginning. Right. And the other thing is as to why they do that, why they you know, change the gender or they change the sex where they change the race or ethnicity or anything. Comics has a long and often unfortunate history with attempting to introduce characters of color or characters that are not masculine, not men. And so the one that comes to mind is like external angel who was I think, a either a Marvel or DC character but external Neo was kind of like think Dr. Strange but from Latin America, and also it was the 80s and he was gay and had HIV.
Nick VinZant 23:32
That's a lot that's a lot like Right, like, man, you went, you went the whole thing.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 23:40
The the White Tiger superhero, Hector Ayala was Puerto Rican, and did one of the things that rarely happens in comics anymore. And that is he died permanently running from the police. Right? He fled a trial where he thought he would where it looked like he was going to lose and have to go to prison wrongly. He runs he gets shot by the police and he's dead dead. Right? And that's not a thing that typically happens. And they're trying to comment on what goes on with like law enforcement and people of color and in particular Latinos. And it's just like, they ended up breaking one of the cardinal rules at the same time, right? So like, there's this huge checkered past I love Captain America comics but like one of the early stories written by things like Jack Kirby and and no, it wasn't it wasn't Stanley because he wasn't around yet. But like, yeah, by Jack Kirby was that it was a story basically of Captain America helping the good Native Americans fight the bad Native Americans were the bad ones were opposed to the American military. Right? Yeah, that's
Nick VinZant 24:43
the kind of thing we're like, oh, shit, you can't do that now. Right? Like yeah, realize that the problems that are there, you know,
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 24:49
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So there's always the thing of like, people say, Well, why don't you create your own comics? Well, people have been forever. It's worth noting that most of the foundational heroes was in superhero comics were created by Jewish folks, immigrants and people of color. Right? So like those, but what you can put actually on the page, and what will sell usually looks like a Clark Kent, right or Steve Rogers. So they were coming from these communities already. It's just that like they had to look a certain way in order to be marketable. And there's always been efforts to create new characters, milestone comics, right, that gave us like static shock, or icon. Or I think about like the the different iterations of black lightning from DC, you know, going back to the 70s. Like, these were original characters, but there's always been going back to the issue of like, they fluctuate in popularity, they fluctuate in terms of how successful these businesses are, like, they'll do well, and like booming times, but when they hit a slump, those are comics that you know, like, get let go. So, so yeah, so they they bend some stuff they pass on like, oh, geez, there was Jane Foster, who was Thor, not lady Thor, she was Thor, right in the comics, and that we saw a little bit in the movies as well, or right now Captain America is not Steve Rogers, it is Sam Wilson. And these are the natural progression of things. And it's frustrating, because if it were if Steve Rogers passed it on to another white dude, what people didn't think twice about it, but because there's a black character, it, you know, it becomes controversial among particular segments. I don't want to make it sound like all nerds have this opinion. But you know, it's that kind of thing.
Nick VinZant 26:28
The one thing that like, this is my question is like, Are there superheroes from other countries? Right, like, how can we never hear about Captain India or Captain Brazil right? Or? Or is this just dominated by America?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 26:41
It is an American art form. And so we've kind of cornered the market, but we're by no means I mean, Britain has put out has put out comics, certainly, and actually two of the greatest comics writers, Neil Gaiman and Alan, oh my gosh, more. Why is it? Alan Moore? I was thinking the one that looks like a wizard. That guy. Yeah. Alan Moore, right. Are no titans in the industry, even though they don't write that frequently anymore? And in case in worst case, hardly at all. So yeah, I mean, there are characters from other other parts of the world. India, I've seen some interesting comments from them, particularly dealing with like social issues, like sexual violence and stuff like that. There's, oh, there's some great, you know, Latin American comics. So yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of neat stuff happening. But it is an American art form that has been dominated by the United States and to some extent, Canada.
Nick VinZant 27:37
most controversial comic storyline of all time.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 27:41
I go back to the 1974 issue, like run of secret empire, where Captain America watches Nixon, shoot himself in the Oval Office. I have a hard time beating that. Although there certainly out
Nick VinZant 27:54
there, like how does that get through? Right?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 27:56
Right. They never say it's Nixon, Steve Rogers runs to the president's office sees number one, right in the secret empire, hierarchy. Encounters number one, and then he blows. Like he, like you hear the bank as he reacts in horror to whoever this is cleans up, but who is going to be number one, in this hierarchy? And also in the Oval Office? It's obviously Nixon. So I have a hard time getting past that. But I mean, you know, take your pick, goodness gracious, there was a story where Carol Danvers, right, Captain Marvel, she was she ran away to another dimension with an alien. And this is like circa 1980s, I want to say, she ran away to another dimension with an alien who, like she fell in love with, and then like, has his child and then you like, she comes back. And you find out that she was brain controlled by this alien. Like he literally psychologically dominated her, convinced her to go to his home dimension, where he impregnated her, and then she gives birth to basically an avatar of him so that he can be reborn with even better powers. And like, and, and that's Yeah, yeah. And then and then. And then the other heroes are like, how could we have known? What do you mean? Like, they kind of blame her a little bit for everything that happened. It's kind of nuts. So the X Men stuff. I mean, if you want to talk about controversial when they made Magneto into a Holocaust survivor, I would suggest that was controversial in a positive way. Because he wasn't originally, he wasn't originally a Holocaust survivor. That wouldn't happen until the Chris Claremont run in the 19 1980s. I believe. So yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of wild controversies that happen. It's just a matter of what you think. But again, I go back to Nixon shooting himself in the Oval Office.
Nick VinZant 29:44
Yeah, the President, the President taking himself out it's going to be pretty high up
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 29:48
there, the sitting president at the time filming himself
Nick VinZant 29:52
so one of the things that we kind of got asked was a couple of these kinds of questions. If I give you like the name of a superhero Can you gotta give me like what their cultural significance is sure, yeah, I got you start with the easy one, right Superman,
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 30:06
Superman. Jewish Diaspora Moses parallel, faked his death to be thrown into a mass grave when Metropolis was invaded by not quite Nazis kind of thing. I mean, he's always been a commentary on that sort of stuff. He was also a critique of city living, there was a lot of concerns in society about the agricultural versus the urban divide, and that if you go to cities, then you will be corrupted and you know, live this life advice and all that kind of stuff and what could save them but a farm boy from Kansas, right? Also, his earliest superheroes, his earliest villains, excuse me, were like slum lords and abusive husbands and, you know, violent youth. And so he was absolutely addressing like the the social anxieties at the time, Batman, Batman was a gritty hero for a gritty environment again, going back to like the urban issue of like, you know, the sort of anxieties around what happens when you move to the city and there's more crime and all that kind of stuff. And Batman was that plus some degree of like redeeming value, because he had because he had a the boy award, right, a disgrace. And so you had that sensitivity alongside this character who, at least on one or two occasions, murdered or accidentally killed a villain and just shrugged it off. It's like, man, it's a shame, and then kept on going, right. So like, you have that dichotomy existing there. Not to mention, again, created by, by Jewish creators, so there's some of that stuff tied in there to,
Nick VinZant 31:37
um, Black Panther.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 31:40
Black Panther Afrofuturism, invented by white guys. Like Black Panther is a great example of how progress is a state is a series of problematic steps forward, right, because he absolutely was deeply entrenched in what we might refer to as the Dark Continent stereotypes and tropes, things like blackness being associated with a certain permittivity because while he was a master scientist to chala, was also this sort of pseudo tribal Savage in the way that he enacted his superhero persona, right with the Panther. There's a lot of like coded racism in terms of like, I think it was like jungle adventures and things like that was or jungle comics. Being the title that he operated under for a long time. He was also a trope of like, being the most intelligent, right? he outsmarts, the Fantastic Four in his initial debut, where he finds out like, he's not actually a villain, although he's kind of presented that way. Interestingly enough, and this is a great example of how Marvel has really sort of had a weird issue with civil rights. Black Panther, is, I think, published the year that the Black Panther Party for self defense declares itself. And once they become popular a few months after the initial creation of Black Panther, Marvel, like Cannes, Black Panther shot sidelines for a while, and for a little bit, reintroduces him under the name of the black leopard in order to have some distance, right. And then later, people are like, well, that's lame. And then so that only lasts like a few issues, and then it reverts back to the Black Panther. So yeah, but because we get those early iterations that are rooted in like a lot of unfortunate stereotypes about blackness and African identity. We get, you know, the movies that we have now.
Nick VinZant 33:21
Do the villains generally symbolize something? Are they just villains?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 33:25
Oh, yeah, no, they're always something I mean, to the degree to which that we choose to interpret them that way. But also, like I mentioned at the beginning, some of Superman's earliest villains were, you know, corrupt business owners, right. Same thing Captain America, the earliest Nazis that he was fighting were American Nazi sympathizers. Who there was one that was like a defense contractor, right, that was corrupt and working for the Third Reich. And that's Captain America, American fights, but going back to Superman, you know, yeah, he's fighting, you know, corrupt business owners, and then one who is his like defining villain, Lex Luthor, who is a businessman, right? So like, those sort of things are absolutely there. There's argument you can make that someone like Batman, his characters are different aspects of a particular persona. So like the sexuality or the wealth of Batman and embodied in like poison ivy, or the Penguin or his chaotic relationship with the law, as being reflected in the Joker and things like that that case can be made. But yeah, they they typically a good villain, I think represents something. It's not just a throwaway. Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman. So we have feminist empowerment is as envisioned by a man at the time, if you notice, there's a lot of recurring themes up. It's this group's empowerment but conceptualized by someone else, by someone
Nick VinZant 34:40
who knows nothing about it. Right. Right. Yeah, right.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 34:44
Bill Marston thought that women had physiological organs that produced more love than men, and that the salvation of society was going to be through women's empowerment. This is not true in a biological sense, but his idea of like, yeah, we Need women to be empowered? And so we can have a better society? Like that holds water? Sure, yes. The physiological bit, maybe not so much. But like, it's important to note that in her early comics, and consistently throughout her comics, like Wonder Woman has often tried to save her villains. Right? She doesn't just throw them into the Dark Pit of Arkham Asylum and then throw away the key. Like she's trying to use the lasso truth to get them to confront themselves in many instances. Right. So
Nick VinZant 35:26
is there an any other ones that you think like really jump out as kind of symbolizing something broader?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 35:31
Oh, yeah, sure. Um, Luke Cage is a great one. So he's another character who has had a checkered history over time. He was initially created by Archie Goodwin and a couple others. Steve Englehart who wrote Luke Cage early on, he didn't co create them. But he was one of the early writers said that, um, basically Marvel, as he puts it, wanted some of that civil rights money. And so they charged a bunch of white guys to create a black superhero. And that's how you get Luke Cage who was very stereotypical at the time. But And interestingly enough, in his first issue, actively refuses to take part in a prison protests, right? Because like they're going on a on a strike, the prisoners are going on, like a hunger strike to, like protest the cruel conditions. So they're touching on the this is like circa 1972, I would say. So they're touching on like, the terrible prison conditions at the time, and the fact that this disproportionately affects black men. But Luke Cage goes out of his way to say, No, I'm not taking part of this. I'm not getting any more days added on to my punishment, I'm not catching any heat for anybody else. Right. So he's not down with civil rights at the moment, right, not in that capacity. And so he's an interesting negotiation to becoming one of these like street level heroes who is community based, right. And whenever there's always this recurring conversation, I think, Eric crypkey, the showrunner has made this argument that superheroes are inherently like fascist. And I can see the appeal of a single savior, often a white male Savior, who is willing to like redeem society. But I would also point out the characters like Luke Cage, and there's a bunch of others that are street levels. Heroes are also community advocates, right? Who are championing of people who are left behind by a broken social contract. And so characters like that, or black lightning, or Miles Morales, or Daredevil, for that matter, like these characters speak to needs, they're not being addressed.
Nick VinZant 37:20
That's pretty much all the questions we got. Is there anything that you think we missed was kind of coming up next for you? I know you got a podcast as well.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 37:28
Yeah, I have a I have a podcast that office hours for Dr. C, where we talk about a bunch of stuff related to pop media, not just superheroes, but you know, other stuff as well, although, because of the ongoing strikes are trying to refrain from talking about like struck materials and things like that, but you know, we're still making making stuff. But um, yeah, so I also do stuff on tick tock on Twitter and Instagram. You know, Jay Cruz underscore PhD because not only am I in a tenure track job, where I have to publish and teach a bunch, but I also need other things to do to keep my brain going, which is not at all true. That's a lie. I don't need more things. But I can't stop. Um, so yeah. So if anyone wants to, you know, find that kind of stuff they can. And I'm always open to emails, if anyone wants to, you know, ask questions, but my dissertation is online. It's bad writing. But it's a done thing. If no one knows what a dissertation is. It's basically a book your rights, you can get a PhD and it's terrible, abysmal writing, but it like, has some stuff about race class and gender analysis, and superheroes, which is my primary area of research. So yeah, that's, you just go to Ohio Link and look for Gabriel Cruz dissertation superheroes, and you'll find it so anyway, I don't know. Trying to give anything else that came to mind the boys is good. I liked the boy.
Nick VinZant 38:45
I do like the boys. I like invincible too.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 38:50
I like invincible, especially because of what they do with the violence. Because yeah,
Nick VinZant 38:55
it's realistic, right? It's very
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 38:57
uncomfortable. And I like that they take this approach of like, this is what you want. Let's turn it up to 11 and see how you feel about it kind of approach like that. That's yeah. But most superhero media I try to consume or stay up to date on although I am severely lacking in DC, because even I have my limits.
Nick VinZant 39:20
What are they do and over there?
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 39:21
I I didn't watch blackout them until I had to sit six hours for a tattoo and it happened to be on. So
Nick VinZant 39:29
it's amazing how sometimes you can take like the same combination of things. And sometimes it's a cake and sometimes it's a piece of shit.
Dr. Gabriele Cruz 39:36
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's the rock with superpowers. Right. So and which is most movies he's in on some level. So it kind of is what it is. Yeah. So now, I think here's what I'd say as just kind of a parting thought for anyone who's interested in superheroes in that kind of stuff. First of all, bear in mind there are so many great comic books and graphic novels outside of superheroes. Superheroes are great, but they're not the same. In total of everything, they're actually very, like a reasonably small percentage of the overall industry, but also, like, it is okay to read into them, it is okay to critique them. And it's okay to still like them at the same time, right? So you'll find problematic stuff, and almost all of these things. But that doesn't mean you can't find enjoyment in it as well. You know, I liked Falcon in the Winter Soldier. And you know, that mini series, but it had some real problems when it came to critiques of the government and issues of race. But at the same time, I thought it did some neat stuff. So you know, these things are, they're complex.
Nick VinZant 40:34
I want to thank Professor crews so much for joining us if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. His podcast is fascinating. If you really want to learn more about the impact of different things in media, checking out his podcast office hours is is worth your time. And the YouTube version of this interview will be live on September 14, at 4:30pm Pacific. Okay, now, let's bring in John Shaw, and get to the pointless part of the show. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
John Shull 41:23
I mean, that's a tough one. I mean, flying would be great.
Nick VinZant 41:25
Flying seems like it would be awesome. But I think that there's other powers that you can take like more advantage of.
John Shull 41:32
I mean, teleporting would probably be it because it would, how great would it be to go, Listen, I want to go to Bangladesh. And you're right there,
Nick VinZant 41:40
that would be awesome. But I don't know how that would work. Right? Like, would you just look at it on a map? Or would you just have to do a series of teleports? Because otherwise, how would you know that you're not like teleporting into the middle of a building?
John Shull 41:52
guy that would be wouldn't that be terrible? Just I'm gonna teleport to Miami Beach and you go to a building in downtown Detroit on the 13th floor or something?
Nick VinZant 42:02
That would be the problem, right? I think a lot of superpowers sound like they would be cool in real life. But then if you think about it, I don't think a lot of them would work out. Like if you actually had super strength. I mean, you just be tearing your house apart. Because every time you went to open the door, you'd like rip it off. And none of your friends would have arms.
John Shull 42:25
I mean, it's super strength would be great. But yeah, like you said, I don't know if it's practical, which I knew there's teleporting. However,
Nick VinZant 42:32
really the most practical one, the best one to be able to read people's minds. Like that would be the best one in a real life situation would be able to mind read, because you could tell what people really think. And you could get like business secrets, all that kind of stuff. You could take a lot of advantage of that.
John Shull 42:48
Yeah, I'm not sure I the thing is, I get what you're saying. But I don't I don't think I'd want to read people's minds, or have the ability because I don't really want to know what they're thinking.
Nick VinZant 42:57
I don't know if you really want to know what people are really thinking either. It's probably not the best, right?
John Shull 43:04
No, I actually think it's probably 96% Negative.
Nick VinZant 43:08
I think that would be really depressing. Especially if like, right, like if you could really know what people thought that would probably crush your self confidence. I would go with reading people's minds though. Right? Like maybe my self confidence would be pretty low, because you'd always find out the negative thoughts that people had of you. But you could also probably get pretty rich off of that pretty easily.
John Shull 43:29
I still think I would teleport teleportation sounds fantastic.
Nick VinZant 43:34
Yeah, you could make a lot of money off of teleportation too. Or like if I could have instant John's instant delivery service.
John Shull 43:43
Or like if I could have like, you know, like, be the luckiest man on the face of the earth and win the lottery over and over. Like every time there's a large lottery. I just win it.
Nick VinZant 43:53
That would be cool to like luck as a superpower. Yeah, that would probably be the best superpower like luck. Yeah, that would be luck as a superpower would be the best.
John Shull 44:03
Yeah, it would be. I booked you know, once again, kinda like who was Spider Man's uncle, Uncle Ben's uncle Jerry. Uncle Ben. Regardless. With great responsibility comes great power. great power comes great responsibility.
Nick VinZant 44:20
One of those two. Well, same thing, just different phrasing of it. I think it's with great power comes great responsibility
John Shull 44:26
and underrated movie. I'm gonna put that out there into the podcast universe. I think which one first? Spider Man of the Tobey Maguire series was was kind of underrated. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Nick VinZant 44:41
The only one that's kind of really bad of the Spider Man's I think would be Spider Man three. That would be the only one that was like oh, that was kind of a bad movie. Everything else was pretty good. I honestly
John Shull 44:52
I don't ever remember which one that was that with dakak
Nick VinZant 44:55
No. dakak was number two. Spider Man three was with like 30 Different vent villains I think it had like venom and the Sandman and the Green Goblin, or the Green Goblin son, the Hobgoblin. There was just way too many people involved in that one. But otherwise all Spider Man movies had been pretty good.
John Shull 45:15
You know, I gotta rant for one second. I'm sorry. I had okay, we watched the movie and the family watched the new Little Mermaid movie, The live action version? Yeah, I don't know if I'm a fan of of live action movies. And I'm not sure why I just don't know if like, either either make the movie or the in terms of like, have real actors and all that. Or go, you know, cartoon. I don't know why we have to be in the middle.
Nick VinZant 45:46
I've never really understood I am a big fan of animated movies and would generally almost always want to see the animated movie better, even with something that I'm a big fan of like Star Wars. I think the Star Wars animated stuff is way cooler, because you can do cooler stuff. But there is something interesting about live action. I don't understand. I've never watched any of those Disney movies that they've converted over and never even thought about it for a second. I mean, it's never even thought about it.
John Shull 46:10
It's not. It's not a bad movie. So if you're if you're on the fence to check it out, do it. It's just I don't know. It's weird. And maybe because it's the first one I've seen. Maybe ever. I don't remember it. I don't know. It's weird. I don't know how to describe it.
Nick VinZant 46:25
Wait a minute, but it's live action underwater? Are they actually underwater?
John Shull 46:29
They are but they're not. No, they're not actually underwater. But the movie takes place, obviously, under the sea.
Nick VinZant 46:37
Hmm. Interesting. What did you have a superhero that you wanted to be growing up? Like, I wish I was this superhero?
John Shull 46:44
I did not actually I was I was raised with wrestling and sports. So I didn't really have like the comic book heroes, or someone in that universe that I wanted to be now. If you count wrestlers as superheroes, which I do. No, you do not.
Nick VinZant 47:02
I don't think anyone does.
John Shull 47:04
Nothing. I think through the small debates we made there that
Nick VinZant 47:08
I don't think that there's any debate to be made that a wrestler is a superhero. I don't think that there's any debate in any world ever in any university amongst the multiverse that wrestlers a superhero.
John Shull 47:18
I think there's a very small argument to be made that there's
Nick VinZant 47:22
any argument whatsoever. All right, fine. So what's your su What's your argument then that a wrestler is a superhero?
John Shull 47:29
Well, the characters that they portray on on TV, you know, especially in the cartoon era, the late 80s or the mid 80s, late 80s, called Cogan, you could almost say that he was kind of like a superhero.
Nick VinZant 47:47
No, not in any way.
John Shull 47:49
Prayers, nature, vitamins, kids go to bed early, and you can be as strong as me. I mean, he was ultimate strength.
Nick VinZant 47:56
Yeah, but that was ultimately a massive lie. Right? The part they always leave out about that is eat your prayers, or wait, no, say your prayers, eat your vitamins take massive amounts of steroids. They're lying since children,
John Shull 48:07
this is gonna sound real ignorant. And I get that, but I feel like I have to say it is that you could make a point that the serum that the Hulk uses, it couldn't be steroids. We don't know.
Nick VinZant 48:20
Yeah, but it's like gamma radiation, man. It's not like they're not leaving that part out. I'm going that's the thing that you don't realize as a kid is that all of like, the heroes that you have in real life? It's all kind of bullshit, right? Like they're all fake heroes. Absolutely. She's ironic. The real heroes in life are completely fake. Right.
John Shull 48:41
I think I've said this story before, so I'm gonna make into a 32nd version. But I met Rudy Rudy ruettiger. Like I met the actual Rudy. And I was so excited. I was a junior in college or something. I had admired him for all of his feats, and being five foot four and making the Notre Dame football team and I met him. And he was a complete asshole. Like he was there just to make money. And then obviously, as you get older, you realize that most of those like like you just said, most of those heroes are not actually heroes at all.
Nick VinZant 49:15
No, not really. Anyway. Okay. All right.
John Shull 49:20
Are we ready for some? Shout outs out? Yeah, sure. All right, let's start with a simple one here right off the bat. Jim limber, raucous Sure. I screwed that up royally. Jim limber. rakez Jim, Jim lamber. Rekha said
Nick VinZant 49:39
hyphenated. Is it hyphenated? Or do you throw the middle name in there for no reason?
John Shull 49:43
No, I think that's his last name is number rakez. But
Nick VinZant 49:47
he said hyphenated. No. So it's just one long word that says limber. rakez It's like 42 letters.
John Shull 49:54
Gotta hope we're not getting duped into saying something dumb. I don't think we
Nick VinZant 49:57
are number rakez I don't think so limber. Make It's even if so good kudos for him.
John Shull 50:02
I usually say them out loud at least once, so I know that I'm not getting duped.
Nick VinZant 50:07
So is there a space in his name? Or is it all limber? rakez
John Shull 50:10
It's, it's, it's all limber Acas.
Nick VinZant 50:13
It's like 72 letters. No, it's actually
John Shull 50:15
10 which is not that crazy. It's not that bad and your last name as seven so you're almost there.
Nick VinZant 50:24
It's a pain in the ass to have a longer last name. If I write out my whole legal government name. It's a long thing. Let me see.
John Shull 50:35
And we're gonna take a
Nick VinZant 50:36
quiz. Just keep you just keep going. And I'll tell you how many letters it is at the end of the shoutouts.
John Shull 50:41
All right, moving on Randolph cologne Jr. Rafi l bitch off. Skylar Carter. Peter when Gachi Jeff McCamish James Minnie Terrell graves. Vince Liberto Jose Vasquez in Chris fosh. Appreciate you and, you know, a Knicks still counting so I'm gonna say one more. Rock Zan miles. And how many letters
Nick VinZant 51:12
20 to 22 letters, man, and that's probably nothing to some people. How do you feel about people who have four names?
John Shull 51:22
I mean, I strictly think it's a cultural thing. I mean, some in some cultures, people have like
Nick VinZant 51:29
white people.
John Shull 51:30
Just let's just go straight to wait, wait. That's fair. I mean, I'm, I don't know I'm okay with it. I mean, I've never understood the older I get I've never understood. You know, like, if you're a Christopher, and you go by Chris, why can't you just be a Chris? Why do you have to like put Christopher, on your documents,
Nick VinZant 51:50
because that's your legal name. But like, I'm my legal name is Nicolas, I have to put Nicolas on all legal documents because the government knows me as Nicolas, if you put Nick on there. It's spelled differently. And people are gonna think you're somebody else. Like, generally, if you'd asked for your legal name, you got to write the whole thing, right? Like you're not going to split J.
John Shull 52:13
But what if I did?
Nick VinZant 52:15
Well, then you'd be wronged. And then the IRS would be looking for you. They'd be like, Who the hell is this person?
John Shull 52:21
They're not coming after me.
Nick VinZant 52:22
Now, they probably know. Well, ironically, the IRS comes after people who don't make very much money, so they probably aren't coming. They're not coming after the people that are ripping them off. Or ripping us all out there. Yeah, I generally feel that if you got four full four full names, man, there's going to be there's about a 95% chance we're going to deal with some pretentiousness. Probably a 90% chance there's going to be some douchebaggery
John Shull 52:45
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. All right. Well, that's all you got. I'm I'm bringing back factor fiction.
Nick VinZant 52:55
Okay. And the people were something I thought
John Shull 52:58
I saw a quick message about wanting me to stump you again, so Profoundly Pointless factor fiction. Gonna give Nick a couple of questions. See if he can get these. These right, whether they're true or false. I'll start off we'll start off with a an interesting one here. Kashia and Lucy Liu have claimed to have had sex with a ghost. True or false?
Nick VinZant 53:26
I mean, sex with a ghost. Lucy Liu doesn't seem like she would claim to have sex with a ghost. Wasn't she? Didn't she hosts like a Discovery Channel documentary kind of thing? Or does she have another sister that looked exactly like that? I don't, I'm gonna say false, but only because of Lucy Liu.
John Shull 53:45
It is true, actually. So according to her, Lucy Liu herself, she says And once again, this is a quote, I need to keep saying that some sort of Spirit came down from God, who knows where from and made love to me.
Nick VinZant 54:02
I believe that's called a dream.
John Shull 54:04
That it's a lot of cocaine is what that you imagined
Nick VinZant 54:07
just telling somebody that, right, like, that's one of those things that I think celebrities just make this stuff up for attention, right, like Lucy Liu claimed to have had sex with the ghost. Like what's going to happen? What How did Kashia have sex with a ghost?
John Shull 54:21
Well, there's also a quote by her so I guess I'll read it. She told Ryan Seacrest of all people on his radio show back when he had one. I mean, that's a well, that's a big audience. It's a big audience. That her song supernatural was about her making love to a ghost. I lived in this flophouse. I don't know what that is at rural Canyon and there was some weird energy that lived there. It used to keep me up all night. Wake me up and it progressed into this dark sexual spirit. It scared me but that's the fun part of it.
Nick VinZant 54:55
Can you imagine just sitting there listening to that? Just being like What do you say after somebody tells you that they have said they had sex with a ghost? Like, what was it? Was it good? Like isn't the ghost of spirit and how did it become? Because if I've learned anything from the movie Ghost, it's that it's very difficult for ghosts to become corporal and to be affect the physical world.
John Shull 55:17
I'm actually I'm proud of you that you have seen the movie Ghost.
Nick VinZant 55:23
Yeah, dude, everybody's I don't know if I've actually like watched the whole movie, but I know some of the scenes like I thought it was gonna say Oprah Winfrey, but this will be gold.
John Shull 55:32
Yeah, good. I mean, she was fantastic in that movie. I think we've talked about Patrick Swayze a little bit as well in the past. Not the biggest fan. But you know, he is all right.
Nick VinZant 55:44
I still get confused between Patrick Russell and Kurt Swayze. What's his name? Patrick Swayze and Kurt Russell to me, they're the same person. Jesus, right. It's like that other guy. What is there Jason Bateman and Paul Rudd? Same person. Chris Evans and the other guy. I mean, they were two celebrities. They're exactly alike.
John Shull 56:03
I mean, they really are. Like, kind of interchangeable. I feel like most things in Hollywood most people aside from a couple are interchangeable.
Nick VinZant 56:12
Unless you have sex with ghosts, man. That's the way to keep a career live.
John Shull 56:15
Well, I mean, you were you were wrong.
Nick VinZant 56:19
Well, we all lost that.
John Shull 56:22
This should be an easy one for you. Elvis Presley staying on the celebrity side of things was actually a natural blonde.
Nick VinZant 56:32
Yeah, I think that's true.
John Shull 56:34
It is true. According to some archive that studied him. He started using black shoe polish to darken his hair. Because he thought it made him more handsome. Can you imagine that using shoe polish to color your hair? Like that's a that's a crazy thing.
Nick VinZant 56:53
I mean, it was back in like the 1950s man did they even have like stuff like that? He price probably what he
John Shull 56:58
had I'm not hating on him. I'm I mean, good on him work.
Nick VinZant 57:02
Work for him. Right worked out for the guy.
John Shull 57:06
All right. So this was actually something that I did because I was just doing a lot of research Believe it or not, I I'm surprised by this. So I'm curious to know if you think that this is true or false. Charlie Sheen accidentally accidentally shot his then fiancee Kelly Preston?
Nick VinZant 57:25
Oh, probably. I mean, yeah, that doesn't seem like something's you're gonna make up and he doesn't exactly have a track record of good behavior.
John Shull 57:32
That is true. He shot her in the arm when they were in the bathroom. And apparently, he they were in the bathroom doing something. He was taking off his pants. his revolver fell out of his his pants, fell on the ground, discharged the shot and it went to her arm.
Nick VinZant 57:51
She hit her. I mean, she got hurt. Yeah, she was shot in the arm. I mean, I've been shot in the arm. And I actually didn't get hurt. I because I'm fucking made of steel. And the way we're really far away with a shotgun. But that doesn't
John Shull 58:05
mean all right. Well, this is another one that I didn't care to look at. But now I have to ask you, Harry Styles has four nipples?
Nick VinZant 58:17
Well, sure, a false. I don't. I don't. I don't even want to know when it comes to any kind of celebrity news. Like I don't even want to know.
John Shull 58:26
You have to say it's all about learning on this show and things that
Nick VinZant 58:32
no one cares about Harry Styles has four nipples or not?
John Shull 58:35
Well, it's true. And it's called poly thelia. Which is actually one of the most uncommon types of they call it a body disorder. I don't know if that's what it is. But that you can have and that's basically having four nipples instead of two and four nipples. Seems like a lot of nipples.
Nick VinZant 58:53
That's one too many. That's right. Like if you got three nipples that's like okay, that happens. Once you get to four nipples. That's too many nipples, like Oh, but they're not like full nipples. They're like little things or something like that. Right? Did you have them? Do they still on his body? You haven't removed?
John Shull 59:07
No, they're like under there. kind of imagine like, where the top of his ribcage is where you can kind of start to see his, like six pack in debt.
Nick VinZant 59:17
Now I need to look up Harry Styles for nipples. See, this
John Shull 59:21
is what Right? Correct. You're not the only person right now probably that's doing that.
Nick VinZant 59:26
See, Harry Styles has four nipples.
John Shull 59:30
Saying, Oh, yeah,
Nick VinZant 59:32
but not like really? I mean, you would think that they're just like, a little pimple or something like that. Like, it's not like, I mean, he's still walking around with his shirt off. So it's not like he's too worried about it.
John Shull 59:48
Yeah, I mean, it's they're not terrible.
Nick VinZant 59:51
Yeah, people were like, you wouldn't even notice that. Not really. I mean, you'd have to like be looking like okay, that's a nipple looks More just like a sunspot, right? It's not like he's got cow otters there or something like that.
John Shull 1:00:07
I'm just, I'm just saying I it's a fact it's not like I'm making this up.
Nick VinZant 1:00:13
Would you rather have four nipples or have sex with a ghost?
John Shull 1:00:18
Sex with a ghost?
Nick VinZant 1:00:21
What if it was like a male ghost?
John Shull 1:00:24
I mean, listen, no offense to any of our listeners that are into that thing, but that I would probably go with for nipples.
Nick VinZant 1:00:32
As with that, like, would that count? If you are a straight man, and you had sex with a male ghost? Like there he just you know, are you not? Not? Did he? Did you get your Does that count as not being a virgin anymore if you have sex with a ghost?
John Shull 1:00:50
While we're really talking about this, I think there has to be physical insertion of of a body part into yours. And obviously, if you're a woman and a woman that can just be on the outside, but I feel like there has to be some kind of physical contact of some kind around your private areas
Nick VinZant 1:01:10
where they would have to be to have truly have sex with the ghost.
John Shull 1:01:13
I don't I don't want to talk about this anymore.
Nick VinZant 1:01:18
Like, what are you doing that you're just like, I just fucked a ghost. Why? I
John Shull 1:01:23
mean, well, I mean, once again, if you can't prove it, right, so if anyone wants to ever ask them in an interview, like that's not true. You can't prove it. So you're really just going off there. Yeah. So all right.
Nick VinZant 1:01:37
I don't think most people are going to believe that. Um, are you ready for our top five? I have one more. Oh, okay. Well, there's a lot today. Yeah,
John Shull 1:01:44
I will. I wasn't going to ask this one. But then I was like, you talked about the celebrity thing. So I have an animal one for you. Oh, I like animal and this is about So factor fiction. Male koalas have a large two pronged penis. And a female koala has three vaginas in two uteruses?
Nick VinZant 1:02:05
I'm going to have to say that's true, because that's too many things for you to just make up.
John Shull 1:02:10
It is true. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So obviously the female koala has all that for her pouch. And I'm not entirely sure yet I didn't research why a male koala has a two pronged penis but sounds like it's effective.
Nick VinZant 1:02:23
What do you mean two prong like it goes? Like
John Shull 1:02:26
yeah out. Like make your you know, make, you know make a V with your sign. Yeah, make a peace sign. And that's that's what a koalas penis male penis.
Nick VinZant 1:02:38
I'm not looking into this. Don't
John Shull 1:02:39
please. And if you're Googling it out there, I apologize. Hopefully you're not doing it on a work computer.
Nick VinZant 1:02:45
I don't like looking at gross things. Like if I think something's gonna be gross. I don't want to see it at all.
John Shull 1:02:52
Yeah, I had a co worker of mine actually. It was like, Hey, do you want to see my neighbor like had some pretty? He got his hand with a tree trimmer knew Oh, but she had told me that it wasn't that bad. And when she showed me I'm like, you know, we'll call her we'll call her Laura just may give her a name. And I'm like, Laura, his pinkie finger is half severed. And she's like, Yeah, but he's fine. They reattached it. I'm like, Well, I'm never gonna just randomly look at something that you want to show me ever and
Nick VinZant 1:03:23
you never look at random pictures of things. If anybody's ever like I want to show you something. My answer is generally no. That's for whatever it is. I don't want to see it. That's fair. I want to show you and whatever it is, right a YouTube video an injury an article. I don't look at things that people want to show me that's an that's a policy that I'm going to adopt from now on. I will no longer look at anything that anyone wants to show me the koalas penis. Maybe don't want to see it hairstyles fourth nipples don't want to see it. I don't even want to see Lucy Liu having sex with a ghost. If there was video of it, I'd be like No, I don't want to watch that.
John Shull 1:03:59
Maybe I didn't Google to see if there was video but maybe
Nick VinZant 1:04:02
do you think that would be like the top of like one of the websites? Yes like yeah, by far I think that would be number one Lucy Liu with a ghost I haven't done
John Shull 1:04:13
this Believe it or not, but I bet you if you go to the most watched videos on those certain websites, I would I would say three out of five are probably some kind of celebrity induced something
Nick VinZant 1:04:28
Have you ever been into that? Oh, I mean, I look at other stuff but I was not looking at that. Okay, you ready for our top five? I am. So our top five is top five foods that come in a bowl top five foods and let's say it late weight has to be free. I don't know if we should go from Lucy Liu go sex to coming in a bowl. It's been done. Top five foods that are in a bowl. What's your number five.
John Shull 1:04:56
So this was Did you have trouble with this list? Because there are no Not at all. There are lots of options.
Nick VinZant 1:05:02
There are but there's not a lot of good ones. Well, there's a lot of good ones. But there's there's the dominant ones at the top. Right. I thought about it for a while. There's a lot of foods that come in a bowl, but ultimately, this was a pretty easy list for me.
John Shull 1:05:15
All right, well, my number five, I'm going to put popcorn.
Nick VinZant 1:05:20
You don't have to have pop.
John Shull 1:05:23
Nobody eats it out of the bag. Nobody does.
Nick VinZant 1:05:27
Well, I mean, I do.
John Shull 1:05:29
Of course you do. You're the one out of the bags right there, person.
Nick VinZant 1:05:34
Well, I also like to engage in edibles in the weekend, and I'm just gonna take the whole bag. I'm not messing with his bowl. Give me the bag.
John Shull 1:05:40
So my list is foods that you eat out of a bowl. Not necessarily come in a bowl, but foods that you eat out of a bowl, and my number five is popcorn.
Nick VinZant 1:05:51
So here's to be like top five foods you eat in a bowl. Yes. Okay, my number five is a burrito bowl. Hall. I love a burrito bowl. Yes. Fantastic. I love mixing all kinds of stuff together. It's
John Shull 1:06:08
amazing. It's you still have in the same burrito for dinner? Yeah,
Nick VinZant 1:06:12
I have burritos for dinner about four times a week.
John Shull 1:06:14
Well, yeah, protein, right.
Nick VinZant 1:06:18
They switch it up though. Sometimes I go chicken. Sometimes I'll go ground turkey. Grab sometimes I'll go you know, like, Well, yeah, no, actually, that's about it. Cuz that chicken
John Shull 1:06:26
rounds her shit out of here. Oh, okay.
Nick VinZant 1:06:29
What's your what's your cholesterol level? How many times you go to the doctor to get a checkup?
John Shull 1:06:35
They can't even read my cholesterol because they don't have a chart big enough.
Nick VinZant 1:06:39
He had issues with number four.
John Shull 1:06:42
Yes, to say the least. My number four is fruit. eating fruit out of a bowl is fantastic.
Nick VinZant 1:06:49
I don't think that you understood this list. Its food you can eat out of a bowl. No, it's food that comes in a bowl like this because you could put it in a bowl like cheeseburger. Listen, do cheeseburger bowl. Do
John Shull 1:07:03
you want cheeseburger in the bowl and
Nick VinZant 1:07:05
eat it out?
John Shull 1:07:06
Would you like to start over because you have cereal? You sent me some examples and you said cereal and cereal out of a bowl and it doesn't come in a bowl. You put it up everybody.
Nick VinZant 1:07:17
Everybody that you eat. Everybody accepts that you eat cereal out of a bowl. Nobody's eating it out of their hands. Right? But you can eat fruit by itself, right?
John Shull 1:07:27
But people don't eat popcorn just out of the bag unless they're you.
Nick VinZant 1:07:31
Right? But how often when we have these lists to go out, and then they come back with Wow, Jon's wrong on that.
John Shull 1:07:38
Listen, I have the text proof of you sent me two examples. And they are both things that go into a bowl.
Nick VinZant 1:07:45
Yeah, but cereal and soup are different than fruit. Although I do actually eat fruit out of a bowl, but it's frozen. Does it count?
John Shull 1:07:56
Let's I guess our lists are just gonna have to be separate this week. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 1:08:00
well, so one of them's gonna be right. And one of them's gonna be yours.
John Shull 1:08:04
Yeah, you're right, the right list.
Nick VinZant 1:08:07
My number four is noodles. Any kind of noodles? Ramen Noodles fo far. Pokey bowl. ice bowl, any kind of like noodle based thing like that. Although I use it noodle base, but you get it rice and noodle bowls.
John Shull 1:08:24
I mean, I have ramen and rice stir fry bowls on my honorable mention.
Nick VinZant 1:08:30
Okay, that works. That's your number three. Sandwich. Close sandwich bowl.
John Shull 1:08:36
Salad.
Nick VinZant 1:08:38
Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Okay, do you have salad at number three?
John Shull 1:08:42
I do because I feel like there's a dominant to like a top two.
Nick VinZant 1:08:46
Okay, but when you have salad like, are you just having lettuce and some dressing? Are you doing all kinds of crap? Do you know the answer? What's what's all in your salad? God, how many special salad tongs? How many pairs of tongs you got? Now?
John Shull 1:09:00
I do have some dogs. We've discussed this. I know. Just
Nick VinZant 1:09:03
to remind me how many pairs of tongs you have at your house?
John Shull 1:09:08
I mean, in total, I mean, I probably have a dozen. I mean, I have four pairs of salad tongs that are the same brand of tongue. But one's a little shorter ones little bigger. They're all separate colors. It's awesome.
Nick VinZant 1:09:23
Do they have their own drawer than the tongue drawer? No. I
John Shull 1:09:27
mean, they're in a they're in like a little container with other utensils like spatulas and things.
Nick VinZant 1:09:33
How many kinds of specialists do you have?
John Shull 1:09:35
I don't know. 810
Nick VinZant 1:09:39
Are you fucking serious? Eight.
John Shull 1:09:42
How long have you been? How long have you been an adult for?
Nick VinZant 1:09:47
I've been I mean since I was I guess. However you wanted to find that. I've been living on my own since I was 18. I tell you what, I've got one spatula because it does the whole job right? It's not oh no good. The big one.
John Shull 1:10:01
I mean, I have big bachelors, littles bachelors non sticks bachelors, Olds bachelors. I don't think listen, if anyone out there wants to comment on any of our social media or send a direct message, maybe maybe I'm in the wrong maybe it's abnormal to have multiple kitchen utensils.
Nick VinZant 1:10:20
You don't have multiple kitchen utensils, right? Like if you had to spatula is like, no way. This is the one that I use on the nonstick pan, so I don't mess up the Teflon or whatever. But if you've got eight spatulas, you've crossed the line. I can I can approve no more than three. If you had three and be like, Okay, well, all right. Maybe.
John Shull 1:10:42
I don't disagree with you. However, I disagree with you if that makes any sense.
Nick VinZant 1:10:49
Yeah, man, I would just be like if my wife came home with another spatula, and we had a spatula, that I'll tell you where that spatula is going. Right out the fucking door.
John Shull 1:10:59
It's not throwing it. Nope, you're putting it in.
Nick VinZant 1:11:01
I've actually that is the only time that is the only thing that I've ever been like upset enough to throw was a spatula. Like I threw it out into the bushes. And then I went and got it because it's not getting rid of a spatula. Like I said, go buy another one.
John Shull 1:11:13
You know, saints either. Well, I tell you what, you do that again. I'll FedEx one over to you.
Nick VinZant 1:11:19
You got plenty of them. What was your number three, by the way, Sal and all of that. Okay, but what do you put in your salad? Like How much stuff do you put in there?
John Shull 1:11:28
So usually salad bass with goat cheese cran and cranberries. Croutons. And then some kind of usually, like vinegar, red sauce. It's good. I probably have that four to four to five days a week. Like, sometimes that's my dinner and I'll just throw a chicken breast in there some ground turkey. Okay, no, I won't grow. Okay, I will not eat ground turkey but chicken breast for sure.
Nick VinZant 1:11:59
Yeah, you wouldn't want ground turkey and salad. That wouldn't be good. Right? Like you got to have some substance in there. Maybe some okay, it's, um, I generally don't approve of anything more than a few things in my salad. I'll have salad salad dressing, maybe some croutons or a bacon bit like thing. What have you started getting all kinds of crap in there. That's too much for me. Like I don't want to deal with all that.
John Shull 1:12:22
If you're a fancy if you're a fancy cheese guy. Good. Gorgonzola blue cheese, man. Goat cheese.
Nick VinZant 1:12:31
You really are such a snob.
John Shull 1:12:33
That's fine. What's your number three.
Nick VinZant 1:12:36
Chili.
John Shull 1:12:38
I left that off the list. But that's that's it's like could be a US number six for me. Like it's it shouldn't be there.
Nick VinZant 1:12:47
How do you put chili behind fruit? This is why I get so upset about your list because you can't possibly say I love fruit. But it's not like a bowl based food.
John Shull 1:12:58
Because I really I don't have a reason I don't. I mean, I just I don't have a reason chili. Chili and fruit could easily be interchangeable but I went with fruit because I went with fruit.
Nick VinZant 1:13:12
Okay, well my number three is chili, which is clearly the right answer. What's your number two cereal? Yeah, cereal is my number two as well.
John Shull 1:13:20
Do we have the same number two and number one?
Nick VinZant 1:13:23
I doubt it because my number one is I think the greatest thing that to be in a bowl that you could possibly imagine.
John Shull 1:13:30
Alright, well, I'll get my number one out of the way. And that's soup.
Nick VinZant 1:13:36
My number one is a bread bowl.
John Shull 1:13:40
I have a love hate relationship with bread bowls. Understand them don't really need to have them.
Nick VinZant 1:13:49
I think that literally everything is better than a bread bowl. Chili bread bowl soup. Red Bull. I think bread bowl is the greatest thing in the world. I think it's the greatest thing in the world. It's creamy and bread. You can dip the bread right in there. It's fantastic.
John Shull 1:14:06
There's a hole fantastic probably stick your head and
Nick VinZant 1:14:10
you can save the bread the only thing apart problem with the bread bowl is you can't really save the bread bowl. It's not a good like to go thing.
John Shull 1:14:17
No not really cannot save the bread bowl.
Nick VinZant 1:14:19
What's your honorable mention?
John Shull 1:14:21
So I got trail mix. dips. Oh,
Nick VinZant 1:14:26
good. See, this is why I'm upset. You're gonna put fruit above dip. Like you're gonna put fruit above Nacho dip. ranch dip is seven layer dip.
John Shull 1:14:37
I'll make you a deal. You dip buy dip.
Nick VinZant 1:14:40
We dip? Yeah, I mean, I did find if you do.
John Shull 1:14:44
See, we talked about ramen. We talked about rice. I have chili on there and I'll end with salsa.
Nick VinZant 1:14:52
Okay, those are all respectable. I actually think your honorable mention list is better than your actual list.
John Shull 1:14:59
I don't know Pretty with you, but what's on your auto imagine?
Nick VinZant 1:15:03
The only thing that I had on my honorable mention was salad. But I'm not going to go ahead and elevate salad up ahead of that. The thing is, is that I would have had a lot of stuff in my honorable mention but I think that they all kind of fell under that noodles rice category that I had at number four like ramen. Is it FFO or FDA?
John Shull 1:15:25
Fo I believe,
Nick VinZant 1:15:26
I think it's fo it spelled pH Oh, I know that. Do you prefer that's all I have in my honorable mention wet noodle
John Shull 1:15:33
or a dry noodle?
Nick VinZant 1:15:36
Hmm, I don't know the difference. You usually don't. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick reading rating. It really helps us out. We really appreciate it and let us know what you think are some of the best foods in a bowl. I just don't I mean, I get it right. Like I eat fruit bowls. I do. But I don't think of fruit as a bowl based food. But let us know what you think.