Dr. Phil: From Nice Guy to Nazi (with Aubrey Gordon)
Dr. Phil has a new hobby: ICE raids. The daytime television fixture bewildered fans when he began touring with the Trump campaign last year, ending his decades-long streak as a seemingly apolitical celebrity. Like so many 2000s stars, Dr. Phil has found a career revival in right-wing media, advocating for everything from deportations to zionism. But what could explain such a radical shift from the man who spent decades trying to bring families together? In this episode, the inimitable Aubrey Gordon and I take a journey through the 2000s, encountering a motley crew including Oprah, Bhad Bhabie, and Benjamin Netanyahu along the way. Come to find out, the Dr. Phil we know now is the Dr. Phil we knew all along.
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Sydney Sweeney and the Outrage Machine
Sydney Sweeney is Hollywood’s most-discussed starlet, often for confusing reasons. Her existence as a visible woman with a human body made her the target of widespread male adoration, ridicule, and political projection. How she navigates being the new Miss American Dream is yielding increasingly bizarre results — what’s the deal with her eugenics, I mean genetics? And the bathwater? In this much-requested episode, Taylor, Kat and I examine the 27-year-old’s relationship to wokeness (just kill me already), the line between sex work and whatever’s happening in her brand endorsements, and the right-wing media’s penchant for manufacturing hysteria.
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The Trans Teen Imprisoned for Refusing to Join the IDF
Yona Roseman is 19. In two weeks, the Israeli government is imprisoning her for refusing to join Israel's military, for which service is required by all Israeli Jewish teenagers. Because she is transgender, Yona anticipates she’ll be kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours per day. She’s been brutalized by cops who hurl slurs at her despite Israel’s alleged status as a safe haven for LGBTQ people. Ahead of her imprisonment, Yona joins us to talk about the reality of Israel’s treatment of queer people, the way Israel intentionally endangers LGBTQ Palestinians, and why prison and expulsion from mainstream society are prices she’s willing to pay.
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Jojo Siwa: The Internet’s Court Jester
Jojo Siwa has been a lot of things: an eleven-year-old abused on television for public entertainment, a tween merchandising mogul with a billion dollar brand, Nickelodeon’s first out gay child star, and most recently, a dollar store trad wife. Behind the facade of endlessly shapeshifting court jester, though, Jojo Siwa is a 22-year-old human who has not known life without cameras and a momager since she was nine. Today, Kat Tenbarge and I do some good ole (queer) child star anthropology — and make the case that we, the viewers, are not morally neutral for tuning in.
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The New York Times Thinks Gays Have Gone Too Far (with Chase Strangio)
On the twilight of Pride Month, the New York Times published (and sent out a push notification for) a guest essay titled “How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way” by a gay journalist named Andrew Sullivan. If you thought I could resist this A Bit Fruity bait, you’d be wrong.
Today, Chase Strangio — who recently made history as the first trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court in US v. Skrmetti — helps us parse out some genuinely difficult questions. What is the right way to ask people in power for your rights? Has the gay movement gone too far? What is the point of the New York Times?
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For years, Matt’s been unpacking the events, people, and culture wars shaping the world around us. On A Bit Fruity, we take deeper dives into those issues — joined by celebrities, experts, and journalists who help us laugh and learn along the way.
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