00:01:41.900i'm a scholar yeah and like i i think that everybody i don't know if everybody has this
00:01:47.100but a lot of people have a celebrity that you feel you just understand like if you were in a
00:01:53.680room with them you could actually have a conversation with them because you they're
00:01:57.260very knowable to you they reflect something back at you that is very personal and intimate and it
00:02:04.160just feel there's a connection, right? I feel like I understand Ben Affleck, Benjamin Geza
00:02:11.700Affleck, let's get this correct. Okay. But also he's been swirling around my life weirdly for
00:02:17.800about 25 years in very weird ways. Like I have, I have a friend who went to, who actually went
00:02:23.940to Harvard. Ben Affleck did not go to Harvard, but Ben Affleck was at a party when my friend
00:02:28.060was at a party in Cambridge because that's where Ben Affleck grew up. And he, my friend was a
00:02:33.460freshman at Harvard and he was throwing up and Ben Affleck like literally held his hair. So that's
00:02:38.760one, right? Two, I had a really close friend in New York in the 2000s who was a junior reporter
00:02:46.020at Us Weekly. And her entire beat for two years was Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. And this is
00:02:53.880when, you know, you really had reporters who would go out, I don't know if they still do, but who
00:02:57.100would chase celebrities down. So if Ben Affleck was in Georgia, she was in Georgia. If he was in
00:03:00.840Boston she was in Boston oh no they do not have that budget anymore yeah so she would like New
00:03:05.820Year's Eve she was like hiding behind the slot machines in Vegas while he played like a blackjack
00:03:11.200game you know so and he knew her he recognized her so she would she and I were best friends at
00:03:16.260the time and she would like tell me everything and one time she saw him in a bar in Cambridge
00:03:20.900and she's like hiding behind the jukebox and he like comes over to her and he puts his arm around
00:03:25.740her and he's like listen I know who you are could you just could you just give me this night please
00:03:32.080like just give me this night with my friends and you know she couldn't but like from all accounts0.93
00:03:39.160like he's a mess but he's not an asshole yeah I love what a mess he is I find it to be so relatable0.99
00:03:47.100he has like resting bitch face for a man yeah he can't hide how much he disdains the celebrity but0.99
00:03:54.800he also has like you know I just wrote a book about like class and ambition and I feel like0.98
00:04:00.320he's got he's so ambitious for something he and JLo both have like an unfillable hole but it's
00:04:07.160like for different things or they both have an unfillable hole but the way they fill it is
00:04:11.380different I would say so you stole my segue which is the reason I knew I wanted to talk to you about
00:04:17.580him was because I had read your book I'd read a galley of your book and blurbed it because I love
00:04:25.500it and I so I knew that there were like there were things at the heart of your book and of coming up
00:04:33.600in New York and coming up in media over the course of the last 20 years that intersected
00:04:40.200and maybe not obvious ways, but, you know, I've done a deep dive, deep, deep dive on every
00:04:48.120interview that Ben Affleck gave up until around Batman. So when I was at BuzzFeed, I did this big,
00:04:54.680huge, like retrospective analysis of what is going on with Ben Affleck, right? Why was he so sad?
00:05:03.980The title of the piece, I think, was The Unbearable Sadness of Ben Affleck.
00:05:07.700incredible I unearthed you know all of these old classic late 90s early 2000s magazines like
00:05:15.720an interview an incredible interview he did with George magazine which was JFK Jr's magazine
00:05:21.400yeah and and the themes that kept coming up again and again were like a real self-consciousness
00:05:29.320about class positionality relationship to Harvard how even just like the conversation about whether
00:05:36.400or not they actually wrote Good Will Hunting and how I think like destabilizing that was for him
00:05:42.120and then the constant comparison to Matt Damon. Yes. Yes. All of this we will get to but I think
00:05:50.160that that's really at the heart of a lot of this. Well okay so here's in in the way in which I can
00:05:56.060relate to Ben Affleck which which are many but in the in the ways in which our stories are somewhat
00:06:01.000similar. I have a sort of hard stamped Italian American Philadelphia identity, right? Like
00:06:09.120working class. And then I found myself with, you know, a level of success in white collar,0.78
00:06:15.700very elite worlds. And I think that it's very hard to shake a lower class identity. Like there's0.71
00:06:25.260always a self-consciousness and there's always that, wait, am I smart enough to be here?
00:06:30.100and a oh god wait I don't want to leave those people behind like you see him he has a real
00:06:35.960loyalty I mean obviously with Boston and everything he doesn't want to leave behind who he is at his
00:06:41.340core but also you see his yes I think you're right self-consciousness and you see this really
00:06:47.260in his relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow which I think he aspired to be the kind of guy who could
00:06:53.620date a Gwyneth Paltrow you know and like there's just all these like paparazzi photos of her like
00:06:59.260rolling her eyes at him like oh ben you're like you're gross and you know yeah he's like a he's
00:07:04.480like a gross dude he's like not a gross dude but he's a he's not a rich guy and he's not a0.84
00:07:09.780particularly intellectual guy even though i think he wants to be totally wants to be and here's
00:07:17.040gwyneth who comes from this incredible hollywood pedigree right yes yes has only known class and
00:07:23.460sophistication in her life yes yes yes and you see him like walking around paris with her and
00:07:28.880like his bad jeans like i you know like he just he can't he can't he can't ascend
00:07:37.860all right so when we did the call out for questions on this we started with two questions
00:07:43.180and then you and i were like okay we got to put this on instagram we got to ask people to give
00:07:48.060us some questions and we got a record-breaking 96 questions yes we can only get to a fraction
00:07:55.240but they they generally are grouped under under general headings so we're gonna we chose some
00:08:00.460underneath each of those headings so the first question comes from Rachel and it's a really good
00:08:05.700summary of Ben's image over the arc of his career Affleck seems to occupy a very specific space
00:08:12.760in Hollywood as a star who calls back to old Hollywood tropes like being a heartthrob,
00:08:19.820being self-destructive, having box office pull while also having more artistic goals.
00:08:25.860He has a compelling origin story. He has a classic buddy relationship. And his marriage
00:08:31.820with Jennifer Lopez seems to be in keeping with all of this, except when he lifts the veil or
00:08:38.600when memes do, to reveal his humanity by way of his struggles with addiction, his co-parenting
00:08:45.320with Jennifer Garner, his love of Dunkin' Donuts, etc. I wonder if you can talk about his performance
00:08:52.180as both a classic 20th century celebrity and a complex 21st century celebrity, and what his
00:09:01.180performance as such means for future movie stars? First off, Rachel, incredible question. Damn.
00:09:09.120Damn. We love it. And I think it's so true. And you can see this actually in various roles that1.00
00:09:17.200Affleck has taken post Good Will Hunting, right? So Armageddon, Pearl Harper, even Batman, right?
00:09:23.720Like these are roles that if this was 1940, they would fit into this particular star type of him
00:09:30.900as leading man yes but he hated he hated all of them yes and he's not that person i don't even
00:09:36.740think he's actually that believable as that person no he's not but they i think he was i mean if you
00:09:41.700look at the before he before he got the role on armageddon they he was told he could only get this
00:09:46.760role they wanted to push him out as a leading man he could only get this role if he fixed his teeth
00:09:50.720and he lost weight so you know so so you know suddenly like i mean and now i mean i think we're
00:09:56.840now in like plugs and you know when he was in the j-lo period he was getting botox clearly with the
00:10:01.520smooth forehead i mean the first j-lo period yeah i don't think he ever really he doesn't read
00:10:06.700leading man to me i think he's too like negative to be leading man he's not like charismatic in
00:10:12.240that way there's like a bitterness to him that just doesn't play it's like and he doesn't have
00:10:17.120enough swagger and he's not good at self-mythologizing which you have to be if you're going
00:10:22.440to be one of those people one of those kinds of men yes you know i think back on his very early
00:10:28.280roles which is how i was introduced to him yeah which is like um in the kevin smith movies so0.87
00:10:34.280chasing amy mall rats uh even in like dazing confused and he is confused yeah fool and he's0.80
00:10:43.500a bully right and i think that that's compelling like him as a bully but also a difficult sell0.96
00:10:50.580for someone who looks like him like you have to you have to make really forceful choices
00:10:57.280in your career choices you have to be like robert pattinson right yes to escape your looks when
00:11:04.100you're like have already been framed as a heartthrob in some way but his taste is not that
00:11:09.020good that's the problem but that's a problem and i think he knows it i think he knows he's mid
00:11:14.120Like it's this struggle, but he aspires to not be mid, but he wants to be creatively fulfilled.
00:11:21.360You know, he has this like, he has this father who's like a failed screenwriter, who's also an alcoholic, who's really winds up being like, you know, just good for nothing, you know, for that family.
00:11:32.480He's surrounded his mother, like surrounds them with artistic friends, you know, so he has this aspiration to be an artist, but he doesn't actually have the skill to do it.
00:11:43.140I think and the taste to do it and he's also not beautiful like he's not like Brad Pitt he's not
00:11:49.360beautiful or even Matt Damon right like Matt Damon is much more I think classic Hollywood
00:11:56.380looks in terms of like the squareness in some ways almost like Gary Cooper-ness to his face
00:12:01.800but also with like Matt Damon has made more interesting choices in terms of the types of
00:12:08.060roles that he's played he's a better actor whether it was talented Mr. Ripley or various like what's
00:12:15.080the Fargo one that he did where he was like an accountant oh so good oh yes I know what you're
00:12:19.920talking about he has like a little mustache yes yes what was the it's not something insider it's
00:12:25.440not that it's something but I think if he were a classic Hollywood star he would be b-level
00:12:30.240still a star but still like someone who most people don't know their name today
00:12:34.700and all of those parts of his private life that are less in fitting with a classic hollywood star
00:12:42.160would be invisible to us so this gets to the part of the question that's like 20th century star
00:12:46.520versus 21st century so what we see revealed of him through paparazzi through slippages in the
00:12:53.140image like he really does love duncan right like oh he really does love loves it he loves duncan
00:12:59.740but also like but but let's just for one second like let's think about who's like a great like
00:13:03.960Matthew McConaughey is not struggling with the things that Ben Affleck is struggling with yeah
00:13:09.580yeah he's just not I think to be a great leading man you have to be a like more vapid than Ben
00:13:15.980Affleck is and he's not actually vapid yeah the taste part is really interesting to me too because
00:13:22.400I think something like Argo is Hollywood high art like prestige picture higher it's a dog
00:13:29.900it's a dog playing a saxophone let's be honest but it's not it's not like experimental film
00:13:36.740right like it's not like it's just a really great classic Hollywood movie and well made
00:13:42.060and I compare it to someone like Clooney like Clooney also does not have great taste no yes
00:13:47.720exactly yes but Clooney's more beautiful and charismatic than Ben Affleck yes so he's got
00:13:53.660that going for him so even though he makes these like pretty boring movies that now no one sees
00:13:59.700but people convince themselves that he was actually a good director because he made his first
00:14:04.580the first movie that he directed which was good night and good luck wasn't black and white so
00:14:10.140serious oh my god the cluny the cluny pretentious is so funny but it's funnier from him because
00:14:16.340he is like cluny is just like a doll like he's just he's dreamy ben afleck is not dreamy that's0.60
00:14:24.500also like he's so complicated because he's not he's not that kind of man yeah like you won't
00:14:31.280just accept anything from him like Argo is good Argo is solidly good it's not great no one's like
00:14:38.160top 10 movies of the 2010s Argo I don't even remember what it was about like I've seen it
00:14:43.940and I'm like wait I kind of remember but like so do you think that he should act more or that
00:14:52.220he should direct more i think he should do whatever he wants i think ben affleck should
00:14:57.400just try to be happy like i i i just feel like ben affleck needs to find peace i think that he
00:15:03.340should continue to try to challenge himself creatively because i feel like that's what he's
00:15:09.000looking for i mean you know that's why he he can't the justice justice league like broke him
00:15:14.360like he was so depressed he said like after playing batman in the justice league like it
00:15:18.760broke his heart like he was sickened i forget what else he said about it but like it's you know he
00:15:23.880felt wrung out after it um just like deep inner shame right yes deep like like deep inner shame
00:15:31.260but also i think there is also a sense of justice in him and i think that everybody was so treated
00:15:37.740so poorly on that film he said something like it was a it was like the worst experience he ever had
00:15:43.520in an already shitty business, you know, and I think he doesn't, he doesn't want to show up for
00:15:48.980that. I also, I think he has a conscience, honestly. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is also the,
00:15:55.240the idea of authenticity and that sort of thing feeds into this next question, which comes from
00:15:59.480Coco. As a former mass hole, I'm interested in how Affleck maintains his image as a sort of
00:16:05.440townie glow up, despite the fact that he's been entrenched in LA and Hollywood for decades.
00:16:10.720His version of I'm Benny from the block seems to play with more perceived authenticity than J-Lo's.
00:16:17.520See that video of a guy in the Bronx clowning her at her old house.
00:16:21.700Other than the obvious answer of patriarchy, how does Ben Affleck keep us all thinking he's just a normal guy in the dunks drive-through after multiple celebrity marriages, pap walks, PR machinations?
00:19:17.940it is wow that is the wildest how was it even made i i love it and i think it's disgusting
00:19:27.440like it's it's amazing anyway what about this question about like there's some misogyny going
00:19:32.200on that like it's easier for people to believe in ben's authentic connection to boston than like
00:19:38.440j-lo's connection to the bronx say well i mean like that gets back into the self mythologizing
00:19:44.740right i don't think that ben affleck is doing that i think jennifer lopez is very careful about
00:19:51.580her outward persona even though she shares everything it's a very careful share right
00:19:57.060yes yes we actually we just recorded an episode on jennifer lopez and we talked a lot about how
00:20:02.480she seems like she's like oh i'm giving you all of this vulnerability of like the process here
00:20:08.840but there's a lot of stuff that's not well she doesn't she doesn't treat she doesn't i mean from
00:20:14.020all accounts, she doesn't treat people very well. I mean, you know, people who work for her,
00:20:18.640people who work in her house, people, you know, I've, I've heard stories cause you know,
00:20:22.520I've been in LA for a long time. You hear stories of like, she won't, she doesn't like a half lit
00:20:28.520candle. Like once a candle is used and blown out, she doesn't want anyone to relight it.0.91
00:20:33.740And like, if you do relight her diptyque candle, you, she will have your ass, you know, like1.00
00:20:39.740i've heard stories that people need to call her ms lopez you're not allowed to call don't look1.00
00:20:46.100her in the eye she's one of those right so the fact that she's coming out and being like yeah
00:20:50.380i'm still jenny from the block come on yeah she's not wearing the bad jeans exactly she's not wearing
00:20:55.960the bad jeans and that's fine be that person it's fine but don't pretend to be another kind of
00:21:00.180person and i think it also just comes out with the contrast like when you have them both next
00:21:04.200to one another now in this yeah but in the documentary and like all the conversations
00:21:10.500about them and that sort of thing and also like because men don't put on glam in the same way
00:21:16.420yes there isn't that like you know most imagery that we see of ben affleck he looks pretty much
00:21:22.260the same unless he's walking a red carpet oh yeah there's an entire instagram account dedicated to
00:21:27.720one of his plaid shirts like his flannel that he wears all the time like at one point when
00:21:34.620when we knew that they'd gotten to get back together she was seen wearing the shirt like
00:21:40.260i love i know that was that gave me a lot of pleasure i gotta say oh there was nothing more
00:21:47.840pleasurable in the world of celebrity for like a half decade besides the two of them getting back
00:21:53.640together it was amazing and i think it's specifically pleasurable to people who had
00:21:57.880witnessed the dissolution of their relationship in the past and it like gives you this this
00:22:04.240interesting like second third fourth act of your life like you you know plays like a rom-com so
00:22:10.020okay let's talk about the memes since we're talking about the instagram account with the
00:22:13.800shirt uh those classic paparazzi shots of him like smoking the cigarette looking exhausted
00:22:19.020staring out into the sea like the one that I loved and that prompted me to write the story
00:22:25.420about like the unbearable sadness was you know there was just like staring into nothingness and
00:22:30.460they were playing the Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence like he's just so susceptible to
00:22:37.420memification so this is a question from Jessica that gets at this and Melody is going to read it
00:22:42.740Why are we so uncomfortable as a society with a celebrity that does not look happy 24-7?
00:22:49.660The implication is always that he's unhappy with his life or career or marriage and not that he's making the same faces the rest of us make throughout our days.
00:23:00.420So I love you brought this up on your own.0.99
00:23:03.180You were like Ben Affleck has resting bitch face, right?1.00
00:23:07.180rest and bitch face is a derogatory term used to essentially like police women into always looking0.97
00:23:15.660like they are compliant yes happy to be doing whatever they're doing at any moment yes and i1.00
00:23:21.860wouldn't give it to i wouldn't give it to a woman yes right like um but that they should like we
00:23:28.920should always look like that around one another and ben affleck refuses to do it and i think like
00:23:35.780this is there's an interesting feminization i think that happens sometimes with ben affleck
00:23:40.260and part of it is like the contrast with damon who plays like more masculine superhero character
00:23:46.720like has always just been more pumped like and more looked like he was the protagonist in good
00:23:52.420will hunting right and yeah ben affleck was the sidekick and then just like the affiliation with
00:23:58.920stronger women and some of these different ways so i think that this is part of that but i haven't
00:24:03.680completely teased it out what are your thoughts well my thought is why we can't accept this is
00:24:09.460because we want celebrities to put on a show for us we want a show yeah we've given them fame and
00:24:15.920we want them to we want them to look happy I mean there was like a recent um Conan O'Brien hot ones
00:24:22.100that I'm obsessed with that he he talks about like the worst thing a celebrity can do on a talk show
00:24:27.260and the worst thing they can do is say oh this isn't going very well is it and it's because the
00:24:33.160audience so much wants that performance. They want it to seem okay. This is really,
00:24:39.540we want it to seem, because what else is there to aspire to than money in this society and fame,
00:24:46.320right? We want it to seem like it's great, although it's awful. We don't want to see it
00:24:52.240being awful because we don't want, we want to sort of like revere these people. We want to look up to
00:24:59.000them when we see it looking terrible it's like well what about the rest of it what is good you
00:25:04.420know it's like a very existential crisis for all of us and he mirrors out reflects out an
00:25:11.340existential crisis almost at all time like if he's one of the what's the the kids movie it's like
00:25:21.860inside out where like they're in like an emotion yeah like he's just existential he is he's too
00:25:28.060self-aware he's too sensitive and he's too self-conscious to be famous he he just is and
00:25:33.400he says it all the time he's like i'm not suited for this like he's just and yet you know like
00:25:39.340because there are people and this is the you know the fundamental tension with him right is that
00:25:44.580like he could choose not to be a famous person but he has too much pride and ambition that's right
00:25:50.900to not be a famous person that's right that's right that's right he can't he can't get out he0.99
00:25:55.900can't get out and you know I think he chooses highly competent women who have their shit0.98
00:26:00.100together yes and I think he he likes to be directed I think he I think he in a way he0.98
00:26:06.240would if he could be in movies and have complete privacy I think that's what he would choose
00:26:12.920if that was like a choice for him he would choose it but he can't get it yeah you know
00:26:18.460I some of his peers like I'm thinking about Jon Favreau not the plot save America host
00:26:24.820but the one-time movie star he was in swingers right and now he's the director of like so many
00:26:31.880superheroes right yeah or like um michael showalter big comedian like foundational to a lot of um
00:26:39.720some of my favorite movies like without american summer he directed he just directed the idea of
00:26:44.840you i mean yeah he could do that but maybe he needs attention maybe you know like who who knows
00:26:53.920because he's he's such a mess who who knows but also again i would say that john favreau the
00:27:00.560director not the pod save america host is really good at what he does like he's excellent at it
00:27:06.860right great superhero director he's a great superhero director herein lies the problem
00:27:12.200with ben affleck what is he excellent at like i remember when uh what's the boston movie that he
00:27:20.240did the town yeah no the one before that but he wasn't in oh is he not in gone baby gone yes
00:27:28.300baby gone which was sort of his comeback movie it was like he's not even in it right but it was like
00:27:34.300i'm absenting myself from the movie as a sort of statement about like how i want to approach fame
00:27:40.480and i remember liking it almost like in spite of itself like i was like i think he's trying to do
00:27:46.980something interesting here it doesn't quite work right there were like all the shots of like
00:27:51.000like like naturalism right yeah yeah yeah but it's still it made him more interesting to me
00:27:58.100not because he was a good director per se but because i thought he was texturing his star image
00:28:03.880in it yeah in a way that i found fascinating but that's a problem right like if you're not actually
00:28:10.180that good of a director you know what i right yeah of course that's a problem but yeah but also i
00:28:14.940think that he has to probably act for the money right like because it's not like it's so easy to
00:28:22.360get movies made it's really really hard for almost anybody you know yeah and so i suspect that like
00:28:30.640he did these these superhero movies because he needed the money because also imagine how much
00:28:36.640his life must cost it's not like he can just back out you know yeah and he's still playing child
00:28:41.780support for like i mean jennifer garner has some good movie deals yes like she's that's another
00:28:47.840person that i would love to talk about because she has had this second career that kids love her
00:28:52.060now do you know this that like every kid knows who she is oh that's good for her because she's
00:28:57.780a mom in so many of those movies like she's the like yeah cool mom yeah yeah fascinating yeah
00:29:06.020yeah um and she also has a lot of i think effective brand deals where she gets paid
00:29:11.100like she's the sort of brand that companies want to fix themselves to yeah she clicks
00:29:15.740she clicks because she's not polarizing yes but ben affleck has to you know pay for that lifestyle
00:29:21.920he's like he has he has uh movie star handcuffs right absolutely yep yep yep and also he likes0.98
00:29:29.020nice cars like he likes nice shit like he he like there's some things he likes about being0.99
00:29:34.300famous and rich. But yeah, so I suspect that's why if we really were like, why doesn't he just0.96
00:29:40.580go away? He probably needs some money. Okay. So this next thing is something that I don't know
00:29:45.960if I realized until this question came up. So as a scholar, as an Affleck scholar, I want to see if
00:29:52.760you also notice this turning point. The question comes from Portia. I've never been that into Ben
00:29:59.420Affleck, always more of a Matt Damon girl. But around Argo, I got really into Ben and was excited
00:30:06.440about this new, more serious phase of his career. Why was that? What machinations or marketing was
00:30:13.760going on to suddenly make Ben Affleck so much more appealing to me? And I've since lost all
00:30:19.380interest in him, and I wonder if his shift since Argo has been on purpose, or because, as Anne has
00:30:25.800said he just doesn't like being a celebrity what do you think right so do you think that there's a
00:30:31.940before argo and after argo like is that a hinge point in his career i think it's a hinge point in
00:30:39.680his celebrity because at that point now he's not the the bad boy he doesn't look like his scout
00:30:48.120like he makes sense to us in this very conventional heteronormative way he's with jennifer garner who's
00:30:54.920a sweetheart he's got these three kids he's got the beard he's a he's an auteur now and like i said
00:31:01.760i really do think that that movie is we're like oh he can he can act and direct it is very much
00:31:09.020dog playing a saxophone in that in that moment right but he just makes sense suddenly and we all
00:31:15.460are rooting for him because i also think that a lot of what was going on with why people rejected
00:31:21.880him so much in the j-lo years is just racism i think people had a real problem seeing this like
00:31:28.880white boy from boston with this woman of color and i think that we never really talk about that
00:31:33.540but i think that was absolutely played into everything so i i think that suddenly he became
00:31:40.340very palatable in a very conventional way and let me just say i think this is disgusting but i think
00:31:46.220that is the moment like he's dad ben affleck and he's serious guy and like we all wanted him to
00:31:52.820make it in that way or like not we but like you know the the sort of commercial right fan base
00:31:58.700and hollywood loves a comeback in some sort of way like that yes right yes they love venerating
00:32:03.540one of their own and like underlining look at this movie star who is now turned serious right
00:32:09.960or something like that and they love a not a not smart smart movie like hollywood loves a movie
00:32:14.880that's just smart enough yeah or like about history yeah oh about about history right exactly
00:32:21.160like any time any time like the prestige movie is just like the you know the books that you get for
00:32:28.740like a stereotypical boomer dad like oftentimes yes yes oh my god that's perfect that's exactly
00:32:35.860it's a father's day it's a father's day book movie but and he did like he was also at this
00:32:44.360point uh just with his looks right like he was in a likable age right oh yeah no and also he had a
00:32:50.920beard beard ben affleck is so much better than beard we gotta talk about this we gotta talk about
00:32:55.820beard ben affleck is like hotness level like just shoots up by like so many percentage points
00:33:02.020non-bearded it's not as good it's just not i mean really and i think jenna i think the j-lo was like
00:33:07.920you got to keep that beard dude and he had to just he just had to like shave it for the accountant
00:33:12.360too and i think coincidence that their marriage is falling apart at the same time i don't know
00:33:17.580but i totally forgot about the beard but it did it was so effective at signaling
00:33:24.340this different chapter in his career like oh maybe you were a matt damon girl but maybe now
00:33:31.480yeah i never thought about him that way whatever um and then it goes away with the back tattoo
00:33:38.340oh the back tattoo i still i can't get over it every i have looked for like online i've like
00:33:50.980searched for i want to see details of it i how many hours do you think because it's not like
00:33:56.480that was not an impulse decision that is like that is like a two or three session tat the thing
00:34:04.060that makes it for me is that the the image that offered us access to the tattoo he's wearing like
00:34:12.160a dad towel oh my god like it's rolled over right and and he's his hands are behind him right and
00:34:21.140he just is like he kind of has a little bit of a dad bod i don't mean that in any derogatory store
00:34:25.220just you know yeah he doesn't have a superhero bod at the moment you know the whole the imagery
00:34:30.640of it was just speaking so loudly and so and like that it was kind of a cloudy day at the beach oh
00:34:38.080god bless him just a meh day and here he is with this back tattoo that is telling such a different
00:34:48.320story that everything else about his posture his towel the sun on the beach like all of those
00:34:55.020things. I think that I would pay quite a lot of money to sit in a room with him and say,
00:35:01.12010 minutes, explain everything that went into getting that tattoo.0.99
00:35:06.820So what is it like, we got a lot of questions that were just like, the tattoo, what the fuck,0.98
00:35:11.800right? So like, why I think we can unpack this a little bit more. What is it about the tattoo0.98
00:35:17.540that seemed to speak something about like very very powerfully very poignantly about not just
00:35:26.140like where he was but also about like that stage in a lot of ambitious men's lives I mean it's a
00:35:34.260it's a midlife crisis tattoo if I've ever seen one okay like that's like it's a midlife crisis
00:35:40.220tattoo but also maybe he just wanted to mark all of the mistakes that he's made in like a very
00:35:46.540bold way, you know, like, you know, don't make them again, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Can I just pop in
00:35:54.280and ask one of you to like visually describe Melody? Melody, if someone doesn't know what
00:36:00.340this tattoo looks like. We should describe it. Have we said that it's a phoenix? Yes.
00:36:08.180Yeah. Okay, we have it. Yeah. Okay. You say that. That is part of we're keeping this in.
00:36:13.920we're keeping this in okay okay jed can you describe the tattoo because melody seems to
00:36:19.140think that someone has never seen an image someone listening to this podcast so it's the full back
00:36:26.260shoulder to shoulder going down it's like almost to tailbone okay
00:36:33.920like that's why i'm saying it's intricate it's in color it's in color it's in several colors
00:36:41.760it's a multi-color phoenix tattoo it's got like wings they're very detailed
00:36:51.480it's basically symbolizing like don't fly too close to the sun ben affleck but i kind of love
00:37:00.560it in that for that reason right it's like like he was really trying to get something that was
00:37:06.360meaningful to him right like to commemorate this in some way but this also goes back to the taste
00:37:11.740situation like it's a hideous tattoo if your partner somewhat you would be like what like
00:37:19.400i'm never looking at that part this is a horrifying so melody just put in the chat and
00:37:25.000i remember this happening but i couldn't remember the specific wording which is that
00:37:28.560jennifer garner was asked about it and she said you know what we would say in my hometown about
00:37:34.700that bless his heart oh oh amazing but also she says a phoenix rising from the ashes am i the
00:37:43.940ashes in this scenario i take umbrage i refuse to be the ashes oh and he was like this is when he
00:37:51.800i think he was really struggling with addiction at that point um and like that this is the part
00:37:58.280with the nanny i think yeah yeah he's sleeping with the nanny he's sleeping with anybody he's
00:38:02.480just yeah he's just a mess he's he's a mess and like look I don't condone any of this behavior
00:38:07.520I I love him because he is a deeply flawed person you know and this is just what he did to her is
00:38:13.620disgusting and he probably should have never married her is the truth she was way too good0.99
00:38:17.820for him but like you said he likes a woman who has her shit together yeah all right we're gonna0.99
00:38:24.400save the last three questions for the ask and anything segment of the show which is just for0.99
00:38:29.280paid subscribers. We're going to talk about how Ben Affleck's star image intersects with the
00:38:33.200images of the people he surrounds himself with, like J-Lo, Matt Damon, Ana de Armas, Jennifer
00:38:39.420Garner, even Elizabeth Warren. And there's a very funny story about Jen almost running a celebrity
00:38:45.500over with a scooter, so not to be all clickbaity about it, but you won't believe who. If you want
00:38:50.740to hear that level of celebrity image dissection, head to culturestudypod.substack.com and become
00:38:56.660a paid subscriber. Jen, thank you so much for joining me. Where can people find you on the
00:39:03.800internet if they want to hear more from you? They can find me at Jen Romolini on Instagram.
00:39:08.640They can find me at jenromolini.substack.com on my sub stack. My book Ambition Monster came out
00:39:14.440on June 4th. Please buy it. It explores a lot of these themes of ambition and class and identity
00:39:21.240struggle and I can't tell like this is just my my re-up of my blurb it is incredibly propulsive
00:39:27.600like I found my like I looked up like third of the way through the book and part of that is like
00:39:32.920some of it the the different acts are very relatable to me in terms of like trying to
00:39:38.120navigate the media world but I think even if you have no experience with that it's gonna hook you
00:39:43.080but then also like take us I think a lot of us are in this place where we're like thinking about what
00:39:48.320does it what does ambition do to us like how does it corrode us and our spirits but then and how do
00:39:54.400we come out on the other side too yeah and burnout obviously and you know a lot about that um thank
00:39:59.460you so much for this this is was I could not believe I got to do this thank you so much for
00:40:08.800listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts we have
00:40:13.740so many great episodes in the works and I promise that you do not want to miss any of them
00:40:18.060And if you want to suggest a topic or ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment, go to our Google form at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod or check the show notes for a link.
00:40:35.040Also, tell us which other celebrity images we should dissect.
00:40:38.460you know I just recently wrote about Glenn Powell I've been wanting to write about Sidney Sweeney
00:40:44.160and Gen Z stardom but no one is submitting any good questions any other images let's go for it
00:40:51.040and if you want to support the show and get bonus content head to culturestudypod.substack.com
00:40:56.500it's just five bucks a month or fifty dollars a year you also get a discount if you're already a
00:41:01.120culture study newsletter subscriber and you'll get ad-free episodes and exclusive advice time
00:41:06.000segment weekly discussion threads for each episode and a link to a special google form so
00:41:11.400that your questions go to the front of the line the culture study podcast is produced by me
00:41:16.040ann helen peterson and melody rowell our music is by pottington bear you can find me on instagram
00:41:21.640at ann helen peterson melody and melodious 47 and the show at culture study pod