And started on mtv. He has created Many Television shoe shows and baxter and sextuplets. Michael ian black is the author of several books for children including the awardwinning trio im bored im sad and im worried. Aand the parody a childs first book of his books for adults include the epic collection of my custom van, and coauthored with Reagan Mccarthy mccain sari america, you pitch. I want to know more about that i really do. As a standup comedian michael regularly tours the country and has released several comedy alms. Al podcasts include mike and tom eat snaps with tom cavanagh huckabee amazing and obscure. Please help me welcome michael ian black. [applause] this is my first time behind the pulpit. I like it. [laughter] thank you for that warm introduction. So nice to be here at the beautiful Trinity Church here in savannah. I am not just a visitor to savannah, i moved here about six months ago from the wilds of connecticut where i was residing for the previous 20 years. My children who you will hear more about, were getting older. Showbiz has shut down because of covid. I wasnt making any money and we thought maybe its a good time to sell our house. So we sold and i googled what is the best small city in america and wouldnt you know Savannah Georgia came up on that list. We looked at a house down here and i think within a week we had made an offer on the house and within a few months he became savannah residents. We moved here in august and that was. That was a terrorr will decision on our part. So much so that we moved into our house it was an old 1967 housemate that this is his charming house and then we discovered there were roaches in the house and it was august and by about week to it was googling whats another place i could live . Exterminators came in the weather broke and now we are very happily ensconced in to savannah, i georgia. Its not my first time at the square so its a pleasure to be part of my hometown book festival. The book that i will speak to about today is called a better man and the subtitle is a mostly serious letter to my son. As i mentioned i have two children. My son is the elder. He turns 21 this monday. My daughter is 18 and currently in school in los angeles. We kind of knew savannah to begin with and we thought we will just follow him to savannah because thats what every kid once i imagine. To follow them wherever theyy are. So i wrote this book as my son was graduating from high school. It began and i will backtrack that i am a comedian. Thats sort of how i make a living. This book is not a funny book. Its got jokes in the t end i le to think its naturally charming but the book is as book is as it says book is as a system is subtitle subtitle mostly serious. He came about because if i go all the way back to the origins as i mentioned i was living in the wilds of connecticut and one day when my son was in fifth grade and my daughter was in third it was on twitter and on twitter itth said there had been gunshots at the school in the town next over called sandy hook elementary school. At first i sort of thought that certainly doesnt sound good but its not on the news so maybe its just a little mishap, nothing but it will be okay. And within an hour or so we all know what happened. It was at that moment i think that i sort of became radicalized maybe against gun violence and i spend a lot of my time and energy railing against this problem that we have. In this country, which is gun violence. Fastforward to my sons senior year of high school. My daughter is now a sophomore and there is another shooting at a high school, Marjory Stoneman douglas parkland, florida and yet again i find myself yelling into the wind about this problem. I get on twitter faq too often and they tweaked just my aggravation at the situation. Then in my twitter, im just venting but i asked a question sort of out loud to the twitterverse which i havent really considered before the question is this, why when these events happened isnt always the way pulling the trigger . What did some guy do now . Why is it always the boy or a manned . I never really thought about that before. I have a lot of time being angry at the gun lobby and the gun manufactures, politicians who dont do anything to address this problem but never stopped to consider the obvious point that it was a boy pulling the trigger so i just asked the question why. Right after that the New York Times got in touch with me and they had seen my twitterverse and they said would he like to write an opeded about this top . I said i dont think so. Im not really qualified to do that. And they said we are the New York Times and i said oh the New York Times i guess im qualified. I guess ill do it. Im an expert on this now. So i wrote an oped to the New York Times entitled the boyswh are not all right which expanded that question, why, why when it comesun to not only matters of n violence with violence in general people just assume almost correct the that it is mail people who are instigating. That t oped came out. It went as the kids say viral. The publisher contacted me and said would you write like to write a book about this and once again i said i really dont think im qualified to do that. Ai had a meeting with the publishers and i said you know imh1 just a jerk who shows up n vh1 sometimes. I do commentary about Cabbage Patch kids and i really dont think im the guy you want for this. Im a college dropout. And i dropped out of college to too cute teenage mutant ninja turtle. I dont have the resume that necessarily lends itself to the deep dive into it. The woman who would become a publisher said well all of that may be true. At the same time why not you . That was one of those, not rhetorical chess one of those questions where you go oh yeah why not . I have kids, and they have a son. I had thought about this issue throughout my life for reasons that i will discuss in a moment. I really couldnt think of a good reason why not other than my other lack of qualifications. So i thought about it for a while and when faced with decisions like that, career decisions i generally have, i generally will say yes if the criteria is at least if the decision is one of three criteria and one is will it pay a lot of money . The answer to this was absolutely not. The second was will i get to work with friends, and the answer again to thatt was no. Im not my biggest fan. Three was does it scare you because what i have found is the things that scare me tend to provoke better work than things that dont and it absolutely did. I know the pastor here. Okay, great. Im like, let me say yes to this. So i said yes. So i decided to write this book and what i knew from the beginning wasas vacant e. , i can approach it from the point of the place of an expert from the genderac theorist or a sociologt for an academic because im not any of those things. What i am is a dad and i could write it as a dad. I knew it wasnt going to beim sanctimonious and im glad im speaking from behind a pulpit. You donty want to write a sanctimonious book and get yourself a hind the pulpit. So i started writing. The reason i had thought about these issues in one way or another for most of my life without even being fully where i issuesng it and the being the large issue of what does it mean to be a man . What do we mean when we say masculine and when we describe masculinity . What does it mean when somebody says to a kid come on, be a man. I grew up in a household. My parents divorced when i was five because my mom started sleeping with the lady nextt door. She got into this relationship with this woman and my parents divorced and that tents to happen in those situations. We moved in with my mother and her partner and her partner son. That was an unusual livingl arrangement for those times and then my dad was like a lot of men in his generation a little bit distant, a little bit emotionally unavailable, worked a lot and was not particularly good at meeting with his children. He just didnt know how to talk to kids. He died when i was 12, just when i was starting to get to know them a little bit. And so growing up i felt a keen of a real strong male figurere n my life and while i am the first person to say by all means be a single mom, be a couple were a couple. I did miss that part of my life, that male presence in my life. And then also i grew up in new jersey in the mid1980s, which was like, its like if bon jovi was the state. [laughter] thats what it was. And as you can probably tell just by me so far, like i just didnt quite fit into that. It was a very sports driven for lack of a better word masculine culture. I from age each of nine was like im going to be an actd there. It wasnt like, it wasnt the best fit. I was one of those kids whod occasionally got picked on andes called certain names and pushed into certain lockers and all of that. And i knew that i had to leave their, which i did as soon as they graduate from high school. I went to new york to school to become a teenage mutant mid ninja turtle rafael by the way. But i knew that the guys that were around me that i was growing up with a felt to me at times like an entirely different species, like there was a model of boyhood that i certainly totally alienated from. I played Little League and i ran around stuff and whatever and nor did i feel like it fully encapsulated who i was. From an early age i felt like i understood there was some sort of mismatch between what the guy was supposed to be in the guy that i was. And it was hard to reconcile. As i got older and became an actor an comedian and met all kinds of different people that team name kept coming up again and again in my work and did my comedy. But it wasnt until this book started taking shape that i understood really foror the firt time that i have been wrestling with this my entire life. And so i got to work in my first question to myself when writing this bookhi was well how do you even start to answer that question . What does it mean to be a man . Because the phrase most commonly , the word most commonly affixed to masculinity in our contemporary culture is toxic. So how do you look at that . How do you look at masculinity and go what is a good version when we dont know what that is . What is the healthy version. All the attributes that we think about when we think about healthy masculinity if i think about strength or independence or at times aggression or fortitude, you think about any those attributes and they are so easily flipped to enter the realm of toxicity that we hear so much about in the culture. So which is it . When is aggression for example appropriate and when is it not . One is displaying ourur strength appropriate and when is it not . When is it of her. To be stoic and suffer in silence and when is it approver to be vulnerable and open . How do you wrap your head around these questions . I didnt know. The first thing i did was i said ill order a bunch of hooks. I bought aad bunch of books and started reading and eventually what ended up surprising me more than anything else to in my reading it in my thinking was my increasing sympathy for men. Like you know, come on you can tell im just a big old lefty. Im liberal and all of that. Whatever or jordan if you want to say about where rules, i am just that guy. But i found myself feeling a lot of sympathy and maybe empathy for what i would consider my more conservative brethren, the menho who are raised to be that kind of strong silent type. The men who are raised to endure, the men who are raised to protect and provide. Its a very compelling image if you were a guy i think for the way you want to live your life as a man, the provider and protector. It feels kind of cut and dried as my role. I provide for the family may protect the tribes. Until you realize that the sand upon which that architecture was built are now shifting entirely. All of that is crumbling for reasons that we all know, globalization, automation, the of the creative economy, fall of the industrial economy, the entrance of women into the workforce as independent agents who no longer have to rely on men to provide for them, the greater role of women to economy in general the womens ability to raise children for example without necessarily the need of the partner to do that with. So what happens to a guy when his central identity as a provider andis protector is no longer is clearly defined. What happens to his own sense of self . Who does he believe himself to be and i think what we are seeing, i know we are seeing, over the last however many years you want to call it we are seeing the rise of the angry primarily white man. People like me my kneejerk is to go oh that guy that knuckled dragger or whatever. The more i started looking into this the more sympathy i started to have for these guys. Ca because its reminiscent of a phrase that we hear a lot of politicians talk about when they talk about the economy in general. Theyll say things like we believed is that if you play by the ruless you should make a far wage and get ahead etc. , etc. Think for a lot of these guys they felt like i played by the rules and i did my part as a guy and now imm finding my identity is being threatened by forces so far beyond my control, things that id didnt imagine would reorganize my life are nowfe reurbanizing my life. That i imagine its tough and in fact they know its tough for the given example from my own life. Im in showbiz and for any number of years previous to the last couple there has always been a market for the funnyne sidekick you know. The goofball neighbor who comes in and yells at jack tripper messing around with too many girls and then he gets a nice check at the end of the week. Those are the kinds of roles that went to guyss like me. They are no longer going to guye like me because hollywood at long last has recognized that they have a problem with representation in the products that they make. And so the role that went to guys like me are now going to guys who are or reporter recant or trans or whatever. The pecking order has gone from white to appear to white guy way down here. That is happening, thats a very deliberate choice by race but the doors opening for all kinds of otherds people in all kinds f other industries and of course i think most of us look at that and say thats fantastic. Thats the way it should be. Then when its your job on the line to go im not sure how enthusiastic time about this anymore. And so its great to be openminded in theory and practice is a little bit harder. I feel like i had sympathy for the guy whose job just got shipped to mexico, china to wherever. And i understand how that affects your sense of self as a man. That was a surprise to me. It was a surprise to me that i came out of my research on this book feeling more empathy for traditional masculinity than i thought i would walking into it or you on the other hand i also emerged from the writing of this book feeling like we have so far to go to help guys, so very far. For the last halfcentury, 60 years we have devoted a lot of time culturally to elevating women into the culture, correctly so. You can go way back to the mid1960s and start their. As women gained agency and moved into the workforce and kick down those doors that had been close to them for so long. Messages about female empowerment started resonating into the culture and we now i feel like i understand culturally and celebrate culturally the idea strong independent woman, the woman who can endure and has fortitude and we celebrate all those attributes and women now that i men we looked at and felt a little suspect about. We have expanded the definitionn tremendously of what it means to be a woman but we havent quite that conversation with men. O and so thats where i think we need to move. The conversation needs to continue with women. So this book that i wrote this meant to be a small part in kickstarting a conversation thats happening. It is starting to through the fact do you aret here today andi think you are familiar with these questions already means thatnv the conversation is alrey starting to happen and so the book that i wrote is one mans letter to his kids about where that conversation could go. I dont want to talk too long in case you guys have questions. If you have any questions id be happy to entertain them. Not necessarily in an entertaining way. S was such a rod based topic how did you decide upon the length of the book . Oh chart. Its not a veryy long book. Its a great question how did you decide to what to do and write about when the book on the topic is so big. It wasnt easy. It was a difficult topic to rap my head around it the way i started doing it was just by asking myself that one question what does it mean to be a man . And asking that question i started thinking about what i associate with manhood. I talked a little bit about strength. When i think of men, men are strong. In but what is strength . Was a strength really when you think about it . Theresen physical strength obviously there wasre a time in our history where physical strength was incredibly important. E that time has passed. We dont need to wrestle saber toothed tigers nearly as often now as we did a few thousand years ago. Theres emotional strength. Their spiritual strength. Theres also i think a profound strength as a man and being able to lay your heart and say in this moment right now i am. There is profound strengthex and expressing vulnerability and it cuts to thee essence of our humanity when we allow ourselves to doo that. I think all of these traditionally masculine attributes can be viewed in that way. I will end there for now. An it and want to thank you for coming and thank you for your book. My pleasure. Im going to combine two questions into one. Did you have any conversations with showalter with your caught career. I was aware of her way before i was ever aware viewer michael showalter. Were you aware or did you have ideas about masculinity when you were doing certain sendups like johnny blue jeans. Did you feel like you are striking and distance regarding masculine performance with those kinds, and i could name others. Those and maybe werent aware of it at the time. Thanks for the question. The first question did i ever speak with elainelt showalter which i will tell you the moment. Some of you may know a pretty Elaine Showalter is one of the best regarded scholars in thiss area, this arena in the country mostly as it relates to womens issues. Im sure she has a lot to say around issues of manhood as well and shes the mother of one of my best friends,d michael showalter. You know it never dawned on me to ask. [laughter] how is that . It never even occurred to me i should call mrs. Showalter. Thats goes to show you how unqualified i am and what in i am. And the second question was in tthe parts that you play did you ever, think what youre asking did you ever address or subvert traditional notions of masculinity and the role that you played and the answer to that is absolutely yes. And sort of consciously and sort of not consciously. There have been times in my career where, ill give you one example. There was a show called ed that i was on from 1999 to 2004 Something Like that and i was brought on to play replace a guy who had to do another show. I flew outle to l. A. For the lat addition before he secured this part. I went in gave the audition sat outside and waited and waited and finally they t came out and they said you got the job. I was like oh man. But there was a note in the note was, i do want to butcher it. It was Something Like we dont, the actors name was phil. We dont want phil to be. There was nothing that i was doing in that addition. Other than being myself that would have led them to believe, i mean i wasnt i didnt know where it came from and it was at the deeply painful note to me because in a sense it was a note i had been receiving my entire life. It was stop acting so. By the way i dont think i ever clarify that im straight. My wife is here. I may be the straight man youll ever meet but i am a very straight guy. So in performing that part in the back of my mind it was like okay which it up. I want to lose this job at. Thereve been other times in my career rise held like ive been free to express myself the way i express myself and i came off to let people as. I had to make a choice mentally for myself to be okay with that to be okay with just being who i am. I think it took me until i was about 40 years old to make that choice. Its hard fors me. The question thanks for your bravery in and tackling the subject first of all that my question is i have two kids that are 18 and 21 and what i see is there doesnt seem to matter whether these emotions and characteristics are tied to masculinity or femininity. What i see with the kids is they dont care anymore. Im curious if you tackled any of that in the book . I just rebuild i havent read your book yet but i hope to. Thank you. I think youre right. Thankfully we aree seeing that t least im seeing in my kids and their peers that there is a lot less concern about the traditional norms than there was in my generation. I hope that i wrote a book that is. That would be fantastic. Unfortunately i feel like we see a lot of evidence day in and day out of men doing mail things abusing their power and harassing and men unable to express themselves in ans construct that way. I think a perfect example of this was masks during a pandemic. It continues to be an issue but the way that masks were for. Ti among a certain portion of the population as, as feminizing. There were a lot of guys who i felt like were out there in the world saying things like ill just get covid, its not going to kill me. If its even real. Im not going to put this thing over my face. It was a real problem and a lot of that i think had to do with these ideas to strengthen as and i care more about this armor that i have for myself as a real man than the health and safety of the people around me. I founded in same but it happened. It continues to happen. [applause] said congratulations. Youre probably not the first of the last occurs behind the pulpit. Thank you for being here and for sharing this and we have work out of the same gym and i read thisis book before meeting you d i really enjoyed it. Seeing myself in and a couple of kids and my son is a five and a different stage of fatherhood in light of this research ande taking a look at your role in your successes and failures what are you most proud of in light of being a dad . Im most proud that ive been there for my kids. Ive been there. There are times ive been away and ive been working at a feel for the most part day in and day out i have been a constant presence in our lives. Like i said i didnt have that important to me that i be that for my kids. They havent always ticketed damage of it. They arent always thrilled to see me there but they know that im there and they know every night before i tell them that i love them and they think 80 of parroting parenting might just be that. Im reading about and ive learned a new word. In voluntary celibate. There are enough straight men for it to be an identity. Their amend who will probably never have a relationship with another human being. And they are a sad group, very lonely and in one case it did lead to mass murder. Forgive me, im having a hard timeut hearing you and i think youre making the point that a lot of men have a hard time expressing empathy and there mas be incapable of expressing empathy . Not exactly. The people im talking about arm straight men who find it impossible to attract the interest of a woman. They dont have the attributes it takes to attract the woman and women are now much more dependent and they dont need to attach themselves to a man. These men are lonely, sad and angry. And in one case it did lead to mass murder. Ha yes, that does happen and that is true. I would say in response to it that a lot, and again im not an expert and i dont want to make any prescriptions aboutpr this b lum. A lot of times when i have seen these guys portrayed in the news or wherever one wouldnt look at them and say my that person is whatever, physically or whatever. They are just normal who are styling. I wonder if some of that struggle doesnt have to do with a lack of ability to empathize and to communicate and to be vulnerable and so much of that can be tied i think to poor representation of manhood may be in their lives or in the media. When i talk about strength i talked about baring yourself to the world. The oldest model of masculinity and maybe thee one that sticks with us the longest is the model in which you armor up. You affixed pieces of armor to yourself so that you can go out into the world and protect the tribe and provide for the tribe without getting bitten by some animal or whatever. We affixed so much psychic armor to ourselves that we make it impossible and we also make it impossible to be so much of what i want to do with my work on this topic is to get in to start removing some of that armor and in doing so i think, i hope we will t allow each othero hear each other and to see each other and be in better men as well as better people. Last question. Hey. My brothers and i love the skit about i the pope coming to the neighborhood. I have two sons 16 and 13. The oldest is going off to college in a few years. Ive thought a lot about what you are discussing. Im curious about what your son thought about the book that you wrote . He didnt love it. [laughter] im familiar with that. I suspect its hard to read a book written by your father in which her father is baring his soul you know . I imagine a lot of that is like shut up dad, shut up. I will say this though there was nothing in that book and i hope there was nothing that i wrote in that look that was new to him. You know what i mean . There may have been in the little stories whatever that he didnt know. My general approach to parenting or two loving and modeling masculine behavior and what i expect from him i hope he was already familiar with it. If he had opened up a can then mike oh my gosh i had no idea you felt this way about empathy that would have been. I think the fact i dont dont think there were any surprises in there for him and i think thats a good thing. Thank you guys so much for coming out. [applause] i really i appreciated. Thank you savannah book festival and thank you cspan for covering this event. Take care. Homework can be hard. Sitting in a diner for internet work is even and thats why we are providing students access to internet so homer can just be homework