And sextuplets black is the author of several books for children. Including the awardwinning trio on board im sad and im worried. And the and a parity a childs first book of trump. His books were adults include the essay collection of my custom van black also coauthored with Megan Mccarthy mccain. Im mccarthy. Sorry mccain america, you sexy now i got to know more about that. I really do. As a standup comedian michael regularly tours the country and he has released several comedy albums his podcasts include mike and tom eat snacks. With tom cavanagh topics with Michael Showalter how to be amazing and obscure now, which please help me. Welcome Michael Ian Black this is my first time behind a pulpit. I like it. Thank you for that warm introduction. So nice to be here in 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. But my children who you will hear more about were getting older. Showbiz had 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 and googled whats the best small city in america and wouldnt you know, its savannah, georgia came up on that list. And i looked we looked at a house down here. And then i think within a week we had made an offer on that house and within a few months we became savannah residents and we moved here in august and that was terrible that that was a terrible decision on our part. So much so that maybe we moved into our house. Its an old 1867 house. We thought oh, this is just a charming charming house and then we discovered that there were roaches invested in the house and it was august. And by about week two i was googling whats another place that i could live . But the exterminators came and the weather broke and now we are very happily ensconced in savannah georgia. And so its my first time in this church. Certainly not my first time at this square and so its just a pleasure to be here and be a part of my hometown book. Festival the book that i will speak to you about today is called a better man. And then 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 sunday. My daughter is 18 and currently attending school in los angeles. My son actually attends scad which is why we kind of knew savannah to begin with. And we thought well, well just follow him down to savannah because thats what every kid wants. I imagine just to follow them wherever they are. So i wrote this book as my son was graduating from high school. And it began. In and well, ill backtrack i am a comedian. I mean, i thats sort of how i make my living and this book is not a funny book. Its got jokes in it. And i like to think im just naturally charming, but the book is as it says in the subtitle mostly serious. And it came about because if i go all the way back to its origins as i mentioned i was living in the wilds of kinetic it and one day one my son was in fifth grade. I think my daughter was in third. I was on twitter. And on twitter it said that there had been gunshots at the school right in the town next over called sandy hook elementary school. And at first i sort of thought well, thats that does that certainly doesnt sound good and but theres nothing on the news. So maybe its just a little mishap something terrible and but itll be okay. And then 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 spent a lot of my time and energy. Railing against this problem that we have in this country, which is gun violence. Fast forward to my son senior year of high school. My daughter is now a sophomore. And there is another High School Shooting high school Marjory Stoneman douglas. In parkland, florida um and yet again i find myself. Yelling into the wind about this problem. I get on twitter as i do too often. And i tweet just my aggravation at this situation, but then in my twitter thread i ask a question. Im just venting, but i ask a question sort of out loud to the twitterverse, which i havent really considered before in the question is this why when these events happen . Is it always a boy pulling the trigger . Like we dont even think about it. Were just like oh what what did some guy do now . Why is it always a boy or a man . And i never really thought about that before. Like i was i i had spent a lot of time being angry at the gun lobby and gun manufacturers and politicians who dont do anything to address this problem, but id never really stopped to consider the very obvious point that its always boys pulling the trigger. So i just asked the question why . Right after that the New York Times got in touch with me. They had seen my twitter thread. They said would you like to write an oped about this topic . I said, i dont think so. Im not really qualified to do that. And they said but were the New York Times and i said, oh, okay. Well, if youre the New York Times, i guess im qualified. I guess ill do it. So my ego would not let me decline the New York Times i thought oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Im an expert on this now. So i wrote it not bad for the New York Times entitled. The boys are not all right, which really just expanded that question. Why why why when it comes to not only matters of gun violence but violence in general do we just assume almost always correctly that it is male people. Who are instigating that oped came out it went as the kids say viral a publisher contacted me and said would you like to write a book about this . And once again i said, i really dont think im qualified to do that. I had a meeting with these publishers and i said, you know, im just im just a jerk off who shows up on vh1 sometimes, you know, i i do commentary about Cabbage Patch kids. Like i dont really think im the guy you want for this. Im a College Dropout worse. I dropped out of college to go be a teenage mutant ninja turtle. Like i dont have the resume. That necessarily lends itself to a deep dive into masculinity so then the woman who would become my publisher said well. All of that may be true, but at the same time why not you and that was one of those rhetorical i guess it wasnt even rhetorical. It was one of those questions that just kind of made me go. Oh, yeah. Why not me . Because i have kids i have a son. I i have thought about this issue throughout my life for reasons that i will discuss in a moment. And i really couldnt think of a good reason why not other than my other lack of qualifications. And so i thought about it. For a while and when faced with uh decisions like that career decisions. I generally have i generally will say yes if the criteria it meets one of if the decision means one of three criteria, the first is will it pay a lot of money . And the answer to this was absolutely not. The second was will i get to work with friends and the answer again . That was no because i just have to sit by myself, and im not im not my biggest fan and then 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. And i was like i know the pastor here. Can i curse . I was gonna i can curse right . Yeah. Okay great. As i gosh. All right, let me let me say yes. To this and so i said, yes. And so i decided to write this book and what i knew from the beginning was it cant be. I cant approach it from the point. From the place of an expert from a gender theorist from a historian from a sociologist from an academic. Demian academic academic because im not any of those things but what i am is a dad and i could write it. I could write it as a dad. And i knew it wasnt going to be saying timonius and im glad that im not speaking from behind a pulpit because if you if you dont want to write a sanctimonious book by all means get yourself behind a pulpit and so i started writing. Now the reason that i have thought about these issues. Ah in one way or another for most of my life without even really being fully aware that i was doing it and the issues being the the sort of large issue of what does it mean to be a man . What is that . What do we mean when we say masculine . What do we mean when we say when we describe masculinity . What does it mean when somebody says to to a kid or something . Come on be a man. What does that even mean . I grew up in a household. My parents divorced when i was five because my mom started a sleeping with the next door, basically. She got into this relationship with this woman. And my parents divorced and then as tends to happen in those situations. We moved in with my mother and her partner and my partners her partners son and so that was an unusual living arrangement for those times. And then my dad. Uh was like a lot of men in his generation a little bit distant little bit emotionally unavailable. Worked a lot and was not particularly good at communicating with his children not like. He loved us, but he just didnt know how to talk to kids. He died when i was 12, just as i was starting to kind of get to know him a little bit. Um and so growing up i felt a keen lack of a real strong male figure in my life. And while i am the first person to say by all means, you know be a single mom be a lesbian couple be a you know, male gay couple. I did miss that part of my life that that male presence in my life. And then also i grew up in new jersey in the mid 1980s, um, which was like its like if bon jovi was a state. Like thats what it was and and as you can probably tell just by me so far like i just didnt quite fit into that like it was a very sports driven for lack of a better word, you know masculine culture. I from the age of nine was like im gonna be an actor, you know, and and it just wasnt like it wasnt the best fit. And so i was one of those kids who occasionally got picked on and called certain names and pushed into certain lockers and and all of that. And i knew that i knew that i had to leave there which i did as soon as i graduated from high school. I went to new york to go to New York University the school that i would then drop out of. To become a teenager. We ninja turtle raphael by the way, if youre wondering rafael um but i knew that the guys that were around me that i was growing up with. They fell to me at times like an entirely different species like just there was a there was a model of boyhood. That i certainly wasnt in totally alienated from i played Little League and i ran around and i did dumb stuff and whatever. But nor did i feel like it fully. Encapsulated who i was and from an early age. I felt like i understood that there was some sort of mismatch between what it meant what the guy i was supposed to be and the that i was and that was hard to reconcile. And then as i got older and you know became well, i guess turtle and actor and comedian. And met all kinds of different people. I that sort of theme kept coming up again and again in my work and in my comedy. And so and but it wasnt until this. Book started taking shape that i understood really for the first time that i had been wrestling with this. My entire life and so i got to work and and the question my first question to myself when writing this book was well how the hell do you like 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 how do you how do you look at that . How do you look at masculinity . And go well, whats the good version when we dont we dont know what that is. What is the healthy version of masculinity . Because all the attributes that we think about when we think about a healthy masculine at least that i do if i think about strength or independence or you know at times aggression or you know, fortitude, you know you think about any of those attributes they are so easily flipped. To enter that realm of toxicity that we hear so much about in the culture so which is it, you know. When is aggression for example appropriate when is it not when is displaying our strength appropriate . When is it not when is it appropriate to be stoic and suffer in silence . And when is it appropriate to be vulnerable and open . Well, how do you how do you wrap your head . Around these questions and i didnt know. So the first thing i did was like well, i guess ill ill just border a bunch of books and maybe theyll tell me. So thats what i did. I just bought a bunch of books and started reading and reading. And eventually what ended up . Surprising me more than anything else. In my reading and in my thinking was my increasing sympathy for men like, you know im a i mean you can tell im just a big old lefty, you know and liberal and all of that, you know. Whatever pejoratives you want to. Say about liberals and everything like thats me. Like im just that guy. But i found myself feeling a lot of sympathy maybe empathy. For what . I would consider my more conservative brethren. The men 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 its a very compelling image if youre a guy i think for what the way you want to live your life. As a man the provider the protector it feels kind of cut and dry. This is my role. I provide for the family. I protect the tribe. Great. Until you realize that the sands upon which that architecture was built are now shifting entirely. And all of that is crumbling. For reasons that we all know globalization automation the rise of the Creative Economy the fall of the kind of industrial economy. The entrance of women into the workforce as independent agents who no longer have to rely on men to provide for them. Um, the the greater role of just womens autonomy in general the womens ability to raise children, for example without necessarily the need of a partner to do that with so what happens to a guy when his central identity to provider and the protector . Is no longer as clearly defined what happens to his own sense of self. Who does he believe himself to be and i think what were seeing i know were seeing over the last however many years you want to call it. Were seeing the rise of the angry. Primarily white man and people like me. My knee jerk is to go ah that having guy you know, hes that effin knuckle dragger or whatever. But the more i started looking into this. Topic the more sympathy i started to have for these guys because it is reminiscent of a phrase that we hear a lot of politicians talk about when they talk about, you know, the economy in general. Theyll say things like we believe that if you play by the rules, you know, you should make a fair wage and get ahead etc. Etc, etc. Well, i think for a lot of these guys they felt like i played by the rules like i did my part as a guy and now im finding my identity is being threatened by forces so far beyond my control things that i didnt imagine would reorganize my life are now reorganizing my life without my consent. And that i imagine is tough. In fact, i know its tough. Ill give you an 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 this sort of funny sidekick. You know, the the goofball neighbor who comes in and you know yells at jack tripper that hes you know messing around with too many girls and then he goes out and he gets a nice check at the end of the week terrific. Well, those are the kinds of roles that went to guys like me. They are no longer going to guys like me. Because hollywood at long last has recognized that they have a problem with representation. In the products that they make um and so the roles that went to guys like me are now going to guys who are black or asian or puerto rican or trans or whatever, you know. The the pecking order has now gone from you know, white guy up here to white guy way down here. Thats happening. I wouldnt say thats a very deliberate choice. That is that hollywood is making sort of by by race, but the door is opening for all kinds of other people in all kinds of other industries. And of course i think most of us look at that and go thats fantastic. Thats the way it should be. But then when its your job on the line you go. Im not sure how enthusiastic i am about this anymore. Its so its great to be openminded. In theory in practice. Its a little bit. Harder, so i and i feel like i have some empathy for the guy whose job just got shipped off. To mexico to china to wherever and i understand how that affects your sense of self. As a man so 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 that i thought i would walking into it. 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. Because for the last half century 60 years we have devoted a lot of time culturally. To elevating women in the culture correctly, so you know starting i mean you can go way back, but lets just pin it in the mid 1960s start there. As women gained agency and moved into the workforce and kicked down those doors that had been closed to them for so long. Messages about female empowerment started really resonating in the culture and we now i feel like understand culturally and celebrate culturally the idea of the strong woman the independent woman. The woman who . Can endure and has fortitude and we celebrate all those attributes in women now. That in men we look at and feel a little suspect about you know, weve weve expanded the definition tremendously of what it means to be a woman. But we havent quite begun that conversation. With men and so thats where i think we need to move. The conversation needs to continue with women. It needs to start with men. And so this book that i wrote. Is meant to be a small part in sort of kickstarting that conversation and its happening. I mean, it is starting to percolate the fact that youre here today and that i think youre familiar with these questions already means that the conversation is already starting to happen. Um, and so the book that i wrote is just one mans, you know letter to his kid about. Where that conversation maybe could go. I dont want to talk too long in case you guys have questions. What time is it . 117 yeah, so if you have any questions, ill be happy to entertain them. Not necessarily an entertaining way. Yes. Oh. Miss fella so with such a broadbased topic. How did you decide upon the length of your book . How many pages is it . Oh, its short. Its i mean, its not a very long book. Its like 50 something thousand words, and its a great question. How did you decide like what to even write about when the book when the topic is so big and wasnt easy and what the it was it was it was it was a difficult topic to wrap my head around in the way i started doing it was just by going asking myself that one question. What does it mean to be a man and so in asking that question i started thinking about what i associate with. Manhood so ive talked a little bit about strength strength when i think of men i think men are strong like thats just a men are strong. Okay, but what is strength . What is strength really when you think about it . Theres physical strength, obviously and there was a time in our history where brute physical strength was incredibly important that time has passed someone, you know, we dont need to wrestle sabertooth tigers nearly as often now. As we did a few thousand years ago. Theres emotional strength. Their spiritual strength but theres also i think a profound strength. As a man in being able to lay bare your heart and say in this moment right now. I am weak. There is profound strength in expressing vulnerability. And it gets it cuts to the essence of our humanity. When we allow ourselves to do that. And i think all of these sort of traditionally masculine attributes can be viewed in that way. All in there. But yeah. Hello, and thank you for coming and thank you for your presentation. Oh, my pleasure. Um i have im gonna combine two questions into one. Did you have any conversations with Elaine Showalter over your career regarding gender . I was sure aware of her way before i was ever aware of you or michael show water and were you aware or did you have ideas about masculinity when you are doing certain sendups like johnny blue jeans. Did you feel that you were . Striking a sort of ironic distance regarding a masculine performance with those kinds and i could name others, but those kinds of things maybe you werent aware of it at the time or yeah. Thanks for the questions. So the first question was did i ever speak with Elaine Showalter who i will ill tell you who she is in a moment. Maybe some of you probably know already elaine show alter is one of the best regarded scholars in this area in this arena in the country particularly, i think mostly i think is it relates to womens issues, but im sure she has a lot to say about issues around manhood as well. She is also the mother of one of my best friends Michael Showalter and you know it never dawned on me to ask. How stupid is that . Like it never even occurred to me, or i should call it mrs. Showalter like id never like that just goes to show you like how unqualified i am to have written this but what an idiot i am. On a and the second question was like in the parts that you play. Did you ever i think what youre asking is did you ever sort of address or sort of subvert traditional notions of masculinity in the roles that you play in the answer to that is absolutely yes, and i and and sort of consciously sort of not consciously there. You know the 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 replace a guy who had to go off and do another show. And so i went i flew out to la for the last audition. Before i secured this part went in gave the audition sat outside waited waited waited. Finally they came out and they said you got the job and i was like, oh great. But there was a no. And the note was i dont want to butcher it but it was Something Like we dont want the characters name was phil. We dont want phil to be gay. It was nothing that i was doing in that audition. Other than being myself that would have led them to believe i mean i wasnt. I dont know what i didnt know where it came from and it was a deeply kind of painful note to me because in a sense it was the note. Id been receiving my entire life. It would stop acting so gay by the way. I dont think i ever clarified. Im straight. I mean, im my wifes here. I may be the gayest straight man youll ever meet but i am a very straight guy. And so in performing that part like the back of my mind was always like okay butch it up black. You know what i mean . It was like i dont want to lose this job, but there have been other times in my life in my career. I felt like i had been free to just sort of express myself the way i express myself and that comes across to a lot of people is gay and i had to make a choice mentally for myself to be okay with that to be okay with just sort of being who i am. I think it took me till i was about 40 years old to make that choice, you know, its hard. Its really hard. Yeah. Here bravely and facult y and i guess my question will be related. Oh, thanks for your bravery and tackling the subject first of all, but my question is tied to what you just started to say in your last answer. Ive got two kids that are 18 and 21 and what i see. Is that there doesnt seem to matter whether these emotions and these characteristics are tied to masculinity or femininity specifically within a man or a woman what i see with the kids is they dont care anymore. So im curious if you tackle any of that in the book. I guess i revealed i havent read your book yet, but but i hope to thank you. I think youre right. I think thankfully were seeing that. At least im im seeing in my kids and their peers that there is a lot less concern about these sort of traditional norms than there was in my generation. I like i hope that i wrote a book that is already out of date. I hope i did, you know, that would be fantastic. Unfortunately, i mean i feel like we see a lot of evidence stay in and day out of men just doing crappy male things, you know men abusing their power men, you know sexually harassing men. Unable to express themselves in a constructive way. You know, i i i think the i think a perfect example of this. Was masks during the pandemic continues, you know to be an issue but the way that masks were portrayed. Among certain portion of the population as week as feminizing, you know, there was there was a there were a lot of guys who i felt like were out there in the world saying things like well, you know, ill just get covid, you know, its not gonna kill me, you know if its even real. But im not going to put this thing over my face. It was a real problem and a lot of it i think had to do with. These ideas of strength and weakness and and how you know, i would i i care more about this armor that ive erected for myself to portray myself as a real man than i do about the health and safety of the people around me. I found it insane. But it happened and continues to happen. Pastor congratulations, youre not the first or probably the last occurs from behind that pulpit. Thank you for being in for sharing this and its funny. We work out at the same gym, so i shared with you that i actually read this book before meeting you and really enjoyed it. Im curious because i see a couple of kids and young dads like myself. My son is is about to be five out here and for you kind of on a at a different stage of fatherhood in light of this research and kind of taking that backwards look at your role and we all know theres successes and failures for all of us as parents. What are you most proud of in light of all this in being a dad . Im most proud that ive been there for my kids. Ive been there, you know there have been times where ive been away. Ive been working or whatever but i feel like for the most part day in and day out like ive been a constant presence in their lives. Like i said, i didnt have that and it was important to me that i be that for my kids. They havent always taken advantage of it. Theyre not like always thrilled to see me there. But they know that im there and they know that every night before bed. Im going to tell them i love them. And i think you know 80 of parenting might just be that. Yeah. When reading about mass murders i learned a new word in cell. Involuntary sullivan and there are enough of these men straight men. To be an identity their men who will probably never have a relationship. With another human being an intimate relationship with other human being and their their sad group, theyre very lonely. And in one case it did lead to mass murder. Forgive me. Im having a hard time hearing you with with the mask on but i think yours youre making the point that a lot of men have a hard time expressing empathy and are maybe incapable empathy. Is that right . And not exactly the people im talking about. Theyre straight men who find it impossible to attract the interest of a woman. Yeah, theyre either. They dont have the attributes it takes to to attract a woman who and women of course have now much more independent. They dont need to attach themselves to a man to live. And these men are lonely. Theyre sad and angry. Yes, and in one case it did lead to mass murder. Yes, that that is that does happen that is true. I would say. In response to it that a lot and again, im not an expert. I dont want to make any proscriptions about this problem, which is a profound problem. A lot of times when ive seen these guys sort of portrayed in the news or wherever. One wouldnt look at them and say my god that person is whatever physically reprehensible or whatever like theyre just normal dudes. Who are struggling . I wonder if some of that struggle doesnt have to do with. A lack of ability to empathize and communicate and to be vulnerable and so much of that can be tied i think to poor representations of manhood maybe in their lives or maybe in in the media that theyre consuming. When i talked about strength i talked about sort of. Bearing yourself to the world. The oldest model of masculinity and maybe the one that sticks with us. The longest is the model in which you armor up. You affix 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 stabbed or bitten by. Some animal or whatever we a fix so much psychic armor to ourselves. That we make it impossible. To be hurt. We also make it impossible to emote. So much of what i want to do for in with my work in this topic is to get men to start removing some of that. Armor and in doing so i think i hope we will. Allow each other to see each other to hear each other and to be not just better men, but better people. Good. Last question well personal welcome. Hey, thanks. Um, i my brothers and i love the state in high school. Thanks the skip about the pope coming is our favorite one and you played the pope which i appreciate. I did play the pope which is why i feel at home. Sorry, but i have two sons 16 and 13. The oldest is gonna go off to college in a few years. I thought a lot about what youre discussing too, but im just curious about what your son thought about the book that you wrote. He didnt love it. Theyre familiar with that. I think i suspect it is hard to read a book written by your father in which your father is sort of bearing his soul, you know, i imagine a lot of that is a psycho my god, god, please just shut up dad. Shut up. I will say this though. There was nothing in that book. There was an i hope there was nothing in that i wrote in that book that he that was new to him. You know what . I mean . Like there may have been anecdote stories. Whatever that he didnt know. But my sort of general approach to parenting and to loving and to modeling masculine behavior and what i expect from him. I i hope he was already familiar. With it, like if if he had opened that book and been like oh my god, like i had no idea. You felt this way about empathy like that would have been terrible. So i think the fact that i dont think there were any surprises in there for him and i i think thats a good thing. Thank you guys so much for coming out. I really appreciate it. Thank you savannah foot festival. Thank you cspan for c jared w. Alexander is with us today courtesy of Bob Faircloth and tim and Fran LindgrenJared Alexander has written for esquire Rolling Stone the nation narrative. I knew id g t