Introduction --- Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to season two of What Kind of Man Are You? Degan: We are living in a moment where the ground is shifting under our feet. Politics, identity, even basic humanity, it all feels up for grabs. As men, we're asking, what's our role in all this? Chris: Time to tear up the old playbook. Do we step back or we finally reckon with what it means to be a man who actually gives a damn? Degan: This is What Kind of Man Are You? The podcast where we untangle masculinity, privilege, and the messy work of showing up. I'm Degan Davis, a therapist, writer, and author of the Poetry Collection. What Kind of Man Are You? Chris: And I am writer and producer, Chris Garbutt. Each episode we'll tackle the big questions. How do we be better allies? How do we confront fear, in the world and in ourselves? And what's our [00:01:00] responsibility when the stakes are this high? Degan: No easy answers. Just real talk about shame, courage, and the small acts that aren't so small, like standing up when it counts. Chris: So whether you're here to rethink masculinity, fight for justice, or just feel a little less alone in the chaos, let's get into it. Discussing 'The Hunt' (2012) --- Chris: / We're gonna talk about a 2012 film called The Hunt, which is different from a 2020 movie about The Hunt, which is more hunting humans on an island. I think I actually saw that one on did you on tv and it was, how was it? It was, I'm not really into horror movies. Yeah. And it was horror so yeah. Not my thing. Degan: Sounds like it was based on the island of Dr. Morrow by HG Wells, which is like where, people get bored and they [00:02:00] want to hunt, the highest form of animal, which is humans. Chris: It's a classic. Story. Degan: Yeah. Chris: That I hope has never really happened in real life. Degan: And what we're talking about today, we're talking about 2012 Danish film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, who used to be part of that, the Dogma 95, I think it was. Chris: Yeah. Degan: A group. And who I've. I've only seen a few of his films, but I love the Celebration. I think we've talked about that before. Chris: Yeah. That's a very, probably his most famous movie is The Celebration. Degan: And I love the way he depicts all his characters, but I think he's really interested in men. Anyway, so I thought what we'd do is we're gonna talk about the hunt. Plot Summary and Key Themes --- Degan: We've both seen it recently very deeply impacted us both. And then we're gonna talk about some themes that sort of come out of it. So I thought I'd describe first a little bit about the movie and basically, if you haven't seen it, just pause this podcast and go and see it. Go and watch it because there'll probably will be spoilers. It's set in a small Danish village around Christmas time and the main character [00:03:00] is Lucas who. He is divorced and he's a kindergarten teacher and he's beloved. You really get this sense that he plays with these kids. He's really himself. He's a man who's compassionate and direct and he's beloved. And as the story rolls, and again, there are gonna be spoilers here. A little girl who's I think five years old or so, who's actually the daughter of his best friend develops a crush on him. and she's also shown from her elder brothers or someone, some porn at one point. So she's got these sort of ideas, flowing in her head which is very easy to see how that could happen. And I think at one point. She actually, as he's playing with the other kids, she comes over and kisses them on the lips. And he says quite clearly that's for parents, that's for people in their private lives. And so he's very clear. Chris: Yeah. Degan: And she is deeply hurt by this. and it's a small town, right? So he sometimes walks her to school, she sometimes comes with him, walks his dog. It's a very tight knit [00:04:00] community. And you think he chose. That as a setting because of what happens further on. And anyway she says something later on and basically accuses him of, inappropriate touching. And then the teachers and others draw her out and she uses some language from this porn video that she's briefly seen and he is accused falsely ofinappropriate touching, a sexual assault of a minor. And of course, being a kindergarten teacherit's devastating and absolutely and utterly devastating for him. And as the movie rolls on, and I think in the first 15 or so minutes, you really see the close knit nature of the community. His best friend, his other friends, them drinking together. The main character Lucas, bringing his best friend home who's drunk out of his mind, and the wife's saying, ah, you guys had another night? And he's yeah, take care of him. Get 'em some water. You feel this kind of, it's a bunch of guys who are decent [00:05:00] people who are drinking and they've been in this town for a long time And there's a lot of closeness. And as this accusation spreads this character, Lucas is absolutely shunned. And the shunning, just to say is brilliantly portrayed and the devastation of it for him to be losing friend after friend, for him to be, he's assaulted in a butcher store from a very large butcher, he is rejected for, and a lot of time there's not really even an asking of what did you actually do here? It's called The Hunt, and it's really is like a witch hunt in a sense. And the story moves along and, and it becomes, it's ambiguous in a way. There's some movement toward that, oh, actually all the other kids were saying things like, oh, he did this to us in his basement. And they all say this Chris: so to be clear, as after that first accusation, they started interviewing other kids Degan: Yes. Chris: [00:06:00] Where they drew out accusations from these other kids. That's right. And go on about the basement thing. Degan: And they say it was in the basement. Chris: Yes, it was in the basement. Degan: And then when the police come, they say, show us your basement. And they say, we don't have a basement. There's no basement yet. And so you get this sense, and again we're sharing the details of this plot because we wanna speak about it in detail, but, so you get this sense that. There is some exoneration here, and then the latter part of the movie is a year after. But I think what we can just talk about how the movie hit us in this sense. And how did it hit you? Impact of False Accusations --- Degan: What did it, we're talking about masculinity and men here, we're also talking about false accusations in this case. ~yeah.~ Chris: I'm interested in what brought you to suggesting this, it's like you said, it hit you hard. It's, it is definitely an outstanding movie. Yeah. But neither of us had seen it. What made you think to that? I Degan: guess it's for some context here the last. Five, 7,000 years of history have been a mess. [00:07:00] And we have had a system, more or less of patriarchy, which has been devastating. And this is a podcast that welcomes all men, all people and I think wants to look complexly at these topics, right? And I think I see that as a fact, as we've had patriarchal systems and really in the last 50, 70 years, since, early 20th century, mid 20th century, we have begun to shift away from that. And in that time we have just had, a lot of horrendous things have happened. Partially women used to be owned by men. They used to be literal property of men. It, you couldn't even, my mother couldn't get it her own credit card in the 1970s. We're talking about power imbalances that of course had, there were sexual power imbalances all over the place. We know from extreme examples like Harvey Weinstein that we have had massive systemic abuses in industries. So all of that exists in the consciousness of this. And I think what, you and I are living in 2025, we're talking in 2025 [00:08:00] after, the 1990s kind of real shift toward I think let's really look at men's role, women's roles what's happening here? A sense of equality. We're looking at post Me Too. And I think I was drawn to this film because in the reevaluation of patriarchy in the breakdown of it and the anger against it, we have certainly had other casualties. And part of that is a kind of social media, like I was thinking about this last night. The social media itself, we say things on social media that we wouldn't necessarily say out in the street. Even if we were really angry with someone, we still have a possibility to be a human to a human. Even if we're angry. And I think social media allows a kind of witch hunt on various sides or in various places. So I think a lot has been said that perhaps might not have been said person to person. And so I think this movie showswhat it's like [00:09:00] when a good man, a good person is falsely accused and the community absolutely turns on him. I don't even know really where it came from, except I know I really appreciate this director and I thought it would raise some questions. And I think what it's raising for me now is that in a way it's a little bit of an encapsulation of the way social media works. And so in this movie, he is absolutely turned upon. Chris: First of all, I think the idea of witch hunt is an appropriate. Use of that term. But it is a loaded term these days, of course, because of Donald Trump saying anybody who disagrees with him is on a witch hunt. Degan: Sure. Chris: But I think when we define witch hunt, we're talking about a situation in, the witch hunts that we refer to are those middle of the millennium a woman would be thrown in the river with weights and if she drowned, she was human. And if she lived, she was a witch. So it was a [00:10:00] catch 22 and there was no hope of getting out of it. That's why what Donald Trump has gone through has never been a witch hunt because he's still president for God's sake. Degan: I wonder if he'd float or sink though. Let's be curious. Chris: I think he would float, but hopefully he wouldn't be near a shark or an electric boat 'cause both of those things seemed to scare him a lot. Anyway so I just wanted to clarify what we mean by that term. Also, in terms of my reaction to the movie you told me we, neither of us had seen it, but you knew that it was about a man who had been falsely accused of sexual assault of a child. And so I was very nervous to watch this movie. Yeah. Because you watch, when you know something like this is coming, you don't know what you're gonna get. Yeah. And, from a lover of good entertainment point of view it's a hard, [00:11:00] we're hard to use the word entertainment for this movie, but it really is, it goes deep and it goes hard. Yeah. Into, not so much the effects on the children, but the effects on the community, and I think that's what makes this movie so good. The accusation is not the painful part. It's the slow buildup of, dominoes falling, right? Like where one accusation leads to another and one person turning on him leads to another until for a while the whole town is against him, except some friends from out of town, like his lawyer I think is from out of town. Degan: And the godfather of his son. Chris: Yeah and his son is on his side the whole time and. That's the other thing too, is it was well portrayed as to who stuck with him and why they [00:12:00] stuck with him. And it was not predictable in terms of who would stick with him. Who would stay on his side. And I think also that feeling of, because the whole time I just kept thinking, what can he do? Yes. What can he possibly do? Because if you're innocent, but the whole, your whole community thinks that you're guilty. Degan: There's incredible sense of powerlessness. And we talked about this too. There's some moments in the film where he asserts his sense of almost like worthiness to be a human being. And they're incredibly powerful. And at one moment, a man, the butcher had sucker punched him and kicked him. And it was, and really hurt him. Chris: And he was twice the size bloody. Yeah. Degan: And he the main character goes back into this store and it's, I think close to Christmas Eve or Christmas Eve, and he says. I want my groceries. And he's [00:13:00] bleeding and he's limping and he's been kicked out. Been kicked by, the people in the store and he exerts his dignity in this. And he also fights back at one moment and they give him his groceries and then he comes into the church. It's set around Christmas time, and of course we have, it's the background, the idea of Christmas. We have the idea of forgiveness and transcendence and the rest of it. And he goes to church on Christmas Eve redemption, all of this. And the person who he comes close to, 'cause no one wants to sit with him, moves away. But he sits on his own in a row, bleeding. But he's put his best suit on. Yeah. And he's made himself. A man, he's made himself a human being and I think in the second part I wanna draw some parallels in places around this, and then he looks at his best friend. He looks at his best friend in the middle, turns toward him in the middle of the service. And it's very powerful. He just looks at him and what he's saying with the look is look, in my eyes I wouldn't. I have not done what [00:14:00] you think I've done. Yeah. I, it's not true. And the friend literally. Kind of almost collapses under the truth of this. And then later goes out to see his friend and his wife says, where are you going? And he says, get out of my way. And it's you should, you can't see him. And he's I'm going. And they speak. And so there are these sense of, and I think he is, even it doesn't go into detail, but you get a sense that the court has actually has found him not guilty. Yeah. And because you have at the end, a year later spoil, sorry, spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Yeah. We're saying all everything but, but you also have this sense a year later that there is this sense around him that he's not fully trusted. And in fact, some people. He's not, I won't say about the end, but he's not trusted at all. And some people have varying degrees of that trust. Chris: Yeah. The very last scene shows that there is still a lack of trust in a very extreme way. Degan: Sure. It's called The Hunt. And that's a theme through it. Shame and Social Dynamics --- Degan: Yeah I think there's something to me, Chris, we've talked about this in the first [00:15:00] season about shame and about, when we did a kind of very interior look at men and masculinity and I think here we're looking at, shame has an important part in a society, right? It has a purpose in society. And had he done this. And we know this, we know that priests, we know that coaches, that many people, teachers have done these atrocious acts. Predominantly men. Not only though, not only men, to be really fair and in fact a lot of boys, Are caught in abusive situations from men or women, and don't speak about it because there's less invitation to talk about emotions and pieces like that. But we know that when this does happen, how devastating it is for those, right? So in a way then shame works to say. A shaming of someone works to say you have broken a kind of covenant of humanity. You've broken something that is absolutely not just a law, a human [00:16:00] way of being that is so devastating that we will shame you for it. And that's what needs to happen. Perhaps there is, and of course everyone, our sense of justice is that somebody can rehabilitate themselves, can come to terms with what they've done. But I think this idea of shaminghas societal, uh purpose, but here we have a shamed man without an action that deserves it. And I love to talk as we get into the next part about this idea of shaming And he is reduced, in a sense, to being a worthless individual. He's not invited into communities. He's not invited to his friend's houses. Someone throws a brick through his window. There's other attacks on those close to him. this is what societies do. And I think it'll be interesting to talk about, not exactly in this way, but the way the internet operates. Perhaps where is the place for men in a general sense, in a [00:17:00] society that has said men's actions have been devastating for 7,000 years. And a lot of men can feel. painted with the brush that we are all, we can be pretty monstrous and there have been monstrous actions, right? it's lurking there, whether it's there or not, it's lurking and I think that might be an interesting place to go from here. Chris: Yeah, I, there's a couple more things I'd like to say about the movie. before we go more general because one of the things that it depicted really is that so I want to just second what you said about him standing up for himself. Yeah. And especially, both that supermarket scene and the church scene where he goes like the supermarket scene, he is clearly defeated, right? Yeah. Like he's had the shit kicked out of him. He's told he's not welcome and he walks out and then he turns around and comes back and says, as you read it out, I want my groceries. Degan: Yeah. Chris: And I [00:18:00] was like, that answered my question. What can he possibly do? Like he can't change people's minds at this time. So what he can do is show that he's worthy. Like I'm sitting there thinking if he can't go to the grocery store, he can't feed himself. And if he can't go to church, he's like completely isolated because, the church is clearly everybody there goes to church on Christmas. So when he confronts people for the actions that have been done to him. That was something he could do. I will also say he didn't always handle it perfectly because he develops this relationship early in the movie, and his girlfriend at the time who was really on his side, she just says to him, can you just tell me if you did it? And he freaks out and kicks her out and says he doesn't wanna see her anymore. Degan: And he cannot take that. Every single person [00:19:00] has doubt and he just, I get falls pieces. Chris: And I get it, because he doesn't want to have to answer that question from the people who are supposed to care about him most and trust him. And this is what I'm interested in talking about because this is, the loneliness of not being believed and we'll get into that. But there's sort of one other thing that I wanted to get at, which was this idea of maybe I've said it already, just this idea of how it's really not about, it's really not about sexual abuse of children, this movie. It is about how an accusation can tear that whole social yeah. Cons, not construct social contract. That the community has built into pieces. Degan: Yeah. Chris: I'm interested in shame because the idea of shame, [00:20:00] feels more like. A worthiness to exist concept, whereas guilt. Is more like you did it or you didn't. Degan: It's an internal feeling. Usually guilt. Yeah. It can be placed upon you, but it's a feeling I did something wrong. Where shame is always placed upon you. You are not welcome in society because of X. Right? You don't look the part, you've done an action. Chris: Although guilt is like a legal term as well, so that will be placed upon you. So he's not guilty. But he's shamed. Yes. And yeah so I don't know that shame is a great, they often talk about how in politics today we should name and shame people who do awful things. And I am not necessarily against that. But the things people will do to avoid being shamed are pretty monstrous. And I think [00:21:00] what we really want is accountability. Degan: What do you mean? Chris: When I, I said this in the first season about our episode about shame, is that shame is actually a primary motivator for most of the men I know anyway. And people will do anything not to be shamed. Yes. And, and there's that quote we've referred to before from Margaret Atwood where men are most afraid of being shamed. Women are most afraid of being killed or something like that. Degan: Or men are most afraid of being laughed at. Chris: Yeah. And I see those as the It's the same. Yeah. Same kind of thing. And and I think the other piece, and I'm not sure how all those, all this connects together, but we often use children, our children, and I mean our community's children, as a substitute for our own fears, and there's a point where the child recants. Yeah. And she says, I [00:22:00] didn't mean that. I didn't, that didn't happen. I was just saying that because I was mad at him. And the community has already set so much in motion, that can't be the truth anymore. Uhhuh, because because that would shame them for having believed something so monstrous about this good person, Degan: Uhhuh And enacted their anger and shunning and everything. Chris: So the little girl is told we know this can be a hard thing to go through. and sometimes you don't want to believe that it really happened and Yeah. All this kind of thing and so the thing we have to be careful not to do is to generalize the idea of men are always getting a raw deal from these accusations. Ahuh. But during Me Too, when Me Too was really big there was this "believe all women" statement. And it always made me a [00:23:00] little uneasy because even if it's true, 99% of the time there may well be false accusations. Degan: I wanna talk about working as a therapist with people who have been falsely accused, men who have been falsely accused and what it's done to their lives. And I think we've been talking about this season, about action, about ways to combat shame. Ways to transform shame. Chris: So the whole idea of not being believed I think is a central theme in this movie. If you watch it from the right point of view, this can actually make you sympathetic towards women who have made accusations that are true, but aren't believed. So that's just the only point I want to make. And I think that does lead us to a more general conversation we want to have. Absolutely. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll dig deeper. [00:24:00] Personal Reflections and Broader Implications --- Degan: Welcome back. Degan, we're talking about this movie, and one of the reasons, we talk about movies that make you think. And boy, this one took us in so many directions. I also like this director and The Celebration was definitely a classic movie, but this one really went much harder than I expected it to and dealt with complexity so much better than I have seen in so many other movies. You know something I heard an interview with the director and he said, one of the things he really wanted to do was to show that all the characters responses were actually quite natural, Chris: Right? Yes. Degan: People thought he had done something absolutely awful and egregious. And he said, I wanted everyone to relate [00:25:00] to those responses. And that they were everyday responses in a sense. and he reallydid that. Chris: Is, that is really a good point because I really felt that none of the characters were contemptible. Yes. Everybody had a natural reaction to what was going on. Yeah. Degan: A sense of protection of their loved ones wanting justice done. Wanting to be clear and take care of a situation that was beyond anyone imagining until that point. That kind of thing. Chris: Yeah and also, not to get into it too much, but this idea that. I really felt that there was a sense that people felt the pain of not protecting their children. Yes. And lashed out because of that. And that was shown really well Degan: Absolutely. Just to pivot somewhatwe talked about the film, and I think we're going to, riff from here, because we talk about men, we talk about masculinity, we talk [00:26:00] about this era, and I think there's a lot of themes that come up. Victimhood in a sense, he was a victim here of this accusation, shaming and ostracization and all the rest of it. And I actually just say one thing before we get into that. You talk about the impact of the film, and this is maybe a strange thing to acknowledge, but after the filmit was difficult to watch for me, and I think it's difficult for a lot of people to watch. We texted back and forth and said, oh my God, this is intense. in fact you were live texting me. Yes, I was live texting you. And I actually, I dunno. And this is something for my therapist, but I actually became sick afterwards and got a bad cold and actually I've got an ear infection and I can only hear in one ear right now. And I actually think there was something in a movie that touches something so deep. Probably that sense of profound powerlessness when you are actually innocent, but you cannot, there's very little power. You have to muster every ounce of strength, as he does after being beaten up to go back in and say, I [00:27:00] want my groceries. Yeah. I'm going to go to church. I'm going, I'm a human being. I'm going to join you. Chris: I just think about how I would react and I would probably run and hide. To be honest. Degan: It's a very natural thing and I think in terms of how shame can work, shame is about hiding. Shame is about someone putting something on you and you drinking it in and, taking in the poison of that and not coming forth, and here you have him going, I'm not going to eat this. I'm not gonna eat this with my friend. I'm not gonna eat this with my community. And that's why I think it's a very powerful film because he is so brave in this moment and it's very natural that I think many of us do hide. Many of us do hide when we're shamed, in ways. Because we don't know how to come forward. But I, anyway, so I got sick after this and I think that's interesting in a way. I think there something in this film, and I think there's something around what men are experiencing in a big way that is really dizzying, really unsettling. [00:28:00] In a way that we've talked about this in this season, that we can't always put our finger on. Yeah. Yeah. Like our roles are not clear. We've been blamed for a lot of things. Some of it we certainly need to look at in the eye. Some of it has gone too far particularly in this kind of witch hunt mentality, let's say with the internet where things are being said that perhaps might not be said one-on-one. But anyway, I'd like to say a couple of things about just some people I've worked with as a therapist That have been falsely accused. And I'm actually working within the last five years I've worked with three men who have been falsely accused. And I can say that in that sense because the accuser has actually come forth and said, what I said was untrue. So these are actually false accusations. It's not a hearsay sort of piece. And I just wanna say a couple of things about them because they are devastating. And again, I'm not giving any identifying information here, but one of the people was in a high school, was accused of something by a partner. And [00:29:00] that person the male in this that was a female partner, lost their entire social life in about grade 10, their entire social life. No one to sit with at lunch, never invited to a party for the next two and a half years. The Power and Consequences of Accusations --- Degan: But what happened was the accuser actually said to the accused in private. I know you didn't do that. Now there are a lot of problems going on here, right? We know as teenagers that we are figuring out an awful lot. Chris: Yeah. Degan: And we're not, I wouldn't have been perfect. My partners weren't. we do silly things when we're jealous. When we're upset. We also have mental health issues, right? We've got all kinds of stuff going on. This person said this publicly, but privately said, I still want to know you and I still want to be with you. And this male accused was of course extremely confused, also really cared about this person and this was the only person that was gonna take them back. So we talk about a [00:30:00] complex situation here. Chris: Oh God. Yeah. Degan: So I say this I think for a couple of reasons. If we think about the power of the community and the movie and the power of accusing, I think one thing that we have now with the Me Too movement, again, which we said is incredibly important, but all we have given is an enormous amount of power to someone who says, this person treated me improperly. This person touched me improperly. This person sexually abused me, this person raped me. And of course, if it's true, this needs to be absolutely a listened to 100%. And we need, that's a whole other conversation. And if it's not this the person who has been given that power in the case of the movie, a very young girl, in the case of this situation, a confused teenager has absolutely demolished someone's life. And I, because I've worked with these people, I know, that [00:31:00] devastation, it is so severe that these people I've been working with have been contemplating suicide. They have felt that their life is meaningless, that they are meaningless, that they do not have worth, like we're talking extreme ripple effects here. And I think what I'm thinking of more than anything is that we also need to say that the power to accuse now can be devastating. And if you are going to do it, know that power can have those ripple effects. And that's something I think as a society, we are really not even just beginning to grapple with. The Impact of Bullying and Shaming --- Chris: We talk about school. I had a friend who his name was Gary, and one day someone tore the r he had a sign on his desk. As kids do. Yeah. Someone tore the R out of Gary and yeah, it said gay and that stuck with him. That small little act stuck with him for years. [00:32:00] And I don't know what kind of effect that had on him. He and I were we were good friends when we were very young. Not as much after. Later on. I'm not, I don't think it had much to do with that, to be honest, but, it was honestly scary to watch that. Like just, and that isn't even an accusation of anything. It is a naming, right? Taking out the r and it is an act, I would say almost is an accusation because shaming is always a public act. So it's a public act. And that's someone saying, you're gay and we know that this is used all the time, but, if we could talk, and we've talked about this in a previous episode but if we can talk about what might be done about that, right? Degan: Yeah. This is a complex piece, right? Because in that moment, there's a, like how then do you approach this? And I think we could, if we put it the one way, is if Gary himself reclaimed something, which again, as we've seen from the movie, takes an enormous amount of energy to stand up and try and fight back. [00:33:00] Who knows if you have the ability to physically fight. Who knows what the rest of your support system is? Who knows what you're going through at home? Who knows if you've got the sense or ability to try and change this course. Yeah. It sounds like he didn't, for a while. Chris: Well, for a while I would, for a while, I would say in the end he ended up thriving in high school. And Degan: Sure. So he got through it. Chris: He did some like really cool. Things, but I, and I'm glad to have seen he, got past it. The people who did that to him were losers, of course, but, Agents in a system. This is where the, idea of the witch hunt, the idea of like that script is so old. Yes. That script is sold. The person who takes away the R is. that script is just, they know it so well. Supporting Each Other Through Hard Times --- Degan: this is this funny thing, so I don't, necessarily fully blame that, but I tell you, the piece I'd like to see in terms of an action here, because we are talking about action for the second season, is a friend of a person who stays with Gary. [00:34:00] A person who stays and is courageous enough. We're really talking courage here to say, I'll eat with you at lunch. Fuck those guys. And just to say, here, this is where I think okay. This is something I really believe women and menwe in an age of gender fluidity, but in general, how we present to the world is how people respond to us. So if I present as male as a guy, the world is gonna respond to me as a guy, if you present generally as a female, the world is gonna present to you that way. Of course, if you're gender fluid you have different kinds of responses. Some of them, of course, quite negative. but I just wanna say so that means if we wanna look just at female and male for this moment, the shaming that we go through is very different. Because if you are a man, because you are. enacting a male presentation and you're seen that way. And I want to say that in the act of supporting Gary, let's say. Men need to support Gary here. Boys need to [00:35:00] support Gary. Girls can support. That's wonderful. Yeah. But boys need to support because what being gay is really is saying you're not a man. You are less than a man. You are close to a girl. And so if a boy can come back, Gary's friend and say, I'm with you, even if they don't even talk about it, I'll play basketball with you after school. I will do this. And I think. Also it's the language of realness that's really important, right? Fuck those guys. Yeah, let's play basketball. There are a bunch of losers, whatever you have to say. But that the shame is undone by boys and men for boys and men that have been shamed by that culture. Chris: When I was growing up, and I think it's changed, but we're also seeing it move back there now the two things you did well, they were the same thing. You didn't want to be gay and you didn't want to be a woman, right? Like a girl. And so this idea of belonging and I talked before about [00:36:00] this loneliness, right? And so gay was code for not one of us. You don't belong. Degan: Totally. Totally. Chris: Andwhich had two effects, which was like, you could ostracize someone for being gay or you could ostracize them for just accusing them of being gay. Degan: Totally, yeah. The Epidemic of Male Loneliness --- Chris: And this is, I think we need to talk a little bit more about this concept of the male loneliness epidemic and all that. But it's a very lonely place. To be, and I think we've all experienced this sense of ostracism, and I know that you and I experienced it as kids. So when you're accused of anything, like for me, I often got: too skinny, too weak, right? Because I was a really skinny kid, right? These things were. I've thought a lot about why that was so painful, because, it wasn't terrible to be skinny, like it wasn't a bad thing. But it felt I had [00:37:00] another friend who was quite large. I wouldn't, in retrospect, I wouldn't call him fat, but he was he was called that. Sure. And that left him out. And yet we were still a circle of friends, right? So there were different, and I think in some ways, maybe this is the back and forth of building a culture or something, but at the same time, this shaming this leaving people out this idea that we have to get rid of the bad elements or whatever, see this on a macro scale in the US right now. But this idea that, and that's what I got from the movie too, is we just want this guy to not exist anymore and he had to insist on his existence. Degan: Yeah. 'cause you said, I think I would just go home. And I think there are under certain circumstances, so would I. It's a very brave act to go [00:38:00] into public. Yeah. And we know that there is an epidemic of isolation among men. And we know also right now that, there's a bit of, there's a cliche of oh, men's loneliness, like just deal with it. There's that kind of feeling out in the zeitgeist right now. But men's loneliness is real and it impacts men in profound ways. And we're talking addiction and alcoholism and suicidality and mental health stuff and violence and the other side of it. And all kinds really disruptive pieces. So it's, and I think you're absolutely right. There's a direct connection between shame and this kind of isolation and loneliness, right? And I think a lot of times people don't even know they're experiencing it. Chris: Yeah. And I feel like the dismissive attitude is really dangerous too, because what causes a mass shooter? Usually it's a man, usually it's someone who's isolated with easy access to guns. No wonder there's so many, mass shootings in the US right now. Degan: For sure. For sure. Chris: And so we do need to take it seriously and. [00:39:00] I think it's a feminist issue because it's fucking patriarchy. Yeah. Excuse my language. Yeah. That is the cause of this, right? Why are men so isolated right now? They're getting these mixed messages where patriarchy is the problem, patriarchy is privileges. Men don't feel that they're doing so well. So they're like, what's this patriarchy thing you're talking about? And then, one example of a woman doing better and getting a lot of power is going to be like, what, what are they even talking about this patriarchy for? Yeah. And so we really need to come to grips with this and take that seriously because you know this The Importance of Male Friendships --- Degan: as a society, you mean as all of us? Yes. Chris: This authoritarian direction that politics has been taking in a lot of parts of the world is this hyper masculine and I would say, [00:40:00] led by a bunch of insecure men who are trying to prove their manhood. Degan: Sure. Oh, it's obvious. They're all trying to outdo each other, Bezos and Musk and all the, can I just say something for a minute? I think when you talk about like it's a feminist problem, or a feminist, should be looked at under, just from everybody from society, the women I've spoken to about this, you know. I think are tired, sure. Like they're fighting also for, to say it like, okay. We also know the court systems are still really messed up, and we know that there still a lot of inequality around and now we have a major backlash right. In people like Trump and Musk and all the rest of them, right? And the Tate brothers and all that. We and Joe Rogan, we have a lot of, in a way, pretty negative old school way of looking at manhood. But when I've talked to a lot of women very openly about this and they're like, we're tired. We're tired. And also one of 'em said, this was, touch me so deeply and this is what I'd like to talk about a little bit, she said. When I see a man, let's say my husband being [00:41:00] supported by his friend, she said, I cannot describe the relief I have because I don't have to try and do it myself. And so I think this sense of the lonely man is a little bit of fuck, just men help each other. And I think there's not just you can make fun of it, of the loneliness, but I think there's also serious desperation of I don't know what to do anymore. I'm exhausted. And I do want to say in the theme of action, which we've talked about very much here, I do think there's some concrete things men can do to support each other. I've said this in the first podcast, first season, but I wanna say it to you again. The biggest moment of my life was with you and it was when I said to you in your apartment in Riverdale that I had been bullied when I was a kid. And when I said that, I had never said, maybe I'd said it to a therapist, but I'd never said it to another friend of mine, ever. And that had been three years. And after that I fought back and I felt, I felt like I got myself back, but [00:42:00] it was still so damaging that I lived with those three years. In those three years, it was almost like, what do you call it? An eclipse of the sun. Eclipse of my worth, the sun of my worth. I did not feel the warmth of being a human. And you are just like, I'll never forget it. And I've talked about it before, if you want to hear anymore details 'cause this is a very meaningful moment to me, but I'll never forget it. And you said. Oh, like you just shrugged, right? And said, yeah, I had that happen to me too. I supported my sister who was like developmentally delayed. And you were bullied. And I had that moment where I was a literal vision that I was pulling in a stinking mountain of garbage into a pristine palace. And my vision of that, and I literally, 'cause I was very tired at that moment, I literally take that as saying I am bringing my most horrendous shame into something with, into our friendship, which was a pristine palace. And you are saying, come in, it's fine. And so I have to [00:43:00] say to that, thank you because it literally changed my life. Chris: It's amazing too, because for me, I literally did just shrug. Like I didn't know any of this. Degan: Yeah. Chris: And I was probably like keeping with your metaphor I was probably like, oh yeah, the garbage is over there. Degan: Yes. Yeah. Taking Action and Being There for Each Other --- Degan: And I just wanna say in terms of action, we can do this for each other. And it's different parts, right? I had like to me, if I think about my balls, they were big that night. My cojones were big to say, Chris, I had something happen to me that I'm really ashamed of. That was so courageous. Yeah, it was really courageous. It's funny now 'cause it feels like they're just words, but it really was. And you got, and I chose the right person. I actually thought you would reject me because I've never tested this before. I've never talked about it except in therapy. You pay someone to listen, they're supposed to listen, I made a good choice, but I actually thought what do I have to lose? I felt so depressed. That was a [00:44:00] time where I was really depressed and the shame was coming in that way. So there's a couple of parts to it. One is I take a risk to share with somebody, and I chose the best person I could imagine and I could think of. Which was you. and you dissolved the shame and said. It happened to me too. You said, what do you need? Do you want a beer? We'll chat and we'll go to bed and the next day. Nothing changed. I was not seen differently. And so I want to say out in terms of action, we have to take a risk. And we just risk with the best possible people. And I think it's very dangerous when we risk with someone who doesn't know how to respond. Chris: Very important. Degan: And so maybe therapy's important to figure out, I don't know who around you can support you in this, but if you get shot down and someone says you're fucked, that you've just, you are not gonna do that again. Not that they're gonna say you're fucked, but maybe they don't know how to respond. Chris: You but that is the fear, right? The fear is someone's gonna say, God, you screw up. Yeah. Get away from me. Yeah. Okay, we're done. Degan: Yeah. And that's what you had felt and [00:45:00] so that just, retraumatizes you in that way. So I wanna say to people. Take that risk, but also if someone comes to you with that, if I'm talking man to man here. Yeah. If a man comes to you, a friend of yours, an uncle, a cousin, and says, this thing happened really. They are taking an immense risk and it may feel uncomfortable for someone to say that. Who knows what they're gonna say? Maybe they take a risk about some sexual thing of theirs, whatever. They can't get it up, or they're, gonna go for a divorce and they think their life is anything they want to die, whatever. These things are not gonna, they're gonna be hard to hear. Probably. I've been a secret drinker for the last 10 years, and I haven't told anyone. I'm not saying you're being a therapist, you're being a human being. If you can be with them and just say. I'm here. If you can be there with them. Yeah, if you are that much of a friend or that much of a cousin or an uncle or whatever it is, father, 'cause the sons can come with this and be, even if you are feeling reactive and you are feeling afraid, if you [00:46:00] can be there for them, that act is honestly, in my opinion, the most important act you can do. Yeah, I agree. In my life, it's the most important thing that anyone has ever done for me was and I had to meet you halfway. I had to say, hey, this stuff happened. Chris: You did. You did most of the work. Reflecting on Personal Experiences --- Chris: Because for me, like we've had other times where 'cause I think one of the reasons we are such good friends, we both have writing in common. We both like sports, whatever. But why do we keep being such close friends? It's because we support each other. Degan: Yeah. And totally, Chris: In that one was hard for you, but easy for me. But I think there are times, I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but there are times when people come to you with things that are hard for you to hear. Totally. And I'm not talking like, oh, you weren't a good friend to me. I'm thinking more likewe've both been through a divorce. Degan: Yes. Chris: And yeah. those are really hard things to help people through. Yeah. I [00:47:00] honestly think that they are, there is a period when you are splitting, leaving a marriage where you could be certifiably insane. Absolutely. Because everything, it's different from a girlfriend because when you've been married. You've put everything into this. Yeah. This, you've decided this is a person I'm gonna be with. I'm, we're gonna share all our money. We're gonna, we're going to mostly have, not in my case, but we'll have children together. Degan: We're gonna make our life. Chris: Get a house. We are going to build one life together. Exactly. When that breaks. That is awful. And. We have called each other Yeah. Many times. And there, there have even been times where you've said to me, what do I do? Yeah. And I didn't know the answer. Degan: Yeah. Chris: And so you have to sit with that and Yeah. that is why I think we're still friends and I'm, I'm grateful to you for being there. I'm [00:48:00] grateful for the fun times we've had together too. Yeah. But Degan: Thanks Chris. Chris: But I even think the fun times you have together are about supporting each other. Sure you can like, make fun of each other sometimes about your quirks or the team you like or whatever but without that sense that there's a solid foundation of a friendship. Yeah. That's the male loneliness epidemic as far as I'm concerned. Call to Action --- Degan: Chris, just to say, I think we're coming near the end of this one, and this conversation has been it's really meaningful to me. Yeah. And your friendship is, and, and I feel like you touched upon the marriage piece and divorce, right? And we talked about it in the first season. I'd like to come back to it again and I'd love to watch a movie, talk about a movie around it and extrapolate on it. Again, thinking about our kind of, how can we support one another in this, right? How can men support one another actually? And because there is this epidemic of loneliness. And I think a lot of it is, and I hope anyone out there, and [00:49:00] I know again, we want to say this please contact us. We're, we are doing this because we want to be part of a conversation that we feel needs to happen. And things are veering a little the thing men are, I think men are not really feeling invited to share in a lot of places, I think they're being invited into a pretty old school, traditional masculinity. And there's nothing wrong with traditional masculinity in lots of ways. I just think you need to pair it with, the feminine side, which is, talking about what you need and expressing emotions and getting support and all this stuff. And I wanna say, please do contact us if you had a question, or you had a story you wanted to share, or you want to come on and share something and talk to us like. I'm a therapist. Chris is a communications expert among many other things publisher and communications director and just to say we would love to be able to connect with you. So do contact us and the information will be coming afterwards because this is about a conversation and we truly believe it's [00:50:00] crucial right now. I think the reason we, you and I have always been interested in thisgoes all the way back to the 1990s, Chris: Nineties when I, I wrote a I've always been interested in my role as a man and never felt good enough as a man, all that kind of thing. But in the late nineties I wrote an article for a magazine called The Canadian Forum . I remember, and I remember you thinking, oh why do you wanna explore this? But as time went on, Degan: I was unenlightened then, Chris. Chris: You were such a boor. Which is not true. But supporting each other I think is. It is so important that's why we started this podcast. And I think, like my hope, I did get feedback once that, that every episode of the first season, I learned something new. That's what someone said to me. And very nice, and that was both gratifying, both a, as a creator, [00:51:00] but also a moment of hope, right? Yeah. That men can find a way through this and not be lesser, right? Yeah. And this is the biggest thing is like making yourself vulnerable to each other does not make you less of a man. Degan: I know we get a little lost sometimes, but I mean it we're just, we're human beings. I work with men all the time on this couch. I'm sitting on the couch that usually whoever I work with is on, and this is my, we're in my therapy office A lot of men are deeply caring, want to give a lot to their partner. Feel way more than you would think outside. Are good human beings want to be good partners wanna be good family members wanna meaning in life. I wanna say I shout out to men and I really mean that. Our friendship is a huge part of that for me. There's a lot of good ones out there. we gotta look at these issues. We got all this isolation, we got addiction, we got real stuff. We got really good people out there. So let's keep talking, let's keep listening watching movies. Talking about it, looking at these challenges, [00:52:00] We're not solving anything, but we want to keep chatting about it. That's what we're offering. Chris: And yeah, I think this is an important point. We aren't here to solve your problems. we're not advice columnists. But we do think that the things that men face right now are complex. I've often heard, both on social media and in my own life, women saying, you guys gotta figure it out for yourselves. And that's also what this podcast is doing. We're trying to figure it out. Degan: Yep. Chris: And so the idea is, let's be here for each other. It's not just me being here for Degan or Degan being here for me, it's like men being here for each other. Degan: Amen. Chris: And supporting other. Degan: Amen. Chris: Yeah. Alright. Ayyy men. Degan: We will see you next week. Thank you for listening to this. We deeply appreciate it. Chris: Good night. Degan: Night. Thank you for listening to What Kind of Man Are [00:53:00] You? The podcast is hosted by Degan Davis and Chris Garbutt. Produced by Chris Garbutt and VQC Media. We would love your feedback. Check out the show notes for ways to get in touch with us. Leave a comment or email us at chris@vqcmedia.me. Contact Chris about advertising and sponsorship opportunities. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and please give us a thumbs up or a five-star rating on your favourite platform.